A Lover's Secret (22 page)

Elizabeth laughed again and brought her hand to her mouth.
“Apparently, Jake was acting strange, so the secretary called Margot. She told
her to keep an eye on him this afternoon.”

Jess felt suddenly as though she could breathe for the first
time. “We intend to,” she said. “How far is he then?”

“His attorney’s office is north of here, so he’s actually
closer to Bellingham Bluffs than we are, but he’ll hit more traffic.” She
gripped the steering wheel tighter and accelerated onto the smooth span of
highway threading its way out from the airport. “It’ll be a tight race, and he
really shouldn’t be driving. Really, really. Call him again.”

Jess nodded and dialed. “He’s not going to answer,” she
said, but she listened to his voice on the outgoing message once again— the
gravely depth, the breathiness behind his words. She left another message for
him, unable to keep her voice from choking as she told him she loved him. As
she told him to hang on; that she was coming for him.

It was silent for a time as Elizabeth accelerated through
traffic. Then Jess asked, “How sure are you that we’re going to the right
place?”

Elizabeth bit her cheek. “As sure as you are.”

Before long, they merged onto the
Pacific Coast Highway. Elizabeth accelerated and took the corners tight and
fast and Jess watched the lights blink in and out around her. Dusk had fallen,
and the ribbon of highway stretched out for miles, drab and gray and pebbly.
But the ocean, to her left, it seemed to beckon her. Jess stared past
Elizabeth’s profile to where the sea dissolved into a delicate silvery line far
in the distance. Above, stripes of sherbet pink and orange faded into the deep
blueness of the ocean, inky now that the sun had set.

“How far?” Jess asked.

“Miles and miles.”

The taillights on the cars in front winked into view and
Elizabeth took a turn too wide, too fast, and had to swerve back into her own
lane. Jess dialed his number again. The buzzing, grating tone of the ring
inside her phone, again and again. Then his voice; his recording.

Elizabeth drove faster still and the light faded and Jess
noticed the small details in the low, low light as they sped forward. How
different everything looked in the evening. Palm trees. Rocks and birds and
distant piers, just shadows on the landscape now, pulsing past.

The waves, this tremendous expanse of power. Was it cold?
Was Jake there in the ocean? Was his body submerged? Was his car—where they had
last made love—was it filled now with the stinging strength of the sea? Were
Jake’s nose and lungs filled with it? Was his hair, the hair that she had
pulled between her fingers, that she had tugged in passion and in pleasure, was
his hair swaying now, in the sea, languid, like weeds?

Elizabeth drove, her eyes straight ahead and Jess was in the
river again, in the New Mexico desert and she was searching, searching for his
hand and she felt it but she lost its grip. Then she was on the riverbank, and
she was running her hands along his chest. She was pushing against him, against
his life, the hardness of his body, its warmth, and she recognized his frailty
suddenly, and it made her suck in her breath.

Her stomach heaved, and she rested her head on the glass.
She closed her eyes, then opened them and stared at a fixed point on the
dashboard; the horizontal slats of the vent where the cool air rushed into her
face.

She stared at her phone. At his photo on the face of it as
she dialed his number once again. She imagined finding him now, as the
landscape grew shrouded in darkness. She could imagine his car, dashed upon the
rocks, she diving from the top of the bluffs to save him—or to join him. If she
were to throw herself from the top of the rocks, would her arms fly out? Would
she flail in panic, with a crush of terror—or would she accept her undoing with
peace and abandon? Would she know that this was her fate, always? Did some part
of her always know this?

Elizabeth accelerated again, took a corner too wide. White
headlines pierced her vision. A horn blared. A screech of tires. Elizabeth
swerved and swore, and Jess leaned her head against the glass once again and
still they raced through the night. She could hear the crash of the surf now,
though she knew she could not really hear it, inside the car, but the ocean and
its sounds, they were in her mind, and she reached out her fingertips as though
she saw him, as though he were as close as the glass, as close as the
windshield.

Elizabeth turned to her, then back to the road.

The image of Jake, his face, it swarmed her again, and she
was hit with the full force of how terribly great her love was for this man.
She
had
known him before; loved him before. And this knowledge took her
and it swallowed her, and she was overcome with the notion that she had always
known. She had known him by his eyes, just as he had said. They were so deep,
as though she could stare into them and swim about in them, disappearing from
the world outside.

And now she turned toward the ocean, like a dark slash on
the boundary of her awareness. Deep and devouring. She dialed his number once
more and the sound of it ringing, ringing, as though mocking. “Too late, too
late, too late, too late.” She ended the call. Dialed again, and she imagined
his phone bobbing in the ocean. Caught, perhaps, in the surf and now crashing
against rocks. His candy apple red Ferrari, the very vision of youthfulness, of
virility, of lust. Crumpled. Demolished.

Why hadn’t she been enough? Why hadn’t her love been enough?
Why hadn’t it made him want to live? An icy feeling spread though her. A
knowing that she wasn’t enough for him to live one more day. Not in this life.

Elizabeth swerved and weaved now. “Jess!” She suddenly
shouted. “That’s him. That’s Jake. Up ahead. Do you see him?” The shape of his
taillights, low to the ground. The feminine lines of his car, reflecting the
moonlight. “We’re going to catch him.”

“Just… don’t let him see us,” Jess warned.

And so they trailed him, some distance behind. When he sped
up, so did Elizabeth. “We’re almost there,” she said. “We’re almost to the
bluffs.”

“But how do we stop him from back here? Is there a way to
get in front of him?”

“I don’t think so. There’s only one road here.” Then, “What
the hell is he doing?” Jake had pulled off the road and had stopped suddenly.
His car was idling now, on the shoulder of the highway, and they had no choice
but to pass.

“Do you think he saw us?”

“No. I think he’s going to do it. Right here. Jesus. How do
I stop him?” Elizabeth’s voice was high and thin. She rounded a bend and
snapped off her lights, then flipped a u-turn in the middle of the road. They
sat facing his car now. “What should I do, Jess? Try to get in front of him?
T-bone him? What?”

But Jess had already snapped open her door, and she was
running, running along the pavement. Her shoes pinched her feet and she kicked
them off and now she felt the bare dirt, the asphalt beneath her feet. The
pebbles hard on the soles of her feet and she allowed the searing pain to flow
deep into the heart of her and still she ran, closer and closer to his car and
then she saw that his car was moving. It was moving backward, and the moonlight
winked from the top of it. He stopped again, facing the ocean head on. If she
ran straight ahead, she could cut him off; she could cut him off before the
cliffs. She leapt upon the rock, near now to the cliffs and she ran toward his
car. The soles of her feet were slippery with blood now and everything was
darkness and moonlight and stabs of pain and she tore off toward him. His
lights were switched off, the car closer now. It was strangely quiet, just a
throaty purr and the syncopated sounds of her breaths. He must have wanted to
slip, slip into nothingness. No record. No memory. Just a car and an ocean and
a joining. No sound with no one there to hear it. But the moon. It was bright.

Her hair absorbed the moonlight. Her black dress. And maybe
he could not see. The car loomed larger and larger, barreled closer and closer
to her. Elizabeth shrieked for her to go, to run, to move out of the way, but
instead her arms and her legs, they splayed out like a star. She threw her head
back, knowing that he could not see her, and knowing that she could not save
him, and she looked into the night sky and she felt something open up in her,
and then her head snapped back to center and her eyes met his. Those eyes.
Waiting for impact.

Then a squeal, loud and metallic. A biting smell of rubber.
A burning and then a ripping. Pain. A throbbing throughout her. And then only
blackness.

***

The scent was peppery then. The biting, familiar scent of
pepper. And then the scent of pine. A forest. Softness beneath her. Spongy
fabric. Muted voices. Something fell to her face. Moisture. It was raining here
in the forest. No. Something was wrong. Dreadfully so.

Her eyes blinked open. Darkness above her. Her face now
pushed against the softness. And then a pressing. Jake’s face above her. “Jess.
Jess.” Her eyes fluttered. And now gripping pain. And thirst. Cold. No forest. A
racing in her chest. His arms around her. An engine running. She could smell
the color of the night. It was like roasted eggplant, purple and dense. And she
could hear the pain in her leg. It was a hollow buzz. And there, Jake. His
tears fell hard on her, like stones upon her cheek. On his face, an expression
of terror. Don’t be afraid, Jake, she tried to say. But the darkness and the
quiet space inside her, it closed her eyes then. Lights circled her. A song,
distant, rhythmic. A whirring and a sliding. And then this thought, like a
shard, a scrap or a remnant of something larger that she couldn’t see or feel:
She
would give her life for his love. Would he have given up death for hers?

***

Voices, high in pitch, and then blurs of color. Smudges
through eyelids half open. And then her name, too low, as though someone was
speaking under water. Who? A warmth on her hand. A squeeze. A gravely feeling
in her throat.

Images, a patchwork. A book. Jake’s face. His book. The man
on the plane. The tumor. Grandma. Elizabeth. A red car glinting in the
moonlight.

His face wet with tears.

Her eyes opened wider. This was not a hospital. It smelled
of candles, of vanilla spice and the walls were painted a soothing chocolate
color. White crown-molding bordered the ceiling, and Mozart was playing. Her
right leg felt heavy like the trunk of a tree.

Elizabeth’s face blinked into view. Her lips framed her
teeth. A light emanated from behind her, making a kind of halo against the
wall. Elizabeth’s mouth—so broad, so wide—exploded into a smile. Her words
flowed to Jake who sat smoothing the hair from Jess’s forehead. Elizabeth left
the room, and she could feel the rub of Jake’s thumb, just on her hairline, and
warmth washed into her.

“You’re here,” she said finally. It hurt her throat to talk.

“So are you.” His voice was gravely and deep. A voice she
never thought she’d hear again. Then he made a choking sound deep in the back
of his throat and he lay his head down on her chest. “We’re here. I’m here. I
am taking care of you.”

She swallowed hard. “Where am I?”

“You’re in my treatment room.”

Her neck and shoulders felt strange. Heavy. “How long? How
long have I been here?”

“A little while.”

“How long?” Her tone was pleading, suddenly. Desperate. She
raised her head, strained to see everything around her.

“It’s not important.”

“How long, Jake?”

“A few days. A week.” He shrugged. “Long enough where there
are no longer any reporters standing on the lawn. Long enough for your family
to come around. They’re staying in the house.” He chuckled. “All of them.”

“All of them?”

He nodded. “Your mother and your father. Your sister. Andrew
and Kelly.”

She closed her eyes and rested her head on the pillows. “How
are they… handling everything?”

“Well, Elizabeth and I didn’t exactly tell them
everything.
They know you came out here and they know that you saved me. They know that you
risked your life for love. They know that you’re a hero. And that’s all they
know.” He winked then, the way he had when she had first met him. Book Jacket
Jake. “You’ve given me some time to win them over to my charms.”

She groaned. Had it really been a few days. A week? She
swallowed hard. “Are you here… to stay?” she asked.

His hand tightened around hers. His head was perfectly
still, and when he spoke, he did so almost without moving his lips. “Jess, I
don’t have long. You know that, right? It’s already beginning to happen. I can
feel it.”

“I know.”

“But, watching you, lying there,” he said, low. “At first I
promised myself that I would wait until you woke. So I could say that I was
sorry; so that I could say goodbye; and just so you knew I didn’t abandon you.
And then, then I began to feel this sort of lift that came with taking care of
you.” He met her eyes. “Taking care of you is lovely.”

She laughed without meaning to.

“I mean it, Jess. Loving you, caring for you. It gave me
strength. It gave me courage. More than I’ve felt in a long, long while. I had
something to live for. That simple hope that came with staring at your eyelids,
willing them to open. The simple act of being there for you in the most
complete way, whether that would last for two days or two months.”

“But, Jake, don’t you see that if you left me, like you
planned to leave me, you would be taking that away from me. The blessing of
caring for someone I love. Our strength is shared, Jake. When you fall, I can
help you up. I
need
to help you up. Please don’t ever take that from
me.”

“I know you want to make it sound romantic, Jess, but this
disease is terrible. It’s going to be terrible…”