by Nina Lane
I hesitate, reluctant to leave her alone, though it’s a meeting about the World Heritage Studies program that I can’t miss.
“Don’t worry.” She stands on her toes to kiss me. “I’m feeling good, and all I have to do this afternoon is pick the kids up from school. After your meeting, I want you to go to the gym or go for a run or something, okay? Work it off.”
Because even though I haven’t said a word about the doctor, Liv knows I walk out of every appointment in a snarled mess of anger and frustration. I promise her I’ll obey her order, then head to King’s for the meeting and an afternoon lecture course.
After work, I take my duffle bag and walk across campus to the gym for a kickboxing class. Archer is in the locker room, changing into shorts and a T-shirt.
“Hey, man,” I say. “Didn’t think you’d be here today.”
“I figured you would be,” he replies. “How did the appointment go?”
“The doctor says Liv is doing well.”
Archer glances at me, like he knows that what the doctor said still isn’t enough. I turn away from him and pull off my tie and suit jacket. Punching the training bag is going to feel good.
When I toss my jacket into the locker, something clinks onto the concrete floor. Archer bends down to pick up Liv’s wedding ring.
“She’s already lost so much weight it doesn’t fit her anymore,” I say as he examines the ring.
And she’s only had two rounds of chemo. What’s going to happen by the time she’s on round four? Round six?
Fear crawls up my chest. Archer holds out the ring to me.
“She wanted me to keep it for her,” I explain, putting the ring back into my pocket. “I’d better put it somewhere safe.”
“You could wear it,” he suggests.
“What?”
He unfastens a thin, black leather strap from around his wrist and hands it to me. “Put it on there and wear it.”
I look at the leather strap. “This is a bracelet.”
“It’s a wristband.”
“Thanks, but…uh, I’ll figure something else out.”
Archer mutters something that sounds like “idiot” under his breath, but he takes the bracelet back and fastens it to his wrist. It actually doesn’t look hideous on him, somehow suiting the rebel biker thing he’s always had going on. Not that I’d tell him that.
After changing, I wrap my hands, and we head out to warm up before class. An hour of hard jabs, punches, hooks, and kicks, and we’re both sweating and breathing hard. A part of me envisions the training bag as the goddamned cancer inside my wife, and there’s some satisfaction in hitting and kicking it as hard as I can. Not the first time I’ve done this. Won’t be the last either.
Archer and I fist-bump our gloves at the end of class, then sit on a bench and gulp some water. I check my phone, where there are a couple of reassuring texts from Liv that she and the kids are at home playing Candy Land and eating popcorn.
I set the phone aside and rest my elbows on my knees.
“Problem?” Archer asks.
“No, they’re all at home.” I drag my hands over my face. “Fucking hard to leave them alone, though. I hate it. I mean, Liv’s doing okay but what if…”
I shake my head. What if is starting to rule my life. I remember Liv once told me it was time to focus on what is rather than what if. I could do that back then, but not now.
“What else did the doctor say?” Archer asks.
I choke out a humorless laugh. “He’s happy with how things are going. He’s the one who ordered the chemo and radiation. Liv likes him. Trusts him.”
I feel my brother looking at me perceptively.
“And you?” he asks.
“He’s a good doctor.”
“But you don’t like him.”
“It doesn’t matter if I like him or not,” I say. “He’s helping Liv. That’s all that matters.”
Archer is silent for a minute. “I never told you about Sarah.”
I glance at him. “Sarah? You told me once she was the reason you straightened up.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t tell you the rest of it.” He picks at the label on his water bottle. “Sarah and I were together for a couple of years. She got pregnant, and I was trying to do the right thing, you know? Be there for her. Then she died. Car accident.”
I stare at him, a sudden intense pain gripping me. I lower my head into my hands and pull in a breath.
“I…I didn’t know, man,” I manage to say. “I’m sorry.”
“I got to the hospital when they were still working on her,” he continues. “Saw them through the emergency room door. And then the doctor came out to tell me he’d lost her—that’s what he said, I lost her—and I snapped. Lunged at him, took him down, started throwing punches. Took two other guys to pull me off.”
I close my eyes. “Jesus.”
“When the doctor got up, bloody nose, eye going black, he said I’m sorry.”
“He apologized?”
“For losing Sarah. I just walked out of there and went on a bender, but later—after I’d gotten my shit together again—I figured out why I’d attacked him. It wasn’t because he’d lost Sarah. It was because I hadn’t been able to save her. Even if I’d been in the car with her, I couldn’t have saved her.”
An ache is pushing at me from somewhere deep inside, harder and harder, like it’s going to break me in half.
“So, yeah.” Archer tilts his head back to swallow some water. “I get it. The woman you love, your wife…you want to be the one to save her.”
To be her hero.
But this time, for the first time, I can’t be. The only person who can save her is the doctor. And maybe not even him.
Archer claps a hand on my shoulder.
“So I’ll say this once, and then we’ll never speak of it again,” he says. “After Sarah died, I turned my life around for good. I wanted to be the kind of man she’d be proud of, the kind who would’ve been a good father and provider. And in some ways, I also still wanted to be like you.”
He shoves to his feet and grabs his towel.
“But you still throw a roundhouse kick like a pussy,” he remarks, tossing his towel around his neck as he strides toward the locker room.
I watch him go, the hard pain inside me dissolving. I’d once thought Archer’s and my relationship was irreparably broken. I’ve never before been so glad to be wrong about something.
I follow him to the locker room and toss my gloves into my duffle.
“Pizza and beer?” I ask. “On me.”
“Damn right it’s on you,” Archer mutters, pulling his T-shirt over his head. “Making me embarrass myself like that.”
He grabs a clean towel and starts toward the showers.
“Hey,” I call after him.
He stops and turns to look at me.
“Thanks,” I say.
Archer shrugs, ducking his head as he continues walking. I text Liv that I’m going out for pizza with him after we leave the gym. Her response comes in seconds: Great! Have fun.
I turn to my locker, tension draining from my shoulders for the first time in weeks.
February 6
“Dean?”
I jerk my head up as the female voice filters past a haze of sleep.
I blink, realizing I’ve fallen asleep at my desk in my tower office, my head on my folded arms. Claire is standing beside me, her hand out as if she’s about to touch my shoulder.
“Oh, sorry.” She takes a step back and smiles. “I couldn’t find you downstairs, and Liv went out with your friend Kelsey. I was going to do some shopping and was wondering what you’d like for dinner.”
“Uh…anything’s fine.” I drag my hands over my face and rub my eyes. Exhaustion burns through me. I can’t sleep at night, but rather than risk keeping Liv up, I’ve been staying up long past midnight and then crashing on the sofa in my office.
“Come downstairs,” Claire says. “I’ll make you a snack.”
“Thanks, but I’m not hungry.”
“Come on, Dean.” She shakes her head in amusement. “I’m a nanny. No one knows better than I do the restorative powers of a snack.”
“I’m sure that’s true.”
“So come on. My snacks have a perfect balance of carbs and protein for optimal energy to get through both soccer practice and Star Wars battles.”
Figuring I might need to be involved in both of those activities before Nicholas goes to bed, I follow Claire down to the kitchen. I sit at the counter and leaf through the day’s mail as she bustles around, opening the refrigerator and cabinets.
I focus on opening a bill, trying not to be bothered by the fact that another woman is busy in our kitchen. A woman who isn’t my wife.
“Ta da.”
Claire sets a menagerie of snacks in front of me. There’s an owl made out of a large cracker, with raisin eyes and wings created with sliced almonds. Next to the owl is a fruit kabob caterpillar, and a ladybug made from half of a red apple.
I can’t help laughing. “This is great. No wonder the kids love you.”
She smiles, her cheeks flushing. “Thanks. They’re really awesome kids, though I’m not surprised considering who they have as a father.”
A twinge of discomfort goes through me. I make an effort to suppress it, even as I remember Archer’s remark about Claire back in December.
I’d been wary around college-aged women after a grad student started a false sexual harassment claim against me before I became a tenured professor, but nothing potentially dangerous or damaging has happened since.
Just the opposite in fact, especially with Jessica, who has now become one of my most valued colleagues, and the number of intelligent young women who are involved with the World Heritage Center.
But that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten. And it doesn’t mean I don’t still have to reject unwanted female attention and advances, no matter how much I talk about “my wife Liv.”
But this? We hired Claire because Liv has cancer. Claire is the nanny to our two young children. Seeing anything different in that is flat-out wrong.
Then again, I’ve been around enough to know nothing is off-limits to some people. And Archer was right. The world can be a fucked-up place.
I take a few bites of the cracker and pick up the apple ladybug. “Thanks, but I’ve gotta get back to work.”
“Take the plate with you,” Claire says. “The milk too. After all, it does a body good.”
Without responding, I return to my office. I don’t care what Claire thinks of me, as long as she’s good with the kids and Liv likes her. And God willing we won’t need her help for much longer.
I pick up a loop of string resting on my desk. After idly making a few patterns, I take Liv’s wedding ring out of my pocket and slip it onto the string. I weave a circle around it right in the center.
I spread the loop out between my fingers and look at the two patterns hugging Liv’s ring. After knotting the ends, I slip it onto my wrist. The ring slides under my wrist, right up against my pulse.
And that’s where it will stay.
I reach over to turn off my computer, shutting down the website open on the screen. My brain is so packed with facts and statistics about breast cancer that sometimes I have a hard time applying anything I read to Liv.
I still can’t believe this is happening to her. And despite all rational thoughts, I still hate that other people are touching my wife’s breasts, cutting into her, poisoning her. While I just stand there and watch. And burn.
I’ve always been able to take action. To succeed. When I was a kid, my father made it clear that failure wasn’t an option, not for the son of Justice West, not when my brother had made it his life’s work to be a lost cause, not when I had to uphold the West family image.
So I didn’t fail. Some things came easily to me, others took work, but I did it. Always believed I’d get the scholarship, make the team, win the trophy. I didn’t often think “I can’t” because I knew I could. Even when I first met Liv, I knew I’d get past her defenses one day. That I’d make her mine. I knew I needed her.
But I didn’t realize until now I’d taken it for granted that Liv would always be there. I didn’t realize how badly I need to grow old with her. I need to see her dark hair turn silver, to watch the laugh lines deepen around her eyes.
I need to sit with her as we watch Nicholas and Bella play soccer and perform in music recitals, as they graduate from high school and go off to college. I need her to teach our children what goodness and perseverance are. I need my wife beside me through birthday parties, family vacations, movie nights, school activities, science fairs, weddings, grandchildren, anniversaries. I need her through life.
And for the first time ever, I know to my bones there is something I can’t do. I can’t live without Liv.
I can’t.
Chapter 28
Dean
When I walk in the front door, the house has an unnatural stillness. I put my briefcase on the foyer table, take off my suit jacket, and go into the kitchen. A few unpacked shopping bags sit on the central island alongside Liv’s purse and keys.
“Liv?”
No answer. Faintly alarmed, I check the living room and sunroom. I loosen my necktie and try to think. It’s Thursday, which means it’s Claire’s day off, and Liv usually picks Bella up at lunchtime so they can spend a few hours together before going to get Nicholas from school.
“Liv?” I hurry upstairs.
Bella’s room is empty. I go into our bedroom, my alarm intensifying. The door to the master bathroom is open a crack, a light shining through. I run to push it open, suddenly imagining my wife unconscious on the floor or…
My breath escapes in a rush. Liv is sitting on the closed toilet, her elbows on her knees and her head bowed, her features hidden behind the curtain of hair falling across the side of her face. She jerks upright at the sound of the door opening. Her eyes are bloodshot, her skin pale.
“Liv.” Relief weakens me. I sink to my knees in front of her. “Are you all right? What happened?”
She wipes her damp cheeks and shakes her head.
“Sorry,” she whispers.
“No.” I put my hands on her thighs, my chest tightening. “What happened? Where’s Bella?”
“I asked Claire to pick her up. I wanted to…” She shakes her head again and gives a hoarse, humorless laugh. “It’s just silly.”
“Liv, what?”
Then I see it—the opened box on the counter alongside a pair of scissors and a brush.
I get to my feet slowly. A knot sticks in my throat as I look at the box and the packaging in the trash. It’s a “professional” hair clipper that promises to deliver as close a shave as you can get without a razor.
“I bought it an hour ago.” Liv straightens, looking from the box to me. “I wanted to…I don’t know. When I saw I was starting to lose my hair, I thought maybe it would be empowering or something to shave it off myself before it has a chance to fall out completely. You know, like taking control? But when it came down to actually doing it, I totally caved.”
She takes the clipper from the counter and pulls off the plastic wrapping. Her hands are shaking.
“It’s so stupid,” she whispers, staring down at the shiny blades. “I mean, it’s just hair, right? But I think I’m more scared of this than I was of starting chemo. It doesn’t make any sense at all.”
I reach out to brush a lock of her thick, dark hair away from her forehead. I’d wanted to touch her hair the minute I first saw her at the university registrar’s office all those years ago.
“It makes perfect sense,” I tell her gently.
She wipes away another tear and takes a shuddering breath as if she’s trying to gather her courage. I go into the bedroom and grab the chair from the dressing table, then return and set it in front of the bathroom sink and mirror.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll go first.”
Liv look
s up. “What?”
“You shave my head first. For practice.”
She blinks in surprise. “You…you want me to shave your head?”
“Yeah.” I drag a hand through my hair. “I need a cut anyway. And why should you get to be the only cool, bald person in this household?”
She smiles at that, and I feel like I won the lottery. I grab a towel and drape it around my shoulders before sitting down.
“Go ahead,” I say. “It’ll be easier if you get the hang of it first.”
She hesitates, but finally pushes to her feet and unwinds the cord of the clippers. She plugs it into the wall, sets it on the counter, and moves behind me. Our gazes meet in the reflection of the mirror as she puts her hands in my hair.
“I love your hair, Dean,” she says. “When I saw you that day at the university, I first noticed you, then I noticed what gorgeous, dark hair you had and how shiny it looked, even under the fluorescent lights.”
She strokes my hair away from my forehead, then down the sides. She rubs her fingers over the outer edges of my ears.
“Remember when I used to give you ear massages?” she asks.
“Mmm. Turned me to putty in your hands.”
“You used to especially like it when I did this.” She gently trails the tips of her forefingers around the crevices of my ears.
“I still love that,” I remark, as warmth trails down my spine. “But you’d better be careful, lady. Only you could turn head shaving into foreplay.”
Liv laughs. A real laugh this time, one that makes me smile in return. She takes her hands away from my ears and reaches for the clippers. When she turns them on, an unpleasant buzz fills the air.
“Are you ready?” she asks.
“Yeah. Give me a Mohawk before you shave it all off.”
She bites down on her lower lip as she positions the clippers at my hairline and draws them back. My hair falls to either side, leaving a path of smooth scalp. She concentrates on shaving the sides of my head. Tufts of hair rain down onto the towel and floor.
After she’s finished shaving both sides, we both look at the sheer weirdness of me with a stripe of hair running right down the middle of my scalp.