"Yes." I nodded enthusiastically. "I do. That's what I've been trying to say all this time."
"I recognize that now." She said. "And I realize that you are not exactly Bob Simpson. But you're close. And just because I recognize it doesn't mean I like it Bill. I'm willing to acknowledge that you and Nina are in love with each other. But I can't forgive you for what you've done in the past and I have no proof that you are no longer doing such things. I still believe that Nina is heading for destruction by being with you."
"That's fair enough." I told her. "You think that we're too young to know what love really is and that I'll give in to the temptation to stray away from Nina, right?"
"Roughly." She answered.
"We are young." I said. "But tell me this, do you think that Jack knew what he wanted when he told you he wanted to marry you before he went off to the war?"
"What?" She asked.
"He loved you back then. Very much from what I understand. And though he didn't have the, uh, experience that I do, he was pretty certain that you were the woman for him. So do you think he knew what he was talking about?"
"Yes." She nodded, seeing where I was taking this.
"That's the same way I feel about Nina. I know she is whom I want to spend the rest of my life with. My experience has done nothing but show me that sex is nothing but hollow pleasure if it's not with someone you love. I don't plan to repeat those experiences. I am committed to Nina now and I will remain so. I'm the same age Jack was when he fell in love with you. Nina is older than you were when you fell in love with Jack. She's older than I am in fact since I got to skip second grade. Why do you think that you, of the previous generation, have some sort of all-knowing lock on what love is and that those of us in this generation are clueless?"
THE LOOK was strong upon her face. She smiled. "You are certainly a remarkable young man Bill." She said. "I'll give you that. Like I said, I'm not quite sure you're right for Nina and I'm not quite sure you are my idea of the perfect suitor. But there's little I can do about it. You've proved yourself worthy of my giving you a chance. So for Nina's sake I would like to extend you a welcome into our house for as long as you and she are together. Maybe someday I'll learn to love you. Or maybe I won't. But until we know for sure, you no longer have to hide on the porch when you come over. You're welcome in our house."
"Thank you Mary." I answered, touched by her cynical words. "I'll take you up on that. And be assured, you're not going to get rid of me."
"Time will tell Bill." She answered. "Time will tell."
Two days later Jack Blackmore was transferred to the hospital that I worked at in order to undergo bypass surgery. He was installed in a private room on the seventh floor. His spirits were reported to be high by Nina, who visited him daily after school, usually joining her mother there. I had not had opportunity to see him since the night he'd been taken away.
On the Tuesday following his heart attack I had a brief chat with my Dad before I headed off to school.
"Do you think that's a good idea?" He asked me, nearly appalled by what I was suggesting.
"I wouldn't go so far as to call it wise." I agreed. "But it's not dangerous. After all, the man's undergoing a bypass tomorrow. What can it hurt?"
Dad shook his head. "I'll concede to your greater medical knowledge." He told me. He did as I asked.
After work that night I went out to my car and put a few things into a plastic bag. I then went back inside. I rode the elevator up to the seventh floor and headed for the ICU where Jack was being stashed. Visiting hours were soon coming to a close and Nina and her mother had already gone for the night. I was unquestioned as I walked past the nurse's station. The surgical scrubs I wore saw to that.
I entered his room and stood in the doorway for a moment. Jack Blackmore was dressed in a standard hospital gown. IV's were installed in his arm and connected to a pump. Wires snaked from beneath the sheets and his gown and fed to a monitor on the wall above his head. He was sitting in the bed, which he'd adjusted to a chair position, watching a baseball game on the television. He looked over at me as I entered, his eyes taking a moment to realize that I was not just another hospital worker coming in to take his blood pressure or to get him to piss in a jar.
"Bill." He nodded when he recognized me. "How are you?"
"I'm fine." I told him, coming in and closing the door behind me. "How are YOU?"
"Hanging in here." He said as I took a seat. "I never did get a chance to thank you for talking me into going the other night." He lowered his voice a little. "The doc tells me I might've died if I hadn't of come in."
"I was glad to help." I assured him.
"As much as I hate to admit it." He said. "I owe you one."
"Maybe I'll collect someday." I said. "But in the meantime, I brought you something you might like."
"What's that?" He asked.
I reached into my bag and withdrew two dripping, icy cold bottles of beer. Beer that my Dad had bought for me that morning and which had sat in an ice chest in my car all day. It was his favorite brand. His eyes lit up as he saw them.
"I can't drink that." He told me, his voice far from virtuous.
"Sure you can." I said. "You're probably sick of Jell-O and powdered eggs about now. You're probably even sicker of powdered orange juice. Have a brew. You're going in for bypass surgery tomorrow. What can it hurt? Hell, they ought to be feeding you bacon and eggs and greasy tacos tonight. The cholesterol can't hurt you now."
He licked his lips for a moment and then said. "You have a gift for putting things into perspective young man. Give me the beer."
"Better pour it into your cup." I instructed. "If the nurse comes in and sees it, she'll kill me."
He gave me a shrewd look. "We wouldn't want that now, would we?" He asked.
We poured the beer into the little plastic cups that are only found in hospitals and stashed the bottles away.
"To good health." I offered, holding up my cup.
He nodded. "To good health."
We clinked them together, well, not really, plastic doesn't clink, but you get the idea. We drank. The beer was like nectar on my parched throat. It probably tasted even better to Jack Blackmore, who had just faced death in a much different way than he had in World War II.
"Mary tells me that you had a talk with her." He said after the first drink.
I looked at him for a moment and then nodded. "We did." I said.
"Uh huh." He grunted. "She also tells me she invited you into our house."
I swallowed nervously, wondering if Mr. Blackmore was about to veto this decision. If he was about to tell me that he would see me in hell before he saw me in his house. "She did." I said.
"Well," He said, sipping out of his beer again. "I guess I'll have to agree with her then."
It took me a moment for what he said to filter through, so much was I expecting the "see you in hell" speech.
"You agree with her?" I finally asked.
"Young man." He told me. "You alone have caused more turmoil in my household than anything since Bob Simpson himself. I've fought with my wife, my daughter, sometimes both at the same time over the subject of you. That last thing I ever thought I'd do was invite you into my house. But I'm forced to admit that much of the turmoil and arguing that you've caused was because of the preconceived notions that Mary and I had about you. Notions that, like Mary pointed out, are apparently wrong."