Authors: Anne Leigh
"It's ok," I assured him.
Zander's mother was now looking at
me, expectantly, curiously.
"This is my disclaimer - I am not an investor and I am not impart
ial to this topic," I began.
His parents laughed.
Zander held my hand.
"I believe that there should be affordable health care coverage available to every person in the United States,” I stated.
His father ask
ed, “Why? We don’t have it now. What difference does it make if we do?” He was looking at me expectantly, trying to gauge my stance.
I took a small breath and said, “When I walk through the emergency rooms, the waiting rooms are filled with people - young and old, with no health insurance. When I go to clinical rotations, I see the struggles of working parents who cannot afford healthcare coverage and they bring their children to the hospitals when they're already very sick. Our nation is supposedly a superpower, but how come our infant mortality rate is almost the same as that of 3rd world countries? How is it that we tend to overlook the health of our people? Without healthy people, there will be no workers, there will be no employers. Basically, we are nothing without our health." Whew. That was a mouthful. I was passionate about this and hopefully, my passion didn’t come out as arrogance.
His mother
had a strange look in her eyes; I couldn't tell if it was good or bad. Mr. Zobowski spoke first, "Well said, Sedona. I believe I just found the CEO for my healthcare company."
Zande
r kissed the top of my head.
Zander’s mom
finally spoke, "I don't think I was quite that eloquent when I was your age."
"Don't take this the wrong way, Sedona,” she added wistfully, with the forewarning, “When my son was in high school, he brought a
lot of girls to our house."
Zander looked like he was about to squirm in his seat, his eyes were a shade greener. His ears were turning red. He
was getting uncomfortable.
"Haven, I don't think Sedona wants to hear th
at," his father interjected.
"No, I am trying to say something," she silent
ly reprimanded her husband.
"Anyways, before I was interrupted, I was saying that Zander brought a lot of girls to our house when he was in high school. I knew the girls' names because I knew their parents. I would hound Zander to personally introduce me to them, but he'd just say, '
Nah, nothing special, Mom'."
She took a sip of her wine. Zander’s ears were still red and now his whole f
ace was a shade redder too.
"Through the years, I stopped asking him a
bout girls or women. I figured, that’s his business. He has a good head on his shoulders and I believe that we've raised him well. So just imagine my surprise when I talked to him, about a month ago and asked him on what's going on."
"You know what the f
irst thing he told me was?"
I shook my head no.
"He said, 'Mom, I met a girl a few months back. Her name's Sedona. And,
she's very special to me'."
I was still. Quiet. I didn't know what to say or how to respond. His mother, however, wasn't don
e with what she had to say.
"Now, I know firsthand that you're a very special girl, Sedona. I'm really glad that my son sees that." Her smile was wide; her perfect teeth glimmered against the lights. She reminded me of Zander when he was bursting
with happiness, excitement.
Zander's father steered the conversation to lighter topics after that, such as, wines and the fascinating p
laces that they've been to.
In all the years I've lost my mother, I could honestly
it was during moments like these, conversing and laughing with Zander’s mom, that I missed her most. Zander's mother was an epitome of a great woman who was beautiful, inside and out. She reminded me so much of my mother; her easy laugh, kindness, and grace.
We left the restaurant close to midnight. Zander's parents had an early morning trip to Philadelphia so we hugged and said our goodbyes. They invited me to come visit them the next time they were in town.
Chapter Twenty
“Don’t ever be afraid of love, to love…”
Sedona
Thanksgiving and Christmas came and went. Zander and I spent the holidays apart because of our parents. He was with his in Aspen, Colorado. I spent mine catching up with my dad in Brazil. I was really lucky to have a dad who traveled as a job. I got to visit
beautiful places because of him.
Zander and I talked every day. We made very good use of our time practicing safe sex. He called phone sex as ‘safe sex’ because it happened from a distance, thousands of miles away.
A few days before we were due back to school, Zander called and he sounded so sick. He said that he might have caught a bug that was going around their hotel. He barely kept awake during our conversations.
I arrived a day later than he did. As soon as I arrived,
I wanted to see him after dropping off my luggage at my apartment. I called a cab from the airport because all our friends were still away for winter break. Most of them were coming back in a day or two.
His eyes were so red when he greeted me at his place. As I walked inside, I saw his footsteps staggered. He barely managed to walk to his room. I was scared that he would fall on the floor so I tried to assist him by holding him
to my side while we walked.
On his nightstand was a box of Cough and Flu medicine, a box of Kleenex, and his trash can was almo
st filled with used tissues.
As soon as he hit the bed, he lied on his back and fell asl
eep.
I went to the kitchen, heated up a canned soup from the cupboard and brought th
e steaming bowl to his room.
"Zander, you have to eat somethi
ng," I coaxed him to get up.
All he did was grunt, followed
by another bout of coughing.
He looked
miserable.
I felt his head with the back of my hand, he was burning up! I went to his bathroom, ran hand towels under the cool water, and placed them on his head. His clothes were soaked in sweat. He lifted his arms when I pulled on his shirt and tried to lift his legs when I pulled on his
pants. He was so weak, he barely helped me out.
In my nursing rotations, I was used to changing my patient's beds and giving them baths. But changing and giving a sponge bath to a 220 lb male, all muscle, on his dead weight, without any help, was something I foun
d to be extremely difficult.
Zander's eyes were closed and I heard him moan and grunt from time to time. After almost 45 minutes, I had him changed
into cooler, dry clothing.
I waited another hour before waking him up. The soup had gotten cold so I reheated it in the microwave. Then, somehow I got him to eat half the bowl and take the medicine on his nightstand. I wasn't sure when he took his medicine last so I asked him and he said, in between bouts of coughing a
nd sneezing, ‘this morning’.
I stayed with him that night. I tried to get some sleep but each time he coughed, sneezed, and moaned in
agony, I felt the sounds pull on my heart. Caring for patients was something that I loved to do. I wanted to make them feel better. There was, however, a part of me that was somewhat disconnected from my patients. That part enabled me to care for them objectively.
With Zander, there was no such delineation. His sounds of pain and agony made me weaker. I found myself praying to God, for him. I wished that he would open his eyes and look at me as he always did
– healthy, playful, strong.
I was a little girl when my mom passed away. So I didn’t remember her being in the hospital or suffering through the pain. What I remembered was my dad saying that watching her go through all the pain, made him want to tear th
rough the walls and scream.
I felt that now. To see Zander this way, I wanted to scream and say "Stop, wake up, get better!" I knew I was probably being overdramatic. I've taken care of people with the flu and I saw them get better. However, with him, I thought of all the bad things that could happen. What if he got pneumonia? What of he developed a lung infection? Wh
at if he didn’t get better?
I felt helpless. Tired. Weak. I was used to seeing him so strong. Strong enough to tackle men who weighed twice as he did and lift me at the same time. Now, this, on the bed, covered by a soft blanket with a wash rug on his head, he looked so vulnerable whi
le resting.
I was still staring at him, sorting through all the emotions and thoughts in my head, laying on the soft, suede cushion of the
papasan
chair on the side of his bed, when I reached a moment of clarity. It was like I was on train that was traveling at 190 mph and in a second, it careened to a stop. This was as close as I could describe what I was feeling.
It became clear to me that my happiness was linked to the man sleeping peacefully across from me. Without me knowing it, his feelings were directly linked to mine. Without me realizing it, he now held the power to break my heart. It was then that I knew I
was falling in love with him.
This realization did not settle with me. I didn't know he felt. I didn't know how he would react. I didn't know if right now was the right time to fall in love. Our relationship was great. We were happy. We were in a good place. We were on our way to great careers. What if me admitting that I was falling in love with him messed things up? What about my goals? My 3 P’s and 5 D’s? Have I really strayed so far off my path?
I never planned to fall in love. It was #7 on my list. How did one deal with falling in love? What if someone lost the person whom they fell in love with? My dad was never the same after losing my mom. He was a great dad and will always be. But, he was different. Broken. Was I ready to be broken?
I wanted to call Kieran or Nalee or Tanya. Calling them, however, would be admitting that I was in love. I was not ready to do that yet. I didn’t know if I ever will.
I fell asleep with those thoughts in my head. I didn't know if I was dreaming but sometime, during the night, I felt someone lifting me and
transferring me to the bed.
I woke up with the sounds of the w
ater running in the shower.
My eyes were blurry from sleep, when
I heard him, "Awake, babe?"
I slowly sat up on the bed. I saw that the bed sheets were now green instead of the dark blue
sheets that Zander slept in.
"Yeah," I said,
"Did you change the sheets?"
His eyes were tired, "I don't want you catching what I have. My mom always changed the sheets after I was sick," he said while reaching for clothes in his
closet.
"Great tip," I agreed,
"I have to get going though."
"You got stuff to do today?" he asked, his voice sounding better and
he was not coughing anymore.
"Yup, I have to go change and run some errands," I
said, trying to sound calm.
"Ok, call me later when you're done," he glanced at me. He looked as if he wanted
to add more, but he stopped.
"Ok" I stood up, straightened my shirt as best as I can, and was about to get to the door when he reached out with his right arm and pulled me into
a hug.
"Thank you for taking care of me, babe," he said, while runnin
g his right hand down my back.
I could feel my heart hammering against my rib cage,
the vibration seeping through my sternum. I wanted to get out of the room; I also wanted to stay in his arms. I needed space to breathe; I didn't want him to let go. I felt helpless. I felt that my heart, my mind, and my body were no longer mine. He had no idea how jumbled my thoughts and feelings were.