The Best of Fools (Jane Austen Book 2) (43 page)

"Hello," she finally said, looking from my face to the package in my hands. "Do you have the right address?"

"I have a package for Alistair Gladwyn." I swallowed hard. "Does he live here?"

"Oh, I'm so sorry, please step inside." She grabbed my arm and pulled me in to the entryway. "Yes, Alistair is here. He's resting. Do you know him or is this some kind of special delivery service?"

"Oh, it's um...."

"My name is Emma. I'm so terrible with introductions, but you look so posh I hope I didn't offend you."

I
almost
laughed. "I'm not posh in the slightest. I'm not even sure I know what posh means. My name is Jane."

"Jane? That's odd. What's your last name?"

I coughed. "Austen."

"Jane Austen? Really? You're having me on, aren't you?"

"Having you on?"

"Is this a joke?" She clapped her hands in front of her as though she were excited. "Who put you up to this? He's going to love it."

"I don't, um, I'm not sure I know what you mean..."

"Oh, Alistair is always talking about how much he loved Jane Austen and we joke around that he must have experienced some interesting dreams."

"Dreams? I'm not sure I—"

"So you must be an actress? Singing telegram?"

"No, I'm ... I'm just Jane Austen. That's my real name." I handed her the package. "Anyway, this is a gift for him. Could you—"

"Oh, I hear him now." She leaned toward me. "He's a bit stroppy when he wakes up, but he will love this. Alistair," she called toward the hallway. "Someone is here to see you."

"No, I should go. I didn't mean to—"

"Shh, shh!" She waved at me while turned toward the hall. "Here he comes."

He turned the corner and caught my eyes as they were filling with tears.

"Alistair," Emma said. "This ... is Jane Austen."

My heart.

I grabbed my chest as a tear fell to my cheek. Alistair....

He gripped his walker and leaned more on the left side. His right foot turned in and his right arm dangled by his leg. The muscles in his face were more relaxed, drooping to the left and causing drool to slip from his mouth. My chest expanded rapidly and more tears collected. I blinked one to my cheek and looked at his eyes, they were still the same. But everything else....

A single tear zig-zagged down the right side of his face and fell to the hand that held the walker.

Emma stood and put her arm around his back. "Come and sit. Ms. Austen came for a visit. Isn't that fun?"

"Don't patronize me, Emma!" he yelled.

She raised her eyebrows at me and mouthed, "See."

"Leave." He looked at her. "Go now."

"But your mum won't be home until—"

"I said leave, Emma." He tried to shove his head toward the door, but it only caused drool to fling across him. "Sod off!"

She jerked back and forth, looking for her things and mumbling some kind of curse at him.

"I'm leaving a note for your mum," she said. "And you can fuss all ya want, but this is my job on the line." She looked at me. "Stay here with him until his mum gets home. I'm assuming you are friends?"

I nodded, dazed.

Who was this man?

She shut the door and I watched through the window as she ran to her car. He pushed the walker forward and made his way to a chair across from me, where he sloppily managed to flop into it without help.

He closed his eyes. "Jane."

I pursed my lips and held back more tears. "Alistair."

We sat there, five feet away from each other in complete silence except for the slight tap of the rain on the windows. He kept his eyes closed, but I watched him breathe. The same chest I used as a pillow so many times before. The same tattoo peeking out from his shirt. The one I held the night he made me his own. But his body was crippled, paralyzed or something, and he looked so much thinner. Less muscle and broadness. Less like himself, like the man I fell in love with.

"What happened?" I whispered.

He squeezed his eyes and tried to shake his head. "Jane," he cried, his chest jerking.

I got up and knelt down beside him, taking his hand into mine and losing myself in the softness of the skin I missed so much, but he moved it away from me and set it on his lap.

"What happened?" I said again.

"I don't remember much. They said I may have been on the phone or distracted, but I swerved and hit another car. I don't remember that at all, but I was in the hospital for a long time. I didn't remember anyone when I woke up, but slowly memories began to come back to me. Memories of my childhood. Of the treehouse. Of you." He finally opened his eyes again, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped his mouth. "I'm so embarrassed."

"I don't understand. One minute we were texting and the next you...."

He looked at me blankly.

"You crashed your car?"

"That's what they say. I'm lucky in many ways. It could have been much worse and my brain damage is minimal, although it's hard to tell because of my physical ability."

"Brain damage?"

"Traumatic Brain Injury from the accident. When I got out of the hospital I wanted to contact you, but Jane..." He closed his eyes. "I didn't want you to lose your life and dreams because of me."

"Alistair." I took his hand again. "I thought you hated me. I thought you were ignoring me because of a dumb argument we had. I wish you told me. I wish I had known. I would've been right here with you from the start." I kissed his hand. "I had no way to know. No way to find you."

"Jane, I'm sorry. I know how you feel about being abandoned, but I—"

"Stop it." I placed my finger over his lips. "Stop apologizing."

"I can't take care of you anymore. I need therapists and caretakers and I have so many—"

"Please stop."

"I'm not a man anymore, Jane. I'm not who I used to be. I want better for you."

"Shut up." I sobbed into his hand. "You are the best, do you hear me? Just stop saying that ... that rubbish."

He moved his fingers toward my chin and ran them up my jaw, back down to my lips, and held them there as we looked at each other through tear-filled eyes. He was right. He was different. And from what I knew of brain injuries personalities and memories could often be distorted too, but he was still the man I wanted. The one I needed. The one single soul out of six billion that I couldn't live without. He was still my Alistair. And I loved him. So much.

For the next hour Alistair told me what he remembered before the accident, which wasn't everything, but quite a bit. He told me that he couldn't remember the accident itself at all or waking up in the hospital, but he slowly regained his ability to remember bits and pieces as he recovered. He had surgery and a lot of occupational and speech therapy and quickly went from a wheelchair to a walker. When he described the pain he went through and still endured I wanted to take it away from him. Go back in time and tell him I loved him instead of getting upset. Or at the very least I wished I told him not to text and drive. Instead I texted him. I was part of this. And I wanted to take it all away, give his pain to myself, anything to make him feel better.

He explained all of the logistics. His injury types, which for the life of me I couldn't remember no matter how much I tried, and his prospective healing and treatment plans. Doctors believed he could one day regain all mobility with hard work, but it would take time and patience that he often didn't feel like he had. He still had feeling in his ... lower region. So he could go to the bathroom without the embarassment of needing help. And although he lost a lot of function on one side of his body, it was mostly in his arm and it wasn't completely gone. He could feel hot and cold and move his fingers. He could also move his leg, but with the help of a walker.

When he stood and showed me how well he could get around it took all I had not to cry. We were so young. He was so full of life and we didn't have enough time to enjoy the bliss of falling in love before dealing with such a difficult obstacle. As he pushed his walker back to the couch I found myself torn between trying to help and letting him feel like he could do it without help and I wondered where I fit in now. Where I belonged in his life. Try to take care of him or love him as he struggled? Both?

How could I go back home and leave him here?

So many thoughts ran through my head, but more than anything I wanted to rewind. I just wanted to turn the hands back and change that one conversation. Maybe things would have been different.

"Carpe diem," I said as he sat back on the couch, looking majorly tired from his brief walk across the room and back.

He tried to smile. "Carpe diem."

I sat beside him and pulled my shirt down to reveal the tattoo. "I found your gift after ... after the accident. This is what I got."

He nodded and held my knee. "I'm so sorry. I wish I could—"

"I told you to stop apologizing."

"We can't be together, Jane." His eyes darkened and he turned his gaze toward the ground. "Perhaps if I get better, but not now."

"Alistair. We
are
together. We never stopped being together just because we were apart. Let me ask you this ... did you think of me?"

"You know I did." He refused to look at me. "You're all I've thought about. It's the one thing that's kept me going."

"Don't push me away because of this. I can't live without you. I can't deal with the feeling I had the last few months, thinking you were dead or with someone else or who knows what else."

"You deserve better. You know that. My short-term memory is terrible. If I go for a car ride I forget the street name before we turn on the next one. I'm always misplacing things and I'm not always happy. Sometimes I can be a bit crabby and angry and it nearly seems out of my control." He finally looked at me, but quickly reverted his gaze. "I just can't put you through this."

"I live in another country. Let's just take it one day at a time. Let's talk like we used to. Every night, okay? I'll visit as much as I can."

"I won't be able to provide for you as my wife. It's like you said before, why start something you can't finish?"

"We already started." I held his face in my hands. "And I'm gonna finish."

"What about—"

"The store is nowhere near as important to me as you. Not even close."

"What if I can't work again? What if it's always like this?"

"Carpe diem. One day at a time. Forget tomorrow, Alistair. We have today. We have right now."

"You're inspired now, but when it gets difficult you will be miserable. You need a husband, Jane. Not a child."

"Would you please stop telling me what I need? I know what I need and it's you. We can make it. I know we can." I cuddled into his shoulder and kissed his arm.

He breathed deeply and touched the scar on his neck. I knew he didn't want me to see him like this. I knew he felt like giving up. Letting me go along with the idea of ever having a normal life. But I didn't believe in giving up. And I wasn't about to let him do that to himself.

"Why do we fall, Bruce?" I whispered, hoping to see if he remembered the next line of Alfred's wise words to Bruce Wayne.

Alistair closed his eyes and breathed in. Then out. Silence hovered between us for a few minutes, then finally he touched my hand and whispered, "So we can learn to pick ourselves up."

When Alistair and I fell asleep on his couch it didn't cross my mind that his mother could walk in before we woke up, but that's exactly what happened. And let's just say she wasn't happy. We woke to the sound of her cursing and throwing her hands in the air in front of us.

Before my brain caught up with everything, Alistair was explaining what happened in a very loud, agitated tone. A tone I had never heard from him.

"You need to get on," she said to me. "I don't care who you are."

"Mum," he said sternly. "If she leaves, I leave."

"Mm, right. And where exactly might you go?"

"Dad's. Like I wanted to from the start."

"I'd like to see that." She waved her finger at me. "Who do you think you are coming in here and kicking his—"

"She didn't kick her out. I did. I wanted to be with Jane."

His mom left in a huff and stormed up the stairs, cursing until we could no longer make out the words. Alistair used his more functional arm to pull himself up into a straighter sitting position. "I need to use to the loo," he said shyly. "Don't fret about Mum. She's cheesed off because her boyfriend couldn't handle me being here and left her."

"Not exactly how I imagined the first meeting," I said.

"No." He shook his head sadly. "Not at all. This entire thing is just bloody awful."

"Is there anything I can do for you? Right now, I mean?"

He reached for his walker. "I can manage." He pulled himself up and I got the impression he was struggling to show me that he was still a man inside.

Don't cry, Jane. He needs you to be strong.

"Alistair?" I said as he forced himself to his feet and looked down at me with those struggle-glossed eyes. "You can do this. You're going to overcome this."

"No, Jane," he said. "
We
are. We're going to do this."

When he came back from the bathroom almost thirty minutes later, he told me that no one ever told him that he would overcome it. They always said it was a "possibility." When I said that to him he felt something inside of himself click. Like a light switch had been turned back on after a long, lonely spell of darkness.

We embraced in odd positions, but comfortably, for five minutes and then his mother walked back in.

"I'm sorry," she said to me, reaching out her hand. "It's nice to meet you, Jane. All this time I thought Alistair had imagined you while in a coma."

I shook her hand as my entire body flushed with warmth. "Oh, yes. I'm real."

"I've never met someone actually named Jane Austen."

"Mum, please."

She rolled her eyes at him and put her hands on her hips. "We need to get your bath ready now."

"I'll take a bath when I bloody well feel like it," he snapped.