He caught her looking at his arm in the sunlight and winked at her. She reached out and stroked his fur lightly, up to his rolled-up white oxford cotton sleeve, stretched over to kiss his sharp jaw. “Love you.”
He sniffed, stretching his chin out. “I know. I love you too.”
They relaxed a bit more, rushing forward in the cool, silenced comfort of their new car. Happy for these insulated moments. A whole weekend of lovemaking and oblivion ahead.
Ata ignored the hill’s brooding and the little guilt she felt for taking a long weekend off from what was not heavy in the first place — working from home. Pierre had insisted on supporting her to work freelance and explore whatever art form she chose. She had bought a computer and camera with her pay, playing around with photography while apprenticing with the best graphic artist in town. She felt lucky and pretty. Blessed once again with good fortune and subconsciously deeply guilty of it even though she’d had her hard times. Leaving and reentering Trinidad, so many times. Wanting to stay. Leaving for better. Coming back for worse. The island like a good lover/bad spouse to her. Love. Hate. Tabanca history.
* * *
That sleep, the sleep, the drugging, sluggish power of it. Fraser could feel it coursing through him, tugging at his muscles, his organs, forcing them to relax. Shhhh. Let go. Release. He could hear Thomas asking him something about dinner. Shhhh. I’m fine. Shhhh. Just need ress…’ll help myself. Yess.
Through closed eyelids, day became night, became day again. And sleep still held him in its deadly sweet grip. Stroking him. Soothing. Shutting, shuttering … He heard the phone ring, far away, shhhh. Heard Thomas saying something … sweet, dreaming, ocean-deep sleep …
* * *
Thomas passed again by Fraser on the couch, and heard a voice coming from the telephone receiver, “Hello? Hello?”
He picked it up and told the Dr. Lady that he couldn’t believe Fraser dropped asleep again. “No,” he answered her questions quickly, “it don’ look like he eat anything since yesterday. I thought he was helping heself but I don’ know if he even drink anything neither … No.” His panic rose with the urgency in her voice. “I trying, he answering but he not getting up, like he can’t even open he eyes! No!.. Okay. Okay.”
She instructed Thomas to forget the ambulance, call Fraser’s taxi guy and get him down to the private hospital. She’d meet them there — Fraser must be dehydrated and slipping into unconsciousness.
* * *
Sammy was there in no time and the two of them half lifted Fraser into the back of the car. All the way, Thomas kept repeating that he thought the man was at least drinking something. He never suspect anything — the man could’a died on him there and he wouldn’a know, ’cause he always see Fraser come there and just sleep.
“You wouldn’a know,” Sammy confirmed. “No way. But I see he was looking real real tired, these last few days. Check, check he breathing, Lawd … We go reach soon.”
* * *
Ata was glad that they did take the break to Saint Lucia — the fake honeymoon. Their love, compatibility in bed, in taste, humor, and intellect — needed celebrating every so often. Especially now that their differences were beginning to leak. In the ex-luxurious Grande Beach suite the terra-cotta tiles were shedding some of the clear sealant. The furniture in the living room and veranda was covered in the tropical floral print that is made specially for mediocre hotels — the ones that try so hard to supply paradise but have been having a little difficulty in recent times. Ata noted the dated light fittings and Pierre supplied the period — rusting seventies. The fake antique four-poster bed with its turned-wood pineapple motif looked fake because it was varnished instead of polished, the headboard too thin. But it didn’t matter.
Damp all over from the heat outside, Ata stripped off as soon as they entered the room. Pierre dropped the clunky coconut tree keyring onto the side table and flopped onto the bed, shoes and all. He likes the luxury of breaking the no-shoes-in-the-house rule in a grand way — shoes not just in the bedroom but on the bed. To Ata, that’s the kind of thing people do in movies, not in real life. Another little thing that made her warm to him. Audacity. And the way he rests his stiff hands, fingers down, on his big boney chest while lying like that, with his amazing Adam’s apple poking, shockingly, out of his throat. It almost made his neck look broken.
She bounced onto the bed alongside him and he automatically raised his hands to protect his spectacles — this always made her laugh. She’d surprise and grab him from behind whenever she could, imitating his cowering while they laughed. She kissed him, lying on the floral bedspread, slowly. And the kiss tasted like the curly illustrations of childhood fairy-tale books. Traces of mint on his breath, the flavor she imagined those fields smelled like, sweetness and peppermint, candy-wet breath. Soft, bendy blooms touching skin, that perfect young skin on the glossy page. Knee bent just so, fingers joined, pixie ears, tousled hair and ringlets beautifully arranged. Swirls of delicate blossoms. Lying on grass without ants. Mischievous eyes sparkling love. Entrancing. The kiss smudged and melted into the humid morning air.
The phone rang then. Ata answered it and passed the nasal voice of Pierre’s colleague and doctor-friend to him. She picked up her wrap from the chair and tied it on firmly, then loosened it a bit across her chest. Splashing her face in the bathroom, she heard Pierre’s voice drop as she noticed the slight fungus-and-hotel-bleached-towel smell. She came out to register Pierre’s face, a pallor of shock. He was hardly responding, hand worrying his mouth and — something Ata had never seen on him before — fear.
Pierre put the receiver down and sat shaking. He cried before talking, holding on to her as she gripped him waiting to find out — who? His mother? Who? Her heart pacing, racing, readying her.
At first, it didn’t sound as bad as Ata imagined. Thirty percent function. That’s what she didn’t understand, at first. When Pierre said kidney failure — limited, irretrievable life didn’t register. It must be fixable with surgery or drugs. Transplants. At least it’s not an incurable disease or paralysis.
* * *
Sleep the lovely toxin wrapped itself around his heart, his lungs, his shrunken kidneys and liver, pulsing in its poisonous race. Mama D’leau slithered her mermaid tail and serpent hair. Tapping. Ticking … breaking and entering, forever. Sucking blood work. Tests. Transfusions.
The lady doctor-friend was as quiet and calm as Fraser in his coma. She came back out through the emergency room doors, spoke quietly to the nurse behind the counter, and approached Thomas. “I’ve called Helen, she’s closest. She’ll get in touch with his parents and…” She shook her head and touched Thomas’s shoulder. “You couldn’t have known. I don’t know why he didn’t see his doctor before — he must have been feeling ill.”
She explained the details but Thomas’s heart had turned to his own phone call to make — how could he explain or tell them?
“I will call Pierre,” the doctor-friend said.
Thomas felt even more useless. Worse, as Helen arrived, saying Fraser’s mother and father were on their way, glancing at Thomas as the doctor-friend explained, again. Useless. The gray hospital feeling every friend feels.