Max picked my dress up off the floor. He folded it perfectly, then smelled it and smiled. “You still wear the same perfume,” he said softly. He passed me the dress, and as I took it, he held my hand. “Of course it has a ‘d,’ Ash.”
“It does?”
He nodded. “Yes. It’s a ‘d.’ ”
Instant relief flooded me. “Good, because if it wasn’t with a ‘d’ then we would not have sex tonight!”
He smiled at me reassuringly. “So totally with a ‘d.’ ”
“Good, good. Because mine are also with a ‘d,’ ” I said quickly. “There is no present tense here at all. All past.”
CHAPTER 48
Max
Only it wasn’t with a “d.” There was no “d” in sight. But she’d clearly needed to hear me say it, because for a moment there she’d looked as if she might have fainted. But I could see the truth, even if she couldn’t right now. There were no “d”s, not for either of us anymore.
There had been a moment last night when I’d put every last drop of feeling into a kiss and called her “baby” and she had looked at me as if she was about to burst with love, just as much as I was bursting with love. I knew that look. I’d seen it every day for four years; it had been imprinted on me.
Or was I being naïve?Was I seeing what I wanted to see? My head was swimming. I was dizzy with these thoughts—I needed to get a grip and ground myself. I tackled some work emails, hoping to push her from my thoughts, and then since I had only been messaging the nurses while away to see how my mom was, I decided to call her directly. The nurse answered immediately and I was surprised to hear that my mom was having a semi-lucid moment. Well, she was at least able to talk and was asking to talk to me.
“Hi, Mom,” I said.
“Son!” My heart thumped at that. It wasn’t often she knew who I was, so when she did it always felt very special. A moment I would cherish when the other moments got too rough.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“I’m at Lake Malawi. I wish you could see it here. You would love it. Sun, blue waters and a beach.”
“Sounds lovely. Maybe you can take me there?”
My heart snapped a little. I would not be bringing her here because she would forget about this conversation in hours. “Definitely! As soon as I get back, you and I should make plans to come here.”
“Who are you there with?”
“I’m here with Ash. You remember her, Mom?”
“Of course I remember her! How can I forget my son’s lovely girlfriend?”
I sat down on the bed and hung my head. She was back in this fantasy, and it was the absolute worst time for it. For me and my roller-coaster emotions anyway.
“How is Ash? And when you do think I’ll be able to call her my future daughter-in-law?” she asked happily.
“She’s good. And probably soon, Mom, soon,” I said, and every fiber of my existence wanted this statement to be true. The phone went silent for a while.
“Mom?” She wasn’t responding. “Hello?”
“Who’s there?” Her voice came through faint and perturbed.
I sighed and my chest constricted. She was gone again.
“Just a friend,” I said. “I have an idea. You should go and visit Lucy.”
“Lucy! That’s a good idea.”
She dropped the phone and was gone, in more ways than one.
I straightened myself up for my day, despite the blow of emotion I’d just been delivered. The manager and I breezed through the discussions. We chatted about daily rental for shoots—one-day versus longer shoots; talked about prices for the entire hotel rental, for those clients of mine who valued privacy above all else; talked about what medical emergency and safety measures were in place, something that was always asked. I declined scuba diving, though, and the canoe ride. I’d seen enough photos of these activities to know what they were about and felt confident about adding them to my website. I already had an idea in mind for this location. A production company with a smaller budget was looking for a place to shoot a film, somewhere tropical. I’d initially looked at what I had in Madagascar and Mauritius, but that had been too expensive. Now I was thinking that Lake Malawi, with its very tropical atmosphere, might definitely be a good substitute.
