Part 6 (2/2)
She rubbed up and down his spine. This was the part when most people got quiet. But Will kept chatting away. ”To answer your question, I don't know what I could drop. I can't work less, our business is only eight years old, and we have to be aggressive about building relations.h.i.+ps with contractors and customers. I exercise; I visit Yvettte and stay on top of all her health care. That's a full plate right there. Sometimes I think I should just sell the house in Durham and move closer to New Haven, but I love our house, I restored it myself.” He sighed, a big hopeless exhaling.
”Is there any chance Yvettte could be moved to a facility nearer to home?”
”She's at the closest facility already.”
Will was silent for a moment, then said, ”So what do you do to get your gunk out, Monica?”
Monica paused her ma.s.saging for just a few seconds before beginning again, taking a half step back to leverage more strength. ”I fish with my dad. I volunteer at the Mystic Aquarium doing educational projects for kids. I take a ferry out to Martha's Vineyard and spend the weekend. Oh, and I hang out with my boyfriend.”
”And what puts the gunk into into your life?” he asked, his voice m.u.f.fled by a towel Monica had stuffed under his neck. your life?” he asked, his voice m.u.f.fled by a towel Monica had stuffed under his neck.
”Mostly my boyfriend.” She laughed, but her laugh sounded brittle even to herself. She felt something pa.s.s under her hand-a tensing, then releasing. He had been about to say something, then decided not to.
”But you know what?” she said, digging her fist around his deltoids. ”You're here to relax, not to talk about problems.”
”I'm relaxed just talking to you. But okay. I'll shut my trap.”
Over the next fifteen minutes, Monica thought of three things she wanted to ask him, but bit her tongue. Will was finally silent, and although she was itching to learn more about him, the ideal environment for him to reap the full impact of her hard work was silence. Monica could tell that he was, as she called it, ”gelling down.” He was relaxing, releasing endorphins, a mild euphoria setting into his muscles. His thoughts were wandering freely. Soon he would start to feel sleepy.
Next, Monica got to work on his feet. She squirted warm cream on one hand and kneaded, rubbed, and pulled his toes so they made little snapping sounds. In a moment, she heard his heavy breathing; a few moments later, light snoring.
She always stopped at this stage, because what was the point of ma.s.saging someone who was asleep? She would let him sleep for twenty minutes, then wake him up and finish the ma.s.sage. She moved about quietly, washed her hands, and went into the kitchen to get something to drink. Then, she stepped out to the deck, laced her fingers together, and did some quick stretches. She breathed in the muggy air, and even though it was sticky and uncomfortable, she decided to stay outside a few minutes.
She looked at her watch. Kevin wasn't due to take her out to dinner for another hour and a half. Plenty of time. Thursday and Sat.u.r.day were their date nights, and Kevin was rigid about that because he watched his favorite TV shows on Mondays and Wednesdays. Tuesday and Friday nights he worked out at the gym and Monica gave ma.s.sages at home.
When the twenty minutes were up, she stepped back into the house, relieved to return to the air-conditioning. Will was still asleep, facedown. She opened a wood armoire and searched for a livelier CD. She popped in a collection of flamenco ballads and lowered the volume. Her intention was to raise the volume slowly, so as not to startle him.
Monica heard a soft clicking sound behind her. She turned around to see Kevin, in s.h.i.+rt and tie, appear in the hallway, jacket tossed over one arm. In his other hand was his laptop computer bag. The hallway was carpeted, so he had not made any noise as he came in. Monica held her index finger up to her lips to hush him. But something caught his eye and he looked away for a second or two and did not see her. He stepped into the living room, his work shoes clicking on the hardwood floor as he said, in a loud, irritated voice, ”Who the h.e.l.l is parked in my spot?” As he spoke, he turned slightly to toss a handful of keys into a nearby ceramic bowl. The keys made a loud jangling noise.
Will's lids peeled open and he sat up, fists raised, muscles flexed, his face registering a wild confusion. Startled, Kevin jumped back, letting go of his computer bag to hold his hands out in front of him. The bag landed with a loud crash on his foot.
Monica sprang to Will's side and put her hand on his arm. ”Easy, easy,” she said. ”I was ma.s.saging you and you fell asleep.”
Will shook his head and dropped back onto the table, flopping one hand over his eyes.
”I'm so sorry,” Monica said. ”I didn't expect him for another hour or so.” She shot Kevin a look. ”Thanks, Kevin. All that work for nothing.”
Will sat up again and leaned on one elbow. ”Are you kidding? You were great.”
At those last three words, Kevin turned and eyed Will's muscular upper body. A little frown line appeared between his eyebrows.
Will stepped off the ma.s.sage table and offered his palm to Kevin. ”Instincts, man. I didn't know where I was. I'm sorry.” Kevin accepted the handshake, but his face was bright red.
”Is your foot all right?” Monica said, pointing to Kevin's foot. ”That had to hurt.”
”I'm fine,” Kevin mumbled, motioning dismissively with his hand and limping up over to the stairs, where he took his shoe off and rubbed the toes inside his black sock.
After Will changed back into his clothes, Monica walked him out to his car. He gave her sixty dollars for the ma.s.sage. Monica refused the money and apologized three times, and each time he repeated that the fright hadn't ruined his ma.s.sage and pressed the bills into her hand.
”I really like your dad,” Will said, changing the subject. ”We've met three times already. I imagine he told you he's considering going down to Clinica Caracol to do some nosing around.”
”What did you say?” Monica stopped.
”He wants to write an article about brain-”
”I know that part. The name of the clinic is Caracol?”
”Yeah, the word for 'seash.e.l.l' in Spanish.”
”I know what it means,” she said. ”Caracol was the name of the beach house I grew up in. My dad didn't mention that detail.”
”He said your mom was searching for a miracle snail up until the time she died. No wonder he's so interested.”
Monica raised an eyebrow at Will. ”Really? He talked to you about my mom?”
”Not really. I'll stop by to see you at the office one of these days. Yvette is vocalizing, moving a little, doing some things out of the blue. Dr. Bauer is retesting.”
”That's great news.”
Will shrugged. ”The human body does a lot of things on a completely involuntary basis. Some activities can be misinterpreted as reactive when they're not. Yvette's 'crying' turned out to be the result of eye irritation. Some of the early signs that we saw-yawning and the opening and closing of the eyes-is a circadian rhythm directed in the brain stem and isn't one of the upper-cortex functions we're looking for. Same goes for the noises. They appear to be just noises, rather than attempts to communicate. The challenge is to determine if a specific activity is deliberate.”
Monica blinked. ”Sounds like a h.e.l.l of a roller-coaster ride, Will.”
Will opened the driver's door to his truck and leaned against the open door. He examined his key ring as he spoke. ”After we pa.s.sed the one-year mark, I chose not to let it be a roller-coaster ride. Call it logic, call it pessimism, call it a self-defense mechanism, call it by any name. When it comes to brain injury, time is your enemy. The longer you're out”-he pointed to his temple-”the slimmer your chances of coming back. Once a person's been vegetative for a year, the outcome has already shown itself. What is five percent improvement? Ten percent, twenty? What does it mean if a year from now Yvette can complete a toddler's puzzle? In ten years, she might be able to complete a slightly more difficult puzzle and say six words.” His voice trailed off at the end of the last sentence, and his face flushed. The keys fell out of his hand and Monica bent down to retrieve them and handed them to him without looking into his eyes, which she wasn't brave enough to do.
”Then maybe this El Salvador thing is worth looking into, Will. If Yvette already has very little to lose in terms of mental ability ...,” Monica offered, daring to catch a peek of his face. ”If you say there's very little hope ...”
Will looked up toward the tops of the spa.r.s.e pine trees that separated the cottage from the neighbor's. ”Trust me-n.o.body's taking Yvette to El Salvador. I think it's great to become educated on what's being tested, maybe maybe considering partic.i.p.ation in a very well-controlled study at a highly reputable inst.i.tution like Yale. But we're not sending my Yvette to El Salvador to partic.i.p.ate in some wild experiment. That's just irresponsible, doing something to appease ourselves rather than doing what's safest for her.” considering partic.i.p.ation in a very well-controlled study at a highly reputable inst.i.tution like Yale. But we're not sending my Yvette to El Salvador to partic.i.p.ate in some wild experiment. That's just irresponsible, doing something to appease ourselves rather than doing what's safest for her.”
Suddenly, the tension in his face vanished, and he smiled while he was still looking up at the sky. ”Hey, look, a full moon. That explains why I almost attacked your boyfriend.”
Monica looked up, then hung her head. ”I'd managed to forget the incident for a moment or two.”
Will smiled weakly and leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. ”Now I get to look forward to another ma.s.sage.”
She watched him get into his truck and pull out of her driveway. He stuck one arm out the window and waved. As he pulled away, Monica was surprised to see a golden retriever standing in the bed of the pickup. She waved back and the dog offered a few happy barks.
As her hand cupped the faintest pocket of wind coming off the water, it recalled the smooth grain of his skin across the palms of her hands. She looked up at the full, silver moon. Her awareness of it was like a tip, a bonus he had generously left behind. She tried to remember the first time she had ever touched Kevin's skin, and how it felt, but couldn't.
Monica thought about Yvette and felt ashamed that she felt attracted to Will. But it was no sin, as long as she didn't act on it or nurture it in any way. There was not a single good reason to contemplate this little crush longer than the full phase of the moon. Alma's mantra rang though her head: Can he change the world? Deliver justice? Can he save what's precious? Can he bring exceptional beauty to the world, or at the very least, relief of pain? If the answer is no, then move on.
No, Will wasn't curing cancer, saving whales, or sentencing criminals. But he was restoring the historical properties of Connecticut, which perhaps counted as bringing exceptional beauty to the world. Still, it was a stretch, as it was for most mortals. As if love were a board game, she thought. You love a doctor, a judge, or an environmental biologist; you pa.s.s go and collect two hundred dollars. If you love a postman, a construction worker, or a man who owns a fruit stand ... shame on you for squandering your love. Go directly to jail.
That night, Kevin and Monica spoke little over dinner. Kevin's mood was spoiled, and although he was normally not one to hold a grudge, the incident with Will really seemed to rattle him. During the drive home he said, ”Besides your dad, Adam, and me, I want you to consider having a clientele of females only. You know, for safety reasons.”
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