Saturday Evening

"No," she said forcefully.

"No?"

"No," she demanded. "Tuesday morning you're going to meet me on table number four like usual. You have to give me time to think about all of this. I don't get people throwing themselves at my feet very often, I need time to think it over." He started to look like he was ready to continue calling everything off when she demanded, "promise me!"

Steve kissed a tear away from her cheek and said, "I'm sorry, I didn't want tonight to end up like this." He helped her up out of her chair and she moved out of the way and sat by the fire as she pondered everything that had happened tonight. As she considered everything that was said tonight, another person sat down next to her. Maria glanced over and she realized it was their new friend Sally Anne, a camper from North Carolina. Sally Anne was about the same age as Maria and was traveling with her son Kent.

"Don't throw it away," said Sally Anne.

"Hmm?" Maria was not sure how much Sally Anne heard or understood from the conversations, but it was probably more than Maria hoped.

"I said don't throw it away. Loving Steve and traveling with him can be the most wonderful thing you'll ever experience, don't throw it all way. Live it, experience it." Sally Anne tossed a tiny twig unto the campfire and said softly, "Many people assume that Kent is my son because we have the same last name, but my son has a different last name than we have."

"Kent is your husband?"

Sally Anne smiled and nodded affirmatively. And as the realization swept over Maria, Sally Anne said quietly, "there's a lot of women our age who take another look the young lover in our lives after the man of our dreams left us."

"Mine was murdered," whispered Maria.

"My Albert worked himself to death for me," said Sally Anne, "he died of a heart attack at forty seven." She then leaned over and said softly, "loneliness is a curse, we can die from that affliction you know. Ask your husband if he sent Steve to help cure your loneliness."

The conversation was interrupted by Steve who packed and said he was going to the outhouse and wanted to know if Maria needed to go, he would supply help. "No thank you," said Maria and she returned to her conversation with Sally Anne, but Sally Anne was folding up her chair and getting ready to go, her young husband Kent was waiting at the entrance to the campsite talking with Steve.

"How do I ask him?" asked Maria as she struggled to her feet with her crutches.

"You talk to him every night, don't you?" asked Sally Anne, "We'll be here most of the summer, let me know how you come out!"

They rode home in silence, both feeling worse and worse about how the evening turned out, finally when they turned into her driveway Steve said, "Please don't hate me for embarrassing you in front of those people."

"Darling no, don't blame yourself for what happened this evening, if I were more receptive, I would have handled it better... give me utill Tuesday... please?"

"What is going to happen on Tuesday?" he asked sourly.

"You gave me the most prized possession a man could ever give a woman, and I wasn't expecting it and I didn't handle it well... please let me do better?"

"You need three days to do better?" he asked. He wasn't mean, he was trying to be humorous.

"I'm getting better," she said sadly. "I demanded three weeks out of Guiseppe."

"I suppose I should consider myself blessed," but he didn't sound blesses, he sounded defeated. He came around to her side of the truck and helped her down then grabbed the picnic stuff out of the back.

"You can pull a pop-up with this little thing?" she asked as she crutched past the back side of his pickup. She had seen the large pickups that were hauling the huge fifth wheel campers, she thought those were pop-ups because the trailer "popped up" in the front.

Steve pointed to the hitch under the bumper and said, "that's what that two inch chrome ball is for." He carried the food into her house then without his usual hug and reassuring smile he left without a word. Maria crutched her way into the living room and looked out the front window and saw that her driveway was empty and the immensity of what happened struck.

Darlene heard Maria return home and he heard Steve's truck leave almost immediately. She stepped out of her room into the living room and saw Maria looking sadly out the window and asked, "What happened?"

Maria remembered her confusion as a child back when they lived on a farm, when she hugged the baby chicks too tightly and they died, so she distanced herself and they grew up without her help, but they grew up without caring who she was like they cared for her sister Fabrizia. One day a young Maria was preparing to feed the chicks but when Fabbi approached the chicks ran to her ignoring Maria and her little bucket of feed. The loneliness, sorrow, and betrayal she felt that day overwhelmed her little four year old heart and she ran off crying... now that entire scene came back to her. "I think I broke something very precious..."

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Maria wandered the boardwalk alone, navigating her way through the motionless crowd. The boardwalk was filled with summer revelers escaping the crushing heat of the summer city, but here they were motionless and faded. She's had this dream before, and years ago the dream was terrifying, now it's merely annoying but at least she now knew what to look for. He's here somewhere, he's in a different location every time she has this dream, but she can always find him because he's the only animated one, everyone else is immobile and their color is washed out. It's like the creator of her dream always wants her to know that he's there for her. This time she found Guiseppi D'Amato sitting at the edge of the water, enjoying the feeling of the waves as they roll over his feet.

"I wish I could do that," she called from the edge of the board walk.

"Come on down and do it," called Guiseppi.

"I can't walk in the sand with crutches."

"How do you know? You've never tried," called Guiseppi, but it wasn't his voice, it was Steve's voice that said those exact words to her during their therapy sessions.

"Come get your Egg Cream before it goes flat," Maria called and sat in the shade of the gaudily colored steel umbrella over her table at the boardwalk candy shop they love so much. Guiseppi was there in moments; he hates a flat Egg Cream. Maria sat and watched Guiseppi enjoy his treat but soon he wanted to discuss something she was avoiding.

"Are you enjoying Florida?" he asked.

Maria frowned, in the past they both laughed about New Yorkers flocking to Florida as they approached their "golden years" then later they began to make plans to join the southward migration. Then their plans were shattered and Maria went to Florida with their daughters Jeannie and Nadia. Now Maria and Guiseppi were separated by time, space and worse. "It's warm, the house is nice, the pool is great, but you can't get an Egg Cream."

"You will find one, or maybe one will find you, it's going to happen." An egg cream is a favorite from New York City made from milk, seltzer water, and a little bit of chocolate syrup stirred up until a foam rises at the top of the glass. It has no egg, and no cream and she liked them but not nearly as much as her Guiseppi loved them. There's a theory that the name Egg Cream came from the Yiddish words echt krim which means real cream which is unlikely because there's no cream in it, or it came from the Yiddish words echt keem which means real sweetness which is more likely. Her murdered husband took a long drink and sighed, "Oh yeah, that's the real thing. How about you? I tried to find you the real thing. How is it working out?"

"If I just knew that this was right!" she cried. "Is this what you want for me?"

"How can you ask that question?" asked Guiseppi. "This is me, Juicy, and you know that all I ever wanted from you is that smile, and I see that smile whenever he is around..." Guiseppi reached out and took her hand in his and said softly, "give him that smile..."

And soon his playful smile was gone, and the feel of his hands holding hers faded from memory and the light from the rising sun pried her eyes open. She sat up and grabbed a tissue and with a resounding "honk!" she cleared the snot that clogged her morning sinuses. "Oh yeah, Steve is going to like hearing that in the morning," she complained to herself - but somehow, she knew he would learn just like her "Juicy" did, and her sister's husband and her oldest daughter's husband did, sinus issues were an issue with women that have Bellini blood in their veins. With the resurgence of the memory of her private nickname for him she knew that man in her dream was Guiseppi, her own Juicy, that spoke to her about Steve last night.

She snatched her phone from the nightstand and sent two quick texts, one was to Steve begging him to give her more time, and one to Sally Anne asking her to call back as soon as possible.

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Steve spent the rest of that horrible evening sitting on the beach watching the stars, cursing himself for ruining the most wonderful thing that ever happened to him. After sunrise he drove back up to Sebastian and reaching a small nature walk he parked the truck and grabbed a backpack out of the truck and went for a walk. The jungle was thick and enchanting, and the natural beauty almost took his mind off of the mess that he made of his life. He reached a spot on the path that paralleled a river, the water was filled with cypress knees and "pointy birds" on long legs that poked through the mud for snacks. He took off the backpack, unzipped it, and began unfolding. The backpack became an inflatable kayak and in just a matter of minutes he was paddling through the backwaters of the St. Sebastian river.

As the sun rose higher in the sky he pulled out his phone and turned it on. Ignoring the cacophony of tones and rings he dialed a number and held the phone to his ear. "At the sound of the tone please leave your message..."

"Doctor Albertson, this is Steve, I've had an issue arise and I need to take a personal day on Monday, I have an open schedule on Monday, so nothing has to be covered. I will be there on Tuesday, see you then."

He turned off his phone and put it in a Ziplock baggie and paddled along in the streams where Johnny Weissmuller played Tarzan for the movie cameras almost 100 years ago. That evening he drove into town and got some hot dogs and hotdog rolls and some grapes at the Walmart then returned to the park he rented a site from the night before. There he rented a primitive site where he put up his puptent and slept there in a sleeping bag. He caught his first sleep in 48 hours sleeping on a bed of soft sand.

On Monday he woke, reinflated his kayak and walked down to the river and went kayaking on the St. Sebastian river. He splashed along working his anger and self-loathing out with every stroke of the paddle and just as he was turning on to a side stream he heard an outboard motor approaching from behind and he thought he heard someone shout his name. "They can't be calling for me," he told himself, "I don't exist today." Steve paddled up the side stream that was partially blocked by fallen limbs and logs, a trip that a boat with a motor couldn't follow. Being inflatable, his kayak had a draft of maybe one inch, the motorboat couldn't follow him over the submerged logs he floated over easily.

Steve paddled along watching the birds skim over the surface of the water, branches that stuck out over the water were lined with turtles that would drop off the branch as he neared, hitting the surface of the water with a loud "ker-plunk!" Eventually the side stream curved back around and rejoined the St. Sebastian river where Detective Bruce McLaren waited for him in a rented 10' long motorboat. "You know I'm going to find you eventually captain."

"Not today, you're not going to find me today." When Bruce looked confused, Steve explained, "I don't exist today."

Bruce nodded, he understood that. In Afghanistan Steve would disappear, especially after a horrific kill, he would refuse radio traffic and orders that came in were not ignored, they just weren't acted on with the expedience that one was used to when dealing with Captain Anderson. "What should I tell her?"

"Whatever you want, I'm just taking some "me time" to clear my head." Steve sighed and his paddle bit into the river and he sailed away.

Maria "blew up his phone" with texts all day Sunday and Monday, and all morning long on Tuesday morning. Sweet little texts assuring him that she couldn't wait to see him on Tuesday and that she just needed time to get her head together also. He read every one of them at lunch on Tuesday out on the shaded patio outside of the cafeteria where he could sit in private.

Finally on Tuesday afternoon she entered The Dungeon and Steve was waiting for her on table number four. His heart leapt when he saw her, her hair was perfect, her eyes were glittering and her t-shirt clung tightly to her large, heavy breasts. She wore that T-Shirt just for him because she was daring him to stare at her boobs. "Missus D'Amato," he said, his throat was dry and it was hard to talk.

"Il mio amante," she said with a smile.

"I don't know what that means," said Steve as she laid back, her large breasts daring him to stare at them.

"You will," she promised, "soon enough." The Italian phrase Il mio amante means "my lover," and she had plans to help him with that translation. The appointment went smoothly and there was nothing but smiles for each other. As always, his hands felt smooth as silk as he gave her a "warm up" massage and the pain that she saw in his eyes on Saturday night disappeared as she looked up at him and traced the tip of her tongue around her lips and waggled an eyebrow up at him.

"Don't! You're making me laugh!" In reply she simply answered him with a kiss blown at him. He then followed up with a rigorous set of exercises that they had never tried before. Maria, who never liked the more strident exercises, actually began to enjoy these, they were working her leg muscles in a way that they hadn't been worked in a decade.

When the appointment was over, she looked up from the table panting, it was a good workout. Their last therapy set was a workout on "The Wall" a workout machine mounted to the wall that worked all parts of the body. He placed her against the wall with her right shoulder and right hip against the wall and a strap connected to pullies and weights on her left ankle. She had to raise her leg outwards and hold it for a count of ten. Then he turned her and did the same thing with her right leg. Once they did three sets of these "crotch busters" he handed her the crutches she had to live with but instead of taking them she put her arms around his neck and pulled him to her, "carry me," she whispered.

"Won't that be a little awkward?" he asked. "People are watching."

"Then carry me in your heart," she whispered and then gave him the type of kiss that she hasn't given anyone in ten years. Her tongue prodded Steve's lips and he opened to accept her tongue in and soon their tongues were gently sliding over each other, their arms holding tighter, a little whimper of excitement from both Steve and Maria escaped as they kissed. When their lips parted and their panting breath slowed, she whispered, "I know it's a little late... but... I love you too," and their lips met in another kiss that Steve could only dream about... until today. When their tongues retreated and their lips parted, she looked in his glittering blue eyes and said, "let's go find Doctor Albertson."

"Let's do that," Steve said smiling at her, and now she took her crutches. Ignoring the stares they received from Melissa Combs, an RN in the PT department, Steve led Maria to Dr. Albertson's office and Steve knocked "Shave and a Haircut" on his door, the little rhythm that the nurses and therapists use to let the doctor know that they have a problem that needs his immediate attention.

"Come in," the doctor called, and Steve opened the door and they entered. Dr. Albertson was a large, muscular black man with closely cropped hair and the look of a professional athlete about him. He was a trainer for an NFL team for a few years before he took this job in Vero Beach Florida.

Maria centered herself in front of Dr. Alberton's desk and boldly said, "I have a problem with one of your silly rules." She could hear Steve groan behind her, but Dr. Albertson looked up at her, trying to conceal a smile.

"And which silly rule would that be? I have quite a few of them."

"Steve says it's a rule that because we fell in love with each other, I now have to find a new physical therapist."

Dr. Daryl Albertson looked at Steve, who was trying to choke down his shock at her admission. There are ways that a woman can say "I love you too" that do not threaten a man's career, clearly Maria did not choose to follow that route. "Mister Anderson!" Dr. Albertson sounded terrifyingly like Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith from the Matrix as he said, "Would it be possible for you to conduct yourself in a professional manner while performing therapeutic ministrations in this hospital?"

"Pardon sir?" gasped Steve, shocked at the entire goings on.

"Can you keep it in your pants while working with Mizz D'Amato, Mister Anderson?"

"Uhhh yes sir."

Then turning to Maria, he growled, "Mizz D'Amato, would it be possible for you to maintain your composure knowing that Mister Anderson is making his living touching other women with the same intent as he has been touching you within these confines for the past months?"

Maria was shocked, she didn't expect this, and the question gave her pause. Of course, Steve would be touching other women... wait a minute - Steve would be touching other women? HER Steve? Maria hadn't thought of that possibility. How is she going to feel about that... She sighed and remembered the feel of his lips on hers and pitied the poor women who will never feel that and she said, "I will be at our home waiting for his return, trusting that he will retain his professional composure until he gets home to me."

"Good answer!" he looked back down at his paperwork. "Please enjoy the rest of your day... elsewhere."

As they left Dr. Albertson's office, Maria turned to Steve and said, "can you give me a ride home? I didn't arrange for an Über."

Steve's heart leapt at the thought that he had Maria for a few extra moments that day and he said, "sure." They took the elevator down to the employee's parking lot and when the door opened for a few nurses waiting for the elevator on the underground parking level they saw Steve and Maria kissing as the doors slid open, "excuse us," muttered an embarrassed Steve but Maria just showed off her crutches. She has learned that as a patient she can get away with almost anything.

"Do you mind if I call you Annamaria?" asked Steve as he easily hoisted her up into the passenger seat.

"I don't know, it's what my mother called me when she was mad at me." Then crossing her arms, she imitated her angry mother saying "Annamaria Giacinta Bellini! Lascia stare quei polli!"

"What was that?" chuckled Steve as he got in the truck.

"She yelled that at me quite a bit when I was little. She said, Annamaria Giacinta Bellini! Leave those chickens alone!"

"Leave the chickens alone?"

"When I was young we lived on a farm and when the chickens were young, I thought the chicks were pets. It wasn't until later I discovered that they were the main ingredient in some of my favorite meals."