Mrs. Blackmore swallowed nervously and then reluctantly looked at me. "She's right." She finally said. "You did save him. We owe you our thanks."
"I did what any decent person would do." I told her, emphasizing the word "decent". "I'm glad he's going to be all right and I was glad to help."
She nodded and an uncomfortable silence followed.
"So." I said at last, breaking it. "Why don't we see if they'll let you two visit him for a bit? You're probably anxious to do that."
Only one visitor at a time was allowed in the recovery room. It was a rule the staff was very firm about despite my attempts at intervention using my adult voice. Finally Mrs. Blackmore went in, leaving Nina and I alone in the waiting room. We sat together and I put my arm around her. She rested her head on my shoulder, yawning with weariness.
"Sorry we couldn't go to the movie tonight." She told me.
"Understandable." I assured her, stroking her hair.
A minute went by. Finally Nina asked, "Bill?"
"Yeah?"
"How did you know Daddy was having a heart attack?"
I had been afraid of this question, though I knew it was coming. I didn't enjoy lying to her.
"I read a lot of medical texts." I told her. "It's kind of a hobby of mine. I thought about being a paramedic once so I went through their textbook and studied it. Your Dad was having textbook symptoms of a heart attack and he was displaying the common response to it. Denial. When I felt his pulse and noticed the missing beats I was sure. That's another textbook symptom."
"You knew all this from reading a textbook?" She asked, her tone unreadable.
"Yes Nina." I said. "I have a good memory for written words."
"I see." She said softly. And she said no more about it.
We sat and talked softly for more than fifteen minutes, me continuing to hold her and stroke her hair. A slight cough interrupted us and we both looked up to find Mrs. Blackmore looking at us, taking in the manner in which we were seated.
"Hi Mom." Nina said, somewhat embarrassed. She broke free of me and sat up.
"How's Daddy doing?"
She walked over slowly. "He's a little groggy from the medicine they gave him but otherwise he's okay. They're going to take him up to his room soon.
We won't be able to visit him anymore until tomorrow. Why don't you go in and talk to him real quick?"
"Okay." She nodded, standing. "I'll be back in a little bit."
She left the room leaving me alone with her mother. We looked at each other for a moment and finally she took a seat next to me. She sat stiffly upright.
"You didn't have to stay you know." She told me.
"I wanted to." I told her. "Besides, how else are you going to get home? You know how much a cab ride would be from here?"
"We could've handled it." She answered.
"Like I said Mrs. Blackmore." I replied. "I WANTED to stay."
Another uncomfortable silence developed. There was so much I wanted to say to this woman next to me, so much I wanted to explain, but this was not the time. Not when her husband, a man I knew she loved deeply, was in a hospital room after nearly dying.
But Mrs. Blackmore apparently DID want to talk about it.
"You're a very strange young man." She said, not looking at me.
I nodded. "I've been accused of that." I agreed.
"I like to think that I've got you figured out." She said. "That I know exactly what you're like, how you'll act, what you'll do. I tried to tell Nina this when she started seeing you again. But she didn't listen to me, wouldn't hear a word of it. I tried to tell myself that it was teenaged rebellion, that she knew I was right but that she wouldn't listen because she thought she was in love with you and because her Mom was telling her these things."
"But?" I prompted, looking over at her.
"But now I'm forced to wonder if maybe I was the one who was wrong all this time." She admitted.
"Really?"
"Really." She sighed. "You see, I've been waiting all of this time for you to toss my daughter aside like an old shoe. That's what people like you do I told myself. You get them to fall in love with you and then, once you get what you want a few times, you get rid of them. I have speeches all memorized for the day that you finally do that; speeches I'll recite to her as I'm holding her while she cries. I'll tell her that someday she'll find someone who REALLY loves her for herself, not for her body. I'll tell her about how I found a man like that and how he came back to me even though I made a horrid mistake once. I'm well prepared for the day when you finally show Nina that you are nothing but slime." She stared over at me, her eyes softening. "But that's not going to happen, is it?"
I shook my head. "No, it's not." I said. "I love your daughter Mrs. Blackmore. I love her with all of my heart. I love her the way Mr. Blackmore loves you. I plan to be with her for the rest of my life."
She nodded softly. "You know something?" She asked. "I've known that for a while. I don't know what you and Jack talked about the day he went over to your house, he wouldn't tell me, but I was dumbfounded when he said that he was going to allow you and Nina to see each other. I was absolutely in shock. We fought bitterly over it but finally he convinced me that I was simply going to have to let Nina run this relationship out for better or for worse. And he was right about that. You can't control a seventeen-year-old girl if she doesn't want to be controlled. I didn't like it, but I had to accept it. That's when I started waiting for Nina to come home crying again. Every time she went out with you I thought that this would be the time. You were finally going to get what you were after and toss her aside.
But every time she came home she wasn't crying. She always seemed deliriously happy in fact.
"I told myself that her happiness was simply part of your plan. I myself know intimately what it feels like to think you're in love with someone such as yourself. You are happy during that period. That's what makes it hurt so badly when the happiness is taken away. These last two months Nina has been positively glowing whenever she came back from a visit with you. And I just told myself you were picking her up further and further before you dropped her. I knew you were going to do it. I simply knew."
"Do you know why I feel this way?" She asked me pointedly.
I wasn't sure how to answer that one. I hesitated.
"Jack told you about Bob Simpson, didn't he?" She said.
This question put me on even shakier ground. "Uh…"
She nodded knowingly. "He did, didn't he? I can see it in your eyes. I suspected as much."
"Look, Mrs. Blackmore…" I started.
"Call me Mary." She said. "I think you and I need to be on a first name basis, don't you?"
This really threw me off guard. Call her Mary?
"Bill." She went on. "You know about Bob Simpson, right?"
I nodded. "Yes." I answered.
"I appreciate your honesty." She said. "I don't how you got Jack to tell you that story, especially since he hated your guts, but somehow you did. This should offend me. I should go in there and beat the hell out of Jack for telling you such a personal thing. But strangely, it doesn't bother me.
I'm glad you know about it in fact. It makes this talk a little easier."
"Okay." I agreed.
"Bob Simpson left a scar on me that remains to this day. He took away something that was precious to me and precious to Jack. I'm not talking about my virginity, although that's a part of it, I'm talking about something in here." She pointed to her chest. "And in here." She pointed to her head. "He used me like a man would use a dirty book and he threw me in the garbage like a man would when he's used that book enough. He took away more than five years of what should have been happiness with Jack. To this day I still remember how I felt when I realized that I'd sent that letter to him and that I'd lost him. To this day I still get down on my knees and thank God that Jack was strong enough and loved me enough to take me back after that. What Jack did was unheard of back then. Most men today, even in these liberated times, wouldn't do what he did. My point is that Bob Simpson was the lowest form of life on this earth. And though I share a good portion of the blame for what happened, it was Bob that deserves most of it. He took advantage of me when I was little more than a girl, when I didn't know what I wanted in life yet. He made me think I knew what I wanted. Do you see?"