We sat in silence for a while, both reflecting on the lives and loves that we’d lost.
I barely registered the fact that he’d added more bourbon to our glasses, or that I’d almost finished drinking it; I was too wrapped up in the moving pictures in my head. I was flashing back to Ricky and I the first time we’d gone to the beach after moving to San Diego. How shocked we’d been to realize how much colder the ocean was on the West Coast, compared to the East. How we’d run along the beach, kicking water at each other and laughing every time the freezing drops hit us.
With the sound of his laughter echoing in my head, I stood up abruptly, the chair crashing to the ground behind me as my legs kicked it back. I placed my hand on the table to steady myself, the world threateing to tilt beneath me, then brought the other hand to cover my lips when I began to chortle loudly.
Wild sounds escaped from between my fingers, causing Jasper to look up at me with a crooked grin.
“You all right, girly?” he asked, his words not even slightly slurred. It looked like he was a more experienced bourbon drinker than I was.
“Yuppers,” I replied giddily. “I just gotta go take a nap before my folks get home,” I added on a laugh as I weaved my way clumsily through the chairs on the pool deck.
“You be careful now, girlie, and don’t go telling Howard and Sheila that I gave you the booze,” Jasper called out after me.
I turned to tell him that I wasn’t a snitch, when my foot caught on the end of one of the lounge chairs and I started to tumble. I threw my hands out, but with my reflexes muddled, I had absolutely no coordination.
I felt my wrist snap as it hit, then registered Jasper crying out in warning just before my head slammed against the concrete and I tumbled over the ledge. My last conscious thought was how warm the water was, before I became totally immersed in it.
Chapter 17
I became aware of an annoying beeping sound in the distance, and the muffled sound of voices nearby. I registered pain, specifically in my head, and I felt cold. I really wanted a thick, comfortable blanket, because I felt like I was chilled to the bone.
I gingerly tried to open my eyes, but the light was so bright that it made the pain in my head feel like it was going to explode.
“Belle,” I heard my mother call out. It sounded like she was far away, but when I felt a gentle touch on my arm, I knew she was right next to me. “Honey, are you awake?” I felt my arm shake, her say, “Howard, get a nurse.”
I could hear the worry in my mother’s voice, so I tried again to open my eyes, fighting against the burning, as my mother’s anxious face swam into focus.
“Mom,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
I felt my mom’s hand caress my cheek as she gave me a sad smile and fought back tears.
“There’s my baby girl.”
I felt sorry for upsetting her so much, and searched my memory for what had happened to cause me to be lying in a hospital bed with an IV in my arm and machines monitoring my every breath.
I remembered hanging out by the pool drinking with Jasper. I remembered we were talking about being widowed, and his kids getting him a place in the retirement community, even though it wasn’t what he wanted, but I had no idea how I ended up in the hospital.
“What happened?” I asked my mom.
She opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the return of my father, and a nurse who bypassed him and made a beeline right for my bedside. She began looking at the machines, the fluid that was hanging in a bag near my head, and finally she looked into my face.
She looked angry.
“We’ve got some nutrients and fluids pumping into your veins right now. You haven’t been eating right, you’ve been drinking way too much, and I don’t even want to ask when the last time you actually drank water was. You came to us banged up, drunk, and dehydrated.”
My eyes widened at her candor, and I avoided looking at my parents as her words penetrated and seemed to puncture my heart.
The nurse must have seen my angst, because her eyes softened, even if her words did not.
“You need to start taking care of yourself, you hear me? You’re lucky a good Samaritan was walking by when you fell in that pool, because neither you, or the other drunk you were with, had any hope of saving you from drowning.”
At the word “pool” everything came rushing back. My getting up to leave Jasper so I could go to bed, tripping, falling, and then hitting the water and feeling utterly numb.
I didn’t respond; I just stared up at her in horror, too dejected to even consider being upset with her for talking to me the way she had.
The nurse patted my hand, obviously pleased with herself for speaking her mind, then said, “I’ll get the doctor,” and left me alone in the room with my parents. Both of which were looking at me with sad eyes.