"Donnatella Moss!"

Then again, I could be wrong.

I put on my robe and run to open the door.  The sight of him takes my breath away.

And not in a good way.

The man is a mess.  I thought he looked bad before the Congressional Christmas party, but he's gone downhill from there.  Bloodshot eyes, that haunted look I noticed before, the blood on his dress shirt.

Blood?

"Josh, what happened to you?"

"I did something kind of stupid."

I open the door and gesture for him to come in.

"Are you all right?" I ask.

"Yeah, basically.  I mean, the bleeding stopped.  It's just -- there's glass everywhere, and I can't stay at my place tonight."  He sits down on my sofa, and for an instant I am annoyed that he doesn't even think he needs to ask whether he can stay here for what remains of the night.  Then I'm just relieved that he's here and I'm too worried about the bleeding and the glass and finding out what the hell happened to him after the party.

It's when I sit down beside him on the sofa that I see he's wrapped his hand in some kind of bandage.  I reach for his hand, but he moves away from me.

"Josh, let me see."

"It's nothing."

"Let me see."  I hate the note of hysteria I hear in my voice.  I hope Josh doesn't notice it.

He looks at me for a second, then holds out his hand.  From the way he's got it wrapped, it looks as though it's his palm that's injured, not his wrist.

Thank God, not his wrist.

"We need to get you to a doctor," I tell him.

"No, we don't."

"Josh."

"It's fine.  No damage.  Really."

"How did this happen?"

"Doesn't matter."

"What was all that about the glass?  Why can't you stay at your place?"

"I was... I broke a glass."

"How?"  God, he is such a bad liar.

"I fixed myself a drink, you know, when I got home from the thing.  And it broke."

"In your hand?"

"Yeah."

"It just broke?  For no reason?"

"I... I wasn't paying attention, and I missed the coaster."

"You don't even have coasters.  I'm always telling you to buy coasters.  You tell me that real men don't use coasters."

"I mean... magazine.  I was going to use the magazine as a coaster, and I wasn't paying attention and I didn't... I missed the magazine and the glass fell and that's what happened to my hand."

"That doesn't--"

"That's what happened, Donna.  Just leave it at that, okay?"

"And this broken glass is so bad that you can't stay at your place?"

"Yes."  He gives me this look like he's daring me to push it.  I'm not going to get the truth out of him tonight.

"Fine," I say.  "But you'd better work on improving that story before 7:30."

"Why?"

"You have senior staff at 7:30.  And nobody there is going to buy that story." 

* * * 

I spend the next few minutes looking for blankets and pillows so that Josh can sleep on my couch.  And, yes, I do consider telling him to just get into bed with me, but there are a few things that keep me from doing that.  Chief among these are the fact that he's lying to me plus the fact that I don't see any real difference between how he's looking at me now and how he looked at me just before the concert.  There's no emotion, no caring -- just that look of indifference I saw earlier tonight.  He's obviously in a great deal of pain, both physically and psychologically, so maybe that accounts for some of it.  But the thing is that I've seen him in all kinds of pain, and through it all he's looked at me like -- well, not like this.

You want the truth?  I'm afraid that if I suggested sharing a bed tonight, he'd turn me down.  There are some forms of rejection you just don't want to deal with.

So I go back to bed, knowing that I won't be sleeping well.  I'll be working out what happened to Josh's hand.  And why there's glass everywhere and he can't sleep in his own home.

And why he came here.  Why not Sam's?  Or CJ's?

Okay, that's an easy one.  I'm his loyal assistant.  I may wonder, I may ask questions; but even if I demand answers, he doesn't have to give them.  Sam or CJ would be less likely to accept his silly "I broke a glass" story at face value.

So what did happen?  There's glass everywhere, he said.  He broke his hand on some large piece of glass.  Think, Donna: what large pieces of glass are there at Josh's place?

I'm just on the edge of sleep when the obvious answer hits me: the window.  Of course.  If he broke a window, there would be glass everywhere and he obviously couldn't sleep there in the middle of December.

Josh smashed a window with his hand.

I doubt I'd be shivering more if he'd broken the window in this bedroom.

What do you call this?  Why didn't I take more psychology courses?  Is this a suicidal gesture?  Is it anger?  Is it both?  Rational people don't put their hands through glass, do they?

I can't stay in bed.  I have to watch over him.  I have to make sure he's all right.

I get paid to make sure he's all right, after all. Loyal assistant and all that.

The light's still on in the living room.  That's unusual; Josh complains loudly that he can never rest on airplanes because he needs a darkened room if he's going to sleep properly.  But his eyes are closed and I'm afraid I'll wake him, so I just sit down on the floor facing him.

"Go to bed, Donna," he says without opening his eyes.

"You broke a window."

He sighs.  "Let's not talk about this."

"Josh, you broke a window."

"I broke a glass."

"You didn't."

"I broke a glass.  It was an accident.  Don't push it."

"I'm scared, Josh."

He opens his eyes, but he doesn't sit up.  "I didn't mean for you to worry.  I never meant that."

"If things were reversed, would you be worrying about me?"

"Honestly, I don't know anymore."

Well, how about that?  I have now heard something that hurts more than the self-worth crack.  I'm quiet for a minute, until I'm sure I'm not going to cry, and then I say it.  Here in this room, I can say it without hurting his career.  "I'm afraid you're going to hurt yourself," I tell him.

He laughs bitterly.  "Trust me.  I'm in a great deal of pain already."

"You know what I mean."

"Yes, I do.  Why would it be such a bad thing?"

"Because there are people who love you.  There are people whose lives would be unendurable without you."

"Name two."

"CJ.  Sam."

"They'd get over it."

"I wouldn't."

"You would.  You'd get over it first.  In fact, it might be the best thing that ever happened to you.  No more of this -- whatever it is we're doing.  You could have a real relationship.  Besides, you've got a real treat coming when I die; trust me."

"Yeah, I got a taste of that treat during your surgery.  It's a tremendous rush, having your heart ripped out like that.  I can't wait to do it again."

"You don't want to hear about your treat?"

"Josh, don't make jokes about this."

"Really.  What's the point in doing something nice for someone after you're gone?  You can't see the look on their face.  I want to see the look on your face when I tell you about my will."

"Don't talk about things like that."

"But you'll like it.  See, I changed my will after -- after Rosslyn.  I thought about it, and Dad left my mom pretty well off.  She doesn't need my money, such as it is.  And then I got all worried about what would have happened to you if I'd died, so I changed my will.  You're my heir.  The Lyman fortune is all yours."

"That's not funny."

"But it's true.  This is a good thing I'm doing here.  You'll be able to quit your job and go back to school.  You even get my condo, which is in a much nicer neighborhood than this."

"I don't want your condo; I don't want your money.  And I like my job."

He ignores me and goes right on talking.  "So I'm not joking when I say you'll be much better off without me.  I don't even think the insurance company will make you pay the $50,000, though you should have Sam look into that."

"Stop saying things like that, Josh!  Just stop it!"

"Are you crying?"

I dab at my eyes with the sleeve of my nightshirt.  "Of course I'm crying.  Good lord, Josh, will you listen to yourself?"

"I thought I was, you know, providing for -- for you.  I thought this was a good thing."

"You want to know what happens to me if you die?  You want to know what my life is like after you're gone?"

"You go back to school.  You get in a normal relationship.  You have a good career and marriage and children.  Maybe you name one of them Joshua in a fit of nostalgia."

"I die.  Not literally.  But inside.  I stop caring about anything.  I don't fall in love again.  Ever.  Because whoever I meet, he isn't you.  And even if he were someone I could care for, I can't get past how we ended.  How you didn't care enough about me to stick around.  How, in the end, you must have stopped loving me, because you wouldn't have hurt me like that if you cared.  And I refuse to risk going through that again.  I spend the rest of my life trying to figure out what I could have done differently to save you.  So in your own stupid, egotistical way, you haunt me.  But I would finish school; at least you got that part right."

I look up at him, and in that second I see that the look of indifference is gone.  He's still got that haunted look about him, he's still in trouble, but he's looking at me as if he's remembered that he cares.  "Come here," he says.  And I sit on the couch by his side.

"I'm not," he starts.  "I can't -- I'd be lying if I made you any kind of promises tonight."

"Then I am begging you to lie."

"Leo wants me to see a guy."

I nod.  "It's already on your schedule.  For Christmas Eve."

"I keep seeing--"  I wait, but he doesn't tell me what he keeps seeing.  Instead, he says, "It just hurts too much sometimes."

"I wish I knew how to make it go away, Josh."

"So do I."

We sit quietly for a few minutes, then Josh speaks again.  "It says valuable."

"What?"

"My will.  It says, 'I bequeath my entire estate to the valuable Donnatella Moss.'  Or something like that.  The point is that I did find you valuable after all."

"Think how much more valuable you may find me in years to come."

"I can't think in terms of years.  There's just this moment.  And in this moment," he says, "you are more valuable than I ever could have imagined."

It's not a promise, but it's definitely not a lie.  I lean my head back against his chest and tell myself that this will have to do for now.  It will have to be enough to get us through until whatever happens come Christmas Eve.

THE END

12.28.00