by K. L. Kreig
It takes me a few seconds to catch on and when I do, strangely my racing heart takes a dive into my belly. My little ditty has backfired. He was onto me the whole time.
Then he grins and his grin quickly turns into a belly laugh. I ball up a fist and punch him in the meaty part of his arm to get him to stop, but it only serves to make him laugh harder. I find myself joining in, and we laugh until our faces are streaked with tears, our sides ache, and our cheeks hurt. We laugh like all of our laughs have built up over our lifetimes, as if reserved only for the other. We laugh until we can’t laugh any more.
“You should have seen your face.” His voice is pitched several octaves higher than usual, and it starts us all over again. “Classic.”
“Stop. My jaw hurts.” I squish my cheeks in, trying to relieve the tension in them.
“So, does mine.” He does the same. He looks like a fish. I double over in hysterics again. As soon as one of us achieves some semblance of control, we simply need to look at the other and we’re at it once more.
Fifty years. You could have this for fifty years.
I don’t know how much time goes by, but finally I say, “I can’t take much more,” in between gasps. “Stop. I mean it.”
“Okay, okay.” He takes in a deep gulp of air and blows it out slowly, but it’s choppy and nowhere near under control. When I start to giggle again, he stretches out his arm, palm facing me. “Don’t look at me. If you don’t look at me, maybe I can stop.”
“Okay. I won’t.”
We both stare straight ahead, our bodies warm, our chests heaving. It’s a good five minutes before I think I can talk normally again.
And then I decide to be real. To give him what he wants to hear.
“Things that feed my soul, huh?”
He nods, staying silent.
“Meringue, of course.”
“Of course.”
Deeper, Laurel. Get dirty.
“I love the summer solstice, the longest day of the year.”
I chew on my lip. Why is this so hard? This fear of letting go? It’s terrifying, like water seeping into your lifeboat when you’re five nautical miles from shore, and the only thing you have to bail it with is a thimble.
He wedges himself so he’s facing me. “I’m not familiar with this one.”
I stroke the side of his jaw, scruff poking the pads of my fingers. “This is an original,” I assure him.
“Ohhh…I love the creativity of a talented new author.”
He’s being playful, but his demeanor tells the true story. He’s eager to hear more. He gives my hand a squeeze. I stare at that hand, wrapped around mine. It feeds me courage. And while I could offer up surface-level information about myself, like how reading is my Calgon or how yoga calms the madness inside, I dig deeper, dig into the chaos, his touch fortifying me. It makes me feel extraordinarily safe.
I bend my legs under the covers so the sheet tents over my knees, trying to figure out what to say next. Everything good about me also carries the burden of remembrance, the pain of loss. They are doors I keep tightly closed, the cracks purposely sealed.
Now there is reason to pry them open, though. So, I get out the proverbial crowbar and go to work.
“There is something very hypnotic about whirlers.”
“What are whirlers?”
“You know…those winged seeds that fall from maple trees. They whirl through the air, floating madly to the ground as if they’re in a hurry to get nowhere.”
“You mean helicopters?”
“Is that what you call them? We called them whirlers. Esther and I used to lie underneath our hundred-year-old maple and watch them whirl to the ground around us. Our PooPa would sometimes lie down with us and tell us stories of when he was a kid and make us laugh until our stomachs hurt.”
He doesn’t say a word, but with the compassion he’s emanating, he doesn’t need to. It’s enough for me to continue. The door hinge creaks loudly as I shove it another inch.
“I’m fascinated by old musicals. I sang The Music Man so many times it drove my mother up the wall. She finally forbade it in the house, so I’d watch it at my grandparents’ house.”
“You can watch The Music Man at my house anytime you want.”
I tip my head up and catch his gaze. He means it. And he might regret it, but I don’t warn him off. And I keep going, because that door is standing wide open now.
“I love roller skating. Or I used to. Is that silly?”
“Ehhh…” He twists his head and screws up his mouth, teasing me. I bump him with my elbow and he oofs, pretending to be hurt.
“And Christmas music. The classics, you know? “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” always makes me nostalgic for some reason. And as odd as it sounds, I miss snow. We don’t get much snow here but when I wake up on a cold January morning and the trees are frosted with a thin coating of ice, it’s so peaceful it reminds me of home.”
And Esther. So much reminds me of Esther.
“I hate the snow,” he says.
“Most Floridians do. That’s why they’re Floridians.”
“Got a point there.”
“Do you want me to keep going or am I boring you?”
He kisses my temple and draws me closer. “There’s not a boring aspect about you, Laurel.”
I lay my head on his chest, and listen to his heart beat in a steady rhythm. I spend the next hour vomiting everything that sings to me, from a cup of chamomile tea by a crackling fire to movies that scare the bejeezus out of me to watching endless hours of cat videos on YouTube. I tell him of my love to fish that came from spending time with PooPa at the lake, but how I hate threading the hook with live bait. Strangely, he’s never been fishing, though he grew up by the ocean. I told him I’d teach him but that he had to bait the hook.
“I always had a thing for fireflies. I don’t know why, but there’s something extraordinary about sitting outdoors on a warm summer night watching fireflies call to each other. I refuse to end their already short life in a small, sterile jar filled with grass when all they want is to find a mate.”
“Me neither,” he says thoughtfully, and that connection we have deepens. Over fireflies.
We move on to hiking and rock skipping and anything outdoors. I weave stories of Esther throughout our conversation. It’s the most I’ve talked about her since we started dating. And when he asks, “Will you tell me more about your sister,” I do.
I bite back my emotions and tell him about her epilepsy and how she had a bad seizure in math class when she was twelve. She had a severe brain bleed and never regained consciousness. I tell him how she bravely fought in the ICU for six days, and how she died while I held her hand and told her it was okay to let go even though I didn’t really mean it. I tell him about how Esther’s death tore our family apart in more ways than one. How it hurtled my mother into a steep depression, and how she’s stayed there ever since.
“What about your father?”
My father. He’s a sore subject.
I have two distinct memories of my father. The day he left and the day he came back. Or tried to come back. He showed up to take Esther and me out for the day. It was Easter and we hadn’t seen him since before Halloween. We’d dressed in our prettiest Sunday clothes and brushed our teeth extra-long, so we’d impress him with how sparkly they were. Esther wore a pink ribbon in her hair. Mine was white.
We were beyond excited to see him, but when my mother opened the front door, she did not share that same enthusiasm. She demanded he leave, locked us in the house, and we watched the rest unfold from the living room window. Father held two baskets stuffed with gifts, one in each hand. He was angry. Mother was crying. Father kept pointing at us. Mother screamed at him until her face turned red. We pounded on the glass. We couldn’t get out of the house. Then my grandfather showed up with his shotgun and my father got into his car, along with our baskets, slammed the door, and drove away.
We never saw or heard from him
again.
And I blame my mother for that.
“Absent. My parents divorced when Esther and I were four. I guess he remarried and had himself a new family and we were but a blip in the past. Not even a memory.”
Roth twines our hands together and I experience a moment of such pure, sweet serenity I have to close my eyes to keep from losing it. Is this what Carmen feels with Manny? As though she’s finally settled into her own skin?
“What a selfish asshole.”
He sounds genuinely angry on my behalf, and something breaks loose inside me in a good way. It prompts me to speak my biggest fear aloud. And it’s the real reason I keep my circle small and am still alone at the age of twenty-eight.
“Not only did Esther leave me, so did everyone else.”
For the longest time Roth doesn’t say anything, and me being me, I start to agonize. Maybe I should have kept quiet. Maybe this was too much for him. Maybe I am too much for him. I try to keep it all together, but sometimes it’s a ruse. A heavy mask that I get tired of wearing in public and am scared to remove in private. Scars are ugly.
Roth resituates us, so he’s hovering over the top of me. I hold my breath as he looks deeply into my soul. The moment is ripe with a tenderness I can’t possibly put into words.
“You can stop running, Laurel. You’ll never be alone again.”
I find it mind-boggling sometimes how attuned to me Roth can be. He could have said anything, yet he said what I desperately needed to hear. He let me show him my heart, and now he’s holding it tenderly in his open hands.
Fifty years, Laurel.
“It felt good to talk about my sister. Thank you.”
“You can tell me anything, Laurel. You can trust me.”
“It’s hard for me to trust people,” I tell him truthfully.
“I know.”
“But I do trust you, Roth.”
He pushes a wisp of hair behind my ear. “I’m glad. Tell me something else,” he prods. He tries to move off of me, but I don’t want him to go, so I wrap my legs around his waist, ignoring his low, male groan.
“What do you want me to tell you?”
“Anything.”
This time I don’t hesitate.
“Okay. Fireworks.”
“Fireworks?”
That smile. It does me in every time.
“Yes, fireworks. I love everything about them. The thunk they make when they’re shot from the cannon. The reverberation in your bones when they explode. The sizzle as they fall to the ground. The bright colors that stay behind your lids when you close your eyes. Fireworks are magical.”
“Exploding things are magical, huh?” He twitches against my belly as he teases me. My body leaps to life.
“Some are more magical than others.”
His hum is equivalent to a hand-calligraphed invitation to the Oscars being delivered by Ryan Gosling himself.
“You’d better knock that off,” I say. I don’t mean it at all.
“What?” he replies, all innocent like.
“That.” I twirl my finger around in a tight circle. “That…glaze of longing you have in your eyes.”
“You put it there.”
I bite my lip to keep from smiling. “By talking about fireworks?”
“It’s the way you talked about fireworks, Laurel. It was very…sexual.”
“Sexual fireworks, that’s a first,” I giggle.
He pokes my side and I jump with a shriek. He does it again and I poke him back in his armpit. Then we’re rolling around on the bed in a heap of thrashing arms and legs and squeals. And next, he has me pinned beneath him. He snags a hardened nipple between his teeth and sucks deep. My entire body arches in pleasure and soon I’m calling out his name again as he slips inside of me with ease and control.
He makes love to me again, holding me in his enthrall, and when he whispers, “I love you, Laurel,” only moments before we both explode, I find myself with the courage to reciprocate, uttering words I’ve never spoken to another man, outside of my PooPa.
I’m glad Roth is the first.
“I think I will love you until the end of forever, Roth.”
Then I proceed to fall into the most deep, peaceful sleep of my life.
9
Tuesdays
Roth
Present
June 21, 5:41 p.m.
* * *
I walk into the kitchen and stop in my tracks, my blood turning to ice. “Laurel, for God’s sake, what are you doing?”
My wife is perched precariously on a kitchen stool that I have asked her repeatedly not to use as a step stool. That leather-covered stool swivels, and more than once she’s fallen from it. One time she needed six stitches on the inside of her upper lip.
In my mind’s eye I envision my wife’s demise. I see her hitting the floor. I smell blood as it spreads from beneath her cold, limp, battle-weary body. At this moment, I’m terrified I won’t lose my Laurel to the cancer ravaging her body, but to her pride, because she refuses to ask me for help.
“I’m getting the punch bowl.” She stretches until she’s balancing on the extreme tip of a single toe.
My heart pounds violently against my breastbone. “Nonononono.” As if we’d choreographed and practiced it a hundred times, I fly across the room and make it to her just in time, catching her in my arms as that stool sends her mercilessly spinning toward the floor.
“Jesus Christ, Laurel,” I spit on a cross between relief and anger. “You could have killed yourself.” My legs turn liquid, and I fall to my knees, still cradling her.
“But I didn’t.” She beams, holding up her prize: a ten-dollar plastic punch bowl that I’d like to smash to bits. “You’re my savior, as always.”
I’m not. If I were, I could rip this enemy from your body and destroy Him for good.
“Laurel.” I bury my face in her neck and drink in her sweet smell until I’m drunk on it. How long will it take before it fades away from my memory completely? I can’t bear that thought.
“I’m sorry, Roth.” She runs her fingers through my hair, scraping my scalp lightly with her nails.
“Fresh-cut fingernails?” I ask. They feel so good.
“It amazes me how you can always tell.”
“I notice every little thing about you, Laurel.”
“Mi amado,” she says on a hush.
God, that gets me every single time. When I found out what mi amado meant the first night she mentioned it, I swear I fell instantly in love with this sassy, quick-witted, clumsy woman. I can’t believe my luck. My lips find the warmth of her flesh. I press them to her, enjoying the slight hitch in her breath. I nibble my way up to her earlobe and clamp hard enough to elicit a shriek, yet not hard enough to hurt.
“Am I interrupting?” my mom asks from behind us.
“Yes,” I reply at the same time Laurel says, “No” with a giggle.
“Laurel,” I moan. I would love nothing more than to take her into our bedroom, strip her naked, and spend the rest of the day making her shriek over and over. That can’t happen for so many reasons, but damn, what I wouldn’t give to have those carefree days back. I fear they are gone for good.
“Roth.”
One word. One syllable. One demand. That’s all it takes.
“Okay, okay.” I stand and set Laurel gently on her feet, kissing her temple before I let her go. I check her over against her protests that she is fine. She is not fine. She has dark circles under her eyes, though she’s given it a good effort trying to hide them with makeup.
“How is the pain in your legs today?”
Her eyes go blank, flitting quickly to my mom, then back to me. “Gone.”
“Gone?”
“Yes.”
“Liar,” I mouth. That tenacious independence rears her ugly head and I want to pound her into the ground. “It’s okay to need help.”
“I don’t need help.”
Stubborn, stubborn woman.
“Are you all
right, dear?”
Laurel bristles at my mother’s question. She’s angry at me but directs it at my mother. “Fine, Elana,” she snaps. Realizing her mistake, she softens her voice and nonverbally begs my mother’s forgiveness, adding, “I’m good. Really. I’m sorry.”
My mom tells her not to worry, but I’m worried.
Good. Fine. Perfect.
Lies. These past two weeks have already shown a marked change in Laurel. She doesn’t sleep. She is in pain, intensely so sometimes. Her appetite is all but shot. I hate it here, where we are. I can’t stand watching her suffer.
How am I going to do this?
Snagging the punch bowl from her, I wave it around, huffing, “Why are we doing this?”
“Making punch?”
“Funny girl.” She’s amused, but I am still quite irate. “No, this.” I point to the stacks of napkins and plates and platters of food strewing every inch of our countertops.
“You’ll have to be more specific.” She plucks the bowl from my fingers and walks around the island to the sink. She flips open the water spigot and squirts in a dollop of dish soap.
“Having this party, Laurel? Why are we having this stupid party?” Could I sound more insolent?
“Because we always have this party, Roth. Why wouldn’t we have it this year?”
Because you’re dying, I want to scream at the top of my lungs. Because having a house full of people drinking my alcohol and eating my food is the last thing I want to do. Because I can’t stomach the thought of dodging sympathies and platitudes for hours on end. How can I share you with others when this might be the last June 21st we have together, Laurel? How can you ask me to do that?
She looks over her shoulder at me, pausing midwash. Can she see everything I’m thinking? By the frown pulling down her cheeks, it’s most certainly a yes.
Once again, our nonverbal communication astounds me.
I need this, Roth. I need to feel normal. Please, please don’t take this away from me.
“I love your Summer Solstice parties, honey,” my mom interjects, trying to stave off an argument. I forgot she was even there.