We lay there in silence for a while, enjoying the feel of each other, watching the silent TV screen flicker in front of our eyes. It was perfect-or as close to perfect as we had felt in a long time.
“Dance with me, Lizzy,” Grady whispered after a while. I’d thought maybe he fell asleep; the drugs were so hard on his system that he was usually in and out of consciousness. This was actually the most coherent he’d been in a month.
“Okay,” I agreed. “It’s the first thing we’ll do when you get out. We’ll have your mom come over and babysit, you can take me to dinner at Pazio’s and we’ll go dancing after.”
“Mmm, that sounds nice,” he agreed. “You love Pazio’s. That’s a guaranteed get-lucky night for me.”
“Baby,” I crooned. “As soon as I get you back home, you’re going to have guaranteed get-lucky nights for at least a month, maybe two.”
“I don’t want to wait. I’m tired of waiting. Dance with me now, Lizzy,” Grady pressed, this time sounding serious.
“Babe, after your treatment this morning, you can barely stand up right now. Honestly, how are you going to put all those sweet moves on me?” I wondered where this sudden urge to dance, of all things, was coming from.
“Lizzy, I am a sick man. I haven’t slept in my own bed in four months, I haven’t seen my wife naked in just as long, and I am tired of lying in this bed. I want to dance with you. Will you please, pretty please, dance with me?”
I nodded at first because I was incapable of speech. He was right. I hated that he was right, but I hated that he was sick even more.
“Alright, Grady, I’ll dance with you,” I finally whispered.
“I knew I’d get my way,” he croaked smugly.
I slipped off the bed and turned around to face my husband and help him to his feet. His once full head of auburn hair was now bald, reflecting the pallid color of his skin. His face was haggard showing dark black circles under his eyes, chapped lips and pale cheeks. He was still as tall as he’d ever been, but instead of the toned muscles and thick frame he once boasted, he was depressingly skinny and weak, his shoulders perpetually slumped.
The only thing that remained the same were his eyes; they were the same dark green eyes I’d fallen in love with ten years ago. They were still full of life, still full of mischief even when his body wasn’t. They held life while the rest of him drowned in exhaustion from fighting this stupid sickness.
“You always get your way,” I grumbled while I helped him up from the bed.
“Only with you,” he shot back on a pant after successfully standing. “And only because you love me.”
“That I do,” I agreed. Grady’s hands slipped around my waist and he clutched my sides in an effort to stay standing.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, but didn’t allow any weight to press down on him. We maneuvered our bodies around his IV and monitors. It was awkward, but we managed.
“What should we listen to?” I asked, while I pulled out my cell phone and turned it to my iTunes app.
“You know what song. There is no other song when we’re dancing,” he reminded me on a faint smile.
“You must be horny,” I laughed. “You’re getting awfully romantic.”
“Just trying to keep this fire alive, Babe,” he pulled me closer and I held back the flood of tears that threatened to spill over.
I turned on The Way You Look Tonight- the Frank Sinatra version-and we swayed slowly back and forth. Frank sang the soft, beautiful lyrics with the help of a full band, while the music drifted around us over the constant beeping and whirring of medical machines. This was the song we thought of as ours, the first song we’d danced to at our wedding, the song he still made the band at Pazio’s play on our anniversary each year.
“This fire is very much alive,” I informed him sternly. I lay my forehead against his shoulder and inhaled him. He didn’t smell like himself anymore, he was full of chemo drugs and smelled like hospital soap and detergent, but he was still Grady. And even though he barely resembled the man I had fallen so irrevocably in love with, he still felt like Grady.