Chapter 99
I KNEW IT the minute Medved walked in the office. I saw it in his face. He didn't have to say a word "I'm afraid I can't be very positive, Lindsay," he said, meeting my eyes. "Your red count continues to decline. The dizzy spells, the fatigue, blood in your chest. The disease is progressing." "Progressing?" Medved nodded soberly. "Stage three." The words thundered in my head, bringing with them the fear of the increased treatments I dreaded. "What's the next step?" I asked weakly. "We can give it one more month," Medved said. "Your count's twenty-four hundred. If it continues to decline, your strength will start to go. You'll have to be hospitalized." I could hardly comprehend what he was saying; it was all crashing in my brain so fast. A month. That's too close. Too fast. Things were just starting to work out now that Jenks had been arrested. Everything else, everything I wanted to hold on to, was resolving, too. A month-four lousy weeks. When I got back to the office, a few of the guys were standing around grinning at me. There was a beautiful bouquet of flowers on my desk. Wildflowers. I smelled them, taking in the sweet, natural scent. I read the card. There's a hill of these where I have a cabin up at Heavenly. Tomorrow's Friday. Take the day off. Let's go there. It was signed Chris. It sounded like what I needed. The mountains. Chris. I would have to tell him, now that the truth would come clear soon. My phone rang. It was Chris. "So?" No doubt someone in the office, playing cupid, had alerted him that I was back. "Haven't opened your card yet." I bit my lip. "Too many others to sort through." I heard a disappointed sigh, let it linger just a moment. "But on the chance you were asking me away, the answer is, I'd love to. It sounds great. Let's be on the road by eight." "Late riser," he said. "I was hoping we'd beat the morning rush." "I was talking tonight." I had a month. I was thinking, Mountain air, running streams, and wildflowers is a good way to begin.
Chapter 100
WE SPENT THE NEXT TWO DAYS as if we were in a beautiful dream. Chris's cabin was funky and charming, a redwood A frame ski chalet on Mason Ridge overlooking Heavenly. We hiked in the woods with Sweet Martha, took the tram to the top of the mountain, and walked all the way down. We grilled swordfish on the deck. In between, we made love in the comfort of his large four poster bed, on the sheepskin rug in front of the wood burning stove, in the chilly thrill of the outdoor shower. We laughed and played and touched each other like teenagers, discovering love again. But I was no starry-eyed adolescent. I knew exactly what was taking place. I felt the steady, undeniable current rising inside me like a river spilling over its banks. I felt helpless. Saturday, Chris promised me a day I would never forget. We drove down to Lake Tahoe, to a quaint marina on the California side. He had rented a platform boat, an old puttering wooden barge. We bought sandwiches and a bottle of chardonnay, and went out to the middle of the lake. The water calm and turquoise, the sky cloudless and bright. All around, the rocky tips of snow-capped mountains ringed the lake like a crown. We moored, and for a while it was our own private world. Chris and I stripped down to our suits. I figured we'd kick back, enjoy the wine in the sun, look at the view, but Chris had sort of an expectant, dare-you look in his eye. He ran his hands through the frigid water. "No way," I said, shaking my head. "It's got to be fifty degrees." "Yeah, but it's a dry cold," he teased. "Right," I chortled. "You go, then. Catch me a coho if you see one swim by." He came toward me with playful menace in his eyes. "You can catch one yourself." "Not a chance." I shook my head in defiance. But I was laughing, too. As he stepped forward, I backed to the rear of the craft until I ran out of room. He put his arms around me. I felt the tingle of his skin on mine. "It's sort of an initiation," he said. "An initiation for what?" "Exclusive club. Anyone who wants to be in it has to jump in." "Then leave me out." I laughed, squirming in his strong arms. With only weak resistance, he yanked me up on the cushion seat in the stern of the boat. "Shit, Chris," I cried as he took hold of my hand. "Geronimo works better," he said, pulling at me. I screamed, "You bastard!" and we toppled in. The water was freezing, a total, invigorating rush. We hit the surface together, and I screamed in his face, "Goddamn you!" Then he kissed me in the water and all at once I felt no chill. I held on to him, at first for warmth, but also because I never wanted to let him go. I felt a trust for him that was so complete it was almost scary. Fifty degrees, but I was burning up. "Check this out," I dared him, kicking free of his grasp. There was an orange boat marker bobbing fifty yards away. "Race you to that buoy." Then I cut out, surprising him with my speed. Chris tried to keep up with steady, muscular strokes, but I blew him away. Near the buoy I slowed, waited for him to catch up. Chris looked totally confounded. "Where'd you learn to swim?" "South San Francisco YMCA; fourteen-, fifteen-, sixteen year-old division champ." I laughed. "No one could keep up. Looks like I still have it." Moments later, we had guided the boat to a private, shady cove near the shore. Chris cut the engine and put up a canvas shade around the cabin that was supposed to protect us from the sun. With hated breath, we crept inside, blocked off from anyone's view. I let him slowly unfasten my bathing suit, and he licked beads of water off my arms and breasts. Then I kneeled down and unbuttoned his shorts. We didn't have to speak. Our bodies were saying everything. I lay back, pulling Chris onto me. I had never felt so connected to another person, or to a place. I arched against him silently, the lake lapping gently at our sides. I thought, If I speak, it will change everything. Afterward I just lay there, tremors of warmth radiating through my body. I never wanted this to end, but I knew that it had to end. Reality always gets in the way, doesn't it?
Chapter 101
SOMETIME THAT EVENING, I found myself starting to cry. I had made spaghetti carbonara, and we ate in the moonlight on the deck with a bottle of pi not noir. Chris put a cello concerto by Dvorak on the stereo, but eventually we switched to the Dixie Chicks. As we ate, Chris asked about where and how I had grown up. I told him about my mom, and how my dad had left when I was just a kid; how she had worked as a bookkeeper at the Emporium for twenty years. How I had practically raised my sister. "Mom died of breast cancer when she was only fifty." The irony of this certainly wasn't lost on me. "What about your father? I want to know everything about you." I took a sip of wine, then told him how I'd only seen him \ twice since I was thirteen. At my mother's funeral. And the day I became a cop. "He sat in the back, apart from everybody else." Suddenly, my blood became hot with long-buried feelings. "What was he doing there?" I looked up, my eyes moist. "Why did he spoil it?" "You ever want to see him?" I didn't answer. Something was starting to take shape in my head. My mind drifted, struck by the fact that here I was, maybe the happiest I had been, but it was all built on a lie. I was blinking back the impact of what was going through my mind. Not doing real well. Chris reached over and grasped my hand. "I'm sorry, Lindsay. I had no right to…" "That's not it," I whispered, and squeezed his hand. I knew it was time to really trust him, time to finally give myself over to Chris. But I was scared, my cheeks trembling, my eyes holding back tears. "I have something to tell you," I said. "This is a little heavy, Chris." I looked at him with all the earnestness and trust my worried eyes could manage. "Remember when I almost fainted in the room with Jenks?" Chris nodded. Now he looked a little worried. His forehead was furrowed with deep lines. "Everyone thought I was just freaked out, but it wasn't that. I'm sick, Chris. I may have to go into the hospital soon." I saw the light in his eyes suddenly dim. He started to speak, but I put my finger to his lips. "Just listen to me for a minute. Okay?" "Okay. I'm sorry." I poured out everything about Negli's. I was not responding to treatments. Hope was fading. What Medved had warned only days before. I was in stage three, serious. A bone marrow transplant might be next. I didn't cry. I told him straight out, like a cop. I wanted to give him hope, to show him I was fighting, to show him I was the strong person I thought he loved. When I was done, I clasped his hands and took a monumental breath. "The truth is, I could die soon, Chris." Our hands were tightly entwined. Our eyes locked. We couldn't have been more in touch. Then he placed his hand gently on my cheek and rubbed it. He didn't say a word, just took me and held me in the power and softness of his hands and drew me to him. And that's what made me cry. He was a good person. I might lose him. And I cried for all the things we might never do. I cried and cried, and with each sob he pressed me harder. He kept whispering, "It's all right, Lindsay. It's all right. Ills all right." "I should've told you," I said. "I understand why you didn't. How long have you known?" I told him. "Since the day we met. I feel so ashamed." "Don't be ashamed," he said. "How could you know you could trust me?" "I trusted you pretty quickly. I didn't trust myself," "Well, now you do," Chris whispered.