37. Teddy
THIRTY-SEVEN
TEDDY
Zoe
MRI came back clean!
I stare at the message and feel my shoulders relax.
That’s great! Thanks for letting me know.
Have you been having any headaches up there?
Not really.
What the hell does not really mean? You have but not many?
A couple but nothing too intense. Nothing to worry about.
Maybe make an appointment with Dr. Tascioni just to be safe.
Zo, I’m fine. Stop stressing. You know it’s not good for you!
I hate that she worries about us like this. One of the things the doctor was pretty clear about was not letting stress get to her. She seems unbothered by her diagnosis though and is constantly worried about me and Will. We’ve had scans done, and we both have no signs of anything wrong. The machine is in a duffle in the truck, and I’m trying to decide whether or not to go do a reading so I can show her when Nellie saunters back into the bunkie.
She’s wearing one of my T-shirts, and I have to bite my lip to keep the moan from escaping. It hits mid-thigh, and I can’t stop myself from running my hands under it to trace the edges of the bathing suit she must have just put on.
Nellie’s not looking at me like she’s about to beg for more, though. “Everything okay?” Her forehead creases with concern.
“Yeah.” I smile up at her. “Why?”
“I don’t know, you looked worried when I came in.” She looks down to where my phone sits in time to see another notification from Zoe pop up, this time a call. “I’ll be at the lake. Take your time.” She bends and kisses me in a way that leaves me wanting more when it ends too quickly.
“Zoe?” I answer, watching Nellie quickly grab her bag and Kevin’s vest. She gives me a quick wave before disappearing out the door.
I realize that Zoe has been talking but I didn’t hear anything. “Sorry Zo, lost you, what did you say?” I lie.
“I said, you being flippant about things stresses me out.”
“I’m not being flippant. I know what to watch out for, and I’m being honest when I say the headaches I’ve had haven’t been anything to worry about. I’d sooner be worried about a brain tumor than an aneurysm at this point.”
“That’s not fucking funny,” Zoe hisses.
I sigh and lay back on the bed, knowing there is no way I can win. “If I go take my blood pressure now and send you a picture, will that ease your mind?” I stand and head for the door, grabbing the keys from the cabinet.
“That would be preferable to you claiming you’re fine, yes. Cold hard evidence is always appreciated.”
“You sound like a lawyer.”
“Well at least that degree isn’t completely going to waste.”
When I open the door, the yard is empty so I don’t feel like I have to sneak to the truck. It’s not that I don’t want people to know; I just don’t want them to worry, which they tend to do. Exhibit A: me with Nellie’s cut.
“Okay, the cuff is cuffed, and I’m about to start it. Tell me something good.”
Zoe tells me that Jordan’s pregnancy is going well, better than hers had been with my nephew Keenan. Will and his family were over last night for dinner, and she assures me she pestered him too. At least she’s consistent.
The first cycle ends, and I report the numbers to her as the cuff starts to restrict again. Three rounds, and the average is normal which finally convinces her that I’m not about to drop dead. We say our goodbyes, and I slide off the tailgate to start putting things away.
“Everything okay?”
I must jump three feet in the air as George walks up to the truck.
“Christ, George,” I gasp, leaning on the tailgate, trying to get my breathing to even out. I bet my blood pressure wouldn’t be so normal now.
George leans on the truck, his eyes glued to the bag I was in the middle of zipping. “What’s wrong with ya?”
I love how people over a certain age don’t care about societal norms. They’ll ask you whatever they want, whenever they want. and small-town people are even better at it .
“Nothing. I’m fine.”
“Fine people don’t generally check their blood pressure in secret.”
“They do if they’re making sure they stay fine,” I say with as much confidence as I can.
“Why wouldn’t you stay fine?”
“These are pretty personal questions, George.”
He shrugs and looks back towards the bunkie. “If you’re protecting that girl from something, I’d recommend just being honest with her.”
“I have been honest…I am being honest. This”—I zip the bag the rest of the way—“is nothing. It’s something to keep my sister off my back.”
“It may be nothin’ to you, son, but I guarantee it would be somethin’ to her if you don’t tell her. At least check things in the bunkie rather than sneaking out to the back of the truck like some addict.” He pats the truck a couple of times and backs away. “I’ll see you in a few hours for our trip out to Betty’s.”
I’m fine; I know I’m fine. But I also know how I handled Nellie’s bleeding, and I doubt I would have reacted that way if I’d known about her condition. At least I hope I would have kept it together a bit better. The words I’m going to lose her, I’m going to lose her kept running through my head. I’d lost her once because I couldn’t handle something. Telling her had to be at the top of my list. Being honest with her even if it seems insignificant proves that I care about her and I care about her caring about me. I refuse to hear her say that she wishes I’d said something earlier.
“Come on, Kev!” I hear Nellie holler as I’m nearly at the lake.
She’s patting the water and waiting for Kevin to start towards her then she dips below and pops up on the other side, repeating the process. He pursues her just as enthusiastically each time. I get it, buddy , I think to myself as I hang back in the shadows and watch for a few more minutes, wondering if I could freeze time. What if we just stayed here in this middle-of-nowhere bubble? Nellie runs the library, I work for Betty—ideal in every single way.
I’d once called the little town of El Nido in the Philippines heaven on earth, but it doesn’t hold a candle to this place, not when Nellie’s with me. Hell, the back seat of a beat-up old Ford pickup is Heaven when she’s there. Forget remote beaches, banana pancakes, fresh fish every night, and forgotten coral reefs. Nellie is all I need.
I announce my presence by diving in and swimming straight for her. She yelps as I grab her around her middle and pull her to me. It doesn’t take long for her arms and legs to wrap around me. There is absolutely nothing sexual about this, just two people in a remote lake hugging. Heaven.
Eventually, I let go and allow my body to stretch out with a few short laps to the shore and back to where Nellie and Kevin continue to play their little hide-and-seek game. After that I join in, only to discover that I’m not Kevin’s favorite. It’s a slight hit to the ego, but if I’m being completely honest, I get it. I’d pick her too.
“You seem to be a bit more like yourself now,” Nelly observes as we sit across from each other on the rocks. Her water-shoe-clad feet resting alongside my bare ones.
“I’m with you, in nature, and Zoe isn’t bugging me about my health,” I say after a long sip of coffee.
Nellie sits up straighter, leaning toward me, concern etched across her beautiful face. “Your health?”
Setting my coffee down, I mirror her body position. “Let me preface this by saying that I am fine, and I have the tests to prove it.” Her eyes widen, but she says nothing. “Zoe has an aneurysm, unruptured.” I tap the back left side of my head, showing where it is. “They found it three years ago after she gave birth, but it’s small and so they opted to monitor rather than do surgery. But she insisted that Will and I get blood pressure monitors and check periodically as well as keep track of headaches.”
“I can understand that. Between your mom and now her, I’d be doing the same thing,” Nellie says. “And so far you’re good?”
“I am happy to report that my blood pressure is award-worthy, I have an MRI scan proving my brain is clear, and the only headaches I tend to get are from eye strain from reading in low light.”
“You know they have these nifty things called lamps right? They can help with things like low light.” Then she holds up a finger and reaches into her bag. “Also, these are great.” She pulls out a long U-shaped thing and clicks a button. “Well, you can’t really tell in daylight, but you wear it around your neck and there are lights here and here.” I watch as she demonstrates how this very simple reading light works, and my imagination goes to work.
Nellie, next to me in bed, reading well into the night, far too enthralled by whatever adventure she’s on to sleep. Nellie, reading to me in bed, doing all the voices like she does when she reads to kids. Nellie, wearing only that thing, moving above me. The lights pointed down, illuminating just part of her body, acting out one of our favorite scenes in The Forest of Despair series.
Cold water hits me, and I’m shocked out of my daydreaming. “Were you imagining me in just this reading light, EG?” she asks innocently.
“No!” I protest. “I was imagining you reading… in nothing but the light. ”
She smiles back shyly. “Maybe if you’re a good boy today, I’ll read to you tonight in nothing but this light.”
“Don’t tease, LG,” I warn.
“I’m not teasing,” she assures me. “You.” She shifts so she’s on her hands and knees. “Me.” I freeze as she crawls slowly towards me. “No clothes.” I remain motionless even when she’s between my legs, hands resting on either side of my hips. “And a book.” Her lips are a millimeter from mine. “Heaven,” she breathes out, and I strike, grasping her head and claiming every part that I can reach.
“Teddy,” Betty calls the minute I’m out of the truck. “I’ve got a proposition for you.”
“Have fun, kid.” George winks as he heads to the house. He’s been talking about coffee all morning, and I’m trying to figure out if he’s interested in coming to keep Joshua company or for the Nespresso.
Betty and I take a walk out to the dogs. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been helping her plan out an outdoor space where the dogs can socialize safely. When we round the corner of the barn, I see she’s been busy. Bright orange spray paint has been used to outline where future fencing will go, deep into the ground so dogs can’t easily dig their way out and nothing can easily dig its way in.
“This is going to make a huge difference,” I say, hands on my hips as I take it in, already imagining the space full of dogs.
“I spoke to Bennett last night. About this and about something else.” I look over at her and see she looks excited and nervous.
“What else? ”
“You.”
“Me?”
She nods and turns back towards the house. “It’ll be winter before we know it, and Joshua’s nurse told us two days ago that she’s done traveling after October tenth.”
“That means you’ll have a lot more work.”
“It does. The thing is, Teddy, I’m not sure I want to do it.” She looks over at the dogs and back at me. “I love it, but Joshua needs to be my priority right now, and our daughter suggested we move to Timmins for a few months so we can be closer to the hospital.”
I’m starting to put the pieces together. “Is that what you talked to Bennett about?”
“I was curious about the possibility of him loaning you out for the winter. If you want to, of course. I just wanted to make sure it was something he’d be on board with before I asked you. Don’t wanna step on any toes.”
“I’m guessing he said he’d be fine with it?”
“If you were, he would be,” she says calmly.
I look over at the dogs. I could be useful here. “When would you need to know by?”
“In a couple of weeks. If you can’t, I’ll have to figure out something else. Possibly send the dogs to other rescues.”
There aren’t enough rescues willing to take this many dogs. Some would end up in high-kill shelters, and we both know it. “I need to talk to Nellie.” I finally say.
“He said you’d say that.”