Chapter 23

I'll Stand By You

Roaming up and down the aisles of the drugstore, she noticed the faces of the shoppers going about their days, unaware of her presence or that of anyone elses. Zombies trolling with thier carts or walking witht hier shopping baskets full of shampoo that will keep your colored hair from splitting, anti-aging serums that promise to make 40 look like 20 if you apply nightly, perfumes to entice one to cover their natural scent by promising to attract the man/woman of their dreams when it does the exact opposite. Lauren rolled her eyes at the "sheeple" around her that didn't seem to notice that they were even alive let alone shopping in public. She stopped off at the pharmacy to get his medications and to sign for them that she denied a pharmacist consultation about the medicine, per Johns orders. Trailing slowly to the feminine product aisle she tossed a box of sanitary napkins and Midol into the basket for this month seemed to be expecially excrutiating. She noticed a woman, considerably younger than herself tearfully remove a home pregnancy test from the shelf and her heart immediately noticed an unplanned pregnancy on another females face. She felt bad for the girl who hurried to the checkout, presumably to get this miserable moment of uncertaintly over with. Lauren looked down at the floor and wondered to herself if she herself could possibly be pregnant. Then she laughed so hard she nearly fell down.

"Imagine that! she thought to herlsef whyle she laughed into her hand that ocvered her mouth. "I'm in my mid 30's for chrissakes and he's like what, sixty-something? Right. That'll happen."

Recovering from her momentary inner comedy she comically tossed five different ones into her basket just to watch the look on the clerks face when she showed up with no less than five different home pregnancy tests. Maybe he wouldn't look so snidely upon her as he did the poor girl who was almost in tears as she made her purchace of one before her. If he did, she'd knock his lights out. Lauren watched and enjoied his expressions as she scaned first the sanitary products, the the five pregnancy tests. He was totally confused as to the nature of her purchace and it amused the hell out of her. Paying him with a satisfied grin on her face she proudly walked out, confident that she messed his head up fair enough and got into Minnie. Before she could even begin to back out of her parking spot she had to get her giggles out and prop her head upon the steering wheel and laugh her brains out at her bold defiance of male ignorance. She got her head together and drove off for home once she was confidant enough that she wouldnt slam into a telephone poll from laughing too hard.

Pulling into her parking spot and locking up, she took a few steps and felt dizzy. Kneeling one leg to the warehouse floor she fought to get her bearings again, telling herself over and over agin in her mind that she was totally fine and that there was nothing wrong and to get up. A few escaped moans of uncomfortableness made it past her clenched teeth and echoed through the space. She took a few deep breaths and things began to stop spinning and she thankfully gathered up her bundles and headed on up to her bedroom where she found a fast asleep John. She gently pressed the back of her hand on his forehead and he seemed cool enough to touch where he didnt need to be awakeded for any fever reducing medicine. She stuffed the pregnancy tests into her bookshelf behind and old copy of Moll Flanders and went about picking up around the place so that John wouldn't fall over anyuthing, like she had once. As miserable as that night of improper home surgery was and as scared to death as she was that she was going to kill John, it would always be remembered with a laugh over the fact that she fell over him face first with a can of spray starch as the only weapon she had over the previously thought burgaler that she figured had made his way in.

" Funny how one small thing can change your entire perspective on a situation". she thought.

After her long drive went to the kitchen for some relaxing tea and noticed that most of her herbal tea had gone missing. The scowled and tried to think back to the last time she saw them all together.

"Tea doesn't just grow legs and run away, although I've come to expect all matter of things around here." she mused.

She settled on the lemon but still tried find where she may have put them, checking every cabinet and under everything in the kitchen. the kettle steamed to a boil and she made up her lemon tea and went back into her room where she thought that maybe she had put them, for whatever reason. She looked over to her bed and John was gone. He had aparrantly seen fit enought to ger out of bed, but she didn't see him anywhere. She abandoned her tea upon the nightstand and went to the hallway.

"John?" she called out. "You okay?"

There was chillingly no answer. She saw the light spilling out of the bathroom and preparing herself for the worst she ran toward it. There he was standing silently and unmoving from his gaze into the mirror over the sink. Next to him was a tray of barber instrunemts. A pair of scissors, hair clipperrs, a razor and a towel. She stood where she knew she could be seen in the mirror by him but he remained still. Her gaze travelled to the sick where she saw a few errant bits of his hair decorating the sink and she put it all together. The illness, the treatment, he was losing his hair and he was going to at least remain in control of that by removing it all himself before modern medeicine had the chance to rob him of yet another thing. She eased her way across the room and put her hands on his shoulders and her head on her right hand. "Allow me?" she offered and he still, remained unmoved, except for his eyes. He looked at her in the mirror and they said it all.

She fetched a stool from his room and sat him down. As gently and a breeze, she put the towel around his neck and began gently combing his hair with the touch of a dove. She now saw what he did, great bits of hair falling to the ground, brittle and split by the medicine meant to keep him alive. His body was now betraying him and he had absolutely no control and that made him angry. She felt that by now she could tell his moods, and this one may have looked like sadness, but it wasn't. It was silent anger.

"I'll be gentle," she whispered, "I promise. Do you trust me?"

He looked at her for the first time in ten minutes and nodded slightly and caught her eyes in his. It was as if there were some sort of telepathic conversation between the both of them. He had an unbearable need to be helped by someone who knew how and that she understood that the only person on earth that could help him was her. She knelt on the floor between his knees and looked up at him, for she knew that he preferred her to be submissive at times. For a long time they looked inside their hearts and souls and understood one another on a deeper level than they had before. Two souls meeting for the first time, hers there to comfort him at his weakest and his to allow her to help.

She rose and stepped behind him and picked up the sissors. Calmly she began to cut away at the hair that was left. It fell thorugh her fingers like soft petals and drifted errantly to the floor like feathers. She used a thin comb and her fingers to guide herself over his scalp while the rest of his hair tumbled through the air while taking great care as for his eyes not to see the remains of it falling away. She quietly put the sissors back on the tray indicating to John that that phase was over and it was time to commence the next. A knot formed in her stomache as she picked up the hair clippers and switched them on to test them before she put them to his scalp. She noticed that he was not tense for his shoulders were relaxed and that his breathing was even, like he had resigned to what was happening to him and that to fight it would be a waste of his energy. It was not the same for Lauren as she was taking deep breaths to stay calm for him and not let on that she felt for him in this no win situation. She first felt the clippers in her palm to be sure that they were not hot and slowly but deliberately she started at the nape of his neck and clipped away the remaining hair that was left. With long strokes followed by the caress of her free hand the rest of the small hairs fell from his head. She gracefrully moved his head in the angles that which accomidated the best paths for the electric clippers and when she was finished she faced full upon him and dusted the remains from his shoulders. His eyes were glassy and distant, much like her own when she has succumbed to having her hair combed when she first arrived. In this unseeming role reversal she bent at the knees, reached up and touched his unshaven face. With a mothers care she whispered

"How would you like a proper shave? One for your face and one for your head so that you match?" She brought her face close to his and put her cheek against his lips in a bold fashion that she never would have dreamed of not too long ago. She felt that he needed her in this moment of great change and was bound and determined to be there every step of the way. She felt his breath on her cheek ehisper inaudiably,

"Yes," and so she caressed his face for a moment and arose to make up some steaming hot towels. She returned and prepared him.

"Let me know if this is way too hot for you, alright?" He nodded slightly and she began to cover his face and head with pore cleansing steam heat while she got the lather and the straight razor ready. It reminded her od when she was youg and she would wathc her mother giver her father a hot lather shave every Sunday.

"There's nothing like a hot shave with a straight razor!" he used to say. If it was good enough for her Pa, then it certainly was good enough for the only other man that she loved in this lifetime. She unwrapped his head and sharpened the blade while the lather had time to soften the roots of the hair. He had his eyes closed and no tension was visible upon him as he waited for her to begin. She stated with his head and again, gently guided his head in every direction as not no nick him and he allowed her. After she was finished with his head, he tilted his head back indicating that he was ready for her to shave his face. She could see the pulse in his neck throbbing away under the lather upon his skin and she resolved not to be nervous lest her hand jump and she badly wounded him. She began on his neck and found that it was quite easy to shave a mans face, just has her mother had done. She followed the pattern with the razor that her mother had for weeks upon end and finished with not even the smallest of cuts. She finished my cleaning the errant cream from his head and mositurising his scalp.

John opened his eyes as if he was having a nap and felt his hairless face and head.

"Wait a moment, what's this?" he exclaimed as he felt his chin and noticed that she must have missed a spot."

"Oh, that?" she said "Take a look in the mirror." He stood up slowly while Lauren buzied herself cleaning the instruments. There was a the smallest but of hair left on his chin, bright white and just enough to make him look like the man that he was and not some spoiled teenager.

"You approve?" she asked while replacing the tools. "I though that it makes the entire look. If you hate it I can sure get rid of it in a snap..."

"No," he interrupted her. Turning to her he lightened in gaze. "It looks, good". Laurens heart stopped trying to beat it's way out of her chest. She wanted to go to him, to throw her arms around him and tell him that she would always be there for him until his dying day, but that's not what he needed. No, he needed someone to be strong, someone he could count on in this most difficult of situations. Her resolve made her strong even when she felt that she could not be, she would be whatever and whomever her needed her to be. When she was done cleaning up and he was finished inspecting every pore of his new look, she strode over to him and for the very first time, they looked into one anothers eyes and had no expectations. No errands to run, no laundry to sort, the towels could wait, and nowhere for either of them to go. He took his hand and put it upon the small of her back and guided her to her bedroom and sat her down upon the bed.

"You have been a wonderful little stylist today but I must warn you. Unimiginable surprises are not too far off in the future. Our lives will change in ways that even fiction could not dictate. but change lives that we are not even aware exist."

"I'm not entirely sure that I follow," she replied slowly.

"Humanity my dear Lauren, does not distingush between that which is truly good and that wish is truly evil. There will come a time when both of us must make a choice. And that choice may not be a bloack and white as you think." he replied.

Lauren put on her bravest face for him.

"I'm not going anywhere." she said resolutely while she looked into his eyes for even the smallest hint of regret.

"No child, I didn't think that you would," he replied lying back onto the pillows, feeling the pillowcases for the first time with his new scalp. She snuck in and hugged his arm obiediently wondering where this was going to take them.