The Lost - J. D. Robb [70]
In a lull in the excitement, I had a little cry myself. “It’s natural,” Hettie assured me. “Strong emotion can very often follow a prolonged period of semi- or unconsciousness. It’s relief, confusion, the stress—or nothing at all. You just go ahead and cry.”
Such a nice woman. I did love her. But I wasn’t weeping from relief or stress or confusion; I was weeping for Sonoma.
She gave up her life for me. That was how it felt, although in another sense you could say I gave up my life for me. Some sort of better me. And Monica was almost irrelevant, just a vehicle, you could also say—but then again, trying to save her was the very thing that had restored me to myself, that act. Wasn’t it?
So confusing. Hettie might be right—these tears were just from stress.
No, they were for Sonoma. When she drowned, I lost the best of myself. But I would spend the rest of my life trying to find her again. In me.
Sam saw me before I saw him. Hettie was raising the bed and punching up the pillows when I heard a sound and looked behind her. He stood in the doorway with his arms held out a little from his sides, knees flexed. His face looked tender and dumbstruck, his body poised as if to fly.
“Hey,” said Hettie with a huge smile. “Well, I’ll just finish this up later, won’t I?” I bet she was Sam’s favorite nurse, too. “They’re getting set up to do a lot of tests, so this visit will have to be quick. Plenty of time later, though. Plenty of time.”
She hugged Sam on her way out, but I’m not sure he noticed. He didn’t seem to be able to move. Even when I held out my hand, he only came a step closer. It took my voice to uproot him.
“It’s me, Sam. I’m back. I’ve come back to you.”
Then I had him, tight in my arms, holding me, warm and breathing and alive. My Sam. Both of us laughing, crying, saying, “Thank God,” and “I love you,” and “I missed you,” and things that made sense only to us. We started to kiss everywhere, as if welcoming each other back in pieces. Then we rested, just holding on and breathing together. Then we kissed again.
“Benny?” I said, and Sam said, “He’s here.” And there he was, shy as a fawn, holding Hettie’s hand in the door. But unlike his dad, he came to me on his own.
“Hi, Mom,” he said, comically matter-of-fact; I thought he might shake hands. But something, maybe my tears and gluey-voiced “Oh, Benny!” cracked his bashful shell, and he landed beside me in a bound, all arms and nuzzling head and sharp shoulders. Just under my joy and the intense need to hold him closer, tighter, an odd thought drifted: I can’t smell him. Even when I buried my nose in his hair, I couldn’t completely get that smoky-sweet scent I loved so much. Oh, well. I had Benny.
“You woke up! I knew you would. Daddy said and said, and at first I thought you might not, but then I knew you would.”
“That was clever of you.”
“What were you doing? What were you thinking?”
“Umm . . .”
“Where were you? Did you know when I was here? I came a lot.”
“I did know. Sometimes, anyway.”
“But you couldn’t wake up until now?”
“Not till now.”
“Because it was hard.”
“It was so hard.”
“And your head hurt.”
“Well, at first. But then it didn’t, and I was just sleeping.”
“Could you hear us talking? We did. We talked all the time. Dad . . . Dad, mostly. Sometimes, Mommy.” He mumbled this against my neck. “Sometimes . . . I just played.”
“Oh, but that’s okay—I always knew you were here. I wanted you to just play.”
Exactly the right thing to say, because Benny heaved the deepest sigh and laid his head on my chest, his relief heavy as a winter blanket.
Sam was kissing my hand, each of my fingers. “You’re still wet,” I noticed, patting his damp sleeve. His lifted brows told me he thought that was an odd sentence construction. That was the moment it first hit me: I have a strange story to tell. And this probably wasn’t the time to tell it.
“That’s because we’ve had a bit of an adventure,” Sam began. “We—”
“We went on a picnic and Monica almost drowned! But Dad got her in time