Spiral

by Mila Ferrera

  “Thank you for that evocative visual.” He kneels in front of me, looking a little like he does when he speaks to a resident who’s disappointed him. “Why didn’t you tell me you had this going on? I’d been assuming you were done. You haven’t mentioned it once. In the fall, it was your top priority. I remember worrying you were going to break up with me because I was taking too much of your time.”

  I skim my fingers along his cheekbone. “And you showed me how much I needed things other than work in my life.” I lean forward and touch my lips to his. “And you were right.”

  He takes me by the shoulders to create distance between us. “But that was about having balance between work and life, not about abandoning one in favor of the other. You can’t put this on me—I never tried to pull you away from your work. I understand how important it is.” The corner of his mouth lifts. “And how good you are at it.”

  I look out the window. “I’ve been kind of preoccupied lately.”

  “With me, you mean. With everything I’ve put you through,” he says in a hollow voice.

  “No. It was easier when you were gone, actually. I was super-productive, because it was the only way to keep from crumbling. But now I have you back, and—”

  “You’ve gone too far in the other direction. You need to figure out how to be productive when I’m around.” He captures my chin and turns my face to his. “Or I’m not going to be around. There’s no way I’m going to hold you back.”

  “I’d rather spend time with you,” I say softly. “That’s all. In the fall, I wasn’t worried you’d disappear. But now, at times I’m afraid each hour with you is the last one. That’s how it feels some days, Aron. So I take every moment I can get.”

  His eyes search mine. “I see,” he finally says. “Only one thing to do, then.” He stands up, leans over to kiss my forehead, strides to the door, and is gone.

  I sit on my bed, staring after him, my heart sinking, trying not to freak out. I’m still sitting there a few minutes later, contemplating whether to burst into tears or find myself some hard alcohol, when he texts me. Twizzlers, Raisinets, or Junior Mints?

  My mouth drops open. … ? Twizzlers?

  Write a page, then call me.

  I stare at the screen of my phone as a smile spreads across my face. Ok.

  Don’t think you can cheat. You’re going to read it to me over the phone before I come back.

  My smile becomes a grin. Yes sir.

  I throw myself onto my desk chair and grab some articles, newly energized. The yowling of the feral cat chorus is still there, but as I begin to type, I don’t notice it as much. It takes me an hour, and then I call Aron and read him the page.

  “Excellent,” he says, then hangs up.

  He’s at my door ten minutes later, carrying a huge package of Twizzlers, his work bag hanging from his shoulder.

  “I love you,” I whisper as he hands me the candy.

  He lets me hug him, and then pulls away. “If you want me to stay, you’d better keep working. The moment you stop, I’m leaving.”

  I whimper, and he steps playfully toward the door, so I grab a handful of his shirt. “Okay! I accept your terms!”

  He lowers his head as I rise on my tiptoes. “All right.” He rewards my compliance with a taste of his lips before putting his hands on my shoulders, turning me around, and guiding me back to my desk chair. He gathers my scattered articles and stacks them next to me, gets himself a tall glass of water from the kitchen, and settles himself on my bed, pulling some journals from his bag. “If I get the sense I’m distracting you—”

  I hold up my hands. “I know. You’re gone.”

  He smiles. “I’m glad we have an understanding.”

  I start to type, but I’m smiling, too. And, eager to keep him right where he is, I immerse myself in the work, writing about the implications of my research, the limitations of the studies, and future experiments that might expand on the findings. Aron brews me coffee while I munch my Twizzlers, which taste particularly good today. He falls asleep mid-afternoon, a journal open on his chest, and I cheat for a few minutes, watching his beautiful face and wondering at the deep, tender ache inside of me. But then I return to my task.

  “Time for a progress report,” he murmurs around five, getting up and coming over to the desk. His fingers slide down my neck and tickle my collarbone, and I close my eyes and savor the feel of his skin against mine. “How far have you gotten?”

  “Hmm?” I ask, leaning my head back until it rests on his stomach, which trembles with laughter.

  “You are highly distractible,” he says, and starts to pull his hands from my body.

  “No!” I capture his hands, plastering them over my shoulder and throat. “I require physical contact in exchange for the information you have requested.”

  He lets out an exaggerated sigh. “Very well.” He begins to massage my shoulders, his thumbs digging into the knotted muscles on either side of my spine. “You may have my hands if you read me what you’ve written so far.”

  I moan as he kneads a sore spot with astonishing skill. My head drops forward, but he says, “No, respect the terms, Ms. Cavenaugh.”

  “Soon it’ll be Dr. Cavenaugh,” I grumble.

  “Only if you respect the terms,” he says with a chuckle. “Now read.”

  And I do. When I’m done, he asks ridiculously smart questions that give me a few ideas for things I need to add. Then he says, “I think you’ve earned a reward.”

  He leans down and slants his mouth over mine, and I slide my hand into his hair and run my tongue along the seam of his mouth, seeking more, desperately hungry after weeks of careful, quiet kisses. He stiffens for a moment, but then his fingers close gently over my throat and he opens for me with a muffled groan. I arch my head back, wishing his hand would slide south, craving his touch, craving his tongue, craving—

  He pulls back, nibbling at my bottom lip like an apology. “For a job well done,” he says softly, then frames my face with his hands and kisses my forehead.

  I turn in my chair and throw my arms around his waist. “Thank you for today. I can’t believe I wrote so much.”

  “You aren’t finished yet, though.”

  “Ugh. Please tell me you don’t expect me to do more. I’m so done.”

  He tugs me up and into his arms. “No, not tonight. As it turns out, there’s another showing of your movie at seven. Up for it?”

  I press my face to his chest. “Yes. But I don’t think I need more candy.” I ate a pound of Twizzlers this afternoon.

  “You would have had to earn it anyway. And speaking of, given the circumstances, I believe I deserve popcorn. And possibly nachos. I’m starving.”

  I giggle. “It’s on me.”

  I get ready, and we head out. As we walk down to the bus stop, my hand in his, I think back to my conversation with Lisa earlier this week. Who takes care of you? her voice whispers in my head.

  We stand in the warm night air, and I look up at Aron, his golden hair messy, his face angular and his jaw stubbly, his eyes on me. And, as a warm sense of wonder spreads through me, I think: he does.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Aron saves me. He shows up on Sunday and stays with me all day, bringing me food, rewarding me with aching kisses and long massages as I work feverishly to finish my dissertation. He does the same the next weekend, and late that Sunday night, I send it to my committee just in time. Then I prepare my presentation, and Aron patiently listens to me practice. He even reserves the conference room in the onco department late one Thursday afternoon and gets Mark, Lisa, and a few of the residents to come and listen to a trial run—bribing them with pizza. At the end of June, well-prepared, I fly out to Madison to defend. Aron doesn’t show up and sweep me off my feet, but he does write me a letter and slips it into my bag when I’m not looking.

  Dear Nessa,

  I don’t know when you’ll be reading this, whether it’s in the nervous minutes before you defend or the triump
hant hours afterward. I simply wanted to tell you how proud I am to know you. If you doubt yourself, ever, my prescription would be to reread this letter, because I will tell you what I see when I look at you: A woman so beautiful she makes me ache, so adorable that I cannot help but smile at the thought of her, so brilliant she can argue me into the ground, so compassionate that she makes me want to be a better person, so fierce that I’m fairly convinced she could knock me flat, and so patient that she makes me feel like I have solid earth beneath my feet. It’s sometimes hard for me to put all of it into words, and I know I haven’t been able to give you everything you need. But I want to, and I’m trying, because you deserve that and more.

  Yours, Aron

  I discover the letter only after I defend, and it’s a good thing, too, because it takes me a long time to stop crying.

  In July, I call my mother and come clean about Aron and what’s been going on with him. She starts to chuckle. “It all makes sense now,” she says. “How’s he doing?”

  “It’s been six months since his last bout with depression and eight since the mania, and he’s been stable on his current meds for over two months, so I’d say we’re doing okay.”

  “I notice your use of ‘we,’ kiddo.”

  “I’m not sure Aron feels that way quite yet,” I say quietly. “But I do.” We grow closer every day, but we’re still on that agonizing slow track because that’s where Aron needs to be.

  “It was the same way with your dad. The person with the issues is going to have a harder time accepting the ‘we’ part, because you can always walk away from it. Him, the illness, the hassle, the limitations, all of it. And he can’t. He’s stuck with it.”

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way. I mean, he takes care of me just as much as I take care of him. Did you ever find a way to convince dad?”

  “I’m not sure. But every day he woke up and found me beside him helped.”

  I bite my lip. We’re not to the waking up together part yet, though it is getting harder and harder to remember why I should leave when it’s time to say goodnight. “You seem so calm, Mom. I thought you’d be upset.”

  “Nessa, you are so smart, and so strong, that I’m not sure any man could shake you off your foundation, even this one. All the same, though, can I finally meet him?”

  “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  She drives up to Philly the next weekend and takes me and Aron out for dim sum in Chinatown. At one point, I excuse myself to go to the ladies room, and as I weave my way through the cavernous restaurant back to our table, I see my mom and Aron deep in conversation. Or maybe argument. It’s that intense. I stand there for a while, watching them, wondering if Aron needs to be rescued, but he seems to be holding his own. And then he looks up, like he’s wondering why I’m taking so long, and sees me standing there. His eyebrow arches, and I’m caught.

  I return to the table, and both of them act like they chatted about the weather the whole time I was gone. With a smug smile on her face, Mom pays the check and drives us back to Aron’s apartment. But when I kiss her cheek and say goodbye, she whispers, “I think he’s very much worth being a ‘we’ with.”

  As we walk into his building, I finally can’t take it anymore. “You saw me watching you guys talk, and you know me well enough to know it’s driving me crazy.”

  Aron puts his arm around my shoulders and gives me his achingly familiar wicked smile, which I’m seeing more and more these days. “Really? You seem very relaxed to me.” He laughs as I elbow him. “After talking to your mother, I see where you get the feistiness from.”

  We enter his apartment and settle on the couch, our favorite napping spot. I relax as I feel the firm lines of his body next to mine, as my head finds its place on his shoulder, as his arm loops around me, keeping me close. “Seriously, you’re not going to tell me what you were talking about?”

  His mouth quirks up. “It would be more fun if you guessed.”

  “Did she tell you about my dad?”

  “He came up.”

  My fingers curl into his shirt. “Did she grill you about your meds and treatment?”

  “She did. Can you blame her?”

  “Was she nice about it, at least?”

  He runs a fingertip down my cheek. “She was, for the most part. She did want to know that I was taking responsibility for myself and not expecting you to look after me all the time. She wanted to make sure I could hold up my end of things, so to speak.”

  I close my eyes. “Ugh. Sorry.”

  “It was a fair question,” he says gently. “I told her it was important to me, too, and not something I took lightly.”

  “And did she tell you that I might end up with the same disorder? That’s probably why she said half the things she did.”

  “She actually didn’t mention that, but it’s a given, since there are genetic factors. The risk isn’t huge, though.” He strokes my hair away from my face. “Does it scare you?”

  “Of course it does, but I don’t dwell on it. She does that for me.”

  “Well, mothers tend to do that,” he says ruefully. “But she knows how strong you are, Nessa.” He bows his head and brushes his lips over mine, and it is so sweet that it makes my toes curl. “It’s hard to miss.”

  “What if I don’t want to be strong all the time?”

  “I’m not sure you can help it. It’s simply part of you. But you don’t have to put on an act if you aren’t feeling it.” He smiles, and it’s both mischievous and wishful. “It might make me feel a bit stronger myself, if I was the one rescuing you sometimes.”

  “Are you serious? You do realize that’s exactly what you’ve done, right? Even if you want to dismiss everything you did for me in the fall—which you should not—you can’t push aside what you’ve done over the last few months. I probably wouldn’t have finished my dissertation if you hadn’t cracked the whip.” I capture his fingers and lace them with mine. “You’re so strong, Aron. You just haven’t recognized it yet.” I kiss his scar, his throat. “But I see it clearly.”

  “Thank you,” he whispers, closing his eyes as I taste his skin. Then he tips my head up and kisses me deep, setting me on fire. His hand slides down my side and across my back, and I hook my leg over his, so full of pent up need that I feel like I’m going to go off like a rocket if he touches me in the right place. His fingers are eager as they trail along the edge of my bra, and when I press myself closer, I can feel how much he wants me. But, like he has so many times before, he slows down after a few minutes, pulls back with a sigh, and that’s the signal. Not today. Not now. Not ready to trust himself. Not ready to give me all of him.

  And it’s okay. I can wait, even though it aches. I lay my head on his chest and he tangles his fingers in my hair, and we spend the rest of the afternoon just like that.

  In August, I graduate. My mom and I fly out to Madison and have a girls’ weekend. It’s bittersweet, graduating without Frank to help me put the doctoral hood on, and I can’t help the tears that come as I look out at the crowd and wish he was here to see this. But when I walk off the stage, it hits me: I am officially Dr. Nessa Cavenaugh, PhD. No one can ever take it from me, no matter what happens. I throw my arms in the air and let out a very undoctoral whoop, while my mother and the rest of Dr. Rush’s students scream and cheer. The only thing that would have made the moment better was if Aron had been there.

  So when he picks me up at the airport, I’m more than ready to celebrate. He gives me a tight hug and a long kiss, tucks my bag in his trunk, and drives me straight back to his place.

  “We’re not going out?” I ask as he pulls into the garage.

  “I’m kind of tired. Would you mind if we just ordered a pizza?”

  “No,” I say, tamping down a tiny flutter of disappointment. I’d been hoping we could go out, which we don’t do very often because he manages his money really carefully these days. “It’s fine.” And it is. Really. Because I’ll be with him.

  He walks
slowly up the stairs, and then down the hall to his apartment, fiddling with his phone in his pocket. He seems so distracted, and it’s starting to make me nervous. “Are you okay, Aron?”

  “Hmm? Yeah. I’m okay.” He fumbles with his keys, which jangle loudly against the lockplate at his door. His hands are trembling, which they always do, but it seems worse today.

  “Drinking enough water?”

  He lets out a huff of laughter as he slides the key home, his hands suddenly more steady. “Yes, Nessa.” He slides his arm around me and kisses me hard, then pulls back and looks into my eyes with an amused smile. “But thank you for looking out for me.” He opens the door and guides me inside the dark apartment, then flips the light on.

  “SURPRISE!” comes the chorus of voices from the living room. I stare, my mouth hanging open. There are seriously forty people crammed into Aron’s apartment. Mark. Justin. Lisa and her husband, Josh. Carol and several other onco nurses. Phaedra and two of my other supervisors. Joanna Feldman and a few other attendings who I’ve worked with this year. At least a dozen residents—including Samuel Kimble—along with child-life specialists and social workers who’ve been on treatment teams with me. My mother and grandparents, along with a few uncles and aunts. There’s a giant sign on Aron’s wall that says CONGRATULATIONS DR. CAVENAUGH.

  “Oh my God,” I mumble, tears stinging my eyes as Aron’s arms coil around my waist.

  “I’ll catch you if you fall,” he whispers in my ear as the music starts.

  It is an amazing party. Everyone’s brought a dish to share, so it’s like this eclectic potluck feast. With champagne. And an amazing cake that looks like stacked psychology textbooks with a rolled up diploma on top. I am giddy and smiling constantly, so much that my cheeks hurt. So many people I care about are here to share this success with me, and I sail through the evening with Aron at my side.

  “This is part of what you were talking about that day in the restaurant, wasn’t it?” I ask him as we pull another few bottles of champagne from his fridge. He doesn’t drink, not with his medication, so we’re trying to make sure all of it is out and available.