by M. O'Keefe
“What about what happened with Lazarus?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You killed a man, Jack. Have you… like, talked to a priest?”
“Abby, baby. Please.”
“Okay,” she sighed. “I’m sorry. I just…” She shook her head, stopping herself from saying whatever she was going to say.
It took her a while, but she finally relaxed again and I went back to rubbing her spine. When one hand got tired, I moved behind her so I could get to her with my other hand.
After a while I realized she’d stopped moaning and shifting.
She was asleep. Asleep in my arms. In my bed.
I turned off the light and put my head beside hers on the mattress.
I fell asleep too, and dreamt terrible dreams of Abby being locked in a shipping container.
Chapter Twenty
AFTER
ABBY
My body was some kind of new beast. That orgasm? That had been some next-level shit right there. And the nap? I mean, I was taking sleep to a new level with this pregnancy, but it was like I’d come and then fallen into a coma.
I wanted a dozen more where those came from. I wanted an endless amount more. I would keep Jack around just for that if I had to.
He was sleeping in the bed as I pulled on my sweatshirt and slipped on my shoes. I couldn’t find my underwear, but that was okay.
I thought about what he would say if I told him I wanted him in my life just to give me orgasms. How he would quietly resign himself to that, maybe even manage to be thankful that he got to touch me.
Fuck. That guy.
How was I supposed to be the only one reaching? The only one risking?
I couldn’t, was the answer. I couldn’t be the only one doing that. He said he loved me, but he ran away when we talked about it. We had sex, but if I’d told him to leave after I’d come, he would have done it.
He would do anything I asked without asking for anything for himself.
That wasn’t sustainable.
Neither was the fact that he hadn’t talked to anyone about what happened that night at the Moonlight.
I found the notebook and pen in the small desk in the corner of the room and wrote a note to Jack, and then left him sleeping.
Our future unknown.
In the car I turned on my phone to about twenty texts from my sister. The last said:
You need to get back to me soon or I’m going to call the cops.
I’m fine, I texted her quickly. I’ll text you in ten.
I’d told her that Jack was here. That he’d given me a bunch of money. I told her that he loved me. And… I might love him.
She did not take any of that news well.
I drove back into town and parked behind the café. I lived in the apartment above it. It was small and smelled like meatloaf, but it was warm and it was quiet and it was mine.
I got myself a glass of water, wrapped myself up in the blanket I’d brought from home. My sister made it for me in some weird fleece craft stage she went through. And in my bedroom I grabbed my phone and texted my sister back.
My sister worried.
Hey, I texted her.
There was no more need for our ridiculous Cheetara Facebook subterfuge. I thought I was so clever when all I’d been was foolish.
Hey, she texted back almost immediately. Are you all right?
Fine.
What happened?
We had sex. We had like oh my god sex. Like the best sex ever. Pregnant sex.
Okay. I get the picture.
Get pregnant, sis. I’m telling you…
STOP BEING RIDICULOUS! WHAT IS GOING ON WITH JACK?
I ran my hand over my stomach. I hadn’t felt the baby move yet; the doctor and the books I’d read said it would be any day now. And I was anxious for some sign of life past the hormones I’d been flooded with for three months.
I’m a little scared I’m going to have to lock myself in the closet again.
Why? Did he hurt you?
No. Srsly. No. But I can’t do this alone, you know? He can’t be so scared of wanting something that he wants nothing. I can’t live like that.
I’m so worried for you, she wrote.
You have to trust me, I wrote. Just like I’m trusting you with Jesse.
It was remarkable that we’d fallen in with brothers. The odds on that had to be legendary.
Jesse is not like Jack, she wrote back fast.
I’m not sure the real Jack is at all like this Jack, I texted back to her. I think the real Jack is lost in this guy.
What if you don’t like the real Jack? What if the real Jack is a creep?
Impossible, I thought. I’d been falling in love with the real Jack the moment I saw him reading at the bar.
Call it intuition, I texted.
Playing the mother card so soon? she wrote and I could hear her teasing me from across the miles.
I haven’t spent your money, I texted. And I’m not going to. I never should have taken it. I freaked out and fell back on old habits. And worse, I let you fall back on old habits. And I tore apart your life for nothing.
I don’t know, she texted back. I’m pretty happy with the way things worked out.
My sister was getting laid on the regular, and she was falling in love and seeing herself in a whole new light, and it was amazing.
I wish I could see you, she texted. I miss you.
I miss you too, I texted. But I just need to do this on my own for a while longer.
I met Jack outside on the bench in front of the big window. I had a black coffee for him and a tea with milk and sugar for me. I was trying to cut back on the caffeine. And the sugar. It was just too bad that I had constant cravings for McDonald’s milkshakes. As he walked up the street toward me I tracked all the differences in him. The black flop of hair over his eyes. The worn blue jeans. He was wearing old beat-up work boots and the same sweater from yesterday.
My body hummed at the sight of him, remembering that orgasm. And my heart… oh, my heart lurched up into my throat with fear that he would not stay. That I would not be enough, and this baby would not be enough to keep him here. That the demons would have him after all.
“Hi!” My grin was wide and undoubtedly goofy, but I was done with secrets. And I was done pretending I didn’t feel what I felt. We were adults, and for the first time since we’d met our lives were our own. I would show him how I felt. Because it made me feel good.
“What are you doing?” he asked, coming to stop in front of the bench.
“Waiting for you,” I said, because it was the truth on so many levels.
“Everything okay?” he asked. “You left.”
“You were sleeping, Jack. I didn’t want to wake you. Coffee?”
“Thank you,” he said and sat down next to me on the bench, careful to keep distance between us.
That he would deny himself, I had no doubt. But me? Perhaps it was so foolish to think he’d given me all the keys to his kingdom, but it felt that way.
It felt like he was mine.
And I was his.
And he just needed to get comfortable with it. I just needed to let him know it was okay to want something.
“Are you on break?” he asked.
“I’m not working today.”
He popped open the small plastic top so he could take a sip of the coffee.
“Do you get used to all this space?” he asked, staring down Main Street toward the mountains in the distance.
“I felt a little claustrophobic at first, which is weird.”
“No. I totally get it. So much sky.”
We were silent for a long time, each of us taking sips from our cups, and I wondered if he was as nervous as I was. If he’d spent the night working on a speech to give me.
“You told me you loved me,” I blurted. I had spent this morning making speeches, but I couldn’t remember any of them.
He was very still beside me. Like a statue.
“An
d I went looking for you, because you said it. Because it mattered to me. Because I wanted it to be true.”
I paused, giving him a chance to say that it was true.
But he didn’t. He didn’t say anything. He sat beside me as silent as ever.
I took a deep breath and launched into the speech I’d written yesterday, wrapped in that blanket, my body made more alive by his touch.
Now, I was losing hope every second.
“I am figuring shit out, Jack. I mean, I’m not great at it, but it’s time. Idaho, this place has been a weird gift. Like a silent corner where I could get away from the noise I’ve been making my whole life. I’m here because for the moment it makes things clear, you know. And I’m… we’re having a baby, Jack.”
“You are. You are having the baby.”
It was like he was taking himself right out of the equation. And I thought I knew why he was doing it. But I couldn’t keep making up shit about him. I had to know.
This was it. This was the moment I thought I could avoid. The one I could pretend wasn’t barreling toward me. My optimism took a hit and the breath I sucked in, it shuddered. I looked at him until it hurt. Until I had to look away.
“Do you want… us?” I asked and felt his gaze, intense and sharp on my face. I studied my Styrofoam tea cup like the secrets of the universe were printed on the damp teabag.
He was silent, so silent for so long. And I wondered if I’d gotten this all wrong. If I read his restraint as restraint, because I didn’t want to see it as dislike. Or disregard.
Perhaps I’d been filling in the blanks again, with all the wrong things.
How like me. How painfully like me.
“I want you,” I said. I laughed at how ridiculous that sounded. How want was not a big enough word. I got to my feet and forced myself to be as much myself as I could. To fill out all my edges. To declare all my intentions, because this was not for him, and not only for this baby.
It was for me.
I had to be clear and I had to be honest for this child, yes. For our future, yes. But I was the builder of that future.
And it was time for honesty.
“I want you,” I said. “But I don’t need you. And I really don’t need your money. I can do this on my own. Here or back in San Francisco or wherever I decide. I can do this.”
He looked at me like he knew that. Those resolute eyes of his made no bones about the fact that I could do whatever I wanted.
“I don’t need you, but I want you, Jack. I want you for this baby. And I want you for me.”
“Abby,” he sighed.
“There’s a place for you in the baby’s life if that’s all you want. We can figure that out. Custody and weekends and whatever it takes. But… this is what I need from you, Jack.” I took a deep breath. “If you said what you did on the voicemail because you were scared and you don’t think you can really love me. If you don’t…desire me, you have to tell me. So that I can stop what I’m feeling. So I can protect my heart.” My breath sobbed and I turned away, for just a second. “I don’t love you,” I said clearly. “But I could. I could love you so easily it’s a little terrifying…”
My voice broke.
“And I need you to do some work, Jack. I can’t do all the work. I can’t come to you all the time. I need you to come to me. And more often, I need you to meet me in the middle.
“And if you think you can do that. If you agree to all that…” I took a deep breath. “I’m going to need you to see a counselor. Or a priest. Someone you can talk to about what you saw. And what you did. Because that will eat at you. It will eat at you until there’s nothing left.”
We were both looking at our shoes. The constant wind crying and whistling and moaning, a fitting soundtrack for us.
“I live above the café,” I said, shuddering my way through this speech because his silence was so difficult. “The stairs are in the back. The door is open. And you can come up anytime, but only if you’re honest. Really honest, like I’ve been with you. Or, you can drive away and we’ll just be done. But I need you to come to me, Jack.”
I stood there for a second because part of me couldn’t believe that he was going to actually let me go upstairs. This decision couldn’t be that hard for him.
But clearly it was. Or clearly he was just waiting for me to leave so he could get in his car and drive on.
And the longer I stood there and smeared him with my hope and my belief in this future we could have, the longer I might be putting off the inevitable.
That I’d been wrong about him all along.
He was the cold soulless man he’d been telling me he was all along.
I left without another word.
And he didn’t come up.
Chapter Twenty-One
JACK
AFTER
I’d like to say that I followed her up those stairs. That I chased her the way she chased me, never giving her one single moment to doubt my feelings for her.
Or her feelings for me.
But I didn’t.
I sat on that bench for a long time. The wind picked up the edge of the stack of napkins she’d been using to insulate her hand against the heat of her Styrofoam cup and blew them off the bench, and I lurched to my feet and grabbed them before they could be carried down the street.
And somehow that was enough, that movement once started, propelled me around the building and up those rickety stairs, so much like the stairs at the Moonlight that it was eerie.
The door wasn’t locked and it opened soundlessly under my hand, and I walked into her apartment. The galley kitchen with the double sink and the window looking over the alley. There was a coffee maker and a hot pot and that was about all.
The kitchen opened up into an empty living room with a TV and a couch and a pregnant woman crying on it.
She got up on her feet as soon as she saw me, wiping her tears away angrily, and I could see by the set of her face that she’d started to believe I wasn’t coming.
That I would reward her bravery by running away like a coward.
“I don’t think I could love you,” I said and she flinched back, her mouth slack on a sob. I stepped closer. “I already love you. I didn’t leave that voicemail just because I was scared. I left that voicemail because I couldn’t die without telling you that.”
It was my truth as real as I had, but I wasn’t done.
“I loved you from the second you walked over and asked me what I was reading. From the moment you surprised yourself talking about that book, talking about your own intelligence that you’ve always underestimated. But my love…my love has little value,” I told her. “I don’t know what I bring to you but the blood on my hands.”
“I think,” she whispered, “that you have always underestimated your love. And if you love me, let me tell you as an authority.” Tears spilled from her eyes and I felt my own welling up in turn. “Your love has tremendous value. Your love might be the most valuable thing I have.”
“I have spent so long pushing aside everything I would reach for…”
“I’m right here, Jack,” she said, smiling through those tears. “It’s not that hard.”
Oh, I loved that she called me out. That there was room in all this worry and grief for joy too. I wasn’t all tragedy.
The thought was a thunderbolt in my head and I grabbed this woman of joy and glitter and sunshine and I pulled her against me. Held her to me.
And she held me just as hard, showing me with her strength and her intelligence and her beauty just how much value I had.
“What’s next?” I asked.
“Sex,” she said.
“Yeah?”
She stepped back, leading me from the apartment’s living room to the bedroom. The clouds had covered the sun and outside there was a crack of thunder, and it felt like a gift. A rainy day in bed with my woman. I pulled off her shirt, and there, pressed against mine, was the small mound of our baby.
“Our baby,” I said
. The words sinking in, in a way I’d never let them before. Before, the baby was something I could not have, so I did not think of it.
“Oh my god, our baby!” I gasped again, looking up at Abby with wide eyes. “Jesus. Fuck. What are we going to do?”
She tipped her head back, all that beautiful hair falling down her back, and she laughed and laughed.
“We’re going to love this baby, Jack,” she said. “It doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that. Not right now.”
I liked that answer. I liked it a lot.
I walked her backward a few more steps until her legs hit the bed, and she sat down on the edge, and I fell to my knees in front of her, eye level with her stomach.
“Can I?” I asked, lifting my hand to touch her.
She nodded, eyes full again, and I put my hands to her stomach.
“It’s hard,” I said with a giddy sense of wonder. My hands felt huge against this small miracle, and I put my hands over the width of it, covering it from her hip bone to her hip bone, from the top of the mound to the downward slope of it under the elastic waistband of her pants.
I was, in a way, holding our baby.
Beneath the heel of my left hand I felt a bubble. A flutter. A here-and-then-gone sensation that I thought I might have imagined, except that Abby shrieked and put her hand over mine.
“Did you feel that?” she breathed.
I nodded, incapable of words.
“That was the baby.” We stared at each other until I couldn’t stand it anymore and I had to hold her in my arms. I stood and got into that bed with her, fully dressed. I kicked off my shoes and pulled her into my arms and I planned on never letting her go.
Epilogue
JACK
The car screeched to a stop against the curb, outside of the community college where I taught, which just happened to be two blocks from where Jesse and Charlotte had moved.
We’d all left San Francisco and now we were in Berkley. Far enough away for all of us from the people we’d been.
I got into the passenger seat, but I didn’t have my seatbelt on before Jesse was merging back into traffic.