Blue Clouds (25 page)

That showed his obsession had gone over the edge. In another minute, he'd imagine her in a fairy godmother outfit, waving a wand.

Chad began to shiver. He whimpered in his sleep, and his teeth chattered as he brushed restlessly at his sheet.

“Get a light blanket,” Pippa ordered.

Orders, he could handle. Just not tears. Orders meant hope. He brought a stack of blankets of different thicknesses.

Pippa chose a light one to throw over the lush midnight blue coverlet. Chad's head still tossed and turned against the pillow beneath the plastic tent. Pippa sat on the edge of the bed, offering him Pedialyte from the ridiculous plastic cup. Chad sipped, then settled sleepily against the pillow again, but soon he was shaking all over.

Nana appeared, followed by Doug and Lillian, their anxious glances saying more than words.

Pippa offered what hope she could and chased them out again, although she did it far more politely than Seth would have done. He didn't want anyone interfering, coming between him and Chad at a crucial point like this. He couldn't handle the distraction.

She cursed and Seth jerked his head up, frantically searching her face. She wasn't crying any longer. She looked mad enough to chew nails. She dismantled the oxygen tent and began wrapping Chad in a cocoon of blankets.

“Hold him as close as you can, and talk to him. He's not convulsing yet, but his body thinks it's cold. His temperature isn't rising more, but it's still like a fire inside him.”

Seth didn't have to be told twice to climb on the bed and hold his son in his arms. He'd been wanting to do just that for days.

Chad was six years old, old enough to go to school on his own, but to Seth, he was still the infant he'd cuddled, the helpless toddler, the little boy with nightmares. He cradled him carefully, wrapping him tighter until the shivering stopped and a weary dark head rested on his shoulder. He could feel Chad's chest heaving. He still breathed.

Just that knowledge was enough for Seth to look up to Pippa for reassurance and approval.

The tears had returned to her eyes. One trailed down her cheek, leaving a wet stain behind. He sensed these weren't tears of terror though. They didn't shake him as badly as the earlier ones. The way she looked at him and Chad, he'd say they were just a woman's tears. Women cried at everything. One had never cried over him before. The thought tore at his already shredded heart.

“He's sleeping,” Seth whispered, wanting to console her.

She nodded. “The fever isn't down yet,” she warned, testing Chad's forehead, leaning so close Seth could smell her lemon- scented shampoo.

“I know.”
I know
, Seth repeated to himself, leaning back against the headboard, resisting the need for her touch. He'd been in this lonely place before, all those horrible nights in the hospital after the accident, wheeling himself to Chad's infant bed, watching him sleep, looking so tiny and frail attached to respirators and monitors. He hadn't been able to hold his son then, had barely been able to hold himself up, but his arms had ached for that tiny burden.

He'd had so many long hours to think over the years. He'd quit asking why God had punished a tiny child after he started asking why he couldn't remember what happened. The nightmares had begun when Natalie served him divorce papers. He would wake up sweating in the middle of the night, then go to his lawyer the next day, eager for blood. He couldn't fight God, but he sure as hell had fought Natalie, and won.

But here he was, fighting God again.

“Is there never any end?” he whispered, out of habit forgetting anyone else was in the room. He seldom had anyone to hear his midnight railing.

Pippa had been so silent, he'd accepted her as a part of him, a third arm that knew what to do without his speaking. But she answered him now.

“There's always an end. Sometimes, it comes sooner than others.”

He sought her face in the dim glow of the night-light. For the first time, he noticed how tired she looked. Black circles shadowed the frail skin beneath her eyes, and her mouth drooped. He'd never seen her without a smile, or at worst, a tight-lipped determination—the red-haired tigress. But now she was just a tired woman, saying things she wouldn't normally say.

“I want him to live,” he insisted, trying to explain his earlier sentiments. “I just want the suffering to stop.”

The look she gave him was so inexpressibly sad that Seth wanted to hold her in his arms, as he held Chad.

“Sometimes, I think that's what life is, a kind of purgatory we must suffer until we learn to handle it right.”

He couldn't argue with that logic. He hugged Chad tighter. “That's all right for adults, but what kind of God would make children suffer?”

“Who said God is responsible for what we do to ourselves? Meg's brother had muscular dystrophy. She knew the women in her family carried the gene for that particular form of it. She's Catholic. She thought about becoming a nun so she wouldn't pass it on. But then she met George.”

She shrugged, and Seth watched her struggle with the rest of the story. Sometimes, his isolation left him thinking he was the only person in the world who suffered. He needed to be reminded there were others far worse off than he.

“Their older children didn't inherit the disease,” he reminded her.

“And they should have stopped while they were ahead. But they love each other very much, and they love their kids, and they were still young
      
.” She sighed and ran her fingers through the thick bob of her hair. “Meg had three kids by the time she was twenty-four. Meg and George brought their suffering and Mikey's on themselves. God had nothing to do with it.”

“Muscular dystrophy isn't fatal, is it? And Mikey's strong. He still has a lot of use of his legs, I noticed. He could probably walk with the proper aids and therapy.”

“Most children with this form of dystrophy are still walking at his age. His disease has progressed more rapidly than normal.”

Seth heard the death knell in her voice but wouldn't believe it. She was just tired and depressed. He knew the feeling. But Mikey looked ten times healthier than Chad. He was a big child, strong, cheerful, outgoing, a delight for anyone to know. He might be wheelchair-bound for life, but that wasn't a death sentence. Seth could see Mikey and Chad growing old together, attending the same college, joining the same law firm, maybe. He'd been harboring all kinds of secret hopes these last weeks, hopes for the kind of life he'd never had.

“Therapy will help,” he assured her. “I'll have the contractor speed up the gym renovation. Mikey can come out to the pool more often. He'll be fine.”

“Boys with Mikey's form of dystrophy seldom live past the age of eighteen.”

Silence fell between them. Then Chad cried out and began to shake violently.

“The bath,” Pippa said at the same time as Seth swung his legs over the edge of the bed and aimed in that direction, stripping off Chad's blankets in the process.

“Daddy!” Chad cried out, flinging his arms frantically as the blankets fell to the floor. “Daddy!”

“I'm here, son. I'm here. I won't let you go,” Seth soothed him, his deep voice as calm as his eyes were terrified.

Pippa's heart twisted at the expression on his face and the tone of his voice. He was scared out of his wits but doing everything within his power to lend strength to his child. That's why God gave men strength and courage, she decided. Not for war, but for protecting their children.

“I'm hot.” Chad pulled irritably at his pajama top. “I want a drink.”

Incredulous, Seth halted his progress to glance at Pippa. She hurried to test Chad's temperature. Was it just her wishful thinking, or did he feel slightly cooler? The shaking had almost stopped.

Big dark eyes opened and blinked at her. “I want Coke,” Chad demanded, “not that nasty stuff.”

“That nasty stuff is called Pedialyte,” she told him, but she grinned inside and out as she said it. Trembling with hope, she kissed Chad's dry cheek and made him grimace. “I don't have Coke. Drink the other now, and I'll have Doug get you some.”

She nodded her head toward the bed. Chad coughed with great hacking whoops and Seth hesitated, but finally returned his son to the bed. Chad refused to lie down.

“Coke,” he commanded again.

“Water,” Pippa replied firmly, offering him an alternative.

“I'll get the Coke. You drink what Pippa tells you.” Seth hurried toward the door.

“Coward,” Pippa called after him.

Chad grimaced at the taste of the water, but he gulped it thirstily, then pushed the cup away. “Coke.”

It was going to be a damned long convalescence, but Pippa couldn't wipe the smile from her face.

The doctor finally arrived, checked the new statistics showing a falling temperature, tested Chad's lungs, gave him another shot, and left with a much stronger prognosis. Pippa nearly wept with relief and exhaustion as Chad returned to a healing slumber.

Lillian, who had appeared at Seth's frantic yell for Coke, patted her on the back. “You need to get some rest, Phillippa. The doctor said Chad will sleep. Why don't you let me and Nana sit up with him tonight? You and Seth will need your strength tomorrow when he wakes. Both of you, go on now. Everything will look much brighter in the morning.”

Pippa almost choked on that cheery sentiment, one she had expressed herself so many times. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and a glance at the wry twist of Seth's lips said he felt the same. Biting back what could only be hysteria, she nodded. She definitely needed rest.

Seth looked dubious at the thought of leaving his mother in charge, but rubbing his hand through his tumbled hair, he followed Pippa into the hallway.

“Maybe I should stay in there a few hours more, just in case,” he muttered as he closed the door to the sickroom so his mother couldn't hear him.

Pippa shook her head. “The doctor gave him a sedative. He'll sleep for hours. Your mother will call me if his temperature goes up again. I'll come and get you if there's any problem. You need some sleep. He'll be a handful in the morning.”

She didn't feel sleepy any longer. Standing in the shadowed hallway beside the man she'd come to know better than any man in her life, she felt buoyant, energy racing through her veins as if there were more to do and the night was young. The night was young, actually, but she had no right to feel this way.

Seth hesitated, as if the same mood had struck him. He offered a tentative smile. “It's over, isn't it? That was the crisis? He'll recover now?”

She grinned back. “For the moment. He might break his leg bouncing off the bed in the morning, but for right now, for right this minute, everything is just fine. He's breathing normally. His temperature is falling. It's over. I told you, kids recuperate quickly.”

Seth closed his eyes briefly and a wide smile of joy and relief spread across his narrow face. “Thank God.” His eyes sprung, open again, and he beamed down at her. “Do we dare share a drink?”

And for that moment in time, it seemed the perfect thing to do. A celebration of life, an acknowledgment of a job well done, a breaking of bread and sharing of wine in thanksgiving.

She nodded, and he led the way down the hall.

“I keep wine in here, a kind of test, I guess,” he said diffidently, throwing open the door to his bedroom. “I've never felt tempted before, but tonight...”

She should have thought twice about crossing the threshold, but he had a suite of rooms larger than her own. Inside, there was nothing more than an innocuous sofa and a few chairs in front of a stone fireplace, and the usual bank of windows overlooking still another view of the mountains and valley. No etchings, no artwork, no framed pictures. He may as well not have lived there.

Seth crossed the room to an oak cabinet, unlocked the door, and removed a bottle and some glasses. Maybe he kept all his secrets locked behind closed doors.

“I don't celebrate very often,” he apologized, wiping out the glasses with a paper napkin. “I'm always afraid of celebrating too soon.”

“And then the moment passes and it's too late for celebrating. Or there's no one to celebrate with.” Pippa could empathize. She'd never thought herself lonely until she'd met this man, and the vacuum of his life resonated with an emptiness in hers.

She drifted toward the windows and the magnificent landscape. The house might be a mausoleum, but the views were spectacular. She could never get enough of them. She wished she had a periscope to see the ocean and the waves on the other side of those purple hills. “One celebrates the moment, not the past or the future. Celebrate right now, and let tomorrow take care of itself.”

“I like that philosophy.” He stood beside her, looking out the windows, too, as he handed her a glass. “I used to pretend that was a foreign country out there, the Himalayas sometimes. I dreamed of roaming those hills and never coming back.”