One Life With Him

by CD Reiss

  I submitted myself to Irene and Gregory, who had broken a hundred rules or more to give me five minutes to ask properly for Monica’s hand. Rules were good. They were there for a reason. I couldn’t handle five minutes of kneeling. I felt as if I’d just run a marathon that ended in a dark alley where I’d been beaten with baseball bats and cut into small pieces with a serrated knife. Or something that made me too weak, too pained, too outside myself to manage my own body.

  They got me out of my clothes, then reinserted, realigned, and recalibrated the devices attached to me. They accepted my gratitude for as long as I had the wherewithal to express it, which was an eternity but probably about five minutes in the real world. Then I fell off the cliff of consciousness. It might have been because of the drugs or just my body giving out like it did a few times a day. Even then, I didn’t have the energy to feel angry, though there was a cord of that in my spine. Mostly, I felt fear. I was responsible for her now. Though the unknown was bad enough to face alone, in the dark and unprepared, I felt as though I had something to live for tomorrow.

  Chapter 26

  MONICA

  I crouched on the stairwell. It was late. Jonathan couldn’t see me for an hour after he’d given me the ring, or the hour after that. Sheila had come and gone, her lips pressed together in a line of rage. Eileen called to see if I was there, and if I was, was he lucid enough to see anyone. I didn’t tell her we’d gotten engaged. I figured if Jonathan had wanted his family involved, they would have been involved.

  I called Darren. “Do you have something blue?”

  “Technically, yes.” He stepped out of the studio to finish the sentence, and I heard the rain and traffic behind him.

  “Something pretty and blue?”

  “Okay, what the fuck?”

  “I’m getting married, and I have this ring that’s borrowed and this belt is, like, a hundred years old.”

  “What?”

  “Can you just bring me something blue, please?” I asked. He started a sentence but didn’t finish it. He took a breath, started to say something else, and stopped again. “Darren?”

  “Jesus. I didn’t...I don’t know what to say. I haven’t been there for you, have I?”

  “Be here for me tonight. Something reasonably attractive. And blue. And new, if possible. I’m stretching the definition with what I have here.”

  Chapter 27

  MONICA

  Darren arrived just as Irene was telling me to do something with my hair then come in. He handed me a CVS bag with four blue hair clips.

  “Thank you,” I said. He grabbed me and hugged me. It was the only real hug I’d gotten all week. It was warm and perfect, without expectation or promise. I chose a little rhinestone hairpin the color of the autumn sky and let Darren put it in. “You’re the maid of honor and the best man.”

  “I’m not making a toast.”

  “He won’t have the energy. He barely had it in him to ask me to marry him in the first place.” We walked down the hall.

  “I wish you’d told me...asked me for something,” he said.

  “You never pick up. I feel like I’m bothering you.”

  He shrugged, and we turned into Jonathan’s room. It was lit only by the reading lamp over his bed. I felt Darren stiffen. Jonathan was halfway sitting up but bedridden and pale, connected to machines and IV bags of medicine and blood. The last time they’d seen each other, Jonathan was hale and Darren was threatening to send out wedding invitations if we had another breakup.

  “Hi,” Darren said. Jonathan held his hand up in greeting. “You look like fucking hell, man.”

  “Darren!” I cried.

  “And I can still get a knockout wife,” Jonathan said.

  “Tough to be you,” Darren said.

  People came in behind me. I didn’t see them; I only saw Jonathan. I kissed his lips for the last time as his lover and turned around. Irene and Gregory were at the foot of the bed. On the opposite side of the bed from me, in the chair I usually occupied, was a short woman in horn-rimmed glasses and clerical collar. She was a few years older than me and had a mop of curly hair held in place with a vintage clip. Darren stood behind her.

  “Hi,” she said brightly.

  “Hi,” Jonathan and I chanted. I straightened and held his hand. It was cold.

  “My name is Sona, and let me tell you, this is not the kind of call I usually get when I do the hospital chaplaincy. I had to dig around for the right prayer book. But happy occasions are worth the trouble. So what do we have? Both Catholic, I hear?”

  “Kind of,” I said.

  “I hear the groom has a big family? They aren’t here?”

  “I’ll tell them tomorrow,” Jonathan said. My sigh of relief must have been audible because he squeezed my hand.

  “Sona,” I said, “Jonathan isn’t up for anything long and involved if that’s okay. I don’t mean to be disrespectful.”

  “Nope!” She smiled with big, white teeth. “You have rings?”

  “Crap.” I didn’t. I glanced at Darren. He shrugged, holding up his palms.

  “Can we make do with something?” she asked. “People do like the rings.”

  “Yes! I have it.” I rummaged through my bag and came up with my keys. Car. House. Front gate. Locker at work. I clicked through them.

  “Clever goddess,” he said. “I owe your fingers some jewelry.”

  My eyes hurt again. The odds of him repaying that debt got smaller with each day. I focused on loosening as many keys as possible into the bottom of my bag.

  “Let’s do some paperwork while Monica does that, okay?” Sona smiled again, extracting a little clipboard from a leather case. She asked our full names, dates of birth, addresses, and had us sign on the dotted lines while I untwisted as many silver rings as I could. Darren showed his ID and cracked a joke about being licensed to witness weddings. By the time she was done, I’d released two smallish key rings. I adjusted one for Jonathan’s hand and found another for myself. I pressed it into his palm.

  “Okay,” said Sona, standing. She was all enthusiasm and light as if our wedding wasn’t the most depressing situation ever. “Groom goes first. You ready?”

  “Yes,” he said and pulled me toward him.

  “Can you repeat after me?” she asked.

  “I got this.” He was talking to Sona but looking at me. His big, tired green eyes were serious, committed. I hoped to God he lived even if it meant he lived to regret it. “I, Jonathan Drazen, take you, Monica Faulkner, to be my lawfully wedded wife.” He paused.

  “You sure you want to do this?” I asked. “You can back out. I’ll still love you.”

  “Shh. Behave.” He smirked at me and took a deep breath. “Left hand, goddess.”

  I held it out, and he continued as he slipped the key ring on my finger. “To have and to hold, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, honor, and worship all the days of my life.”

  “Excellent!” Sona said. “Monica? You want to do it the same? Or do you want to repeat after me?”

  I didn’t want to repeat anything. I wanted to spill my guts onto the sheets. I wanted to take my heart out and put it into his chest. If there was ever a time to hold anything back, it wasn’t then.

  “Jonathan Drazen,” I said, squeezing his hand, “you’re a manipulative bastard, a brazen liar, and a sadist. You’ve brought me to my knees. You’ve dominated me. You’ve told me who I am and then challenged me to be it. If you made me strong enough to stand up to the world, let me stand by you. If you completed the woman I am, let me be that woman in your honor. Every part in my body is dedicated to you. Every note I sing. Every breath in my lungs. My pleasure and pain. Take me. Let me serve you. Let me be yours.”

  He put my hand to his cheek. I was going to kiss him before I was told because it seemed as though it was taking Sona forever. When I looked from Jonathan to her, she was holding her phone.

  “Sorry,” she said, pocketing it, he
r good mood gone. “Gotta go do a ‘Last Rites’.” She cleared her throat and held up her hand. "You have declared your consent before the Church. May the Lord in his goodness strengthen your consent and fill you both with his blessings. What God has joined, let no one tear asunder. I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

  Irene and Gregory clapped a little, but I didn’t pay attention to how wan they sounded. I was kissing my husband.

  Chapter 28

  MONICA

  Sona and the staff had cleared out. Darren hugged and congratulated me. He fist-bumped Jonathan, promising him a wild night of beer-slinging and barhopping in Silver Lake. He kissed me on the cheek and left, promising he’d call.

  Irene had warned me, while ignoring Jonathan, that nothing was to go on behind the closed door that might bring a heart rate up. Just in case I didn’t know, he was being monitored from the nurse’s station, so no “funny business.”

  We laughed when the door closed. I wanted to lie on top of him, press my thighs to his, and tuck my head into the crook of his neck, but that was impossible. I sat in the adjacent chair and kissed his cheek.

  “Do you regret it?” I said.

  “I feel relieved.”

  “I’m glad.”

  He said, “I wish I could give you a wedding night. Throw you over my shoulder, dress and all, and carry you over the threshold. We wouldn’t even make it up the stairs.”

  I made a satisfied purr. “I can just imagine it. Whose house?”

  “Our house.”

  “Is there a porch?”

  “More than one. I’ll have you on all of them, regularly. Breakfast in the back. Lunch on the side. After dinner, we’ll drink wine on the front porch, and I’ll make love to you in the night air.”

  “Can I still call you sir?”

  “I expect no less.”

  “Thank you, sir.” I kissed his hand, letting my lips linger on his skin.

  “Here we are,” he said, “married, and we’ve never even talked about children.”

  “Can we pretend we had them?”

  “Four,” he said with a slight smile.

  “Don’t be greedy.”

  “Three. Can we settle on three?”

  I should have agreed to ten children because there would be exactly none. There would be no house, no porches, no family.

  “Can I admit something to you, my beautiful wife?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m scared.”

  I squeezed his hand and laid my head next to him. That was when the machine’s beeping was replaced with a high, constant whine.

  Chapter 29

  MONICA

  I stood in the hall staring at his door.

  They’d done CPR. Changed the tube. Pumped more drugs into him. Assured me there wasn’t a spare heart with his blood type anywhere but Paulie Patalano’s chest.

  What the hell were we made of? Sausage casings and prime cuts to be wrapped up and swapped out as needed. I felt ill. The twisting in my gut told me to run to the bathroom and bend over the toilet, but nothing came up because I hadn’t eaten in Lord knew how long. When I returned, panicking, he was alive, stable, and unconscious.

  All the wrong things seemed definite and secure. I knew he loved me. I knew he was right in my life. But the life that fit mine so perfectly was going to end soon. Tomorrow. The next day. Didn’t matter. Too soon. The house of our love would crumble under a cracked foundation.

  I found myself outside Dr. Thorensen’s office. He’d have answers, or at least different questions. “You’re here,” I said.

  He was in the dark again, shades drawn, screens flashing. “Come in. Wanna play?”

  “I can’t believe you get away with this.”

  “I’m waiting to hear about something.”

  “Jonathan?”

  “Sit.”

  “Is there a heart somewhere?”

  He sighed. “I’m getting him put on the emergency list. I’m pretty sure it’ll go through in an hour, but I don’t want to leave until I see it. Come on. Sit. Your avatar’s on the cloud. We can start you from the beginning.” I hesitated. He patted the seat of the couch behind him. “Come.”

  “Fine.” I sat, kicking off my shoes and tucking my feet under me. He rolled his chair back until the back of it pressed against the couch. The cushion was already indented from his hours of play.

  He said, “You ready? There you are. I made you look like you.”

  “Jesus, I don’t look like that.” My avatar was ravishing.

  “Yeah, you do. Okay, so we start out in the woods. Forest all over, and we’re lost. We have to solve this puzzle before our guide comes. Hold on there! Get them!”

  We shot down a leopard, a lion, and a wolf. We avoided shooting a blind guy. As a reward, he set us a puzzle to solve. We had that sorted out in no time, and I saw something I recognized.

  ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE

  * * *

  “Such a cheerful game, Brad. Don’t you have something with bunnies?”

  “You can come over and play that next week.”

  There won’t be a next week, Dr. Thorensen… I had no time to make that into a joke. We had to navigate a parade, and a flag, right, left, left, right, and still get to our destination, a boat on a black river.

  “Tell me something,” I said. “What are the odds of him getting a heart in time?”

  “Can’t say. Hit left, left. Nice.”

  “Do I duck the guy in the Pope hat?”

  “God, yes.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Can’t or won’t what? Just don’t let him touch you.”

  “Can’t or won’t say about the heart. Fuck.”

  “Oh! Nice move. Both. His blood type’s rare, so a good heart is hard enough but…okay, see that opening right there? Hit your blue button and the joystick at the same time.”

  “Is there any way to speed it up? The heart thing? Shit! Wait…”

  “You got it… No, only what I’m doing—pushing him up the list.” His shoulders slumped. “We’re in. River Acheron. Good job. You earned the coins, so give one to the guy in the hood.”

  I clicked my buttons. “He won’t take it.”

  “That’s weird.” He took the controller.

  “What about the mafia guy? The brain dead one? If he died, would Jonathan get his heart?”

  Brad was focused on the controls. “I can’t promise anything. Crap. I heard this happens sometimes.”

  “What?”

  “You’re stuck in the vestibule. That’s your sin. Wow. I guess we can make you a new avatar.”

  “My sin?” I asked. “Which one?”

  He threw down the controller and kicked his feet up on the couch. “The vestibule is where you go when you don’t take sides on an issue. Like when you could have taken action but didn’t. Or, look, I’m not going to pretend to be a philosopher. You were probably just feeling passive when you answered the questions. Wanna do it again?”

  I thought for a second. Did I want to sit in Brad’s tiny office until sunrise, waiting for Jonathan to get bumped up a list, or did I want to make a decision about helping him? “I’m going to brush my teeth and find an empty waiting room couch.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “When you know something, can you tell me?”

  “I will. You tell me if you need anything, okay?” he said.

  “Sure, and thanks.” I was pretty sure he didn’t know what I was thanking him for.

  Chapter 30

  MONICA

  Jonathan was still sleeping when I got back. I sat in the chair by his bed and looked at his hand in the moonlight and the little light-up Christmas tree. His fingers were set in a relaxed curl, the key ring wedding band half falling off. I knew those hands. They were strong. They were his instruments. I couldn’t see past his elbows, but I knew the rest of him. I read his body like a book. The velvet of his skin. His scent when his cologne had worn off. The warmth of his touch, its perfect pres
sure on me. The tones and cadences of his voice, rising and falling, clipped to command, breathy to soothe, chopped fine to laugh.

  I put my palm on his cheek, and in my mind, his eyes close for a second before he turns his head and kisses my hand, my wrist, the inside of my forearm. His stubble scratches, lips awakening, tongue taunting, fingers closed on my wrist like a vise. I feel bound, secure, safe. My tingling body is an exploding cage of sin.

  He is before me, dressed in his business clothes, and I’m naked. We’re in the hotel room where he spanked me the first time, the night I tried to hide my navel from him, and he gave me back my voice. He’d told me to be naked, and this is how I imagine it would have gone if I had been obedient.

  He tells me to put my hands behind my back then kicks my legs open. He tells me that he won’t fuck me until he hears my voice, and I whisper my doubts that it will work. He smirks in that way he does and runs his fingertips across my shoulder and down my chest to my nipple. He strokes it until it’s hard. He bends it down, then circles it. He switches on the light and turns me toward the windows.

  It’s night. We’re on a high floor, and Los Angeles is covered in a blanket of lights. I see myself naked, reflected in the windows, a ghost over the city.

  “Put your hands on the glass,” he says. I do. The basin is spread before me, a checkerboard of pinpricks, exactly as Mondrian had envisioned. Squares of light, blinking signs of life create a haze in the distance. Above it all, my body, leaning into the window, stretched across miles of Los Angeles, bent at the waist as if I was about to fuck it.

  “Anything that sounds like ‘no’ or ‘stop’ is effective. But you have to say it.” He draws his palm across my ass in a hard slap. At that point, he hadn’t spanked me yet, so my surprise overwhelms the arousal. I am immediately angry and defensive. “You have to use your voice. Do you understand?”