The Empty Jar

by M. Leighton

  I want to apologize, to explain to Nate how I’d have done things differently if I had known, but I know if I bring it up, he’ll say something flippant. He will pretend it’s nothing, even though it might’ve been, because that’s how Nate is. That’s who Nate is. He’s forgiving and tolerant. He’s kind and thoughtful. He’s the type of man who makes a woman better for just knowing him.

  That’s who my husband is.

  Besides, it’s bad enough that I began the trip with stories about my deceased father. That’s why, rather than bringing any of that up now, I let him nudge my chin and turn me back toward this view.

  The view of the present.

  The view of London.

  And, honestly, I’m sort of relieved to lose myself in something new.

  It’s all about the distractions.

  I make mental notes of everything I see. I take it all in, catalog each sight alongside all the other incredible places I’ve visited with my husband. I know that before all is said and done, I’ll take these memories out and revisit them over and over and over again, reliving the best moments of our life, one at a time until they’re like the pages of my favorite Jane Austen book—all yellowed paper and curled corners.

  I know, to the bottom of my soul, that no matter what has happened and what will happen, the best thing in my life will always be Nate. No trip, no scenery, no majestic landmark is quite as impressive as the man at my side.

  We’ve been together for what often feels like a lifetime, but now it’s beginning to seem like the blink of an eye. Nineteen years we’ve been in love, sixteen of which we’ve been married. There have been a few times through the years when we both wondered if we made a mistake, but most couples have times like those. The main thing is that we survived. Endured. We weathered the rough patches and came out better for having gone through them.

  I can look back and say with absolute certainty that I wouldn’t have wanted to travel the road of my adulthood with anyone else. I know without question that if I could live another two hundred years, and Nate lived with me, I’d want to spend every second of those years with him. He stayed when he didn’t need to. He forgave when he didn’t have to. He overlooked, held his tongue, held my hand, and now he’s holding up his end of the bargain—in sickness and in health.

  Because that’s who Nate is.

  And that’s what love is.

  “Where’d you go?” he asks from his place to my left.

  I can’t tell him what I was thinking. I don’t want to dull this precious time. I don’t want to remind him that our most challenging days are out in front of us.

  Ahead.

  In the future.

  After Europe.

  We both know it. I don’t need to remind him of that.

  We made our choice.

  We are in it for the long haul.

  Together.

  No point in talking about it all the time. It only makes things more difficult.

  That’s why, as quickly as I can, I push the skis back into the closet and force the smile I’d been wearing only moments before back into place. Then and only then do I turn to look at him. “Nowhere. Just enjoying the view. And the company.”

  Nate’s answering smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes and only one side of his mouth turns up. He knows me.

  All too well.

  “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

  He reminds me because he knows.

  He knows.

  I nod and turn back toward the view, working hard to keep my expression free from the sadness that burns at the back of my eyes. And I hope against hope that his camera didn’t capture it.

  Five

  It’s my Life

  Lena

  The room is curiously bright, and I wake to a feeling of disorientation. After years of nursing, I’m not accustomed to sleeping until the sun is high. For a few seconds, I forget where I am.

  For once, I’m not worried about today or tomorrow or next year. I’m not aware of my circumstance. I’m just…dazed.

  I raise my head off the pillow and look at the window across from the bed. It’s tall and wide, and the curtains are long and white. The view beyond the panes doesn’t look familiar. All I can see is brick and the edge of another window. It looks like a city, but we don’t live in a city. We live in the suburbs.

  That’s when I remember where I am.

  I’m not in my room or my city. I’m in London. I’m waking in the middle of the day, in a foreign land, after being up for over twenty-four hours straight. This is the first full day of the best three months of our life.

  Until the worst ones begin.

  It’s infuriating that thoughts like those seem always to be at the forefront of my mind, but I know it’s normal, too. Anyone in this situation would be the same way.

  Consumed.

  But I never give up trying not to be, so resting my head back onto my pillow, I let my mind wander instead to the previous evening. The suite Nate arranged for us is beyond anything I could’ve hoped for. Every posh amenity I can think of is at my fingertips.

  When we arrived, we were shown to our room right away, and it made quite an impression. It was cleanly made up in stark white and jet black. The only splash of color was the rose petals, laid out in the shape of a heart, on the crisp duvet. It had made my lungs constrict when I saw them. The scene was befitting of a couple who was just beginning their life together. I understand Nate’s reasoning for having the room set up like that, though. The bed had been adorned in just such a way when he’d carried me across the threshold on our honeymoon so many years ago. He was reminding me of his love, of how it hadn’t changed, of how it wouldn’t die just because one of us will, and I appreciated it for that reason alone. That’s why, when I saw it, I forced a grateful smile rather than shed my bitter tears.

  Turning my attention to today, I note the fact that I’m in bed alone. I neither see nor hear any evidence of Nate, which leave me free to take stock of my body in complete privacy.

  Gently, I push the covers off and let my hands skate over my bare skin. Some part of me expects to be able to feel what’s going on beneath the surface, even though I know I won’t.

  “Don’t get started without me,” a deeply familiar voice says from behind me. I jump guiltily and crane my neck to look at my husband where he stands in the doorway that leads out to the living area. Between his fingers, he twirls a single red rose. On his lips, he carries a smile that’s allll man.

  A blush stings my cheeks at his insinuation.

  “I…I wasn’t…” I begin to explain.

  Nate pushes himself off the doorjamb he’d been leaning leisurely against and walks slowly to the bed. Bringing the rose to his nose, he inhales and then sets one knee on the edge of the bed, stretching out across it until his face is inches from mine.

  “You weren’t? Then what were you doing?” he asks suggestively, tickling the tip of my nose with the velvety petals of the blossom.

  I hate to admit it to him, but I’m caught. To lie at this point would only make things worse.

  “I…I guess I expect to wake up one day and be able to feel it.”

  Nate’s eyes hold mine for several long seconds before he drops his forehead onto my shoulder. My chin trembles once as I reach across my chest to thread my fingers into his hair, whispering, “I’m sorry.”

  God, how I hate to hurt him!

  “What do you have to be sorry about?” he inquires softly, his voice as tortured as I know his expression would be if I could see it. He tries to hide it, but like I’ve come to realize, it’s nearly impossible to hide very much from the person you’ve lived with and shared your life with for the better part of two decades.

  “I just wish you hadn’t seen that.”

  Nate raises his head and brings his glassy green eyes up to mine. “Do you do this every day?”

  Hesitantly, I nod, still opting for the truth.

  He exhales on a sigh laced with grief and sadness. “I wi
sh I could take it from you. I wish it had been me instead.”

  My heart squeezes with panic at the mere thought of such a twist of fate. Although I’d have wished that neither of us would ever get sick, I know I’m much more capable of handling sickness in my own body than sickness in his. “Don’t say that. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand watching it take someone else that I love. It’s better this way.”

  “Then don’t shut me out like this. Let me carry it with you. Give me that. Please.”

  I stroke Nate’s stubbly cheek with the tips of my fingers, memorizing every strong line of the only face I’ve ever loved. “It’ll be easier for me if I bury it. It’ll be easier for me if I put it out of my mind so that we can have as much normal as we can get for the next little while. There will come a time when normal will be a thing of the past. Remember, I’ve seen this before. I know how it works.”

  And I do. I saw something similar with my father. At nearly fourteen years old, I’d known that he wasn’t well. I’d watched him wither with unexpected weight loss. I’d witnessed his unusual bouts of confusion. I’d seen him deteriorate over those few short months.

  He’d done his best to hide the worst of it from me. He’d gone to work every day, made sure there was food on the table. He’d fought it so hard, refusing to give in until the very last. He’d even pulled himself out of bed to chase lightning bugs with me, begging me to come outside with him when I’d complained about being “too grown up” for it.

  But he never gave up. Not for one second.

  After my sister died, Momma grew distant, but not my father. He never neglected our time together. Daddy coaxed me outside to chase the lightning bugs right up until the day before he slipped into a coma. Taking that time with me, making that time for me when he had to have felt so awful, spoke volumes to me. His actions had whispered words of love and sacrifice that had reverberated through my life like the delicate ring of a sweet, beautiful bell. He never had to tell me that I was important to him, that he was fighting for me. Even then, I knew. His sacrifice was made clear in every breath he took, every step he made.

  It just hadn’t been enough.

  I learned early on that fate is a cruel, cruel bitch.

  And that prayers are a waste of time.

  “Lena, I…” Nate clears his throat. “Ar-are you sure you don’t want to reconsider treatment? I talked to—”

  Placing two fingers over his lips, I cut him off.

  “I’m positive. I told you what Dr. Taffer said. She was diplomatic about it, but the message was still clear. There isn’t any hope. Trying would just be pure hell. For both of us. And I don’t want that for you, Nate. I know what that does to a person, and you don’t deserve that. Let’s just enjoy our time as much as we can. While I still feel good. Can you do that for me?”

  “I’d do anything for you. You know that.” His answer is quiet, but strong. Steady and solid like hard wood. He would do anything for me. And I do know that.

  “I know. It’s one of the many reasons I love you.”

  There’s a pause before he speaks. I know he’s trying to rally, trying to put the somberness of reality on hold for a while.

  Just a little while.

  But it’s so hard.

  “Many reasons, huh?” His grin appears as Nate falls back on his sense of humor. That’s his way. It always has been.

  I can hear it in his voice—the mischief. But it’s his tone that betrays what he’s actually feeling. Beneath the lightness, I hear his exhaustion. He’s still struggling to accept my decision, and the battle is wearing him out.

  I wish I could help him with acceptance, but I can’t. The only thing I can do is ease his pain as much as I can in the meantime.

  Even if that means pretending right along with him.

  “Yep. There’s a list,” I reply teasingly.

  I let my lips curl up into an evocative smile, resolving to steer our every conversation away from the subject as much as I possibly can. It’s like an ugly black stain on this trip, and I don’t want to waste one minute of the rest of my life being unhappy or anxious. And I don’t want Nate to either. I have to fight it because I want to give my husband some of his very best memories of me over the next few months. Moments and words and expressions that will one day override the horrible end when it comes for me, an end that he is bound to witness.

  “A list? Does it begin with my engaging smile or my winning personality?” Nate is absently stroking his finger along the delicate skin beneath my chin.

  “No, although both of those are on the list.”

  “No? Then what could be first? What could’ve caught the attention of the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen? Hmm, let’s see. My sparkling green eyes?” His mouth is beginning to show the early signs of a genuine smile. I feel encouraged, my heart lightening noticeably. With a grin, I shake my head. “Lips that could charm the devil himself?”

  “Nope,” I deny, inching my way closer to him.

  “Well, you hadn’t seen me naked yet, so it couldn’t be my—”

  “No!” I hurry to say.

  “Then what was it?”

  I lift my hand and trail my fingertips over the contours of his face—the edge of his cheekbone, the hollow of his cheek, the dip of his chin. With Nate’s eyes on mine, I skim his jaw and throat, brush his chest and belly, and then wrap around his waist to his tight butt. “Honestly? It was this ass,” I confess with a squeeze of my fingers. “I’d never seen an ass this fine in all my years.”

  Nate succumbs to a cocky grin. “It is a mighty fine ass, I must say.”

  “That it is. Even after all this time.”

  “Wanna take it for a spin?” Nate flexes his hips, the muscle of his butt tensing under my hand. “I’m happy to oblige your every fantasy.”

  Desire ripples through me. As always, Nate can make me forget everything else. Our chemistry has been off the charts from our very first meeting, and time has done little to diminish it. We haven’t always made taking the time to enjoy it a priority, but the spark has always been there. Like a pilot light, ever flickering, always ready. Now, like never before, I appreciate my husband’s ability to blot out everything but the sun.

  I just never would’ve guessed I’d have so much I want to forget, that so much fear and uncertainty could surround my world when I’m outside the safety of his arms.

  ********

  “Is this the best tea you’ve ever had, or is it just me?”

  “It’s just you,” Nate replies, smiling at me over his cup. “Because your company is even making my tea taste good.”

  “Then my company must be very good, O Ye Who Hates Tea.” I grin and set down my cup so I can pick up my scone. I bite into the dense treat, sending a spray of crumbs in every direction. They pepper onto my upheld hand, the table, and even onto my lap.

  As I chew, I take in the cake-speckled tablecloth and my now-dappled slacks. Sheepish, I glance up at Nate.

  “Woops!”

  “God, you’re messy,” he teases in a playfully mocking tone, watching me as I ineffectively brush away the debris.

  “That’s what you love about me,” I tell him around my full mouth. “I’m so classy.” I pause to take a sip of my tea and wash down the sweet bread.

  “Yep. Lena Grant, making a mess, talking with her mouth full. Bringing classy back to Stratford-upon-Avon.” His smile is all mischief.

  I chuckle, still dusting bits of scone from my lap. It seems like the more I brush, the deeper the bits burrow. “How do you know Shakespeare didn’t like his women a little on the common side?”

  “There’s nothing common about you. And Shakespeare better damn well keep his hands to himself.”

  “Awww, still jealous after all this time.”

  “Even of dead men,” he adds.

  “Even of dead men. How romantic.”

  Nate rolls his eyes, and for some reason Nissa pops into my mind. Nissa and her suspicions.

  I clear my throat. “Thi
s morning you mentioned you’d talked to someone. What were you about to say before I so rudely interrupted?”

  “Messy, classy, rude as hell. The list goes on. It’s no wonder I fell in love with you.”

  I smirk at Nate over the lip of my cup. “I’m quite the catch, don’t you know?” Before we can get off topic, though, I prompt, “So? Who were you talking to?”

  Nate’s pause and the way he watches his fingers as they toy with the corner of his white linen napkin make me distinctly uncomfortable. My husband doesn’t fidget.

  Ever.

  “Nate?”

  The quiet intake of his breath can be heard even over the bustle of sightseers as they stroll up and down the street. In this moment, in this one single moment, doubt assails me, and my pulse begins to dance in my veins, going from samba to salsa in half a second.

  “Lheanne,” he responds softly, hesitantly. “We met a couple of times at a bar not far from the office.”

  “Lheanne? Lheanne who?”

  “Taffer. Lheanne Taffer.”

  “My oncologist? That Lheanne Taffer?”

  “Of course, that Lheanne Taffer. Do you know more than one?”

  I frown. “Why were you meeting her at a bar?”

  Nate continues avoiding my eyes, still toying anxiously with his napkin. “I wanted to meet with her off the record.”

  “Off the record?” Thud-ump, thud-ump, thud-ump. “Why?”

  Finally, Nate raises his eyes to mine. I feel a momentary stab of panic at the guilt shining from the emerald depths. “I wanted to talk to her about your treatment.”

  “But I’m not taking treatment.”

  “I know. You’d already made up your mind, but I guess I just wanted to know more about the options.”

  “There are no options, Nate. You know that.”