by CD Reiss
Doing it all over. A second chance at a mask of normalcy. He wasn’t rethinking or going backward. He was giving me a gift.
“I love you,” I whispered through my tears. “I want you. Everything.”
He slipped the ring on my finger. The diamond was huge and the color of sunshine.
“A canary diamond,” he said. “For my songbird.”
“Gross, Uncle Jon!”
Jonathan turned around toward David, who had a face like kneaded dough at the thought of icky grown-up love.
“Yeah, gross,” a laughing, adult voice called out.
Jonathan glanced at me for half a second, and I saw mischief in those eyes. I didn’t have a moment to tell him not to do whatever it was he was about to do, before he scooped up a swipe of white frosting from his cake and flung it at his tormentor.
“Quiet, Patrick!” Jonathan said.
Impulse moved my arm. I scooped up another bunch of frosting and flung it at my husband and fiancé, coating the bottom half of his face in a buttercream goatee. “Be nice to the guests!”
He blew, spraying me in vanilla, and everyone laughed and clapped. David, seeing the world as only a ten-year-old could, recognized an opportunity when he saw one. He mashed his hand in the cake then flung it at both of us. Jonathan, not to be out-immatured by a ten-year-old, whipped around and threw a mess of it at his nephew, with half of it getting on Eddie.
“Hey, asshole!” Eddie shouted.
“Language!” Sheila called, too late.
Her son threw another handful of cake at her. The young pitcher had great aim, getting his mother in the face with white confection.
“You!” Sheila said with a pointed finger.
I shut the cover over the piano keys just in time, because all hell broke loose. Cake flew everywhere. Laughter. Squeals. My god, the cake must have been huge. I was covered. Jonathan was covered. Everyone I could hit with a lump of cake was covered, and we were all laughing through beards of white frosting and fruit filling. The kids were licking the floor. Eileen slipped on a wad of cake and laughed, and her granddaughter put a handful down Eileen’s shirt. Leanne fell when she tried to help Eileen up, and Jonathan, my beautiful king, put his arms around me and kissed cake off my lips.
“Goddess,” he whispered, even though in the chaos, he didn’t have to. No one was paying attention to us.
“Yes, Jonathan. Yes. I’ll marry you.”
“Let’s take our time.” He kissed my cheek, sucking frosting off.
Our time.
He was giving me permission to stop counting the months and years. Permission to let it happen as it would, to stop using worry as a paper-thin bulwark against the tides of fate. This was our time. However long it was, it belonged to us.
The staff had made short work of the mess. Clothing had been stripped off, some laundered, some left in bags, some rinsed and worn wet. Sheila had loaned me a pair of pale blue velour sweatpants and a white shirt with a neck so wide it fell off my shoulder. It was probably the best party I’d been to in my life.
“I love this on you,” Jonathan said, pressing his lips to my bare shoulder. We sat at the piano in the empty parlor as I played a soft jazzy thing.
“It doesn’t go with the ring.”
“I can’t wait to see how that looks on you naked.”
“It’s beautiful. I love it.” I did. I had a hard time keeping my eyes off it.
“I’m not trying to take away our marriage, goddess. You need to know that.”
“I know.”
“But it was hasty.”
I sighed. Yes, it had been hasty, and for all the wrong reasons, but I hadn’t thought about it that deeply. I hadn’t thought about anything deeply in the past six months, because it hurt. I had the feeling I wouldn’t be able to avoid it anymore.
“I got you a birthday present,” I said.
“What do you get the guy who has everything?” He brushed his lips on my shoulder and drew his fingertips along the back of my neck.
I smiled, and a ball of hitched breaths gathered in my throat. He thought he had everything. I had no idea I’d married such an optimist. “I was supposed to play this for you in front of everyone, but you stole my limelight with this big stinking rock.”
“They had a bigger one, but it was imperfect.”
“It’s not the size of the boat.”
“Yes, it is. It’s a buoyancy thing, see.” He motioned with the flat of his hand, swaying it. “Too small and it sinks.”
I laughed, and he laughed with me.
“Do you want to hear your song or not?”
“More than anything.”
I took a deep breath. “I want you to know, I wrote one before, and it was all about what we’ve been through in the past six months. And I hate it. It was… I don’t know. It was ugly, and it dwelled on things that weren’t important.”
“Can I hear it?”
“No.” I hit the first notes definitively and found my opening tempo. “It’s short.”
“Sing it twice.”
“You ready, Drazen?”
“I’m ready, Drazen.”
I sang it quietly for an audience of one. I wasn’t confident enough that it would survive me belting it out. Not until I did a few hundred rewrites.
* * *
How fragile it is
And how real it all feels
I can touch it, taste it
Hold it like a baby forever
But that’s not the deal
* * *
I am your ever
You are my after
I am your altar
You are my prayer
* * *
Where do I end
And you begin
Because I’m untied sometimes
And we’re a dandelion seed in the wind
I’m a seed or a flower.
Or I’m a breath or a wish
* * *
I am your heart
You are my beat
And I am your voice
And you are my song
* * *
“Happy birthday,” I said, letting my hands slip off the keys. “Many more. Many, many more.”
He kissed me, then I kissed him. His skin smelled like cake, and his tongue tasted of salt water. We wrapped our arms around each other, connected at the mouth, as if we were passing a common soul between us.
Chapter 64
JONATHAN
She was most perfect in nudity. I left her standing there, hands at her sides, in front of my chair so I wouldn’t have to move to watch her change. I put my elbows on my knees and folded my hands together, leaning forward. She was an arm’s length away, but I didn’t reach for her.
“Look straight ahead, Monica.”
I knew what it did to her when I kept her in stasis. I’d known the first night when I’d sent her upstairs naked, and I knew now, after my birthday party, with the canary diamond heavy on her finger, that her body was changing before my eyes. In trying to stand still, she was acutely aware of my gaze on her. If she stood still and I kept my concentration, she’d be soaking wet and very close before I even touched her.
Her nipples hardened in the cool night air. The triangle between her legs was a promise of compliance and unyielding pleasure. The ocean outside the open balcony door would be the background noise to the melody of her cries.
Slowly, I reached my hand forward and touched her belly. It quivered like the undulating ocean behind me. I drew the finger down between her legs and stroked inside her thigh. Her body reacted involuntarily, and I took my hand back.
“I’m not going to fuck you,” I said. “You’re already bruised everywhere I want to put my dick.” I kissed her navel then pulled away.
“My mouth is in great shape,” she said.
“So is mine.” I stroked her gently, awakening her nipples. “What if I laid you on that bed and pulled your legs apart. Just the tip of my tongue on your cunt. If I was gentle, would you come, do you think?�
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“Yes. I would.”
“Do you like your ring?”
“I love it.”
I stood and wedged my foot between hers, pushing her legs apart. She was used to it and spread them without a stumble. I went behind her. She was framed by the ocean, the curves of her ass blue and black in the evening light. I got on my knees, close to her so she could feel my breath. I waited until the tension was so taut it felt as if it would break like rock candy.
I brushed my finger inside her thigh. She was painted in angry bruises there too. I’d stopped feeling guilty about inflicting damage; I knew the difference between hurt and harm.
“I’m sorry about the party. About worrying you. I was joking, not thinking.”
“I’ll die if you do that again.”
I brushed my fingers over her soft wet lips, slightly touching the dampness.
“I just…”
“Go ahead,” I said.
“That hospital. The smells. The colors. You. It claws at me. In my sleep, I hear the doctors whispering. I dream you’re dying in a room I can’t find. When I think of it, I just think of you in pain. It hurt me. And I’m sorry I’m being self-involved.”
“You’re not being self-involved.” I kissed the small of her back.
“I dread it. I know I’m going to have to go back there with you, and the dread hangs on me.”
I rested my cheek against the curve of her spine and put my arms around her waist. She didn’t move her hands, ever obedient when in scene. I could hear her lungs through her rib cage as they let out short, sharp breaths.
“I didn’t give you permission to cry,” I said gently.
“I’m sorry.”
I pulled away from her and stood. “On the bed, goddess. Facedown. Hands under your thighs. And face the window.”
She did it, and when she automatically put her ass up in ready position, my dick went completely rigid. I pressed her ass down until she was totally flat against the bed. She watched me peel off my clothes. I put pajama bottoms on so I wouldn’t distract her.
“Wait here.”
I went into the bathroom for lotion. The last time I’d done that, I’d seen her negative pregnancy test. I thought about that thing every time I went in there. The burden of it was so heavy that I often went down the hall to piss.
“Are we still in scene?” she asked when I sat at the edge of the bed.
“No.” I put a blob of lotion in my hand and closed it into a fist to warm the lotion.
“I want you to fuck me.”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s my birthday, and I can do whatever I want.” I put the lotion on her back and slowly dragged my hands down from her shoulder blades to her waist.
Her eyes fluttered closed. I put more weight on the heels of my hands and moved them back up to her shoulders. She groaned.
“What were you and Eddie talking about?” I asked. She stiffened. “Relax. It’s just a question. Did he upset you?” I worked my hands over her shoulders and down her biceps.
“No. But there’s a thing in New York. I don’t think I can make it.”
“No?”
She made a noise in her throat that was a cross between “no” and “that feels nice.”
“The last two weeks have been good, goddess. Really good.” I focused on her shoulders for a second then moved back down her body. I stopped at her ass, which, in all its beauty, was welted and tender. I pressed my thumbs into the sides of her spine and moved back up.
“Mmm.”
“You are everything. My everything. There’s nothing I’d change about you. And that includes your talent and ambition.”
“I don’t want to be away from you,” she grumbled.
“I’m bound to you wherever you are. You know that, right?”
She opened her eyes and looked at me through the web of hair. “Come with me.”
“No. I have things to do here.”
“Like what?”
“Hush.” I moved the hair away and kissed her cheek, then I grabbed the lotion and moved to the end of the bed. “You need to make your life happen. If I hadn’t been sick, you’d come and go as you pleased. As we pleased. That’s what I want for you.”
The insides and backs of her thighs couldn’t be touched. Her ass either. What a gorgeous mess. I’d planted that rattan thinking I might use it, but I had no idea how effective it was. I gave her feet and calves attention, rubbing away her worry and stress.
“We need to live fully, goddess. We both need to live as if we could die tomorrow, and we have to plan for a future where you’re a hundred and ten.”
She moaned. I’d promised her my mouth, and my dick wanted hers, but when I finished rubbing her feet, she was fast asleep.
Chapter 65
MONICA
I called Eddie from the back deck while Jonathan had his run, and I told him I was going to New York. Laurelin dropped into the lounge chair next to me in her sensible little sneakers and zip-up purple fleece.
“You’re going again?” she asked.
“Yeah. New York. It’s a big deal, kind of. Why?”
“I have a week away coming. Jerry is taking me to—”
“You can’t!” I sat up straight in my chair, tingling with adrenaline. “No, I mean. You can but not now. Please!”
“Don’t worry.” She put her hand on my shoulder. “I’ll set him up. He’ll be fine.”
I wanted to support her, and I wanted her to have a nice time. I wanted Jonathan to be fine. But the reality of him being alone wasn’t making it from my brain to my mouth. No, worry was taking a detour through my heart instead.
“You know what?” I said, leaning back in my chair. “I’ll just stay home. It’s not that big a deal.”
Laurelin leaned back and put her foot on the little glass-and-metal table. She must have thought I was schizophrenic. “You know, if this was my house, I’d never want to leave either. I’d just sit here and gestate all day.”
I laughed, and she smiled at me.
“I think you can go,” she said after a minute.
“Nah.”
“I think you should go.” I didn’t answer, just tilted my head a little, and she continued. “I’m not going to be here forever, and you all need to learn how to function. I mean, these issues? The pills and the way he has to log everything? They aren’t going anywhere. It’ll always be this way. And you hovering over him because you’re scared, I get it. But at some point, you have to let go.”
I set my jaw. “I’m not letting him go.”
“You know what I mean.”
I did. I knew she meant I had to stop mothering him, but I’d taken it the exact wrong way because it served my immediate purpose. If I acknowledged that I knew what she meant and that I’d heard it, I’d have to admit she was right.
Chapter 66
JONATHAN
I ran far away. Far enough to be out of Monica’s earshot and then some. I made it to the crowded part of the beach and trotted to the street, trying to shake a feeling that if Monica went to New York, things would get disorganized and neglected.
I’d had a mitt when I was about eleven. It was a Rawlings Gold. The best. And I wore it in just the way I liked it. One spring afternoon, I was dicking around with my cousins in the yard, tossing the ball around and trying out new curse words. We went inside to play video games, and I left my glove in the grass as I’d done dozens of times.
It never rains in Los Angeles, unless you leave your glove out. Then it pours, and the leather hardens. Stupid negligence can turn into disaster. I got another glove, but it was never the same. My hand grew before I could wear it in right, and I always felt an acute loss I couldn’t explain.
I didn’t want to treat Monica like a baseball glove. I didn’t want it to rain on her while my back was turned.
“Quentin?” I said when I got through to my friend. A dozen seagulls screamed at me when I interrupted them on a bench.
> Quentin Marshall answered in his Aussie clip. He was a rock star specializing in charity work, and I’d written his foundation a few checks over the years. “Drazen! How are you doing? I heard about the heart, mate. That’s tough stuff.”
“It keeps life interesting.”
“Bet it does.”
He paused, and I heard a siren in the distance and the belch of a city bus. Typical New York ambient noise.
“So what can I do for you?” he asked.
“You invited my wife to sing with you for something?”
“Yeah, I hope that’s all right? She’s got a great set of pipes. And the cause could use your help as well. There are kids dying of dehydration every day.”
“You can always count on my help. But if Monica decides to go, I want you to do something for me.”
“Just say it, and you got it.”
How was I supposed to phrase this without sounding like a sicko stalker? I meant no harm by it, of course, and it wasn’t as though she hadn’t traveled before, but I felt differently than I did months ago, even weeks ago. “If there’s anything she needs, or if there’s something special you think she might need, even if she doesn’t know what it is—can you make sure she gets it? I want her taken care of.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Mate, I will treat her like a precious flower. On my honor.”
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”