Better Than None

by Olivia Jake

  Marty just shook his head. “Get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  ****

  I thought I’d hit rock bottom many years earlier, but apparently I hadn’t. Making a sloppy, drunk pass at my boss had to take the cake. As drunk as I’d been, I still woke up before dawn, took care of my responsibilities and forced myself to get into the office early so that I could at least face Marty in private. I was surprised he was there when I got in. I timidly knocked on his doorframe and knew my face was bright red when he acknowledged me and waved me in, but I hung back only a foot inside.

  “Marty, I don’t even know how to tell you how sorry I am about last night.”

  “It happens.”

  This was not the sweet Marty I’d been getting to know, which just made me feel that much worse. I shook my head. “You don’t have to be nice to me. I know I fucked up. Big time.”

  “Well, making a pass at the boss at the company party probably isn’t the best of moves.” He said flatly.

  “Oh, God, when you say it out loud it makes it a thousand times worse! I am so sorry and so embarrassed! It’s just, you’re so nice to me. I guess I misread the signals. I’m so mortified.” I turned to go.

  “Steph, stop beating yourself up. You didn’t misread anything.”

  That stopped me in my tracks. I fidgeted with the locket that was still around my neck suddenly feeling guilty, like I was somehow betraying Brad of all people. I turned back to face Marty.

  “But I’m your boss. And you’re going through a hell of a time. And you had a little too much to drink. Nothing happened other than flattering me.”

  “You were flattered by the drunk girl?”

  He smiled. “So you don’t find my dimple irresistible?”

  I put my hands over my mouth. “Oh my God, I did say that, didn’t I? Oh Jesus.”

  “Look, Steph, don’t worry about it. Nothing happened and no one knows about anything. A tree may have fallen in the forest, but no one heard it except you and me.”

  He was letting me off easy, so I took my out. “Ok, thanks, Marty. You’re a good man.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.” It wasn’t just the look in his eyes that made me flinch when he said this, it was the way his voice seemed deeper than ever before that made me wonder just what exactly he meant. Still, he was good to me.

  “I am. I’ve met a lot who aren’t. And you are. Trust me.”

  He took that in, and I wondered if I’d said too much, though after the night before, I’d already crossed a line.

  ****

  I tried not to parse his words. It didn’t matter what he said. He was my boss and I liked my job and I’d already crossed a line with Brad. I didn’t need to cross another one with Marty. I was focused on work. Period. Until my phone buzzed.

  Date 32?

  My head almost exploded. I didn’t know what games he was playing but I was starting to think that whatever they were, and whatever the prize, I couldn’t possibly compete.

  No.

  No?

  I thought I’d throw a line back at him that he was so fond of using with me.

  Did I stutter?

  Please. I need to see you. I miss you.

  I didn’t reply to that. I didn’t trust myself. I set my phone aside and stared at my computer screen. And then the fucker called me. I answered without saying a word.

  “Stephanie, I know I hurt you. I’m so sorry.”

  “And you thought sending a text would solve it? A text that pretended like nothing had happened? Like we’d just pick up where we’d left off?” I was so hurt and so angry and all I heard for a bit was my heart pounding. The silence was deafening until he finally filled it.

  “No, I just thought if I called first, you might not have answered.”

  “You’re right.”

  “I don’t know how to do this.” He almost whimpered. As annoyed as I sounded, he sounded far more pained.

  “I don’t either, Brad. That’s part of the problem. One of us can’t be blind, and I’m thinking this time, it has to be me.”

  There was a long pause. I listened to him breathing and thought, I miss even that. Pathetic, Steph.

  “I signed the papers.” Was all he said. There was more silence for longer than was comfortable before I spoke. There was so much to say and yet not really anything at all.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want to be with her. I want to be with you.”

  “That’s not enough.”

  Never before had I asked for what I wanted from a man. I always thought if I did I’d be my mother, I’d be weak, needy. For some reason, I didn’t think my needs mattered which became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I was so afraid of rejection that it was always safer not to ask in the first place.

  But with Brad, I didn’t need to tell him that I had trusted him, that I opened myself up and bared myself to him, that even with all the sex I had before him, that he was my first in so many ways. Or maybe I did need to say those words, and if that was the case then he really wasn’t who I thought he was.

  “I understand. I just wanted you to know.” He said tightly. “And I wanted to talk with you as Brad before I saw you again as Dr. Rosenberg.”

  I did appreciate that, but again, it just wasn’t enough. And given everything that had happened in the last 24 hours, there was no way I’d be able to process any of this. Even if I could, it wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have over the phone.

  “I have to go.” I said with resignation, and waited. I waited for him to protest or push, but when he didn’t, I couldn’t wait any longer. He told me he signed the papers. He told me he wanted to be with me. The ball was in my court. I’m not sure what else I expected.

  ****

  People who are religious often say that God only gives you as much as you can take. As I sat there hung-over, mortified and worried that I might have done irreparable harm to my job, no matter how conciliatory Marty had been, I thought that God must have thought I could handle a whole lot more than I’d ever heap onto my own plate. Or maybe he was just up there punishing me for not believing in him. Because in addition to everything else, I’d be seeing Brad in a couple days to go over the results of my mom’s PET scan. Yippie.

  CHAPTER 19

  There are moments in most everyone’s life where we’d all make a deal with the devil, sell our soul, promise anything if we could just… fill in the blank. Ace the test. Have her say yes. Get the job. I think both my mom and I knew what the results of her latest scan would show. Her symptoms were only getting worse. The pain, the nausea, the inability to eat. We weren’t medical professionals, but everything pointed in one direction: growth. As we waited in that damn waiting room, I wasn’t sure what I even had to offer in hopes of a different outcome. But I would have given anything, anything I had not to see the look on Brad’s face. I don’t know if my mom saw it, but it was clear the moment he came in that he had bad news to deliver.

  “Yours is a very aggressive form… the location… we could try a different type of chemo…” I really only heard bits and parts of what he said as my mom and I sat in the same room of our very first appointment. It hadn’t even been six months. Brad kept talking, but all I could really focus on was the feeling of Barb’s skin under mine. I stroked the top of her hand back and forth with my thumb, it was so soft, I couldn’t get over how smooth her skin was. The more he talked, the more I zoned out focusing on the feeling of her, wondering how much longer I’d be able to hold her, care for her, be with her.

  Ironically, this disease, this horrible disease made my mom stronger than I’d ever seen her. Somewhere in the weakness she found her strength. It was her voice that snapped me back to the present.

  “No more hospitals, Dr. Rosenberg. No more procedures. I can’t. I won’t. And no more chemo. I tried. I really did. But after everything that you and your colleagues have done, I feel worse than ever. I can barely take care of myself. I can hardly eat. I’m so weak I need Stephy to bathe me, take
care of me...” Tears started forming and her hands were shaking. “This is no way to live, doctor. I can’t do it anymore, not to myself, and I can’t stand putting Stephanie through it.”

  “Ma, this isn’t about me—” I started to say.

  “Oh honey, I know that. But what kind of life is this for you? Spending any free second taking care of your dying mother?”

  “Mom! I want to!”

  “I know you do sweetie, and I’m so lucky to have you. I don’t know what I’d do without you. But I hate you seeing me like this. I hate seeing me like this.”

  We were both in tears and for a second I forgot that Brad was right there. I didn’t know if it was because it was me, or if he had somehow learned patience. I turned to him, my mother’s shaking hands in mine.

  “If she doesn’t want any more procedures, if she stops the chemo…” I trailed off, looking up at him. He looked as sad and pained as I felt.

  “I would recommend hospice at this stage. They can make you comfortable, Barbara.”

  Hospice. I wasn’t a medical professional, but I knew enough to know if he were recommending hospice, that my mother, my best friend, the woman I spent every free moment with from the time I could remember, that she didn’t have long to live.

  “That means a morphine drip?” I asked quietly knowing full well what it meant. I just wanted to keep the conversation going. I felt like if we discussed it, maybe there would be a different outcome, another alternative, or that maybe I’d misunderstood

  Brad nodded. “Eventually, probably yes. But not at first. They’ll do whatever they can to manage the pain, the nausea. They’ll treat the symptoms. They can help around the house. They can give you whatever care you need to make… to make you as comfortable as possible.”

  Maybe I was seeing what I wanted to, but it looked like he had tears in his eyes too. “I’m sorry, Barbara. I’m so sorry I couldn’t do more.”

  My mom gave him a teary smile as she reached out and patted his knee. “I know. Me too.”

  It was so strange sitting there with Brad, having such an intimate conversation about the unspoken truth, but pretending he was no more than a doctor. I wanted to talk with him, I wanted his comfort, but that wasn’t us anymore. Even if it were, it wouldn’t have been there in the office in front of my mom. Stranger still, was talking about the reality of the end of my mother’s life. For the first time I started to understand what his reality must be, day in, day out. I wasn’t excusing why he’d become so cold and heartless, but at least now I understood why.

  After coming to his offices on an almost weekly basis for the better part of five months, when we stood to leave, I realized, this was it. We wouldn’t be coming back here ever again. What had become our new normal was ending. It wasn’t a normal that either of us had wanted, but now given the choice, I would have taken it instead of the alternative in a heartbeat.

  Brad started to walk out but then stopped himself, turned around and gently pulled my mom into a tight hug. Framed by him, she looked even more frail than usual. As she relaxed into his embrace, her back to me, he looked up over her head and gave me a sad smile before releasing her, and then silently turned and walked away.

  CHAPTER 20

  Almost six months to the day after my mother was diagnosed, she passed away. The last few weeks of her life were simply awful, each day filled with more pain, discomfort and sadness than the previous one. More than anything, I just wanted her to find some peace, some relief from all of the suffering. The more they medicated her, the less and less she resembled my mother. The vibrant woman I called my best friend my entire life, the woman who was playing tennis less than a year earlier, was gone long before her last breath.

  I’m not sure if anyone is ever ready to lose someone they love. Even with all the mental preparation, having watched my mother suffer and wither and be subjected to all the treatments and procedures and hospitalizations, even after all of that, even knowing she was going to die soon, I still wasn’t ready.

  The day after, I ran through the routine I’d been doing for half of a year. And when I got to her house I went straight to her bedroom before realizing she was no longer there. I stood staring at the empty bed. The bed that had been stripped by the people who took her body away. Strangers, so many of them, surrounding her, asking me questions, streaming in and out of the house, documenting everything. It had been less than 24 hours earlier that I had been in this house that was full of people and commotion. Quiet, respectful commotion. And now it was eerily devoid of humans, most notably, my mother. Part of me was actually tempted to walk around the house looking for her. Much as I knew how absurd that was, I had to stop myself from going into each room to see if she were there. I knew she was gone. I knew it intellectually. I had watched her take her last breaths. I watched her struggle and labor. I witnessed what hospice called her transitioning from life to death. And I held her hand and kissed her forehead over and over while telling her I loved her in those last minutes and seconds before she was gone. I watched them take her away even when they cautioned me that I wouldn’t want to see them put her on the folding cot that they did. I watched them. I was there. I had to be. I had been there for her at every stage of her life, I had to be there for me, for her, at every stage of her death. So in my mind, I knew she wasn’t there.

  But emotionally? How could she not be there? How could my best friend, the person I talked with every single day of my life, every single day, how could that person just not be there anymore?

  I went to work like usual because I didn’t know what else to do, and on the way there picked up my phone and started to call her only to stare at her name and wonder, when will this stop being routine? I was tempted to dial it just to hear her voice on the answer machine. As cliché as it seemed, I now understood that many clichés were borne out of realities.

  ****

  I had kept my distance from Marty ever since the holiday party, so he didn’t know how quickly things descended, but when he poked his head in to wish me good morning, I tried to smile, but the smile almost immediately turned to tears and then out and out sobbing. In the short time I’d worked for Marty, I’d cried more with him and with Brad than with anyone other than my mom.

  “Last night… she… she… she’s gone, Marty.” I said in between heaving sobs as Marty came around my desk, pulled me into a hug and held me, cooing and whispering as I shook and sobbed. When I finally stopped I sat back in my chair and then just started right up again. I couldn’t have stopped it if I tried. Marty sat across from me as I tried to talk in between sobs. I told him how I watched the breath go out of her. Literally. The hospice nurses had told me what to expect, how to tell when it would be her last moments. They must see people die literally all the time. I told him how even though she was better this way, better without the pain and suffering that had been her last months, I felt selfish wishing that she were still her even knowing how awful she felt.

  Marty sat patiently and listened. As nice as it was to have him there, I still felt awkward. The last time we talked was the day after I’d made a pass at him. And it was a brief, uncomfortable talk.

  “Marty, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pour my heart out to you.”

  “It’s ok, Steph.”

  “No, it’s not. You’re my boss. And I already made the mistake once thinking that your caring was more than just that.”

  Marty opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but then decided otherwise. He stood to go, but before he left he said, “If you need to take some time…”

  I shook my head. “I need to be here. I don’t know where else to go or what else to do.”

  “You’ve spent the last six months taking care of your mom, Steph. You might need some time to take care of you.”

  As Marty turned to walk out he almost walked straight into Brad. “Dr. Rosenberg?” Marty was obviously confused. Why would my mother’s oncologist be here at my office? They shook hands.

  “I came to check on St
ephanie.” Brad answered Marty’s unasked question.

  Marty regarded Brad skeptically. “That’s very thoughtful of you.” Marty said coolly, belying the sentiment. He gave me one last smile before he excused himself to his office next door. The minute he shuffled out, Brad came in and closed my door.

  We didn’t speak. He didn’t ask me how I was and I didn’t ask him what he was doing there. He simply walked around my desk and pulled me into a tight hug and much as I wanted to fight it, much as I didn’t want to feel what I felt, I simply didn’t have the strength. I melted into him. I let him hold me and comfort me. This man who broke my heart was also the one who had gotten closer to it than anyone. And in that moment, I just went by instinct, and Brad’s embrace felt right. More tears fell, more shaking, more crying so hard I wasn’t sure I’d be able to catch my breath. And the more I cried, the tighter Brad held me. I shouldn’t have compared the two, it wasn’t fair, but I did. As sweet as Marty was, I didn’t feel with him what I did with Brad. Granted, I shared a lot more with Brad, but on paper, I should have wanted Marty. Marty was the sweetheart. The good guy. But right or wrong, I was finally listening to my body, and though it wasn’t a competition, there was no question who it wanted.

  I’m not sure how long we stayed like that. Brad held me until I was finally ready to break away.

  “Let me take you home.” His eyes pleaded. “Let me take care of you.”

  I looked up at him with watery eyes, still unable to speak.

  “Please. Please, Steph. Let me love you.”

  It shouldn’t have taken my mother dying to hear those words, but I was so fragile I just nodded and walked out with him. I poked my head into Marty’s office. “Brad’s going to take me home. I don’t think I can work today.”

  Marty’s eyebrows furrowed. “Brad?” and I pointed to him. Whatever Marty’s expression was, I didn’t care. I needed to leave. I needed to be comforted. And Brad was offering that.