One Life With Him

by CD Reiss

  “I don’t have to move!” I announced, kissing him.

  “Good?”

  “Oh God, you missed the whole thing!” I blabbered. “My mom put the house into foreclosure. I thought I was going to have to move out really fast, which is impossible—hello, I have twenty years of stuff in that house—but some investor bought it.”

  “Ah, who beat me out?”

  “Crap, she told me.” I wrestled with the granola bar until he took it from me and got it open in one move—with a bad heart and IVs sticking out of him. “It’s such a load off. I can’t even tell you.”

  He broke off a piece of the bar and held it. “Was it Ganten Investments?”

  I took the piece in my mouth. “No, it was a bunch of letters, like DRM… But five letters and not that. I made it into a word in my head, but I can’t think of it.”

  “Doesn’t matter, I guess.”

  “You have to move faster next time if you want property in Echo Park.” I took another chunk of granola bar from his fingers. I felt light as a feather, waving at him to indicate I wanted another piece. “Oh my God, this thing tastes so bad. It’s, like, stinky.”

  “Stinky?”

  “With a touch of dredgy.” Then I remembered, as I chewed, the rhythm of the letters. The taste of the stale barley malt brought it to me. “ODRSN. That was it. It sounded like odorous. ODRSN Partners.”

  He was looking at the bar, breaking another smelly piece, when he froze. “Did you say ODRSN?”

  “Yep.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, why? Is that the competition or something?”

  He put the bar on the side table then closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It wasn’t deep at all though. He breathed as if he didn’t have room for air in his lungs.

  I took his hands. “Jonathan? Should I call someone?”

  He shook his head, but I didn’t believe him. I believed the machines, which were silent. But for how long? He was struggling, if not with his breath or his heart, then with his mind.

  “I need you to marry me,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Marry me.”

  “Are you insane?”

  “If anything happens to me, I want to make sure you’re taken care of,” he said.

  “I refuse to believe you’re going to die. My God, we’ve maybe been together a few months.”

  “These are extenuating circumstances. I could leave you swinging in the wind.”

  “No.” I shook my head as if I was trying to get a fly out of my hair. “This is crazy. This is not how I want it. I don’t want you to get better then regret it. It’s not your job to make sure I’m financially stable. What’s come over you?”

  Midway through my little speech, stuff started beeping and lighting up. By the time I was done, I was being pushed out by a woman in a blue facemask and gloves. I landed in the hall, back against the wall, trying to stay out of the way.

  “What happened?” Eileen asked, standing close to Theresa as if her daughter held her up.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “We were talking about something.”

  He asked me to marry him and I said no. I put my hands over my mouth when I realized what had happened, and I ran down the hall without looking back. Even when I passed the cafeteria and saw Declan in his usual spot talking to Jessica, I didn’t stop. I just kept running.

  Chapter 22

  JONATHAN

  That went poorly.

  I hadn’t intended to ask for her hand, but then she said the name of my father’s investment shell. He’d bought her house to save her when I couldn’t or wouldn’t. Whichever. I simply didn’t, and the reason I didn’t was I didn’t know she was in that kind of trouble. I could only know and see what she brought to me. If she chose to protect me, I was impotent to protect her. I was stuck inside four walls with things sticking out of me, tied to a bed as much as I’d tied her.

  By the time the smoke cleared, she was gone, and I couldn’t explain. I didn’t want to talk on the phone. I couldn’t, actually. My body betrayed me with exhaustion, long breaths, and lost consciousness. I needed to be in her visual field to see what I was too tired to intuit. She needed to experience the long spaces between sentences that would seem like anger or petulant silence on the phone but were just me trying to breathe around my goddamn damaged heart.

  I loved her. I wanted her. She felt right in ways no other woman ever had. Of course I was going to marry her one day, when I was out of that shitbox and untied from that bed. After more dinners and late nights. After more boundary leaping and fighting. More touching, kissing, laughing.

  Just not now.

  Except that it had to be now. I felt myself failing. My dips into unconsciousness came with less warning. The effort to exist was such a task, I couldn’t imagine surviving. Was I scared? Fuck yes, I was terrified. The only thing that kept it at bay was the thought that I could make her life better than it had been, that I could save her from her chronic penury, keep her safe from the manipulations of men like my father. If I could die knowing I’d saved her, maybe I would have served my purpose. It wasn’t like my money had anywhere useful to go, anyway.

  Theresa sat in the chair Monica usually occupied, leaning forward with her fingers knit together. I wanted to explain all of it to her, but I didn’t have the wherewithal to do it right. I had to explain my fear, my need to know Monica was all right, to keep a slice of control. I gave her the shortest version I had.

  “I don’t blame her for saying no,” she said. “You need to get better first.”

  “What if I don’t get better?”

  “She’ll be a widow.”

  At twenty-five. When was her birthday? She’d told me she was a Cancer, but if she told me the exact date, I couldn’t recall it. I realized we’d never celebrated a birthday together, neither mine nor hers. I wanted to get her something extravagant six months early to make up for the time we’d never have. And Christmas, of course.

  “What’s today?” I asked Theresa.

  “The nineteenth.”

  “Merry Christmas.”

  “What do you want under the tree? Besides a ‘yes’?”

  “I want her,” I whispered. “I asked for the wrong reasons, but I want her.”

  She put her elbows on the bed and her hand on my shoulder. “Do it for the right reasons. Don’t do it because it’s convenient. Don’t do it because you’re scared. Marry her because you love her and your life wouldn’t add up without her. Can you do that? Can you promise me you’re not forcing it? It would break my heart to see you propose because you wanted to give yourself a reason to live.”

  I rarely saw Theresa so impassioned. She was more like Jessica in her refinement and grace than any of my sisters. She seemed broken down that day, slightly shattered and holding herself together with chicken wire.

  “What’s wrong, Tee?”

  “I don’t think love should be taken for granted, and I don’t think you should keep on a path of least resistance.”

  “This is hardly—”

  “Can you honestly say that if you were healthy, you’d marry her?”

  “Yes. But we’d have a proper engagement.” I thought about all Jessica and I had had together, and I wanted to give it to Monica but couldn’t. A party, a ring, a wedding. I wanted to see her smiling as she came down the aisle toward me for the last time before we folded into each other’s lives forever.

  Theresa pressed something into my palm. It was hard and scratchy and oddly shaped. “Give it back when you can buy her her own.”

  I lifted my hand. It was her engagement ring, a two-carat princess cut that was totally Theresa and utterly wrong for Monica. “Daniel won’t be happy.”

  “He’ll tell himself he cares. But we cancel each other out. We add up to nothing. Trust me when I say I’d rather break up for the right reasons than get married for the wrong ones.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I can’t explain why I feel okay abo
ut it, but I do.”

  I held the ring in my fist as if I was afraid to lose it. “Thank you.”

  “I’ll try to come back, but you might not see me for a while.” She kissed my forehead and left.

  I fell asleep with the ring in my hand.

  Chapter 23

  MONICA

  Jonathan was out of his room. More tests, more prep. More shit piled on top of shit. A hundred thousand checklists to make sure he was worthy of whatever heart came in. My mother texted me the address to send the rent check, and a quick internet search revealed J. Declan Drazen owned ODRSN Partners. Anger and gratitude swirled together inside me like a marble cake.

  Dr. Thorensen was in his office looking at four computer screens. “Monica, come in.” He stood. “Close the door.”

  “Thanks. I got your text, but I was driving.”

  “Sit.” He stood in front of a little counter with a sink and poured water into a pot, leaving his screens unattended.

  “You’re playing City of Dis, aren’t you? Where do you find the time?”

  “This job doesn’t afford the time for a dazzling social life, so video games it is. I have UNOS up on a screen right here.” As if responding to what must have been my baffled look, he continued. “The transplant list.”

  “Ah. I heard someone came in...” I didn’t know if I should continue. It was surely privileged information, yet once I started talking, I could hardly stop. “He’s brain dead is what I heard. I don’t mean to be creepy, but—”

  “I think that’s going to be a no-go.”

  “You telling me more or Jonathan getting the heart?”

  “Yes.”

  I looked at my lap. Margie’s text had given me enough hope to get in the door. When it dropped out of me, nothing replaced it. We were back where we had been that morning, except I was one day closer to the end.

  “How are you holding up?” Brad asked.

  I shrugged. “I guess I’m all right.”

  “You’re never home.”

  “Doctor, my presence at home is hardly under your purview.”

  “I’m not asking as a doctor. I’m asking as your friend. How are you doing?”

  “Fine. I feel like I’m waiting for him to either die or be saved, so the regular events of my life aren’t so interesting right now.”

  He leaned back in his chair, eyes glowing in the screens’ light. “I’ve lived next door to you for a couple of years.”

  “Three, I think.”

  “I wish I’d gone to your door with something besides the leaves falling on my car or the new fence. I should have known you better, sooner.” His hands were folded over his tie, and his feet pushed his office chair back until the corners of his white lab coat dragged on the floor. Besides the hands, it was an exposed position. Even if he didn’t intend to send the message he did, I understood the meaning in his heart.

  “I’m too upset to give you a thoughtful response. I’m sorry.”

  “I understand. If you want to go up, he should be back any minute. Irene’s at the desk. Check with her if he’s okay to see. I’m watching this screen.”

  I stood up and touched the doorknob. “I’d give him my own heart if I could.”

  He sat up straight and put his hand on the mouse. “I hear that all the time.” He glanced at me, his expression sucking the sarcasm out of the comment. He was just stating a fact. Death was hard, and people loved one another.

  Chapter 24

  MONICA

  Police milled around the hallways with radios squawking, belts laden with black leather geometry, swaying hips from the weight of the instrumentation. I leaned on the nurse’s desk, peering at Irene’s Russian newspaper.

  “Hi,” I said. “What are all the cops about?”

  She waved her meaty hand and shook her head. “Security. You feel safe? I feel safe. Like in middle of street.”

  “I’m going in.” I stepped away.

  “No, you don’t.” She picked up the phone and hit one of the buttons on the bottom of the keypad. “Wait.” The person on the other side must have answered because she muttered something in Russian, listened, and hung up. “Come with me.”

  She shuffled from behind the desk and went toward Jonathan’s room. I didn’t know why I needed her to guide me. My world revolved around that room and going to and from it. The door was closed. She knocked. A deep, powerful voice that couldn’t have been Jonathan’s made some sort of affirmative noise. Irene opened the door.

  One lamp was on, a warm one I hadn’t seen before. The room smelled nice, like salty sea air and clear water. I located a squat blue candle burning on the windowsill that must have been the source of the scent. A huge bald man stood by the doorway—one of the regular orderlies who didn’t talk much. His nametag said Gregory. Irene babbled something, and he babbled back in the same language. He stepped out of the way.

  Jonathan sat on the edge of the bed. I hadn’t seen him actually sit up since the Collector’s Board show, and I must have gasped a little. He wore a suit jacket over his hospital gown. He also had on pants and shoes. Tubes stuck out of his sleeves, and the effort it took for him to sit up was visible once I got over the initial shock.

  “Jonathan,” I said. “I—”

  “You sit,” Gregory interrupted, pointing at a red antique chair in front of Jonathan that I recognized from his bedroom. I’d described that chair and its place under a sconce one night, back when I thought I’d have him back. I glanced from Gregory to Irene, and then to my lover, who waited patiently.

  I sat. “What’s this about?”

  No one answered. Gregory and Irene stood on either side of Jonathan, facing me.

  “You ready, Mister Drazen?” Irene asked.

  “For a long time now.”

  They did something that made me hold my breath and clutch the arms of the chair. They put their hands under Jonathan’s arms, slid him off the bed, and lowered him to the floor.

  “What—?” When they let him go, I was too stunned to finish the sentence. He kneeled before me. I heard his labored breathing, the rattle of the IV pole, and glanced at Irene and Gregory. “What are you doing? This is crazy.”

  I was ignored. Gregory said something to Jonathan in Russian, and he answered in kind, along with a wave of his hand that indicated, “I got it.”

  Jonathan, with great effort, pulled up a knee until he was on just one and glanced at me. “I’m going to lean on you a little.”

  “Sure?” He put a forearm on my knee and reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a small black box. “Oh, Jonathan...”

  He opened the box and handed it to me. It had a ridiculously huge square-cut diamond. “Thank Theresa if you see her. I’ll get you one that suits you when we’re up to it.”

  “You don’t have to do this,” I said.

  “Shh. Behave, would you? For once?”

  I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing. One side of his mouth curled in a smile, and then he laughed gingerly. I wanted to kiss him deeply and for a long time. I wanted to breathe him into me, but I knew he didn’t have the breath to spare. I settled for a fraction of the kiss I wanted, just brushing my lips against his. The softest parts of our faces melted together for a second, half a gasp, a tease of desire.

  “Goddess,” he said, his breath on my mouth, “have me, please. I was wrong. You’re not the sea under my sky. You are the sun I revolve around, the stars that mark me, the moon rising through me. I’m lost without you. If you won’t have me, I’ll break, I swear to God. I know it’s selfish, and I’m sorry. Let me serve you. Have me as yours. Let me live under you.”

  I held his face, running my fingers over his stubble, his jaw in the heel of my hand. I felt him leaning into me as if this had taken everything out of him. What could I say? What could I say to being loved enough for that monumental an effort? Did I ever, in my wildest imaginings, think I deserved that level of devotion after I’d rejected him the first time?

  After I’d left him, cursed
him, and denied him? After lying to him, drugging him, disobeying him, using him, could I justify letting him make such a mistake even if it was the last mistake he made? I was ambitious, venal, antagonistic, impoverished, and arrogant. I was unworthy by a mile and overcome by the circumstances that would lead such a man to beg to be bound to such a woman.

  So I said the only thing I could.

  “Yes.”

  Chapter 25

  JONATHAN

  Her hair fell across our fists, which were balled together around a found box holding my sister’s ring. My hands shook as I removed the ring. My rib cage ached as if it was being stretched by an ever-expanding balloon. With the tube out my chest, it was filling with blood, drop by drop. I was sure the feeling of expansion was air or my imagination, but fear made it hard to get the garish thing on her finger. The size was right, but the stone was wrong. All wrong. I wanted something else for her, something more original, a ring that could only belong to a goddess.

  “I won’t disappoint you,” I said.

  “I’m not worried about you being the disappointment.”

  Irene’s voice cut in. “I declare you engaged. Time to go.” She put her hand on my shoulder.

  “I want to tell you what you do to me the night I agree to marry you,” Monica whispered.

  “They have to put me back in. I don’t want you to see it.”

  “Jonathan, please—”

  “Time to go,” Irene said more firmly.

  “Go,” I said to my fiancée. “Please. Come back in an hour. Then you can tell me about our wedding night.”

  Her head tilted a little, and her eyes widened. Yes, it was quick, but wasn’t that the point? She kissed me a second too long. When we ended, I was grimacing. She must have known it wasn’t about her because she got up and walked out without looking back. Good woman.