Page 26 of Loving Jake

“I better get going. The driver is probably pulling up now.” She placed her glass in the sink and hurried out of the kitchen.She grabbed her purse and cellphone on the way out, and Jake followed closely behind her.

After the limo driver placed her suitcases in the trunk, he returned to his seat behind the steering wheel, and Jake and Kimberly were left to stand alone on the curb. “I left my itinerary on a piece of paper stuck to the refrigerator, in case you need to track me down and I don’t answer my cellphone because I forgot to charge it.” She knew they were both thinking about the last time she hadn’t answered her cellphone, and he had confronted her in the kitchen. “I think there is enough dog food in the pantry, so Daisy should be all right. I can’t think of anything else, unless I forgot to pay the electric bill. I guess you’ll know when you come home and the lights don’t work.” She smiled hesitantly at him.

“Don’t worry, Daisy and I will be fine.”

More than anything in the world, she wanted him to reach out and pull her into his embrace. She yearned for him to take her lips under his own, to have his arms hold her tightly against him. She searched his eyes, and she swore she saw the pain she experienced reflected in his face. She waited for him to make a move toward her, and when he didn’t, the agony of his rejection shot through her like a jolt to her soul.

“Text me when you arrive so I know you made it okay?” he asked her after a lengthy silence, even though he had to know she wouldn’t do it. Any communication, even to ask for updates on Daisy’s welfare, would be too much for her. He had broken her heart last night and had reinforced the break again by his indifference this morning. No, she wouldn’t be texting him from Paris.

“Sure.” She forced herself to smile at him. “I, ah, better get going, the driver is waiting,” she pointed out with a nod of her head in the direction of the limo’s front seat.

“Yeah. Well, take care of yourself.”

He had to know he was a fool for allowing their relationship to deteriorate to this point, but he couldn’t see it any other way, and he refused to listen to her. There was nothing else for her to do but leave. “Yeah, I’ll see you.” She pressed her lips into a tiny smile and turned away. She allowed him to open the car door for her, and she murmured her gratitude, as he closed it once she was inside. She knew he expected her to roll down the window and wave goodbye, but she couldn’t. Instead she faced forward and alerted the driver that she was ready. As the driver shifted the car into gear, she forced herself to refrain from looking out of the side window. Relief poured through her when she felt the car pull away from the curb, and she was finally able to release the tears she had held until now.

Jake stoodon the sidewalk and stared in the direction of the limo long after it disappeared from sight. Maybe her leaving wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all. They both needed time apart from each other, and two weeks was a starting point. Hopefully, Kimberly would use the time to realize that it would have never worked between them. She would come to the same realization he had at George’s party. Children were a vital and important part of her life, one she wouldn’t want to miss out on.

As for himself, he could use the time to push aside the feelings of loneliness and despair that engulfed him. He had done it before, and he could do it again. He sighed, sure he could. He kicked a pebble on the sidewalk with his foot. He would give Daisy a bath and then visit his grandfather. “My grandfather might not be doing too well lately, but hell, neither am I,” he muttered to himself. “We make a perfect pair.”

ELEVEN

“Hello, Mr. Taylor,” the nurse greeted him upon his exit from the elevator on his grandfather’s floor.

“Hi.” Jake signed the guest registry, while the nurse updated him on his grandfather’s status.

“He’s been asleep all day again today. The doctor was in to see him this morning, and as before, he says that your grandfather is not in any pain. They’re going to try to switch his medication to see if that makes a difference. His heart is strong, as you know, and everything else seems to be in good working condition. Since he stopped participating in physical therapy, he is too tired to do much else than stay awake for his meals.” The nurse paused while she waited for Jake to finish signing the registry. “Based on the stories he told us when he first arrived, your grandfather has had a good life,” she added with a sympathetic smile.

“Yeah, he has.” He nodded and then handed the nurse her pen and walked away.

Jake stepped into his grandfather’s room, and a wave of sadness overwhelmed him, much as it had over the past week. His strong, ornery grandfather lay listlessly in bed, his onlymovement the rise and fall of his broad chest. His hair lay in thick waves as it had most of his eighty-five years. A thousand tiny wrinkles crisscrossed the old man’s skin, each a reminder of the burning Houston sun he had spent so many years working under.

Jake felt a large lump form in his throat, as he pulled a chair next to his grandfather’s bed. There were so many things he still wanted to tell his grandfather. Grandpa Zack had always been there for him, ready to help him out and lend some advice when he thought Jake needed it. “What am I going to do without you, Gramps?” Jake placed his grandfather’s thin, weathered hand in his own.

He closed his hand over his grandfather’s and willed him to live. For several minutes Jake held Gramps’ hand in silence, unable to put into words what he wanted to say to him.

He pressed his eyes closed and swallowed back the lump in his throat. Finally, he took a deep breath and opened his eyes. “Gramps,” he began in a low voice. “I... I hope you can hear me, because I need to talk to you. Why I’ve saved everything up inside me until now, I can’t say. I only hope that you can forgive me for never telling you sooner.”

“You see, Gramps. You’re the only real parent I’ve ever had. Mom died so long ago that I barely have any memory of her. You’ve been both my mother and father all these years, and I can’t imagine life without you. I mean who else would have encouraged a kid who never played an organized sport in his life to try out for a big city high school football team his first year at a new school? Or loaned me his car so I could go carousing with my friends and then said nothing when I returned it with a dent in the front bumper? Or convinced me to try my hand at journalism, even though you harass me about it now and I know you don’t mean it, when all the other kids went into business ormedicine at college? You, Gramps, you. You’ve always been there for me.”

Jake took another deep breath, that damn lump in his throat just wouldn’t go away. “I know you’ve carried the guilt around about me getting mumps, but it was inevitable. Houston or San Francisco, it wouldn’t have mattered. You had no control over me getting the mumps; nobody did, except my mom, and well, she must have thought she was doing the right thing at the time. Please always believe that, Gramps. I do.” Jake smoothed his thumb over the skin on his grandfather’s palm and was reminded of how hard the thin, wrinkled hand had worked for so many years.

“Gramps, I need to talk to you about Kimberly.” He swiped away a wisp of hair that lay against his grandfather’s forehead, close to his eyes. “I know you would have liked to have seen us get together... but it’s not going to happen. I’ve caught every hint you’ve dropped these past weeks, and it just won’t work. I, I’m not what Kimberly needs. Gramps, you even call me a hippie with my long hair and wandering ways. Kimberly wouldn’t want someone like that. I mean, I’m gone for months at a time, sometimes not even able to get cell reception for days. What kind of a life is that?” He paused, his eyes flickered over his grandfather’s still form.

“Gramps, who am I trying to kid? You know as well as I do why it would never work between Kimberly and me. If you could have seen her face at George’s birthday party, Gramps. Her beautiful brown eyes light up when she holds a baby in her arms. Kids adore her, and she adores them. She deserves better than me. She’s beautiful, she’s intelligent, and she’s witty. She’ll find someone to fill up her heart and forget I ever existed.” Jake leaned his elbows on the edge of his grandfather’s bed railing. He lowered his forehead to his hands, his grandfather’s hand still held tightly in his grasp.

“Gramps, I know what you would say right now and you’re right. I’ve... I’ve fallen in love with her. But don’t you see? Brenda’s rejection nearly destroyed me. A life spent with Kimberly would be a prison sentence for both of us. She claims she loves me, but I would never be completely sure. I’d always wonder if she was happy, if she regretted her decision not to have children. I couldn’t do it, Gramps, not to Kimberly, not to myself,” he choked out, his voice deep and husky with emotion.

Jake sat for several minutes in silence. There was so much more he wanted to say, but he was talked out. Emotionally spent. All other confessions would have to wait for another day. He remained hunched over his grandfather’s bed deep in thought and oblivious to the passing of time. Minutes or perhaps hours later, the door opened, and he brought his head up from the pillow he had created out of his and his grandfather’s hands.

“Excuse me.” The nurse’s voice echoed against the walls of the plain room. “But visiting hours are over, Mr. Taylor, and it’s time for your grandfather’s medicine.” The nurse waited patiently for him to respond, a smile of understanding plastered on her pleasant face.

“Sure. I must have lost track of time.” Jake rose from the side of the bed. He wiped away the excess moisture at the corner of his eyes and then pushed his hair behind his ears.

Jake glanced at the nurse and then back at his grandfather. He bent down over his grandfather and placed a kiss on the old man’s forehead. “I love you, Gramps.” He clenched his grandfather’s hand one last time, and as he did, his heartbeat quickened when he felt his grandfather squeeze his hand back. He turned his head toward the nurse, and she returned his gaze with a small smile on her lips.

Reluctantly, Jake let go of his grandfather’s hand and returned his chair back to the corner of the room. He paused atthe doorway to look at his grandfather one last time, before he walked out of the room.

Jake heldonto the house keys with one hand and the doorknob with the other when his cellphone began to ring. “Hello?” He pushed the door opened and walked into the house.

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