Both Sides Now

by Barbara Ferrer

  Part of our tacit agreement that outside of any emergencies, when we were together, we’d leave our outside lives, well…outside.

  “Can I ask a favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “Can I undo your hair?”

  Slowly, my gaze never leaving his, I sat up, then pulled my braid forward and drew off the elastic. He unwound it with great care, gently combing his long fingers through the waist-length mass with the occasional fleeting caress to my neck and scalp.

  “You’re shivering.”

  “It feels good.”

  He pushed it over my shoulder so it fell down my back and pulled me down again. His fingers kept playing through it, occasionally drifting back up to my neck, although it seemed he avoided doing that too much. Good thing. It was a particular erogenous zone of mine.

  “You never wear it down.”

  “I’m lazy. I don’t do anything to it—can’t even remember the last time I had it cut. Braid’s the easiest thing.”

  And it seemed cruel to walk around the hospital, where so many people were suffering and one of the most obvious signs of their suffering was the loss of hair, with a thick, healthy mass of my own. But I couldn’t cut it either, because Ethan—he loved it too. It was one of the few things he still had strength for on occasion—one of our earliest rituals. Brushing my hair.

  Time passed in a dreamy haze as Nick continued to stroke my hair, the caresses falling into a steady, hypnotic rhythm.

  “Tico warned me to be careful.”

  “Of?” Although the statement didn’t really feel like it was coming out of nowhere. Not with how I was feeling right now. If Tico had picked up on even a hint of this—

  “You. He likes you. Probably more than me, I think.” His chest vibrated beneath my hand with a soft laugh. “He said I was showing off for you like a horny kid and that you didn’t need to be compromised or put into any difficult situations. That you’d had it hard enough already.”

  “He called you a horny kid? Those exact words?”

  “Swear to God.”

  He sounded so exasperated, I couldn’t help but laugh—but it was just a momentary flash of humor, there and gone, before I quietly asked, “How’d he know how hard I’ve had it, Nick?”

  “Because he’s a really good priest.” He picked up the hand I had resting on his chest, lacing our fingers together. “And because he’s been through it too. His dad. He knows what it’s about.”

  “Oh.”

  “And because I do talk about you a lot—tell him how I worry about you.”

  “Oh.” Dammit, there went my stomach and my heart turning over and sending pleasure and guilt prickling along my spine in equal doses. “Have you told him about—”

  I didn’t know how to ask this. I mean, I didn’t have much of a clue how this confession thing worked or if Nick had even been seeing Tico in a more formal, confessing any perceived or real sins, sort of way. Or what even constituted a sin, for that matter.

  “No.” In one sudden motion, he sat up, bringing me along so I wound up facing him, both of my hands in his. “First off, we’re not doing anything. We’re not going to do anything. We’re simply two people who’ve been alone for too damn long.” He pressed his lips together tight, not a hint of the smile that had curved his mouth all day anywhere in sight. “In you I’ve got a gift, Libby, and I’m not going to do anything to jeopardize that, okay? I want you to always feel safe with me.”

  God, how many times today had he reminded me of a little boy? Honestly, I’d lost count. But I could add one more to the list because sitting across from me, his hands holding mine tight, that dark gaze refusing to let mine go, he brought to mind nothing less than a fierce, earnest little boy, emotion winding him so tight, it was practically vibrating the air around him.

  Pulling my hands free, I reached out and smoothed his hair down, those waves and spikes that always caught my fingers. I pushed at his chest until we were both lying down again and stroked his forehead, his jaw, his shoulder and chest and arm, anywhere I could reach, until I felt some of the tension begin to ebb.

  “I do feel safe, Nick. How could I feel anything but?”

  And with those words felt still more tension leave his body, even as some continued to hover just beneath the surface. That was a different tension, however—a tension that didn’t live in him alone and we both knew it. That we acknowledged its existence and its place in allowing us to feel alive would have to be enough.

  Libby

  January 3

  “Libby.”

  “Back the hell off, Nora. You’re the last person I want to see or speak to right now.”

  “Liberty.”

  “And don’t use my name like I’m some recalcitrant child to be reasoned with.”

  “So I’ll refrain from saying that that’s precisely what you’re acting like, since you’ve so obligingly offered the suggestion yourself.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Thank God the onions were so big. I could keep mincing at one for days and still not be done. And the feel of the blade reverberating against the solid maple block was oddly satisfying—especially if I superimposed some choice images over the worn, fine-grained wood. Scooping a mound of onion between the blade and my palm, I tossed it into the gently simmering olive oil, closing my eyes and inhaling deeply of the sweet-sharp steam, and savoring the warm moisture as it soaked into my skin. Although, why the hell I was making chili, of all things—

  So what if it had been raining for three days straight and was cool by Keys standards? Wasn't like anyone around here would actually eat this much chili. And you could only make chili in vast amounts—at least, the way I made chili.

  Fuck it. I knew why I was making chili. Because it required a lot of prep if you made it purely from scratch the way I did. Not to mention, a lot of chopping—hard, satisfying, imagine-you-were-burying-the-blade-between-someone’s-eyes, chopping. Right now, it was a toss-up as to who was at the top of my list, but since Nora was right here, she’d do.

  “M’ija—”

  “Don’t you dare, ‘m’ija’ me, Nora, and expect that to do a damn thing. The pot brownies are one thing—I understand why you felt you had to step in where I couldn’t—but this? How could you?”

  “Because it’s what Ethan wants.”

  Her voice was infuriatingly calm, cranking my anger that much more and making me attack the garlic I’d moved on to even more viciously, twisting the cloves off the head and smashing them beneath the flat of my blade. With each clove I pulverized, the heel of my palm stung more, the vibrations rattling all the way up to my shoulder and neck and making the tightness living there all the more evident.

  “What about me?” Another clove bit the dust. And another.

  “This isn’t about you, Liberty.”

  “If that’s what you think I mean, then you’re definitely on some far out plane of existence.” Couldn’t mince the garlic until I separated the smashed cloves from their skins, which meant putting the knife down, which was probably a good move at this point. “I know it’s not about me, but dammit, Nora, don’t you think I should have at least been consulted?” I kept peeling the skins, staring down at my fingers as I let the only tendril of jealously I’d ever felt with respect to my husband trickle out on my next words.

  “I mean, I know the two of you have always had this lovely little club of the Older All-Knowing Ones and that’s groovy, really, but I’d think that after fifteen years and pushing thirty-six, I’d have at least hit probationary status.”

  She was either one brave or batshit crazy woman to put her hand on my back right then. Knife was still within reach, after all. “He’s trying to make this easier on you.”

  Done with the skins, I picked the knife back up and began mincing. “And naming you the executor of his estate does this how, exactly?”

  “Liberty, don’t play stupid.” You’d think Nora pulling out the Mom Voice would be enough to get my attention since she so rarely did it, but too
fucking little, too late. I really could not care less what tone of voice she used.

  “He’s trying to give you one less thing to worry about.”

  Suddenly reversing my grip on the handle, I drove the knife into the hard maple with enough force that the tip snapped, the blade slipping. “Fuck.”

  Grabbing a dishtowel, I pressed it against the blood oozing from the cut on my palm and spun around. “It’s not going to work. I’m going to worry and I’m going to care and I’m going to stick my nose into every goddamn thing having to do with him because it’s my business, and you know why? Because I’m his wife, Nora. I know you don’t get that, but marriage—real marriage—means you do this for each other. For better and for worse, and as worse as this is, I’d rather deal with it myself than have anyone, even you, feel as if they have to deal with it on my behalf for whatever goddamn, space-age reason you’ve cooked up.”

  My chest heaving, I exchanged hard stares with her. “Especially if it’s in the name of protecting me. Enough, already. Enough.”

  “Liberty.”

  We both whirled toward the wide opening leading from the kitchen to the living room. Ethan leaned on his walker, looking tired but determined, and that only pissed me off even more.

  “It’s not a conspiracy, sweetheart.”

  “Oh?” I was scared shitless and fighting mad. “So where was my memo? Did it ever occur to you, you stubborn, thickheaded jackass, that I might want a say in all of this? Did it ever even occur to you to ask first, how I might feel about this?”

  Of course it hadn’t. I could tell by the look on his face.

  “You know, gorgeous—” He eased himself down into a chair at the table, “You still have power of attorney. You can pull the plug whenever you want.”

  Wouldn’t need to, because I was going to break his smug Ethan-neck right where he sat, and he could go meet his Maker with that insufferable smirk on his face. He was pushing my buttons, the asshole, and getting his jollies. Just like he always had. Because in the past it had always worked between us, eased tensions, made me see where I was just taking life a little too seriously. Not this time, though. Not even close. This was serious. It was his life and everything he was to me, and if he couldn’t see that—

  Then, because I wasn’t dealing with enough, the silence was broken by an approaching engine—vestiges of my childhood echoing in the low, sonorous growl. And even if I hadn’t recognized the sound of that engine, I would’ve known who it was simply by the way Nora straightened, her mouth curving up into a smile that made her look about sixteen.

  Same age she’d been when she first laid eyes on him.

  “Hey, where are my girls?”

  There he stood—shaking rain from his heavy leather jacket, light-brown hair that these days also had its fair share of silver curling out from beneath the edges of the bandanna covering most of it—my wayward father.

  “Hi, Stan,” I sighed.

  “Stan, mi amor, come on in, Libby’s making chili.” Sweeping past me, Nora threw herself into Stan’s arms, giving him a kiss that made me ache even as I got angrier still. I was glad they still had their thing for each other, unconventional though it was. Glad they still had passion between them, even as I swallowed hard over all I’d lost in the last two years. And I was angrier than I’d ever been in my entire life.

  “Did you call him?” I demanded from Nora even as I hugged Stan and accepted his kiss.

  She didn’t need to answer, damn her. That hesitation—the sharp indrawn breath coupled with the exchange of glances with first, Stan, then, more tellingly, Ethan, said it all. Pulling free from Stan’s arms, I turned and propped myself on the table, leaning very close to Ethan.

  “When were you going to tell me?”

  “Jesus, Libby, it’s not like that—”

  “The hell it isn’t, Ethan.” My hand curled into a fist against the smooth birch surface of the table. “Naming Nora executor of your estate, having her call Stan—it’s all incredibly clear, querido, and please don’t think me stupid enough to not be able to see it. All I want to know is this—”

  I swallowed back the tears clogging my throat and fighting to break free, because, dammit, they weren’t going to see me cry. I would not give them more ammunition.

  “When exactly, Ethan, were you planning on telling me that you’d decided to die?” By that final, hateful word, my voice had become this shrill, ugly thing bouncing off the walls and ringing in my ears.

  Didn’t bother waiting for an answer, because for all my bravado, really didn’t want to hear it. I simply pushed away from the table, whistled for Butch and Sundance, and once outside, while I was clipping leashes to their collars, bent over at the waist and threw up as quietly as I could into the gardenia bushes.

  To their credit, no one followed me. There weren't any offers of comfort or rational arguments that might have sent me straight into the abyss. And so I was able to leave in peace—walk calmly down the street to the gas station where I bought a cold drink to deal with the sour residue lingering in my mouth. Worked great to wash away the taste of the bile, but not the bitterness left by the knowledge that my husband and parents had apparently bonded together to plan the next what—few days, weeks, months?—on my behalf.

  As I walked the beach, splashing along the water’s edge, I knew, deep in my soul, their intentions were good—noble even. That they were, in their own way, trying to make this easier for me. I just resented the hell out of no one thinking I was worth asking about this, and, yeah, I knew just how selfish that was. It was what Ethan wanted, and God knows he’d done what I wanted for so long, fighting and hanging on so much longer than he probably had any right to. He'd earned the right to choose how and when to go out. And my wishes—my fears—had to take a back seat.

  In my pocket, my phone vibrated its text alert. Pulling it out, I blinked through the damp, blurry scrim of my vision until the message cleared: 1/6-1/8. You?

  Backing away from the waves, I dropped to the sand, not caring that it was wet and soaking through my jeans. Quickly, I typed out: Be there 1/7 and hit send.

  And hoped it was true.

  • • •

  It was just a few days, but a more tense, uncomfortable, angry few days I couldn’t remember. Not even when Ethan and I were constantly at each other’s throats during our teacher/student days had things been so bad between us that we’d forgone the most basic communication. But I couldn’t talk to him. Could hardly look at him without feeling a near-crushing sensation of terror and hurt rolled up with that anger. And poor Stan, none of this was his fault and he was being so cool, setting up camp over at Nora’s, naturally, but coming over every day and hanging with Ethan, talking to him, even bouncing ideas for his ongoing Great American Novel off my husband’s still very active brain. Hell, the likelihood that the man would ever finish the thing were slim to none, but I couldn’t deny that as an exercise it perked Ethan up, drawing out the sharp and incisive wit that remained so uniquely his even as his body continued to fail him.

  At the same time though, I could barely bring myself to even speak to Stan, because for me his presence only made things worse. By making it clear he was here for the duration, however long it was, he was a living, breathing reminder that my Ethan was preparing to let go.

  The night before we were scheduled to head up to Miami—a trip I wasn’t even sure we were still making—Ethan finally decided to broach the subject.

  “I’m not going to change my mind, Libby.”

  Amazing how in the dark I could so easily forget how sick he was. His voice was still that same gravelly tenor, still tinged with the slight indefinable accent picked up during an army brat youth spent on bases across the world. Still sounded exactly the same as the day he’d read through the class roster and said, “Liberty? Good God, what the hell were your parents thinking?” It carried, vibrant as ever, through the midnight dark of our bedroom from where he lay in the hospital bed we’d made room for, to our queen-size bed where
I still stubbornly stuck to my side and my side only—afraid of what using the whole expanse might represent.

  “What exactly aren’t you going to change your mind about, Ethan? The executor of your will or dying?”

  “The one I have most control over.”

  The next day, however, he got up as usual, slowly shuffled into the bathroom and showered. Dressed in loose-fitting jeans and a sweatshirt, he sat down at the kitchen table with a tired sigh.

  “Never intended to just up and quit on you, gorgeous. Just trying to ease into the inevitable.”

  Our eyes met over the mug I was pouring coffee into. I’d always loved him for his honesty. He knew that. He also knew that right now, I was as close to hating him as I’d ever been.

  I wanted to see Nick.

  If I saw him, I knew I’d pour all of this out to him. That he, of all people, would understand how I could be so scared and angry at the same time.

  But at the same time, he was the last person I wanted to see, because I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from pouring all of this out to him.

  I couldn’t, I couldn’t…I couldn’t.

  This was my gig. He had enough on his plate. So in the tradition of all good cowards, I hid. I hid out in Ethan’s room as much as I could, avoiding not just Nick, but everyone, even Nan. Didn’t want to see anyone or allow them too close—didn’t want anyone to see just how close to the edge I was. I was so far into avoidance mode, that, like a character out of some sad B movie, I even checked that the hallways were clear before I snuck down to Starbucks to get Ethan his fix. Afterward, I sat there watching him doze, my mind wandering between past, present, and trying really hard not to envision the future, until I was jolted from my reverie by the vibration of my phone.

  Dinner?

  I stared at it for several minutes. Put my phone away. Pulled it back out. Stared at it some more, finally typing, Not tonight.