Close Match

by Jerald, Tracey

  “It can’t be that bad.” While I’d typically pounce on her countdown like a lioness on fresh meat, I avoid it for now.

  “It is. I think the baby shower my assistant threw for me today was a ‘get the hell out of here so I can get some damn work done’ party.” Jesus, I forgot today was her shower at work. My head falls forward in gratitude over the fact my sister didn’t want a private shower, so I just bombarded her with gifts at Christmas when she was here—something Simon gave me a raft of shit over. “How the hell are we supposed to get all this crap home, Linnie? We flew?”

  I remember telling him, “On a private jet, you schmuck.”

  He’d sheepishly wrapped his arms around a chuckling Bristol. “Oh, yeah. Oops. Thanks!”

  Everyone laughed as I threw part of a diaper cake I had made in his face.

  She chatters on in my ear. “I think once Alex is here, it will become more real—that we’re all Houdes.” Her voice is buoyant, happy, excited.

  I’m about to ruin all of that.

  “Bristol.”

  I’ve only said her name when she interrupts me. “What’s wrong?”

  Can one right balance out the incredible wrong I’m about to deliver? I rub my hand over my forehead as I try to find the right words.

  I must take too long, or she knows me too well.

  “You’re not coming home in time for Alex to be born,” she says flatly. I wince at the complete void of emotion in her voice.

  “Let me explain,” I plead, but before I can get another word out, I’m again cut off.

  This time at the knees.

  “I’ve been there for you since the moment I found that damn diary! I’m the one who held your hand while you grieved, but you can’t hold mine while I celebrate?” Bristol takes in a shaky breath. “You made me a promise!”

  “Please, Bristol.” I’m begging her. “Let me explain. Ev’s sick.”

  That gets her attention.

  “What do you mean, sick?” she demands.

  “It’s cancer,” I manage to get out.

  And just like that, her anger deflates. “Jesus, Linnie,” Across hundreds of miles, the horror of what’s happening is understood. “Is there anything we can do?” I know from the limited amount of time they spent together, Bristol and Simon respect and admire Ev and Char.

  And it’s so like my sister to put aside her feelings of disappointment to ask.

  “There’s only one thing that can be done.” I take a deep breath. “And I have to help him do it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  And slowly, I reveal the real reason it was so easy to find my close match—because my father needed a bone marrow donor. I explain about the procedure Ev’s about to undergo and how I’m going to help.

  “I’m feeling so much right now: regret because I can’t be there with you, agony over what Ev’s about to endure, and drained.”

  “Because you feel like you’re holding the world up on your shoulders?” Bristol interjects.

  I frown. “No, I think Monty’s the one who’s doing that.”

  “Is he really? Or is he leaning on you like a crutch, Linnie?”

  “What makes you say that? I thought you liked him.” I’m confused

  “I don’t know. Since I’ve been back, I’ve been thinking about him. There’s something about him that reminds me of someone. I just can’t put my finger on it.”

  My hackles rise in defense of the man I love. “Don’t judge him based on one week when he’s a lot more than that, Bris. Don’t define him by that. You’re not with him the way I am. You don’t understand the pressure he’s been under, the pain he’s endured, and how he’s come out the other side.”

  There’s a long pause. “You’re right. I’m only basing my judgment on what I saw in such a limited time. You’re the one living with him day in and day out.”

  “I worry he’s punishing himself: for Ev, for things that happened with his former job,” I confess. “But I know he’s strong enough to get through. He is so much more. It might just take time.”

  “And right now, your focus has to be on Ev.”

  “I wish I could be there. I want to hold your hand when Alex comes into this world, but Dr. Spellman has basically forbidden it.”

  “I hate Dr. Spellman,” Bristol grumbles, but I know what she’s doing. She’s trying to get me to laugh when all I want to do is cry.

  I’m about to agree when she says something that takes my breath away. “For too many years, you’ve had to be strong. Yes, there are days when everyone needs to be strong. But I need you to know I love you no matter what. This is your home. You can always rely on me to love you, Linnie. No matter what.”

  I try to speak, but I can’t. For a long time, there’s just the sound of our breathing on the phone. I finally manage to get out, “I love you, Bris.”

  “Love you too, Linnie.” She doesn’t speak again. Eventually, I pull the phone away to see Call Ended. I drop the phone in my lap.

  And in the fading light of the sun, I just sit and be. I’m scared of what’s to come. I’m out of sorts.

  I feel like I did when Mom died: alone, and petrified of letting everyone down.

  * * *

  “Jesus Christ, Linnie. It’s like twenty degrees out.” Monty’s voice interrupts my mental inventory of everything I’ve done wrong. His concern begins to warm the place inside of me that’s slowly frozen over in the hours I’ve been huddled inside the blanket thinking of Bristol.

  From the first time I held my sister to Christmas, a million memories pass through my mind. Not all of them are good, but they’re all wrapped in reciprocated love. That is until today’s phone call. My face contorts in pain.

  He reaches down and touches my cheek. “You’re like ice. Get inside before you get sick. You have more than just your own health to think about now.”

  Of course. It’s not about me; it’s about saving Ev. I don’t know how pain can penetrate the numbness I blissfully felt until Monty walked out onto the balcony, but it can. I unwrap myself from the blanket to reveal the heavy North Face coat I’m wearing. Without a word, I grab the blanket and drag it past him as I head back inside.

  “What’s wrong?” he demands as I carefully spread it back across his bed.

  “Nothing. I just need a few moments to…” But I’m not given them as Monty’s up in my face.

  “You’ve been crying,” he accuses me as he grips my arms to hold me in place.

  I shrug. I’m not going to deny it.

  “Look, if this is too much, tell us now. The minute Ev swallows that first pill, there’s no going back,” he warns me. As if I need another reminder.

  Then my eye catches the dying sun glinting off the bottle of amber liquid on the wet bar in the room. “What does that taste like?” I ask.

  Monty looks over his shoulder. His frame locks. “Why?”

  Hurt, I wrench away and stalk over to the bar. Trailing my fingers along the crystal decanter, I whisper, “It’s been a really shitty day. I just…I just wanted to know what it tasted like to make all these people want to use it to obliterate their pain.”

  A flash of something crosses his face. He stalks over and takes the decanter from me. Lifting it to his lips, he takes a swallow. “Taste it from me, then,” he says before crushing his lips down on mine.

  I wanted to understand, and in some weird way through his kiss, I do—pain, suffering, and a feeling that falls just short of love. I didn’t want anything to do with alcohol before this moment, and I know for damn sure I don’t now.

  Pushing him away, I wipe my arm across my mouth to rid myself of the taste on my lips. “I wasn’t out there trying to get sick. I was already sick—sick at heart because I had to tell my sister I’m going to miss the birth of my nephew because I agreed to donate bone marrow to my father. I don’t like breaking promises to people I’ve made them to. Particularly those I love.”

  Pain lashes across his features. “Sweetheart,” He reaches for me, but
I step out of reach.

  “Tell your mother I’m sorry, I’m not feeling very hungry.” Turning, I make my way into the connecting bath and lock the door.

  The emptiness I feel at this moment is so consuming it brings me to my knees without a sound. I don’t know how long it is I stay there, my arms wrapped around myself just trying to hold on to something because God knows I don’t feel like I have anyone else I can hold on to.

  Fifty-Five

  Montague

  All she asked me was what alcohol tasted like, and I flipped like she was playing judge and jury. When her soft voice whispered, “It’s been a really shitty day. I was just…I just wanted to know what it tasted like to make all these people use it to obliterate their pain,” I realized she was looking for comfort.

  Of course, that’s not what she took that kiss as.

  I realized that the minute she walked out of the room and I heard the lock of the bathroom snick behind her. I downed two glasses of bourbon before having enough courage to go downstairs and explain her absence.

  At dinner, Ev looked haggard over the events of the day. “It’s too much for her. We don’t have to do this.”

  “Ev, I don’t think you can stop her now.” The force of my words caused him to blanch. “Let me worry about Linnie.”

  Maybe he sees how much I’m in love with his daughter, but I don’t care. After tonight, she’ll have no doubt how I feel. But when I walked back into my suite after dinner, it was to find her huddled on the side of the bed, her long hair undone, fast asleep.

  It wasn’t until I pushed her hair off her face that I saw the dried tear tracks on her face and took them like a kick in the chest. God, help me say the right words to her to heal whatever part of this pain I caused. Shifting from my knees to my full height, all I feel is the need to drop back down to them to wake her to beg her for forgiveness.

  My woman cried herself to sleep tonight. Unlike me, she doesn’t hold in her pain. Instead, her face is painted by her heartbreak. Every overwhelming emotion she’s been put through has scored her cheeks with wetness.

  Her father.

  Her sister.

  Me.

  I can smell the very thing that caused me to flip at her earlier. Like a siren, the bourbon’s seductive scent calls to me, whispering at me to come to have another taste since I’ve already had her once today. Like a body driven by primitive instincts, I move away from the woman I know I need to care for in favor of the thing I yearn for.

  A burn that wrenches my gut so painfully it obliterates the ones in my heart.

  Not bothering with a glass, I tip the bottle to my lips and swallow again and again, until I gasp for breath. The heat hits and suffocates the ache. My eyes dart over to the bed.

  Linnie’s rolled over to her back. Her hand’s reached over to my side, seeking me in her dreams. Thank God I didn’t fuck this up, I think woozily. Stripping out of my clothes, I leave a trail of them as I stumble across the room. Lifting the covers, I slide her hand out of the way. I crawl in beside her and gather her close. Her brows scrunch close together, but she doesn’t wake.

  The bubble I’m wrapped in doesn’t allow for a filter. “I love you.” My words seem to echo off the walls of the room, but I know I just whispered them for the first time to a sleeping woman who’s carrying so much on her delicate shoulders, she doesn’t need more.

  As I pass out, it never crosses my mind I might have bellowed them in my drunken state to the woman I do love, who startles awake at my declaration.

  Fifty-Six

  Evangeline

  Did that just happen?

  Monty’s naked in bed beside me having just shouted his love before passing out. He smells like a distillery. The smell reminds me of the nights Mom would come in to tuck me in when I was a child. But Monty’s been through so much; he’s under such a strain with trying to be the strength we all need him to be. I don’t want him to come to bed with alcohol on his breath for the rest of our lives, but tonight? I almost understand.

  Before I can travel too far down a path sure to bring back bitter memories, the words that bounced off the walls, yanking me from my sleep, bring me fully awake.

  Did he just yell to anyone in hearing distance that he loves me?

  Snuggling against his chest, I disregard his fuzzy alcohol breath as he snores deeply. Brushing a kiss across his cheek that desperately needs a shave, I wrinkle my nose at the smell of alcohol, which is so different when combined with sweat and odor. Laying my head against his heart, I murmur, “I love you too.”

  I came to some conclusions earlier that made my heart hurt. Life is all about the choices we make. And in this case, it’s about my decision to give someone life. It hurts—God, does it hurt—but I can’t stop agonizing over the what-ifs.

  “Oh, Mom. If you only you had just told me,” I whisper sadly in the dark. “How much of this would be different?” As if he can hear me, Monty’s arms tighten on me to pull me closer to his already warm body. Shifting to get more comfortable, I lay my head down on the pillow and close my eyes thinking of promises, declarations, and hopes.

  Sometimes people have to come in and out of your life to become better versions of themselves. Sometimes it isn’t to hurt you, though it does. No matter what you do, you can’t make them better on your own.

  I just don’t want the latest person to be my father.

  Finally, as I drift off to sleep, I vaugely wonder if Monty’s going to have a drink every night before bed. If so, I’m going to need him to brush his teeth and shower before he crawls between the sheets. After the initial burst of flavor from his lips, the smell’s noxious as hell.

  Fifty-Seven

  Evangeline

  No one talks about how real cancer is until they live it. We’re on day seven of the conditioning, and my father’s fading away and dying right before my very eyes.

  I don’t know what’s worse: what happened to Mom or what’s happening to him.

  Throwing myself into a series of turns, I make myself deliberately as dizzy as the medicine is making my father. Catching myself against the far wall, I’m out of breath, and the room is spinning wildly. Now if only my hair would start to fall out in chunks, I think bitterly.

  Everett Parrish started taking the protocol to begin killing off his immune system and in a matter of days went from being a capable man in his sixties to a man who visually would have no problem passing for early eighties. His appetite has been nonexistent when he’s not violently ill. And Char—bless her. She’s been at his side every moment with mouthwash, weak ginger ale, and ice chips.

  And all I can do is wait.

  Dr. Spellman notified us they’d bring me in for the aspiration on the day they admit Ev into the hospital. That will give them enough time for the extract, to use the Cytoxan, and for Ev to have his day of rest before they introduce the new marrow into his system. Until then, there’s pretty much nothing I can’t do. “Except get sick,” he said sternly.

  Which is why I can’t hop up to New York to be there for Alex’s birth.

  But no matter how much I want to scream, all it would do is echo back at me. My pain is nothing in comparison to the people I love.

  Even Monty.

  He thinks he’s so strong, but even he’s breaking. He doesn’t think I notice. He hasn’t touched me other than in a superficial fashion since the night he admitted to loving me. It’s like he revealed some deep secret and now is pulling back. He holds me every night, but it feels like it’s more out of obligation. It would be like tearing out the final piece of a heart that’s been finely shredded, but I’m beginning to wonder if I should move back to my original room.

  Leaning down against the bar, I put my head in my hands and pant in exhaustion.

  “When this is over…” I don’t finish the thought because I’m interrupted.

  “I think we should go away,” Monty says from the door. “Anywhere we can find that makes us want to forget the last few weeks.”

  I shrug,
turning my back to him. “I don’t think a place like that exists.”

  He comes up behind me and brushes a few strands of hair that have escaped my braid off my shoulder. “Then we’ll hole up somewhere and create it.”

  “Why?” I ask blankly.

  “Why what?”

  “Why me?” At his sharply inhaled breath, I turn around. His hands fall from my shoulders. “I mean, I get that you need to be away for a while, but don’t feel obligated to take me.” A bitter laugh escapes. I wrap my arms around myself to accept a hug from the only person capable of giving me one right now.

  Me.

  Monty studies me for a few moments in uncomfortable silence. I plow through. “If you don’t mind, I need to work out since I won’t be able to for a few weeks.”

  “Talk to me.” He deliberately steps in my way.

  “Why?” It isn’t meant to come out cruel; it’s just an honest question. But by the way he recoils, it’s as if I struck him.

  “Why? Maybe because I’m a nice guy and I care about the woman sleeping in my bed every night.” It looks like I’ve poked at Monty’s anger too.

  I don’t have the energy to care.

  “I was thinking about that. You, me—don’t feel obligated to me just because of everything going on with Ev.” I turn my back to him because just saying the words slash another wound into me.

  “Obligated?” he says carefully. I can practically feel the waves of his temper wash over me. But the words have been spoken, and I can’t take them back.

  “I understand your focus is with your family, as it should be.” I open my mouth to continue, but Monty steps in front of me, eyes blazing.

  “And you’re a part of that family.”

  I shake my head. “Am I?” Before he can answer, I rush on. “Ever since the day at the hospital, you don’t hold me. You tolerate me. I don’t belong anywhere. Not anymore.”