Waking Anastasia (31 page)

A few people were out strolling the boardwalk, but they kept to themselves and he was okay with that. The visual slow bobbing of the craft in their moorings and the subtle sloshing of the harbour waters lulled him into a state of separateness. He knew he wasn’t asleep, but he was also not really aware of the individual details of the world around him. He heard only the water, saw only the swaying of the strings of lights.

How long he sat like that, Jerry had no idea. It had been dark when he claimed his space on the bench, and it was still dark when Ana finally sat down beside him and placed her slender hand on his own. He stirred slowly up from wherever he had been drifting and discovered that he was cold and damp with fresh rain. Lost within the waves and lights, he hadn’t noticed either the temperature or the wet.

“Jerry, you need to get up, get moving. I will wave down a cab for us.”

“No cab. The walk will do me good, warm me up, I guess.”

“But you are wet and shivering. You will catch—”

“What? My death from a cold?” He
was
shivering, too; and somewhere along the line his fingers had acquired a pale blue tint. “It’s not far. We’ll be home soon and I’ll go straight to bed.”

“First you will take a warm bath, then to bed.”

She was right. Even his currently primitive mind could see that. He let her lead him up from the boardwalk to street level, away from the anesthetizing bobbing lights and sloshing harbour. With the fingers of his left hand tightly laced with those of her right, she guided him along the drizzle-dampened streets, and eventually up to the loft. At some point he sensed her undressing him, but she left him alone to remove his boxers and climb into the tub.

Jerry drifted off again, but it couldn’t have been for long because when he awoke, the water in the tub was still hot, a hint of steam drifting up. At some point Ana had taken his damp clothes away and left his folded pyjamas, fluffy robe, and a clean baseball cap on top of the toilet seat cover. He twisted the kinks out of his neck and felt pretty good—much better than he had when Ana found him on the bench. Slowly, he dipped the washcloth in the hot water and washed away the last of the rain dampness. After a vigorous finger-tip-scrubbing of most of his scalp, careful to avoid the small bandage on his head, he rose up from the steam and climbed carefully from the tub. Even the process of drying himself off with the big towel seemed to give him a boost. By the time he was dressed in his goofy fleece pyjamas and cocooned in the robe, he was ready to face the world.

A subtle, sweet scent greeted Jerry when he stepped out of the bathroom. “Chocolate?”

“Hot cocoa.” Ana rose from the couch, a mug in her hand and a worried half-smile on her face.

“Perfection. Just what Dr. Romanova ordered.” He accepted the mug from her and kissed her gently on the lips. “You are a life saver. Thank you.”

“And you are my heart and soul.”

“So, what’s the plan?”

“Drink your cocoa and then bed.”

“Doctor’s orders?”

“Shvibzik’s command, which is much more serious.”

A gentle wave of vertigo bumped into Jerry and he stumbled a half step on the way to the couch. “Change of plans. I’d better take the cocoa straight to bed.” He stumbled in that direction.

“Jerry?” She took his elbow.

“I’ll be okay, once I lie down.”

They reached the bed; he placed the mug on the bedside table, and fell face-first on top of the comforter. Ana was about to call 9-1-1 for help, afraid that he had collapsed, when his snoring cancelled the alarm. She hoisted him up and the rest of the way onto the bed, struggled to maneuver the covers from under him to over him, and once again, climbed in with him, wishing she could pray him to good health.

HALEY HAD ONCE
asked Jerry, back when they lived together in the small apartment in St. Marys, what would be his favourite way to wake up, other than with sex. Jerry’s unhesitating answer was “bacon”. His favourite way to wake up was to the smell of perfectly cooked bacon. When he was a child it was to the smell of toast being made but when someone told him that smelling phantom toast was a sign of having a stroke, he adapted quickly and decided that cooking bacon meant the same thing—that breakfast would be ready soon, and someone else was making it.

On Tuesday morning, when Jerry finally found his way up from a foggy, dream-filled sleep of which he remembered no details whatsoever, it was because a slender tentacle of airborne bacon drew him up and into the word of reality. He heard Ana puttering in the kitchen and Ravi Shankar’s sitar in the background. “That smells great, Shvibzik!” At least, that’s what he tried to call out. Instead, what came out was a soft, slurred moan. Then his face started twitching and both his hands curled into tight fists. His toes clenched, his back arched, and suddenly all he could see was the fluttering of his eyelids.

He shook and twisted and kicked, and he was sure he was going to swallow his tongue or shit himself, but although the seizure went on for another endless four or five seconds, his tongue stayed where it was and his pyjamas remained clean. When he once again got control of his own body, he desperately needed to throw up. With one hand clamped over his mouth, he stumbled for the bathroom, knocking over one of the bar stools and startling Ana into dropping the frying pan she was scrubbing. He heard the clang of steel on steel and her shout of alarm, but he staggered on, his legs protesting that they were still too weak.

With what his father had called the Powell Luck of the Irish, Jerry somehow made it in time, and as the toilet seat lid flew up, what little there was in his stomach spewed out. He retched a second time, but that seemed more to make sure that his body was done expelling than because he was still nauseated.

A slender hand gently squeezed his shoulder, then released it. He heard the tap running next to the toilet and the plastic tumbler being filled. When he finally sat back and opened his eyes, Ana handed him the tumbler. Without a word between them, he took a mouthful of cool water, rinsed, spit the bile aftertaste into the toilet, and then drank the rest of the water in the tumbler, grateful. He handed it back to her and she wrapped him in her arms.

He squeezed her back. “I’m okay. Thank you for not getting all freaky on me.”

“‘All freaky’?” She released him and they got to their feet. He put the lid down on the toilet, flushed, and followed her out of the bathroom and into the living room.

“All weird. Strange. Melodramatic. You reacted, but you didn’t
over
react. Thank you.”

“You needed me. I had no idea of what was happening to you, but you needed me. If you wish, I can get ‘all freaky’ on you after you’ve had breakfast.” She winked at him and moved into the kitchen while he set the stool back on its feet and sat at the kitchen’s island.

“No, I think we can let that lapse go. Do I smell bacon?”

“Yes . . . and no. What you smell is tofu bacon, compliments of Carmella. She said something about ‘nitrates’ in real bacon so you get this delicious ‘facon’. With real eggs and hash browns, which are really potato puffs chopped up and fried.” She placed a glass of grapefruit juice in front of him.

“‘Facon’? Did you just make that up?”

“No sir. I am not that imaginative. When I Googled cooking instructions, the website used that terminology.”

“Ah. It smells lovely, my Sweet, but will it keep for a little bit? After my recent cookie-tossing, I think the juice is about all I can manage, at least for a few minutes.” He took the juice to the couch and settled into it. “I hope you’re not offended. It really does smell wonderful.”

“I promise not to be offended if you tell me why you vomited.”

“I felt nauseated.” Part of him was still trying to process what
had
happened. “I think I had a seizure. One second I smelled facon and the next I was all clenching and writhing on the bed, trying not to swallow my tongue. I don’t know if I threw up because that’s what happens after a seizure or because it scared the crap out of me.”

Ana planted herself next to him, her legs folded up under her, facing him directly. She took his hand in both of hers, lifted it to her face and kissed his palm, tears streaming down her cheeks, fading away once they went into free-fall. He pulled her in and they held each other close until Jerry leaned back.

“You know, that facon smells too good to resist. I’m pretty sure I can handle breakfast now.” He tried to get up off the couch but Ana shoved him back down.

“Sit. Stay. Obey. I will bring breakfast to you.” She strode off to retrieve the prepared plate.

“Now you’re treating me like a dog?”

“You vomited like a cat, so maybe
that
would be most appropriate.”

“Have you ever seen a cat sit, stay, and obey?”

“We only had dogs. Jimmy would sit, stay, roll over, fetch, sneak along the floor like a spy, and dance on his back legs.”

“He was a beagle, right?”

“Yes. He was just a puppy, but he was a very smart puppy.” She placed Jerry’s breakfast on the coffee table in front of him and set the knife, fork, and napkin next to it. “He loved Alexei almost as much as he loved me, but Alexei—Lyoshka—was too weak to hold him, which is why Jimmy was in my arms when we were taken into that basement.” She sat back down, this time giving Jerry a bit of room to eat. “I tried to protect him with my body, but those Bolshevik bastards were determined to not let anything living leave that room that was not part of their damned revolution.”

“I’m sorry.”

“As am I.
Spasibo
. Thank you.”

Jerry ate while Ana leafed through the Popular Science magazine that had arrived in the mail on Monday. The sitar music played on from the laptop, adding an eerie atmosphere to the dark topic still hanging in the air.

Eventually Jerry cleaned the last crumb from the plate and returned it to the kitchen, despite Ana following him and trying to take the plate from his hand while he switched it from hand to hand and around his back, keeping it just out of her reach. She gave up when he kissed her quickly and deposited everything into the sink.

“This is not what I meant about being stubborn, Mr. Powell.”

“Stubborn is as stubborn does, I suppose.”

“Fine. What is your plan of operation for today? What exciting things will we be doing?”

“Today? I promised Manny I’d stay away from the office, but there are some forecasts and plans I have to work on. I emailed the files to myself so I can do that work here, at home. I have to call Mom and Carole at five, and the Palliative Care lady, Elizabeth, wants me to complete that Will Kit she sent home with us. I’m not sure how much fun is in all of that, between telling my family I’m dying to writing down who I want to get what after I do die. This isn’t crap I expected to be doing in my twenties.”

She kissed him on the cheek again and his concern slipped away.

“Was there something you wanted to do, Shvibzik?”

“Since you have asked, I thought it would be absolutely marvellous if you called Dr. Kelly and told him about your seizure.”

“Really? It’s come and gone, over and done.”

“And what if you have another one? Maybe there is a medication that you can take to prevent them.”

“Fine. I’ll add that to the list, somewhere between ‘Work’ and ‘Will’.”

“Thank you.”

“WHAT DID THE
doctor say?” Ana stood with her arms crossed in anger, but her facial expression was all worry and concern.

“He said that working from home today was probably a good decision. He said that it sounds like I had just a minor seizure. If I have another one today and it lasts any longer, that I should come in and we’ll talk about some anti-seizure meds. But if there are no more seizures for a few days, we’ll hold off on the medication because he doesn’t want to start pumping me full of chemicals that aren’t intended to fight the cancer. He also said that throwing up isn’t uncommon and he wanted me to tell you that if I don’t come back out of a seizure within a minute or two, you’re to call 9-1-1.”

“So he was not concerned?”

“Oh no, he was very concerned. But he also knew that sooner or later I was going to start having seizures. He’s going to call Gemma and see if there’s absolutely anything they can do to speed up the planning process. I got the feeling that he already knows the answer is ‘no’, because of the technical limitations, but he was trying to reassure me that he takes this all very seriously.”

“Well, I should certainly hope so.”

“He does.” Jerry hugged her. “We can’t go second-guessing the professionals. I realize that wasn’t always the case back when, um, when . . . when they were treating your brother, but medicine has come light years since then. At least most of it has.” He looked down into her eyes, and was amazed at how much life there was in their sparkle. He kissed the end of her nose and opened his arms. “Now, shall we look at this Will Kit and decide who gets what should all of medical science not be able to put me together again?” Grabbing the kit off the desk, he took it over to the couch.

“It is such a grim thing. Is it
absolyutno neobkhodimo
—absolutely necessary?”