Fragile Bonds (3 page)

“You have please
d me,” I say in a low voice, standing less than a foot away from her. “Are you wondering why I asked you to meet me in here tonight?”

Melanie’s eyes never leave the floor. I have faith that they will remain there until I give her permission to look at me. “Yes, Sir,” she responds
confidently. I smile at her honesty. There was a time, when we first got together, when she would give me the answer I wanted. Now, I know she trusts me enough to speak her mind.

“Without trust, there is nothing,” I say, reaching down, tipping her chin far enough so she is looking into my eyes. “You’ve given me your trust, which is everything. This heart is a symbol of my love for you. I cherish your gift every moment of every day and promise that I will do everything I can to keep from hurting you. You, Melanie Elaine Erickson, are the world to me. I love you.”

I can see tears welling in her eyes. Before moving to stand behind her, I wipe the dampness from her cheeks with my thumb. I pull Melanie’s hair to the side, instructing her to hold it. Reaching into my pocket, I pull out a silver heart with two gemstones in the center. Once I have secured the clasp behind her neck, I reach for a small mirror I placed on the mantle earlier, holding it so she can see my gift.

“It’s beautiful, thank you.” Her eyes stay fixed on the pendant reflected back at her.

“Xavier, wake up,” Alyssa whispers, shaking my arm. I wipe the sleep from my eyes, checking the time on my phone. It’s been five hours since I left Jacob and Alyssa to have some private time. “You’re never going to be able to walk tomorrow if you sleep out here.”

“What are you doing up?” I ask, patting the cushion next to me, inviting Alyssa to have a seat.
Seeing as I have to be up in a few short hours, I doubt I’ll be going back to sleep and I selfishly want time with my wife. She sits, resting her head on my shoulder as I reach for the fireplace remote.

If there was a way I could go back five years and treat her the way she deserves to be treated, I would do it in a heartbeat. I was such an ass to her, I have no clue why she stuck around. Actually, I do. She stayed for Jacob’s sake, begging me to marry her until I finally said yes. It makes me sick to think that I treated her like nothing but a meaningless fuck toy for so long.

Do not go there. Enjoy the time you have.

“When you spend most of the time lying in a crappy hospital bed, your schedule tends to get screwed up,” she laughs. I look over and see my wife smiling at me. How in the world can she live with the fact that she’s dying and still be so happy all the time?

“Fair enough,” I say with a shrug. “How are you feeling?”

Alyssa rolls her eyes, letting out a sharp sigh. “Like I could really go for a steak right about now,” she says sarcastically. I wish she would understand that I will always ask how she’s feeling. Whether we exchanged vows for the right reasons or not, I fully intend to keep them, and that means doing everything in my power to take care of her. “Seriously, whose idea was this stupid ass tube in my gut?”

She lifts her shirt, exposing the tubing coming out of her abdomen. The doctors inserted it because they said her organs are starting to fail. I’m pretty sure she’s still upset with me for insisting that she go through that procedure. While she
can
still eat, it’s going to get progressively more difficult for her body to digest food and the doctors suggested this as a way to make sure she’s not malnourished. “I look like some sort of freak now,” she says, staring down at her stomach.

“You look beautiful,” I assure her.
After brushing a stray hair off her forehead, I run my fingers softly down her cheeks. She leans into my touch and we sit quietly holding one another. When Alyssa falls back to sleep, I ease myself off the couch, picking her up to take her back to her bed. I wince when I feel the differences in her body. She’s lighter than she has ever been and I can feel her bones poking into my chest as I make my way down the hall.

It’s not until she’s tucked in and comfortable that I retire to our bedroom. Finally alone, I don’t try to stop the tears from falling.
I’m unaccustomed to feeling so out of control. Everyone in my life knows that I am the one who will find a way to fix whatever comes along. Now, my wife is dying and there’s not a damn thing I can do to stop it. When the alarm goes off, I drag myself off the mattress and into the shower. There are no more tears. They’ve been expelled from my body, leaving behind an emptiness that I know will only get worse in the coming weeks.

For most people, the holidays are the happiest time of year. Personally, I’ve grown to hate them. Too many people obsess over finding the perfect gift for their loved ones, completely ignoring the fact that time is always the best gift of all. I’ve been reminded of this every year since I started caring for the terminally ill. This year marks the fourth in a row that I am helping a family prepare for their last Christmas together.

“
Mel, can we go shopping this afternoon?” Alyssa has been doing well this week. She’s not as run down and even has some color in her cheeks. This morning, she asked me to help her decorate for Christmas. Xavier grumbled the entire time he was carrying boxes up from the basement, but I know him well enough to know he wasn’t truly upset. Once we had everything in the living room and Alyssa settled on the couch where she could tell me what to do, he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before heading off to work.

It’s getting a little bit easier every day to see the two of them together. The first two weeks, my heart ached every time I saw him or even caught a whiff of his
woodsy cologne when I walked into the room. Now, it’s impossible for me to hold onto the pain when I see how devoted he is to his wife and son.

“Sure, as long as you don’t push me too hard,” I say, looking down from the top of the ladder. Alyssa gives me the thumbs-up that she’s finally satisfied with the placement of the
star on the tree and I climb down. “After all, you might have been sitting around all day, but this lady I work for is a real slave driver,” I laugh, wiping my forehead with the back of my hand.

I know I’ve allowed myself to get too close to Alyssa, but she has
an infectious personality and we really clicked. And most of the time, it’s easy to forget that she’s dying because she refuses to
act
like she’s sick.

“Yeah, rumor on the street is that she’s a real bitch,” Alyssa replies, reaching out her hand so I can help her stand.

“She’s not so bad,” I play along. “But I think she might have a serious Christmas obsession.” I’m not sure there’s a single horizontal surface that hasn’t been infested by the holiday spirit. Not my thing, but then again, it’s not about me.

“You know, I never used to like decorating,” she
confesses as we walk down the hall to her room. “But admit it, if you lived in a house like this, you’d decorate too.”

And, so much for being over the pain. I bite down on my tongue, hard, so I won’t be tempted to either cry or tell Alyssa that I used to live in this exact house. The closer we get, the guiltier I feel because I’m lying to her. Not directly, of course, but I have to carefully skirt around little comments such as this.

“Yeah, you have a point.” I close the door behind us and go to the window overlooking the backyard. While Alyssa gets dressed, I think about the first time I saw the play set in the back corner of the lot.

“I’m going to see if I can sell that monstrosity,” Xavier says, pointing to the wooden play set. We’ve never talked about having kids, but now that we have our own
home, I can almost picture a little brown-haired boy or girl running through the grass to climb to the top of the slide.

“Why would you sell it?” I ask. It seems a shame to get rid of it since I know how expensive a structure like that is to build. “It’s not hurting anything sitting there.”

“Why would we keep it? You have at least two years of school left, and then you’ll be so focused on your career you won’t have time to start a family.” The words sting, even if they’re true.

“Hey, space cadet,” Alyssa laughs as she throws a balled up towel at me. I turn around and see her staring at me, tapping her foot. “Are we shopping or did you want to stare at the snow all afternoon?”

Four hours later, I follow Alyssa into the house, feeling a bit like a pack mule. She tried to reach for the bags, but there’s no way I’m subjecting myself to Xavier’s wrath if he catches us as we walk in the door. If he doesn’t back off, I’m going to be forced to sit him down and tell him to let Alyssa live her life. She won’t say anything to him, but she complains to me almost daily about the fact that he’s treating her as if she already has one foot in the grave. She’s a proud woman and having her independence stripped away from her before it’s time is frustrating her.

“Mommy, you’re home!” Jacob squeals, running through the house. She braces herself against the wall as the boy crashes into her legs. “Did you get me something?” he asks, eyeing the bags in my hands.

“I don’t know, have you been a good boy?” She smiles down at her son and my heart breaks. As she bends down to hug him, I pull out my phone to take a picture. I’ve never done this in the past, but I knew helping this family wasn’t going to be like the others. I want to do whatever I can to make sure Jacob will have something to remember his mother by long after she’s gone.

Jacob nods his head furiously. “I
have
been a good boy! Ask Daddy, he talked to Miss Pam today and she told him that I didn’t get any yellow or red marks at school.”

I excuse myself, carrying the bags to Alyssa’s bedroom. Xavier stops me in my tracks as I turn the corner to go down the hall. “Why did you let her do that?” he asks.
After looking at his strong hand wrapped around my bicep, I look up to his face, fully expecting to see a disapproving glare, not worry, in his dark blue eyes.

“Because Christmas is just around the corner and she wanted to go shopping,” I respond, rolling my eyes.
I jerk my arm free and continue walking down the hall. Alyssa told me where to stash everything while we drove home, knowing that her husband and son wouldn’t allow her a moment of peace when she walked through the door after being liberated for the day.

“She could have done that online,” he points out
, stepping in front of me once again. What he fails to think about is the fact that this house is becoming a prison to Alyssa. While we do need to be careful, keeping her in the relative safety of her own home won’t do anything to change what is going on. And a trip to the mall is no worse than having a four year old who goes to daycare running through the house.

“Xavier, you have to let her live,” I say, pushing my way past him. I’m not the submissive girl I used to be. That girl died on the living room floor six years ago. “I get that you’re worried about her, but this is my job. You should know by now that I wouldn’t let her keep going if she was getting too tired.”

Heavy footsteps echo off the walls behind me. I turn into the bedroom, leaving the door open. “That’s the problem,” he grumbles. I swat his hand away when he tries to peek in the bags. She bought a few things for him and I’m not about to let him ruin the surprise. “She won’t tell you when she gets tired. She’s acting like nothing’s wrong when we all know it is.”

I slam the closet door shut behind me and spin around to look at him. I square my shoulders as I take a step into his personal space. “Do you seriously think I need her to
tell
me when she gets tired? Alyssa is the ninth client I have helped through this completely shitty stage of life. The first day I came into your house, you asked me if I was capable of doing my job and I guaranteed you then that I was. It’s not because I was in the top tenth of my graduating class or because I had the highest praise from the doctors I worked with before transitioning into hospice. It’s because I do everything I can to give my patients the quality of life they deserve right up until they take their last breath.”

Xavier’s eyes are wide when I stop long enough to take a breath. I can tell by the smug grin on his face that he’s enjoying watching me challenge him this way. “If you have a problem with that, I think you had better prepare to explain to your wife why
you asked the agency to assign a different caretaker to her case.”

“Damn, Mel,” Xavier says quietly. “It’s good to see the feisty brat I used to know is still in there somewhere.” I bristle at his words, wanting to pound my fists into his chest. He does
not
get to call me a brat anymore. That was one of his favorite nicknames for me when we were together. He lost that right when he tossed me to the side for a momentary lapse in judgment. “From now on, I would appreciate it if you would call me before going on any outings. You might be her companion and nurse, but I am her husband.”

Not wanting to make a scene, I purse my lips, anxious for him to leave the room. I close my eyes tightly, staring up at the ceiling once he’s gone, reminding myself that I can do this.

“Xavier, do you think Mel would be willing to come over tomorrow night if you paid her extra?” Alyssa’s sitting on the living room floor wrapping a mountain of presents. She and Melanie have gone shopping at least four times this month and my credit card is thankful that Christmas is only two days away.

“She probably has plans already, Al. I think asking her to give up Christmas with her family is a bit much.” I know
damn well that’s a lie. If Melanie was going home for Christmas, she would have been on a plane to Vermont days ago.

“That’s
exactly
why I want you to ask her to come. If she thinks we need her to help, she won’t say no. Her family is somewhere out on the east coast and I don’t want her sitting alone in her apartment.” I should have known my scheming wife had this all figured out. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if she knows more about Melanie’s life than I do.

The bigger problem is that Alyssa knows I won’t tell her no. If she asked for the
Taj Mahal to be sitting in the front lawn when she wakes up tomorrow morning, I would spend all night trying to figure out how to make it happen. At least, I hope she sees that I’m trying to be more accommodating since the night Melanie chewed my ass. There have been plenty of times I’ve wanted to tell Alyssa to slow down, to take it easy, but then Melanie’s voice rings in my head, telling me that I can’t be a controlling ass. I still can’t believe she challenged me the way she did, but after I calmed down I was able to see that I needed that.

I kiss the top of Alyssa’s head as I gather more wrapped gifts to put under the tree, shaking my head when I see three marked for Melanie. “Sure, I’ll give her a call right now.”

“Thank you,” Alyssa says sweetly, giving me a megawatt smile. The woman truly amazes me.

I duck into my bedroom before dialing Melanie’s number. I’m fully prepared to play dirty if I have to and I don’t want Alyssa hearing what might be said. She and Melanie have become good friends and I won’t jeopardize that if I can help it.

“Is everything okay?” Melanie answers on the third ring, out of breath. I glance at my alarm clock and see that it’s already after ten.