Touch

  “True, but he has a pretty good idea of what your father did to my life and yours as well. Don’t even bother denying it again, Maggie. I know what I know. I’m sorry you chose to live with it. Now where is Uncle Gerald? I want to wish him a Merry Christmas.” Her smile was brittle, she could feel that it was about to break into a million shrieking, angry pieces, and if Maggie kept at her, she would say things that she had sworn never to say. She looked past Maggie to the table where Gerald sat, slumped and motionless. “Excuse me.”

  “You leave him alone,” Maggie said, but Julianne had already started to cross the floor.

  Julianne stood above Gerald looking down at the broken old man. He had been tall and plump when she was a child but now he was skinny and shrunken. There were a few wisps of colorless hair combed across his scalp and his eyes, when he raised them to hers, were cloudy and nearly empty. She felt the tiniest stirrings of pity for him and wondered at them.

  “You,” he breathed as he recognized Julianne.

  “Yes, me. Surprise! I survived you.”

  “I didn’t survive you,” he said bitterly.

  Pity flew out the window. “I can’t say I’m sorry about that.”

  “I didn’t suppose you would be.” He was nearly toothless and when he spoke, spit collected on his lower lip. “Did you come to gloat?”

  “No. I came here to prove to myself I’m not afraid anymore.”

  Maggie had crept around behind her father’s chair, but she said nothing.

  “I’ll never forgive you, Uncle Gerald, but I think I can forget you now.”

  “I’ll never forgive or forget you,” he muttered.

  “I don’t need your forgiveness. Maybe I saved a few children from you.”

  “It never hurt me,” he spat. “Getting bent over a desk and fucked teaches you the way the world works! The earlier the better. I was five. I started you too late,” he muttered. “Should have had you early like I did Maggie, and you’d be dancing to my tune now, bitch.”

  There was near silence in the room by then. Anyone who hadn’t heard Gerald’s words would hear about them soon enough. News like that would sweep through the family like fire.

  Julianne, feeling curiously light-hearted, looked up at Maggie and said, “I’d keep him away from your grandchildren, Maggie. Adrian, I think we can leave now.”

  Adrian took her hand, but before he turned to go he said, “Merry Christmas old man. I hope you rot in hell.”

  “Fuck you too!” Gerald shouted at their retreating figures.

  Julianne’s parents were at the door already. “He really said it!” her mother whispered. “Just said it outright.”

  “Just blurted it out,” her father added. “Unbelievable.”

  “I think I’d like to go someplace nice for dinner with my favorite people,” Julianne told them.

  Adrian put his arm around her. “They’re busy. You’ll have to settle for us.”

  Julianne’s father laughed out loud and it felt as if he’d just swept away all the unpleasantness of the night with his big, booming laugh. She couldn’t help but laugh, too.

  On the way across the snowy parking lot, Julianne said, “Thank you for being there with me, Adrian.”

  “I was afraid maybe it was too much, what I said. I thought maybe just “go to hell” might be more polite?”

  She laughed and pressed her head against his shoulder. “No, I think you needed to get your feelings out.”

  “If I’d done that I’d have beaten him with the bottle of wine on the table.”

  “Ah... okay then maybe “rot in hell” was a good choice.”

  “I thought so. Nobody will come to our wedding, will they?”

  “Wedding?” Julianne’s mother asked hopefully.

  Julianne and Adrian dissolved in helpless laughter.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  They were going to have a white Christmas, all the signs pointed to it. It was already snowing on Christmas Eve when Adrian and Julianne left the little Thai restaurant where they’d had their dinner. They walked hand-in-hand through the light dance of snowflakes and Julianne observed that it looked as if the ground was coated with sugar. Light spilled out of the windows along their way, white lights, brightly colored lights, festive and homey. She looked up as they approached her building and smiled to see her own tree in the window, lights glowing through the lightly frosted glass.

  “Look,” she said and Adrian glanced up and smiled.

  “There should always be something like that to come home to,” he told her. “It would be good for people.

  She squeezed his hand.

  Upstairs they shook the snow off their coats and scarves, stomped it off their boots, and fluffed their snow-dampened hair.

  “I’m glad to be inside though,” Adrian admitted. “Chilly.”

  “I’ll make some tea. You pick out a movie.”

  Julianne put the kettle on the stove, prepped the tea pot, and piled some Christmas cookies on a plate. She’d been baking for days, and there were chocolate chip cookies, rum balls, tassies, and sugar cookies cut into Christmas shapes and decorated with colored sugars. She knew Adrian would groan when he saw more food, but that he’d eat his share and probably more. He loved her cookies and Julianne loved baking for him.

  “Shop Around the Corner?” Adrian called from the living room.

  “Perfect.”

  When the kettle began to whistle she filled the tea pot and brought the tray out to where Adrian was sprawled on the couch watching a battle in space on the TV.

  “What is that?”

  “No idea. It’s kind of terrible. There are gigantic blue lizards. Mmmm, cookies. I’m so full though.”

  “You won’t be in an hour.”

  “True.” His appetite had come roaring back around Thanksgiving and he’d put on some much needed weight in the last couple of weeks.

  Julianne shut off all the lights in the room except for the lights on the tree, and settled down on the couch to watch the film. Adrian had wrapped one of her throws around himself, but he opened it to let her slide in beside him. They sat snugged up against each other, feet up, clutching their mugs of spiced tea and watched as Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan fence with one another until they fell in love.

  “I love this movie,” Julianne said as she poured the rest of the tea. “You look sleepy.”

  “Too many carbs, and I’m toasty warm in a dark room. Perfect recipe for a nap.”

  “You sleep if you want.”

  “No, I want to watch,” Adrian said, but within minutes he was asleep. Julianne took his mug from him before it tipped and spilled the tea. He dozed for about fifteen minutes and woke up with a start. “Oh my gosh, did I spill?” He patted the throw, then his lap. “What happened?”

  “Here,” she said, handing him the mug. “It’s coldish now.”

  “I’ll make another pot. I need to move around a little.”

  She smiled as he took a few sleepy, shuffling steps, shook himself and headed out to the kitchen. Though he seemed to be regaining most of his strength, Adrian had changed since the shooting. He seemed to be quieter within himself. He seemed to be looking inward a great deal. It wasn’t because of the depression, but rather because he seemed to have become more thoughtful.

  She heard the shrill whistle of the kettle, and a minute or two later Adrian returned with a fresh pot of tea. He climbed back into the blanket cocoon that they shared and rested his head on top of hers.

  “This is so good,” he said.

  “The tea?”

  “No, all of this. Christmas, the film, the tea, the lights on the tree, you and me. Hey, I’m a poet,” he joked.

  “I’m happy.”

  “Are you? Truly?”

  “Truly. I have never felt this happy in my life. I feel like I’ve been released from prison with my whole life ahead of me, and you waiting there for me. How could I not be happy?” It was the truth. Her confrontation with her uncle had changed something in
side her, something that all the hard work she’d done over the years had never quite managed to do. It had broken the threads between Uncle Gerald and herself, had allowed her to see what he’d done to her as being more about him, about the sickness inside of him than it had been about anything she had done. It had finally allowed her to stop blaming herself, to stop wondering how she could have changed things, kept the abuse from happening. She couldn’t have. She was just a convenient victim.

  The monster was gone.

  “You know, I felt pity for him,” she said softly.

  “Who? Gerald? How?”

  “I don’t know. But I did. And when I think about that it makes me feel human.”

  Adrian pulled her a little closer.

  The movie ended and Julianne said, “How about The Bishop’s Wife?”

  “In a minute. There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  That was a phrase that never seemed to bode well. What was he going to tell her this time? “Sure,” she said, trying not to awfulize before she even know what was going on.

  “The thing is,” Adrian began as he turned off the TV, “This is about the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I thought for a long time that I didn’t begin to deserve this sort of good fortune and I’m still not convinced that I do. But I’m determined to stop turning myself into the villain of this piece and start enjoying my life. If you’re happy with me and I’m happy with you, then I think maybe we need to be together.”

  “We are together,” she said, confused.

  “No,” he said as he reached into his pocket. “I mean Together, capital tee. Married.” He opened the box he’d drawn out of his pocket and held it out to Julianne. It was a ring. It was beautiful. She gasped.

  “Is that a yes gasp or a no gasp?”

  “I... I’m... yes,” she said as tears started to flow. “Yes. Yes, yes, yes, I want to be married to you. I want to be with you forever.”

  “Well isn’t that fortunate that I got a forever ring?” he asked as he slipped it onto her finger. “Forever and ever to be precise. They’re hard to find.”

  The ring took her breath away. It wasn’t just that it was a gorgeous ring, but the idea that Adrian felt ready to commit to her was overwhelming.

  “I love you, Julie. I know now that I never understood what the word meant until we went through the shooting and all that’s happened since. Having you there with me, helping me recover, body and soul, being there for you, standing beside you when you took back your life from your uncle and everyone else who blamed you... being there for each other. Julie, I never understood what that was like until we met.”

  She put her arms around him and tilted her head up for a kiss. “That’s what love is,” she whispered as their lips touched.

  Julianne slid her hands up under his sweater, stroking Adrian through his tee shirt. She pushed the sweater upwards and pulled it off of him. “I love everything about you,” she told him as she rubbed her face against the soft cotton. “I love the way you feel, I love the way you smell.” She slipped one hand under the shirt and caressed his back, pulling him close as he pressed kisses on her lips, her cheeks, the tip of her nose and her fluttering eyelids, as he kissed her ears and bit lightly at the lobes, making her shiver.

  She caught his hand and laid it on her breast so that he could feel the stiffened point of her nipple and understand how very much she wanted him. She pulled open her blouse and watched as he bent his head and put tongued it through her bra, turning the pale fabric translucent.

  She was breathing like she’d run a marathon. “Off, off,” was all she could say as she tried to undress, but only managed to tangle herself in her blouse and slacks, and make Adrian laugh.

  “Hold still you silly thing,” he said as he worked through the tangle of clothing. Wherever he laid her skin bare, he kissed her; breasts, shoulders, the inner bend of her elbow, which made her shiver, belly button, hip, knee, toes, the arch of her foot which made her giggle. She lay naked on the couch in the darkened room and watched him strip off his own clothing. Then she understood what it was she wanted. She needed that last wall to come down.

  Julianne sat up and pushed Adrian back against the arm of the couch. “You need to lie there,” she ordered. “Because there’s something I really, really need to do for you.” She bent and took his cock into her mouth and heard him gasp. She laid a hand on his belly, a soft pressure that said, “It’s okay. I’m okay.” He felt it and relaxed.

  There was no fear this time. There was nothing but the pressure of him against her tongue, the salt-sweet taste of him, the familiar scent of his skin. There was nothing but what she loved, nothing to fear at all, only an act of love.

  She was awkward at it in the beginning, but she knew that she’d learn. She wanted to learn. She wanted to know what would pleasure him. She watched his face as she licked and sucked the straining shaft, nibbled softly with her lips, and stroked him with both hands. She saw him surrender to her and understood the power she had, and she saw his face as he climaxed. It was more beautiful than she could ever have imagined.

  She wrapped them in the throw and held Adrian close.

  “You were amazing.”

  “Maybe not quite amazing yet,” she countered. “But I’ll get there.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  “I know. But I wanted to. I love you. I didn’t want any walls left between us. Unless of course you get into something really icky and then the answer is no,” she said with a laugh.

  “You amaze me.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re so strong, you see your life so clearly. I wish I had a fraction of what have.”

  No, she wasn’t going to let him spiral down at a moment like this. “Stop it,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You know what. We’ve talked about this. You’re so remarkable, so much my hero, Adrian. That’s part of why I love you, why I need you by my side.”

  “What’s the other part?”

  “You’re a pretty darn good lay,” she told him and then he laughed too.

  “Glad to hear it. A boy likes hearing his cock praised.”

  “Well it’s more than just this little guy, she said as she patted it. “But yeah, he’s great.”

  “Hey, not so much with the little,” he protested.

  “Mmmm, I know. And I can’t wait until he’s ready to get to work again. That session was just the appetizer.”

  “Oh yes,” he purred. “Merry Christmas to all and to all a very, very good night.”

  Dr. Lange’s Diary

  With the new year comes new understanding. I’ve just heard from Julianne that she and Adrian are going to be married. When I asked her if she felt she was ready for that kind of commitment, she told me that there was nothing she wanted more.

  “I understand now that there is a mutual safety in being together. Not in a dependent way, please don’t think I mean that. I’m not just trading one set of problems for another. But he and I are emotionally safe with each other. We respect one another. Surely that’s worth commitment?”

  I told her I thought it probably was.

  I heard from Adrian not long after. He apologized to me.

  “I put you in a terrible position,” he told me. “I understand that now, and I appreciate all you did for Julianne and myself after the shooting. I’m not going to continue to make those demands on you.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say, so I asked him if this meant that he was going to look for a new therapist.

  “Yes, and I’d appreciate some referrals.”

  “Of course,” I told him. “Anything I can do to help you along in the process. I’m glad you’re going to continue with therapy.”

  He laughed and told me that he knew he couldn’t go without it. “I’m still a mess, but I’m finally a fairly happy mess. There are still things about my time with Olivia I need to work through.”

  “How’s the guilt?”

  “It’s still th
ere, it’s just pushed to the back of my mind now. I do understand that what she did wasn’t my fault, but it’s hard not to feel guilty anyway.”

  “I understand. I’ll have those referrals for you on Friday.”

  He thanked me.

  I’m going to miss him. I enjoyed the occasional battles and the challenges he presented. All the same he seems now to understand that there’s more to all of this than just pretending a whole piece of his life doesn’t exist.

  I look forward to working with Julianne, watching her grow into the person she was meant to be. I’ve learned to trust her instincts as she’s learned to trust my judgment. We have a firm foundation for our work to come.

  The part of me that isn’t a therapist, the side that doesn’t analyze and probe, is very happy for them.

  Sometimes you just need to feel the rightness of a thing.

  ~~The End~~