Before I Go (27 page)

The carrot cake reminds me of my first Christmas with Jack’s family in Indiana. It was so normal it made me uncomfortable. Like I was in the middle of a Publix commercial, but someone forgot to hand me a script. I smiled a lot. At his mom when she offered more turkey and stuffing. At his three little sisters when they all wanted to braid my hair and paint my face with lipstick and glitter. At his uncle who said I hadn’t lived until I ate a piece of Jack’s mom’s carrot cake. “Aren’t you going to have any?” I asked Jack as his mom passed out slices on good china. “I don’t really like sweets,” he said, pouring coffee into a delicate cup.

“Who doesn’t like
sweets
?” I raised my voice, forgetting my demure composure, shocked that I had known him for eight months without learning this significant piece of information. The family erupted in laughter. “He’s the milkman’s son!” His dad banged his fist at the head of the table. “It’s unnatural,” his mom tutted.

Jack doesn’t eat dessert.
As I slide into a folding chair, I make a mental note to add it to the list I started for Pamela. Things she should know about him, like how he’ll never voluntarily get a haircut or how he keeps a box of Trivial Pursuit cards next to the toilet and reads them for fun, or how, if an animal dies on his surgery table, he needs to be left alone for a few hours that night—no hugs, no consoling “It wasn’t your fault,” no suggestions for distraction.

“I like your sweater.”

I look up across the table that Jack has led us to into Pamela’s round eyes and then down at my navy and white striped top. Jack calls it my boat captain shirt. He usually salutes me when I wear it, but when I came out into the living room this morning, he just looked at me and said, “Ready to go?”

“Thanks,” I say, sitting down, while scanning her torso so I can return the compliment. “I like your . . . hair.”

It’s pulled straight back into a full ponytail. No muss, no fuss. And I know it’s not the style I’m complimenting her on, but more her whole low-maintenance attitude. And how she can still look impossibly, irritatingly beautiful with her hair up and no mascara.

She smiles and then looks at Jack, already inhaling his chili beside me. “You like it?”

“Killer,” he says, using his napkin to catch a grease dribble running down his chin.

“It’s my grandma’s secret recipe.”

Jack pauses long enough to say, “You made this one?”

She nods. “Make sure you vote for it. I mean, you know, if you think it’s the best.” She glances at my untouched bowl. Then she adds, in a serious voice: “There’s a plastic trophy on the line here.”

Out of reflex, I pick up my spoon and start picking at the meat. “Sorry,” I say. “I had a really big breakfast.”

“Daisy hates chili,” Jack says.

“I don’t
hate
it. I just don’t really like it.” I offer Pamela a smile. “But yours looked the best out of all of them.”

“Thanks.” She laughs, and there’s something pleasing about the sound. Or maybe I’m pleased with myself for eliciting it. Like I’m in high school and thrilled that the popular girl thinks I’m funny.

She straightens her back and clears her throat. “So, um . . . I have a confession to make.”

She nervously glances at Jack and my spine goes rigid. The word “confession” is so personal, suggestive, intimate. I lean closer, wondering what the next sentence could possibly be. Is this when the popular girl tries to steal my boyfriend? Right in front of me? Or have I been watching too many
Gossip Girl
reruns on TBS?

“Jack, I’ve been wanting to ask you something all day.”

“What?” he says, putting his spoon down, giving her his full attention. I stare at his face staring at her and wish I knew what was going through his mind. Does he think she’s pretty? Of course he does. She’s indisputably beautiful. But—does he think she’s prettier than
me
?

“It’s about Copper.”

I wait for Jack to ask what I’m thinking:
Who’s Copper?—
but he only nods.

“How’s he doing?”

“Not good. They had to remove the sling this week because he was developing laminitis in his right hoof.”

“From bearing too much weight,” Jack says.

“Exactly. But his broken leg isn’t completely healed and the vet says there’s nothing else he can do. He recommends putting him down.” She takes a deep breath. “But I just . . . I can’t.”

Jack nods again. “You want me to come take a look?”

She brightens and the water rimming her eyes glints in the light, and I know immediately that she’s one of those rare girls who’s pretty even when she cries. “Could you? I know you’re so busy, but you were talking about all that prosthetics research—”

“It’s really come a long way in the past few years, but I don’t want you to get your hopes up,” he says. “Leg injuries are tricky with horses.”

“I know,” Pamela says.

She continues speaking, but I’m stuck in what she’s already said. Or not what she’s said, but in what her words infer. Pamela and Jack really know each other. They have had actual conversations about her horse and about his job and I wonder what else they talk about. And I wonder how long they’ve been volunteering together. And I wonder why he’s never mentioned her. Has he? I search my memory bank. Did Jack ever come home from PetSmart and say, “Remember that girl
Pamela I was telling you about? She did the funniest thing today.” But I don’t think he ever did say that. And I wonder what it means that he didn’t.

I try to stay involved in their conversation, but it’s a tennis match and I’m very much just a spectator. So I observe. Their bodies are hunched toward each other, Jack’s eyes bright and eager as he expounds the details of his prosthetics research. Pamela’s a fervent listener, devouring every word that falls from his lips. And I wonder if I’m imagining it or if I can actually hear the buzz of the electric current that invisibly flows between them.

Jack loops me back into the conversation. “Is that OK with you? If I go up there tomorrow?”

I pretend to think. I pretend that our once-full calendar isn’t completely blank except for my every-two-week Friday doctor appointments. I pretend that I’m still in control, that everything is going according to my plan, that Jack isn’t slipping through my hands, but that I’m pushing him. Letting him go.

I nod my head. “It’s OK.”

Pamela stands up. “Great,” she says. “Do you guys want anything? I’m gonna get a cookie.”

My eyes are drawn to her stomach. It’s so flat it looks like it’s never seen a cookie, and I try to swallow my envy. “Get two,” I want to say. But then a sentence from Pamela’s dating profile jumps out at me.

“You don’t want the pie?” I ask.

She tilts her head.

Why did I say that out loud?

“I just . . . it looked really good.”

“Oh, do you want a piece? I’ll bring you one.”

“No, I’m fine.”

She nods. “Jack?”

We both look at my husband, whose mouth is full of cornbread.

I speak for him: “He doesn’t eat dessert.”

But then, I wonder if maybe she already knows that and is just being polite.

ON THE DRIVE home it’s still light outside. More cars than usual line our street, which can only mean—

“Must be a baseball game today,” Jack says.

“Mmm,” I say, still lost in thoughts about Pamela. But part of me inexplicably waits for him to say more. To ask if I want to go to the game with him. Right now. Grab a blanket and go sit on the hill, a grassy slope behind right field where students without tickets gather to drink cheap beer and heckle the opposing team’s outfielders. Jack and I went once when we first moved in to our house. It was fun, until an obnoxious frat boy sitting next to us started pitching his empty Miller Lite cans onto the field and then unbuttoned his pants and let a long stream of piss fall onto the patch of dirt three feet from where we were sitting. The splatter came within inches of our blanket.

And even though it was disgusting and I swore I’d never go again, now I want to. And I want Jack to want to, too.

But he doesn’t say anything else.

So I take a deep breath and ask, “How long have you known Pamela?”

Jack blinks while he expertly steers the car until it’s hugging the curb in front of our house. “I don’t know,” he says, shifting the gear into park. “Six months?” Then he looks at me. “Why?”

“You’ve never mentioned her before, and it just . . .” I try to choose my next words with precision, keep my tone steady and light. I don’t want to sound like a nagging wife. Or insecure. Or jealous. Or portray any of the real emotions I’m actually feeling. “I guess it seems like you
guys know each other pretty well. I was surprised is all.” I open the car door. “No big deal.”

I hop out of my seat, crafting my body language to match my carefree demeanor. Jack steps out into the road and walks a pace behind me toward the front door. When my foot grazes the third step of the stone porch, I feel his hand fall on my waist. He tugs the belt loop on my jeans.

“Hey,” he says. I pivot to face him. With his feet planted firmly on the ground and mine teetering on the middle step, we are the same height. We are literally seeing eye to eye. I wait for him to speak, but instead, Jack leans in, closing the gap, and firmly plants his lips on mine. I pucker my mouth automatically, returning his kiss out of instinct, years of habit shaping my mouth to meet his.

“Mwah,” I say, ending the familiar peck, and force my mind to move on to the evening’s activities—the bath I want to take, the flannel jammies I’m looking forward to snuggling in—and not the fact that it’s the first time we’ve kissed on the lips in weeks. Or that the skin where his cheek stubble scratched my face is still tingling.

But before I can turn back toward the door, his hand is on the back of my head, pulling me forward. Our lips meet again, this time with a grave force that snaps me out of my conditioned response and reminds me instantly of those first kisses we shared in doorways and parked cars. The weak bellies. The trembling knees.

And though I’ve had no desire to have sex in weeks, a primal urge blossoms in my belly and spreads like wildfire.

I want my husband.

And I know it’s some biological instinct reacting to the threat of competition, a symbolic way to drive a red flag through his chest and stake him as
mine
, but I don’t care.

We stumble up the last few steps still kissing, our hands groping, neither one of us wanting to risk breaking the connection. Jack unlocks
the front door and I start unbuttoning his jeans before it’s fully closed behind us.

He digs one hand in my hair and the other roams over the curves of my sweater and then glides underneath it. He stretches his fingers across my bare stomach, kneading them into my flesh and I freeze. An image of Pamela’s flat abs flashes through my mind. I sharply inhale, concentrating all my efforts on sucking in my rounded belly that has never been taut, despite the endless hours of hot yoga and number of kale smoothies I subjected it to.

“Are you OK?” Jack whispers, his hands as still as my breath. “Did I hurt you?”

“I’m fine,” I say, unzipping my pants and shrugging them down my legs. I give my head a shake, willing myself to stop thinking about Pamela and why I shouldn’t be taking my clothes off with my husband. To stop ruining this moment. To exhale.

But as hard as I try she’s still there.

When Jack kisses a trail down my neck.

Falls on top of me on the couch.

Moves inside of me.

I close my eyes tight and dig my fingers into his shoulders, proving to myself that he’s there. Mine. But even with my eyes closed I still see her face.

With all my strength, I pull Jack to me. Closer. Deeper. I want us to become one in every sense of the word. But then, the full weight of his upper body is on mine, crushing my chest, my lungs, and I can’t breathe.

I can’t breathe.

I really can’t—

“Jack!” I gasp, pounding his back with my fists.

But he mistakes my frenzy for passion and buries his head in my neck. “Daisy,” he rasps.

“No!” The giant fist clenches tighter around my lungs and panic
has taken hold of me. “Get—off!” I push at his face, shoulders, anything I can get purchase on, with my fingers, my palms.

“Daisy?” He immediately sits up, his eyes mirroring the wild look that I know is in mine. “Daisy! What’s wrong?”

I struggle to sit up, to respond, but there’s a weight on my chest. I rake my fingers across my breasts in a desperate attempt to remove it. I suck in air, but it gets caught in my throat; there’s no place for it to go. I hear a noise far off that sounds oddly like a baby seal. And then I realize that it’s me. My heart is pounding in my ears and I’m vaguely aware of Jack’s hands on my shoulders, pulling me up to sitting, as I open and close my mouth like a fish on land, searching for water. But I’m searching for oxygen.

“Daisy. Look at me,” Jack is gripping my chin. “Look at me!”

I do.

“Now. Relax,” he says, in a steady voice. “Just calm down.” He gently rubs my arms. “Breathe,” he commands.

As if it were that simple. I open my mouth to tell him I can’t, but all I do is wheeze, and my head is light and I wonder if this is what dying feels like. And then I think how nice it is for Jack’s face to be the last thing I see.