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“You are voluptuous. There’s a difference.”
“And I intend to stay that way. So since I’m not gonna skinny down, you’re gonna have to chub up.” She winked at him, and he forced a smile he didn’t feel.
He wasn’t going to gain any weight, and he probably wasn’t going to be able to do this fabulous meal of hers justice. The symptoms of the end didn’t come on until things were about to get very bad, very fast, or so his doctors had told him. And they had begun. He was nearly out of time, then. But he was sure as hell going to try to make it through the holiday.
He sawed off a piece of steak, so tender he didn’t really even need the knife. Vidalia picked up a remote, thumbed a button, and soft romantic holiday music came on. She leaned against him a little, then sat up and dug into her own meal.
He surprised himself with how much he managed to tuck away, but had to plead for mercy where dessert was concerned. She agreed to put it off until later, then excused herself to use the restroom.
He took the opportunity to clear away their dishes, rinse them and load them into the dishwasher. When she came back, he took his turn freshening up. He’d even brought along a toothbrush, that was how hopeful he was that there would be some making out going on tonight. The kind that would make a teenager blush.
If he could hold up. He was tired. Weaker than normal. It wasn’t a good sign.
When he returned to the living room, he held out a hand instead of joining her on the couch. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet and then right up against him, and he started moving her around to the music.Merry Christmas, Babywasn’t the easiest to dance to, but he thought they did a pretty good job. God, she felt so good against his chest. And her hair smelled good, too.
She looked up at him, smiling. “I thought maybe I could give you your Christmas present tonight,” she whispered.
“I’ve got no objections.”
“It’s got two parts to it.” She snuggled her head onto his chest. He closed his eyes and hoped the next song would be just as slow and mellow. So far, they all had been. Maybe she’d planned it that way.
“I didn’t see anything under the tree.”
“Well, it’s not the kind of gift you can wrap,” she said, very softly. And maybe her voice trembled a little bit. “You’ll get one of those tomorrow.”
“This is getting mighty interesting now,” he said. “Go on...?”
“Well, the first part of it is this.” She lifted up her head, and looked right up into his eyes. “I love you, too.”
Everything in his life lit up.Shelit up. She glowed momentarily with backlighting that seemed to be a mixture of gold and red and white around the outside. He stared down at her, blinking in blatant disbelief.
“I think I’ve always loved you. And I have no doubt that I always will.”
He opened his mouth to tell her how much that meant to him. How long he’d been waiting, how much he’d been hoping, and how sorry he was that their time together would have to be so brief.
But he found he couldn’t speak. Something odd was happening and he felt like he wasn’t in control of his body anymore. He thought the music had changed. It sounded like a choir of about a thousand voices, all singing different notes, but in perfect harmony, no words, just that tone. And the room around Vidalia had sort of vanished. There was only her, all lit up like the angel on top of the tree, looking up at him, and saying, “Bobby Joe? Honey, can you hear me?”
“You love me,” he said. And smiled. That smile stayed in place, even when his eyes fell closed and his body fell off him, just as if he’d stepped out of it. As if it was a suit of clothes, just falling bonelessly to the floor, while he remained up above.
But then Vidalia fell to the floor too, bending over that discarded suit and shaking it, and calling his name, and starting to cry.
“I’m not there. I’m up here,” he tried to say, and he noticed the body on the floor. The way the mouth moved when he tried to speak, and that was when it hit him that he had left his body.
Was this it, then? Was he dead? No, not yet! Please, not yet! The ring, he had to give her the ring. He stared down at the body on the floor, willed the hand to move, strained every part of whatever he was now, and by gosh, it worked. That hand moved. It didn’t feel like he was moving it directly. More like he was the puppeteer, pulling the strings.
Vidalia crawled away from him, but only a few feet, grabbing a phone, then hurrying back again. She dialed, spoke rapidly, and clicked off while he could still hear the operator telling her to stay on the line. Her second call was to one of her daughters. He didn’t know which one. He heard her say, “Call your sisters. Call his sons. Meet us at the hospital. It’s bad, I just know it.”
She dropped the phone, bending over his body, close to his face. “Bobby Joe, dammit, I knew something was wrong. You should’ve told me. Come on, don’t give up. Hang on for me, will you?”
He wanted to nod, but every asset was focused on moving the hand. He closed it around the box in his pocket. He couldn’t feel the box with his hand, he could just tell that there was something between the fingers and the palm, and he willed them to squeeze hold of it as he tried to tug the hand back out.
Frowning, she looked down, apparently feeling the movement.
She took his wrist, gently pulling his hand from his pocket. Yes, finally! He relaxed the hand open, letting go of all that effort and floating more easily and lightly above his body. The little box fell out of that pale, lifeless hand that did not feel like his own, rolling onto the carpet, and Vidalia gasped softly. “Oh, Bobby Joe, you didn’t....”
He wanted to watch her open it, to see her expression when she did, but there was noise out front. Time sure had passed quickly, or someone had been close by.
“Mama!”
