Chapter 12
W hen Nelly caught sight of Shane a couple days later in the hallway, she asked in a quiet voice, “Any improvement?”
He nodded. “Still didn’t get a clear answer as to what’s going on,” he replied, his voice equally quiet. “Did you?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m just trying to support him as best I can.”
“And honestly, I think that’s probably wise,” he murmured.
She and Shane were walking back to her office, when she looked up to see Zander coming down the hallway, toward the dining room. She smiled and asked, “Ready for lunch?”
“Absolutely,” Zander replied. He looked over at Shane. “I did better today, right?”
“You did, and I’m glad to see it.” And, with that, he waved and turned and left them alone.
“Shane give you a talking to or something?” she asked curiously.
He nodded. “Apparently I was slacking.”
“Oops, Shane doesn’t like slackers,” she said, with a chuckle.
“Right, and he was right to call me out on it,” Zander admitted.
She just looked at him, but he didn’t say anything more. She found that incredibly hard to take, still being shut out of Zander’s life.
As they walked into the dining room, he asked, “How about we take our food to the garden area?”
He seemed more personable, acting like he used to, something she hadn’t seen out of him in a few days. She nodded and smiled at him. “Sure. It would be like a picnic.”
“Did I hear the word picnic ?” Dennis asked, standing behind the buffet line. He looked down at the food under the glass and waved a hand. “You can get something from here, or you can give me a few minutes, and I can do you up a real picnic basket.”
“Oh, that would be lovely,” she said warmly, “but I know you’re busy.”
“I am, but that’s all right. I do like it when picnics happen here too.”
At that, she looked over at Zander. “You okay to wait?”
“I’m okay to wait. I didn’t know picnics were an option.”
“I’m not sure I did either,” she said, with a laugh. “Are you just wanting to get outside for some fresh air? Or to avoid too much wedding planning?”
“Not avoiding the wedding planning,” he replied. “I can’t believe that it’s in ten days.”
“I know. It’ll be quite the event.”
He added, “I just want to get outside a bit, and maybe visit with you without everybody watching.”
She nodded. “Sounds good to me.”
Dennis handed them a picnic basket about ten minutes later.
She took it and muttered, “It’s pretty heavy. Dennis, what did you put in here?”
“It’s a surprise,” he said. “Just bring it back when you’re done.”
And, with that, Zander took over the picnic basket, putting it in his lap, as he was in his wheelchair. Then they took the elevator down and ran into Stan, who smiled at the picnic basket.
“That’s a really good idea,” he noted. “We have lots of pastures and pathways and all kinds of stuff outside to enjoy, besides all the animals. I know Bella was making benches for people to sit on around the area too. I think picnic tables will be next.”
“Sounds like a great idea,” Nelly said.
And, with that, they headed out, bypassed the pool and took a path down to one of the big walkways that ran past the pastures.
“Where would you like to go?” she asked Zander.
“Just keep walking, and we’ll find a place that’s just right,” he replied.
And, with that, she walked casually down the path, pushing his chair, tilting her face up to the sun.
Zander murmured, “It’s a beautiful day.”
“It absolutely is,” she agreed, with a big smile.
“Every day in Texas is a beautiful day in some ways.”
“In some ways, yes. However, in some ways, no,” she clarified. “It seems as if there’s always more going on than you expect.” He didn’t say anything to that. She looked over at him. “Did you solve whatever problem was bothering you?”
“I did, indeed,” he confirmed, and his smile was so gentle that she wasn’t exactly sure what to make of it.
When he pulled up in a grassy spot, off to the side, he said, “This looks good.” He slowly stepped out of the wheelchair and sat down on the grass.
She sat down beside him. As they opened up the basket, he realized a big blanket was inside, just perfect for the picnic.
“Oops, I guess we should have known about that first, huh ?”
“We know now,” she declared, as she spread it out, and they put the food on it. “With all your walking exercises and the weight training too, how are the legs doing?” she asked.
“All of me is doing much better,” he shared, “but the workouts are pretty strenuous. So I wasn’t sure how far I would get.”
“Ah.” She nodded. “So you wanted to do this anyway this morning, even after your rehab workout.”
“Yep,” he said, with that same smile.
As they opened the basket to see what else was in there, he pulled out wine glasses and a bottle of wine. “Wow, if I’d realized we were allowed alcohol…”
She chuckled. “I’m not sure what to say about this either.”
He opened the wine and poured two glasses, and she tilted hers up, and they clinked them together.
“To us,” he said.
“Absolutely,” she murmured and clinked her glass against his. She took a sip and smiled. “Oh, this is lovely.” She looked down at the label. “I’ll have to remember it.”
“We can ask Dennis too. I didn’t even know that alcohol was around the place.”
“There’s been alcohol for various events,” she shared, “just not much of it. None of the patients are allowed it individually.”
He nodded. “And I certainly haven’t been offered any recently,” he admitted, with a laugh, “so that makes sense.”
With that, they put their glasses down and dug into the food that Dennis had selected. Opening containers, they found meat pies, green salads, a potato salad, and a meat and cheese platter.
“I think that was supposed to go with the wine,” Zander noted. “Oops.”
She chuckled. “Hey, it’s not as if we got a menu presented to us.”
“Nope, we didn’t,” he agreed, as he picked up a cube of cheese and popped it in his mouth. “It’s lovely though.”
And they sat here, quite content, and ate their lunch. He kept looking at her. When she would look up, he would look away. She frowned at that. When she was done eating, she picked up a cube of cheese, studied it for a moment, and then asked, “So what’s on your mind?”
“What makes you think something’s on my mind?”
“Oh, I’m not a fool,” she said.
“No, you’re not. You’re beautiful, intelligent, and an absolutely lovely person.”
She stared at him and then chuckled. “I don’t know what brought that on, but you need to tell me so that I can do whatever again.”
He laughed. “I don’t need to tell you anything. You… it’s just been such an eye-opener to see everybody here. I didn’t really realize how much I was being affected by all of it, until all this wedding stuff got closer and closer.”
“Ten days,” she stated, “and then it will calm down. I promise.”
“And I’m okay with that,” he replied. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m so thrilled for this to be going on. It just brought up a lot of memories for me as to what I wanted out of life, where I thought I would be by now.”
“Ah”—she nodded—“those kinds of thoughts can be tough.”
“They can be very tough,” he agreed, with a nod. “Also you don’t really think about it so much until everybody around you is making plans. I know Shane mentioned how he and his partner will discuss their own marriage, once Dani’s wedding is over.”
“Exactly.” Nelly nodded. “I’ve heard that from multiple people at this point.”
“So I wasn’t trying to avoid… discussing this,” he began. “I just didn’t know where my own thoughts were.”
“I’m sorry that you didn’t feel as if you could tell me that though,” she shared. “I would have understood.”
“Of course you would,” he noted. “You guys specialize in understanding at levels that I’ve never seen before. And it’s not a criticism in any way. It was just something that I had to work out for myself.”
“And I get that too,” she murmured. “I hope you got it figured out now.”
“Oh, I think I did,” he shared. “What I didn’t really know, and why I couldn’t really involve you in all of my thought processes, was how you felt.”
She stared at him. “How I felt? Are you saying, past tense ?”
He looked at her, shook his head. “When I was thinking about it, it was past tense,” he explained. “But I’m certainly not trying to keep that conversation in the past tense.”
She looked confused for a moment and then realized it didn’t matter. “What you’re really asking is how I feel about you, is that it?”
He looked at her and then nodded. “Yes, essentially yes.”
“I think that should be obvious by now. I wouldn’t be here with you if I didn’t care.”
“But how much do you care?” he asked, with a sigh. “That’s what I’ve been trying to sort through in my head.”
She opened her mouth, thinking that she had an answer and then closed it again.
“See? I’ve been doing a lot of that myself,” he admitted. He picked up a cube of cheese, held it out to her, and when she opened her mouth, he popped it in, with a laugh. “I would like to think that we’re on the same page. I’m just not sure that we’re both on the same -same page.”
“I would love to get to know you more and to spend the time that we have together exploring a relationship,” she declared. “Yet I don’t want you to feel rushed. Plus, I really don’t want you to focus on a relationship at the cost of your own health.”
“Ah, and there comes the real practical aspects again, right?” And again she looked a little confused.
He smiled. “You see? You guys are all so concerned about us patients that we never really understand where the relationship is. I get that things have changed, and you’re allowed to have relationships now,” he noted.
“And thank heavens for that, but it also doesn’t necessarily help me sort through my confusion. ”
“No, I guess maybe not,” she replied cautiously and then frowned. “I thought we were pretty clear on both of us.”
“We were,” he said, but then with a wave of his hand he nullified that by saying, “until all this wedding stuff.”
“I don’t get how this wedding stuff changes anything.”