The Empty Jar(20)

“I love you for thinking so, but I figure I should look my best. I mean, we will be walking beneath some of the most gorgeous artwork known to mankind.”

“Like it has a chance in hell of competing with you,” Nate scoffs.

I can’t help grinning. “Wow! You’re really workin’ this flattery angle lately. Anything I should know about?”

“Nope,” Nate denies, unfolding his big body from the chair to come and stand beside me at the closet. He wraps his arms around me and laces his fingers together at my lower back. “Is there something wrong with me telling my wife every day for the rest of her life that she’s the most beautiful woman in the world?”

“No. Especially when her life isn’t going to be all that long.”

I regret my flippant answer immediately. I see the sadness, the grief flood Nate’s eyes, turning them a darker, grassy green.

“Please don’t,” he pleads simply, pain evident in the clogged sound of his voice.

From that very first day when I told him that I’m dying, Nate has been strong for me, kept his bravest face in place. But sometimes at night, when I wake in the wee hours and can’t go back to sleep, I see him get up and go into the bathroom. In the quiet of our bedroom, I hear his soft sobs. They seep out from under the closed door like a fog. It thickens the air and makes it hard for me to breathe.

That broke me, hearing those sobs. Broke me in places I wasn’t even aware I could break, to know how much this was hurting Nate. How much it would hurt him, and for how long.

But when he faces me now, he’s the same tough Nate I met and married all those years ago. Solid. Unbreakable.

Honestly, I can’t imagine anything in the world cracking his resolve to be rock-steady for me. As much as he can, he will hide his grief. He will bear it alone, just to spare me. No matter how much I wish it otherwise, no matter how much I try to spare him, he won’t give in. That’s simply the way he is.

Thankfully, the spa is able to work me in for a massage and a facial. I dress quickly and rush to the elevator, hurrying down to the waiting area. I’ve only been seated for a minute or two when the attendant comes to collect me. She smiles when I stand at the call of my name.

“What brings you to Rome, Mrs. Grant,” she asks, making polite small talk as we make our way back into the bowels of the spa. “Business or pleasure?”

“Pleasure. I’m here with my husband.”

“Ahhh. That must be why your skin is glowing before your facial,” she says in her heavily accented voice.

My pace falters at the girl’s unwitting use of such a meaningful expression. It is in this moment, this very moment, that the reality of my suspicion, of my situation, hits me.

And it rocks me to my core.

What if…

What if, what if, what if?

“Are you all right, Mrs. Grant?” the young woman asks as she pauses to wait for me, concern etched on her face.

“I-I’m fine,” I huff. My heart is thudding so hard, I wonder that the girl can’t see the beat of it through my shirt.

My first thought is that I should cancel my appointment and go straight back up to the room and tell Nate of my suspicion. In fact, maybe I should have told him as soon as the thought even crossed my mind.

But then I quickly discard the notion. It would be unforgiveable to put something like this in Nate’s head without confirmation. I could never do that to him. Not until I know. For sure. I have to be certain, which means I need a pregnancy test. Without Nate to help me, though, without a partner in crime, how will I be able to sneak from the hotel and find my way to a drug store? In a town I am completely unfamiliar with and one where I don’t speak the language?

Mind speeding through options, I realize that I have only one. The only one I can think of, anyway.

The concierge.

“Would you like me to call the hospital? Mrs. Grant?”

“No!” I blurt emphatically. I force myself to calm before I repeat, more reasonably, “No. No, thank you. Uh, but I do need to speak to the concierge briefly. Would you mind if I step out for just a moment to—”

“No, please. Wait here. I can take care of that for you. I will call him right away. Let me show you to your room. You can wait there for a few minutes, yes? More comfortably.”

And in private. Where I can melt down if I need to.

I nod enthusiastically. “Yes, that would be lovely. Thank you.”

“This is best. You should sit down.”

I take note of the way the attendant is now watching me, like she’s expecting me to drop to the floor any minute. I don’t doubt that my face is colorless. I feel as though all the blood in my body is gurgling behind my chest wall, a turbulent sea of anxiety and excitement threatening to break the dam of my ribs. If it does, I’ll bleed to death.

When I’m left alone with my chaotic thoughts, the questions come.

Is it possible for a person’s biggest dream to come in the midst of their worst nightmare? Can life be so tragic and yet so beautiful, all at the same time?

I know that answer to those questions.

I know from vast experience that dream and nightmare can coexist, one wrapping around the other until they become indistinguishable. A blur of black and white, light and dark. Heaven and hell.

I saw it with my father, through his sickness and subsequent death, I saw it with my mother, who had completely checked out on me after Daddy’s death, and I saw it with a multitude of patients, to whom I’ve had to deliver news of every kind. The good and the bad. The bitter and the sweet. I know all too well that life is both tragic and beautiful most of the time, at least in some small way.