Among the Ducklings (6 page)

How ironic life was
, Dr. Gomez thought.
 
A month and a half ago, she managed to get
Phil transferred to the center, hoping that she would find a way to introduce
him to Isabel, when Isabel came to visit her. Now that he was here, her
priorities had changed. She was no longer concerned about getting rid of
Richard, in spite of the fact that he was cheating on Isabel. Isabel's health was now
her utmost concern. Her dating plan for Isabel had been scrapped and replaced
with more meaningful matters.

“How could
I forget?
 
You are the only basketball
player I know who does not get paid for hurting himself,” Marcia replied with
a mocking smile.

“Are you a
basketball player?” the woman in the wheelchair asked, gazing at Phil.

When Phil's
eyes met her eyes, Phil felt momentarily at a loss. Until that day, Phil never
thought that a woman's eyes could make him feel so uncomfortable, so naked. It
was like her eyes could pierce through his skin and bone to read the innermost
part of his soul. It was not the color of her eyes, he decided, it was their
deepness that made him feel so exposed.
 

“Phil, this
is my niece Isabel,” Marcia interjected.
 
Phil was grateful and wondered whether Isabel could read his
thoughts.
 
He knew that it was stupid to
think like this, but he never felt a woman's eyes could have that effect on
him. He remembered once reading an English translation of an old French poem
called
Les
Yeux
d'Elsa
, The Eyes of Elsa, and until that
day when he met Isabel, he never believed that a person's eyes could be so
profound to deserve an ode.

“Hi
Isabel,” he finally said, waving his right hand. “It's nice meeting you.”

They did
not shake hands. He knew that he somehow also looked stupid.
 
What was worse was that he felt stupid
too.
 
He had cause to worry. How could he
feel so attracted to a woman in a wheel chair that he didn't even know?

“Come sit
with us, Phil, we were not talking about anything special,” Marcia said.
 
Then addressing Isabel, Marcia added, “I met
Phil at the hospital in Saint Augustine. He had injured his ankle playing
basketball.”

“Actually,
I'm not a basketball player. I wish. I was playing with some friends when I
fell and broke my ankle,” Richard said to Isabel.

“You went
to the hospital all the way in Saint Augustine?” Isabel asked, with a puzzled
look on her face, causing Phil to laugh.

“No, I was
in Saint Augustine visiting some friends when this happened,” Phil said.
 
At that moment, a voice came on the external
intercom calling for Doctor Gomez to come to the lobby, causing Marcia to get
up.

“See you
later, Dr. Gomez,” Phil said.

“I'll be
back,” Marcia simply replied.
 
Then
looking at Phil, she added, “Phil, you can call me Marcia now,” and then walked
away.
 

As Marcia
was leaving, Phil, who was now sitting on the bench, said to Isabel, “your aunt
is very nice.”

“I
know.
 
Without her, I don't know what I
would have done after my accident,” Isabel said

“What
happened?” Phil asked.

Isabel was
not sure why, but for some reason, for the next hour she and Phil talked about
ducks, animals and whatever came to mind. She told Phil everything that
happened since the day she woke up in the hospital after the accident.

“I am now
able to move my legs.
 
But no one is sure
if I will ever fully recover,” Isabel finished. Phil listened patiently to her
story as Isabel told him what had happened in her life during the past six
weeks. She was so comfortable talking to him that she even forgot that she had
only just met him.

“It's only
been six weeks. I'm sure with time, you will recover,” Phil said.

“I hope
so,” Isabel answered. “I'm sorry to talk so much about me. I usually don't do
that.”

“Actually,
you haven't. I still don't know your last name and what you do for living. I
only know that you like to watch ducklings,” Phil said, pointing to the birds
in the water. Phil's last remark caused Isabel to smile.
What I would give to see her smile like that
every day,
Phil thought.

“My last
name is Romero and I own a company that makes applications for hand-held
computers. What about you?” asked
Isabel.

##

For the
next two weeks, after each therapy session, Phil and Isabel would sit by the
lake
everyday
, where they would talk for hours.
 
Phil was amazed at Isabel's strength in the
face of adversity. Phil would go to bed every night, wishing tomorrow would
come soon for him to see Isabel again.
 
When he was with Isabel, he wished that he could stop time so that they
didn't have to leave each other.
 
He was
in love with her, but didn't dare tell her, fearing that this revelation would
push her away.
 
He just wanted to be with
her always. Phil felt special because Isabel would share with him her secret
dreams that she never shared with anyone else.
 
Some were just simple dreams, like her dreams to go one day to the South
Pole to see penguins.
 
But knowing that
he was the only person who knew, only added hope to his dream about being with
her forever. Phil never thought about the South Pole or penguins before
Isabel.
  
Now, one
evening at home, he found himself watching the movie The March of the Penguins.
 
He loved Isabel and cared about everything
Isabel cared about.

Until
she met Phil, Isabel never thought a man could ever understand her seemingly
small dreams. At the beginning, when Isabel started dating Richard, she used to
tell him about her wish to go one day on a safari trip to Kenya.
 
All Richard would say was that they had
everything they wanted here in the United States, including animal theme parks
and large zoos. Richard was not a person to delve into conversations about
petty dreams. Isabel slowly stopped talking about her dreams. With Phil it was
different. It was as if he wanted to be part of them with her. She found
herself wanting for him to be in those dreams, for them to enjoy those moments
together.
 
Whether it was the South Pole,
the penguins, the safari, or simply being all alone in the middle of nowhere,
it would suit her just fine, as long as Phil was with her. She didn’t tell Phil
that she was engaged.
 
“It didn’t matter,”
she was saying to herself because there was nothing between them.
 
However, she still felt a tinge of
guilt.
 
Why couldn’t she tell him?
 
Was it because she was afraid to lose him?

One
day, they were sitting in front of the lake when Isabel asked, “What about you
Phil?
 
You never told me about any secret
dreams that you have.”

Phil was
surprised at the question and blushed, prompting Isabel to smile, “I promise I
won’t tell a soul, not even the ducklings, here.”
Phil took a long time before he said, “Paint.”

“Paint?”
repeated Isabel surprised at the answer.

“Yes,” Phil
answered. “Ever since I was a little boy, I wanted to paint.
 
I wanted to become a painter.”

“Why didn’t
you become one?” Isabel asked.

“I wasn’t
any good. Besides, I had to make a living,” Phil answered. He explained that the only
professional painters that he ever met were at art exhibits, and most of them
seemed to have a job on the side.

“Did you at
least try?” Isabel asked.

Phil
smiled.

He’s so
hot, Isabel caught herself thinking. I wish he could be
mine
forever. Isabel was happy to be there with him.

“I tried to
take a class. You would never believe what happened.”

“What
happened?” asked Isabel, visibly interested.

“Right
after law school, the junior college was teaching a drawing class during the
summer.
 
I called and enrolled. When I
got to class, it wasn’t a painting class at all. It was a class for
architects.
 
The class was to teach
people how to draw houses and buildings.”

Both
laughed.

“So, did
you get your money back?” Isabel asked.

“No, it was
after the dropout date, and I had to spend the whole summer being criticized by
the professor for designing big houses on tiny foundations.”

This time
only Isabel laughed. “At least, you now know how to design buildings.”

“Actually,
I still don’t. You’re the only one who knows this story. If you ever tell a
soul about it, I will deny it.”

“Promise me
that you will design my next house and I won’t talk,” an amused Isabel said.

“Actually,
designing the house is not the problem.
 
Keeping it from crashing down is,” Phil said.

Both of
them laughed again. The story was funny and silly. But it was a story only the
two of them knew. It was as if Isabel and Phil were living in a different
world. A world made of only two people, her and Phil. She was falling in love
with Phil and that scared her, because, after all, she was engaged to another
man.

As the days
went by, Isabel wanted to see Phil more and more, every day, every hour, every
minute. Isabel liked to see Phil laugh, to hear him tell funny stories, and to
simply just sit down with Phil and wish that he would stay with her forever.

##

One day,
Isabel waited the whole afternoon by the lake but Phil didn’t come.
 
By the time Isabel got home, her head and her
heart were hurting.
 
She was worried sick
about him.
 
But she could not call
him.
 
What if he had decided to never
come
sit with her again? She asked herself.
 
Calling him would be a huge mistake. She
didn’t know what to do, and spent the whole night awake and in fear that she
might never be with Phil by the lake again. She felt sick to her stomach at the
thought.
 
If being in love brings happiness,
why did it hurt so bad inside? She asked herself.

The
next day, she was there early, waiting and hoping that she was wrong and that
Phil would come again.
 
And when she saw
him, it was as if all the pain that she had endured had disappeared.
 
He was carrying a small gift bag in his
hands.

He came,
sat down and said, “I have something for you.”

“For
me?”
Isabel asked,
surprised.

“Oh, yes. I
spent yesterday afternoon finishing it,” Phil said as he pulled a pencil
portrait of Isabel from the bag.

Isabel was
breathless. “You did that for me?”

“Of
course.
For
who
else would I miss my therapy session?” Phil asked.
 
He wondered whether Isabel had any idea how
much he loved her and how much he wanted to hold her, kiss her, and be with her
forever.
 

Isabel then
gently grabbed the portrait. She was trembling. It was a beautiful framed
portrait of her sitting and looking at the lake.

“This is
beautiful,” she said. “You said you weren’t good.”

“Actually,
I’m not. You’d be amazed to see what I have learned from YouTube.”

“Don’t tell
me that you learned how to do this from watching an internet video?” Isabel
asked.

“Actually,
many videos,” Phil answered. “Do you like it?”

“Are you
kidding?” Isabel answered. “This is the most wonderful gift I’ve ever received
in my life.”

“I’m glad,”
Phil simply said.
Isabel was scared. She knew that she was in love with him. But things had gone
too far. Phil didn’t even know that she was engaged.
 
She wanted to tell him but she didn’t know
how to do it without losing him.
 
If only
she hadn’t already promised Richard to marry him, things would have been so
different. But things were the way they were. She put the portrait back in the
gift bag and decided that she would tell him tomorrow.
 
She needed to go back home and figured out
the best way to do it, and let the chips fall where they may.

##

As soon as
she had put the portrait in the pocket of her wheelchair, a familiar voice
said, “Here you are.”

They both
turned.
Oh no!
Isabel didn’t expect
Richard to come back so early from his trip to Orlando.
 
She didn’t even get a chance to tell Phil
about him.
 
Isabel felt guilty.
 
She loved a man but had promised another that
she would marry him.
 
She was not the
type of person to break promises, and she had delayed too long in making a
decision about the situation. Was it too late for Phil and her? She wondered.