Better Than None (20 page)

“Hey, you ok?”

“You mean except for being freaked out about the fact that we just had
unprotected sex?”

“But I pulled out.” The man was a doctor yet he sounded like an
ignorant teenager.

I just shook my head and started to get out of the tub, but he pulled
me back to him. “Hey, don’t.”

“Don’t what? Worry about getting pregnant? Or a disease?”

“No. Don’t pull away from me. Let’s talk about it.”

“About what? Me screwing up my life by being irresponsible?”

“Stephanie, please.” He turned me to finally look at him. “This isn’t
going to work if you run away every single time something happens.” So easy for
him to say when he wasn’t the one who would have to live with the
repercussions. All I could do was stare at him. He brushed my hair off my
forehead tenderly. “What if I did that? How would that make you feel?” That
thought never entered my mind, but I knew exactly how I’d feel: hurt,
abandoned, and back at square one. Brad wasn’t nearly as insecure as I was. Hell,
he wasn’t insecure at all. Regardless, I had no reason to hurt him and it took
that simple question to make me realize that I was doing just that each time I
fled. I was just about to answer when he threw me for a loop.

“How would you feel about going on the pill?”

My eyes must have bugged out of my head based on his expression. “So,
no pill?”

“Uh, it’s just so, so…”

“So much of a commitment?” He asked with a wry smile. Fuck, this man
was starting to get to know me, really know me. I bit my lip and nodded. “I
told you, Steph, I want to keep moving forward. And I think you do too.”

“You’re not afraid?” I asked, barely a whisper.

“Of what, you going on the pill and then expecting your grout to be
cleaned as payback?”

“I’m serious.”

“I know, baby.” He pulled me onto his lap. The water was now lukewarm
and we were both turning into prunes. “What do you have to be afraid of?”

If I only knew.

Brad and I started an odd dance of sorts. Well, the whole thing with
him was odd for me, but there was tacit understanding that when we saw each
other in his office, he was Dr. Rosenberg and I was simply my mother’s
caretaker. We’d assume our roles in public, and then at night, more often than
not, he’d end up at my house. I thought he started to seem softer, more
personable in clinic or at our appointments, but of course I was biased, my
filter was now completely colored.

Though I think for the first time, Brad was seeing this disease from
the other side. He saw what happened to the patients and their families after
they left his offices. He never said it out loud, but I could see it on his
face when I’d come back from my mom’s. He didn’t always know what she went
through at home, but he could see the toll it took on me. Sometimes I shared,
but most of the time I didn’t. It wasn’t just out of respect for him, though I
knew he tried to keep work at work. It was partly out of respect for Barbara.
Describing some of what she was going through, explaining the loss of bodily
functions, the loss of dignity… going through it was humiliating enough.
Repeating it to someone else made it that much worse. But he got a glimpse,
perhaps more than a glimpse. The same way that the more time I spent with Barb
at her various procedures, treatments and appointments made me understand how
and why thick skin was a job requirement for him and all the healthcare
workers. Anything less and it would be unbearable. I only got a glimpse into
his world for the few months that we’d been going through it. It was easy to
see how years and years could easily erase the sensitivity and compassion out
of sheer self-preservation. He had explained it at that first horrible dinner,
but now I was starting to understand it.

For the first time in my life, I was in a relationship. It might not
have been the most conventional, but I wouldn’t have expected anything truly
normal for me. So the fact that nobody knew about us wasn’t that strange to me.
I think it would have been stranger actually saying the word ‘boyfriend’ out
loud, so it was good I didn’t have to.

Because I was my mother’s caretaker, there wasn’t much time to go out
and do what most couples do in the beginning stages of dating. No movies and
few dinner dates out. With the limited time that I had in a given day, he’d
typically just come to my home after work. All those years of never having
anyone over felt like they were fading quickly into the past for I wasn’t just
in a relationship, I was actually playing house with someone. And I liked it. I
was getting used to falling asleep and waking up with him. I was also getting
used to what happened before, after and in between. Like so many other things
with Brad, I was having sex on a regular basis for the first time ever. I was
learning that it could be fun and playful, sweet and tender, rough and sexy. I
was finally letting my guard down all the way to experiment with new things as
well as relax and receive. What I was experiencing with Brad was so different
than what I’d done my whole life, it was becoming clear that up until being
with him, I really had no idea about sex and pleasure and intimacy.

Unfortunately, the better things got with Brad, the worse my mother’s
health declined. I’m sure if I were spiritual I’d see it as one relationship
ending, making room for the one that was just beginning. But of course that
wasn’t it. It wasn’t anything as beautiful as that. My mother was dying a slow,
horrible, painful death. We continued the chemo, which did retard the growth,
but didn’t shrink the tumor which meant it pressed on organs and ducts and
systems that couldn’t handle its intrusion. Within the five months since her
diagnosis, Barb had been in the hospital four times, underwent a couple
procedures per visit, each stay making her weaker and weaker. They were
necessary of course, but we both started to wonder just how much more she could
take.

I couldn’t help but feel guilty enjoying what was growing with Brad.
Part of me wanted to share it with my mom, to talk about something other than
her health so that she wouldn’t feel like there was nothing other than cancer.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t because he was her doctor, but more than that, I was
still getting comfortable with the whole idea of a relationship. Not to mention
the fact that he and I were still getting our bearings with each other. While
for the most part we continued to move forward, there were still hiccups along
the way where Brad would turn cold or I’d want to leave. Almost as soon as I’d
feel my walls going up, we’d talk things through and resolve most issues before
they became real ones.

****

It was Halloween and given our pretending in his office, I thought it
would be fun to dress up at home. I bought a sexy nurse outfit, put on the wig
that I’d bought with my mom and Sherri and greeted him at the door.

“Happy Halloween, Dr. Rosenberg, I’m Nurse Stephanie.”

He stared at me, but not in the way I had hoped he would. I was getting
used to his stares but this made me shrink back and want to retreat. It had
been a while since I felt that way with him so my kneejerk reaction wasn’t
anger like it used to be but confusion.

“What the hell is that?” He spat.

“I thought you might like me as a sexy nurse, that’s all.” This wasn’t
going down as I had planned at all. I was trying to be sexy and somehow he was
mad.

“Take it off.” He said and looked at the ground. I took a step back,
completely freaked out. I wasn’t afraid he’d hurt me, but there was something
so angry in his tone.

I started unbuttoning the outfit and he shook his head. “Not that. The
wig. Take the wig off.” He could barely look at me but when he did, he
obviously saw my fear and he softened.

“I just like you the way you are, Steph. I want to be with you, not you
pretending to be someone else.”

That helped, but I was still shaken as I pulled the wig off. The minute
I did he relaxed and looked me up and down, taking in the rest of my outfit. He
motioned with his finger to turn around, which I did, and when I came back to
facing him, he had the look I’d been hoping for. “Damn, you’re sexy Nurse
Stephanie.”

I tried not to wonder why the wig triggered whatever it did and once he
started playing along I pushed his reaction to the back of my mind and didn’t
consider it again. Something was changing with him, I just didn’t know what.

****

Just as I started getting used to having Brad in my life, just as I
started to truly let my guard down, I had a nagging feeling that all the steps
forward that we’d taken were stalling out. I ran through a whole list of what
could be happening, from me being extra sensitive due to the pill to perhaps
our relationship was just taking its natural course. Things had gotten so good
so quickly that maybe we were just plateauing. I had no one to ask and no point
of reference. After the Halloween incident, we went from seeing each other most
nights for a month to just a couple nights per week. And on those nights, he
seemed like he was retreating, or more accurately, fighting some inner demon. I
pressed lightly, but was typically met with long stares followed by an apology
and then intense sex. It seemed like whatever was going on with him, he was
able to temporarily forget it when we were in bed. I chided myself for worrying
and chalked it up to all being part of a new learning process.

I even tried to push myself farther outside of my comfort zone by
asking him over. For that first month, he was almost always the one making the
overture. But I thought perhaps he was tired of always doing the pursuing and
maybe that he needed to see that I wanted him as much as he had wanted me. When
I sent a
Date 29 tonight?
text, the few times I did, they were met with
excuses of rough days at work or early morning meetings. I forced myself not to
read too much into it even though in the back of my mind I knew I should.

****

Bel Air after work?

It was the first text that didn’t count the date number. Every time
we’d get together, even though it typically just meant he was coming over, he’d
text
Date 17?
or whatever the tally was. Each number that ticked up made
me feel more and more like a normal person in a real relationship, and farther
from the person I’d used to be. This text itself was terse, but that wasn’t all
that unusual for the man of many changing moods. I chuckled to myself as I
drove up the long hotel driveway that if he were a Native American, that would
be his name. Kevin Costner was Dances with Wolves. Brad was Changes Moods with
the Winds.

It must have been a strong wind blowing that changed him into the man I
saw sitting at the bar. This wasn’t the man I’d been falling in love with. Even
from a distance it was clear that something had changed in him. His posture was
rigid but his expression was defeated. I was almost afraid to walk up to him,
but I took pride in the notion that whatever mood he was in, I’d be able to
help him out of it. I liked that about our relationship. I could help him out
of his funks and vice versa. I had started to believe that we were good for
each other. Both fucked up, but if we worked together, we could figure things
out, or at least our relationship. I had convinced myself that in our case, two
wrongs could make a right.

I berated myself for my insecurities and slid into the stool next to
him. He barely regarded my presence as he glanced over his shoulder and then
downed the rest of his drink. Ok, must have been a bad day at work. Perhaps a
patient died. I worked with ad campaigns, so what did I know about dealing with
life and death every day?

“Hey, you ok?” I asked softly as I kissed his cheek. I tried not to
take it personally when he flinched away from me, but this whole setup was
starting to raise the hairs on my neck. I wasn’t very good at reading my own
signs. I’d gone through my whole life not trusting my instincts, shoving them down
and listening to something that I’d manufactured. Perhaps gut instinct was like
a muscle. Those who learned to listen to theirs, to read the warning signs, see
the red flags, could rely on their muscles like a sprinter could rely on the
spring in their thighs to propel them forward. I’d never developed those
muscles. I was like a gangly foal learning to walk when it came to that which
most people my age had already developed.

Still, when he jerked away and didn’t look me in the eyes when he
returned my “hey”, I started to realize that something was wrong. Very, very
wrong.

Scott caught my eye and already knew my drink. We communicated
silently, but with a hell of a lot more warmth than what Brad was giving me.

“Brad?” I asked tentatively. Part of me still wanted to say ‘fuck it’
and walk out, but I felt like I’d come so far, that we’d come so far. Neither
of us deserved that.

When he finally turned his body to me, I wished he hadn’t. The look in
his eyes said it all. Whatever it was, it was bad.

“I never expected this.” He said softly with a little slur, making me
wonder how many scotches he’d had before I got there.

“Expected what, baby?”

“Don’t call me that. Not now.” He bristled and I froze. Rejection
wasn’t something I had ever made myself ready or available for. I tried to
sound strong when I spoke next.

“Brad, what’s going on?” I stared at him, actually at the side of his
face. He couldn’t even look at me.

“My, my… oh fuck it, my wife’s cancer is in remission.” He spoke like
he was delivering bad news even though, on the face of it, it was the exact
opposite.

I nodded, but was still shell-shocked enough by his mood not to say
anything.

“You know, she wanted the divorce because she thought that I’d stay
with her out of pity. Even after cheating on me. And she didn’t want my pity.
Fuck, she didn’t want me or my pity.” He chuckled to himself and signaled Scott
for another.

Then he looked at me square in the eyes. It didn’t matter how drunk he
was, I understood the importance of what he was trying to convey.

“I never signed the papers, Steph. I never legally divorced her.”

“Okaaaay.” I still wasn’t clear where this was going as I downed half
of my martini. They’d been separated and living apart for about a year. For all
intents and purposes they weren’t a couple. Papers or not, it seemed to me that
there wasn’t a marriage anymore.

“She wants to get back together.”

I let that sink in and drained the rest of my drink. I may not have
known dick about relationships, but I knew enough to know that if he was
telling me this, it was far past the stage of just her wanting it. I signaled
Scott for another.

“She’s beat cancer, Stephanie.” He said like I was supposed to
understand that even though their marriage had been in the toilet, even though
she cheated on him, none of
that
mattered. I nodded and waited for the
other shoe to drop, because it was clear, there was more, and whatever it was,
it was a doozy.

“I’m sorry.” Was all he said and it was finally clear. He was going
back to her. And the fucker didn’t even have the balls to say the words.

Scott set my martini down and I smiled at him before I downed the
entire drink in one smooth long swig. I felt it burn every part of me from my
tongue to my throat all the way down until I could feel it burning my stomach.
It helped being able to focus on that feeling, that brief pain. It was a slight
distraction, but not nearly enough to eclipse what I was hearing. My head felt
fuzzy from the vodka, but I was surprisingly clear.

“You asked me here so that I could walk away.” I said flatly.

He didn’t even try to deny it. “I’m sorry, Steph.” He said again as he
looked down into his scotch. He couldn’t even make eye contact with me, he just
kept talking to his glass. “I already failed her once. I’m the reason she
strayed, the reason our marriage fell apart. I owe this to her.”