Chapter 10
JONAH
‘Mae?’
For a moment she looked happy to see me, her face creasing into a smile that instantly seemed to bring more light into the room.
My heart surged at the sight of her. I’d thought about her a lot over the last few days, and regretted not getting her phone number when I’d had the chance, because the urge to text her had been strong.
I wanted to see how she was settling in.
Make sure she wasn’t lonely. I also desperately wanted her to know that I hadn’t forgotten about her, the opposite in fact, but that life had been messy and complicated since that night, and when I wasn’t on the boat, I was at the hospital.
‘Hi, Jonah,’ she said, only a slight pink blush on her cheeks giving away that she was surprised to see me too.
I clocked the blood pressure machine on the bed and the stethoscope beside her. ‘You’re my dad’s nurse?’
‘I guess so. Although I didn’t know he was your dad until now.’
My father looked back and forward between us. ‘You two know each other?’
His speech was still slightly slurred, but easy enough to understand, thankfully, and getting better every day. He’d been discharged from the hospital late the afternoon before. The doctors had wanted to keep him in another day just to be safe, but he’d had enough and insisted they’d let him go.
‘Not really,’ Mae said, answering before I could. She released the sleeve on the blood-pressure cuff and unwrapped it from Dad’s arm. ‘We met briefly the other night.’
‘Her first night in town,’ I clarified. ‘I took her to The Cozy Catch for some lobster stew to warm her up after I found her nearly frozen on the pier.’
‘I wasn’t frozen.’ She looked up from making a note in a folder. ‘How’s your nose, by the way?’
‘Still a bit tender, but I’ll live.’
‘What happened to your nose?’ Dad asked, but again, Mae answered before I could.
‘Jonah found out the hard way what happens to men who sneak up on me.’
‘I didn’t sneak up on you,’ I protested.
‘And yet I had no idea you were behind me until you touched me.’
Dad sucked in sharply. ‘You touched her?’
‘I… Not like that. Jesus, Mae. You make it sound like I was attacking you.’
‘For a second I thought you were.’ She shrugged at my father. ‘So I punched him.’
He laughed, or at least tried to. ‘I’d have paid money to have seen that,’ he said when his mirth subsided. ‘Usually, women want to kiss my son, not hit him.’
‘I wasn’t trying to pick her up,’ I retorted. ‘I was worried about her. She was standing in the middle of a snowstorm.’
‘It was hardly a snowstorm,’ Mae scoffed. ‘And I’m not completely useless. I can take care of myself.’ She placed the oximeter on Dad’s finger. ‘Maybe you should have been more worried about your wife.’
Dad stared at me, confused. ‘How long was I in the hospital?’
‘Five days.’
‘You got married sometime in the last five days?’
‘What do you think?’
‘What does she mean, then?’
‘I have no idea.’
Mae blushed as she removed the oximeter and scribbled more notes in the folder. ‘I’m sorry, that was really unprofessional. Your personal life has nothing to do with me.’ She cleared her throat. ‘How have you been sleeping, Gray?’
‘Fine.’
‘Don’t change the subject,’ I said. ‘What makes you think I’m married?’
‘I’m not changing the subject, I’m working. How’s your appetite, Gray? Are you managing to chew your food?’
‘You don’t have to worry about that,’ he told her. ‘Nothing gets in the way of me and food. Not even a little stroke.’
‘Hello?’ I waved a hand to catch her attention.
‘And you’ve been taking all your medications when you’re supposed to?’ she asked him.
He nodded. ‘Eleanor makes sure of that.’
‘Good.’ She nodded and made some more notes.
‘You can hear me, right?’ I addressed my father. ‘I haven’t suddenly gone invisible?’
‘I can see and hear you just fine,’ he confirmed. ‘I think she’s ignoring you.’
‘Yeah, I get that feeling too.’ I walked over to the large occasional chair by the wall and took a seat, crossing one ankle over the other knee and leaning back with my hands behind my head. ‘I’m not going anywhere though, so she’ll have to answer eventually.’
Mae turned to glare at me. ‘I saw the message, OK?’ she hissed quietly.
‘What message?’
‘The one you got when you dropped me off.’
I frowned, trying to remember.
‘From someone named Anna,’ she clarified. ‘She seemed annoyed with you.’
‘Ah.’ Understanding dawned. ‘You saw that message?’
She nodded. ‘I did.’
‘And you thought it was from a wife? My wife?’
‘Are you telling me it wasn’t?’
‘That’s exactly what I’m telling you. The message was from Anna.’
She stared at me.
‘Anna is my sister. That night, the night we met. That was the night my father had his stroke. She’d been calling me and I hadn’t picked up because I was with you and I thought she was just mad at me for running out on a family dinner.
But that angry message you saw was her telling me to get in touch because our father had just been rushed to the hospital. ’
She turned to look at him.
‘It’s true,’ he said helpfully.
‘Oh.’
‘That’s it? Oh?’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘I can’t believe you thought I’d lied to you about being single.’
‘Can we maybe do this another time?’ she asked meekly. ‘I’m working and this is incredibly unprofessional.’
She was quiet and looked almost on the verge of tears.
‘Of course,’ I said quickly. ‘I’ll just say one more thing though, if I may?’
She nodded.
‘I meant it, when I said I really enjoyed the other night,’ I told her. ‘And I don’t care that you saw the message and jumped to the wrong conclusion. It was a simple misunderstanding. Now forgotten.’
She smiled gratefully. ‘Thank you.’
I sat quietly and observed her work, while she did what she needed to do.
Asking him about his mood, and whether he’d had any numbness or tingling.
She tested his grip strength and got him to recite a few specific sentences.
She was very thorough, and very patient and kind with him.
From experience over the last few days sitting with my father in the hospital, I knew that not all nurses were.
I also knew from bitter experience growing up that neither were all teachers.
I guess it was the same as any profession, you got good eggs and bad eggs.
‘How about a little walk,’ she said to my father.
‘I’m not sure I’m up to it,’ he replied, looking uncertain.
‘Only one way to find out.’ She smiled. ‘Don’t worry, we won’t go far and you can stop at any time.’
‘I’ve been managing to get to the bathroom and back,’ he said. ‘With Eleanor’s help.’
‘That’s great, but I’d like to see if we can make it a little bit further.’
He sighed.
‘It helps with your recovery,’ she informed him. ‘Sometimes your brain needs to do these things to rewire itself. And it significantly lowers your chances of having another stroke.’
I got to my feet and crossed the floor to the bed. ‘In other words,’ I told Dad, ‘it’s important. You can do this.’
He frowned, looking frustrated. ‘I’m the father; you’re the son. It’s not natural for you to be the one helping me. It’s bad enough Eleanor has to do it.’
‘Come on, Dad,’ I said softly. ‘You know that’s not how life always pans out. This is just temporary until you’re back to full health.’
‘I’ve only just got out of the hospital.’
‘I know. But as any doctor will tell you,’ Mae said, ‘physical activity is an important part of your rehabilitation.’
He sighed again, but this time with resignation. ‘You two aren’t going to let it rest, are you?’
Mae smiled at me. Co-conspirators. ‘No.’
Dad sat up and shuffled his body to the side of the bed with help from us.
It took him a long time, and I had to work to keep my face from betraying how much it upset me, seeing him so weak and dependent on others for help with something so basic.
He was breathless and sweaty from that small exertion, and I almost asked Mae if this was necessary, but I didn’t want her to think I doubted her.
‘You’re doing great,’ Mae told him when we had him sitting upright on the edge of the bed. ‘Take a minute to catch your breath if you need to, and when you’re ready we’ll get you to your feet and go for a little walk.’
‘Where?’
‘Just down the hallway. Not far. I saw a large feature window with a bench seat at the end when I came in. How about we go and check out the view from there?’
‘I’ve seen that view a million times in my lifetime,’ Dad retorted. ‘And the view from the window in here is the same view.’
I knew it was only because he was frustrated at his current situation.
My father had always been a proud, good-looking man.
Having a beautiful woman like Mae see him in this state, in his pajamas with his hair unkempt, would be killing him inside.
But if Mae took his irritability personally, she didn’t show it.
‘Ready?’ she asked patiently.
He sighed. ‘Fine. Let’s just get it over with.’
The three of us shuffled like some weird version of a three-legged sack race.
Mae and I letting my father take the lead.
Using us for support but carrying his own body weight as much as he could while walking.
We had to adjust out positions to negotiate the doorframe, but once we were in the hallway and found our rhythm, it didn’t take long to get to the window.
I braced and took my father’s weight while he lowered himself onto the seat, breathing heavily from the short walk.
‘Are you OK?’ I asked him.
He waved a hand. ‘Fine. I just need a minute.’
‘You did well,’ Mae told him. ‘I know it was hard. Let’s take five minutes to admire the view before we get you back into bed.’
She looked out the window, and I saw her mouth drop open in wonder.
‘Oh wow,’ she said breathily. ‘This view really is something else.’
I followed her gaze, trying to look at it through her fresh eyes, rather than my own, which had grown up with it.
From this window on the second floor the view was expansive, and we could see clear down the bar towards town, and miles in the other direction towards the open sea.
The sea was gray and choppy, whitecaps dancing in little lines as the waves rippled across the surface.
A fishing boat tackled them head on as it headed out to sea.
I recognized it as the Amber Dawn, belonging to Jim Kelley.
Thirty years older than me, he was one of the best lobstermen in town.
Worked like a trojan, and was a nice guy too.
Always happy to mentor the younger men coming into the industry.
He was one of only a handful of local guys with a large enough boat and gear to still work throughout the winter, heading out to Williams Bank seventy miles offshore, while the rest of us used the cold months to carry out maintenance and repairs on our gear and boats.
Williams Bank was a large, elevated area of seafloor off the coast. A prime breeding ground for lobsters and other shellfish.
I often went out with him in the winter, not because I needed the money – I managed to live a modest but comfortable life all year off of what I made in the summer – but because it gave me something to do.
I got bored if I sat around for too long.
Mae knelt on the seat, her face almost pressed against the glass. ‘Is that a lighthouse over there?’
‘It is. Dalton’s lighthouse. It’s manned by the US Coast Guard.’
She looked surprised. ‘It’s still operational?’
‘Yeah. It’s a pretty rugged granite coastline up and down the island, not to mention a pretty gnarly bar coming into the harbor. It’s caught many a boat unawares over the years. They built the lighthouse in the fifties.’
‘Can you visit it?’
‘The grounds, yes. But not the lighthouse itself.’
She looked crestfallen. ‘That’s a shame.
I always wanted to see inside one of those.
I remember growing up, I read a book about a girl who lived inside a lighthouse with her father, and I was so jealous.
The spiral staircase, her own floor for a bedroom.
Curling up safe and sound inside the light part at the top with a book, while a storm and the sea raged outside. ’ She sighed. ‘It sounded so cool.’
I snorted. ‘And pure fiction. In reality it was probably cold, damp and isolated.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Where’s your sense of romance?’
Dad chuckled. ‘He’s never had one.’
‘I just see things for how they really are,’ I told him, defending myself. I stared at Mae. ‘It doesn’t mean I don’t also see the beauty in life.’
She blushed under my stare, then turned to fuss over my father again. ‘I think we should get you back to bed now.’