That Summer

Author: Janet (SkyGirl5)

Genre: S/V, AU

Summary: A summer full of unexpected events turns out to be the best and most difficult of Michael Vaughn's life.

Disclaimer: Sydney, Vaughn, etc are properties of JJ Abrams and ABC.

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Prologue + Chapters 1-10 // Chapters 11 - 20 + Epilogue

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Chapter 11

As soon as the words escaped my lips I could feel her exhale heavily into my shoulder as her fingertips dug into my back. Not in a painful way, but just in a way that made it obvious she was clinging to me. “Are you sure?” she whispered.

Was I sure? Of course I wasn’t sure. I was setting myself to potentially have the biggest heartbreak of my life. I had asked her to stay knowing full well that if she did, our relationship would likely continue to blossom. Thus, I was starting a relationship with a woman knowing full well that she was dying and, there was always a possibility that I would fall in love with her. Suddenly, that old adage “It’s better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all” was gaining new meaning for me.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I told her, rubbing my hands gently across her back. “I care about you and I don’t want you to go.” I decided against going the ‘I don’t want you to go die alone’ route, for that probably wouldn’t have been well received. Knowing her slightly defensive attitude about sympathy, she probably would have accused me of pitying her, which wasn’t the case. Well, not entirely anyway; I did feel bad for her, like I would feel bad for anyone in her circumstance, but pity wasn’t my reason for asking her to stay. I wanted more time with her; I needed it.

She lifted her head from my shoulder and looked up at me. “You care about me?” she asked.

I was slightly surprised by the fact that she actually sounded surprised when she asked that. “Of course I do Sydney. You’re my friend and I care about you; I always have.”

A small, almost playful smile crept across her face. “Just your friend, hmm? I sure hope you don’t kiss all your friends like that Michael.”

I laughed loudly at this and her smile grew larger. “I don’t actually. Just the special ones,” I said before kissing her sweetly.

She giggled against my lips as I kissed her. Then, she pulled back and gave me a curiously look while moving her hands from the small of my back to my sides. “So… seriously what’s going on here? I mean… are we…”

“I don’t know,” I said. Then, I brought my hand up to her face and stroked her cheek with my thumb until her dimpled smile appeared. I leaned down and kissed that cavernous dimple before I said, “But I wanna find out what this is – what it could be.”

“Me too,” she said softly. Then, she turned her head and kissed my palm before slipping from my arms and walking back to her tea. “So… what’s your schedule around here? Do you have one for like when you write and stuff? Because I don’t wanna get in your way if I’m going to be sticking around. I can occupy myself.”

“I’m sure that you can,” I told her. “But I don’t really have a schedule. I mean… I try to write my article on Monday mornings, but it doesn’t always work. I’ll get it done whenever, no big deal,” I shrugged.

Sydney rolled her eyes at me. “Sounds like you’re a real dedicated worker.”

“I am to!” I laughed. She looked at me, suspicious. “I am! Seriously, I never missed a deadline. Just because I enjoy my flexible work schedule…”

“Uh HUH, I’m sure,” she said, smiling. “Anyway, since you’re just oh-so-busy, would you mind terribly driving with me up to Birmingham to return my rental car? Dying or not I’d rather not have a massive rental car bill.”

I was taken aback slightly by her ‘dying or not’ comment, until I realized under her rule system it was probably alright for her to bring that fact up, I simply wasn’t allowed to. “Ooo four hour road trip!” I exclaimed with fake enthusiasm. Sydney looked slightly nervous and I laughed it off. “I’m kidding; I’ll go. I mean, I’ll have to push around some important dates and back waxing appointments on my pressing social calendar but…”

She laughed and punched my arm playfully. “Back waxing?! Is there something you’re not telling me?” she raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, that I’m joking. I have never needed a back waxing and I hope to continue that trend in the future,” I told her with a slight shiver. Seriously, that’s just nasty. If I ever needed a back waxing, I’d have to shoot myself.

“Good to know,” she cracked a smile at this. “So when do you wanna go? Around lunch?”

I nodded. “Yep, sounds good.”

~*~

For the rest of the afternoon Sydney and I did our separate things. I worked on a bit more permanent clean up and mess-organization of my house since, when I heard Sydney was coming the first time, two days earlier, I sort of just threw things in closets to get them out of view. If she was going to be staying, I needed to have at least some semblance of order (which was manageable, but not easy). While I was doing this, Sydney retreated to what was now her bedroom to examine my mama’s book collection that she kept up there (and I never moved) so she could pick a title to read. She expressed desires to read all, or at least as many of the books she could and I wished her luck. My mama had a lot of books.

She reemerged for dinner, though, but her nose was buried in one of Agatha Christie’s mystery novels. She didn’t even put the book down to eat, but I didn’t mind; I was being amused by her facial expressions, quiet mumbles and occasional gasps at what she was reading. Once dinner was over, though, she put the book down long enough help me with the dishes before picking up the book once more and retreating to the couch. I laughed slightly at her, having never seen anyone so into a book.

After the kitchen was cleaned up, I walked to the couch and sat beside her, picking up a magazine I had been reading on the way. Once I was seated, Sydney shifted and leaned her back up against my arm as she read. I took this opportunity to slip my arm around her waist and pull her body closer to mine, kissing the back of her head gently as I did so.

We sat like that for quiet a while until I stopped paying attention to my reading, and began focusing on the situation I was in once more. Sitting there with her felt so good; I felt so happy, but… could I really be happy, knowing the circumstances I was in? Letting myself be happy meant forgetting that Sydney was dying and going into that ‘setting myself up to have my heart ripped out’ range. On the other hand, though, if I kept the fact that Sydney was dying in the front of my mind, I could never truly let myself be happy with her. Not only would that be unfair to her, but I would be breaking my promise to her, something I didn’t want to do.

Like she had said from the start, it was my choice. Suddenly, I didn’t feel old enough to make that kind of decision. I needed someone’s guidance, but I had no one to turn to. It was all me, nobody else.

As these thoughts swirled in my mind, Sydney moved beside me and snapped her book shut. “I’m going to go finish this in bed,” she said. Then, she turned and gave me a long kiss on the lips before brushing her lips against my cheek and then forehead while she stood up. “Goodnight.”

“’night,” I sighed back to her. Her lips on mine had given me the answer I really had known all along. I wiped any thought of her tumor from my mind at that moment and I let it go, disappear off into the distance, leaving only the here and now in my focus. Sydney was there, right then and that was how I had to live; in the moment. And, in that moment, all I wanted was to be with her.



Chapter 12

“Michael, can I ask you something?” Sydney turned to me, smiling. It was Monday night and we were relaxing out on the front porch after our long drive to Birmingham and back. The ride there was just as smooth as could be; on the way back is where we hit trouble. About a half hour outside of the city we hit a rather bad traffic accident and were stuck at a dead stop on the highway for over an hour. That wasn’t fun, let me tell you, not fun at all.

“Sure,” I sighed, slouching down in my seat a bit more.

“You know your mama’s garden out back?” she asked. I turned my head to the side and nodded once. “Well, I was wonderin’… ‘sokay if you say no, but I was wonderin’ if maybe I could clean it up a bit? You know, maybe buy some new flowers or somethin’… I mean, I don’t hafta or nothin’…,” she added, averting her eyes.

“No, you can. It’s better that someone deal with it than to just let it rot,” I told her. She turned back to me with a smile across her face. “You know what’s funny? Just how quickly you lost your Yankee ways of speakin’ and lost all the grammar you ever had.”

She laughed softly at this. “I can’t help it. It just… happens!”

“Mm yes, we put it in the water,” I told her with a smile. She laughed again.

“Seriously, though,” she said, her tone returning to a serious one, “you won’t mind?”

“I won’t mind, in fact, I might even like it. I kinda miss Mama’s garden…. Not enough to attempt fixing it myself, mind you, but I still kinda miss it,” I told her. Like I mentioned before, every time I look out at that garden I feel sad, remembering or missing my mama. I couldn’t decide, though, if having the garden rejuvenated will make me happier or sadder when I looked out at it. Time would have to answer that.

“Well, I’ll get started on it then,” she said. She then shifted her position so that her body was leaning against mine instead of up against the arm rest beside her. As she did this, she tilted her head up towards mine and pulled me into a long, passion-filled kiss. I shifted my hands to her waist, pulling her closer as I felt her fingers begin to comb through my hair, causing chills to spill down my spine.

She broke our kiss and when I opened my eyes to look at her, she was half smiling, while tugging at her bottom lip with her teeth. “What?” I whispered, knowing there was something on her mind. She shook her head and kissed me once more, briefly. “Seriously, what?” I repeated.

“It’s silly…,” she said, turning away and looking almost embarrassed. That, of course, made me more curious than ever, so I asked her again. “Well…you remember high school?”

“Yes, but you might need to be a bit more specific than that,” I said, laughing softly.

“Well, remember how we all used to hang out here durin’ the summers?” she asked. I nodded, recalling it well. “You know how…how you always came over to talk to me?” she said, casually picking at a frayed edge on her jean shorts.

“Yeah…” I said cautiously, wondering where she was going with her particular line of questioning.

She looked up at me, giving me an almost embarrassed look briefly before she looked away again. “I had… such a crush on you,” she finally admitted, though her voice was very quiet. At this, I laughed loudly and she turned to me, looking even more embarrassed. “Are you laughing at my crush?”

“No,” I assured her firmly. “I’m laughing at the fact that I had a crush on you and I thought you hated me!” Honestly… see, that is why people shouldn’t talk about the past. It only ends up annoying you later on.

“I knew that,” she said. My eyes widened at her. “Okay, well I suspected… I was just so… I didn’t even know what to say, well obviously I said nothing. You were Michael and I was just me.”

“So?!” I laughed. “I was just me!”

“No,” she corrected. “You were Michael.”

“Okay…,” I said slowly. I gave her a confused look, hoping she would explain to me just who Michael was because, frankly, I was at a loss for understanding that one.

“Oh come on, you were the most popular guy in our grade. Everyone wanted to be you and all the girls were drooling over you. Why would you pick me when you could have Cindi, whose breasts had obviously had a growth spurt and were – quite literally – spilling out of her shirt,” she said with a slight eye roll. I laughed, remembering that day. That day being the day that Cindi had apparently discovered what cleavage was and had gone slightly overboard with a package of tissues and a low-cut tank top. I think at one point my mama attempted to cover my eyes, but of course, since I was sixteen, that didn’t really work.

“But I didn’t want Cindi,” I told her. It was true. Despite Cindi’s ample cleavage, she wasn’t a very nice person. In fact, she was downright mean at some times and obviously very conceited, though I think that had to do with the fact that she obviously had a lot more in the chest area than most of the female population of my class – not that I was looking, of course.

“Yeah well,” Sydney grumbled. “’s too late now anyway… can’t change it.”

I locked my arms around her waist and pulled her close, gently poking her side until she looked at me. “It’s never too late. Besides, you’re the one sitting here beside me, not Cindi.”

“Mm yeah I think she’s too busy with her porn-star career,” Sydney said. A rather horrified look crossed my face and Sydney laughed loudly. “I was joking… at least, I think.”

“Oh, good,” I laughed as well. Then, I leaned back on the bench and rested my head against Sydney’s. “So… how long do you rekin’ it takes before we have a line of people out here with Bibles telling us we’re living in sin?”

Sydney laughed loudly. “I’m sure they’re hovering in the bushes at this very moment.”

“Probably,” I sighed.

“Is that going to bother you?” she asked, looking at me cautiously.

I gave a short breathy laugh and shook my head. “You kidding me? I’m used to everyone talking about me, or at least, it’s nothing new. It happened all through my childhood.”

“Yeah… but then it wasn’t disapproving; not of you, anyway,” Sydney said.

I shrugged. “Pity might be just as bad. Not one way they talk about you is good, is it? Pity, sympathy, disapproval, even hero worship would get old after a while, wouldn’t it?”

“Mm,” she nodded. “That was one thing nice about the city; no gossip, at least, none I was involved in.”

“Yep… but then you wouldn’t have this,” I said, gesturing with my finger towards the star painted sky.

She sighed and snuggled up against me, wrapping her arms around my waist and tucking her head under my chin. “I love this,” she sighed quietly. I kissed her forehead softly and rubbed her back gently; so did I.



Chapter 13

As it turned out, Sydney really wasn’t kidding about fixing up my mama’s garden. Not that I thought she was lying; I didn’t. I simply thought that once she realized what an undertaking refurbishing the garden was, she’d realize it really wasn’t worth her time. That, however, wasn’t the case.

First thing Tuesday morning, Sydney took my car and drove half an hour to the nearest lawn and garden supply store. There, she picked up all sorts of things I didn’t even recognize, along with a few flowers and green leafy plants I couldn’t name if my life depended on it. When she came home, she went straight to work, using my mama’s old tools to dig out the old, dead plants and weeds from the existing garden. She worked out there the whole day, barely stopping to eat the lunch I made for her. I laughed at her, calling her insane, but she simply stated that she was a woman on a mission and I knew better than to mess with that.

Because the garden was so overgrown and unruly, she was unable to finish it on Tuesday; there was simply too much work there. I offered to help her, but she insisted that first, there were only one set of tools; second, I was only offering out of pity for her having to sweat out in the beating sun (which was true); and third, I didn’t want to anyway (also true). Besides, she told me, I needed to finish my article which was due the following day.

I managed to finish that article and send it in with time to spare to make us some dinner. Sydney finally dragged herself inside at this point looking like a filthy mess. I told her she should have stayed out in the garden and let me hose her off, but she didn’t appreciate this comment, so I shut my mouth and returned to the kitchen.

That evening, Sydney was beginning to feel the muscle strain in her neck, shoulders and back from spending the entire day hunched over and crawling around on the ground. Being the gentlemen I am, I volunteered to give her a massage and she adamantly accepted, stretching herself out on the couch beside me, giving me full access to her spine. I rubbed her back for almost half an hour before I began to lose feeling and muscle strength in my hands. Of course, by that time, she had fallen asleep. I draped a blanket over top of her and slid off the couch gently, so I wouldn’t wake her.

On Wednesday, when I woke up, I found that Sydney was already outside slaving away at the garden. I walked outside, yawning and sipping my coffee, and called her insane. She fed me another ‘woman with purpose/woman on a mission’ line and I backed off. She was holding a very sharp looking garden hoe, what else was I gonna do?

When she came in for a late lunch, I was shocked to find that the large half of the garden had been entirely weeded. Of course, it still had a long way to go before it retuned to the splendor my mama once had it in, but looking out at it, I realized for the first time it might be able to return to that splendor. After all, I could see dirt – that was definite progress.

In an effort to thank Sydney for what she was doing to my pathetically helpless (before she arrived) back yard, I offered to take her to dinner wherever she wanted that night. She said she didn’t know of any good restaurants, so I could pick as long as she could get some seafood. I told her I knew of a great seafood place two towns over and our plans were set.

Sydney only worked an hour after lunch so she had time to make herself ‘presentable to society’ as she put it. I told her that Bob’s Fish ‘n Stuffs (where we were going to eat) certainly wasn’t ‘society,’ but she insisted she needed to look presentable anyway. To me, looking presentable for Bob’s Fish ‘n Stuffs was pretty much just making sure there weren’t any obvious stains on my wrinkled clothes. Other than that….

“Michael, you look like a slob. Do you even own an iron?” she asked in a disapproving tone. She then walked over to me and tried to flatten my very wrinkled collar, which was sticking up at an odd angle.

“Yeah, my mama’s is in the closet,” I told her.

“Do you use it?”

“No, why would I?” I asked, confused. Who am I gonna see that would require me to iron my shirts? No one. She rolled her eyes at me in a disapproving manner before grabbing her purse and heading out to my car.

~*~

Dinner was… well nice would definitely be too strong of a word. You see, the problem with Bob’s is that the food is great – really, really great – but the atmosphere… well, let’s just say if you walked in Bob’s having never been there before and knowing absolutely nothing about the place, you’d not only be wondering how the building didn’t break every health code in existence (it probably did) but you’d be thinking that your lobster might actually have three tails instead of just one. Yeah, it was that kind of place.

I had the surf ‘n turf (which had way more surf than turf) and Sydney had crab legs, which actually looked very good and Sydney said that they were. Like usual at Bob’s, dinner came with some unexpected entertainment. As it turned out, Bob’s ex wife was in town with her new (and much younger) husband. Why they decided to eat their dinner at Bob’s restaurant, I’ll never know, but that made for some very interesting (and colorful) conversation to be overheard.

We were about half way home when I heard a soft moan beside me. I turned my head to the right and saw that Sydney was looking rather peaked. “You okay, Syd?” I asked her.

She let out another moan, “I don’t think so… those crab legs are starting to snap back.”

I reached over and rubbed her shoulder gently, telling her to take deep breaths and that we’d be home as quickly as possible. I stepped on the gas pedal a bit harder and we made it home in record time, which, as it turned out, was a good thing, since the moment I stopped the car Sydney bolted inside. I felt terrible for her, and went to the kitchen to see if I had any ginger ale or crackers to calm her stomach.

She shuffled into the kitchen dressed in her Pj’s and looking rather pale about fifteen minutes later. I gave her a sympathetic look and asked, “How ya feelin’?”

“Reaaaally crappy,” she sighed and flopped down at a kitchen table.

“Aw, Syd, I’m sorry,” I told her. So much for a celebratory slash thank you evening.

She waved her hand casually at me. “’sokay…not your fault. Unless you poisoned my dinner,” she raised a suspicious eyebrow at me.

“I promise I didn’t,” I told her, laughing slightly. “I don’t have any ginger ale, but I have some crackers if you want them.” She refused, saying she was just going to go lie in bed and suffer.

I kept to myself for the rest of the evening, but as I was heading up to bed, I stopped by Sydney’s room to check on her. I found her asleep, propped up against the headboard of the bed, book open across her chest. I walked into the room slowly at first, not sure if I should disturb her, but I approached her and turned off the light. Then, I carefully slid the book off her chest and placed it on the nightstand beside her, making sure to mark her place before doing so.

“Mmm Michael,” she mumbled and began to slide further down into the bed to a laying down position.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” I whispered.

“’sokay.”

“You feeling better?”

“Kinda, here come ‘ere, stay with me,” she mumbled and gestured towards the free spot on the bed beside her. I hesitated, not sure what to do. On one hand, I wanted to spend the night beside Sydney, but on the other, that was a rather large step in our relationship, wasn’t it? She hadn’t even been back here for a week yet and already we were sharing a bed? Sure, it wasn’t as drastic as some things, but the gentlemen in me was hesitant.

“Michael,” Sydney mumbled again. That time, I obeyed. I walked around to the other side of the bed and slid in beside her. She leaned back against me and I kissed her head gently, both of us ready to drift off to sleep.



Chapter 14

Thursday morning I awoke with Sydney’s body snuggled up against mine. My arm was tucked around her waist and her hand was resting gently on it. I sighed, slightly and nuzzled my face into her head, causing her hair to tickle my nose. Using my free hand, I brushed it away, and settled back against my pillow, enjoying the closeness.

Living in a small town with my mother, wasn’t a very conducive environment to forming romantic relationships. This meant that it had been quite some time since I had shared a bed with a woman. Not that I was used to sharing a bed every night; I wasn’t. Though I had plenty of opportunities (okay, well not plenty, but some), I never felt it was appropriate to, well, sleep around for lack of a better term. Thus, even in college, when ‘socializing’ one’s self was commonplace, I didn’t. Sure, I had girlfriends, but only two of them had well… you get it.

Anyway, laying there, nuzzling my face into Sydney’s hair I was only thinking about how comforting the warmth of her body beside mine, I had absolutely no thoughts about the gravity of the situation she was in. At least, not at first. It seemed that for the time being, I had forgotten about her tumor. Which was good, at least in her mind, anyway; it was what she wanted. It wasn’t what I wanted though, at least not quite.

I didn’t want to completely forget about Sydney’s tumor, but I didn’t want it in my constant thoughts either. This was a problem I faced all throughout the time Sydney and I spent together that summer; I was torn. Lying there, though, thoughts of the tumor crept back into my mind and I realized that my face was probably lying right next to it, at least, right next to the part where it was in her brain.

What did it look like? I wondered. Probably something I didn’t even want to see or imagine, but there it was, so close. I kissed the back of her head gently and squeezed my eyes shut. I knew this wouldn’t get rid of the tumor she had, but stupidly I wished it would. This wasn’t like your child’s boo-boo that you could kiss and make it all better. It wasn’t even close.

I’m not sure how long I lay there, wondering about Sydney’s tumor, before she stirred and began to stretch in my arms. I loosened my grip on her waist, giving her more freedom to move and she rolled over to face me. “Hey,” she sighed with a soft smile.

Waking up to her beautiful smile was an amazing experience, one that definitely made my day start out perfectly, so perfect that I hoped to repeat this waking up event in the future. “Morning,” I sighed in return. “Feeling okay?”

“Just fine,” she told me. “Mm what time ‘st?” she asked, yawning. I told her it was almost ten and she groaned loudly. “Michael Vaughn you’ve turned me into a lazy bum like you!”

I laughed at this. “Excuse me ma’am but I resent the term ‘lazy bum’.”

She shrugged causally before sliding from the bed with a smile and disappearing out of the room. I rolled over on my back and contemplated getting up as well. True, it wasn’t as comfy there since Sydney had vacated the other half of the bed, but it was still comfy enough that I didn’t want to get up. Eventually, though, I crawled out from under the sheets and made my way downstairs.

Sydney met me in the kitchen ten minutes later, fully dressed in her gardening clothes (which pretty much meant she was wearing the shorts and top that already had mud-stains on them). “Back at it Miss Green Thumb?” I asked her with a playful grin.

“Of course! I’ve reached dirt – can’t stop now. Must finish,” she said with determination before exiting the house. I laughed and shook my head, taking another sip of my coffee. What else could I say? The girl was being nuts, but she was getting a pretty nice looking tan doing it.

I continued on with my regular routine that day, doing some research for my next article and then writing a bit of it before running downtown to the grocery store to pick up some food for the remainder of the week and the weekend. Since Sydney staying with me, I needed to get used to shopping for two and not just one again.

As I was picking up the apples from all over the back seat of my car (the stupid bag broke), I heard a high-pitched, dripping with sweetness voice call out my name. Immediately, I groaned. Even though my head was stuck down in between the seats of my car, I knew exactly who it was just by the tone of her voice. May Weston had come to annoy the living hell out of me and, most likely, Sydney.

Though May appeared to be a lovely woman in her mid-sixties with graying hair and a brightly colored purse draped across her arm, she was far from it. Sure, her personality closely resembled that of honey mixed with a bit of cherry pie (generally sweet with an occasional tart snap), she was a dangerous woman. May could easily be compared to the main circuit board of Liberty’s gossip center. Any information that passed through her slightly oversized ears (the better to listen with, my mama would always say) would be dispatched to the town – and I do mean the entire town – within an hour, less if it was a good day (a good day by May’s scales, that was). That’s why whenever you were in May’s presence you had to be extra special careful about the words that escape your lips, lest they become the towns newest – and hottest – gossip.

“Michael dear… my, my what are you doing?” I heard her ask.

“Nothing, May, just getting some groceries that spilled out of the bag when it ripped,” I told her, straightening myself up and putting the three apples I had retrieved on the car’s roof.

“Oh, its interesting you pointed that out because I have seen the quality of the Dobson’s bags decreasing,” she told me as if it was ground breaking news. Uh-huh. I’m sure she had. Nothing got past that woman… unfortunately.

“Anyway,” she continued. “I was just walking by and I said to myself ‘May, how long has it been since you talked to sweet little Michael Vaughn?’ and you know, I couldn’t remember!” she said with a loud, painfully fake laugh. Yeah… see, that was the other thing about May that was incredibly annoying. She loved talking about herself in the third person. I hated that. What was the point? It only made you sound stupid.

“Well, yes, it has been a while,” I said in the most polite voice I could muster.

“Yes,” she smiled sweetly. “Say, you haven’t seen Sydney Bristow around have you? I was just curious… I haven’t heard much about her, except that she was in town again, you see.”

Now there was a down and dirty lie if I had ever heard one. The day May Weston knew nothing about something was the day we were all sure to suffer from the Apocalypse. Ain’t never gonna happen. That woman knew about things before they even happened! This was the time I needed to play it cool - very, very cool. “Well, I had lunch with her last Saturday,” I told her.

“Oh, yes, that’s right – you did, didn’t you?” she smiled, her tone becoming increasingly sugar-coated. “How is she?”

“Fine, she’s doin’ just fine,” I told her. Did May really care how Sydney was? Possibly - but really, with that question she was asking ‘what the devil is her reason for not showing up at her father’s funeral! Honestly! The nerve!’ (yep, I’d heard that many times). Was I gonna give it up? No, sir. “Livin’ up in Chicago,” I added simply to appease her.

“Ah yes, I had heard that,” May nodded. See – told ya she was lyin’. “So, was that the last time you saw her? Saturday?”

Gotta give it to May; I think she’s the only one in the town with subtlety. “Mm, no, we had dinner, but that’s it. Nothin’ too interesting to report. Excuse me, May, I really need to get back to the article I’m writing,” I said. Quick escape; that was the key to surviving a conversation with May Weston.

“Oh of course dear! What’s this one about?”

“The importance of setting. Bye May!” I called. Then, I gathered up my apples and power-walked back into the house. Once they were safely in the refrigerator, I headed out back to find Sydney on her knees tugging at weeds. “Well, we just had a close call,” I told her.

“Close call?” she looked up at me, squinting her eyes in the sun.

“May Weston was just here, askin’ about you.”

“Uh-oh,” she said, her voice sing-song. Having grown up in Liberty, Sydney knew all about May Weston’s intentions – or rather, ill intentions. “Is she gone?”

“Yep, but I have a feelin’ she’ll be back, doing what she does best.”

“Being irritain’,” Sydney finished with a grumble, turning back to the weeds.

“Yep.”

“Ah well, I’m sure this town is just busting with ideas as to why I didn’t go to Daddy’s funeral. Just let ‘em talk; that’s a much more entertaining pastime for them than discussin’ the truth,” she sighed. I couldn’t help but laugh slightly, for that was very, very true.



Chapter 15

That afternoon, I helped Sydney pull the remaining weeds from the garden, part because I wanted the fresh air, part because I wanted to talk with her some more, and part because I wanted to be there as a buffer just incase May Weston returned. In those two hours we spent in the garden, Sydney and I discussed some amusing past memories about some of James and my antics from our youth. Then, our conversation moved to Sydney’s former place of employment, where she told me some interesting stories about the not-so-exciting world of investments. She did give me a few tips I might have to look into, though.

“Well, I think it looks pretty good, don’t you?” she asked, brushing the dirt off her hands.

I scanned the now completely weed-free garden with a smile. “Definitely good. Thank you very much,” I said.

“You are very welcome,” she smiled. “Now I can fix up this dirt and plant the flowers I bought… although, I think I’m going to need some more, I didn’t get that many.”

“You mean you’re not sick of this yet?” I laugh in total disbelief. I had to give her credit, she was certainly dedicated. Maybe it was just me and my ADD tendencies, but I doubt I would have stuck with such a grueling project for so long.

“Uh uh,” she shook her head. “Must make it pretty.”

I rolled my eyes slightly at the child-like tone she used when saying this. I got off the ground, brushing the dirt from my hands and knees, as I walked over to the hose by the house. I needed to wash off at least some of the dirt or I’d track it all through my house and have to suffer through my mama’s voice in my head, yelling at me for dirtying her precious hardwood floors. As I was rinsing off my hands, a devilish idea crossed through my mind. I took my thumb and pressed it down across the end of the hose, not hard enough to cut off the flow of water entirely, just enough so that the water began to spit out at odd angels. Then, I aimed it towards Sydney.

When the cold, water hit her skin, she bolted upright, screaming. This, of course, caused me to laugh loudly, but she didn’t find it as amusing as I. “Now I’m muddy,” she growled. At first, I was worried, thinking I had really upset her, but it was just an act. For she stalked over to me, desperately trying to hide a smirk, but I could see it plainly. She then wrenched the hose from my hand, acting as though she was going to turn the water off, but instead, she crammed the hose down the front of my pants, or at least, she tried to. Once I realized what she was doing, I tried to get out of her reach, screaming as well as the cold water began soaking down my leg. Of course, she found this hilarious.

“Great, that’s just great,” I muttered and looked down at my pants, which had a wet spot in a very unfortunate position. Sydney snorted. I looked up at her, my expression just as plain as ever (though I was struggling to keep from laughing). “Well then…,” I sighed, picking up the hose and aiming it directly at the front of her light colored t-shirt, soaking it through.

“Michael!” she screeched and covered up the front of her now almost see-though shirt. I continued to laugh. “You’re awful,” she shook her head disapprovingly.

“Uh, hello, you put it down my pants!” I defended. She cracked a smile and we both began laughing hysterically. We laughed for a solid few minutes before Sydney finally composed herself enough to go inside and clean up while I cleaned up the garden tools (which was my designated punishment for causing the water fight).

After she was done in the shower, I took my turn and we prepared dinner together. We spent the evening on the together on the couch. She was reading; I was watching a baseball game with the sound off while half looking at the newspaper. Around ten, she went to bed, but I stayed and ended up falling asleep on the couch.

When I awoke the next morning, I found myself in the very painful head crookedly resting against the side of the couch position I had come to know far too well from my nights down there. I really couldn’t understand myself in that respect. Even though I was uncomfortable, I would rarely awake in the middle of the night and go upstairs to my bed. Very strange.

Anyway, in addition to the pain in my vertebra, I noticed that there was a strange weight across my thigh; it was Sydney. She was tucked up into a little ball on the sofa with a blanket draped across her, using my thigh as a pillow. It was a few minutes until she stirred and when she did, she tilted her neck back and looked up at me. “Hello,” I said. “Does my leg make a good pillow?”

“Uh huh,” she said, rolling over and snuggling up to it once more.

“What are you doing here?”

“Why?” she asked, sounding unsure as she lifted her head. “Am I bothering you?”

“Of course not,” I assured her. I doubt she could ever bother me. “Just curious how you ended up here.”

“Oh well, I got up at one am to get a drink and I saw you down here and… I dunno,” she said casually, looking down at her feet. “Just thought you could use some company…”

“Well thank you, I appreciate it,” I told her, smiling. She turned her head back to me and her smile mirrored my own. “So, do you have a long day of planting ahead of you?”

She scrunched up her nose a bit and looked outside. “I don’t think so… I think it’s supposed to start rainin’ soon and it’s supposed to go all day. I’ll do it tomorrow; the ground will be softer then anyway.”

“Sounds good. So what should our plans be on this rainy day?” I asked. She shrugged. “Okay… well I don’t think I have any ideas either,” I said, laughing slightly.

“Mm too bad there isn’t a mall ‘round ‘ere,” she said, yawning towards the end of her sentence. Yep, one of the not-so-perks of small town life is there’s no place to go on rainy, dull days. Luckily, we don’t get too many of those ‘round here.

After making breakfast, showering and changing our clothes, Sydney and I sat on the couch staring at each other for about an hour before I finally broke out a deck of cards, desperate to do something. As it turned out, Sydney was a fantastic cards player. I always found myself to be a fairly average player, maybe a bit on the better side of average, but I found that she was winning nearly every game we played. It’s good we weren’t playing for money; I’da gone broke.

“This is fun,” she beamed as she mixed the cards. I groaned loudly. Fun for who? I was getting my ass kicked.

“Mmhmm something like tha-AWHAO!” I exclaimed when an incredibly loud boom of thunder rumbled above us along with a blindingly bright streak of lightening.

“Scared of the storm?” she asked, obviously amused.

“No,” I told her firmly. Scared – pah. I’m not scared of anything… well maybe a few things, but definitely not thunderstorms. “It startled me, but I’m not scared of it.”

“Uh huh,” she said, her tone obviously indicating her disbelief.

“I’m not!”

“I know,” she beamed. “I’m not scared of them either. In fact, I find them romantic.”

“Romantic? Really?” I asked, surprised. I had never heard anyone describe a thunderstorm as romantic. I definitely had to hear an explanation for that.

“Yeah, I dunno,” she shrugged causally, “I just… there’s something about them – the electricity, the rain, the two different air currents crashing together causing the noises and lights… sorta sounds like romance to me.” I nod my head slightly; that was definitely an interesting take on things.

“Come on,” she said, grabbing my hand and dragging me towards the back window. A soaking rain was falling so hard that you could barely see through the rain that had beaded on the window screen. She seemed intrigued, though I wasn’t quite sure why; it was just rain.

Suddenly, a blinding bolt flew close by the house and caused the loudest noise I had ever heard. The entire house shook as I exclaimed, “Jesus!” and pulled Sydney away from the window. “What the hell was that?!”

“I think it hit something close by… look, over there,” she pointed towards a large old tree about a hundred feet from the house that appeared to be smoking. “Let’s look!” she said before running off. For a second I was worried she was going to be stupid enough to run outside during an electrical storm to examine a potential lightening strike, but really she was just going upstairs to get a better look.

I followed her and found her in my bedroom, which, apparently, gave the best vantage point to the tree, which was now split in half, black and charred. “Wow,” I said. “Glad I’m not that tree.”

“Yeah really… but it’s cool, isn’t it?” she asked, smiling.

“Sure,” I shrugged with a laugh. I didn’t really see the ‘cool’ in a burned tree, but obviously she did.

She took a few steps away from the window and towards me. Once she reached my side, she stood up on her toes and kissed me fully, grabbing a handful of the front of my polo shirt. My hands settled on her hips as we kissed, the thunder still clapping over our heads. Okay, I was beginning to see the romanticism in thunderstorms.

She broke our kiss and, when I opened my eyes, I was surprised to see that she had a very interesting smile across her face. It was almost sly but nervous and unsure at the same time. My brow furrowed, wondering what exactly was going through her mind. Again, she kissed me, but this time, she began to untuck my polo shirt from my shorts. In that moment, a million thoughts passed through my mind. What was she doing? Was she really doing that? Was that really a wise decision, considering we had really only known each other truly for a week? Obviously it was rushing things quite a bit, but would rushing things end up coming back to bite us in the ass, so to speak?

I broke the kiss that time and I almost walked away. Almost. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that tree, bent, broken and destroyed. Somehow, in my mind, I made a connection between that tree and Sydney’s brain tumor. Is that how it would be? Lightening would strike and one moment she’d be standing tall and then the next she’d be gone? If that was true then… how many more chances would I get to walk away before she was gone and I’d never get the chance again?

I probably should have stopped us, but I didn’t, keeping in mind that you only get one chance to live and, in Sydney’s case, that chance wasn’t as long as one would have hoped. So I kissed her and I pulled her close to me and I hoped that, when it was over and the next day came, we wouldn’t regret it.

You know what? We never did.



Chapter 16

The storm outside raged on until the early evening, taking down a few power lines in its path, but Sydney and I didn’t notice. We were completely and contently snuggled up in the sheets on my bed. She had her arm across my chest, with her head resting up on my shoulder and my arm was around her back. I lay there, thinking about not her tumor, like I had been thinking about prior to our activities, but about how beautiful she was, right then in the dull light that was filtering in through the windows.

I’m not sure how long we laid there before Sydney sat up, her eyes focused on something across the room. She slid out of bed, not bothering to dress, and retrieved my high school yearbook from atop the bookshelf in the corner of my room. Of course, the term ‘yearbook’ was stretching it a bit. Yearbook implied book which implied some sort of binding. This ‘yearbook’ was simply about ten sheets of paper fastened together at the top and bottom corners along the left hand side. Not exactly what someone would call a book, but, then again, Liberty K-12 didn’t have the largest budget you could imagine and only the seniors received year books.

Sydney returned to bed, snuggled up close to me once more and then proceeded to leaf through the pages. We talked about our classmates, reminisced about the pictures and wondered about what everyone was doing now. Along with the extravagant, exaggerated stories Sydney made up about everyone’s lives, Sydney mused about what they’d say about us being together. “They’d probably think we’re insane,” she laughed.

“Why? Do you think we’re insane?” I asked cautiously. She grinned and shook her head. I leaned down and kissed her. “Good, neither do I,” I told her.

Sydney sighed and lay her head back down on my chest. She was silent for a few moments before she burst out giggling. “You know what’s funny?” she asked; I grunted. “That your boxers are purple… I never imagined you with purple boxers.”

“And… how often were you imagining my boxers?” I asked, intrigued.

She giggled and looked up at me, “Well… the girls used to guess what kind of underwear the guys were wearing – in high school!” she added, almost as a defense, though there was no defense for that.

“Seriously?!” I gasped. She nodded with a laugh. “Who are these people and WHAT were they guessing?!”

“Dunno, just some of the girls. I never participated of course, but I listened. They had you pegged as black silk boxers typea guy,” she told me. My jaw crashed open and she laughed loudly.

“I soooo don’t own black silk boxers – that’s weird.”

“Mmm yeah but not as bad as poor Stewart Houser… they were all convinced he wore stained Spider-Man underoos,” she sighed. I laughed so hard that I nearly started choking. Poor kid, but the funny part was I could totally see that.

“This is such a bad game,” I laughed and cleared my throat.

“Oh come on – like you guys didn’t sit around guessing if girls were wearing thongs or not,” she gave me a look.

“We most certainly did not!” I assured her. It was the truth. Back then, places like Liberty didn’t exactly have an expansive choice of underwear for either gender. Of course, some people did their shopping in a larger city, but not many.

“Okay… oh, maybe I should eat,” Sydney laughed slightly at the loud growling of her stomach. I poked it gently before crawling out of bed and grabbed my purple boxers (okay, so I thought they were blue, whatever).

We dressed and then headed down to the kitchen where I made us ‘linner’ or ‘dunch’ or whatever you want to call a meal eaten at three forty-five in the afternoon. “Hey Michael?” Sydney began as we were eating. “Do you mind if I have some mail sent here?”

I shrugged and shook my head. Why would I care? “Gonna order me some black silk boxers?” I asked, smirking.

She laughed. “Mm not quite, but I might order you a thong,” she said in a shockingly serious tone. I gave her a horrified expression and she snorted with laughter. “That was so priceless!”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I croaked. Boy she had me really terrified there for a moment. She continued to laugh to the point where she could hardly breathe and wasn’t really making a noise at all, just pounding her fist against the table. “Okay, seriously, it wasn’t that funny.”

“Yes it was,” she croaked and nodded her head. “Mental image…,” she managed before laughing harder as tears began pouring from her eyes.

Okay, I was beginning to get offended. “Okay, it’s really not all that funny Syd,” I tell her, turning slightly pink.

“No, no not you,” she sighed once she regained her ability to breathe. “This guy… sophomore year my one friend convinced me to go to a Frat party and all these guys were daring each other to do stupid things and this one guy was dared to put on this hot pink thong… it was so bad!” she squeaked before bursting out laughing once more.

“That’s horrifying!”

“I know,” she nodded.

She continued to laugh for another five minutes before she regained her composure, though for the next half hour she’d occasionally let out little snorts of laughter. It was really rather amusing, her reaction, of course.

By mid-evening the storm had blown away and a bit of the sun was beginning to return. Sydney and I went outside to survey the storm damage and I found that one of the shutters had blown away. Sydney said this gave me a perfect excuse to return to the home and garden supply store with her when she went to pick up more flowers, for the house needed a shutter. I told her it would be easier to just take off all the remaining shudders, but she didn’t find that very amusing. We also went to examine the lightening struck tree and, I have to admit, it was actually pretty interesting and very charred.

After cleaning up some of the major debris from the yard, we returned to the couch, where we watched an old black and white movie on TV. This movie was Sydney’s choice and at first I was very skeptical of it. I like my movies in color, thank you very much, but it wasn’t all that bad.

After the movie was over, Sydney stood up and stretched. I assumed she was headed for bed, so I didn’t really move, but she grabbed my arm and began tugging on it. “Michael,” she said softly. I looked up at her and she gave me a soft smile. It was easy to tell what that look meant and who was I to argue? So, I followed her.



Chapter 17

For the next few days, things progressed similarly for Sydney and I. On Saturday we ran to the home and garden store. I found a new shutter that matched the ones on my house and bought a tiny can of black paint to make it match completely while Sydney got more flowers. She spent a large part of the afternoon planting some of those flowers while I painted the shutter. On Sunday, we went for a long walk through town before I came home and finished my article.

By Tuesday we had fallen into an even pattern regarding our eating and sleeping activities. Meaning, we prepared ate and cleaned up every meal together and had even come up with a system for making the meals so that we didn’t keep bumping into each other in the less-than-spacious kitchen. In addition to being in-sync in the kitchen, we had to learned to be in-sync elsewhere as well.

As it turned out, my mama’s bed isn’t exactly conducive to two people sharing it. The mattress springs are old, I suppose, because by the second night I spent there they began to poke through, causing a very painful and unrestful sleep. We tried to turn the mattress over, but that didn’t work either. That actually made it worse, for we were unable to maintain our sides of the bed; we simply kept sinking to one side, which also wasn’t very comfortable.

In the end, I decided that if we were going to share a bed, we’d have to share the bed in my bedroom. I wasn’t sure if Sydney would go for this since my room is rather… well, let’s just say it really hasn’t changed all that much since I was ten (what do I care? It’s just a place to sleep). Surprisingly, though, she jumped on the idea – literally. She even moved her suitcases and things into my room, so she wouldn’t have to keep running back and forth across the hall. Whatever makes her happy, I suppose.

“Syd, you got a thingie,” I told her on Tuesday afternoon after I had retrieved my mail or, rather, our mail.

“A thingie?” she called back, sounding obviously confused.

“Yeah, a pick up your package ‘cause its too big for the mail slot thingie,” I told her.

“Ooo! I’m gonna go pick it up right now!!” she exclaimed. I laughed slightly at her child-like excitement over receiving something in the mail as I handed her the pick-up slip. She grabbed it and kissed my cheek before saying, “Back in a bit!” and rushing out the door.

She was gone about half an hour, which was the typical amount of time it took to reach the post office in the next town (we shared a zip code because we were, unfortunately, that small). When she returned, she was lugging a rather large box. “What’s that?!” I asked.

“Just some stuff from Chicago,” she said, placing the box down on the kitchen table. “Francie, this girl who lives next door to me and was probably like my best friend there, sent it to me. I called her Saturday and asked her to go into my place since she’s got a key and pick this stuff up, so she did.”

“I see,” I nodded. Then, I peered into the box when she opened it. It appeared to be a few personal items mixed with some CDs and then, at the very bottom was a large manila envelope. “What’s that?” I asked.

“My medical records. Just some x-rays, head scans and doctor’s notes and stuff,” she said with a casual shrug. Then, she pulled the folder out and held it in her hand for a moment, almost debating what to do with it. Then, she held it out to me and said, “You can see… if you wanna.”

Stupidly, I took it. I set it down on the table and pulled out what turned out to be a large sheet of x-ray type film, but really it was pictures of her brain. Of course, I have no medical degree, not even close, so I had absolutely no idea what I was looking at except that it appeared to be in the shape of a skull and, if I really strained, I could see what appeared to be the brain’s ‘grey matter’… I think.

“Here,” she said, taking it from me. She held it up to the light and pointed towards part of the film that had already been circled with a whiteish pencil. “See that – that’s my brainstem and that is the tumor,” she said while pointing with her index finger.

It appeared she could see this quite plainly (of course, a doctor had probably pointed it out and explained it to her). I, on the other hand, was having difficulty. I could almost make out the tiny vertebra that made up her neck and possibly her brainstem, but that was about it. It took a solid few minutes of staring at it until it all came into focus. I couldn’t for the life of me identify most of the things I was seeing, but the tumor was screaming obvious. It was a different color than the rest, and appeared to be a different density as well. Okay, really I had no idea what made it different, except for the fact that it was the thing killing the wonderful woman beside me.

“Kinda intense huh?” she said, laughing softly. I nodded, unable to form words, as I put the film I was holding back in the envelope. “Yeah, when I was first looking at these things I had no idea what the hell they were. Now I can see everything though. I guess that’s one nice thing about something medically wrong with you – you almost get a medical degree in it! If you pay attention of course,” she said, laughing softly.

“Yeah,” I managed. I was still having trouble grasping the concept of being able to see into Sydney’s brain (sort of, anyway).

“Anyway, I needed these things because I’m gonna go up to Birmingham next week and find a lawyer to write my will. I’ve got all my daddy’s things squared away now so I can take care of that. But enough about this – how about I make a cake? I’m in the mood for cake and I bought a mix to make up. You wanna help me with the frosting?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, but really, I wasn’t all that hungry.



Chapter 18

On Saturday morning, I was laying in bed listening to the soft sounds of Sydney’s breathing beside me, completely loving life. I had been only a little over two weeks since Sydney had blown back into my life and, though her presence came with a rather grave reality, I was still enjoying her being with me. Okay enjoying was probably an understatement; I was blissful.

I rolled onto my side and watched her sleep for I don’t know how long, but it was peaceful watching her eyelids gently flutter and listening to the even sounds of her breathing. When she awoke, she stretched her legs but kept her eyes squeezed tight; looking almost as though she didn’t want to pull herself from the dream world. When she did open her eyes, a large smile blossomed across her face at the sight of me watching her.

We didn’t speak a good morning, but I brought my hand up to stroke her face and gently tap her nose, which made her giggle softly. She snuggled up to me and, for a moment, I thought it was going to be nothing more than that, but she surprised me by pushing me onto my back and kissing me fully. Before I even had a chance to kiss her back, she had already brought her feet up used them to pull my boxers half off. This was not a new way to awake for me, but it still made me laugh softly through our kiss. “Syd.”

“Mmm,” she sighed her response against my lips. I shouldn’t have said anything but I was… concerned, I guess, yeah, concerned. You see, in the week since Sydney and I had first made love she had been very, well, insatiable, for lack of a better word. Now, normally guys would have been practically killing themselves to line up to have a wife or girlfriend who was as… ahem, loving as she and I wasn’t complaining – trust me I wasn’t – I was simply concerned.

“Syd wait,” I mumbled as she did away completely with my boxers. I managed to push her up off me enough to get out more than one syllable, but, in doing this, I saw her looking utterly perplexed. “What’s with you? I mean… you’re so…,” I let my voice drift off unable to come up with a term that wouldn’t offend her.

“So what?” she asked.

“So… I dunno. It’s just… we’ve been doing this a lot and… I mean, is it because o-” I changed course mid-word because of the dangerous look on her face, “ov-you’re horny?”

Thankfully, this elicited a hysterical laugh from her instead of a painful smack or something worse. She laughed for a few moments before taking off her tank top and settling back down on my chest. “I’m not horny,” she paused to kiss me, “okay, well maybe I am a little but I just,” she kissed me, “really… really… really…really,” she kissed me between each really, “enjoy spending time with you.”

Yeah, right, like I was going to continue running my mouth off after that. But still, under the surface there was concern. I had yet to initiate love making in our relationship, mostly it was because she beat me to it and sometimes it felt more like we were having sex, not making love. Okay, totally a girl thing to say, I know, but, even though it had been just over a week, it concerned me, especially because of the other circumstances in her life; it made me wonder.

~*~

Apparently, my attempt to keep my concerns suppressed were unsuccessful, very unsuccessful. It was either that, or my making a comment to Sydney had bothered her much more than she let on because practically from the moment we got out of bed Saturday morning, her attitude was different. She stayed away from me, not in a different room away, just half a couch cushion away from me on the couch. She didn’t give me occasional kisses through the day like she had been either.

Though it had really only been a little over a day, by Sunday afternoon it was really beginning to bother me. For starters, that had been the longest period of time we hadn’t been at each other in a week, but that wasn’t what was bothering me. I was more concerned for the fact that I had offended her or upset her in some way, which wasn’t my intention at all. I was simply trying to voice my concerns for her, but obviously that backfired. So, I did the only thing I thought could help the situation and make her feel wanted.

She was standing by the kitchen window, looking out at my mama’s garden, which had really become her garden. I walked up behind her, wrapped my arms around her waist and slipped my hands underneath her tank top, caressing her stomach as I kissed the back of her neck. She gave a contented little noise as she turned her head to the side so that her lips met mine. “Took ya long enough,” she mumbled through our kiss.

I pulled back and gave her a confused look, wondering what exactly she had meant by that. It took me a moment to decipher the sly smile on her face, but when it hit me, I laughed. She had never been upset. It was all a game; she was playing hard to get. I went to kiss her again, but she pulled back saying, “Wait one second, there’s something I need you to do first.”

“What?” I asked. She walked over to her purse, which was resting up on the kitchen counter against the wall, and picked up a manila envelope from underneath it; one I hadn’t even noticed before. She pulled a legal-looking document out of it, grabbed a pen and held it out to me.

“Sign this please,” she requested

I took it and looked down at it with a furrowed brow. I only had to read the first line to realize I wouldn’t understand the legal jargon it contained. “What is it?” I asked.

“It’s for my will. I’m leaving you everything Michael,” she told me. I was stunned into silence at this. She was leaving it to me!? Was she insane?

Noting my expression, she continued, “Look, I don’t have anyone to leave it to okay? I was just going to have to burden some poor person with it… I mean, if you don’t want it that’s fine. It’s not much, just some investments and my daddy’s things; do what you want with them.”

I looked at her in disbelief. “Are… are you sure?” I asked. She nodded firmly. “O-okay,” I stammered. Was it okay? I had no idea. It wouldn’t even really sink in for quite some time either and by the time I realized just how big it was, it was almost too late.

~*~

Another few days went by and Sydney and I fell back into our routine. I was beginning to feel bad about the fact that I wasn’t providing her enough entertainment since she was mostly sitting around reading my mama’s books. Not that I had a plethora of exciting options for her (Liberty was kinda restrictive in that respect), but I still felt bad, so I offered to take her someplace. “Wanna go to the beach?” I asked with a grin.

She looked up at me, past her feet that were slung up over the back of the couch (apparently that was a comfortable position to read in – go figure) and shrugged as much as she could in her laying down position. “Not really,” she sighed.

“Florida? Vegas?” I offered. She shook her head. “Come on – how about oh! Disney World?”

“Michael no,” she said, laughing softly. “What the matter with you?”

“ME?! What’s the matter with you?!” I retorted sharply. Okay, so I snapped a little bit, but it was bound to happen at some point. “I mean Jesus – I know I’m not supposed to bring it up but you’re dying Sydney, dying and you’re just sitting around here doing nothing! Shouldn’t you be living? Shouldn’t you be doing SOMETHING?! Like… I don’t know, jumping out of a plane!”

She gave me an almost disappointed look as she swung her feet down and sat up properly. “Yes, Michael, I realize that I’m dying and, while I appreciate the reminder I don’t need it. I’m well aware of it.”

“You don’t act like it,” I muttered.

She gave me a hard look saying, “Did it ever occur to you that I am actually living out my life the way I want to? Because I am Michael, I am. You know what my life was like before this whole thing happened? I worked twelve - sometimes fourteen - hour days. I worked my ass off because I wanted to move up the ladder. I wanted to be management, then an executive and then finally a partner and hopefully before I was thirty. I didn’t just want to be Sydney nobody who had a funny accent sometimes when she was tired. I wanted to be the person. I never took a break; I never slowed down. I just worked.

“Then,” she paused and sighed. “This happened and… and everything changed – my priorities changed. What did it matter how hard I worked? I was just going to die anyway. So I came down here to deal with my daddy’s things and I didn’t know what I was gonna do once I was done… all I know is that right now, I don’t wanna be anywhere else but here with you and I certainly don’t want to jump out of plane,” she said firmly.

I cracked a small smile, walked around the couch and sat beside her, taking her hand. “I’m sorry… I… well, I’m sorry,” I sighed. If the situation was reversed, I doubt I’d be sitting here in Liberty. Then again, I’ve never really been anywhere else or done anything else. She has, so I guess the perspective is different.

“It’s okay, I forgive you,” she said before kissing me softly.



Chapter 19

I guess I should have seen it coming. I should have, but I didn’t.

After my blow up about the way Sydney was living her life, I sort of let the fact that she was dying slip from my mind, which, I suppose, was a good thing. Forgetting enabled me to enjoy those next four weeks with her to the fullest extent. Truly, it was the best month of my life, but all that good made the bad just that much worse. I let myself fall, I did, without even realizing it and, after that time with her, I was so in love with her, I didn’t even think it was possible to love someone that much.

I loved the way she smiled, everything about it, both her dimples and all her teeth that showed. I loved the way we slept, with her hand always resting on my stomach and her head resting on my shoulder so that I could feel her breath being exhaled onto my neck. I loved the conversations we’d have after making love. Mostly, though, I just loved her, in my life, every moment of every day.

As the days passed on, it became more and more evident to the Liberty townsfolk just what was going on between Sydney and me. They’d see us walking down Main Street, hand-in-hand, never separating for an instant. We weren’t even covert about stealing kisses where many people could observe us. We just didn’t care what they thought; it didn’t matter.

After walking, we’d go home and sit in the garden, which probably was the most amazing thing of all. In only a few short weeks, Sydney had taken my mama’s garden from a horrible excuse for a piece of land to the most gorgeous, colorful space I had ever seen. It may have even been better than the way my mama had it before she passed. It was amazing and I loved spending time out there with Sydney. It was obvious she loved it too since she was always beaming with pride when she looked out across what she had created.

I loved those days. I loved them when they were happening and I loved them years down the road but… during that in between time, I cursed them, hating them for making me so happy and then making it hurt so much worse in the end.

It started as just a normal Tuesday morning – completely and totally normal, absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. I woke up to Sydney’s gorgeous smile, I kissed her and that kiss sparked us making love. Around ten, Sydney got out of bed and threw on her tank top and shorts. Perfectly normal. That, however, is where the norm ended.

She walked around the bed, smiling at me all the way, and just when she reached the edge of the doorway, she stopped and looked back, her mouth opening as though she was about to say something. Instead of words though, a strange noise came out, almost as if she was trying to speak, but couldn’t. Her balance wavered slightly and she clamped her eyes shut tightly, shooting her one hand to the door fame to catch her balance.

I watched from the bed in horror as she took a step forward, stumbled and collapsed down onto the floor. “Sydney!” I shouted, bolting from the bed and crouching down on the floor beside her. She struggled to focus on me for a moment as her hands reached out for mine. I grasped her hands tightly in mine and repeated her name, though my voice was much harsher and choked. “Sydney please, what’s wrong?”

“I…,” she began. Her body was swaying, almost as though she was dizzy. She closed her eyes for a moment as though trying to compose herself. Then, she opened her eyes and I saw them filling with tears. “I think… I think you should take me to the hospital,” she croaked out.

“Okay, Sydney, okay,” I said. Then, I leaned over and pressed a kiss into her forehead. “You’re going to be okay,” I told her, but I truly didn’t believe it.

I put on my pants and shirt as quickly as I could. Then, I grabbed a few items of Sydney’s clothing and crammed them in a bag, anticipating that we might be at the hospital for a while. Once this was done, I reached out my hands for Sydney’s, helping her to her feet. It was obvious she couldn’t walk, so I scooped her up in my arms and carried her down stairs.

“My file…,” she croaked.

“I know, I’m getting it,” I said. Once downstairs, I walked over to the corner bookshelf to pick up the manila folder holding her medical records.

“Y-you n-need to take me to the hospital in Bir-Birmingham,” she managed. The way her words were slurring together was terrifying me. I nodded my head, knowing that Liberty’s make-shift medical facilities would be no help to her and that taking her to any hospital nearby would only result it wasting precious time, having her transferred to a better treatment center anyway.

I put Sydney down on a kitchen chair and reached for the phone. We needed to get to Birmingham as fast as possible and I only knew one way to do it.

~*~

An hour later, we were speeding down the highway, closing in on Birmingham. I was in the back of the sheriff’s car, holding Sydney tightly while she trembled. Like I mentioned before, Alex Stanton, a former classmate of Sydney’s and mine, was the sheriff’s deputy and I called him up, telling him that I needed to get to the hospital in Birmingham as quickly as possible. Luckily for me, Alex wasn’t one to ask lots of questions, especially after he heard the level of desperation that was in my voice. He simply took one look at how pale Sydney was and said nothing more. He ushered us into the back of his car, flicked on the siren and we were on our way.

When we arrived at the hospital, everything was a blur. Sydney couldn’t walk, so Alex helped me carry her inside. I went straight up to the admit nurse in the ER and gave her Sydney’s file along with a brief explanation of her case. Boy did Alex have a shocked and horrified look on his face, when he heard the words I was sayin’.

Immediately after I explained the situation, doctors came over and rushed Sydney off, leaving me behind. Alex offered to stay with me, but I told him to go on; this was something I needed to do alone. He left after giving me a very sympathetic and pitiful look. I ignored this. After all, it wouldn’t have done me or Sydney any good to grumble and growl at him; he was only trying to help.

Once I was alone, a nurse directed me to another floor and told me where I could wait for Sydney to be done with her tests. I hung my head and slowly made my way towards the elevator. For the first time it really and truly hit me.

This was it; this was the end.



Chapter 20

A large group of people were waiting by the elevator and I really felt like being alone, so I turned around and walked towards the stairs. I only had to go to the third floor and I really needed the walk anyway. Besides, walking up the stairs would take longer and, really, what I needed then was to prolong the inevitable.

As I was walking, I noticed a sign overhead for the chapel. Normally, this wouldn’t have fazed me one bit but, for some reason, it did that time. You see, this is where the tiny little glimmer of change was happening within me. After all, the whole world as I knew it was crumblin’ and fallin’ apart, I might as well have gone along with it.

I walked over to the chapel and stared at the door for a good, long while before I went inside. The atmosphere was dimly lit, hanging with sadness and the floor was carpeted in the ugliest shade of maroon I had ever seen. A handful of people sat in the three rows of pews in that tiny room; they were all praying. I stood there, wondering what exactly I was going to do. Was I really going to pray? Would that really be wise?

I watched the people. Almost all of them were clutching crumpled tissues in one of their hands. One of the women, obviously a Catholic, was rubbing rosary beads. One of the men was holding a Bible. I was nothing like any of these people. For starters, I hadn’t said a prayer in years, having been a firm believer that they were a waste of time. But, as I stood there, I wondered what the harm could possibly be. After all, Sydney was… well, she wasn’t doin’ well and maybe, just maybe, a prayer could help her and something that could help her was worth my while.

I walked slowly towards a pew in the back and I sat down. I stared blankly down at my shoelaces, wondering what exactly I was supposed to do. What should I say? The people around me, though they were whispering, I could hear them asking for hope, for strength for their loved ones, but… I wasn’t sure if I could do that.

I sat there for a solid few minutes before a man sat beside me, real close too. I looked over and, the moment I saw him, I knew he was the preacher of this tiny church within the hospital. “What’s on your mind, son?” he asked in a quiet tone.

See, now there’s one thing I couldn’t stand about the south. I hated it when people called me ‘son’. I wasn’t their son; I didn’t even know them! But yet every single person (at least it seemed like everyone) would call me ‘son’. Sure, I knew they were just tryin’ to be nice or friendly or somethin’, but it really bugged me.

Anyway, I shrugged slightly, not really knowing what to say. “You’re here with someone you care about?” he asked; I nodded. Freaky how people could read you that way. “Well, maybe you should pray,” he suggested.

“I… don’t know what to say,” I croaked honestly.

“Just say what’s on your mind, son,” he told me before patting my shoulder gently, standing up and walking away.

I sat there for a few minutes, staring down at my hands clasped in my lap, before words began to form in my head. Look, I know I haven’t been to church much…. Okay, at all and I know there are probably people here in this hospital who deserve to have their prayers answered much more than I do. They’re probably better people than me, I don’t know that. All I know is that Sydney’s sick, real sick. She’s in a bad way and… I don’t want her to die. I love her and… I need her. That’s probably not what you want to here… I don’t know what you want to hear come to think of it…. I just want her to live - not for me though… for her. She’s such a wonderful person, she deserves to live a real life; a full life. She can’t die… she’s… she’s just too young. Please… please let her be okay… please… please…

~*~

Upstairs, I paced. I walked that hall back and forth so many times I’m shocked I didn’t wear the floor through. It must have been an hour, well maybe not that long, but it felt like days before I saw a doctor approaching me. “Mr.… Vaughn, is it?” he asked; I nodded. “I’m Doctor Jamison, I’m the neurologist here and I’ll be taking over Sydney’s case.”

“Alright, how is she,” I asked eagerly. I didn’t want him to sugar coat it; I just wanted the facts.

He pulled me into his nearby office before continuing. What he told me didn’t surprise me, not in the least. Sydney’s tumor had grown, just like her doctors in Chicago said it would. It had encroached upon the brainstem so much that it was causing her heart to beat irregularly; that’s what caused her collapse that morning at my house. How long did she have? It was hard to say, but at the rate the tumor was growing, he didn’t know if she’d last the week.

The news crushed me. I knew it was coming, but to hear it from a man standing there in a white jacket with a stethoscope slung around his neck just made it that much worse. It made it real. I didn’t cry; I was too numb. Sydney wouldn’t last the week; she had less than three days left to live.

“Is there anything you can do?” I asked, making a desperate plea.

The doctor pulled Sydney’s latest brain scan up on the x-ray viewing machine in his office. He stared at it for quite some time before shaking his head and saying, “I’m sorry… I… don’t think there is. You see, when a tumor is this close to the brainstem, it’s almost impossible to remove without doing severe damage to the brainstem itself, causing a patient instant death.”

Something in his comment struck me, it struck me real hard. Almost impossible. Almost. If something was almost impossible, didn’t that mean that there was a teeny, tiny possibility that it was, in fact, possible? I posed my question to the doctor and he laughed softly at me, “Son, I know you mean well but…”

“Sir, please,” I cut him off, more determined than ever. “If there’s any chance, why can’t you take it?” I don’t understand this. If she’s going to die anyway, why not risk the surgery? If she ends up dying in the operating room, she’s no worse off… right?

“It’s not up to you; it’s up to Sydney,” he said.

“But if Sydney were to agree…” I lead him.

He sighed and glanced back at the x-ray. “I suppose I-”

That was all the answer I needed. I bolted from his office and to Sydney’s hospital room. When I walked inside, I found her attached to heart monitors and all sorts of other machines I didn’t recognize. There was a tube of air running under her nose and she appeared to be dozing off. I crept up to her bedside and slipped my hand in hers. This caused her to stir. “Syd it’s me,” I whispered to her.

“Michael,” she mumbled back.

I lifted her hand and kissed it gently. “Yeah, it’s me. How are you?” She didn’t give me a response, not that I was expecting one. “Syd, hey Syd… Syd I love you,” I told her. That was the first time I had uttered those words aloud to anyone. I had never really loved anyone before. I didn’t know how, I suppose, having such a poor, or rather, destroyed example growing up.

With this, she opened her eyes, but slowly. She looked at me curiously, as though trying to see if I was really there, loving her. Then, after a moment, a smile spread across her face. “I love you too,” she whispered. This gave me great relief, hearing those four little words from her, and I leaned down and kissed her. “I’m sorry Michael,” she sighed against my lips.

“What? Sorry why?”

“Sorry because… because I’m dying,” she choked out, tears forming in her eyes. “I’m sorry, really sorry; I didn’t want to hurt you, or anyone.”

“No, baby no,” I said, stroking her face softly. “It’s okay. It is really… I … I just wish we had more time, you know?”

“’sokay,” she said, closing her eyes once more and letting a few tears slip out. “’sokay Michael because… because I’ve loved these past six weeks with you. I couldn’t have spent them any other way and had a better time.”

This caused my heart to break a little and I squeezed her hand a bit tighter. “Syd what if we had more time,” I said, my heart beginning to race at the hope I was feeling. She opened her eyes and looked at me curiously. “Sydney, I know what the doctors said, but… but what if you had the surgery, hmm? What if you did? What would be the difference? If you stay here and you don’t have the surgery, you’re going to die in a few days… but if you have the surgery there might be a one in one million chance of you being okay and then you’d be okay – you’d…. you’d be here with me,” I told her.

“Michael,” she said, shaking her head softly. “It’s… I… I can’t. The surgery won’t work. I’ll die.”

“But what if-”

“No, please,” she cut me off by pressing her fingertips against my lips. “Please, just let it go, Michael, please.”

“No,” I shook my head. I was desperate. I kissed her fingers and then moved my face up beside hers, whispering in her ear, “No, please, please try, please. I need you…”

“He’s right,” came the doctor’s soft voice from the doorway. Both Sydney and I looked to him. “We could… try. There’s absolutely no guarantee except that you probably won’t make it, but… there’s a chance - a one in a million chance.”

“You’d do it?” Sydney asked him quietly. He gave her a single nod. Her eyes turned to look at me and I looked at her. I was silently begging her to agree and praying at the same time that she would. Our eyes were locked for, I don’t know how long, but it seemed like forever before she finally croaked, “Okay.” A smile spread across my face; a tiny bit of hope had returned.

~*~

“You have to understand Michael, at this point, I don’t see her making it through surgery,” the doctor told me later that day as Sydney was being prepped. He said it was best to do the surgery as soon as possible, before the tumor had the chance to grow any larger, so the moment Sydney agreed, they began getting the OR ready and Dr. Jamison had to assemble his team, all of whom thought he was mad. “I don’t want you getting your hopes up.”

“I know,” I nodded. My hopes weren’t up; my hopes weren’t anything except barely existent. I had only the tiniest, smallest amount of hope in the world. Hope for only one tiny impossible thing to happen - my prayers to be answered. I knew this wasn’t possible but… if it was…

I walked slowly back into Sydney’s hospital room. Nurses were hovering around her, prepping her for the surgery. So far, the only light moment of our day had been when they came into shave the back of Sydney’s head for the surgery, which, of course, I mocked her for. Hey, humor gets me through pain, okay?

When the nurses saw me, they slowly left the room, giving us our chance to say goodbye. “Hey,” she breathed.

“Hey,” I echoed her. I walked over to her beside and gave her a long, loving kiss. “I love you,” I sighed.

“I love you too,” she repeated. “Michael… Michael can you do one thing for me?” she asked. I nodded. Of course, I’d do anything for her. “You know your mama’s garden? Well… I know you don’t really like plants, but… but could you keep it nice for me, just for a little while? I know it won’t stay that way forever, but just… maybe through the rest of the year? Can you water the plants - and not too much, you know, just enough so that they don’t dry out and then… maybe… maybe when you look out there could you think of me? And remember me? Please?”

“Of course Sydney, of course, yes of course,” I repeated, though I was fighting more than ever to keep my emotions from getting the better than me. I gave her one last kiss and then the doctor came in and took her away. I didn’t let go of her hand until the very last second and I watched them wheel her away down the hall, knowing in that moment that, no matter how long I lived, I would never, ever stop loving her.



Epilogue

Walking here in my garden, I am reminded of both my mama and Sydney, as I always have been when taking this familiar stroll. Sure, as the years went by and my age began climbing higher and higher my strolls are less frequent and are a bit more difficult, but still, I walk. I love this garden, and not a year has passed by since my twenty-seventh year that it hasn’t been in bloom. I could have moved away from my mama’s house in that time, but I didn’t because moving would have meant leaving the garden, leaving them.

This garden reminds me of how much I loved and still love those two amazing women. You see, I never stopped loving Sydney. The love I had for her is endless and true and something I never believed possible. She showed me in those six weeks we spent together that people in this world can be good and true. They don’t always have to end up disappointing you like my daddy did. She never disappointed me, not Sydney, not ever.

I hear my wife callin’ me from the house and I should go inside; the grandkids are commin’ to visit. I’ll go inside in a moment, for there’s one last thing I have to share with you. When I started my tale, I told you that I believed two things to be indisputably true about the world. Well, I’ve already proved that the one was wrong. Love can last forever, some loves that is. The special ones. But what about the other? That all our prayers and hopes are fruitless. They only allow us to prolong our hurt and the harsh reality of our lives until we finally give up on those prayers and face the truth. I believed that no wish or prayer would ever come true.

Well, guess what? I was wrong about that, too.

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