Gift of the Black Virgin (11 page)

There was no answer.

That’s funny. He always answers. Maybe he’s
in an important meeting, or something.

A few minutes later, she called again.

Still no answer.

She began to feel uncomfortable, and had to
apologize to the realtor, who was getting a little agitated at the
delay.

Then she tried Amos, one of Luc’s
colleagues.

“Um, hello Amos? It’s Joanna LaPlante
calling. Have you seen Luc this morning?”

“No. I haven’t. I don’t think he’s come in
yet.”

Jo felt her stomach fall as soon as her brain
made sense of the words.

“Is anything wrong, Joannna?”

“Uh, no. No. Could you please get him to call
me if you see him. Thanks so much.”

She ended the call, feeling nauseous.

It took another half hour for Jo to learn
that Luc had skidded into a delivery van just outside his office.
It was no one’s fault, a police officer told a sobbing Joanna as
she pushed past him to the emergency ward of the
Centre
Hospitalier de Cahors
.

One look at the team of medical professionals
surrounding Luc’s bed and she felt her knees buckle. But strong
arms grabbed her and propped her back up on her feet. She heard a
babble of voices saying it was alright, just a break, he was in no
danger. Pulling away from whomever was holding her, she stumbled to
the bed and saw her husband, his face white and drawn, eyes
closed.

“
Madame
LaPlante?” a kindly but
officious voice asked. “We’re just waiting for the X-rays and then
we will take him into surgery. It’s the lower right leg. His bike
fell on it. He was in a lot of pain but he’s been sedated.”

Jo looked up at a face she didn’t recognize,
and mumbled something.

“He was very lucky,
Madame
LaPlante.
But he’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

While her husband was in surgery, Jo was
paralyzed by guilt.

It’s all my fault! If only I hadn’t run out
to view that property. If only I hadn’t been so hot to buy a house
in the first place. What the hell was my hurry anyway?

She paced the waiting room, berating herself
for her impatience. Her greed.

What’s wrong with me? Don’t I already have
everything I could have ever hoped for? Why do I always want more,
more, more?

She needed to talk to someone. For a moment,
she thought of calling Anna. But then she knew Anna was likely
wrist-deep in some patient’s mouth. She couldn’t expect a dentist
to just walk out on her appointments.

She tried her sister, in Seattle, but there
was no answer.

Then Jo thought of her friend Rose. She
dialed Rose’s number, but it went straight to voicemail.

Alone, afraid, wracked by guilt, and angry at
herself, she wished a dozen times that she could replay the day.
Roll the clock back to the moment she opened her sleepy eyes and
felt her husband’s sweet breath on the back of her neck. Smelled
his warm skin, turned to kiss him and tasted his lips. Shivered
slightly as she heard his low voice saying, “Good morning,
Mon
amore.
Did you sleep well?”

Instead, she’d caused him to go out onto icy
January roads on a heavy touring bike. It was a recipe for
disaster, she knew. Her face grew hot with shame every time she
thought of it.

After an interminable wait, Luc’s doctor
finally appeared and introduced himself. Luc would be fine, he
said. A few scrapes, one quite deep along the side of this thigh,
but no head injury. The bad news was that his tibia and fibula were
both badly broken. It took the surgeon a long time, and several
bits of hardware, to piece the bones back together.

“He will be off his feet for several weeks,
I’m afraid,” the doctor continued. “I want to keep him in for a few
days, but you can probably take him home the day after tomorrow.
Then it will be bed rest for a few more days. After that, limited
movement. Will there be someone at home to look after him?”

“Yes. Me,” Jo said meekly.

“
Tres bien.
I’ll make sure you receive
all the supplies you’ll need and literature outlining his method of
treatment. Good day.”

With that, the doctor turned on his heel and
walked away, leaving Jo with a head swimming with details.

“When can I see him?” she called out. But it
was too late.

Jo had never looked after for an invalid
before. Sick people frightened her. But life happens, and she found
herself, two days later, wheeling her drugged husband out to the
car to take him home. His entire lower leg was in a cast, the thigh
encased in bandages. The bike slid after it fell on him, dragging
him along the pavement.

Luckily, his helmet and the thick leather of
his jacket prevented any more damage. It could have been so much
worse, Jo said to Luc’s father when she’d called him the night
before.

Anna met them at the spooky house and between
the two of them they managed to maneuver the patient inside to the
makeshift bedroom Jo had set up on the ground floor.
Single-handedly she’d wrestled Daniel’s bed down the stairs and
placed it in front of the fireplace. There was no way Luc would be
able to get up and down the stairs to their bedroom. He was barely
cooperative, too heavily sedated to do much more than allow the
women prop up his leg and tuck the blankets around him.

After Anna left, Jo felt bereft and
overwhelmed. The responsibility seemed enormous. Once she made sure
Luc was comfortable enough—with just the right number of blankets
and pillows, his leg elevated to the proper height—she asked if he
wanted something to drink. She had to ask him twice, shaking his
shoulder gently the second time.

“No,” he said, without opening his eyes.

“Are you sure? The doctor says it’s very
important that you keep hydrated. It will help the healing…”

“Just leave me alone, will you please?” He
lay flat on his back, motionless.

Stung, Jo retreated into the kitchen. He’d
never spoken to her like that before. It was as shocking to her as
the fact her big strong bull of a husband was an invalid.

But it’s just the drugs talking. And the
pain. I’m going to have to get used to this…

She boiled some water and made herself a cup
of tea, then sat down and began to study the sheets of instructions
to make sure she knew exactly what she had to do—and when. His
medications, his fluid intake, his food. How to change his bandages
and clean his wounds, watch for signs of infection.

The nurses at the hospital had been very
good, answering all her questions and supplying her with clean
bandages, antibacterial soap, and a metal urinal. The urinal made
Jo extremely uncomfortable. Looking at it, more than anything else,
hit home the fact that Luc was going to be a lot more helpless than
he could tolerate. He was bound to be angry, once his pain
lessened.

And who could blame him for being angry at
me? It’s my fault.

A few hot tears of self pity dripped onto the
kitchen table where she sat hunched over her mug of tea. As soon as
she saw them she pulled herself up.

Stop it! This isn’t about you. Get out there
and nurse that wonderful man until he’s as good as new. And never,
ever whine about it.

The first few days were rough. Jo found that
she couldn’t sleep upstairs while Luc was alone on the ground
floor. She thought she kept hearing his voice, and she worried he
might fall out of the narrow bed. So she moved her bedding down to
the lumpy sofa. Neither of them got much sleep.

He was a terrible patient, he actually
admitted on the third day, letting a slight smile flicker across
his face. He complained about having to lie still. He was too cold,
then he was too hot, and he didn’t want to read or watch
television. He also wouldn’t drink the prescribed juices or teas.
He wanted coffee.

“No, sweetheart. The instructions say quite
plainly
no caffeinated beverages.
”

“I’d kill for a glass of wine.”

“
No alcohol
,” she primly read off the
list.

“Well what the fuck
can
I have?”

“Everything else—water, herbal teas, fruit
juices, milk.”

“If you think I’m going to lie here for a
month without having a drink, you’re out of your mind.”

Jo looked at him carefully. His eyes were
closed but she’d detected playfulness in his voice. “We’ll just
have to find something else for you to do, won’t we?” She leaned
over and kissed his forehead.”

Then she handed him a bottle of apple juice.
“Drink it, or else I’ll hide your pills.”

It got to be quite an amusing little game—and
it was just about the only one they played these days. Every four
hours he was permitted another painkiller, a type of synthetic
narcotic. For the first hour after he swallowed it, he would be in
a semi-blissful state, and completely unavailable to Jo. Then the
next two hours were good. He would interact with her almost
normally. But the good times were invariably followed by the last
hour—always a challenge for him to get through without being a
complete prick.

Jo understood. She quickly learned the
pattern, and so their days were divided into four-hour increments.
She soon knew when to leave him alone, when she had a chance of
getting him to eat and drink, and when to bite her tongue at his
harsh words.

Fortunately for Jo, the first week was
punctuated by plenty of visits. Most of Luc’s friends dropped by,
as did a few of his colleagues. Rose and Robert came once for
lunch, and Rose stopped in regularly for a cup of tea, always laden
with fresh eggs and winter vegetables.

But, still, playing nursemaid twenty-four
seven was hard on Jo.

Anna offered to sit with the patient when she
wasn’t busy, and that gave Jo a chance to get out of the house, do
a little shopping, and exercise. She started going to the pool to
swim laps, which helped her sleep at night. When Luc improved, and
was able to hobble around on crutches, she went to a morning
Pilates class a few times a week.

And she cooked. Between watching cooking
shows on tv and studying cookbooks, Jo was slowly beginning to see
an improvement in what she put on the table each night. Luc was
still petulant about not being able to eat some of his favorite
foods, but he did admit that her cooking was becoming quite good.
Her greatest successes were with stews—lamb and chickpea, beef with
red wine, pork goulash. If it had to simmer a long time, she could
do it.

Since the moment Jo had accepted
responsibility for Luc’s accident, she tried to put her own needs
to the side. Before the accident, she was focused on—first—getting
pregnant and—next—finding the perfect piece of real estate. She’d
screwed up the real estate hunt, and hadn’t looked at a single
listing the entire time she was nursing Luc. She wouldn’t, she
swore, until he was back on his feet and they’d bought another car.
There was no way she would ever let him ride his bike on winter
roads again.

And, of course, her attempts at conceiving
their first child had to be postponed. This was probably the most
frustrating part of the entire ordeal. No sex—therefore no baby any
time in the near future.

Every time she went into their
bedroom—unoccupied now—she glared at the portrait of the Black
Madonna hanging over their empty bed. She couldn’t understand why
she was still being punished.

I’ve found Luc, and I’m loving him with all
my heart. I even love his son. Why can’t we take this thing to the
next level? Why can’t we have a child together? A child born out of
the perfect love we have for each other. Our love child.

Obviously it would take time for their sex
life to get back to what it was before. She had no choice but to
accept that, although it was hard. Even as an invalid, Luc was one
sexy hunk of man. Living in such close quarters didn’t lessen his
appeal to her. In fact, she suffered from frustration when he
brushed her off every time she tried to get close to him
physically.

Not only did his painkiller dull his pain, it
effectively killed his libido. Several times Jo tried to arouse him
while she gave him a full-body massage. But nothing she did engaged
him.

At first, he was too unsteady on his feet to
take a shower. So she had to give him sponge baths, trying to make
the process as sexy as she could. Although she got turned on by
washing his magnificent body, Luc seemed more embarrassed than
aroused. As soon as he could he started getting himself into the
bathtub, sitting on a plastic stool while Jo scrubbed his back.
Although she offered to strip down and join him, he turned her
down.

Disappointed as she was, she was stoic about
his lack of interest in all things sexual. He’d come out of it, she
knew, as soon as the pain—and the effect of the drugs—lessened. In
the meantime, she used the good parts of every day to get to know
her husband better.

When he felt like it, he talked nonstop about
his childhood, his university experiences, and his travels.

Jo loved hearing about all of it. But she
also wanted him to talk about his love life. She needed to put
herself into a meaningful context. So she asked him his marriage,
and his divorce, the first time her fell in love, and when he lost
his virginity.

So he obliged.

* * * *

Luc hated, hated, hated being stuck in bed.
The pain in his leg was secondary to the agony of being motionless.
His back ached, his legs cramped and his butt grew numb from
sitting on it all day long. He was freezing cold, most of the time,
but every once in awhile would be overtaken by a wave of feverish
discomfort that caused him to throw off his blankets and fleece
vest. And then he’d have to call for Joanna to come and take off
his socks for him. A few minutes later, he’d want them back on.