Page 29 of Sex. Love. Marriage.
Reaching between us, he positions himself there, lining up, ready. I can feel him, wanting to move. Watching me so carefully, and then he enters me. Still hovering over me, his arms tremble from the weight bearing down on them. Slowly kissing my neck, he begins to move and my body curves around him.
Dropping his forehead onto my shoulder, he whispers something I can’t hear. Wanting to see his face, I peek up at him, the sunrise from our open window catching his dark eyes, red and wavering. He draws in a sharp breath when his body begins to shake, his mouth returning to mine as we share breaths. It isn’t long before his body trembles, and I realize he’s about to come again. And I know we’re avoiding, and this isn’t healthy, but I’m doing this for him. Bringing him the edge of that blissful high, even if emotionally I might have lost him completely.
When we’re finished, Noah rolls off me and covers his face with his arm. I slip off the bed and into the bathroom.
The light is blinding, the sight of blood a reminder. I wash off in the sink and then slip into one of his T-shirts before returning to the bed. I’m careful to keep to myself and on my side of the bed where we’ve our invisible battle lines.
Noah’s breathing heavily, not asleep, but maybe not fully awake either. For the last year, this is the side I see every day. He’s unreachable, his reactions ice-cold, nothing but brief kisses and tired responses. I want to curl into him, listen, and fall asleep to the sound of his heartbeat, but I don’t. I wait for him to make an effort.
It isn’t supposed to be like this and every day, I fear the words “I’m not in love anymore,” or “I want a divorce,” but I’m not sure who they’re going to come from first. Me or him.
Even breaths fill the silence of our room, and my heart cracks open a little more. I turn to give him my back, to curl in on myself, my pain too raw to be exposed. But he knows. He always does. The question is, does he care?
(I wish I was pushing into something else. Warm, wet, tight… you get the point.)
YOU KNOW WHATeveryone says about Viagra? How it’s a four-hour erection?
It’s bullshit. Try ten for me. They should really put that on the bottle. And I should have taken half a pill, or none at all. And the fucking headache I have is insane.
I don’t sleep at all. Instead, I lie awake, staring at the ceiling while Kelly cries. I want to comfort her, I do. But for the same reason I can’t mention Mara in conversation, I can’t hold her. I want to tell her everything is going to be okay and that we’ll get through this, but I don’t know that it will be.
It will never be okay.
We lost our daughter. Nothing takes that pain away. Not time, not change, nothing. Not even fucking Viagra.
Eventually, Kelly gets up to feed Fin. I clean up the bathroom so she won’t cut herself on the glass.
As I get up for work a few hours later, Bonner and Ashlynn have left, and Kelly is in the kitchen preparing breakfast and lunches. Fin is in the high chair, cramming handfuls of Cheerios in her mouth like she’s never been fed before. Sevi’s on the floor drinking milk from a bowl, like a dog, and Oliver is at the table with the iPad, fighting off Hazel as she tries to take it from him.
I watch my family for a moment, my mind stuck between why I couldn’t have opened up to Kelly in our room and said everything that needs to be said, and not knowing how to say it. I don’t want to face reality. I don’t want to have the conversation that leads to anything about the past. Just that little glimpse I gave you into Mara dying is more than I can handle at the moment. There are parts about her death I’ll never talk about.
I know this is why Kelly and I are growing apart, and that’s a hard thing to grasp, let alone deal with. Especially when kids are involved. I watch them all, their personalities so evident in everything they’re doing. And my heart drops because one is always missing. There will always be this void in the house.
“Daddy!” Hazel gasps when she notices me, and then my hand. “What did you do?”
My eyes slide to Kelly. She doesn’t look at me. She’s too busy making lunches.
“Broke it,” I tell her, reaching in the fridge for a protein shake.
“You did? How?” Oliver looks up from the iPad, only to have Hazel rip it from his hands when his attention’s diverted.
“Working on the house,” I lie, walking past Kelly. Our shoulders touch, just briefly. My skin burns, aches to reach out and pull her into my chest. I don’t dare make too much contact though because finally, my hard-on has gone down, and though I wouldn’t mind another round, you can only drown your feelings in sex so much before they start to bubble over the edge.
“Oliver is staying the night at Conner’s house tonight,” Kelly reminds me.
I stare at the plastic carton in my hand. “Who’s Conner?” I ask, unable to recall a face with the name.
“From his basketball team….” She thinks that’s going to help me out. I’m terrible with names. And faces. “The one where you told me to do a background check on his parents because you said they smiled too much.”
Now I remember. “No one smiles that much unless you’re up to no good. They’re probably orchestrating a child trafficking program. You know, I saw a poster in a bathroom at Starbucks the other day that said if you’re a victim of human trafficking, call this number. Why would they have a phone? I’m pretty sure anyone being smuggled to Mexico didn’t think to shove their phone up their ass to call the police later.”
As soon as I finish saying all that, I wonder if maybe I should take a nap. With a blank face, Kelly stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. No sleep will do that to you. Even Fin on Kelly’s hip now looks at me with a raised eyebrow, but then again, that kid hates me.
“They’re nice people. They’re not going to smuggle Oliver to Mexico.”
Just as she says that, Oliver pushes Hazel off her chair and onto the floor. “Stop stealing my stuff!” he yells at her.
“Yeah, because he’s an asshole and they’d bring him back,” I mumble in my wife’s ear, my lips grazing her ear.
