Missed Connection

by K Larsen

  “So all your crafting is completely self-taught? That’s impressive. You and Angie have a reputation that’s up there with the best in the business.”

  “Well, I read books, watched Julia and later Martha, religiously. The Joy of Cooking was my bedside book instead of fiction and I was the first one in line when they opened the Home Depot in Manhattan. It was, for me, a convenient escape mechanism. John never wanted me to work because he thought me mentally fragile, so I had a ton of time and a daughter who shared an intense passion for creating.”

  “Having a love for something is one thing, but turning it into a successful business is another skill entirely. You’re pretty amazing, Jesenia Van Buren.”

  “Ever since she was small, Angie and I went berserk during the holidays. We pillaged other cultures’ traditions and made decorations the likes of which our neighborhood had never seen before. A couple of times, the town house was featured in magazines. We did three trees every year in the City and a huge one at the house upstate. An outdoor light display on both houses that took weeks to create. We did a British Christmas once and came up with a Charles Dickens theme. We had a goose, made fig pudding and even roasted chestnuts. John thought we were crazy. Another year, we did a Swedish one and Angie dressed as Lucia with real candles on her head. It’s my favorite time of year, Ty. I can’t wait to spend it with you and Luke. If you won’t kill me, I might do some decorations around the house before Christmas Eve.”

  “You can decorate the house anyway you’d like, we only save the tree decorating for Christmas Eve,” I tell her. She smiles and nuzzles into my side a little more.

  It’s almost Christmas. Ty is still with us. He’s fighting hard, but little things are changing. We don’t talk about them, mention them out loud, but both of us notice and commiserate in silence with guarded, furtive looks. He gets winded easily and is always tired. All of the jeans he looks so good in, don’t quite fit his hips the same way anymore. I bought him a belt. I cried when I bought it, tried even harder not to cry when I gave it to him. He used to gobble up my meals with enthusiasm, complimenting every bite and asking for seconds. Now he eats less than I do and I can tell he feels sheepish when I ask him if he’s full already. His coloring looks different, just enough for those close to him to notice. I notice. I notice every little change and I resent all of them.

  If it were up to me, we would go out with guns blazing—try every new method, swallow every trial antidote. But it’s not up to me and I have to respect his wishes. Ty wants to enjoy what’s left, so that’s what we do, we enjoy it. We love one another the very best we know how and we wait for the final bell to ring, for God to reclaim his soul.

  And it’s remarkable how much fun we manage to have, how much sex and love and intimacy we can cram into every evening. How much we uncover about one another by telling stories of our pasts, remembering our adventures from childhood. We talk about the future sometimes, too. We see it as a bright place, where I continue to love Luke and support him as much as I can. Where I spend more time with Angie and Andrew and at Ty’s insistence, I pick back up with my crafting and maybe rejoin the podcast. It doesn’t seem terrible when Ty describes it, but it’s a future I don’t want, one I’d sacrifice anything to not have to face. A future without Ty seems to me a very frightening, broken and cloudy place.

  “What time do Angie and Andrew arrive?”

  “They’ll be here before dark for sure. Angie’s got it in her head that she wants to go caroling.”

  “I might have to pull out the cancer card on that one,” Ty says smiling. He takes a sip of his coffee and shakes his head sheepishly.

  “Oh, I don’t know if you can get out of it. She talked to Luke and he found a group from school that’s going. He said he’s up for it.”

  “Alright, alright. Don’t want to be Scrooge. Did you make that list of last minute groceries? I can swing by after work.”

  “You don’t have to go in if you’re not feeling up for it. Rusty and Dan have everything under control, I know they can manage—you said so yourself.”

  “It helps me to feel useful. I can’t just sit around and wait.” He runs his hands through his closely cropped hair. There’s more grey at the sides now. Streaks so perfectly placed they make him look like he should model for a menswear catalogue, distinguished, elegant, but still rugged in his Carhartt work pants. I walk over to him, twisting my hands in my apron. I’ve got two loaves of homemade bread rising under tea towels on the counter. I don’t know what to say and I know my expression is pained. I don’t want him to stress. I don’t want him to overexert himself. I just want to preserve him. I know he hates it when I act like he’s fragile.

  “Did you do this?” he asks, a smile reanimating his face.

  I nod in silence. He’s pointing to the mistletoe I hung up on the arch in the kitchen that leads to a small mudroom, a door, the back yard and the driveway. It’s the entry we all always use, as if the front door never existed.

  “Are you going to kiss me under here or what?”

  I rush into his arms and he kisses me long, deep and hard. I throw my hands around his neck and he lifts me off the ground.

  “I promise to stop working when I can’t anymore. I’ll stay home and let you take care of me. But for now, just let me make sure everything is in order. Luke deserves that.”

  “I know,” I say nodding. I think the hardest part of our relationship is that Ty accepts dying. He accepts the disease, he doesn’t believe he’s been robbed. He thinks all of this is atonement for the damned car accident in his past. Sometimes I want to remind him that he was under legal limit—that he wasn’t drunk driving, that he doesn’t have to carry with him the blame he holds onto. But Ty has lost people he loved and his mind is already made up about it.

  “Where’s my list?” he asks, smacking me playfully on the rear. I hand him the paper. “Call me at work if you think of anything else you need. Edie left a message that she’s doing potatoes, both kinds and call her if you want her to bring another pie—I don’t know, it’s on the machine, you can listen to it.”

  Angie and Andrew bustle through the door, covered in snow. It’s practically a whiteout, so there’s no doubt we’ll get a beautiful Christmas. Ty is in the kitchen dealing with the meat. We’re doing both ham and turkey for tomorrow to satisfy everyone’s needs. Luke is used to a ham and Angie grew up with turkey. This is how blended families manage—twice the food and twice the work preparing it.

  Hugs are genuine and the kids are happy to be together. Andrew decides to help Ty, while I go hang out with Angie and Luke in the living room. Luke has a box of ornaments out and he’s filling the tree. Angie is untangling lights, she looks up at me when I walk into the room. Hey eyes are wide and she gestures with her head toward the kitchen.

  “How is he?” she mouths, barely making any sound.

  “Okay. He’s tired. His good counts are low and the bad counts are high. But I’m lucky if he even updates me, let alone shows me the tests results.”

  “Jess, let’s not get into it. It’ll ruin his Christmas,” Luke says. His eyes are pleading with me.

  “He doesn’t want to be treated any differently, that’s the main thing.” I tell her and Luke nods his head solemnly.

  “Ty, you lazy brute, get your ass in here and help me with these tangled lights!” Angie screams in the direction of the kitchen. “Like that?” she asks Luke, smiling.

  “Oh, my God, I love you, Angie. You just made my Christmas and my whole life,” Luke says, grinning.

  Ty pokes his head around, peeking in at us.

  “Somebody need me?” he asks.

  “Yeah, next time, could you maybe splurge more than the dollar store? You’ve got the shittiest lights I’ve ever seen and your family is weird and apparently sucks at Christmas because this should have been done like a minimum of three weeks ago!”

  Ty is smiling like he couldn’t be more amused. Andrew walks in and looks disapprovingly at his wife to be.


  “So you want me to hang them?” Ty asks.

  “Yeah, I want you to hang them. What do I look like, your building superintendent? Get to work! These ones go around the fireplace.” Angie tosses the lights at Titan’s feet while Andrew looks on in shock.

  “Like that, Luke?” Angie whispers as she saunters over to the couch. Luke’s got his hand to his mouth, barely containing his laughter.

  Christmas dinner is a feast, the likes of which I’ve never seen before, Rusty and Dan and their kids, and our little family of five, but we’ve got enough food to feed the block, if not the whole town. We gathered at noon and we were seated at the table by four.

  “The table looks like it should be in a magazine, you’ve really outdone yourself,” Edie says, admiring the décor.

  “Probably was,” Luke garbles with his mouth full, “That’s what the Van Buren ladies are famous for.”

  Angie and I planned it all out on Pinterest, like the decorating nerds we are. I wanted it to be perfect, a memory that Luke would always have, his last Christmas with his father. A blue spruce centerpiece, intertwined with birch bark and red berries, silver and gold glittering pillar candles. Candy cane bark fudge truffles at each place setting Angie made and hand packaged at home. We combined some of Rory’s decorations that Luke knows from childhood. Not just the table, the whole house looks magical. I almost choke on my food, thinking that this time next year, Ty most likely won’t be here with us.

  We eat until we can no longer hold anything in. The boys want to play football and boast and brag that they aren’t deterred by the snow. Anna and Edie offer to help with dishes and we begin to clear the huge table, dropping down the extra wings as we go. I didn’t know if we could make it, so many people squished around an ancient oak table that belonged to Ty’s grandmother. But we managed it just fine and the tight squeeze only added to the ambiance.

  “How are you holding up?” Edie asks me. She warmly rubs my back through the sweater I’m wearing.

  “Okay. It’s hard to live your life like every moment matters. Exhausting actually, then you beat yourself up when something doesn’t go as planned or doesn’t live up to how you’d imagined it.”

  “You’re doing an amazing job,” Anna pipes in.

  “And Ty is stubborn, he’s always been. That’s just him. He wants to be a man for you, protect you, even though the symptoms are starting to show. Just let him take care of you, it’s what he wants more than anything else.”

  We load the dishwasher and put away the leftovers. The noise coming from the backyard sounds more like a snowball fight with tackling than a light game of touch football. A snowball hits the window with a loud thump and we start.

  “Is Angie playing, too?” Anna asks.

  “No, believe it or not, she and Andrew went caroling, they found a group going from a nearby church.”

  “That’s such a fun idea!” Edie says, pulling on her boots. Anna throws on a puffy white coat and pulls a red hat with a huge pompom on her head. “Are you coming out, Jess? We might take a stroll around the neighborhood, just to make some room for pie. I volunteer to whip the cream as soon as we get in.”

  “I’ll be out in a minute, I just want to warm the pies a bit. Thanks for all the help. It would have taken me twice as long without you.”

  I’m drying a ceramic gravy boat with a towel when I hear a yelp and commotion that sounds like someone got hurt. I wipe my hands on my apron and rush to the back door. Ty is charging away from the group looking distraught. He’s holding one hand in the other. I rush out the door in my socks and don’t even notice until I hit the landing.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “I’m fine,” Ty growls at me. Then he looks over his shoulder and yells, “I’m fine!” at all of his friends, but sounding far from it.

  I step out of his way as he charges past me into the house. He goes to the sink and frantically starts washing his wrist. It’s cut, maybe on ice but from where I am standing, it doesn’t look too bad. At least not an emergency room trip to the hospital on Christmas Day. I rush over to him, grabbing a towel from the drawer.

  “Stay away, there’s blood.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud, Titan, it’s not that contagious!” I ignore his requests and stand right next to him, reaching my hands into the sink.

  “I said I’m fine, now stay back!” Titan booms in his loudest voice. I drop the towel and step away, my hands coming to cross over my chest. Tears stream down my face; I’ve never seen him so angry.

  “I’m sorry, Jess. Jesus! I’m sorry,” Ty says. He throws the towel into the sink and begins walking toward me. He grabs me around the waist and presses his face into my neck. “I’m weak. I can feel it, it’s starting. I’m going downhill and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I feel so fucking helpless and I hate it.”

  His anger is monstrous, like he might snap in an instant. I rub his head and neck, bring my hands to press against his chest. He’s no longer worried about the blood or even the injury.

  Then, suddenly, he’s all over me, like a reckless fire spreading out of control, his hands splayed across my back, his mouth devouring my neck, biting, sucking and licking. His anger and desperation morph into passion. He touches my breasts through my sweater and I can’t help but glance at the door. Then his hands are on my ass and he’s shoving his tongue into my mouth.

  “I want to forget, help me forget, baby,” he says, between kisses. We’re mixing blood and tears, and it’s just like how fear and hope are both converging in on us. He pushes me back until I’m up against the wall. One hand goes between my legs and the other holds my chin steady while he forces his heavy, unraveled kisses into my mouth.

  “Let’s go upstairs,” I say. Warmth is already running its way through me, a fire trail of lust and sorrow, of defeat, of true love and ruin. I’m turned on by his desperation, by his raw, savage pain that’s both physical and existential. It’s tragic, yet somehow it’s so beautiful. I don’t recognize this woman who leaves her own dinner guests for sex, she’s a stranger to me, but whoever she is, I kind of respect her. The senator would be mortified if he knew of the vixen and lover his ex-wife has turned into.

  We rush up the stairs, our bodies crashing into walls and railings, yet softening against one another. He’s pawing at my clothes and getting them partway off of my body. We’re leaving behind a trail of garments as we make our way to the bed.

  “Ty,” I breathe into his kisses.

  “Make love to me.”

  Then we’re naked and rolling in the bed. He’s hard in all the places I’m soft and his body looks anything but sick. Ty is virile, he’s passionate, he’s as alive as any man can get. I slide down beside him and lick up his thick length. Taking him in my mouth, I savor the feeling of his flesh against my tongue, I savor his taste. He grabs his shaft at the base and guides himself into my mouth.

  “I’m not going to last like this,” he says. I’m not sure if he’s speaking about ejaculation or his emotional state.

  Ty grabs a condom from the drawer and I help him roll it on. His cock is rock hard, the veins pulsing, balls cinching in anticipation. If this is sick Titan, I can’t imagine what he would have been like in his prime. He shoves me back onto the bed, straddles me and hovers just over my hips.

  His cock is thick and engorged, all of the muscles in his body flexed, his chest is heaving and his nostrils flared, his fingers balled in fists. He leans down and kisses me brutally, once again holding my chin in place.

  “Don’t scream too loud when you come, I think I just heard them come in.” He says it with a smile, like a mischievous boy with his hand in the cookie jar.

  He uses one hand to steady himself and with the other, he spreads my own lubricant up and down my folds. I grind into his fingers, desperate for him to enter me. He does, in one slow thrust that nearly undoes me; I move my hips to meet him stroke for stroke. Arching my back as the pressure builds, it all starts to become too much. Ty’s fingers crawl up to my thro
at, his thumb hesitating against my jugular. His fingers caress my jaw and then he quickly ducks his fingers into my mouth. I desperately try to suck as he pulls them in and out. My own fingers answer the pulsing throb in my clit. I arch into his body and whimper as the orgasm fast approaches. I’m undone, he’s undone, our bodies frantically syncing with the rapid beating of hearts, the wild thoughts in our heads. Our union feels crucial, dangerous even, as we furiously reject that any one of these times could be our last.

  “As long as I can do this, I won’t feel like I’m failing. I love making you come. I can’t, I won’t ever get enough of it.”

  His words are too much and I tumble into climax. I want to hold Ty to my heart, to bind him, to memorize him; I never want to let go of him. My muscles contract and spasm until the orgasm shatters through me. I cry out anyway, despite guests, despite Christmas; I’ve got no control over it. Ty tears the condom off and ejaculates in hot ribbons of come onto the swell of my belly, the valley of my hip. We are both breathing hard, our faces stained with tears. There’s blood on the white sheets. The weight between us is so heavy, so loaded, neither of us have strength enough to bear it. He falls on top of me and we’re sweaty and spent; so emotionally drained.

  “Merry Christmas,” Ty whispers into my ear.

  “You are the very best present a girl could ever hope for,” I whisper back into his ear.

  I watch from the side of the house as Luke carefully makes his way up the driveway. As soon as he’s close enough, I launch my snowball at him. It pelts him right in the chin. He grunts and cries out while looking around. “You’re going down, old man!” I watch as he squats and scoops snow into his hands. When he stands, I step out from the side of the house and launch another snowball at him. I miss but only because he ducks.