Wake (96 page)

“I missed this,” Willa murmurs, and sucks my earlobe between her teeth. Her hands move across my back and shoulders, reminding me how much I missed this too—the holding, the touching, the giving and taking.

Willa licks the shell of my ear and I blurt out, “Touch me.” She doesn’t hesitate. Her hand goes down the front of my pajamas pants and cups me. Her other hand goes to my ass, pulling me closer until our fronts are nearly flush. Her hand is gentle while her mouth on my neck is not. She knows what I need, and it feels wonderful.

Willa’s feet bump against mine. “Spread,” she says, and I set my feet wider. Her legs slip in between, and the hand on my butt guides me forward again. She sets a rocking rhythm, brushing her legs against my inner thighs and the underside of my penis against her palm. She teases my ball s, tugging softly and roll ing them around the pad of her thumb. The heart monitor won’t shut the hell up.

I start to pant, and then I start to cough. Willa stops rocking and moves her hand up to my back, holding me. I have to spit a wad of yell ow phlegm into the sink behind her, because if something horribly disgusting didn’t happen to interrupt a sexy tryst, I might forget that this is
my
life.

“Catch your breath,” Willa says when I’m done hacking. Her hand is still down my pants, holding my bits.

I want her mouth.

You haven’t had a proper shower in days.

My dick doesn’t care.

“You look a little pale,” she says. Now the fun is definitely over, if she’s remarking on that.

“I’m fine.”

Willa makes me turn so that I’m leaning my butt against the counter. “Let’s screw with the heart monitor some more,” she says, and suckles my earlobe.
Shit.
I grab her hand and put it back on my crotch.

Willa chuckles in my ear. “You’re so impatient.” Her fingers form a tight ring around my privates while she licks my ear, and after a minute I have some semblance of a semi. Her other hand slides down under the head and I buck.

“Too much?” She moves to play with my balls instead.

Just as good.

It didn’t feel this good to play with my balls before cancer. Then again, it didn’t feel so benign to jerk off or hurt like hell to come, either. Willa pays me exquisite attention, like she knows exactly what will feel best. Am I really that obvious?

There’s a knock on the door and Willa whispers, “Shh, shh,” like I’m being noisy. well , I might have been. I wasn’t exactly paying attention.

“Jem?” God damn it, time for another sample already? I’ve got Nurse Maggie until this evening, the one who never shuts up and always has cats on her scrubs.

“I’m fine.”

Willa removes her hand from my pants with a smirk.

“You don’t sound fine.” Once, just once, I would like to get away with selling bullshit to a nurse.

“I’m
fine.
”

I guess I was making some pained noises with Willa, because Nurse Maggie offers me stool softeners. Willa has to cover her mouth and nose with her hands to keep from laughing, and I narrow my eyes at her. Rock hard turds are only funny until you’ve had one.

“Not necessary.”

She takes that to mean that I have diarrhea. Christ Almighty, why now? Why? Just why?

“I’m
fine
, Maggie.”

“So what was that groaning?”

“Jesus Christ, woman, let a man crap.”

Willa is red in the face and has tears in her eyes from trying not to laugh. I turn on the faucet to make enough noise that she can take a deep breath and calm down without being overheard.

I pull Willa close and whisper in her ear, “I’ll slip out. Wait behind the door, okay?” She nods, and I move my mask to give her a kiss. “Thanks for this.”

Willa gives me a gentle squeeze. “I needed it too.” She steps away to hide her body between the wall and the door. I flush the toilet for the sake of the charade and shut off the faucet. With one last wink in Willa’s direction, I take my IV pole and step out of our unlikely sanctuary, back to my sickbed.

“So,” I smile at Maggie as she snaps on a pair of gloves, “what fresh torture do you have for me now?”

Willa: June 17 to 19

Saturday

Between sleeping and waking there is a simple place that is entirely physical, where all I notice is whether I feel hungry or if I have to pee. Then thoughts of the day ahead filter in. Jem comes foremost in my mind, and with those thoughts comes a twinge of lust, like some primal drive to fuck in the face of disaster. Humans are a truly stupid species, evolution-wise. While every other mammal has the good sense to stop mating when a dire situation arises, humans are hard-wired to propagate, since the current generation is doomed. It’s a dumb instinct, to say the least.

More immediate concerns settle in next, like the need for breakfast before my opening shift at work.

It’s busier at the B&B now that summer is officially here. We’re seeing more tourists and there’s a wedding reception booked for next weekend.

“You seem better today,” Mrs. Elwood says to me. “Chris told me about your boyfriend being sick. Is he feeling better now?”

“Getting there.” It’s a token answer, vague and terse enough not to invite further discussion on this topic. I like my boss, but I don’t want to talk about personal stuff at work.

My shift ends at two, and I go home to prepare for the next one: visiting hours at the hospital. I portion a Tupperware of soup, throw a hand towel in the dryer to warm, and head upstairs for a shower. I’m just about to step into the tub when my phone rings, and I have to rifle through my pile of clothes to find it.

Elise is calling.

“Hello?”

“Guess whose fever is gone?” she sings happily, and then switches to her normal fast-paced speech.

“And they say his phlegm is looking better. I wouldn’t know, because it’s all
phlegm
to me, but the staff seem satisfied that he’s getting better. And no fever!” She gives a short squeal.

“That’s great.”

“He was asking when he could go home and Dad thinks that if the fever doesn’t come back and his breathing keeps getting better, he could be home to recover within the week.”

“Jem must be excited.”

“Pretty stoked,” Elise agrees. “He hates hospitals—of course. But even if he’s home he won’t be wel enough to do school yet.”

I still have the shower running, so I excuse myself and end the call with promises to come over with soup as soon as I can.

I step under the spray and soak myself from head to toe. For a few moments I breathe steadily, riding the same wave of calm sobriety that I’ve been relying on since Jem first got a cold. Breathe in, breath out; stay calm and col ected. And then something in me lets loose, and I snap. I can’t get enough air. I have to sit down in the tub, panting with my head between my knees, and I sob with relief. He’s going to be okay. The fears that I’ve kept locked away in the back of my mind have been addressed, and to calm them I have to actually deal with them. I’m a shaking, sopping mess, crying in the shower because things
didn’t
go badly wrong. And I’m fill ed with regret, because I have so often been the instrument of destruction. The memories I kept at bay around him can no longer be swept back into the dusty corners of the attic. My sister’s face, which has haunted my dreams and memories for so long, comes to mind now and I can feel bile rising in my throat. I gag on it, and eventually I vomit on the floor of the tub. The water is running hot, but I feel cold all over. My heart is pounding and my shaking hands are numb from reduced peripheral blood flow. With fumbling fingers I turn the water to cold, and the shock of it brings me firmly back to the moment at hand. The frigid water runs down my neck and back and thighs, making me tremble for a different reason.

I look down at myself, shaking like a leaf and still spitting bile, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up with the realization of just how right my brother was. Up till now I’ve refused to think of what would happen if Jem died—what it would do to me. It would have been a hell of a lot worse than a panic attack in the shower, I’d wager.

“Fuck me.” I sit back on the shower floor and slowly bring the water back to warm. In the cold water my breathing is fast and shal ow, and as I thaw out I breathe easier. I enjoy the oxygen for about thirty seconds, until my lungs choke on fresh sobs. This is pathetic. I shouldn’t be this upset when he’s going to be okay.

I can’t wash, so I just rinse my mouth between hiccups and get out of the shower. Water droplets vibrate off my shaking body like a dog, soaking the mat. I dry myself as best I can and head to my room.

I’m still sniveling and sobbing like a moron and I’m glad that Frank isn’t home to see this.

Clothes have to be simple right now. Nothing with buttons or zippers—my fingers can’t handle it. It’s sweatpants and a t-shirt. No socks, because I drop three pairs before I give up, and no bra, because I’m trembling too badly to put one on properly. I hate to look at myself in the mirror and see the mess I’ve turned into. I didn’t cry when he was critically il ; why should I be so upset now, when it’s all over? Why can’t I be relieved without first dealing with a backlog of fear and pain?

I’m having a Freudian moment, as Mom would say—a stupid phrase gleaned from some therapist or another. That which I repressed is coming back to bite me in the ass, or something. If I knew it would be this hard to function, I’d have dealt with some of the anguish up front.

The dryer buzzes, and I dutifully make my way downstairs to empty it. Embrace the normalcy of mundane things; maybe that will help. Then I open the dryer door and remember that I didn’t run a ful load, just a hand towel for Jem, and I lose my composure all over again. I slide down to the floor with my back against the dryer. The tears are a little more control ed this time. It’s not a spontaneous panic attack, but what Tessa would have called a ‘good bone-cleansing cry,’ because the emotion runs that deep and by the time it’s over a body feels stripped to the core.

I wipe my face with the towel I warmed for Jem. It smells like that afternoon that Frank caught us, when Jem and I were almost like a normal couple for ten minutes.

I didn’t trade Jem for normalcy, exactly, I think as I pull myself up on the dryer. In a lot of ways he is normal for me—the sickness, the food, the hospital—and in so many ways he’s something better; it’s something new with him, different and more whole than any relationship I had in St. John’s.

I try to calm myself with a cup of tea. I’m shaking and hiccupping too badly to drink it, so I end up sipping through a straw. By the time I’ve finished my tea and blown my nose half a dozen times, I feel very tired. Bones don’t feel cleansed yet, though, so I hold off on feeling any sort of relief. I drag my feet upstairs and crawl into bed. I’ll just take a short nap, enough to center me. And as I curl up under the blankets my stupid mind wanders to cuddling with him.

Jem’s affection is something I’ve grown accustomed to with embarrassing speed. He feeds off little touches and kisses. He’s willing to hold and not too proud to be held. I wonder if it was always that way with him, or if long loneliness has made him greedy for affection. Either way, it’s one of my favorite quirks.

I put a hand on my chest and count my heartbeats, trying to relax enough to escape in sleep. The rhythm is strong and regular, and I smile at my little secret: sometimes, when Jem is asleep, I watch the heart monitor and notice that our pulses match. It never happens for long, because eventually he’ll cough and his heart rate will change because of it, but for those brief moments we’re in tune in a way we couldn’t have planned.

My short nap turns into a long one. I dream of unsettling things, and when I wake my mood is still fragile enough to all ow tears. I don’t wake without immediately wishing for sleep’s return, and so my rest is prolonged by repeated attempts to escape and recharge my batteries in sweet unconsciousness.

It’s past dinner hour by the time I try to get out of bed. I successfuly put on socks and feel proud of the accomplishment. I brush out my hair and watch my pale face in the mirror for signs of life. None reported.

The ringing of my cell phone startles me badly, and I sit down again before I answer it. The call is from a number I don’t recognize.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Willa?”

“Eric? Where are you calling from?”

“There’s a payphone on the third floor. Is everything okay? Elise said you were going to drop by this afternoon, but it’s almost evening and no one has heard from you.” I look at the clock and notice it’s seven. Visiting hours end at eight.

“Uh, yeah. Everything’s fine.” Apart from my embarrassing tendency to burst into tears at random.

“Jem bugged me to call you. He got worried when you didn’t show up.”

“Shit. I’m sorry.” He doesn’t need to be dealing with my nonsense right now.

“Can you come by? I think he needs you. You’re kind of the high point of his day.”

I have to hold my breath for a few seconds to keep myself from losing face again.

“Willa?” Eric prompts when I don’t reply.

“I’m on my way.”

*

When I get to the hospital, Eric is already on his way to his car. He stops to talk to me long enough to say that Jem is pretty much settled in for the evening, and that for a little while he and I have some time alone. Ivy will be coming by in about an hour, and she’ll likely spend the night.

“Go on,” he shoos me. “This is the only privacy you’ll get all week.” If only he knew.

The distance between the lobby and Jem’s room has never felt so short. I round the doorframe into his room without fully remembering how I even got to the third floor, but when I see him I decide that a walking blackout doesn’t matter. Jem is on his side with his knees pulled up, fighting sleep. He looks so frail, but the numbers on his heart monitor say different. He’s noticeably better than he was yesterday, with consistent blood pressure and oxygen saturation above ninety percent. Jem lifts his heavy lids when he sees me coming and holds out a hand. I give him mine and he cradles it to his chest. I’m not getting that back, now.