With her arms around me, I can tell how much stronger she is now. Suddenly, I remember all of those other moments when I was with her when she laughed and wasn’t as tired as she was before.
They’re all symptoms that this is true. I want to celebrate but another part of me doesn’t want to jinx it.
I will not live in fear, I decide.
I go to the bottom drawer of our kitchen cabinets, the one Dad used as a backup pantry to the cabinet above. This is where we keep all the stuff that we don’t usually need all the time like backup cans of soup and beans and other non-perishables.
In the back, I find a bottle of champagne that I bought a few years ago and told her that we would open when we have something momentous to celebrate.
“No, no, no,” Mom says, waving her hand at me. “We can’t open this now.”
“We have to,” I say. “This is the best news that we’ve gotten …ever. Even if it’s temporary, even if something changes, we have to celebrate today. We have to acknowledge this moment and be present.”
My mom continues to protest, saying that the bottle should be kept for something a lot more significant but her protests are no longer that insistent. I know that she agrees with me.
You would be surprised but I don’t have that much experience opening champagne bottles and as soon as I pop the cork, the foam spills onto the floor, adding to the celebration. My mom laughs as I try to catch it into our glasses, rather unsuccessfully.
“This is the best news that I could get,” I say, raising my glass to hers. “You are a wonderful mother and you have always been there for me. I just wish that I could be there for you.”
“You have been,” she says. “I love you, son.”
Her voice cracks at the end and when I say I love you, too, mine does as well. We wipe our tears, slightly embarrassed by them but not enough to actually pretend that they’re not coming.
“Let’s make this glass the beginning of something wonderful,” I continue. “A new life, for both of us.”
“I want to say something, too,” she says as I’m about to put down my glass. I raise it back up.
“You’re the best son that any mother could ever hope for,” she says. “You have always been there for me, even when you probably should not have. I never wanted to be a burden to you. I just wanted to raise you and watch you become the man that you are, the man that I always knew you could be. Now that I’m better, I want you to stop worrying about me. I want you to promise me that. I want you to stop worrying and I want you to focus on you.”
“Me?”
“You have a lot of things going on in your life and they need a lot of figuring out. Mainly, it’s that woman that you’re in love with that you can’t get out of your head.”
I swallow hard and look down at my feet.
“I want you to make it right with Aurora,” Mom says. “I know that she can make you happy and I know that you can make her happy. I just hope that you two can figure things out before it’s too late.”
23
Aurora
The following afternoon, Henry and I make the arrangements to meet up through a burner phone that I bought at Walmart. If Franklin catches me with it, I know that whatever trust he has in me will disappear immediately. But I have to have a way to talk to Henry, for real and in private.
On the way to the hotel, I make sure that no one is following me by examining every unknown face. I had promised myself that if I suspect that I am being trailed by anyone at all that I’m going to call this off. I don’t think I can handle the wrath that Franklin would impose on me if he were to find out the truth.
Henry paid for the room and I take the elevator up to the third floor. It’s a nondescript, three-star hotel that caters to business travelers. They only allow check-ins after three in the afternoon and I get there a few minutes later. I can’t stay out too late. I have to be back at the apartment before Franklin gets back.
Henry pulls me into his arms as soon as he opens the door. He presses his lips to mine and my whole body starts to shiver. I drop my bag onto the floor and wrap my arms around him.
His hands make their way up my shirt and unclasp my bra. He pushes me against the wall. I kiss him, desperately searching for his tongue. His hands make their way around my stomach, cupping my breasts. I turn my head back when he squeezes. A fire is ignited in the middle of my core, the kind that I have forgotten that I still have.
“I’ve missed you,” he mumbles through his sloppy kiss.
“I’ve missed you, too,” I whisper.
He leads me to the bedroom, holding my hand firmly in his. He’s wearing a tight, white T-shirt that accentuates every protruding muscle in his torso.
I watch the way his six pack moves up and down with each breath. When he throws me on the bed, I lick my lips in anticipation and pull off his shirt. The room is dark but there is candlelight streaming from the hallway. It’s not a real candle but it flickers and behaves like one.
I stare at it as he kisses my lips and my neck. I arch my back as he pulls off my shirt and my bra.
Finally, we are flesh to flesh. I glance at him and run my fingers down his hard body. His abs are a perfect six-pack, almost as if he is photo shopped.
“How do you have this…body?” I ask, letting my fingers go up and down his torso, around the sides of his stomach, where his muscles form the letter V, as if they are an arrow directing me to his beautiful cock.
I tug at his belt buckle and let it fall open on to my stomach.
“I tend to lift weights when I get frustrated,” he says, kissing behind my ear. “Recently, I’ve been frustrated a lot.”
“So, when we’re finally together, you’re going to let yourself go?” I ask.
“If you want,” Henry says, pulling away from me just a little bit.
“I want you any way I can have you,” I say.
He smiles, kisses me again, and flips over on his back.
“Come lie on top of me,” he says.
This feels good. Powerful. But then he pulls down on me, folding my body in half.
He kisses me again and again, fondling my breasts. Even with me on top, he’s in charge. I like that.
I don’t like that in most of my life, but right here and now, it feels beautiful just like him.
I trust him.
He won’t hurt me.
In fact, he’ll make me feel the kind of pleasure that I can only dream of.
Pulling off my pants, I lean on top of him as he kisses my neck, my breasts, and my stomach. He keeps pushing me further and finally I don’t want to say no.
He pulls me up to his mouth, I sit on him and he buries his fingers and his tongue deep within me. I grip the headboard and lose myself in the moment. His fingers move expertly around me quickly getting me to that place from which there’s no turning back.
I start to moan. I feel a wave coming over me and before I realize what’s happening, he gets behind me and thrusts himself inside. His dick is hard and thick and fills every aspect of me, finally making me feel complete.
“Henry!” I whisper his name, unable to create an audible sound.
One wave crashes followed by another and my body seems to take over. We move as one, together as if we were made this way. With each thrust, he goes deeper and deeper inside and I consume more and more of him.
The final wave comes and I curl my toes. It’s warm and soothing as it explodes from the center of my core, reverberating all around.
I shake, moving myself up and down harder and harder to try to make it last longer. Somewhere behind me, I hear him moan my name and thrust one last time.
We hold each other for a long time after that, grasping to one another, breathing deeply but unable to catch our breaths.
“I really miss you,” Henry says, staring at the ceiling.
He’s somewhere far away and so am I, but in a good way.
“I’ve missed you, too,” I say, squeezing his hand.
“I have to te
ll you something,” he says.
I shake my head no and say, “I don’t wanna hear any bad news right now. I just can’t…”
I know that I’m being selfish. He probably wants to tell me about his mom but not just yet. I will be here for him and I will hold him and I will tell him that everything will be okay but I can’t do that just yet. I need this moment to last a little longer to replenish my dwindling supplies of optimism.
“It’s not what you think. Her cancer is in remission.”
I turn to face him.
Did I hear that correctly?
“They still have to wait and see and she has to go in for lots of tests every few months to make sure that it doesn’t come back but it’s gone.” There’s a tear in the corner of his eye. I bring my finger to it and wipe it.
“I’m so happy,” I say, kissing him softly on the lips. “I’m so… she’s going to be okay.”
I let out a deep sigh of relief. I had only met her a few times but she’s a kindred soul, the kind that is rare in this world.
I didn’t want Henry to lose her. I didn’t want to lose her.
24
Aurora
Franklin gets home later that evening and I have a martini waiting for him, like a good 1950s housewife. He takes it, gives me a small peck on the cheek, and downs it.
“Hard day?” I ask.
He goes straight to his closet and changes out of his clothes. When he emerges, he is dressed in sweats and has a defeated look on his face.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Your father… He is just so difficult.”
He wrestles with his thoughts before saying the word and I know that he had considered a few alternatives.
“You mean, he’s an asshole?” I ask, taking a sip of my own martini.
“Well, I wasn’t going to say that but there you go.”
“I could’ve told you that. What happened?”
“There’s just all this shit with the buyout. He has all these demands. He wants to hold onto a big portion of it, and a bunch of others. It wouldn’t interest you.”
I move my jaw slightly from one side to another and ball up my fists. I’m sitting next to him but my hands are buried behind me in the couch, out of sight.
“What would make you think that it wouldn’t interest me?” I ask. “I’m interested in Tate Media. It is my parents’ company.”
“Well, not anymore.”
“Did my father sign all the paperwork?”
He doesn’t answer. He knows what I’m getting at so I don’t push.
“So, what does he want?” I ask. “Now, you have piqued my interest.”
“More ownership of the shares. More control, what does anyone want?”
I’m about to question him some more when he changes the subject.
“So, what’s going on with you? Any plans for the future?”
I shrug and lean back into the sofa. It wraps around me like a thick warm shawl but the comfort that I feel is only an illusion.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.
“We haven’t talked for a while, so I was just wondering what you wanna do with your life. You got your PhD. What are your plans now?”
The lines of concern between his two eyebrows relaxes and he looks at me with the face of someone who is genuinely interested.
“To tell you the truth, I have no idea. It’s hard to explain but I don’t really know what’s going on. Maybe I’m feeling a little bored. Maybe depressed but I don’t have another project lined up. I don’t have another class to take and so, I’m sort of…listless?”
“That’s a standardized test word,” he says with a smile.
I nod.
“Yeah, I may know one or two big words but what does that matter? What does that get me?”
“Listen, you are the daughter of parents who have built one of the biggest media empires in the world who is now married to a man who has acquired it and you can’t find a job? Well, then we have a real problem on our hands as a society.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. I don’t want to but the giggles just come out. You can say a lot of things about Franklin but you cannot say that he’s not charming.
“Seriously, though, do you want a job?” he asks.
“Is this what this is about?” I ask. “I mean, is this why you think I’m feeling a little depressed?”
“Well,” he says, spreading his arms around the back of the sofa and lifting his ankle onto one knee. “I have to tell you, not having something to do during the day is one of the major causes of depression. Everyone’s going to work. Everyone’s trying to achieve something and you’re just hanging around.”
“Are you saying that I’m being lazy?” I ask.
“No, I really don’t want to imply that,” he says quickly. “If you don’t wanna have a job and you want to be a stay-at-home wife, you want to pursue a hobby, or just hang out with friends, that’s perfectly fine with me. God knows we have the money but the thing that I was getting at is that you just don’t seem to be the type. You don’t know what to do with yourself. You like to work hard, otherwise you wouldn’t have gotten your PhD without anyone’s support. You like to pursue meaningful work and you shouldn’t apologize for that.”
“Would that be okay with you?” I ask.
He looks me up and down and nods his head.
“Of course. It would be more than okay. I would love it. That place is a shark tank and I need people on my side. Besides, I think the employees of Tate Media would appreciate having one of their own on board.”
I give him a slight nod.
“I really appreciate this,” I say, looking at him and taking his hand in mine. He glances down and waits for me to squeeze it.
This is probably the most genuine connection I’ve ever experienced with my husband up until this point.
He’s right, of course. I should have done this long ago. I’m not the type to do nothing and I don’t have many hobbies or interests outside of work.
“I’ve never felt welcome at that company with my parents being in charge,” I say after a long pause. “They were very controlling and everything had to be just so. Other people could make mistakes but I couldn’t. I was their daughter and I guess if I made mistakes it meant that they were making mistakes.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way.”
“I hope not. I only worked there as an intern one summer and I couldn’t handle it, not because of the work or the people but because of their micromanaging and second-guessing. I didn’t just report to my immediate superior, I had to also report up to them and… it just made everything unsuitable.”
“That’s not what I want this relationship to be,” Franklin says. “I don’t want to control you. I definitely don’t want that in the workplace.”
“So, you’re not going to watch my every move?” I ask.
He shakes his head no and says, “I trust you. Also, I know that you only have Tate Media‘s best interests at heart. I will not get involved with anything unless there’s a real dispute that I have to get to the bottom of.”
I think about the proposition and I like it. I love writing, I love words, and I love telling stories.
“So, what would I do there?” I ask.
“What do you want to do?” he asks. “Do you want to work in corporate? Oversee personnel, manage the kind of stories that we tell? Do you want to be the one who’s actually telling the stories? The crime division is doing well but that’s probably the one place you can’t get a position.”
Our eyes meet and he gives me a little wink.
I smile back, at the corner of my lips.
“Why is that?” I ask. “Is it because my ex-boyfriend, Henry Asher, runs one of the most successful podcasts in your crime division?”
“Yeah, I think it has something to do with that,” he says sarcastically.
I can’t blame him for this restriction. In fact, I am surprised at his generosity. Never in a milli
on years did I think that he would actually make this offer. Never in a million years did I think that he would want me to work at his company.
“I really appreciate this,” I say. “I hope you know how genuine I am when I say that.”
“It will be a pleasure to have you there and to spend more time with you,” Franklin says. “I’m sure that I will be able to find the right fit for you.”
I shake my head, reach over, and give him a hug.
“I really appreciate this,” I whisper into his chest.
I truly do. What is not lost on me, however, is how conflicted I feel about him as a person.
I know that one nice word or one good deed doesn’t make up for all of the bad things that he has done, but it does affect the conflict that I feel inside.
Franklin gives me these glimpses of goodness that make me wonder why the bad exists in the first place. How can he be both of these things at the same time?
When I pull away from him, I lean back and look into his eyes. I feel him watching me but his gaze is different this time. Something is different. Something has shifted.
“Why don’t you spend the night with me? In our bedroom?” he asks.
25
Aurora
My blood runs cold and I feel my whole body withdraw from him but there’s something different in his eyes this time. He doesn’t make a move toward me. There’s a casualness in his demeanor. He doesn’t have that glint in his eyes that he had when he tried to touch me before. It puts me at ease but at the same time it throws me off.
What does he want?
“Don’t look at me like that,” Franklin says. “I’m not a monster.”
I shake my head, instinctively. I don’t want him to think that I think that.
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” he says, keeping the tone of his voice as calm as possible.
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