"Where do you want to put Jazz?" asks Heather with a big piece of cake in her mouth.
"What do you mean to put?" I ask back, puzzled.
"She needs a place to sleep, after she will be released from the hospital." says Ian.
They are right. Jazz needs a place to sleep, but where? There is not much space in this house, despite it is really big.
"She will sleep in my room."
My uncle and my friends stop eating at once, and staring at me.
"What's your problem? There is no other empty room, and my room is very big. Ian! You told me, that it would be practical, that I would bring a wife, because in this case we shouldn't clean the storage room. I have brought one."
"It was you, who said, that your marriage is a fake one." says Dame. "Do you really think, that your wife would be glad to spend the night with you?"
I gulp the piece of cake without chewing. It was my original intention, but Jazz destroyed it with an appendicitis. However, based on her behavior yesterday, it is likely that she would not have many objections to sleep with me. God! Would this whole mess have happened in just two days?
"Is there enough space in your room for Jazz's belongings?" asks Erica, with the eternal logic of women.
She is also right. My room is full of the belongings of my sisters. I have not been able to sort them up until now. Somehow I hoped, that my sisters comes back a day, and they need their things again. But life is changed. Now I am married again, and my wife needs the space. New life, new living space. I have to do what I have only postponed so far: close the past and get rid of memories.
"Dame! Could you go to Tom's store and bring some boxes? I have to sort out my sisters' clothes."
"Do you need help?" asks Heather, and I accept her offer.
Women are better at cleaning, and discarding.
"Your sisters have a lot of clothes!" Erica is amazed, when I open the wardrobe in my room. The wardrobe is really full of their clothes.
"They didn't need this pile. At least this was they told me, when they left. So if you want them, I give you all!" I am smiling at the girls.
"Not my style." They reply in unison, then we all laugh.
"But Jazz could make use of some. She has a ridiculously small amount of clothes." Heather says, checking the clothes.
"Do you think the size is right for her?"
"She is around the height of Savannah. Taylor's clothes would be small for her." Erica ads.
"But there are a lot of useful things to be left here." Heather notes as, she pulls out the drawers of the dresser. There are a lot of boxes of … erm … female towels.
"The girls preferred tampon than sanitary pad. Jazz doesn't need to buy them for a while. I hope your sisters both have bought another ones from these ones!" Erica informs me, and shows two boxes of ring shaped objects. "But these are expired anyway." She throws them to a garbage bag.
I gulp. I'm glad the girls' help. I consider myself very modern and enlightened, but I would be unable to touch my sisters' contraceptive devices. I really hope that no more embarrassing things will come out. I feel, that blood has run into my face.
"Tyler!" Heather is calling me, and I think it is not the first one. "Does Jazz want to graduate?"
"I don't know! Probably yes."
"Well, in the normal way, relationships usually start with dating, not marriage."
"Do you have problems with us swapping the order?" I am angry, not just shy anymore. Erica stares at me. She is sometimes so precise and concise that it's already annoying.
"Sorry." She replies. "Let's keep the schoolbooks."
Fortunately Dame arrives with the cardboard boxes. The girls sweeping out the drawers, and selecting the clothes. They don't have any clue, what kind of clothes Jazz likes, and they make it clear that most of the clothes in the sports bag are not Jazz's size. There are not much of clothes are left after the selection, but Erica and Heather have swore, that Jazz could manage with the remaining items. I just need to buy her socks, panties, and one more pajamas. I'm not protesting. My sisters slept in nightgowns, and if I imagined any of them on Jazz, I would need some anti-Viagra, but urgently. We put the belongings of my sisters into boxes, and bring them to the storage room. While Ian and Dame move the boxes, the girls arrange the rest of the stuff. The remaining clothes goes to the washing machines, and Ian brings even our mattresses to wash. Since we also have a dryer, I don't worry where to spend the night. After that we get cleaning supplies, and wash, wipe, mop the room form the ceiling to the floor.
"This room has become strange, hasn't it?" I ask the girls in the end.
The room feels as if it is empty. The small things, that has shown my sisters were living here, vanished. Fresh air comes to the room from the open window. It's a strange feeling, but it's also liberating. There is something of an expectation in my soul from the room. As if the room itself would be waiting for the new owner too.
"New beginning, empty sheet." smiles Heather at me. "It was a thorough cleaning, so you will feel like this for a while. But it won't take a long time to make it comfortable again when Jazz arrives home."
"Are you hungry?" asks Ian, when he takes a look at his wristwatch.
No, we are not, although it is dinnertime. We have been eating a lot from the feast, he ordered to us, so we are not hungry but all of us wants to drink a tea. While we are going downstairs, I have time to ponder that in about two hours we were able to remove the traces of my sisters from the house. Two hours! What a short time it seems, yet how much everything fits. Although the turning point is also happening in a matter of seconds. Andrew storms into the living room.
I am sitting beside him in the car in the next moment. Jazz's condition worsened, so I have to go back to the hospital. He didn't say why, and I didn't ask him. I know. I have already done it once, when my parents got in a car accident, coming back from skiing. There were snow, and slippery road then, there is a warm sunset now. But the feeling is the same. It freezes you from head to toe. The doctors want me to be there to make decisions, and sign the papers. Cruel thing. I don't want to do this again!
I have to. I know. It doesn't matter, if our marriage is a fake one, or not, I am Jazz's husband by the law. Her closest relative. I am the one, who have to make decisions about her. A stranger decides about the life of another stranger. Gods are cruel. Cruel to her, because they have made her think, that she could finally live as she likes. Cruel to her father-in-heart, because they have made him think that he could save her life. And they were cruel to me, because they have made me believe in a new beginning with her.
Jazz doesn't think about things like that, or rather isn't preoccupied with things like that. When I arrive to the intensive care unit, she is sleeping. But her sleep is not a peaceful, relaxing one. Machines are chirping around her. The doctors have decided that she will be woken up. The anesthetic had already been stopped, but the girl had not yet woken up. She was bandaged so that she could not move and the surgical wound would not rupture. However, even in her dreams, Jazz fights against the bondage. She gets stuck in the straps. Her eyes are moving under the eyelashes, which sign that she is dreaming.
It looks like she has a nightmare. I touch her hair, and caress her short locks. Since it is wet now, Jazz looks like more mature, but still beautiful. She strains herself under my caress and then relaxes. She sighs and few more minutes later the chirping of the machines begin to decrease. A nurse hurries in, and checks the machines. She smiles at me.
"The healing power of love is greater than that of medicine." She says, and leaves the room.
I don't correct her, that our marriage is a fake one, just caress Jazz further. Love. The word frights me. Loving her? I just want to be with her. She is beautiful, and sexy, and her eyes are like golden caramel. I want to see her smile, and her face during lovemaking.
Damn.
The nurse was right. I fell in love with my wife.