―It was an accident. I should have been paying attention.‖
―No. No, that‘s a lie. I have eyes; I know what I saw. I know what she did. But, in a way, she did me a favor, too, because it hit me that if anything happened to you, really happened ... I don‘t know what I‘d do.‖
―Mitch.‖ I touched his face. His cheeks were wet; his skin jumped beneath my fingers. We were teetering on the brink of something. ―I‘m okay now. I‘ll be fine.‖
―But I won‘t. I‘m not, don‘t you see? Because I‘m in love with you, Jenna,‖ he whispered. ―I‘m in love with you . . . and I‘m so afraid to really let myself know what this means.‖
―Afraid.‖ I didn‘t understand. I couldn‘t catch my breath. My head felt filled with helium, and I was dizzy again and my mouth was dry and yet every inch of my body was suddenly alive and electric. ―Mitch, why—‖
―Because you don‘t know how long it‘s been since I‘ve wanted to say that to anyone. But I do and loving you changes everything—and I love you.‖ He pressed my hand to his chest so I could feel the hard, fast thump of his heart. ―This is what you do for me.‖
He guided my hand, slowly, to his lap and I heard the hitch in his voice, the low animal sound he made in the back of his throat at the instant I found him. ―This is what only you can do to me,‖ he said, thickly, pulling me closer. ―You‘re the only one, Jenna, the only one.‖
―All I see is you,‖ I said, and then my hands pulled at his shirt and his slipped beneath my clothing to cup my br**sts but so carefully, as if I might break. But I needed the taut muscles of his arms and back and his full weight; I wanted all of him because at that moment I knew I was strong enough to hold him in this new and different way: in this and what we were in the love and the world we made together in this space, at that moment.
―Please love me, Jenna, please hold me, please save me,‖ and then he was groaning; his mouth was a fever trailing down my neck, his tongue teasing mine and then my br**sts, his hands knotting in my hair, and then we began to move together, and there was nothing but this and this and this and this and him.
―Love me, Jenna, please,‖ he gasped. ―Love me, love me, love me, love me.‖
41: a
A little over a week later, it was Thanksgiving.
After Matt, Thanksgiving became all about Black Friday. Before Matt left, Black Friday was important but not all-consuming. Mom had more money on hand, her credit was good, and she had staff to handle most of the headaches. Then Matt left and things began to unravel. Black Friday became the reason why Meryl started coming down a day earlier, on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. If I‘ve learned to cook at all, it‘s because of Meryl, not my mom.
Now I don‘t mean that negatively, Bob; don‘t go all Freudian on me. But I defy any person, man or woman, to manage a store that‘s more than an hour away from home and on a shoe-string, and still have the energy to slap on an apron and rustle up some gourmet grub in a half hour or less. I admit: when Matt was still alive—
b
Well.
I had to turn off the recorder there for a second, Bobby-o, because I just realized something. I‘m actually kind of curious. This thing rewinds and I see the button to erase everything, but is there some kind of search function? You know, for phrases or certain words? The reason I‘m asking . . . I‘ll bet if I went back and reviewed everything I‘ve said so far, I‘ll bet good money this is the first time I‘ve said when Matt was alive.
Like I‘ve reached the point in my story when those words are okay to say out loud.
I guess, before Mitch, I‘d been in stasis, another little bubble alongside real time but in which, somehow, Matt fought his endless war. Well, Mitch broke that wide, wide open.
Matt was dead, and Mitch had pulled me out of a land inhabited by ghosts.
So whatever happens, Bob, you remember this.
If Mitch did nothing else for me, he did that.
c
So our routine at Thanksgiving now—with Matt dead and gone—went something like this. Mom worked her butt off Tuesday and Wednesday. Dad did the same. After Matt died, he frequently worked on Thanksgiving, too. Holiday traffic accidents are a shock trauma plastic surgeon‘s wet dream. We‘d do a guilt visit to Grandpa MacAllister either on Saturday or Sunday, depending on when Dad straggled back.
And, for once, I didn‘t care. Because I had Mitch and all that couldn‘t hurt me anymore.
d
Thanksgiving morning dawned wintry and cold: two feet of new snow on the ground under a full sun so fabulously bright I had to squint against the glare. I lay under my quilt and thought about Mitch, what he‘d said the week before. How our bodies fit together.
How I still felt. Even more than the morning after we‘d first slept together, I was transformed. I was a woman. I was loved and I loved someone in return. This kind of obsession was delicious and wonderful, and I never wanted it to end.
Eyes closed, I imagined that Mitch was there with me. What was it really like to wake up in the morning next to someone you loved? I wanted to find out. Mitch was down in Madison with one of his sisters for the holiday, and I wondered if maybe he was lying in bed, too, thinking of me. Then that stirred up more thoughts and other, better feelings.
I might have stayed there another drowsy hour, but the kitchen smells of coffee and baked apple pancakes (Meryl‘s specialty) were just too much torture to ignore. I rolled out of my warm bed. My ankle protested with a tiny little bark, then subsided. Definitely on the mend.
Whatever magic Mom and Dad had conjured together was still working because they slept late. So it was just Meryl and me in the kitchen. Meryl had the radio tuned to classic rock, and Robert Plant was singing about that stairway to heaven as I worked over the baked yams for a casserole.
Meryl said, ―You‘re looking better.‖
―Thanks.‖ I scooped out yam guts. ―The ankle only hurts a little bit.‖
―I wasn‘t talking about your ankle.‖ Meryl was patting the turkey dry. Before Meryl, I‘d never seen anyone bone a bird and there was a certain art to cutting so the skin remained unbroken. She squared the turkey breast-side down on the cutting board and picked up a boning knife. ―I meant you, in general. You‘re glowing.‖
―Oh.‖ I picked up another warm yam and sliced it open. Steam curled as I dug out baked yam and added that to a mixing bowl. ―It must be the running. School‘s going pretty well.‖
―Uh-huh.‖ Meryl cut a deep slit along the turkey‘s backbone from neck to tail then whacked off the tail and tossed it to one side for the stockpot. Deftly scraping the knife along one side of the carcass, she used her fingers to tug the flesh away from bone. ―So who is he?‖