The Waiting

by Joe Hart

  “More,” Shaun said, trying to push his empty mug across the table.

  Evan took it and walked to the counter, his movements automatic, his eyes unfocused as the sun climbed higher.

  24

  Evan forgot about Selena coming over for dinner until the moment she knocked on the door.

  He and Shaun had spent the rest of the day cleaning and tidying up the house, his decision to leave the next morning as resolute as one of the pines growing outside. When he opened the door—half dreading the conversation he knew they would have to have—his thoughts stumbled over one another at the sight of her standing there in the afternoon sun.

  Selena’s hair was lustrous and curled, hanging in brown dangles that framed her face. She wore a formfitting long-sleeved blouse that held tight to her flat stomach and a pair of capris that hugged her hips in curves that kept wanting to draw his eyes downward. A waft of cherry blossom crossed the distance between them, and he felt drugged, helpless but to look at her in the doorway.

  She smiled, tipping her right shoulder, which held the straps of a reusable grocery bag. “Are you going to let me in or just stare at me?”

  “Stare at you.”

  Selena laughed. “Here.”

  She handed him the grocery bag, and when he looked inside, he saw the makings of a salad, steaks, a small bag of red potatoes, and two bottles of wine.

  “Whoa,” he said, carrying the bag to the kitchen.

  “Yeah, I got a little carried away, but I thought I’d bring dinner, seeing as you guys have fed me so many times. Hi, Shaun.” Selena knelt next to Shaun’s chair and rubbed his shoulder, and then tickled his neck until he giggled.

  “You didn’t have to do this.”

  “I know, I wanted to. Now pour me a glass of wine and get out of my way, I need space to create a masterpiece.”

  Evan shrugged playfully and uncorked one of the bottles. Selena worked for the next hour, pausing only to take a small sip from her wineglass from time to time. Smells of cooking steak and boiling potatoes filled the kitchen, and soon Evan heard Shaun’s stomach rumble from the other side of the table.

  “I think you’ve got a fan over here,” Evan said, motioning to Shaun.

  Selena laughed. “You know the old adage about finding a way to a man’s heart.”

  “Through a wineglass?”

  “No, quit it.”

  Selena moved with an easy grace around the kitchen, flipping a steak here, chopping lettuce there. Evan could see her doing the same thing in their kitchen in the cities. Could he somehow make it work if they left tomorrow?

  “What’s got you down?” Selena asked, taking the potatoes off the stove.

  “Nothing. Thinking again.”

  “Looked like bad thoughts.”

  “No, just cumbersome, like the song.”

  “Which song?”

  “‘Cumbersome,’ Seven Mary Three.”

  “Which is the band and which is the song?”

  Evan gave her an incredulous look. “You’ve never heard of Seven Mary Three?”

  “Nope.”

  “We shall have to remedy that, my dear.”

  She smiled, and before she turned back to the stove, Evan thought he saw a hint of red on her cheeks.

  ~

  They ate mostly in silence, not because they were uncomfortable but because the food was that good. Evan had never tasted steak like the one he devoured from his plate, its flavor oaky, with a hint of lime mixed in. The salad and potatoes were equally delicious, and before long all their plates were empty.

  “Sorry I didn’t bring dessert,” Selena said, wiping her mouth with a napkin.

  “This is dessert enough for me,” Evan said, raising his wineglass.

  “The way to a man’s heart.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Evan cleared the dishes away and began cleaning them in the sink while Selena talked about her day. She hadn’t seen many clients, but the few she did have were challenging.

  “The guy tried to spit on me when I told him his wife might be right.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. He gathered up some spit and hocked it at me, but I was far enough away and it landed on the table between us.”

  “So what’d you do?”

  “I told him, if that was the way he dealt with difference of opinion, then it was no wonder his wife wanted him to have counseling.”

  Evan smiled. “Are you even supposed to be telling me these things? Aren’t they confidential?”

  Selena tipped her head from side to side. “As long as I don’t mention any details, like names or anything, it’s kinda like a case study, and those get printed in magazines and books all the time.”

  “With the client’s permission.”

  “I’d say once he spit at me, his permission was given.”

  Evan laughed and glanced at Shaun, whose head was almost touching the table, his eyes closing and opening with long blinks. Selena noticed at almost the same time.

  “Oh, poor baby,” she said, putting a hand on Shaun’s shoulder.

  Evan dried his hands off with a dishtowel and came to the table, unfastening Shaun from his seat.

  “He’s exhausted. I forgot he didn’t have his afternoon nap.”

  “Didn’t he sleep good last night?”

  “No, we actually had to take a nighttime cruise into town.”

  “What? You’re kidding, what happened?”

  Evan related the events of the night before, his throat trying to close up when he described Shaun’s seizure. He left out the parts about seeing Becky and the toes in the closet, skimming over the rest of the day’s details quickly as he picked Shaun up and carried him to his room.

  “Sounds like you guys did a lot of cleaning,” Selena said, as he came back into the living room.

  She handed him his glass of wine and sat on the sofa. Evan considered the chair but then rested beside her, a little distance between them. The sun held above the tops of the trees across the lake, a forest fire in the sky.

  “Yeah, quite a bit.”

  “You’re leaving soon, aren’t you?”

  Evan sighed, took a sip of his wine.

  “Tomorrow.” He chanced a look at Selena and saw a resigned look on her face. “I’m sorry, it’s just not working out here.”

  He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth.

  “I understand.”

  “No, you don’t, you don’t. You’re great,” he said, scooting closer to her, until their knees almost touched. “You’ve really brightened things up for us. It’s me—”

  He floundered for a moment, trying to think of how to explain. “I’m afraid.”

  Selena looked up at him. “Afraid? Of what?”

  “Of this, of what’s happening between us.”

  “Evan, I—”

  “No, you don’t have to say anything. It’s me, it’s the life I have. I worry, constantly. I’m afraid all the time. I’m terrified that Shaun will have an accident or another seizure and I’ll be completely alone, and I couldn’t withstand losing him too. I’d break.”

  Selena moved closer still, as he lowered his head, her thigh touching his.

  “But what does that have to do with us? With ...” She shrugged. “Being happy?”

  Be happy.

  “It’s everything.”

  He stood and paced across the living room, watching the sun fall slowly. His heart beat fast, faster, faster still. He could see his pulse in his vision.

  Tell her everything. Tell her about your plans for the clock. Tell her about what you’ve seen, what you think you’ve seen. Tell her about—

  “When Elle got sick, I was hopeful. She was young and vibrant and strong, not the kind of person to ever even get a cold,” Evan said, facing away from the couch. “I thought, she’ll beat this and it will be a courageous story to tell our grandchildren someday. But she got sicker, and sicker, and none of the treatments worked.”

  He paused. �
��Like I told you before, I took money from my work, stole it to try some experimental treatments that weren’t covered by insurance. The experimental stuff worked better than the traditional medicine did, but barely. It was like she got a toehold while sliding down a steep mountain. Then my confidence started to slip. I caught myself wondering what it would be like raising Shaun alone, and damn me for being selfish, but I was. I suppose we all are on some level, but I kept thinking, I can’t do this alone, I won’t be able to.”

  Evan laughed, a choked sound that he drowned with more wine.

  “That was when the fear hadn’t fully taken over yet, when part of me believed everything would still work out all right. That’s sometimes the worst and best quality people possess, you know? To hope in the darkest times. Sometimes it pays off and faith is redeemed, and others—”

  Evan swallowed. A lump was forming in his throat, and no matter how many gulps of wine he took, it wouldn’t move. He knew what it was, and knew the only way to make it go away would be to keep talking.

  “Then one day, I knew. I knew she wasn’t going to get better. She’d had another round of chemo two days prior, and it was painful to look at her, to see how much less she’d become. She told me she hurt and she couldn’t take much more, and I—here’s the selfishness again—I told her she couldn’t quit, not on me and not on Shaun.”

  Evan tipped the last of his wine down his throat.

  “She told me to go to her bag, that there was something in there she wanted. She was too weak to get out of bed on her own. When I reached inside, there was a bottle of pain pills one of the doctors had prescribed for her when she was still able to be at home. It was almost full, and I remember how heavy that bottle felt, so heavy. She told me it was too much and she didn’t want to suffer anymore. She asked me to help her, to count out a dozen or so into her hand and then get her some water. She told me to pull the bag close to the bed, so it would look like she’d reached down and got them herself after I left.”

  A vein of tears ran down the right side of his face, and he wiped it absently.

  “I told her no. I walked out of the room, and she never brought it up again. I hated her at that moment, for asking me to do it, for getting sick in the first place. But you know what?”

  Evan turned halfway toward Selena, who was perched on the edge of the couch, her hands clasped in front of her mouth, her eyes shining.

  “I hated myself more than anything, for not being able to save her. And then when I couldn’t—for not being man enough to ease my wife’s pain, for letting her suffer.”

  Evan’s jaw trembled, and he knew, if he let them, his teeth would chatter, for he was very cold at that moment—so cold. He wiped again at his face and glanced at Selena, who had a hand pressed to her mouth, her fingers long and white.

  “So I carry that, and I get scared whenever someone else comes close. I want to go back and change things, change everything that’s happened, for Shaun and for Elle, for me, and when I realize I can’t, it’s just too much.”

  This was as close as he could come to telling her about the clock and his dashed hopes. He turned back to the sunset, only a red smudge on the western horizon now, fading to pink and dark blue where the bruise of night began in the sky.

  “I wonder if something in my mind broke a long time ago, if I’ve been crazy for a while, because sometimes it feels like the moorings are coming loose up here.”

  Evan tapped his skull. He was as used and empty as a paper cup in a gutter. Any relief he might’ve had at speaking about Elle’s last request was overshadowed by the guilt of saying it out loud. It was like being condemned in front of a judge and jury.

  He heard Selena rise from the sofa and begin to move across the living room toward the front door. He grimaced and waited for the sound of the knob being turned, but it didn’t come. Instead her hands gently gripped his sides, guided him around to face her. Her eyes gazed up into his, and she touched his face, traced the line of tears, and then leaned in close.

  Their lips met, and heat bloomed within him. First in his stomach, and then lower. Selena moved closer to him, ran a hand down his neck, across his chest, around to his back. Evan wrapped his arms around her, drawing her into the heat between them as her tongue darted into his mouth. She pulled him close, and he let out a small moan as her stomach brushed his growing erection. He tried to draw away then, embarrassed, but she pulled him even closer, ground his bulge against her. Their kiss broke, and she looked at him.

  “Take me to your room, Evan.”

  His heart did a stutter step, but he nodded and took her hand, leading her across the living room and down the hall. He couldn’t help but glance into Shaun’s room, and saw his sleeping face as they turned to the left. A truckload of shame fell on his shoulders. How could he do this across the hall from his son, whom he’d made with Elle, who was watching now? He could feel her eyes on him as Selena shut the door and came to him, finding his lips with hers in the twilit room.

  Evan moved backward until his legs met the bed. He sat on it and momentarily parted from Selena before she straddled him, climbing onto his lap. She guided his shaking hands beneath the bottom of her blouse, onto the warm, smooth skin of her stomach. He wanted to tear her shirt off, to hear the buttons pop free as he exposed her, but he stopped, a sick ball of guilt burning in his stomach. It churned there, with thoughts of Elle in the same position as Selena so many times before. How she’d come to him in the shower sometimes, nude and smiling, washing him off before kneeling before him. The lace she’d worn on their first night together, and how he hadn’t lasted more than a few seconds. But he’d recuperated quickly, and she’d cried his name over and over again until they were both breathless.

  Selena reached down between them and rubbed him through his jeans, but he was already softening. She kissed him again, but he sat back, withdrawing his hands from beneath her shirt.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, her eyes wide in the low light, her pupils huge with arousal.

  “I can’t,” Evan said, not believing he’d spoken the words. “I want to, but I can’t, not now.”

  She tried to read his expression in the falling dark—he assumed to see if he was bluffing, if there was something else there. She slowly slid off him, the sweetness of her heat leaving him, a pang of regret taking its place. He wanted to know her warmth, to slide into it, to bury his face in her cherry-blossom hair and feel himself release inside her.

  Evan blinked, feeling himself rise again, desire coming over him in a new wave. He reached out and held her hand.

  “I’m sorry, it’s not that I don’t want you. I do, very, very much. But it’s still too soon. Do you understand?”

  Selena let a long breath out and nodded. “Yes, of course I do.” She smoothed out her blouse and ran a quick hand through her hair. “I suppose I should go, it’s getting late.”

  “Stay with me,” he said, holding on to her hand a little tighter. “Stay here tonight.”

  He waited for her to pull away or shake her head, but she did neither.

  “Okay.”

  Evan guided her around to the other side of the bed, and she lay down on top of the blankets. He did the same, and after a bit of arranging, she scooted close to him, tucking her head against his chest, hugging his stomach with one arm. He put his hand on her waist and pulled her nearer. She sighed, and he could feel her breath, warm through his T-shirt.

  The fatigue he’d battled all day collapsed on him at once, a gutted building falling in, piling in with the undeniable promise of rest. He tried to say good night but drifted off before he could form the words.

  ~

  Evan awoke sometime in the night, his eyes coming open like shutters thrown wide. He’d been dreaming of something—darkness so black it was solid. He’d tried to walk through it and felt things touching him, quick, intimate caresses that chilled and made him sick with fear. That’s when he’d realized the darkness was alive and nothing but its cold embrace, like a long-dead
lover, was there.

  He blinked and rolled over, suddenly afraid that Selena would be gone, but she wasn’t. She lay on her back beside him, breathing softly. He moved closer to her form, feeling her warmth again, and reached out, searching for her hand in the darkness. He found it resting on her stomach and slid his palm into hers, remembering how he would do the same thing with Elle on nights when sleep eluded him. The comfort of holding her hand, even while she slept, helped send him back into a serene rest. Selena clasped his hand tighter, and he scooted closer to her, the smell of her perfume not as vivid as before but still there, somehow even more enticing as it mellowed. Another scent met his nostrils, and Evan opened his eyes, sleep leaving him fully.

  Decay.

  There was no mistaking the stink. It was the same as the smell from the closet, as heavy and cloying as an open grave. He raised his head a few inches off his pillow and looked at Selena’s profile, her lips parted, her eyelashes long against the top of her cheeks. Evan sat up a little more, and Selena shifted, her elbow bumping his shoulder.

  His eyes traveled up and saw that both her arms were above her head, hands splayed out on her pillow.

  The hand he held squeezed once. Evan tried to rip his arm back, but the fingers gripped him tighter as he opened his mouth to cry out. His eyes shot to the hand holding his, the rotting flesh almost black in the dim starlight that shone through the window, the arm attached to it snaking into the darkness beside the bed.

  “Uhh!” he grunted, and managed to break his hand free.

  The other hand slid away, and a quiet scuffling sound came from the other side of the bed. A shape rose and stood over them, hunched and broken, its face turned toward him, its outline reminiscent of something ancient, curled in on itself by time. The figure limped across the room, not thin and ephemeral but solid and real. With a turn of its stunted head, it went through the open door toward Shaun’s room.

  “No! No!”

  Evan sprang from the bed, his yells and the commotion waking Selena.