by Bri Stone
He meets me back in the bedroom. I make sure the tub is clean before I climb into bed with him.
“I must be old since I’m too tired to have sex.” He sighs. Thom sure does look tired, laying back in bed with his eyes closed. He is on his back and has closed his eyes, so he looks asleep already.
I straddle his lap and he smiles. “You don’t have to do any work.” His eyes open then and I smile down at him.
His fingers trace under the hem of my shirt and he exposes my lower belly and pulsing sex. My breath hitches when his thumb brushes over my clit. I bite my lip and grind my hips into his, where I feel his cock hardening underneath me. I pull him from his boxers and tease myself with his tip. He grunts and kneads the flesh of my ass, as his other hand goes to my breast. My nipple hardens between his thumb and forefinger the more he teases me. My breast fits perfectly in his hand as he grasps it, and I sink onto him slowly. I take my shirt off and lean down to kiss him.
His lips coax over mine slowly, feeling every inch of them before he takes my bottom lip between his. He sucks and deepens the kiss and slips into me fully. So deep I feel him in my fingers and toes, and the hair on my neck stand up as I roll my hips forward. His groan vibrates through me and my tongue laps over his. His calloused hands cover my breasts, kneading and rubbing over my nipples until they move down, tracing the line of my tattoo before they settle on my hips, guiding me as I ride him slowly. The tether between us tightens as I feel us molding together, becoming the same person again. Sharing a life line that can survive any tragedy, even our seperation over the years. All that goes away in the moment, the years apart, the break up, the sadness, and the hurt... it’s just us again. Moving together, sharing air, sharing breaths.
I feel every inch of him, pulsing inside of me as his hot, thick cock fills me. Our kiss breaks, but our lips still touch as we gasp the same air. I moan against him, and he kisses the edge of my jaw as I rub against him. My nipples graze his chest with every thrust, driving deeper and closer to him. My clit throbs, so close to the edge already, and my walls clench around him. Thom groans deep in his chest, grunting as his hips start to buck and meet mine. I can tell he is so close too, but we both teeter on the edge for as long as possible. I clutch his shoulder, digging my nails into him as the desire takes me. it has always been so perfect with Thom, but now it feels like something more is there. Something deeper, and more intense. I can barely see straight, even as I look into his eyes and find the light gray in them. He seals my lips in a kiss and I taste him on my tongue. As our lips lock, I grind faster and faster, breaking away breathlessly to catch my breath until it hitches with my climax.
My toes curl and my fingers tingle with the shocks of my body, my sex clenches around his cock and I feel my clit throb, even more so when he presses his thumb against me as I ride it out. I continue to roll my hips into his until he stills inside of me and his seed scorches through me. His breath catches, and releases with deep grunts as he comes. My body goes lax over his, he holds me close as I continue to pulse around him, and he inside of me.
When my body acts normal again, I sigh as he slips out of me and I lay next to him. our breathing slows, and we gaze at each other aimlessly. His eyes soften as he looks at me. Thom kisses the corner of my mouth, tugs at my hair between his fingers. I smile softly and kiss his jaw, where his beard tickles my nose. It makes me smile wider as I hold him tighter. My legs lazily lay over his, my arm over his chest with his hand around my arm. I close my eyes to the feel of him tracing over my skin and holding my waist but wake up to something entirely different.
It must be around six in the morning, but the shower is running, and the bed is empty. It reminds me of my days living with Thom when he would shower early to help clear up his lungs. I throw my shirt on and go to check just because.
“Thom?” I yawn. My shower has a glass door, so I yank it open and nearly scream at the sight.
“Thom!” He just lays there on his side, barely breathing.
It takes me a few seconds to freak out, to start crying and immediately think the worst before I remember all my training as a doctor for the living and not the dead. All I want is to crumble inside and freeze just to keep my head and heart safe, but I can’t.
I shut the water off and pull him out before I call 911. I rush back and lay him down, cover him with a towel, and start doing chest compressions just to keep his heart rate up.
“Thom, you’re gonna be fine. You’re going to okay.” I don’t know if I’m telling him or myself, or both of us, but I don’t stop.
He inhales sharply every few seconds, but nothing more. Something is going on that I can’t see and don’t know how to treat, so I keep doing what I know how to and hope it’s enough. I don’t have time to wonder how this happened or what is even actually happening, but I focus. I count the breaths and keep going, high enough that I don’t crack a rib, low enough that his chest cavity can relay the compressions. Tears cloud my vision, but I don’t need to see, so I let them fall. I keep telling him, and myself, that it’s going to be okay.
Because it has to be.
It has to be.
I SHOULD WONDER WHO the hell is doing all this screaming so early. I already have to wake up at the crack of dawn for school, so this was just rude. I lay in bed and try to drown it out, but it doesn’t go away, it gets worse. It sounds like... it doesn’t sound good.
I get up and yawn in the direction of the voice. Coming from mom and dad’s bedroom. The closer I get, the faster my heart beats, the clammier my palms get.
“Nettie! Nettie!” Dad is screaming like I’ve never heard before. From him, from anyone.
I gently press against the door, and the loud creak doesn’t get his attention. I open the door and see him shaking mom like a man possessed.
“Daddy! What’s going on?”
He looks at me like he forgot I was here. His whole body is red, he only sleeps in old man pants. And he is crying, his face is wet, and his nose is dripping between his bugging eyes. I look at mom and I know it’s one of those things I’ll never forget, like the snake in the toilet last week. She always had a pretty tan but now she is just white like the walls.
Dad doesn’t answer me, he just goes back to trying to wake her up, but I don’t want to be the one to tell him she obviously isn’t going to wake up.
I want to cry and scream and cry just like dad, but I have to do something because he can’t. I run to the kitchen phone and call 911, I tell them what I hear on the movies and go back to their bedroom. Nothing has changed.
“Daddy...” I whisper. I am afraid to come any closer.
He kneels next to the bed and lays over mom, crying still, but not really screaming. He holds her close to his face and I see through her shirt as his tears soak through the white material.
I cry, but don’t notice the tears because they are silent. Dad looks like he has enough to worry about.
“The ambulance is coming.” I say, but he doesn’t acknowledge. I don’t expect him to, not really.
My brain knows what is happening, but my heart is taking a little while to catch up. My chest heaves with silent sobs at the sight of dad not moving. Not even when the ambulance people come and have to pull him away from her. Dad makes noises I never knew he could make when they zip her up in a body bag, after checking that she really is dead.
“Little girl, can you meet us at the hospital? How old are you?” A nice-looking woman in her uniform comes over to me. I stare before I realize she has asked me something.
I nod. “Fifteen.”
“No! No, I’m coming with her! I’m not leaving her!” Two men hold dad back while mom gets wheeled out on a gurney.
They say sir, you can meet us... but don’t get any farther before he starts again. I swallow my fear of him in this state and go over to him.
“Daddy,” I hold his hand, “we have to go. We can see her when we get there.”
He looks at me, his eyes are like they don’t recognize me and then he doe
s after a moment. His sobs stop, and his tears are silent, but he nods. I took four months of driving lessons, so it isn’t hard to figure the rest out. If anyone pulled us over, I would have to tell a story they probably wouldn’t believe. With dad looking closer to dead each mile, maybe they would. I managed to get him to put on a shirt.
I don’t know where to go, so I have to ask about ten people and cross to the other side of the hospital before I get to the right place.
The morgue.
A doctor comes to talk to us in the waiting room. I learn he isn’t a normal doctor.
“I can do an autopsy at your request, otherwise I can send a grievance counselor down to go over your next steps.” he is talking to dad, but he doesn’t know dad is a shell of a person. Because he lost his person out of nowhere.
As we sat and waited I realized my dad not only woke up next to a dead body, but my mom’s dead body. His wife. They always loved each other, they weren’t just married because they had kids. They were the annoying type of in love where they would kiss and flirt in front of Clem and I, but it isn’t annoying now that I realize I will never see it again. He will never see her again. I don’t know who should be sadder. When I called Clem... I couldn’t tell her, but I knew I had to. She would be here in the morning.
“An autopsy?” I manage to ask.
He doesn’t get through one sentence before dad speaks.
“No. She wouldn’t want that.” His voice cracks, or it was cracking to begin with.
“Okay, we will do whatever you need, sir. I am so sorry for your loss.”
Dad is back to wringing his hands and staring at the ground. I peer at him, not knowing what to do. When I look back at the doctor, he almost looks sad for me.
“Thank you.” I tell him. The old man leaves us alone.
A replay of the morning happens when we go to view her body before she goes to the funeral home. I watch doctors, I think they are doctors—pull dad out of the room as I follow. I stop though, to look at mom. She could be sleeping, but I know she isn’t. The doctor stands by and watches.
“So, she just died in her sleep?” I ask.
“It seems so. An autopsy would tell me exactly what happened, but I know your dad doesn’t want that.”
I nod. “You can find all that out from an autopsy?”
“Yes, I can find a lot of answers that way.”
I stare down at mom. The last thing I remember talking about with her, beyond the lesser everyday things was my future. ‘What do I want to do, where do I want to go to college,’ it was the kind of conversations I hated.
“What kind of doctor are you?” I ask him.
“Forensic pathologist, some would call me a medical examiner.”
Dad and I go home. It doesn’t seem like it anymore, but I know it is. He sits on the couch, lifeless while I clean the foot tracks up.
“Daddy, do you want to eat something?” I ask, worried. I don’t know exactly how old he is, but he’s on the old side and should be eating and not skipping meals. But I understand, because I haven’t eaten either.
“I’m not hungry. I should get to bed.”
It was only eight. Wow, we had been there all day...
He walks in the direction of their bedroom but stops midway. I can’t even imagine it... I don’t ever want to. I haven’t even had a chance to process it, dad just needs someone to keep him together right now. I can do that and keep myself busy.
“You should use my room, daddy.” I say softly.
He nods once and pads over there. I run to their room and get him some clothes. I put them on the edge of my bathroom counter while he is in the shower and shut the door. I take the time to sit on the bed and cry for a while. With a photo of mom and I, out in her lab. I always hated going and now all I want to do is go. Life is cruel.
Dad is there for so long and I get worried, but I hear him get out and decide not to go in there. I change into my pajamas and tie my hair up. I look in the mirror and don’t see myself. I see mom, because I always looked just like her. But my eyes are red, my face pale and my lips chapped. Mom always tells me to put chap stick on, so I do.
Dad comes out smelling like my almond body wash, I almost smile but it doesn’t quite come through. But this huge man with red hair smells like almonds, and I want to laugh but I can’t.
“You should clean up in there.”
“I know.” I nod. It’s such a dad thing for him to say, that I don’t get annoyed.
I lay in bed and he comes to kiss my forehead. But I see the look that crosses his eyes, at the thought of going to sleep in their bed. I changed the sheets, but still. I can’t even imagine going in there.
“I... stay with me.”
His face softens.
“The CPS is nowhere around.” I try and joke, but it doesn’t find my voice and I can’t laugh.
“Are your sheets clean?” He murmurs as he gets in from the other side.
“Maybe.” I curl up on my side. The blue of my sheets hits his red hair, he looks at me and rubs my arm.
“Mom is dead.” I whisper. My body sinks into the bed.
He nods, a stray tear leaves his eyes the same time as mine. “Mom is dead.”
I chew my lip as I start to sob. Dad pulls me into his arms and we cry together. Knowing how hard it will be for Clementine. Knowing we’ll not only have to do this again tomorrow, but every day after until it hurts less.
Mom died in her sleep.
Chapter Thirty-One: Thom
The worst thing about humans is that we must find the bright side of everything. We pretend we don’t look for it, that we accept the shitty hands we’re dealt, but it isn’t true. We have to find the better outcome, the positive one. We don’t accept the low end until we’re laying in it.
I was told three years ago that I had cancer. Two years later, my tumors were small enough to be removed, and all was seemingly well. A year ago, they were back, and they weren’t the same as before. Just like mom. Then moments before I saw Perrie again, I set up a new treatment plan that I hoped would be good enough. For three weeks, it was. I evaded the worst of it until I was told I needed a full resection, hours before I went into surgery and my patient died.
Now I don’t even know where I am. I’m not doing anything or feeling anything. I thought I would at least get to see my mother again or be in a perfect world where Perrie was with me. Really with me.
I think of all the wrong I have done and wonder why I wasn’t sent straight to hell. The lies, the deception. Having sex with her just to appease her, satisfy my craving, and convince myself it was otherwise. But it wasn’t. Only to do it all over again, but not make it out. That much made sense.
Stan isn’t even here to yell at me or give me a talking to. He was good at that, and good at talking sense into me. Too bad I didn’t listen to him when it counted. When I had the time to buckle down on treatment and surgery. When I had time to evade the same fate as my mother.
With all that understood, and accepted, I just want Perrie here.
I want to apologize and stop lying but of course, like everything, I’ve come around too late. Nothing hurts anymore except my heart, for her, for us. We would be married by now, probably with two kids, if I could have successfully convinced her to take maternity leave in the height of her career. We would be in a nice house in the suburbs, one big enough and ostentatious enough for two doctors on six figure salaries, maybe we would have a black Labrador too. We would be happy and still in love. I still love her, but I can never have her again.
I do wonder if she will ever love again. Perrie was hard to get, and I doubt she got any easier... I don’t want anyone else to have her, but if she is happy then I guess I will have to live with it.
I always wanted to be cremated, so maybe she’ll wear my ashes in a necklace or something. Stan might wear me in his wrist watch.
I feel bad for Staci and Brock, Maci, and Steve, even David. They’ve been good friends and I never met them halfway. I knew if I had a
second chance, I would be better to them as a friend. I would pay attention when Staci looked like she had just finished crying, and when Staci was so mad her eyes twitched. Even when Brock makes less jokes and David doesn’t smile for days. Or when Steve has to leave early because of something with his kids.
I’d listen to Stan more, and I’d love Perrie harder.
I would love her with all of me and not just the parts that weren’t afraid. If I had less fear, I would have had all these years with her. She wouldn’t think she was cheated on or have that loss of trust in people because of me. She would never, ever think I expected her to destroy us. She would never be broken.
Everything would be different. There is still something there, but if I had another chance, it would have been better.
“WHAT ABOUT BREAD BOWL soup? You like that?” I ask mom once she’s settled in her room. Her bed has become almost identical to the one at the hospital with the white sheets, and all the IVs in her arm.
“Hmm. That sounds good.” She smiles softly.
She has been home for a while, and with school done, I have more time with her. The dean and the president were so understanding, and really jumped through hoops to make my graduation special for her.
“Kay. I’ll get started on it. What season are we on?”
“Just play it from the beginning of the last one. I don’t remember much.” Mom winces as she sits up a little in bed. She has taken to wearing some of my old Henley’s, getting hooked on how comfortable they are.
“Got it.” I turn her television on and navigate to the Days of Our Lives saved episodes. I don’t remember much either, but I would catch on soon. Drama, angst, resolution; it was a pre-written script.
“I’ll run the bath for you.” I say, before I head to her bathroom. The pale-yellow color of everything annoyed me throughout the years, but now it’s so miniscule I can’t believe I ever gave it two thoughts.
Her clawfoot tub sits in the corner across from the stand shower. I wait for it to fill up before I add her coconut crème bath salts.