For just a second, all Grace can feel is the warm back pressed up against her face. Just a second, and then the pain comes roaring in, along her limbs, her hips. And she has to pee, too. Great.
She tries to turn over and hasn’t got the strength. So she shimmies awkwardly off the bed on her stomach, until her feet touch the floor, and she can test them with a little weight. It hurts pretty bad, and her knees are rubbery with just that little pressure — there’s no way she’ll be walking to the bathroom. Well, crawling is always an option, if her wrists aren’t in as bad a shape as her feet are. She’ll just have to see.
She’s not aware of making any noise, but suddenly Hal is awake and beside her on the floor. Did she make a thump getting down here?
“Baby, what’s up?” Hal’s eyes are bleary, but his voice is warm. It feels wonderful, that voice. “You hurt?”
“No,” she grunts, “It’s just the stupid fibromyalgia. Sorry I woke you. Was just getting up to pee.” Her wrists are indeed in the same shape as her feet, and she pitches forward onto her face as she attempts to crawl. How. Absolutely. Mortifying.
In one motion, Hal has her off the floor and into his arms. He sets her down in front of the toilet gently, carefully, and steadies her as she yanks her nightgown up. And then she’s on the toilet. Easy as that. But, God, she had hoped that he would never have to see her like this.
“Thank you, Ogimaa,” she says in a very small voice. She can’t look at him.
His voice is still warm, even, almost uninflected. “Would a showe– a bath help?”
She shakes her head. There’s just no way.
She sees his bare kneecaps bob out of her line of sight. They reappear shortly, followed by the rest of him, as he kneels in front of her, lifting her feet into a pair of underwear and sweatpants. Together they dress her and brush her teeth and hair. His voice caresses her the whole time, calm, light, like this is no big deal.
“I’ve been wantin’ to go out in da pirogue for ages. It seems today might be a good time, no?”
The sun rising over the bayou is spectacular on any day. Grace thinks that there might not be any words for it today. She’s enthroned in the bow of the antique pirogue, propped up on cushions and padding and what-not. Hal is behind her, poling the boat through the water and the wisps of fog that rise up from it.
Frogs stare at them warily before plopping back in the water, birds wake, shake themselves, and take flight. She can see schools of fingerlings just below the surface of the water. And she learns the names of all of them in turn, as they glide past. It’s almost ridiculously magical, like something out of one of Lucas’ storybooks, almost as if they’re the only two people on earth.
The sun gets higher and warmer, and Hal stops poling for a while to rest. He laughingly hands her a silly-looking bottle, then pulls it back when she reaches for it. “Wait. You takin’ any painkillers or anythin’? Don’t wanna drug you to sleep, now.”
“No. I ran out of pills last month. But I haven’t had anything to eat, if that’s booze.”
“Course it’s booze. But I am, as always, meticulously prepared.” He hands her the opened bottle, then a couple of beignets, with very little powdered sugar, just the way Aunt Frog likes making them. She’s suddenly ravenous, and really thirsty. A battered golf umbrella appears, to shield her from the morning sun. The Queen of the Nile couldn’t have had it any better. The sun is warm, and Hal is warmer, heating her through with his smile, his voice, his presence. Of course she’s in love. How could she ever have wondered?
Inevitably, the sun and the alcohol and the relaxation undo her kinks enough for her to fall asleep. She wakes with the sun far above her — it must be nearly noon. The bottom of the pirogue makes scraping noises. She looks down, unbending her neck, to be confronted with a bobbing sea of purple and gold, the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.
“Remember me tellin’ ya about dah swamp irises? That’s what dese are.” Hal is beside her in the boat, leaning over her, stroking the hair away from her face. And it doesn’t matter that she’s stiff and sore, and that swamp irises are an invasive species and a pest, or even that the boat seems a bit wobbly with both of them stretched out side-by-side in the front.
She’s in wonderland.
And it doesn’t hurt that Hal’s caught a big mess of sac-a-lait, and they’re going to feast on fish tonight.