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He wasn’t leaving her. He turned the shower off, got her a glass of water and sat on the marble floor beside her. She drank and vomited again, while making a valiant attempt of pushing him away.
“I’m not leaving you.”
She sat back, her eyes wet, her mouth trembling, face pinched with illness. “This is ridiculous. I know how to be sick all by myself. I don’t …”
She would’ve said she didn’t need him, but she leaned forward and threw up again. He sat with her till her stomach stopped rebelling, then helped her stand. She looked exhausted, but she clearly wanted him gone. He found her a toothbrush still in its packet, and paste, and left her.
Back in the bedroom, he contemplated the bed. Hopefully there’d be sheets and bedding somewhere. He found them, but he was too wet to make the bed without getting everything else wet. He went to the wardrobe and while the shower ran he found a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt, and ditched his wet gear in place of them. They were surprisingly tight across his chest and legs.
He’d made up the bed, complete with a heavy silk quilt, when she appeared, swamped in the robe, her hair in a towel.
There was a hairdryer but she looked too tired to be bothered with it. He pointed at a low couch and she sat. He got the dryer, plugged it into the wall behind her and dried her hair. She didn’t protest. She could barely hold her head up.
She stumbled to the bed and lay across it, but he roused her and made her slide under the quilt. He sat on the couch across from her and waited till she slept, then he gathered all their wet things and went downstairs to the laundry to dry them. He used the facilities in the laundry to clean himself up, warm himself up, to shave for the first time in a long while, then he sat at the top of the stairs as she slept, as the storm raged, as night closed them in and slipped into early morning. He was awake still when she called.
The room was dark. No lamps. He went to the window and pulled the curtain open, not much light outside either, but enough of a glow from a streetlamp to see her by. She was sitting up against the padded headboard.
“How do you feel?”
“Better.”
“Can I get you anything?”
She laughed softly. “You got me all this, Patrick.”
Ah, yeah. He wasn’t off the hook yet, in fact he’d opened the whole tackle box by bringing her here.
“We really didn’t break in, did we?”
“No.”
She gestured to the end of the bed. “I can’t see you, come and sit.”
He chose the far corner of the bed and sat. It was an oversized bed, she was a suburb made of fine thread cotton and silk away.
“What’s the deal here? Is this where you came during the sculpture walk?”
He nodded.
“I don’t understand. You have access to this and you stay at the cave.”
“I have access. There are rules.”
“What rules?”
So many, finely constructed, but necessary. “I stay downstairs. There’s a bathroom, the laundry, the entrance area, the garage.”
“But there are beds up here. You don’t sleep in the beds.”
He had a mattress downstairs, it was enough.
She patted the quilt. “Is it a problem, this, me, here?”
“No. It’s fine. And it’s late. You should sleep.”
“I should go.”
“It’s still stormy out there and you’re warm and safe.” He didn’t want her driving in the storm, driving while she felt unwell. “There’s no reason to go.”
