The Book of Lost Fragrances

Fifty-eight

SUNDAY, MAY 29

Jac, Malachai and Robbie had held vigil at the hospital all evening, but at midnight she insisted they both leave her and go home. Robbie hadn’t slept more than an hour or two at a time in the week he’d been in hiding, and he was falling asleep in the chair. Malachai’s driver was going to drop off Robbie. Then the reincarnationist was going back to his hotel. He was leaving in the morning.

“If you need me, please, call,” he’d said to Jac as he pulled her toward him in an embrace. In all the years she’d known him, he’d kept his distance, at most touching her on the shoulder. “Anything at all,” he said as he let her go.

She nodded.

“Even if it’s just to talk about what-”

“Thank you,” she interrupted. Jac didn’t want Malachai to bring up the hallucinations in front of Robbie. She wanted to forget about them. Wanted not to discuss them. With anyone. Not again.

Once they left, she found herself alone with Griffin in his hospital room for the first time. All the lights were off. Only electronics illuminated the cubicle.

The doctors had said it was important for Griffin to know someone was with him.

“I never asked you what your favorite myth was,” she said now. “Isn’t that strange? Mine is Daedalus and Icarus. Would you like to hear me tell it?”

Jac began the time-honored, age-old way. “Once upon a time…”

But she was tired, too tired. It would be all right if she rested for a few minutes, wouldn’t it?

She lay down her head on her crossed arms. Closed her eyes.

A nurse woke her at six in the morning when she came in to take Griffin’s vitals.

A half hour later, when his team of doctors arrived, Jac went downstairs. She bought a cup of coffee and took it outside. Leaning against the building, she sipped as slowly as she could, resisting rushing back to his room. She knew they wouldn’t let her in while they were examining him.

After what seemed like fifteen minutes, she checked her watch. Only five minutes had elapsed. Watching the people come and go, she was able to tell who worked at the hospital even if they weren’t dressed in nurses’ or doctors’ uniforms. The staff’s faces didn’t tell a story. There were no vestiges of fear etched on their foreheads. No grief in their eyes. Their lips were not pursed in anxiety.

When Jac went back upstairs, there was a new nurse on duty who stopped her from going in to see Griffin.

“Is he all right?” Jac asked, looking toward the door.

“He’s fine.” The nurse smiled. “I’m Helene by the way. I’ll be on duty until five. Are you Mr. North’s wife?”

“No, not his wife, no. His cousin. I’m his cousin.”

Robbie had been the one to lie to the hospital when he and Jac came in with the ambulance. If he hadn’t said they were relatives, they might not have been able to stay with Griffin. When she asked how he knew that, he smiled sadly and told her how many gay friends had been kept out of hospital rooms because blood trumped love.

“Why are the doctors taking so long, then?”

“Mr. North is out of the coma. They are doing some tests.”

“Is there any brain damage?”

“I’m not supposed to-”

Jac grabbed the nurse’s hand. “I know you aren’t. And I won’t ever tell you did, but I’m going crazy. Please tell me, is he all right?”

The nurse leaned in a little. Jac smelled lemon, verbena and something sweet mixed up with the medicinal smells. Helene’s heart-shaped lips slid into a smile. She wore bright-pink lipstick almost the color of bubblegum. That must have been what smelled so sweet.

“I was in there for a lot of the tests,” Helene said. “It looks like he’s going to make a complete recovery.”

Like a warm wind, relief wrapped around Jac. Cosseted her. She knew she was standing still, but she felt as if she were spinning. Before she realized it, she was sitting in a hard plastic chair, Helene beside her, holding out a paper cup.

“Take sips,” the nurse said.

“What happened?”

“You got a little light-headed, I think.”

Jac nodded. “Relieved. So relieved.”

“I know, dear. I know. Now just rest here until the doctors are done. One of them will want to talk with you.”

Helene started to walk away. Jac reached out and grabbed her hand. “You actually saw him awake?”

The nurse nodded. “I did.”

A half hour later, Griffin’s neurosurgeon reassured Jac that he was going to make a complete recovery and would probably be in the hospital for only another two days or so. “Mr. North is sleeping now,” he said. “He’ll probably sleep off and on most of the day. But you can go in.”

All of the tubes except for one intravenous line were gone. Griffin was lying on his back, his mouth open slightly. His color was almost back to normal. The bandages across his upper shoulder had been changed. There was no blood seeping through. Just hours ago, there had been blood all over.

Then she saw it was still in his hair. Dried dark brown coating the silver. It made her shiver.

Jac stood beside his bed and looked down at him. Looked down at Griffin, the man who had so long ago brought her to life. And now had saved her life. It seemed too great a thing to even contemplate. Too complicated to comprehend.

Leaning down, she kissed his forehead, hoping that her lips would wake him the way it happened in fairy tales. But he didn’t open his eyes. Didn’t shift in the bed. He didn’t react to her touch at all.

She didn’t know how long she stood there, but at some point, the nurse with the bubblegum-pink lipstick came into the room.

“You might want to go home for a while. He’s going to sleep now for most of the day. You can take a shower and get some rest.” Helene smiled. “Change your clothes. Come back later, perhaps at dinnertime? He might be more alert by then.”

Jac looked down. There were splashes of blood on her shirt. On the scarf. On the top of her right shoe. She was wearing the same clothes she’d left the house in yesterday morning.

Yes, she should go home. She started for the door. Reached it. Put her hand on the handle, but then couldn’t pull it. She listened for what he always said when they parted. All she heard was his steady breathing.

Could she really leave him now? Leave him again? They had too long a history of leaving. From the time she first met him till he’d finally walked away from her that day in the park, they’d said good-bye so many times she could hear him in her memory now.

Except Griffin never actually said good-bye. Instead he’d tilt his head to the right, a hint of a smile would lift the corners of his mouth, his voice would dip a little, slide into a lower register, and in a hoarse whisper he’d say, “Ciao.”

The first time she heard it, she wondered if he was a little affected.

“Ciao?” she’d asked.

“In Italy, it’s what you say when someone arrives-not just when they leave. Isn’t that better? What could be good about us being separated? We can pretend that you just got here and we have the whole weekend ahead of us.”

Jac turned, walked back, sat beside the bed, leaned over, and laid as much of her upper body beside his as she could. She closed her eyes. Gave in to a thought that she hadn’t allowed herself for more than fifteen years. She wanted to be with him.

Jac could never get her mother back; she could smell her perfume and hear her voice. But that wasn’t real. It was a daughter’s desperation. But Griffin was real. How many people did she have to lose? How many times did she have to lose this one?

At first, the touch of his fingers on her cheek was so natural that she didn’t realize what it meant. He was wiping away her tears. “You know you can drown in that much sadness,” he whispered.

She opened her eyes and looked at him. No words came. There wasn’t anything to say. There was just this man whom she’d never stopped loving. And whom she couldn’t say good-bye to again. Ever.