Tales of the City 08 - Mary Ann in Autumn

guess not.” Michael smiled faintly.
    “I’d just rather have a buddy waiting for me on the other side.”
    “That’s pretty much what she said.”
    There was a long, peaceful silence as they both gazed out at the bay, where a square-nosed freighter was sailing out toward the Golden Gate.
    Finally, Michael said: “Anna tells me you’re seeing someone.”
    Jake shook his head. “Not really. Not in the usual way.”
    “Is there a ‘usual way’ around here?”
    “He was only here for a few weeks.” Jake decided on the spot not to mention the reason for Jonah’s visit, since it would only endanger the fragile beauty of what had happened before he left. “He lives in a place called Snowflake.”
    “Where’s that?”
    “Arizona.”
    Michael widened his eyes optimistically. “That’s not all that far away.”
    “Oh, yeah it is.”
    Michael chuckled.
    “He wasn’t the right one, anyway. We were on different journeys.”
    “Well,” said Michael, “if you were good for each other … even for a while … sometimes that’s enough.”
    For Jake, it was enough to know that another man had desired him enough to risk everything—even the promise of everlasting life—for a kiss.

Chapter 28
The Last Thing She Needed
    A t first there was only a face, floating free in a borderless nimbus.
    “Welcome back, Mrs. Caruthers.”
    It was such a sweet face, too, so full of kindness that it might have belonged to an angel at the gates of heaven, and she actually entertained that possibility for a moment or two. But it made no sense at all. How could you be welcomed back to heaven? And since when did angels have blue titanium lip studs and fauxhawks?
    The nimbus melted, like frost in sunlight, and the whole person appeared.
    “I’m Seth,” he said. “The nurse.”
    “Hey, Seth.”
    He was fiddling with a tube—a drip of some sort, she assumed. “You were such a champ,” he told her with a smile. “You did just great.”
    Good for me, she thought. But what does that mean?
    “You barely lost any blood at all,” the nurse added. “Two teaspoons at the most.”
    Until now, she had never even thought about how much blood might be involved.
    “Did the doctor say if—?”
    “She said to tell you the procedure went very, very smoothly.”
    “Really? Two verys?” She was starting to wonder if this was how they handled patients when the news was too horrendous to be presented by a nurse. She didn’t need to be told that she was the world’s best patient; she needed to be told that she had the world’s most cancer-free insides. Was that asking too much?
    The nurse smiled at her again. “The doctor will be by later to tell you in person.”
    “What did the pathologist say?”
    “Can’t help you there, I’m afraid.”
    “Right … of course.” She remembered being told that it would take three days to get the results. She decided to focus on being grateful that she hadn’t died on the table.
    The nurse laid his hand gently on her shoulder. “Get some rest, Mrs. Caruthers.”
    “Please … Mary Ann.”
    “Mary Ann,” he repeated.
    “Thanks for saying hello, Seth.”
    “C’mon. This is the best part of the job.”
    “Just the same, thank you.”
    Thank you, thank you, thank you.
    T HE NEXT TIME SHE DRIFTED into consciousness, she heard DeDe and Dr. Ginny in quiet conversation across the room, so she kept her eyes shut and eavesdropped. It was scary to do this, but she wanted to make sure Seth hadn’t been sparing her the truth.
    “You’ll need to get her up and walking,” Dr. Ginny was saying.
    “Tonight?”
    “Just down to the end of the hallway. Take your time about it, but do it. It’ll help with the healing.”
    “Okay.”
    Ask her how it went, DeDe! No, don’t ask her!
    “I expect the incisions to heal rather quickly,” said Dr. Ginny. “It helps that she was already so fit.”
    “I know. It’s so annoying.”
    Dr. Ginny chuckled. “It’s just Pilates.”
    “No, it’s genes, dammit. Have you ever seen a picture of my mother? We were born to be hens.”
    Their soft laughter was encouraging, if not especially informative.
    Surely they wouldn’t be laughing if the news had been bad.
    S HE WAS AWAKENED BY A metallic rattling that sounded like medical machinery. She opened her eyes with a vague sense of dread, wondering if something had gone wrong and she was back on the operating table. But it was just DeDe, methodically removing dishes from a gingham-lined picnic basket