Jules eyed him with mounting frustration, but said nothing more. When she helped him into bed an hour later, she smiled into the darkness, slipped off her nightgown, and snuggled next to him.
He said nothing, nor did he move to touch her or kiss her.
Jules swallowed her disappointment and leaned down to kiss him lightly on his closed mouth. ‘I love you, Michael,’ she said, kissed him again, and settled beside him to sleep.
She awoke suddenly at the sound of an anguished moan. She blinked, and saw that it
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was still quite dark.
‘No, dammit, no! Oh God, no!’
Saint lurched sideways, tangling himself in the covers, crying out.
Oh God, she thought, and began shaking him. ‘Michael, wake up! It’s a nightmare, love. Wake up!’
She felt the beads of perspiration on his forehead, felt the pounding of his heart beneath her hand. ‘Michael!’
‘What?’ Saint came awake with a shudder. For a moment he held himself utterly still. Then very softly he whispered, ‘God, Jules, I’m so bloody scared.’
She straightened the tangled covers with trembling hands, then pulled him close. ‘I know,’ she said against his temple. ‘I would be too. But, Michael, listen to me . . . ‘ For a moment she could think of nothing to say, for this large, proud man was shuddering against her, and she couldn’t bear it. ‘Listen to me,’ she repeated, stroking his thick hair, hugging him. ‘If you don’t see tomorrow, then you will see next week. Your eyes will heal, I swear it to you.’
And if they didn’t? If he became completely blind? No, she couldn’t, wouldn’t, accept that, at least not yet, and she couldn’t allow him to give up.
‘I dreamed that you needed me,’ he said,
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his voice low and taut. ‘You were hurt, I guess. I told you I would help you, and I smiled at you and began to tell you a stupid story. And then suddenly I couldn’t see, and you were begging me to help you. I couldn’t seeP
He was clutching at her, his face buried against her breasts. He was shuddering as if he were freezing to death. ‘I was useless,’ he said.
‘Michael.,’ she said softly, ‘it was a dream, that’s all, just a dream. I would have been scared silly if I’d dreamed it was you who were in trouble.You know something else? I can prove that it was stupid, ridiculous.’
She felt him listening to her now, and she smiled, kissing his ear. ‘Yes indeed. You are incapable of telling a stupid story. You would have had me laughing and cursing you. If I had been doing any begging, it would have been to make you stop because I was giggling so hard.’ It wasn’t good enough, she knew, not nearly. Jokes and humor were all right in their place, but not in the dead of night when monsters roamed freely through the mind.
‘I will tell you something else, husband. I know you married me because you are an honorable man. That, and you did care for me, or at least you cared for that child you’d known.’ She felt him tense, but continued
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inexorably, ‘No, it’s all right. But the fact is that we are married. We are a partnership. We are to share in everything. And we will. You said something about helplessness and dependence changing one. Well, if it does happen, if you don’t regain your sight, we will both of us change, and adapt and adjust. You would never be useless, and I think if you say that again, I’ll cosh you on your hard head.’
Saint felt her words seep into mind like soothing balm. The fear, the ghastly pain of the dream, were fading, leaving his mind free and alert.
‘Do you believe that I could ever love you any less if you were blind for the rest of your life? Have you no idea of what I feel for you? How much I admire and respect you?’
‘Jules, I … Oh, dammit!’
Suddenly it was too much. Jules burst into tears, scalding, burning tears, and she hated herself, but she couldn’t stem their flow. The dam had burst.