DUM SPIRO, SPERO
Part 43
 

"She is intelligent. She will not do wrong."

"Antigone," Translation by Richard Emil Braun. Line 1446. Used without permission.
 

BYERS:

This is not exactly an optimal time, but we need to meet with our wedding planner, and we need to do it now, even if it is less than 24 hours before we have to move.

I hope this visit is quick and painless.

I finish work-a day of too many meetings, too many students, too many problems-and I have no desire to do anything but to slide on to the sofa, have a Tanqueray and tonic, followed by a delicious and quiet meal, and then spend the balance of the evening cuddling with Juliet and watching terrible television.

This is not going to happen.

As usual, extricating oneself from DC on a Friday evening is a miserable task. If I had half a functioning brain, I'd have asked Juliet to meet me in the city, as Nicole our Wacky Wedding Planner is located there.

But I wanted to be with her, and go there together, even if it meant a longer drive.

Juliet's been packing all day. Most of the apartment has been reduced to packing boxes at this point. Our bed tonight will be simply the mattress; we've disassembled everything that conceivably can be.

This is more a suggestion of my own compulsiveness than of necessity. We hired professionals for this task, who would have been more than capable of wrapping dishes and disassembling furniture. But habit forces Juliet and me to do otherwise.

She looks tired but wonderful when I meet her at the apartment. Clad in jeans and a tank top, she looks...

Wonderfully sexy.

Not that it takes much to send our glands into overdrive these days. Since last weekend, the both of us have been hopelessly horny. It's a wonder we've gotten anything done this week, since our only desire seems to be to rip off each other's clothes, go to our bed, and make babies.

I wonder if it's happened yet. God knows we've done it enough times this week...and I want more.

Maybe it's the weather cooling...maybe it's the excitement of moving into our home and getting married...

Maybe she is expecting as we speak.

She's luminescent. Her cheeks are alive with color, her mouth is full, her eyes glimmer. She's never looked so alive to me.

Or maybe I just never noticed. I wouldn't put it past me.

She spins about and grabs me as I enter, and starts to unknot my tie, a gesture I find totally possessive and strangely seductive. She then begins to unhook the buttons of my shirt, and kissing the skin of my chest that is revealed as she does her handiwork.

We're disgusting, I know.

I love it.

The suit jacket falls to the floor in a grey worsted puddle. The great thing about worsted is, you hang it up and the wrinkles fall out.

Not that it would cause me a great deal of concern if the wrinkles were to become permanent at this point.

She works her fingers around to my waistband and extricates my shirt tails, pulling them gently out and running her nails up my back.

I'm already aroused, completely. My hands snake inside her tank top and I discover that...

She's braless.

The little minx. Now she's created a monster.

At least a monster erection, which is demanding appeasement.

Most of my clothes have vanished by now, as if by magic, and all that's left are her jeans and her panties, which I slide off her as we plunge our tongues into each others' in a deep-mouth kiss. My left hand reaches gently for the V between her thighs, and I'm treated to wet, warm curls. I slide two fingers into her, and as I listen to her gasp and sigh, I feel myself hardening more and more and more...

I want her.

In spite of pressure and aggravation and exhaustion and responsibilities and concerns, I've managed to become reduced to a biological organism that needs nothing more and nothing less than to touch, to be touched, to join, to reproduce.

And it's the most blissful feeling I can think of. In this moment, all cares vanish. There is only heat and light and love and tenderness.

And I'm starting to get the strange feeling there may be three of us here, not two...

Baby Byers, if you're in there, welcome, and enjoy.
 

She's pressed her back into my front, I feel her heat rising into mine, I can barely breathe...

If I have to be asphyxiated, this is the way I want to go.

I lower her to her knees, leaning her gently against the sofa. The sweet curve of her bottom is tantalizing me, agonizingly, blissfully.

I lower myself into her, and soon it's impossible to tell whose moans and cries are whose. And it doesn't matter.

It's us, not her, not me, but us. A whole body unto itself.

I come furiously, as does she. The vibration is so intense, the colors splotches of deep blue and flaming white...my desire for her is so intense, I don't want to leave her body. I want to keep coming and coming and coming until I pass out.

She screams my name, and I feel myself release again. I've never done this before...and it's so intense it aches.

And that, my friends, is what passes for a quickie at Chez Byers these days.
 

Thank God the traffic has lightened. We're going to be late as it is...

And I'm smiling the entire way.

As it turns out, had we been on time, we would have had to wait. Nicole, coughing her lungs out and sniffling, greets us at the entry way to the office with keys in hand.

"Sorry," she wheezes. "Hope I didn't keep you waiting long."

"We just got here," Juliet says, and winks.

"I see." Nicole's smile says, I know what you've been up to.

Women can do that. It never ceases to amaze me. Linguists, psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists have studied men's and women's language extensively...

And I can only conclude, males are indeed the inferior half of the species.

"C'mon in. Sorry for the mess, just getting over pneumonia." Nicole coughs between words. "But I got it done from bed. You're in good shape."

I'm wondering what a woman with pneumonia was doing trying to shape an event while lying in bed, when she should be recovering...

On the other hand, it's nice not to have to worry.

"Care for something to drink?" She asks. "You can have anything you want-"

"So long as it's Diet Coke," Juliet finishes, and they both laugh.

Nicole produces three cold Diet Cokes from her dorm fridge, and we imbibe.

Fact is, I hate Diet Coke...but I'm so damn thirsty from my encounter with Juliet, I'd probably drink Windex right now.

"Okay, here it is. Seasonal flowers for the table, all in bright autumn colors, got a great deal on asters and chrysanthemums. White linen tableclothes, rust colored napkins. That okay?"

"Sounds great." Juliet nods in assent.

Right now, I couldn't care less...

I'm ready to go again.

"Round tables except the head table, gold and crimson candles throughout the room."

"That works," Juliet's doing all the talking here. Me, I'm just noticing that she didn't put her bra on - again.

That woman is going to kill me...but what a way to go.

"And the food-now this is a bit strange, but I actually had a caterer call me. Said she was a friend of yours. You know a woman named Genie, no last name given?"

"We know Genie." This time, I speak.

"I was a little suspicious of her, until I made some calls...and the menu and quote she faxed in were eminently delicious-and reasonable. She's got the following: Chicken Kiev, twice-baked potatoes with garlic and chives, baby vegetables with herbs, ten-grain rolls and sweet butter, melon and berry compote, salad with butter lettuce, arugula and raspberry vinaigrette, and for dessert, Ben and Jerry's ice cream, vanilla, with chocolate sauce on the side, and a five-tier cake in Death by Chocolate...my kind of cake."

She remembered. "I'm going to have to keep this woman on my Rolodex. My mouth is watering just reading her fax."

"We have some guests that don't eat meat," Juliet reminded her gently.

"And for the vegetarians, she indicates that walnut-stuffed squash will be available," Nicole doesn't miss a beat.

"That's amazing." Juliet's eyes are wide and shiny.

Well, Genie said she knew what we would like...

I don't think we could have decided better ourselves.

"Arrangements for the church in the same florals as at the reception, bouquets for the bridesmaids likewise, rust-colored and gold ribbon. For you, of course, white lilies, stephanotis, and baby's breath." Juliet nods and indicates that she's pleased. "You've indicated that you have a formal dress."

"I do." She grins wickedly.

I haven't seen the dress. It's at Caroline's house in Ohio...she'll be bringing it a few days before the wedding, just in case it requires alteration.

How much weight do women gain in the first month of pregnancy? I'll have to look that up.

Nicole coughs for about five minutes solid.

"You should really be home in bed," I remind her.

"Honey, I've been in bed. I've been in bed so long I'm climbing the walls. Glad you guys wanted to come out so I had an excuse to get out of the house for a while."

"And what do we owe you?" It's time to settle the account. I have my checkbook at the ready.

"You paid me already," Nicole says, looking confused.

"No, I didn't." I would have known had I paid her. This is a check that would have a comma and numerous zeroes in it. I don't think I would have overlooked that.

"You did. I received a draft two days ago."

"You couldn't possibly have," I am baffled totally.

"Aren't you J.A. Byers?"

"No, I'm J.F...."

All of a sudden, it dawns on me...

The sonofabitch.

I'll be damned.
 

MARTHA:

I'd really hoped to get home sooner, but we end up talking with-and placating-Leslie for a long period of time.

And I thought the son was a piece of work. Compared to the daughter, he's an angel.

This woman-if you want to call her that-is a total bitch. She's obviously intelligent, but she has even less manners than her brother.

Maybe it's a northern thing. Sorry, I was raised in the South, and you don't talk to folks like that. It doesn't matter who they are. You just don't do it.

I notice that her younger brother clings tightly to his fiancee, but doesn't share the good news with her. I think they want to shout it from the rooftops-you can see them both chomping at the bit-but without the benefit of Dad knowing, they're not willing to go for full disclosure. And I admire that about them.

For all the fights I had with my mom and dad, I always loved them and treated them with respect, and it pleases me that his son has chosen to do the same. It makes me feel more positive, at least about the son.

And the fact that he confided in me didn't hurt, either.

Leslie appears to not be the most stable person I've ever stumbled across. She's hardly TFU-that's a technical term in medicine, standing for 'totally fucked up.' We put it on the charts of patients who come to us hysterical, incoherent, or both.

And you thought medical terminology was indecipherable.

It's not. Only the handwriting is.

I go on at some length, explaining her father's conditions and the procedures he's undergone. As a graduate student in psychology-why do all the screwed-up ones go into psychology?-she's familiar with a great deal of medical terminology and some of the procedures. And to my luck, it's a language she can connect with.

The more I explain, the less belligerent she becomes-and the more tearful.

She's angry at her brother for not informing her.

Sorry, I maintain he did the right thing. She's obviously had poor relations with her father in the past. I hardly think this is the optimal time or reason for her to attempt to establish a rapport with him.

But she's here now, and I think it would be in poor form to send her back, in spite of the fact that I feel, in my best clinical judgment, she should not be here.

And perhaps she'll heed my words to her.

By the time I outline his condition at outset, the complications, the procedures performed, medications administered, testing done, and my plan for recovery and resumption of normal activities, she's quiet, even docile.

I think she'll behave.

But she's going to have to do more than that to overcome my initial impression of her.
 

The house in Baltimore is strange to me. I almost don't recognize it without the hospital bed and equipment in the living room. Almost as if we had never been there, never gone through what we did...

Do I miss Daniel?

I miss the Daniel that was mine. Absolutely.

But do I miss the shell of a person that inhabited this room for so long?

No.

And I don't think he would, either.

I've hardly been here in recent history. It's as if I've walked into a place that is supposed to be mine-yet I hardly recognize it, let alone feel at home in it.

I worried for so long about whether or not I would be able to keep this place.

Now, all of a sudden, as if by magic, I have no worries about that.

The question is, do I want to keep it?
 

This question keeps me awake for many hours.

What do I want to do?

Obviously, I'm not going to move in with Mel...even if he were to ask me, would I accept that?

I don't think I'm ready to do that.

Still, I work in DC...and I'm weary of the commute from Baltimore to DC.

And he lives in northern Virginia.

No, I should move. Start over.

I'll get an apartment in DC, I think.
 

I shake my head at myself.

What am I doing here?

I'm in love with a man who has numerous health problems, and they're not trivial. Didn't I just nurse Daniel into his grave?

Why would I want to do this again?

And the children. I'm so grateful they're not minors.

But they're obviously still deeply in need of attention from Daddy. And that's something I'm going to have to live with if I'm to be with him.

If he would have me.

His son seems to feel, and has told me, that he feels his father feels for me as I do for him. But Mel has not offered up this information wholesale.

Still, there have been little glances, hints, allusions. And it's enough to give me hope.

As if I were a giddy teenager.

Martha, you WERE a giddy teenager when you fell in love first.

And it did last. And you did love him. And you made it work.

By anybody's definition, it was a successful marriage.

I think about what my father will say when he discovers that I've fallen in love again...

With an aging veteran in poor health, with no money, and two adult children who are struggling.

I can just imagine what he'll say.

Not that it will keep me awake nights. His comments notwithstanding, one thing my father did raise me to do was to know my own mind and to follow my own instincts.

And my instincts tell me: in spite of all the indicators, this is right.
 

LANGLY:

I'm real happy to be home. I just want to drop and forget that this week ever existed.

Ally's got dinner ready, probably had it ready. She says the kiddies ate, but she waited for me.

I'm glad she did...but I'm so bummed and so tired and so sick, I can't even talk.

She asks me, do I want my dinner in bed?

I think I do.

I grab the bottle of Jose on the way in, and two shotglasses. Maybe Ally'll join me.
 

She brings some tortellinis, cheese and roasted garlic.

I love these suckers, but right now, they just seem kind of tasteless. Maybe that's because my nose is so plugged that I can't smell or taste anything.

I can't hear too good, either. My one ear won't pop, and it's driving me nuts. I'm trying to gulp some air down when I eat some salad, but it's not working. Course, I've been trying for days now.

Maybe I got an ear infection. I don't know.

And there's Ally's killer garlic bread, and I don't even have to compete with Junior for it.

It's like eating cardboard.

"Daddy, Daddy!" Patrick busts on it, full force, and jumps onto the bed, damn near spilling my food all over.

I'm glad to see him. But instead of grabbing him like I usually do, I just tell him I'm tired, go away.

He looks at me like he's confused, and then he starts to cry, which really makes me feel like shit.

Ally gives me the look of death as she picks him up and carries him out of the room.

Looks like she won't be joining me with Jose.
 

She finally comes to bed, hours later, but she's not like she usually is.

She is pissed, big time.

I mean, I know I shouldn't have done that to Patrick, but I really couldn't handle it tonight.

"Look, I'm sorry." I kind of wake up when she comes to bed. She doesn't lean over to hug me or anything. She's mad, and when she's mad, she freezes up.

"Langly, you're a parent now. You don't do that."

"You tell Miranda when you're tired."

"I don't tell her to get lost." Her voice is quiet, but it's hard and cold quiet. Not soft like it usually is. "How would you feel if your parents told you to get lost?"

Well, let me tell you, Ally, I know damn well how it feels.

Because they did it all the time.
 

FROHIKE:

It's late, and Martha won't be here tonight. This is upsetting for me.

Which is ridiculous. I'll be going home in less than 48 hours. She's been here constantly.

But now she has to return to her regular job, as well as taking care of me.

I'd be loathe to admit it to anyone, but I feel panicked.

As is, I feel panicked enough about returning to normal life, much as I relish the prospect.

Of course, I'll be going home first...not to be confused with normal life.

What will be my normal life? Will I be able to do the things I used to do?

And when?

Most importantly, will I be able to love her as I want to love her...

And will she love me back?

I'm not going to sleep well tonight.

I shouldn't have stopped taking morphine.

END OF PART 43