Page 56 of The Sound Of Us

I nod.

“Any favourite authors?”

I shake my head.

You’re beautiful, I sign.

A smile teases the corner of his mouth. He drops his head. Glancing over to the front, I make sure the store is still empty and Ben is still hunched over some paperwork at the counter. The tall bookshelves provide sufficient privacy.

I hook my finger underneath his chin and lift until his face is close to mine. His eyes shine and he gives into his smile. And then he lifts his hand and signs. You’re beautiful. He falters on the last movement, but I hear him loud and clear.

He peers at me after that and so I cradle the side of his face with one hand and sign thank you with the other.

His smile grows, contagious. I’m infected. I return his smile. He can’t seem to stop smiling, looking away from me, trying to hide it. It’s beautiful. He’s beautiful. This is our first full conversation in sign language and that is as beautiful as he is.

He drops to his haunches and selects a few books. I drop to the floor too, so close to him he’s startled when he looks up again.

I take my phone out of my pocket and type. Are there cameras?

He shakes his head. No. And then his eyes widen adorably when he guesses my intentions. But he leans forward anyway, giving me permission, choosing me.

My lips fuse with his, a sweet, deep lover’s kiss. Stolen behind the bookshelf. Stolen from Frank. Stolen from a piece of paper that prohibits him from being entirely mine.

I don’t know how I’ll bear it but if I can’t have him openly and freely, and if I can’t have him all to myself, then I’ll share him. It sickens me, but what other option is there? I’ll share him for now. For now, I’ll take only half of him while he gathers the courage to give me all of him.

Chapter 30

Axel

The first major headache comes on Monday morning while I brush my teeth. For most people, two Tylenol is all that’s needed.

I know that there is a difference and what lies between my kind of headache and the normal kind of headache is the word relapse.

Now, I just can’t ignore the bruising from a few weeks ago. Or the fatigue.

Despair snakes up through my feet, the blackest darkness swirling around my legs and moving upward to settle in my chest, choking me. Choking the little life that I have left in me.

I drop onto the toilet seat, my head in my hands, willing the headache to disappear. For it to have been just some tension knotted up in my head, easily taken care of by a light painkiller.

My helplessness consumes me. I sit there, grieving for my dying body. This flesh and bone that does its best but still it’s not enough.

I sit in the bathroom with my husband in the bedroom, getting ready for work, and feel the loneliest I’ve ever felt. Rushing out to him in tears to tell him the headaches have returned isn’t an option I can consider.

I get up again, wash my tears away and step out of the bathroom without a hint of what happened ninety seconds earlier.

Ben notices that something is amiss when I get to the bookstore, but I’m convincing enough that he leaves me alone after a while.

“You’d better promise you’ll tell me if something is wrong, okay?”

I promise him, but I don’t know if I have the strength to admit even to myself that the cancer might be back. All the way home, I avoid thoughts about it.

I think about Eli instead.

It’s not that hard, you know. To fall in love with someone while you’re married to someone else. And it doesn’t make you a worse partner. Better, in fact, has been my observation.

My fear of getting caught and my need to never let Frank become suspicious has made me extra meticulous about keeping the house in order. Never, ever messing up dinner. Keeping my voice down. Smiling more, but not too much more because that might be more suspicious than if I behaved like a cheater, whatever that meant. In some fucked up way, I’ve become a better husband.

I don’t know if it’s because I feel less and less resentful with each day my feelings for Eli grow. Or if it’s because I was starting to not need Frank’s love. I just know that I’m not so angry anymore. I don’t think about the past as much, wondering what would have happened if I hadn’t married Frank.

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