Free Grace Grows by Shelle Sumners Page A

other.
    Paper-clipped other business cards. Among them Peg’s, his manager Dave Silva’s, and assorted club and record label people.
    Seventeen dollars.
    Three guitar picks.
    “Ty,” I asked, “where is your insurance card?”
    He squirmed around on the plastic chairs, unable to get comfortable. He mumbled something.
    “What?”
    He put his arm over his face. “Don’t make me talk right now.”
    “You don’t have health insurance?”
    “Grace, I’m dying, and you’re yelling at me.”
    “I’m sorry.” I stuffed everything but the license and Social Security card back into his wallet, hoping for his sake this was just a stomach bug. The admissions lady, looking grim, brought a clipboard over with a stack of papers for Ty to sign. Shortly after that we were called and I helped him walk slowly back to a curtained cubicle. A nurse handed me a hospital gown.
    “Should he leave anything on?” I asked hopefully.
    “Everything off,” she ordered.
    I pulled off his sneaks and helped him take off his flannel shirt and black T-shirt.
    “Let’s leave these on,” I said, of his mismatched black and gray socks.
    He was shivering, hugging himself, eyes bleak with pain. I had only seen him cheerful or happily drunk. The way he looked now made me feel afraid.
    “Grace,” he said, “I’m fucking freezing.”
    “Let’s get the gown on.”
    He stood slowly and I noted that, actually, he wasn’t as skinny as I’d thought. He had some biceps going on. And pecs. His nipples were the same pale pinkish terra-cotta color as his lips. I wasn’t staring. Just some flash observations.
    I slid the gown up his arms and went around behind to tie it at his neck. The skin on his back was creamy pale but felt hot where my knuckles brushed his nape. He shuddered and I saw goose bumps rise. I went back around front.
    He pushed the gown aside and fumbled with the fancy brass buckle on the beat-up Western belt he always wore. His fingers were shivering, like the rest of him. I pushed his hands out of the way and took hold of the buckle to figure out how to disengage it.
    His breath, a small, laughing exhalation, stirred the hair on top of my head. I didn’t look up, much as I wanted to see that flash of humor in his eyes. I got the buckle undone and loosened the top button of his jeans. The hair trailing down his lower belly was the same reddish brown as the hair on his head. And apparently he was going commando. I stepped away to study a Heimlich maneuver poster while he took care of the rest.
    I heard the jeans and heavy buckle hit the floor and the mattress creak.
    “Fuck!” he said.
    Ty finally settled on his left side, knees drawn up, eyes closed. I tucked the sheet and blanket around him and folded his jeans and shirts and stacked them neatly on a chair. Tucked the Converse away beneath the chair.
    “I’m so cold.” His teeth were actually chattering. “Come sit next to me.”
    I perched on the edge of the bed. He drew his thighs up firmly against my bum, hooked his left arm under my bent knees, and curled around me.
    “Is this comfortable for you?” I asked.
    He buried his face in my skirt.
    “Ty, um, am I hurting you, sitting this close?”
    The moist heat of his exhalations was seeping through the fabric, scalding my thigh. I was afraid there was going to be a big wet spot. I vaguely noted that his hair and skin tones looked great against my pink, beige, and brown paisley print. And my new mocha tights had runs in both knees, probably from when I knelt beside him on the concrete.
    I didn’t know what to do with my hands.
    He shivered again and I pulled the blanket over his shoulders and placed my left arm around his back, carefully cradling him.
    His hair had grown out a lot. It moved in rich, rusty waves. I went ahead and touched it, pushed my fingers through the thick softness.
    Ty turned his head and came up for air, sighed, and slept, on and off. More than two hours passed, during which I barely moved. By the