Chapter Nine

There was much catching up over dinner. It seemed as if Matt's career was taking off, not so much as an artist, but as an acquirer of art.

He and Julie had set a wedding date, now that Tami was out of the coma – late next May, by which time Julie would be done with her journalism degree. She thought that if her internship went well, she could get a job with the Chicago Tribune.

Gracie was starting her first day of Kindergarten on Tuesday – at least Tami would be there for that momentous "first day of school," although Gracie had already gone to Trinity all last year, five half-days a week. It would be newer for Tami than it would be for Gracie.

Eric started asking Tami if she was tired at 7:30. Matt and Julie offered to put Gracie to bed, and they would be sleeping on an inflatable mattress in the office loft. Tami thought it would be better when the au pair was out of the house permanently and they had a guest bedroom again.

Gracie insisted she would be the one reading Matt a bedtime story - Harold and the Purple Crayon. "It's a baby book," she said, "but I still like it. Harold's an artist. Matt will get it."

[FNL]

The instant the bedroom door closed at 7:50, Eric's lips were on Tami's, and her cane dropped to the ground. She felt her knees buckle, but she didn't think it was because of lack of muscle tone. His mouth made its way to the small of her neck, which he assaulted with greedy nips. She was glad for his hunger, but she also wanted more. "I thought you were going to take your sweet time," she whispered.

He pulled reluctantly away. "You want to try out the Jacuzzi?"

She smiled and nodded.

In the bathroom, he turned on the tub and drew out some tea candles from under one of the sinks. He set them all around the stone rim of the tub, lit them, and flicked off the bathroom light while the water tumbled in a steady, soothing stream. Slowly, he began to undress her.

"You know I haven't regained all of my muscle," she said. "I don't look as good as I use– "

"- You look beautiful," he insisted, and continued his slow work, caressing her with his eyes. He lowered her into the tub and then stripped off his own clothes. He was more muscular than she remembered, especially across the chest.

"Have you been lifting a lot of weights?" she asked. "Who were you trying to look good for while I was in that coma?"

"I was angry. It helped. There's a clubhouse two streets down. It's part of our HOA dues. You'll – "

" – like it," she finished for him.

His smile was abashed and adorable. "Sorry." He slid in behind her, his legs on either side of her own, and told her to push the beige button. The jets whirred to life.

Tami eased back against his chest and raised her arms until she had linked her hands behind his neck, which gave him free access to her breasts. He caressed them lazily and thoroughly, kneading and cupping and then lightly pinching her nipples. He put his lips to her ear, and over the roar of the jets, she could hear the murmur of his deep voice: "Do you know how many times I've thought of doing this to you?"

They spent twenty minutes in the warm spray, kissing, teasing, and exploring, before he pushed off the jets and carried her to bed.

In twenty years of marriage (almost twenty-two now, Tami remind herself), the quality of the sex varied. Tonight, for Tami, it was good. But for her husband, it was clearly far more than good. She could tell by all of the yeses, and oh-Gods, and God-yes-Tamis he moaned, but especially by the way he trembled for so long afterward.

When his body finally stilled, he leaned in and kissed her bare shoulder. "That was fantastic," he said, his breath still not quite steady. "That was…that's was the best sex we've had in…that was fantastic, wasn't it?"

"It was fantastic," she said, even though for her it had been merely good. She was pleased to see the strength of his reaction. It reassured her that he'd been faithful. She wondered what it must feel like, to have gone without sex for so long. Of course she had too, but she had no conscious feeling that she had.

"Damn I missed making love to you."

She giggled. "I could tell."

They moved into the spoon position, and Eric pulled the blankets up. Tami was comforted by the way their bodies seemed to fit so naturally together. She awoke sometime in the night, however, and saw that he had turned away, his back toward hers. He was sprawled out over two-thirds of the bed, having pushed her into a corner, and he was cuddling a pillow. She'd wondered why he had started sleeping with three pillows instead of two.

He'd have to get used to having her in his bed again. She smiled and turned, scooted her back tightly against his, and was soon asleep.

[FNL]

In the morning, Tami awoke to the press of Eric's lips on her cheek and the feel of his erection against the back of her thigh. "You want to fool around?" he asked.

Usually, the uninvited poke of morning wood annoyed her. She would groggily slap him away and go back to sleep. But this morning, she was keenly aware of how long he'd been deprived. "Sure," she said. "Let me just freshen up."

"I already brushed my teeth," he told her, apparently pleased with his planning.

She made her way to their bathroom and back with the help of the cane, and soon enough, his touch had awakened her fully. After they made love, they both drifted back to sleep again, until his alarm awoke them.

"What the hell?" she asked in response to its loud blare.

"I have to get ready," he said, sliding his way out of bed and turning the alarm off. "You keep sleeping. Julie'll wrangle Gracie this morning." He yanked on a clean pair of boxers from the night stand. He stood and walked to the larger dresser, from which he retrieved a pair of khaki shorts and blue polo. When he had those on, he quickly and roughly brushed his hair with his fingers and threw on his SAEU cap.

"That's it?" she asked from bed. "You aren't going to take a shower?"

"I'm barely going to be on time," he said, "which means I'm late."

He came over and kissed her.

"You're going to smell like sex," she warned him.

"I've smelled of worse things." He kissed her again and left.

[FNL]

Tami took a slow time getting dressed by herself. When she made her way out to the living room and settled onto the couch, Julie was curled into the arm chair reading a book called Who Says Print is Dead? She could see Matt in the kitchen, frying bacon. "I'll have breakfast for us soon, Mrs. Coach," he said. She wondered if, after he and Julie had been married for a few years, Matt would call her Mom.

Tami was glad to see Gracie lying stomach down on the carpet, brushing the hair of a Barbie doll. It was such a normal, girlish action. Tami had wondered if she'd ever be able to do childish things with her daughter, but Gracie looked very much like a little girl now.

"Are you styling their hair?" Tami asked. "Want me to help with one?"

Gracie grabbed a second Barbie and handed it to her mother. "You can brush too," she said as she delivered another tiny brush.

"You want me to put in a hair band? Do you have any accessories?"

"No," Gracie said decidedly. "I'm going to dye their hair. I made dyes with my chemistry set."

"Oh," Tami said. So that's what the food coloring mess had been.

Gracie studied her mother. "I like your color hair." She looked at the Barbies. "Blonde is so boring." She frowned.

"You have beautiful blonde hair," Tami insisted. "And there's certainly nothing boring about you."

After breakfast, they all went to the mall, with Matt taking Gracie off to ride the carousel, do the bungee trampoline, and run through the laser maze. Tami had never seen such things in a mall before. The mall in Dillon was fairly well confined to stores and a food court.

Meanwhile, she and Julie picked out a new wardrobe for her. Julie had insisted on renting a shopping cart / wheelchair (which the mall had at guest services) so things would move more quickly than they would have with Tami hobbling about using the cane. Tami resisted at first, but eventually admitted she couldn't traverse the entire mall for hours.

She had a great time with her daughter, the best, perhaps, she'd had in years. Julie seemed finally to have grown up, and they were talking to one another like adult friends. "You've really matured," Tami told her. "It is that, isn't it? It's not because I've been in a coma and you don't think of me as your mom anymore?"

"I just want to settle down," Julie said. "I want to marry Matt and have a boring life like you and Dad. Without the excitement of a coma."