Cherish

by Tracey Garvis Graves

  “It doesn’t feel like babysitting to me. It feels like old times. It feels nice.”

  He looks at me and smiles. “I’m still hungry. What do you say we go out for breakfast? You can chase away that hangover with some bacon and eggs.”

  I smile too, because that’s another memory he can now recall. Bacon and eggs are my go-to remedy after a night of overindulging. There is no substitute for me. “Give me ten minutes to shower,” I say, tossing the words over my shoulder and hurrying down the hall.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  DANIEL

  The storm rolls in around one a.m. Thunder rumbles off to the west and the rain starts to fall, hitting the bedroom windowpanes with gentle taps.

  I reach for my phone on the nightstand and check the radar; it’s lit up with a wide swath of yellow, orange, and red, which is heading our way. Jessie is sleeping on her side, facing away from me. Every time the lightning illuminates the room, I can see the shape of her body under the blanket. Now I can’t focus on anything but the curve of her hip.

  The rain falls harder and the thunder increases in frequency. Jessie rolls onto her back and then toward me, and now we’re only inches apart. Other than the night she drank too much, it’s the closest we’ve been to each other in bed. “Loud,” she says, her voice sounding sleepy and raspy, as if she’s not fully awake.

  “It’s about to get louder,” I say. “Don’t worry. I’ll get an alert on my phone if we need to go to the basement.”

  “I never worry when you’re beside me.”

  Though I can’t see her face, the sound of her words makes me think she’s smiling.

  “It’s one of the perks of sleeping with a policeman.”

  “I don’t know if you could call me a policeman right now. I’m just some guy on medical leave.”

  She places her hand flat on my chest. “You don’t really feel that way, do you?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “You can go back to work as soon as the doctor clears you.”

  “I don’t know that I’ll be very good at it anymore.”

  “Of course you’ll be good at it.” Her hand is still on my chest, and I don’t want her to remove it. “But is it what you want?”

  “I’m not sure. My heart rate speeds up when I think of pulling somebody over now. It makes me feel tense and anxious. But I’ve got to face the fear head-on or I’ll never get past it. I don’t know if that makes sense to you or not. It’s just something I have to do.”

  “It makes perfect sense, and I know you can do it. I believe in you. I always have. Just remember that you don’t have to be the best. You just have to be happy.”

  “Do you think you can be happy again, Jess? With me?”

  “I already am.” Her hand is still on my chest, but now she’s moving it slowly back and forth across my bare skin, and the heat from her palm is igniting all kinds of things in me. “Being here with you has made me happier than anything has in a long time.”

  “I’m happy too, Jess. I can’t tell you how much it’s meant to me to have you here.” I slide my arm under Jess’s shoulders and pull her closer.

  “Do you still want me?”

  I brush a kiss across her temple. “I’ve wanted you since the day I met you, and I will want you until the day I die. Nothing will ever change that.”

  There are things we need to talk about. Words that were left unsaid when everything crumbled, but right now all I can think about is the way Jessie’s skin feels as I nuzzle my cheek against hers, and the way she’s breathing a little faster. My fingers trace her jawline, and I cup her face and press my lips to hers.

  Our first kiss feels better than anything has in a long time. I draw her closer, and Jess runs her fingers through my hair as I dip my tongue into her mouth. I’ve forgotten all about the rain and the thunder and lightning. The only thing I care about is reconnecting with Jess on as many levels as we can. I’d hoped this day would come, but I’d almost given up thinking it would.

  We kiss for a long time before we move on. I touch her hair, her face. Somewhere in the far recesses of my mind, my brain remembers the smell and feel of her skin, which only enhances the way I’m feeling. This is Jess, who I’ve loved and missed for so long. And she’s kissing and touching me like I’m suddenly the lifeline she couldn’t reach for in the past. She’s holding on to me, and between kisses she whispers my name.

  When I pull off her T-shirt and rub my thumbs across her nipples, she moans loudly.

  “Oh God, yes,” she says.

  It appears that I remember how Jessie likes to be touched. After kissing my way down her neck, I pull one of her nipples into my mouth and suck gently. Her ragged breathing can’t be heard over the crashing of the thunder, but I can feel the rapid rise and fall of her chest under my palm, which is stroking the other nipple.

  There’s a sense that we are following the same pattern we used to, and the familiarity is comforting to me. I don’t want making love with Jess to feel new. I’ve missed her touch, her smell, her taste. I want it to feel exactly the way it used to feel back when she still loved me.

  Her hands are everywhere: my chest, my stomach, and then lower. I let out a groan that rivals the sound of the thunder as she strokes me. She hasn’t forgotten how to touch me, either.

  “That feels so good,” I say.

  I ease her shorts and underwear down past her hips, and when I pull back the covers, she kicks them onto the floor. Now every time there’s a flash of lightning I can see Jess. I run my hands all over her, and when I reach between her legs it takes no time at all before she’s shuddering under my touch and calling out my name.

  She doesn’t show any sign of slowing down, and she reaches for me with a hunger that says maybe she hasn’t done this in a while. After pulling off my underwear, she takes me in her hands, and it is every bit like old times. I’m half out of my mind by now and close to exploding under her touch.

  A memory makes its way up from the murky depths of my brain. I wanted to try for another baby after Gabriel died, but Jessie shot the idea down fairly quickly. “How can you even think about replacing him?” she’d cried.

  “I’m not trying to replace him!” And I wasn’t. I was just trying to do something—anything—to fix the giant mess our marriage had become. I thought Jess would want another baby. I got my answer when she stopped sleeping with me altogether.

  But now we are two speeding trains hurtling toward each other at breakneck speed, and I have no desire to slow our trajectory by bringing up the subject of birth control. It takes me a second to switch gears, but then I reach into the nightstand, fumbling, groping, hoping I still have some condoms lying around from my time with Melissa. I find one, put it on, and then I am inside my wife.

  I make myself last as long as she needs me to, and when she comes, I follow seconds later. At this moment, I feel invincible. I can handle whatever life throws at me if this woman will stay by my side.

  Forever.

  I hold her close while our heart rates and breathing return to normal, rubbing her back as she sighs and presses her cheek to my chest.

  I slip out of bed for a moment, and when I return, Jess says in a drowsy voice, “You hate condoms.”

  “I didn’t know what you wanted to do about birth control.”

  After a few minutes of silence, she says, “Do you have them because you slept with Claire?”

  I feel unsettled about where this question is leading. “I didn’t sleep with Claire.”

  “So you haven’t slept with anyone either?”

  “I slept with Melissa.”

  “Who’s Melissa?” She sounds surprised and a little hurt.

  “She’s a woman I slept with occasionally.”

  “You mean it was just sex.”

  “Yes.”

  “Not a relationship?”

  “No. I didn’t want a relationship.”

  “But you wanted sex.”

&nbs
p; “Yes. I just…‌did you think I’d be celibate after the divorce?”

  “No.” She takes a deep breath and lets it out. “Of course not.”

  “Wait a minute. You said, ‘So you haven’t slept with anyone either?’ Are you saying you haven’t slept with anyone since we split up?”

  “I haven’t slept with anyone.”

  “Why? Surely you’ve had the opportunity? You’re young, beautiful.” It’s hard to say the next word. “Single.”

  “I could barely get out of bed for the first few months after we divorced. At the time you got shot, I was happy that I’d been able to go back to work and start having some semblance of a life again, even if it was only temporary assignments and semiregular outings with family and friends. It was more than I’d dared to hope for when I was at my lowest. Finding a man hadn’t even made it onto my short list of goals. To be honest, I couldn’t even fathom it.”

  “I know it’s a double standard, but I’m happy you didn’t go looking for someone. Any man you would have met would know right away that he’d found a good thing.”

  “Daniel?” she says when I’m almost asleep.

  “Yes?”

  “Did you want to sleep with Claire?”

  Answering this question is the last thing I want to do, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to be less than honest with her about anything from now on. “Yes.”

  “Did you love her?”

  “It wasn’t like that, Jess,” I say. I stroke her hair and kiss her forehead.

  “Okay.” Her voice sounds hollow and she feels worlds away, and it seems like a long time before either of us falls back to sleep.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  DANIEL

  Jess gets out of bed a little before dawn. I haven’t slept well and I lie there fully awake, watching as she pulls on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. She runs her fingers through her hair and gathers it into a knot, securing it with a hair tie she plucks from the top of the dresser. After she leaves the room, I pull on my own clothes and catch up with her at the door to the garage.

  “I think I know where you’re going. Let me come with you.”

  She doesn’t say anything as I follow her to the car. The sky is awash in yellows and pinks as the sun begins its ascent during the fifteen-minute drive. The roads are empty. We are silent.

  Jess drives along the narrow lane that surrounds the cemetery and pulls the car to the side so we won’t block anyone’s path. I follow her to the stone marker I picked out by myself, kneeling on the cold ground beside her.

  Gabriel Joseph Rush. Cherished child, taken too soon. You will never be forgotten.

  “After the divorce was final, I used to come here every day,” Jess says, rubbing her hands together to warm them. “I’d stay too long. Wallow in my grief. Blame the universe. What happened to Gabriel wasn’t your fault. I knew it then, and I know it now.” She looks over at me as the tears roll down her face. “I was just so mad. That little boy was my world. And it wasn’t fair that one morning he was just gone. I never wanted you to leave, but I didn’t know how to ask you to stay.”

  “We take our anger out on the ones we’re closest to because we know they can handle it. I should have stayed and not given up on you, the way you haven’t given up on me.”

  “It’s not the same thing.”

  “Maybe not, but it’s been close enough for me to walk in your shoes.”

  “And me in yours,” she whispers.

  “I want to talk to you about Claire.”

  She shakes her head and wipes away her tears. “You don’t have to. I have no right to be upset by it.”

  “You have the right to feel something, Jess. If you had found someone, I’d have feelings about it. You can’t love someone for as long as I loved you and not be hurt when you learn they’ve given that love to someone else.”

  “That’s what Amy said that night she and Trish and I went out. That I was entitled to my feelings.”

  “Claire is married, Jess.”

  She looks at me with a shocked expression. “Married?”

  “Yes. I pulled her over for a broken taillight. I ran into her a couple more times. She’s a graphic designer, and she ended up doing a project for the police department. She was going through a rough patch in her marriage, and I think she needed me as much as I needed her. You asked me if I loved Claire, and I said no. But I fell in love with her. Or maybe I fell in love with the idea of her. I really don’t know which one it was. I slept with Melissa, but I was never going to love her, so I stopped seeing her. Then I had a relationship with Claire, a woman who looked a lot like you, but I couldn’t have her either.” Jess is shivering, so I take off my jacket and wrap it around her shoulders. “I’m sorry if this has hurt you.”

  “You gave your heart to Claire. That hurts more than what you gave to Melissa.”

  “I didn’t give Claire my whole heart, and neither did she. There were still two people out there who were holding on to them too tightly.”

  Jess pulls my jacket tighter around her shoulders.

  “I remember why I changed the garage code. Dylan let himself in one night, shortly before Claire and I arrived. He called us on our bullshit because by that time we were really playing with fire, and he could see it from a mile away. After he left, we almost crossed the line, but I stopped it. If we’d slept together or taken the relationship any further, it would have had the potential to ruin her marriage. And there was also a part of me that knew Claire was only a substitute. If I had really wanted to move on, there are plenty of unmarried women in this town I could have moved forward with. Claire asked me once if I still loved you, and I told her it didn’t matter. But of course it does, because I still love you, Jess, and I won’t let you go again. No matter what happens in the future or how hard you push me away. I won’t stop this time until I get you back.”

  “I’m never going to push you away again. But I’m ready for there to not be so much hurt.”

  “That’s life, honey. The potential is always there for something to hurt us. But if you can bring that hurt to me, if you don’t try to hide it, I’ll do my best to get you through it.”

  She nods her head. “I promise you I will.”

  “I’m freezing. Let’s go home.”

  “Bye, baby,” she says to Gabriel, rubbing her hand along the marker.

  “Bye, Gabriel,” I say, reaching for her hand as we rise and walk to the car. I don’t let go until I open her door.

  Before she slides behind the wheel, she kisses me and says, “I still love you too.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  DANIEL

  The guys cheered when I walked into the station on my first day back, and I shook many hands as I made my way through the building. If someone had told me when I first woke up from my coma that one day I’d be back in uniform and heading out on patrol duty, I probably wouldn’t have believed them. The days of lying in a hospital bed unable to remember much of anything now seem light-years away. My memory isn’t one hundred percent and probably never will be, but mostly it’s the odd, insignificant detail that I struggle with.

  When I returned home around eleven thirty that first night after spending my day responding to calls and pulling people over, Jess was waiting up for me.

  “How was it?” she asked.

  “It was good.”

  “You’ve come full circle.”

  I pulled her into my arms and kissed her. “And picked you up somewhere along the way.”

  Jess and I got married again. The courthouse seemed a little impersonal, but planning a wedding ceremony didn’t really appeal to us either. We compromised with a short ceremony at home, with just our families in attendance. Afterward, we celebrated at a restaurant with our families and closest friends.

  “I hear we have some newlyweds with us tonight,” our waiter had said when he delivered a bottle of champagne to our table, courtesy of the guys down at the station.

&nb
sp; “Not exactly newlyweds,” Jess said. “We were married to each other before.”

  The waiter looked confused. “Well, uh, congratulations anyway.”

  Jess went back to work too. She’s selling advertising again, for a different TV station than the one she used to work for, but only because her old company didn’t have any openings and this one did. The only drawback is that our work hours don’t coincide, but we’ll both have to be patient until I can get back on the day shift. For now, I’m getting up with Jess in the morning and she’s staying up until I get home. We’re both tired, but we don’t really care.

  Yesterday, while patrolling the parkway, I pulled over a man going twelve miles an hour faster than he should have been. As I prepared to leave the safety of my squad car, I took deep breaths and tried to calm my galloping heart. Routine traffic stops are getting harder for me, not easier. My physical symptoms, which are essentially those experienced by anyone with post-traumatic stress, include shaking and sweating; my muscles tighten, and I find it hard to breathe. I had to take several deep breaths before I left the car and approached the driver-side window of the silver Lexus sedan.

  He was in his midthirties, give or take. Suit and tie, although his jacket was lying across the passenger seat. A quick scan of the interior revealed no visible weapons or immediate threats. Even so, it felt like I was breathing through a straw. “Do you have any idea how fast you were going?”

  “Too fast, I know. Haven’t traveled in a while. I just want to get home to my wife and kids.”

  He handed over his license and registration, and I took them back to my car to radio his information to dispatch. When I saw the name, I scrapped the ticket I’d already started to fill out and replaced it with a warning. When I handed it to him, the surprise was evident in his expression. He studied me, puzzled. Then he glanced down at my signature on the warning, and realization dawned on his face.

  “Watch your speed. Nothing is more important than reaching your destination safely. I’m sure your wife and children would agree.”