Page 110 of Midnight Valentine
“Like two hundred fuckin’ recipes for key lime pie. Like an entire folder of clippings from magazines of pictures of Denver fuckin’ omelets. Like almost five years’ worth of invoices from some hydroponic flower growers in Holland and Japan—he’d been having flowers delivered here every week from halfway round the world! Like what the fuck is wrong with all the flowers in Oregon?”
Sweet peas aren’t always in season here.
I turn my face to a ray of light slicing through a crack in the roof and close my eyes.
“And he has all this fancy French wine in a closet—cases of the stuff—and he doesn’t even drink wine! He hates it!”
I form a mental picture of the elegant label of the Château Corton Grancey that Cass and I always drank on our anniversary. The wine we first enjoyed on our honeymoon, served to us by the old man we picked up on the side of a country road who turned out to be the head of one of the oldest and finest wineries in France. I whisper, “Burgundy’s always a good investment. Especially a grand cru.”
There’s a short pause, then Coop says, “I never said it was from Burgundy.”
I look at him.
His eyes intense, he adds more quietly, “Or a grand cru.”
“He told me he’d been collecting,” I hear myself lie, knowing the truth is impossible.
After a long time wherein we simply gaze at each other, Coop looks down at his feet. “You’re right. He’s been sick. This is all just…evidence of that. And him askin’ me how he could remember someone he’d never met, and his obsession with the Buttercup, and him never speakin’ another word after his accident…that’s all part of his sickness too.”
He glances at my wedding band, then once again meets my eyes. “Right?”
There’s a moment, one brief moment where I consider telling him and letting the chips fall where they may. But the moment passes when I decide this thing is so unbelievable, the weight of trying to understand it has almost broken Theo and me—it would be wrong to burden Coop with the knowledge of it too.
Some mysteries are meant to live in the dark, quiet places of our hearts, kept safe and sacred.
“You’re a good friend, Coop. And a good man. And now I have to go, because I need to be there when he wakes up.”
I hug him hard, then scramble down the ladder and run to my car, my spirit soaring and my heart on fire, adrenaline pumping through my veins. I tear out of the driveway so fast, a spray of gravel spits out from the tires.
I have to get to that hospital as soon as I can.
I need to be there when my midnight valentine comes back to me.
30
Only Theo doesn’t come back.
Not that day, not that week, not the next. The doctors take him out of the i
nduced coma, but he doesn’t wake up. They remove the ventilator, and he starts to breathe on his own, but he doesn’t wake up. By the time Thanksgiving arrives, he’s developed bed sores from lying in one position so long, and I’ve developed a hatred for myself so burning, I can’t even look at my reflection in the mirror.
I did this.
I pushed him so hard, his only choice was to run away. I could’ve let him come to it in his own time, or gone along with his treatment plan if it made him feel better to pretend schizophrenia was the root of all his problems. I didn’t have to shove the truth down his throat, but I did.
I punish myself in a variety of imaginative ways, but my favorite is denying myself food.
Which makes all the vomiting I’m doing more than a little strange.
“You’re sick again, honey?”
The head nurse on Theo’s floor at the hospital is a motherly Latina named Ana with big, brown eyes and a tendency to dispense random hugs. She’s gazing at me in concern outside the hallway restroom where I’ve just been puking my guts out.
I lean against the doorframe, wiping the beads of sweat off my brow with the back of my hand. “You heard, huh?”
She makes an apologetic face. “I think the whole floor heard. It sounded like an exorcism was happening in here.”
“Must’ve been that egg salad sandwich I had for breakfast.” I attempt a feeble laugh, avoiding her eyes. “Damn cafeteria food.”
