by Cat Mann
****
“Ari!”
“Mmm.”
“Ari!” Nick hollered at me and shoved my shoulder.
“Dude, what the heck!”
“Ari, it’s Ava…”
My eyes shot open wide and I sucked in a fast breath of air. “What?”
“She’s having an anxiety attack.”
I jumped from my seat with Max in my arms and all but shoved him into my dad’s lap. My mother was hollering for me but I was already shooting through the kitchen like an arrow, splitting the groups of women to either side to get to Ava as quickly as possible.
She stood at the oven with a broken dish at her feet. The color had drained from her face, her breathing was heavy and labored and she gasped for air as if she were drowning. She trembled and backpedaled away from the women that were closing in on her to come to her aid. She was most certainly having another anxiety attack and the panic was hitting her fast and strong.
Max started to scream from the living room and my dad slid out of the front door with him kicking and flailing in his arms.
“Look at me!” Inside, I was already beginning to panic but I remained calm and strong for her. Her eyes were turning darker by the second. “Ava, look at me!” I demanded in as firm a tone as I could manage. “Listen to me.” I talked fast, trying everything I could to keep her from slipping away to a dark corner of her mind. “Breathe. You can breathe. Take a breath and look at me. I know how scared you feel, but you're safe. I'm here. I can walk you through this.”
Nothing. Fear moved in and pulled Ava away from me.
Family members stared at us with gaping mouths and the others looked at anything except the two of us in uncomfortable silence.
“Look at my face!” I shouted at her and her head snapped up to look me in the eyes. I held her cheeks in my hands, keeping her head in place. “Ava, breathe. You are safe and I am here.”
Her fingers dug into the fleshy scar on her left wrist and she ripped at her skin, drawing blood.
“I’m fine.” She blinked her shadowy, vacant eyes and turned to walk away.
“Shit.” The word pushed out with the air that broke free from my lungs.
I hated her words. Loathed them. The pit of my stomached churned every time I heard her say it. “I’m fine.” It was a lie. A big fat lie. She wasn’t fine. She was the furthest thing from being fine.
She had come face to face with a trigger and she wasn’t at all ready to deal with the emotions that came with it. The shock to her was as if she had taken a blind-side punch to the face.
“Ari,” My mother whispered in disappointment at my foul language.
I ignored her and went after Ava as she headed towards my old room. My arm wrapped protectively around her waist and together we escaped through the doorway and away from watching eyes. I sat Ava on the bed, went to my knees at her feet and looked up at her.
“I am here, talk through this with me. Don’t shut me out, Ava.”
She hyperventilated, her hands trembled, and her skin was hot to the touch. My worry was that she would go back down the road of hiding her fear and sorrow and that she would lie to me again, reverting to using damaging coping mechanisms. I couldn’t and wouldn’t allow that to happen.
I curled my arms around her body and pressed my forehead to hers. “I will never leave your side,” I whispered. “I love you more than anything on earth and in heaven too. Together we will get through this. You can’t shut me out … I won’t let you, not even for a second. We are in this together. I know you aren’t fine. You know you cannot lie to me, Baby.”
She nodded. The gesture was small and brief but her simple acknowledgment gave me a flicker of hope. Her eyes looked into mine, dark and haunting but she was in there somewhere.
Tapping a finger on her temple I said, “Don’t let this claim you. You are mine. You are Max’s.” I moved my palm and felt the baby hiccup. “You belong to this baby. I love you, Ava.”
We stared back at each other in silence.
“You’re my rock,” her words inched quietly just past her lips. The heaviness drained from her breathing and the tremble in her fingers subsided. Ava blinked and there she was again, with sea-green eyes. She pressed her palm against my chest over my heart. “Your love is so great, Ari. You keep me sane. You’re so strong.” Her voice was tiny and quiet.
“No. You are the strong one, Ava. Believe me.”
“Thank you for helping me. That was unexpected -- a complete sucker punch.”
“What was it? What was your trigger?”
She lay back on the bed and I moved off my knees to join her and hold her close.
“I love you, Ari.” She said, but she didn’t answer my question.
“Love you.” I tucked a lock of silky hair behind her ear.
“I don’t know how I will ever live without you.”
“You won’t ever have to find out.”
“I need you.”
“I’m here.” Her lips pushed against mine before I could finish my word. She caught me by surprise with rushed and urgent kisses and I was slow to react. She moved fast, her body pressed against me, she straddled my legs and ripped fistfuls of my hair, yanking my head back and keeping it place. Her teeth grazed my lips and my mouth opened on command. My body responded to her body on cue but my mind knew our behavior was wrong.
Ava’s fingers untangled themselves from my hair and moved down my chest. Our kisses grew deeper and we were immersed in one another. She was hot and did what she always did, and it turned me on. Ava ran her hands all over me and frisked her way down my body in search of the button on my pants.
“Whoa, no, no,” I breathed in her ear after the quick zip sound came from her undoing my pants.
“What?” She panted and slipped her fingers under the waistband of my boxers. The sensation of her touch was electrifying. I had to lock my hands like cuffs around her wrists to put a halt to her pursuit and give myself a moment to clear my head.
“Slow down. We can’t do that here.”
“Why not?” Her voice was throaty and sexy.
“I have too much respect for you, Ava. You are fragile right now and it wouldn’t be right for me to take advantage of you.”
“I want it.” She broke free from my grip and tugged at my shirt in another attempt to undress me. “You want it, too, I know you do.”
“I am a man. I always want sex.” I wrestled her to gain control of her hands again.
“So? Come on.” She moved her hips forward, then back, then forward again in a seducing, perfect rhythm. I wanted her badly, to rip her clothes off and take her up against the wall and she knew it.
I locked onto her wrists again, rolled her off me onto her back and straddled her thighs, pinning her down.
“What’s gotten into you? You’ve never been like this before.”
The tops of her cheeks flushed and I smiled down at her and kissed the corner of her mouth.
“There are twenty or more people down the hall just thirty feet from the door. The answer is no, Ava. I’d like to think that we’re a little classier than that.”
“You’re turning me down?”
“No. Never. I am postponing. There’s a difference.”
“To when?” She pouted.
“To when we are home and alone and I can take my sweet ass time kissing every single inch of you.”
“I don’t think I can wait that long.” She moaned, bit her lip and tried to push her hips up against me.
“Stop it,” I laughed. “You are a freak! A deviant! You’re trying to bring me over to the dark side!”
“No I am not!” she laughed back. “I just need you.”
“I am here, Baby. But we need to put the horse before the cart. We're in a house full of family and friends. Your mind just went somewhere incredibly dark and scary. We need to take some time to heal first and then you can rub your body up
against me any way you want … when we are alone and in the privacy of our own room at home. OK?”
She bobbed her head up and down with pouty eyes.
“I am going to let you go now. I trust that you won’t attack me and try and rip my clothes off after my back is turned.”
She flashed a smile and I let go of her wrists then eased off her lap and offered a hand to help her sit. She fixed her tank top, covering her exposed belly and then the neckline so her chest wasn’t popping out in an alluring and too-inviting way. Ava ran a finger around the bottom of her lip, removing any leftover lip-gloss.
“Your hair certainly looks like we just screwed.” I ruffled her now tangled mop of waves.
“Ari!” She was either appalled at my choice of words or was a very good actor. Her mouth hung wide open and her hand slapped against my shoulder with a loud smack that was bound to leave a welt. She yanked her hair tie off her wrist and threw her hair up in a messy uncombed bun.
“That doesn’t look any better,” I teased, and she slapped me again ... but this time it was in playful fun.
I zipped and buttoned my pants, straightened my shirt and ran a hand through my hair. Ava re-did her hair in the mirror, removing the hair tie and finger-combing through the locks until it was smooth and pretty again.
“Are you alright? Do you need more time?” I asked before we exited my old bedroom.
“I'll be okay.”
“No one out there will ever judge you, you know that, right?”
“I know.”
“They love you. All of them. Everyone understands.”
“I know.” She shrugged in an uncomfortable fidget.
“Did you take your meds today?” She hated that I asked her almost as much as I hated the need I felt to ask.
She didn’t answer me and instead buried her face into my chest.
The crease in my forehead deepened, “Are you sure everything is ok?” I tried to pry her back to look in to her eyes but she resisted me.
We walked back towards the kitchen hand in hand with Ava a step behind me. Most of the family was seated at the table and my mother and aunt were busily placing platters of food in the middle of the group.
My mother saw us first and she came to Ava’s side, wrapping her arms around her shoulders. “Baby, I am so sorry. I am here for you if need me.”
“Aggie, I’m alright. Stop. Don’t worry about me.” Ava slipped away from my mom’s hug and my mother frowned deeply. Ava copes with her problems differently than the rest of us. If anyone in our family is ever in need, we immediately turn to one another for support and help. Ava is the opposite. She pushes people away and hurts the ones she loves the very most. When she works through a stint of depression, she gets angry. She lashes out at people and hurts their feelings. When she really needs someone, she chooses to isolate herself instead of reaching out for comfort and when people try to help her, she kicks them away. My mother understood this about Ava. We had all learned it, the hard way, but it didn’t make the rejection from her any easier.
“Mama!” Max hollered at Ava from my dad’s arms across the room. We gasped at the sweet, perfect, lyrical sound of his voice. My dad set him down and Max ran to her side and hugged her.
“Say it again, please,” she whispered to him.
“Love you,” he said instead and my heart smiled.
“I’ll join you in just a minute.” I kissed Ava’s cheek and disappeared out the back door to the sun porch before she could stop me or ask where I was going.
My cell phone was in my pocket and I pulled it out and thumbed through my list of contacts. The phone rang three times before someone answered.
“Hello, this is Ari Alexander, I am terribly sorry for bothering you, I am trying to reach Dr. Phillips on behalf of my wife, Ava.”
“Oh, hi Ari.”
“Hi, Mrs. Phillips. Again I am so sorry to bother you on a Sunday.”
“He gave you our number to call anytime and he meant it, you needn’t apologize. Unfortunately though, Robert took the grandkids sailing this afternoon. I expect him home within the hour. Can I have him call you back?”
“Yes, please. I would really appreciate it.”
“He has your number here. I will make sure he receives the message and he’ll call you back after he’s home.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Ari.”
Hanging up the line, I took a few quick calming breaths and returned to the kitchen. All the plates sat empty and everyone waited on me to return and join them.
“Sorry to hold you all up.” I slid into my seat. “Let’s eat.”
No one said anything. They all understood what I had been doing and who I had been talking with. Everyone knew but Ava and my heart ached for her. I was betraying her by calling her doctor behind her back. At times, she has gotten very angry with me for doing this, but if I didn’t do it, she wouldn’t go and she needed to get a little extra help. I needed her to get the extra help.
“Ari,” my mother placed a bread knife down beside me, “would you slice the bread please? Ava made it this evening.”
Tradition in our family is that whoever bakes the bread, the spouse then slices the bread. The ritual started at my grandparents' wedding. My Yaya Elodie had been nervous the evening before her wedding day and stayed up baking bread -- kneading dough has a certain stress relief that a person can’t get anywhere else with clothes on. She had so much bread the next day that they served it with the meal and my Papus Cal insisted on slicing every piece for her. Guests at the wedding said that the one little act of slicing bread exemplified the perfect type of love and commitment to one another that was needed to make a marriage work. The Alexanders, all of us, have practiced the custom ever since.
The warmth from the bread and the delicious scent wafted in the air as I sliced through Ava’s crusty psomi loaf.
Psomi is my favorite. Whenever Ava is put in charge of a dish, she always makes my favorite. She makes my favorite potatoes, my favorite pie, my favorite vegetables. It’s always what I like best and I love her for that. She makes me feel special in some silly way.
“Looks good, Baby.” I glanced down at her as she fidgeted with the napkin on her lap.
Plates were filled up with caprese chicken, roasted potatoes, couscous, vegetables, and Ava’s bread. A weird tension made conversation uncomfortable. Ava squirmed and she pushed her food across her plate.
Rory, who still wasn’t speaking to me, did me a massive favor and eased the strain by talking about the baby. Everyone joins the conversation when the baby is brought up and he knew that topic above all else would lighten the mood. Rory could always be relied on for breaking the ice and smoothing the path.
“Ava, did you choose a name yet?” He shoved a bite of hot bread in his mouth and chewed loudly.
“Oh! I assumed Ari had already told everyone.”
“No! We don’t know anything!” My mother practically jumped up and down in her seat. “You have names!” she cheered.
“Only one …”
“What is it!?” three people said at once.
Ava looked up to me, unsure if I wanted to be the one to deliver the news. “Best not keep them waiting. This is a very impatient group.” I waved her on, giving her the floor.
“We chose Cal … for a boy.”
Everyone smiled.
“Cal is a perfect name for your son, Ava,” Julia, who had cherished my grandparents, said quietly with a hint of heartache and we all agreed with sad eyes as we remembered my grandfather. She was right. Cal was a perfect name for Ava’s son.
“What do you think you’re having?” My sister kept the talk up and I looked over to Ava and waited for her answer. She wavered weekly from the baby definitely being a girl to without a doubt a boy.
“A boy. Once we decided on naming him Cal, the baby just felt like a boy to me. The name just made everything feel so real.”
“Ari, what about you? Do you want another boy or a girl this time?”
My sister is by far the best at treating Max as if he had been in Ava’s and my life since his birth.
“I don’t think the baby’s gender matters to me. I'll be happy no matter what. Another boy would be fun. But I think I’d like to have a girl. With a mother like Ava, she would be the second most beautiful woman in the world and I’d cherish every inch of her. But I do worry about how many boys I may have to kill when she grows older.”
My dad nodded and rubbed Lauren’s back with his palm.
“And Max? What about you? Sister or brother?” my sister continued.
“Bwudda,” he said, and my heart leapt from my chest again at the sound of his voice.
“Brother?” Lauren clarified and Max nodded.
“Well, I want a niece, so I can do her hair, paint her pretty nails and dress her in ruffles. What are you two thinking about for girl names? Any favorites?” My sister continued some more.
“Ari is obsessing over the name Ileana. He won’t let it go to rest. But I don’t have any names that I have fallen in love with yet.”
“Ari, don’t name her Ileana, please.” Lauren laughed at me.
“It’s pretty. I really like it.” I defended my choice.
“It’s old sounding. The baby will come out of Ava looking a like a ninety-year-old Greek woman. You know, the kind that still wears a wool cloak with a matching headpiece and lives in the villages without electricity.”
Everyone laughed at my sister and that was all we needed to move forward.
“I think Agatha is a beautiful name, Ava. I am willing to share it with my granddaughter in case you are interested.”
“You are right, Agatha is a beautiful name for a beautiful person.” Ava smiled kindly at my mom and her comment made my mother’s day.
Instead of just pushing her food around, Ava started to eat and began giving more to the conversation.
“The doctor is sending home birthing videos at my next appointment for Ari and me. We have a date night Friday to watch them together. I am really getting nervous!”
“Oh, Ava, you’ll do just fine. I remember when I went into labor with Ari --”
“Nope.” My dad coughed and sputtered out an interruption. “Not at the dinner table, Ag. No way.”
“Uh! I was just going to say that --”
“Stop it right there, Aggie. Whatever you have to say from that day will scare the girl to death and ruin all of our appetites.”
We laughed some more and my phone silently vibrated in my pocket. Without a word, I pushed my chair back from the table, stood and left the room. The no-phones-allowed-at-the-dinner-table rule didn’t apply to me. At least not anymore.
“Hello, this is Ari,” I answered after I reached the door and was out of earshot.
“Ari. Hello, this is Dr. Phillips. I have a message here from Susan that you called.”
“Yes. Thank you for calling me back.”
“What’s going on?” He slid immediately into doctor mode.
“Ava had a trigger this afternoon that caused an anxiety attack, and she also had a smaller one earlier in the week.”
“Are these old triggers or new ones?”
“I don’t think they are old ones, but she hasn’t told me.”
“OK. Give me the details, how was she acting?”
I gave him a breakdown of her anxiety attack and he listened to me and made small ‘hmms’ or ‘ohhs.’
“Is she doing alright now?”
“Better but she is still not quite herself.”
“I’d like to see her tomorrow morning and see if she’ll open up with me and talk.”
“That sounds good.”
“Do you think you can get her to agree to come?”
“She’ll be there.”
“Can you arrange for a sitter? As fond as I am of Max, Ava doesn’t talk much when he accompanies her.”
“Yes, of course, whatever we need to do, we will do.”
“Is she still taking her medication regularly?”
“As far as I know, yes.”
“Good. Is there anything else going on with her?”
“She is having nightmares again. I am not sure what they are about, though. These ones are different and they make her very sad. I worry that they may add to the anxiety and maybe some depression. We are also dealing with an issue with Max.”
“Ok, I can try to see if she will talk about that, too.”
“That’d be great.”
“I hate to do this but I need to remind you that I am bound by patient confidentially, Ari. I cannot discuss my conversations with Ava with you.”
“I know. I just want her to talk to someone.”
“I’ll see her tomorrow around nine.”
“Thank you … um?”
“Something else?”
“She will kill me if she knows I talked to you about this but she certainly won’t bring it up herself…”
“I have heard it all before, lay it on me.”
“She’s um. Her sex drive has …”
“Increased?”
“Yes! Should I be concerned?”
“No need for concern. It is most likely her body responding to her hormones during pregnancy. An increased libido during the second and third trimester are quite common. After the baby arrives, Ava will be out of commission for six to eight weeks and you’ll both be too tired to act on any impulses. Enjoy this while it lasts.”
“Will do.”
“I’ll see her in the morning.”
“Thank you again.”
I walked back in to the house, Ava was watching me and ignoring Rory’s attempt to drag her back in for more baby talk. I busied myself by clearing the table for my mom, removing the dirty dishes and stacking them in the deep sink. I sliced three different pies and set them on the table. I couldn’t meet Ava’s eye. Guilt made my stomach churn.
Ava pushed the plate of pie that I placed in front of her away without taking a single bite. I eased back into my seat next to her.
“What time?” she stared ahead at nothing. She knew what I had done.
“Nine.”
She nodded and accepted her appointment without argument. She knew she needed to go.
“My mother will watch Max, right Mom?”
My mom swallowed air after I pulled her into the tense conversation and pushed a smile up her cheeks. “You bet I will.” She winked at Max, “I volunteered for the bake sale for Lauren’s dance team. You can help me make the brownies -- double fudge!”
Max squealed with excitement. I placed an arm around Ava and squeezed her. She stiffened at my touch. I leaned in close to her, my shoulder touching hers, buried my nose in her hair and put my lips to her ear. “I called him because I love you. I am sorry if you are mad, but I only did it because I care.”
She stayed firm and resolute for a moment and then gave up on the angry bit and relaxed. “I know.” She thawed then turned to me and pressed her forehead to mine, causing her hair to fall like curtains around our faces. “You are my rock, Ari. I won’t go back to the way I was before. I promise. I’ll talk to Phillips tomorrow and get back on track. Your love for me is so strong. I want to be strong for you, too.” Her lips touched mine and my skin immediately warmed, my nerves buzzed and my desire for her raced through my bloodstream.
“I can’t wait for later.” I murmured and kept my lips on hers. A tiny, breathy moan escaped from her throat and my tongue slipped just barely past her parted lips. Our hearts hammered and beat like a bass drum and she moved in closer, her mouth opening to grant me access. I smiled with my kisses, unable to hide my pleasure with Ava who had forgotten about our audience.
“Oh, for Christ's sake!” my dad’s fist pounded the tabletop and glasses jumped and rattled.
Ava’s teeth bit my tongue again and the rusty taste of blood replaced the sweet
flavor of her mouth.
“God dangit!” I yelled, “Ava, do you always have to bite?”
She blushed an allover pretty pink.
“You two are worse than a couple of spring rabbits!”
“Stop it, Andy. It’s cute.” My mother batted her lashes.
“It’s not cute when I am trying to eat!”
Max giggled. My sister playfully shoved a finger down her throat, Gianna mumbled something about her sons knowing how to behave at the dinner table, Thais and Nick both grunted, the rest laughed and then Julia pushed away from her seat and ran to the hall in tears. Rory then followed her.
“I’m so sorry, Andy,” Ava squeaked and I blotted my tongue with a napkin.
“I can’t stay mad at you, sweetheart; you’re having my grandbaby. But you!” he jabbed a finger in the air at me, “you got what you deserve. Next time I hope she bites it off.”
“She might have this time. Christ Ava!” My words trickled out in a mumbled lisp and people laughed some more. I scooted away from the dining table to rinse out my mouth and Ava, my sister and everyone else began to clear the rest of the plates.
“Jules, what’s wrong? Why are you crying again?”
“Leave me alone, Rory.”
Their talk carried down the hall from Julia’s old bedroom, used now as a playroom for Max and future family children, and I paused before passing by the door.
“No, I won’t leave you alone. You have to tell me what’s bothering you. What did I do?”
“You didn’t do anything.” She sniffled and I could picture the downslope of her eyes when she is sad.
“Why won’t you talk to me?”
“There is nothing to talk about.”
“Bull shit! Tell me what is going on!”
“Nothing is going on.”
“Why are you lying to me all the time? You’re breaking my heart, Julia. I give you everything you ask for. I try so hard to make you happy. I’m not Ari. I know I am not freaking Ari! Everyone knows I am nothing like him. I’m sorry -- I can’t afford that big stupid house of theirs, I don’t have his dumb overpaid job. But I am trying my best here, you gotta give me some credit. I’m gonna give you the life you want just … have faith in me.”
“I don’t want you to be Ari.” She cried some more.
“Then what do you want? I asked you to marry me, Julia -- you said no, remember? How can you … how can you be like this?!” He spat.
“Things aren’t going to work between us, Rory.”
“What? Don’t say that. You’re my girl, Jules. I’d do anything for you. Please don’t say that. What do I have to do? Anything, I’ll do anything.”
“I love you, Rory. But I don’t think I can make us work anymore.”
Oh shit! I sprinted down the hall and silently slammed the bathroom door right before Julia ran from the room. Rory’s quick, pounding footsteps followed out after her. I had heard way more than I ever should have and if Rory found out I had been there listening, he’d kill me. He had put his heart on the line and proposed to Julia and she had said no. In all my life, I had never felt more of a brotherhood type bond to him. I wanted to be there for him and I couldn’t -- he could never know that I knew. I would never be forgiven. I couldn’t even begin to fathom how he must have felt -- how heavy his heart must be. His footsteps rounded the corner hall and I watched through a slit in the door as he walked out the front door alone.