Step On A Crack

Chapter 78

WITH ANOTHER BLOCK of excruciating downtime in front of us, I grabbed the opportunity to hand over the crisis phone to Ned Mason. Then I headed uptown to see Maeve.

I noticed a change when I came into her room. The sheets were different, flannel, new, and crisp. There was a vase full of fresh flowers, and she was wearing a new bathrobe. They were nice additions, so why did they creep me out?

Maeve was awake, watching CNN, which now had ongoing coverage of the siege. What ever happened to the Yule log? I found the remote and clicked off the set before I took her hand.

“Hey, you,” I said.

“I saw you on the tube,” Maeve said, smiling. “You always look so handsome in that suit. Whose christening did you wear it to? Shawna’s?”

“Chrissy’s,” I said.

“Chrissy,” my wife said with a sigh. “How is my little Peep?”

“She came into the nest the other night,” I said. “I forgot to tell you. I forgot to tell you a lot of things, Maeve. I…”

My wife raised her hand and put her finger to my lips.

“I know,” she said.

“I shouldn’t have been so concerned with my stupid job. I wish…”

She stopped me with a hurt look.

“Please don’t wish,” she said quietly. “It hurts more than cancer. I knew full well how dedicated you were to your job when we first met. It was one of the reasons I married you. I was so proud, seeing you speak to the press. My God. You were inspiring.”

“Who do you think inspires me?” I said, tearing up.

“No, not on these nice new sheets. Wait. I have your present.”

We always exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve, usually around 3:00 a.m., after putting together a bike or train set or some other god-awful toy.

“Me first,” I said, taking a wrapped box out of the bag I had stashed in the trunk of my car. “Allow me.”

I tore off the paper and showed Maeve the portable DVD player and the stack of DVDs I’d gotten her. The movies were old black-and-white noirs, Maeve’s favorites.

“So you don’t have to constantly watch the idiot box,” I said. “Look, Double Indemnity. I’ll sneak us up some Atomic Wings. It’ll be just like old times.”

“How awesomely devilish of you,” Maeve said. “Now mine.”

She produced a black velvet jewelry box from under her pillow and handed it to me. I opened the box. It was an earring. A single gold hoop. I used to wear one back in the late “Guns N’ Roses” eighties when we first met.

I started to laugh. Then both of us were laughing hard, and it was wonderful.

“Put it in. Put it in,” Maeve cried through her laughing fit.

I maneuvered the earring into the latent hole of my left ear. Miraculously, after nearly two decades, it slipped right in.

“How do I look? Totally tubular?”

“Like a well-dressed pirate,” my wife said, wiping a rare happy tear from her eye.

“Arrrrrrr, matey,” I said, burying my face in her neck.

I backed away when I felt her stiffen. Then I shuddered at the distant look in her eyes. Her breathing became irregular, as if she was hyperventilating without any hesitation. I blasted the nurse’s button half a dozen times.

“I’ve spilled the water from the spring, Mother,” I heard my wife say in the Irish accent she’d fought so hard to erase. “The lambs are all in the ditch, every last one.”

What was happening? Oh God no, Maeve! Not today, not now-not ever!

Sally Hitchens, the head of the Nursing Department, came rushing in. She shined a light into Maeve’s eye and reached under her robe for her pain pack.

“Doctor upped her meds this morning,” Sally said. Maeve closed her eyes when the nurse put her hand on her forehead. “We have to watch her closely until she adjusts. Can I speak to you a second, Mike?”