Page 10 of Someone to Watch Over Me

The next time I open my eyes, the room is mostly dark. Cora is still there, as is our other sister, Lydia, and her husband, Rick.

Damn, if they flew in from Minneapolis, this must’ve been bad.

“Way to scare the shit out of us, brother,” Lydia says as she leans over the bed rail to kiss my forehead. “Glad to see you awake.”

“Sorry.”

That one word makes my throat feel like it’s been stabbed.

“Don’t be sorry. We’re just glad your friend Lexi got home in time.” She brushes the hair back from my forehead the way she’s done since I was a baby. With seven years between us, she’s been like a second mother to me.

“Lexi.”

Cora steps up to the bedside next to Lydia. “I texted her an update, and she said she’ll be in to see you later.”

I realize that I’ve somehow managed to miss an entire evening, and it’s now the next day.

I’m glad to know Lexi plans to come see me. At least she’s not running away from me, not that I would blame her. She’s already done hard time in the caretaking trenches with her late husband. She’ll take one look at me, feeble in a hospital bed, and run for her life away from me.

The thought of that is extremely depressing.

I’ve had a thing for her since I first saw her gorgeous face, all the way back in high school when she was two years behind me in school but three years younger than me. Too young to date back then.

I love to think about the night we ran into each other at a local bar and restaurant and finally got the chance to talk to each other.

I felt guilty offering her a place to live when I already knew that I wanted much more than a roommate. But I’ve put any sort of romantic interest on the back burner while making her feel welcome in my home and giving her a soft place to land after her ordeal with Jim.

That’s been my only focus in the nine months she’s lived with me.

Do I wish it could be more? Hell yes. Have you seen her? Not only is she gorgeous, she’s also sweet, smart, funny, snarky, fun and terribly wounded. So deeply wounded. I saw that the first night, when she told me about her late husband and the dreadful illness that led to his death.

My college roommate’s mother had ALS. It’s a fucking nightmare, and it pains me to think of what Lexi endured. I wish I could snap my fingers and make things all better for her, but that’s not how grief works.

And yes, I’ve done the research. I’ve learned that every griever is on his or her own journey, that the so-called “five stages of grief” are mostly bullshit, as it never unfolds according to any kind of plan, and that the sort of grief Lexi feels for Jim will last the rest of her life. I’ve learned that many first relationships after big losses don’t last and that a relationship with her would include a relationship with Jim and her grief.

I can handle that if it means I get to be with her.

But now that I’ve added to her already considerable trauma, I have reason to wonder if any of the things I’ve hoped for with her will ever come to pass.

Lexi

I wakein Iris and Gage’s guest room after a surprisingly deep sleep. I’m wearing pajamas loaned to me by Iris and an oversized sweatshirt from Gage that makes me feel loved and cared for as I burrow deeper into the soft material to postpone dealing with reality for a few more minutes.

Last night before bed, I let work know I’m dealing with an emergency and will be out today and possibly tomorrow, too. I’m an incredibly reliable employee, so I hope it’s no big deal to take a few unscheduled days off. If it is, I honestly don’t care. I’ve learned what’s important in life, and my stupid data-entry job doesn’t matter in the least to me when Tom is lying in a hospital bed recovering from a heart attack and the procedure to stent his artery.

Not that I don’t need the money from the stupid job, because I do. I’ve got hundreds of thousands in medical debt still hanging over my head from Jim’s illness that I’ll never be free of for as long as I live. I accepted that a while ago. I make the minimum payments every month to keep from having to declare bankruptcy, which an accountant friend told me not to do if I could avoid it because that, too, would stick to me forever.

It’s one of many ways I’m bitter about what Jim’s illness put us through. We were twenty-eight and twenty-nine when he was diagnosed, so no, we didn’t have life insurance, and once you’re handed a death sentence, you’re uninsurable.

Luckily, Jim had good health insurance through his job, and his company kept him covered long after he could no longer work. That was one of the major blessings bestowed upon us during his lengthy illness. But insurance covers only so much, and we tapped it out long before all his needs were met.

Thus the staggering debt, which I try not to think about too often, lest my anxiety be triggered to the point of making me unable to function.

That’s not an option.

Since not knowing what work had to say to my message is more stressful than knowing, I reach for my phone and find a kind text from my boss, Erika.

I hope everything is okay. Please let me know how you are if you get a chance. See you Monday.

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