Sydney's Song (37 page)

I straightened and scrunched my nose at him.

“No way. Darling, agreeing doesn't mean a-s-a-p. We have a horde of things to think through.”

“But you've just agreed to marry me.”

“As I've said, I'm only agreeing
now
because we've been through so much and I've known the very real terror of almost losing you.But being madly in love and getting married so young doesn't entitle us to be careless.”

“Darling, what are you saying?”

“I'm certain we're meant to be together. But to go ahead we must think everything through, Pete. Carefully. What are the consequences? Where are we going to live? How are we going to support ourselves? What arrangements are we going to make for tackling our problems? What else may turn up that we should be prepared for? Lots of stuff to work out. So yeah, let's have a very long engagement.”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“Honey, we can't even stand a separation for longer than several hours. Our greatest hardship is saying goodbye at the end of the day because we can't bear to be apart. So we may as well be married.”

“I know, I know. But love, look at you. Still in a cast and
you
dream about looking after
me
? Life isn't going to be a rose garden for a while, Pete. Get well first,” I ordered.

“Gosh…” he whined. “You're bossy. Sounds like we're married already.”

He watched me intently. Now, I so didn't want him to be sick. But with his return to awareness, he again had the power to make my heart go pitter-patter. Physically he was still weak and pale. He had lost a significant amount of weight. He had lost his glorious tan from Sydney's summer too. But his potent gaze was far from lifeless. His intense masculinity overwhelmed me. I felt disconcerted, all nervous and tingly. And trust Pete to sense it. Sometimes he was amused by my loss of composure. Sometimes smug.

“Right. If you're so adamant in taking life seriously—,” he flashed me a teasing smirk, “then let's work things out while I'm in here.Shall we make it as soon as I'm discharged? It'll give me the incentive to get well quickly.” A wink.

“That'll depend on what comes up when we talk things over.”

“Sydney…” he groaned. “You're very strict. Hey, you don't even sound 18, you know.” At that moment he realised he had made a discovery. “You—you sound mature, sweetheart… You've grown up.” He tilted his head, now looking at me with an assessing stare.“You look self-assured… I've seen how competent you are in handling things around here. The way you talk with the staff is very charming. So charming they'd do things happily for you.”

“Hang on. You've just described my Mum!”

“And what's wrong with that? You're kind to them. You smile.And Sydney, at night, even as I worry about your being alone, you confidently go home. Very independent. It's in your steps. The way you move. I suspect you don't need me that much anymore. But darling, you're still the girl I fell in love with and I wanna be with you every chance I can.”

I contemplated him for a while. This was the man I had agreed to spend the rest of my life with. So… Time for total honesty.

“Um—perhaps I should show you something. Look. Look at my hair, Pete.” I bent so he could check my hair near the scalp. Half a centimetre of it had more grey strands. I told him how Mum made me dye it back to the original chestnut.

Pete was watching me closely now, his smile gone. Unnerved, I played with my hair self-consciously.

“Didn't function well in a crisis, did I? You wouldn't believe how kind everybody was, those dark months alone with you but
without
you. I feel frightened remembering it now. I know God was here. He saw me standing by your side. He saw me walking alone. He sent Lance's gang and the hospital staff to be my friends. But I know I don't want to live that life again! Pete, don't ever, ever go away again…”

He kept eyeing me as I tensed. Suddenly he pulled at my waist in a fierce hug and buried his face on my stomach. His shoulders were racked by sobs he couldn't suppress.

For a moment I was stunned. Then I wrapped my arms around his head. My legs against his wheelchair hurt.

“I'm sorry,” he anguished. “What you must have been through because of me. I'll make it up to you. Sydney, I've never been so much loved!”

“
Every time I see roses, I think of you
,” Pete scribbled in his untidy left-hand writing. His left-hand drawing looked better though, he'd managed a decent picture of his water jug. Desmond and Christine, his physiotherapists, had shown him an exercise to fix his floppy, limp right hand. They taught him to push with his arm flat and his hand up at a square angle. In a few days this exercise had straightened the hand and we were hopeful he could use it fully soon.Pity his shoulder was still in pain.

“What are you doing Pete?” I asked as he handed me a single fragrant rose.

“I'm starting an ardent campaign to get an immediate wedding date,” he grinned.

Every morning after that my fiancé greeted me with a single rose.He knew well how to express his love. And not only with the uniquely designed diamond ring he ordered online. It was in the looks he threw at me. In his affectionate tone when we chatted face to face or on the phone. Really. We did not need to talk about a risqué topic or mention anything bawdy to have a very intimate conversation.

But in case you are wondering, during these weeks Pete adamantly refused to talk about the big elephant.

I had asked him about it one Saturday afternoon after my outing with Eve. It was massage time. We put on some calming music and I started from his feet, going up. He was decently covered and only exposed where I was massaging him, one part each time.

But massage moments were such electrical moments. I did not dare look into his eyes when he was on his back. But he still made me nervous even face-down on his tummy. I talked incessantly about nothings to lighten the charged air. The movie I just saw with Eve.The crunchy leaves outside my apartment. The plan to move him to physio-rehab—when his arms could hold crutches—so he could learn to walk.

Touching him now when he was alert was such a Herculean task.When I couldn't help dropping a kiss on the back of his shoulder, which had such an intriguing pattern of fine hair, he whirled around so fast and caught me.

We ended up in a most dizzying kiss. It was only a kiss. Hands off.Honestly. Nevertheless, we lost control, and flew somewhere I had never been. As in, I ended up keening into his mouth as fireworks exploded, clinging to him for dear life. My arms, desperately wrapped around his neck with all my might, were close to strangling him. My nails dug deep into my palms.

“What was that?” I asked in a barely audible voice when I could speak.

One beautiful eyebrow cocked, but he did not say anything.

“Pete?” I asked, wide-eyed. Questioning.

He shook his head.

“But—how? We only kissed!”

He stubbornly refused to comment.

“Um, when people mentioned sex, I thought I sort of knew what it was all about. But obviously I had no idea!”

Still silent.

I looked at him with a high level of physical curiosity. If he could create fireworks with just a kiss, what else could he do?

“Pete? Open Book Management?”

He gave me a pained expression and laughed.

“I'll take a raincheck, okay? When it's action time, we can explore and have intimate talk all you want. Or not. We'll have terrific silences too. But now I can't talk to
you
about it. I'm sorry, but no. I can't be indifferent with you.”

“And that's a bad thing why?” A pity he was a badly injured boy, I did not have the heart to put his discipline to the test.

“Don't spoil our wedding night. Make it special. Romantic.Magical. You want it to be most memorable, not just another night.Hey, you won't even let Eve spoil the movies you want to watch.”

“But she
is
a spoiler. She reads movie reviews!”

“Exactly my point!”

November came and went. Pete's injured leg was out of its cast and he had been with the physio-rehab learning to walk again. He could not use a crutch because the brain damage gave him very poor balance. But he did okay with the walking frame, despite persistent shoulder pain.

The hospital's plastic surgeon said all Pete needed now was a skin graft to cover the large scar exposing his shin. This surgery was needed to prevent it from opening again, just in case he banged his leg.

But a week after Thanksgiving a ghastly, tiny boil had popped up on the scar of his right arm. It was caused by a severe bone infection erupting around the screws of the metal plate holding his bone together. Acute osteomyelitis, they called it. So the rehab sent him back to the main hospital.

At first they inserted drainage and flushed the wound with soluble antibiotics. After days without improvement, the hospital scheduled the bone-graft surgery for this arm next week.

It was
so
unfair. He had progressed so well, but this setback made this arm useless and painful again. He could not lift it to hold his walking frame. And he still suffered shoulder pain too. All this, just when he was getting ready to apply for a job as a violinist in Sydney.He could not even use this arm.

This evening, he was suffering terrible pain and had a high fever. It was snowing outside, but in here he had a raging temperature.

“Yes, yes, I'll marry you.
Now
. Immediately. Just get better!” I cried on his chest. “Pete, don't leave me alone… I'll die if you go away again.”

“Sydney,” he managed a thin smile. While his face contained his fever, his eyes underneath the cold compress radiated peace and delight. “Things can only get better, now that you've agreed to marry me a-s-a-p.” And he winced in pain, “Gosh, it takes going through this torture to secure it!”

They eventually carried out emergency surgery. The infection had spread so quickly and so badly that Pete nearly lost his arm.

Next was the surgery on his shin.

In Sydney Mum had a fit, panicking about how to produce a wedding gown at such short notice. Well… I had a good idea.

“Mum, you're on speaker. We'll discuss the dress when the groom isn't listening.”

“Of course,” she agreed. “Now… Birth control?”

“
Muum!”

“You and Pete want a baby while things are still unsettled? If not, start taking the pill now.”

“
Muum…
I can hear Ettoré laughing behind you!”

“You're on speaker too,” piped Ettoré. “And Sydney? Pete? We're engaged too.”

“Whaat? Ohmygod… I'm so happy. Congratulations!”

“We'll get married in my hometown in June, when Pete will be well enough to take you there.”

“Super,” Pete joined in. “Thanks for considering me.Congratulations.”

“And Sydney?” Mum again, “
I'll
be off the pill.”

“Great! Mum, I'm
so
happy…”

Pete's Mom went ballistic when she found us plotting, heads bent together over my laptop, working on a list titled “How to Get Married”. Since we told her in October, she had dismissed our engagement. Now she was affronted by our audacity in making plans to get married.

After his recent surgeries, Pete's right arm bone-graft and his shin skin-graft were still healing. At this stage he could not use his right arm to hold the walking frame, but his physiotherapist had given him some leg exercises while sitting down. Hence we were all sitting in the hospital lounge.

“We would love your blessing, Mom,” Pete asserted. “But we're going ahead regardless.”

“But you're not even whole! You'll be disabled for life. How do you hope she'll be faithful to you and stay married to you for life?You have one broken marriage behind you when you had all your faculties intact!”

“Sydney has been faithful, loyal, and steadfast even when I was a total vegetable.”

“And you want to chain her to you for life?” she derided. “With your handicap? When she can find a normal man who's better than you? One who can make her happier?”

“I'll have only Pete.” I clenched my fists. She must know how hurtful her words were. “No other.”

Pete squeezed my hand. Both in gratitude and to calm me down.

“It'll be February the fourth?” his Mom verified, still wearing anger.

“Yes. Hopefully I'll be out of here, or I'll insist on being released, come what may. Eve's organizing it.” And he threw Eve, who had joined us, a happy smile.

“Yes,” Eve confirmed. “Callum is looking into the legalities. And Sydney, your parents won't hear of a no-frills wedding for their only child. They insist on paying. We've been lucky to secure a venue, because a couple moved their reservation to spring.”

Eve of the big heart threw herself into the preparations. In the following weeks she kept consulting us to make sure we approved of the details even though we weren't fussy. Cake. Flowers. Everything.