That's Not a Thing

by Jacqueline Friedland

  I’m glad to have a little time to myself this evening, as Aaron is on call tonight and Wesley has probably long since left for the restaurant in order to get there before the dinner rush.

  I toss my keys down on the painted table in the entryway and turn my attention to yesterday’s mail, which I grabbed from the mailroom on my way upstairs. As I flip past our electric bill, I hear the crackling sound of wheels rolling over the apartment’s hardwood floors.

  I look up to see Wesley navigating his chair in my direction.

  “Hey. I didn’t realize you were here.” I drop the mail into the wooden bowl beside my keys.

  “Yeah,” he says. “I meant to be at the restaurant already.” He glances down at the watch on his wrist without moving his arm. “Not sure I’m going to head in at this point.”

  “Why?” I realize as I ask that I’m worried about his answer. Worried that another part of his body has started failing him, worried that he’s depressed, worried that he’s going to want to hang out with me while Aaron’s not here, worried that I’m going to agree.

  “I wasn’t feeling great earlier. Better now, but . . .” He shrugs, like I’m supposed to simply intuit whatever he’s implying.

  “But what?”

  “I don’t really want to roll in during a busy time in the chair, you know?”

  “Oh.” I’m quiet for a second. “Watch a movie with me?” I’m surprised at myself for suggesting it, but also not that surprised.

  “Yeah. Good. Let me just grab a snack.”

  He rolls past me toward the kitchen.

  “You want anything?” he calls back to me as he reaches the refrigerator.

  “No, thanks,” I say to the sliver of the back of his head that I can still see.

  He pushes himself out of the chair then and stands to his full height. He opens the freezer and stares into it for a second before grabbing a container of Ben & Jerry’s. He then sits back in the chair as though he’s settling into a La-Z-Boy.

  “I don’t understand,” I say as I bring my bags of groceries into the kitchen and start unpacking them on the granite counter. “You don’t need the chair?”

  “I’m not paralyzed,” he says, turning the chair toward me and opening the drawer beside me to grab two spoons. “Not yet.”

  I stare back at him.

  “I’m just weak. I get tired. But I can still stand and get myself in and out of the chair.”

  “Right,” I answer, as I wonder whether he would be comfortable discussing the many other questions I’ve been harboring over the past few weeks. I’ve assumed he’s been in and out of the chair in order to perform basic self-care, like bathing and getting into bed. I figure he stands to dress himself, that he doesn’t yet need help buttoning his shirts or putting on his socks. I wonder if now is the time to address all this. But I am also a little flustered being alone with him like this—for the first time, I realize, since he moved in with us.

  We head back to the living room and I drop myself down on one end of the microsuede sofa, leaving a wide birth in case Wesley wants to get out of his chair again to sit on the soft cushions, but he just pulls the wheel-chair next to where I’m sitting and puts on the brake, settling in.

  “What are we watching?” he asks, upbeat, like he’s been waiting all week for movie night. He hands me one of the two spoons he brought over and pulls the cover off the chocolate fudge brownie ice cream. I watch as he looks around for where to put the lid. He’s eyeing the coffee table, but it’s a few feet away, and I can tell by his face that he thinks getting the cap over to it will be an effort. I reach over and take the lid out of his hand, putting it down on the coffee table and picking up the remote in one fluid action. I return to the sofa, tucking one foot beneath myself as I sit back down and turn on the TV.

  As I pull up the Netflix menu, I decide that now is as good a time as any to broach one of the topics that has been weighing on my mind.

  “So, what about an aide?” I ask the question casually as I click on the button for comedies.

  “What about one?” There’s a defensiveness in his voice.

  “I don’t know.” I shrug a little, trying to sound light. “I just thought you’d want to line someone up, so that, you know, when you do need it, I don’t know . . .” I lose my nerve for a moment. But then I catch sight of the ice cream cover again, streaks of chocolate on the inside, already melting a little against the sweaty cardboard backing, and I find my grit once more. “You’re going to need more help. It seems to me that you’d want more choice in the matter, that you’d want to come from a position of strength when you find a person to help you and not wait until you’re desperate.”

  Wesley is looking at the movie menu on the TV, chewing on his lip a little as he thinks. “Yeah, okay,” he finally says, and I let out a breath. “I’ve kind of been thinking about it, too. Not, like, someone to move in here —just a few hours a day or something to start. When it’s more than that, I’m moving myself into a home. We’re not turning this place into some sort of hippie commune.”

  I start to smile at the idea of a commune, but I catch myself as I note the serious expression on his face.

  “Okay, good. Yeah, I’m glad you’ve reached that conclusion.” I respond like we’ve negotiated a business deal, but I feel a surge of relief that surprises me. I don’t know if it’s because he is making responsible choices for himself or because he said he’s going to move out before he reaches a catastrophic state. I don’t want to think too hard about it.

  “Good,” I say again. “For a minute there, I thought you were going to be all salty boots about it.”

  “Salty boots?” He laughs and looks at me sideways, the bright green of his eyes sliding in my direction.

  “Yeah. Like, bitchy and resistant.”

  He’s still looking at me like he’s suspicious, and now I feel the need to defend myself. “It’s a thing,” I tell him, like that settles it, and I go back to scrolling through movie titles.

  I let the blinking cursor pass over one random film after another. There are so many titles that mean nothing to me, so I keep on scrolling. As I pass by the movie Chef, with Jon Favreau, Wesley tells me to wait.

  “You’ve got to be kidding, right?” I laugh. “How many times have you watched this already?”

  “I’ve actually never seen it.”

  “What?” I can feel my forehead turn into an accordion of wrinkles as my eyebrows shoot up in disbelief.

  “What?” He shrugs. “Have you watched every movie ever made about lawyers?”

  “Right. Okay, fair point.” I click on the movie, and the screen shows that it’s loading.

  Wesley reaches over and puts his hand on my arm, like he’s trying to get me to look at him, which I do. When our eyes meet, the energy in the room shifts abruptly. In a split second, he’s gone from being my charity project back to being the man who used to light every flame inside me. I don’t know whether it’s the raw, elemental look in his eyes, the physical contact, or just having the time alone together, but suddenly he’s Wesley all over again. I feel myself unraveling in his presence, my heart rate revving, my breath hitching, and I have the fleeting thought that this man is becoming a verb, that he’s Wesleying me. I can’t manage to look anywhere other than his face, watching his eyes grow darker as he stares back at me.

  “I’m really glad that we reconnected,” he says quietly.

  “Yeah, me too.” I croak out the words. It’s like an invisible thread is pulling me closer to him. I’m vaguely aware that our movie should have started playing by now, that there must be some problem with the way it’s loading.

  “I’m glad you have Aaron,” he tells me, and I feel myself nodding. “You guys are good together. And I’m glad to know you’re going to have a happy ending.”

  Hot tears spring to my eyes at his words. I think back to all those years when I believed that Wesley was my happy ending, when I had no inkling that his story would end so much sooner than mine. I can
sense all my old feelings for him swirling just beneath the surface of my consciousness, fighting to be heard. I wonder if I will ever feel for Aaron emotions with the same ferocity as the ones I’m struggling to ignore when it comes to Wesley. His generous attitude toward my new relationship only makes me adore him all the more. I want to crawl into his lap and embrace him, to burrow my face into his neck and breathe in the scent of him.

  And maybe I can. Maybe cheating with a man who’s dying doesn’t really count as cheating. I just want to feel Wesley against me one last time, one last kiss, like a good-bye. I feel myself leaning toward him, and I can tell from his eyes, from the way he’s leaning in toward me, that he wants it, too. I watch his eyes as they dart to my lips, then back to my eyes. That’s all I need before I’m leaning over the edge of the couch and attaching my mouth to his.

  His tongue is cold, like the chocolate ice cream he was just eating. But it’s Wesley, and my knees go weak just the same. I feel him everywhere. It’s not like I remember; I can’t say if it’s better or worse than my memories, just that it’s different. Yet I’m falling to pieces just the same, like I’m finally receiving something I have been too long denied, like I am forgiven. His hand is in my hair, pulling me closer to his face. I wonder for a flash whether I will be the last person he ever kisses, and I think probably yes, so I’d better make it great for him. I kiss him like it’s not just his last but like it’s mine too, giving over to the part of me that will die along with him.

  I breathe in the warmth of his skin, the feel of his hands pulling me toward him, and I bask in the glory of his touch. I feel him swallow against me, in that new way he’s been doing since the ALS. If anything, I kiss him even harder at that, trying to give him more life, to transfer some of my good health into his body.

  The longer we kiss, the more my mind whirls. He’s holding my head so tightly against his own, it’s like the kissing won’t ever be enough, and I’m overwhelmed by the urge to give him more, to take more, more than kisses, more than this moment.

  As if he can hear my thoughts, Wesley’s free hand moves to my waist, aggressive and wanting. He’s pulling at my shirt, sliding his hand underneath the fabric. I await the sensation of his fingers against my bare skin, desperate for his touch. The shirt lifts, and his flesh finally connects with my own. A wave of heat nearly knocks me backward as his hand grabs hold of me, a brief sensation of dizziness adding to my physical mayhem. I need to feel more of him, to be finished with waiting, with obstacles. I pull back from the kiss to yank my T-shirt over my head. I want him to look at me, I want to watch his eyes as he considers me, but it’s all secondary to my urgent need for his continued caresses. After a flash of eye contact, my mouth is back on his. As his warm palm travels up my rib cage and finally settles on my breast, I feel an instant of relief, but it’s replaced almost immediately by the need for more. I’m like an addict, every touch just whetting my appetite for something bigger, better.

  I move my hand to the waistline of his pants and I can feel him, hard and waiting beneath his jeans. I remember reading that ALS doesn’t interfere with a man’s ability to get an erection, but I’m still surprised by how strong and vibrant he seems beneath my fingers. I can feel the heat coming off him straight through the denim.

  Both of Wesley’s hands are on me now, pulling me closer, as if he wants me on top of him, to straddle him where he is. I envision myself climbing into his wheel-chair, wondering if that can work, whether I’ll topple us both, but then I determine that I’d rather help him onto the couch, on top of me. As I try to work out the mechanics of this situation, my thoughts flash to Aaron and what I am about to do, what I’m about to lose. For a blissful, cloudy moment, I wonder if I can have them both, even if it’s for only a few months, only a few weeks. I can’t tear myself away from Wesley, not now, not with his flesh against mine, his breath inside my mouth. In the fog of my neediness, I decide that it would be worth losing anything to feel his weight above me one more time, to hear him whisper my name in exquisite agony just once more, the way he used to.

  And then he groans quietly, and the sound of his voice changes everything. It’s different, too different from how it used to be, too different from how it is with Aaron. The spell is broken. Suddenly his tongue feels thick and foreign in my mouth, wet and wrong, and I realize that my memories and fantasy have overtaken my reality. I push back, horrified at myself for letting things go this far.

  “Sorry, sorry,” I stammer, retrieving my shirt from the floor and scrambling to push it back over my head. “I don’t . . . Wow. Sorry.”

  “Yeah, no.” Wesley clears his throat. “We shouldn’t have let that happen.”

  I look away. Those Netflix dots are still turning in circles on the TV screen as the system attempts to load our movie, and I don’t know where to look, what to say. I don’t understand how I could have allowed this to happen, how I could have confused memories with present feelings so completely. I’ve risked all the carefully crafted goodness in my current life, exposed all of it to potential explosion. My lack of loyalty, my extreme error, my ability to be so very wrong is appalling.

  I wish I could get us back to where we were an hour ago; I wish I could rewind my life. I wipe at my mouth with the back of my hand as he waits for what I’m going to say. And yet, even regretful of my actions, I can’t say I felt nothing when his hands were in my hair, his hot breath was against my mouth. I can’t get a handle on what the fuck I feel, except that I am completely schizophrenic when it comes to these two men.

  “My parents,” I finally grunt, changing the subject. “We let them use our Netflix account when they want, but then my mom always leaves it running on too many devices. I should call her, or it won’t let us watch.” I stand to get my phone.

  “Wait,” he says. “We have to talk about what just happened.”

  “We do?” My voice has risen several octaves in my current panic.

  “Listen,” he starts, swallowing hard. “I’m just going to lay it out there. I can’t keep pretending that I don’t regret leaving, breaking our engagement when I did. It was never your fault, none of it.”

  His words release something in me, as if there’s a muscle I’ve been clenching since the day he left for England and now I can finally, finally let go. I wish we could go back to that cold day in his childhood bedroom, that he could wrap his arms around me and forgive me then, when I was breaking apart inside. Not now, when none of it matters anymore, not when I’m going to marry another man, not when Wesley’s going to evaporate into another memory.

  “And I’m not going to pretend I don’t still have a shit-ton of feelings for you. But I’m also not going to let you fuck up what you’ve got going with Aaron. I don’t want to be that kind of dick. And second, no matter what might still be here”—he motions with his hand between the two of us—“I’m dying. I’m leaving you all over again. And at least this time, I know I won’t be leaving you alone. So don’t let me fuck you over again. Don’t let me, even if I try.”

  I look back at him, trying to digest what he’s said, and he starts back up.

  “If I were a better guy, I’d get out of here. I’d stay the fuck away from you and Aaron both. But the fact is, if I only have a short time, I want to spend it near you, looking at you, soaking up every last bit of you that I can.”

  “I don’t know.” It’s all I can say. The only truth.

  “Think about it,” Wesley says gently. “If you want me out of here, I’ll go. The only thing I know for sure is that there’s no point in pursuing this.” He gestures back and forth between us again. “Not this time. Not anymore.” He turns away from me and gazes off into the ether for a moment before slowly turning his head back toward me and swallowing again. “The best thing is if you would just be happy. Let me be certain that when I leave this time, I won’t be destroying you all over again.”

  Against my will, a sob racks my body and escapes from me. It feels selfish, crying over his losses, and I force myself to
quiet down.

  “I can’t,” I tell him, shaking my head. “I can’t do this.” I’m not even sure what “this” I am referring to, but I get up from my seat and retreat to my bedroom. As I close the door behind me, I hear the movie finally starting up on the TV.

  Chapter Twenty

  June 2017

  When I roll into work the next morning with a cup of bitter Starbucks coffee in hand, my head is cloudy, as though I stayed up the whole night partying. As if. What I actually did all night was lie in my bed, alternately crying and staring blindly at the wall. I drifted in and out of a disturbed sleep until Aaron returned home from his hospital shift sometime around 4:00 a.m. It was only after he climbed into our bed and folded his bulky arm around my rib cage that I finally entered a deep sleep. Even so, the three hours of shut-eye that I managed did not take the edge off the extreme emotional tornado swirling through my organs.

  I drop my tote bag on the floor next to my desk and burrow into my leather chair. Nicola is already at her desk, but she doesn’t say hi or good morning or anything, so neither do I. I don’t have it in me to pretend today.

  While my computer powers up, I sip my coffee and try to control the barrage of images coursing through my mind. It’s as though I have a split screen in my brain, like two different movies are playing on simultaneous loops. The memories of Wesley’s lips against mine, the feel of his raspy breath against my face, assail me repeatedly. At the same time, I see Aaron’s body wrapped around me in bed, his brawn shielding me from everything except for myself.

  Outlook opens with a flash on the screen and I see that I have a new email from Alexandra Pervez, the senior associate on the Kinderwohl tobacco case. She says that Malik Thompson, the partner on the case, wants me to participate in the upcoming depositions. I have a quick spark of excitement at being tapped for this task, like my superiors are finally recognizing my extreme genius. But then I stall, thinking of the enormity of hours and manpower generally required to prepare for depositions like these. I scroll through the email to see how many weeks we will have for prep, and then I notice that the depositions, which will take place in Wisconsin, are slated to occur during the span of one week in late July, a week that directly conflicts with the date of Moe’s court appearance.