Chapter 19
March
A dark and rainy Saturday night seemed perfect for a long, hot shower, new pajamas and a pot of Earl Grey tea to go along with a new release by my favorite author. I was in the kitchen pouring boiling water over the loose tea, secure in its strainer ball, when the doorbell rang. I stopped, startled, my eyes going automatically to the clock. It was just past eleven.
And I was alone.
For the first time since Adam’s death, having the house to myself seemed a disadvantage. I set the kettle back on the burner and listened, body tense. I’d half-convinced myself I’d imagined it when it rang again. I crept down the hall. Through the curtained windows on either side of the front door I saw the faint black shape of my visitor.
I snagged the poker from the fireplace and held it close to my side as I unlocked the door and eased it open. Outside, rain lashed the trees on the street. Faint blue-white lightning lit the sky above the rooftops, followed shortly after by the far-off rumble of thunder. The street-lights silhouetted my guest from behind, keeping his face in darkness, but I knew who it was at once.
“Joe?”
I stepped back, and he came forward. Rain slicked his hair over his forehead and dripped off his nose. His clothes hung, sodden, the white shirt made sheer. He carried a bottle of whiskey. He made a puddle on my rug and gave no greeting, no word of explanation, made no noise but the slightly raspy hiss of his breath.
I was already reaching for him when he put his arm around my waist and pulled me against him. The rain was cold. He was hot, burning beneath the wetness, his skin a furnace burning with such fury I expected to see steam. The whiskey bottle was hard between my shoulder blades.
I drank the taste of smoke and whiskey from his mouth. He didn’t smell as good as he always did, but better, the tang of musk beneath the scent of soap and water not even the rain could wash away. He kicked the door shut behind him without leaving my mouth.
We made it to the stairs in three steps, but got no farther. The ridge of the step bit into my back as he pressed me down. He swallowed my gasp, sipped my breath and stole my air, then gave it back to me with his next exhale. He was wet and cold and hot, and so was I, shivering under his touch. The bottle slipped to the steps beside me, the solid thunk of glass on wood an exclamation mark we both ignored.
“Sadie, Sadie, Sadie…”
I tasted my name on his tongue. Joe’s hands were everywhere. They cupped my breasts, my sides, reached down to slide the hem of my nightgown up over my thighs. His hand slid against my bare skin without preamble. I needed none.
There were buttons on the front of the nightgown from the high neck to the hem, but it was easier for him to push it up than to open it. The fabric, damp from the kiss of his clothes, bunched up around my neck and caught under my ass. Joe bent his head to my breasts, and I arched in anticipation. He didn’t disappoint me. He kissed my breasts as he cupped them together. His breath skated hot over skin his clothes had made moist. He licked and sucked my nipples, each one, until I cried out.
I didn’t have to move, not to shift, not to ready myself for him in any way. Joe did it all. He left my breasts, his hands already parting my thighs, and not even the steps biting into the back of my neck and back kept me from arching my entire body when he put his face between my legs.
I thought of nothing, but everything. He parted my curls with his thumbs and found the sweetness of my clit with his tongue. It was not as I’d imagined it would be.
It was better.
Pleasure surged inside me when Joe traced my body’s curves and lines with his mouth. I felt lips, tongue, a hint of teeth that made me gasp and lift toward him. It wasn’t soft or tender, not even graceful, the way he went down on me. It didn’t matter.
Thunder rumbled outside, closer. His mouth left ecstasy like lightning in its path. My body tensed, electric, humming with it.
I looked down. He looked up. He licked his mouth. Swallowed. He got up, and I was sure he meant to leave. It was in his eyes, that knowing he should go.
He stayed. He leaned in with a hand on the stair behind my head. The other went between my legs, his palm pressed to my flesh. He kissed me, and I tasted myself mingled with his flavor.
His eyes had specks of gold around the pupils, which had gone large and dark. Each eyebrow seemed perfectly groomed, each hair like a golden wire. Faint freckles dotted his nose, invisible at a distance but deliciously plain at this close range.
He slanted his mouth to capture mine again and kissed me slowly as his hand moved on me. I drew a breath and held it.
We didn’t move. Locked in his gaze with the taste of myself mingled with him on my lips, I let out the breath I held. Slowly, slowly, and slowly, too, I drew in another. My chest rose with it. My body shifted. Joe pressed the heel of his hand on me.
That was all it took. Pleasure came over me. We were looking into each other’s eyes when I came, and neither one of us looked away.
The world shifted back into focus around me. The storm outside, the awkward folding of our limbs, the whiskey bottle as it got nudged from its place and fell down the final step to the floor, where at least it didn’t break. I’d opened the door less than ten minutes before.
“Sadie.” Joe’s whisper brushed my face as he put his forehead to mine. “Don’t make me leave.”
He wasn’t as drunk as I’d first thought. Maybe not even drunk at all, despite the half-empty bottle. He slipped a hand between my body and the steps, easing my discomfort. When I stood on the step above him, I could look him in the eyes.
His tie, already askew, came off with barely a tug. The tack at his collar gave me a moment’s fight, but was soon undone, as were the rest of his buttons. His jacket made a wet noise as it hit the floor, but we were kissing, so neither of us looked to see where it had fallen.
Stepping back, I led him up the stairs and left a trail of clothes in our path. We didn’t bother with the buttons on my nightgown. I pulled it over my head. By the time we got to my bedroom, I was naked and Joe wore only a pair of damp boxer briefs.
I’d never imagined hesitation from him, but he held back when I led him to my bed. I pulled. He stepped closer. Goosebumps pebbled his skin, and his fingers linked in mine were cold.
If I’d had any doubts about what I was doing, they disappeared with his reluctance.
“Joe,” I whispered, reaching to stroke his arm, also grown cold. “Come to bed with me. It’s all right.”
Still, he hesitated.
“Your favorite color is blue,” I said. “You hate tomatoes and love cucumbers. You drink whiskey but hardly ever get drunk. You smell like soap and water. I know you, Joe. It’s all right. Come to bed with me.”
I’d suffered months of guilt for wanting to go to bed with Joe, but at the moment I let go of shame. I needed him. I thought he needed me. Right and wrong, good and bad, the lines are blurred when it comes to matters of the heart. Anyone who has never felt that has no right to judge, and anyone who ever has won’t have to.
I took his face in my hands and kissed him, once for the good. Once for the bad. Then I took his hand and pulled him with me to my bed, where I laid him down amidst the softness and warmth of flannel sheets and a down comforter. Under the blankets, I took off his briefs and tossed them out. Then I aligned my body with his until we’d warmed each other enough to stop from shivering.
In the darkness of the cave I’d made, nothing could touch us. I learned the lines of his body, all the places I thought I already knew and all the ones I didn’t. My fingers traced his collarbone and slope of his shoulders, broader than they appeared. His chest and the smooth, crisp curling hair around his nipples tickled my face. He groaned when I tasted him. His heart thumped faster under the pucker of his nipple. Lower, lines of tight muscle gave my fingers places to play. The jut of his hipbone gave my mouth a spot to land before I discovered the bulge and curve of thigh and knee. His cock fit the curve of my fingers with perfect precision. I felt faint at the noise he made when I stroked him, head to base. He pushed into my hand when I tested the weight of his testicles in my palm. He was warm, alive, this part of him no longer secret or imagination. It was truth. He was real.
We spoke in murmurs and sighs. His fingers threaded in my hair, but he didn’t try to direct my exploration of his body. The shivering stopped, though occasional trembling replaced it.
I took him in my mouth, my tongue eager for his taste. Joe gripped my shoulders, his hips lifting. His cock nudged the back of my throat, and I took him down it for one brief moment before we both moved again. Up and down, slow, soft sucking, and rapid strokes of my tongue. I was a woman starved. For touch, for pleasure, for the taste and touch and scent of a man, but even then, it was not just a man I did my best to please. It was Joe. All along, right or wrong, it was Joe.
At last, gasping, I had to throw off the blankets. Moonlight painted Joe’s face, turning his golden countenance to silver. Cool air washed over us, and I drank it interspersed with his kisses.
As though I’d given him permission, he put his hands on me, pulled me on top of him. Connected at mouth, chest, hip, cunt and cock, our feet tangled, hands exploring, I was no longer sure where I ended and he began. Sweat sealed us. Saliva glistened on his throat where I kissed him. He found the soft, tender spot at the curve of my neck and sucked gently, bringing blood to the surface and a moan to my throat.
He rolled us, covering me. I arched and writhed, hungry for him, but though he moved against me with increasing urgency, Joe didn’t push inside me. I reached between us to touch him, and he buried his head in my shoulder with a low cry.
I whispered his name. “I want you.”
“I want you, Sadie…but…”
He was bare in my fist. Of course. Not even in the stories had Joe ever been incautious. I knew why. I kissed him, pumping his cock in my fingers and he grew even harder.
“Wait.” He rasped the word. “Sadie, wait.”
I waited. Hearts thumped in time while our breath became a perfect give and take. He moved a little against me.
“Give me a second,” he said. “Just…don’t move.”
“You mean, don’t do this?” I closed my fingers, stroking.
Joe jerked, groaning. “Ah, Sadie—”
I pulled him down against me, his cock on my belly. I traced the line of his ear with my tongue. I put my hands on his tight, firm ass and I urged him to move against me.
His hips pumped forward. Sweat slicked our bodies and let his cock slide without sticking on my skin. I pulled him toward me again and hooked my ankles around the backs of his calves.
“I want to be inside you so bad.”
“I want that, too.”
Sex is rarely elegant. It’s bodies slapping, and mess, and the awkwardness of placing hands and limbs where they need to go without pinching, of poking only places meant for poking. It’s getting your partner off on your stomach because you haven’t got a condom. It’s making the best of what you have into something pretty damn good.
He moved against me. Though I ached for him to fill me, and this was not the way I’d ever imagined it to be, I couldn’t stop myself from twitching in reaction when he thrust harder. Faster. When he moaned my name. When his teeth found my shoulder, I cried out. He bit into me. I felt his cock jerk on my belly, felt heat and liquid warmth. I smelled the sweet tangy musk of his come, and I tipped over the edge into my own startled orgasm.
We lay glued together for a few minutes while our breathing slowed. Joe moved off me just a bit, one leg still thrown over mine. His hand cupped my hip.
I tried disbelieving what had just happened, but it didn’t work. Not with the scent of fucking all around us and the stickiness of him still coating my skin. His fingers drifted idly up and down my side. I tensed, expecting it to tickle, but Joe’s touch soothed, instead.
I turned my head. He looked up at me. When he smiled, I smiled.
“I’m going to use the bathroom,” I said after a moment. That was something that didn’t happen in stories. Dealing with the aftermath.
He nodded and moved away to let me up. I didn’t bother with the lights as I ran the hot water and wet a cloth to wash my skin. I splashed my face, too, and rinsed my mouth, using the extra time to search for the disbelief that still hadn’t arrived.
I stopped in the arch between my bedroom and the sitting room. Even in the darkness I could tell the bed was empty. I heard the noise of footsteps on the stairs. Then the sound of the front door opening and closing.
My bed smelled of Joe when I got into it. The blankets and the pillow were no replacement for arms around me, but I figured I’d manage. I couldn’t be surprised, after all.
The front door opened and closed again, and there came the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Joe slid into bed behind me, cold enough to make me yelp as he buried his nose between my shoulder blades. He put his arms around me, pulling me against him. In his hand, against my belly on the place I’d urged him to come, was a small, flat package.
“Always prepared,” he said, voice muffled against my skin.
Laughing naked is a curious experience. I started, and he joined a moment later. We rocked the bed with it, and it left us breathless, not unlike the sex of a short time before.
I turned toward him and reached to touch his face. He kissed me. I felt the promise of that foil packet against my back, and the thought of what it meant skipped my heart so fast it almost hurt.
First, we talked.
Memory can refuse to let you forget what you’d like to and run away with what you want to remember. It’s an unreliable bitch, or your best friend. Sometimes, it’s both at once.
I remember every word we spoke, every sigh and glance we shared. The whisper of his skin on my sheets. The way he smelled. Tasted. I clung to each detail as if it were one of his stories, certain it would become one told to someone else.
Not to me.
Laughter became sighs when he kissed me again, when he slid down my body to worship me with his mouth. Without urgency he licked me, and my body responded. I opened for him, neither of us worrying how long it took. The night was a hundred years long and we spent every second of it discovering how to please each other.
The pressure of his kiss amplified the flutter of my clit when I came again. I cried his name, and he eased off, then crawled up my body to kiss my mouth. I gathered my breath. His cock had grown again, heat on my thigh.
“I want to be inside you, Sadie.”
“I want that, too.”
This time prepared, he did just that. Joe put himself inside me, where he fit like he’d been made to fill me. It had been so long for me—it was like starting over again.
He made love to me for a long time. I got lost, a little, in the sensation, but he brought me back with a murmured word or a touch. Even though the moonlight had faded and darkness cloaked us, I had no trouble remembering whom I was with. Joe anchored me to him with his murmured words, his touch, the way he turned our bodies every so often to make sure he wasn’t hurting me.
We shifted onto our sides, spooning. He pushed inside me from behind, harder and deeper than before. He touched me, too, his fingertip circling on my clit. We rocked that way for a long time, pausing occasionally while he stroked me to the edge of climax and backed off. I floated in pleasure, anchored by his words and hands. By his cock. He fucked harder, his breath getting ragged.
“Oh, God, Sadie. I want to come inside you so bad….”
Lovers’ talk is inelegant, but it worked for me. I’d lost track of how many times I’d climaxed by then; after the first two my body had simply hummed with constant, unending pleasure without diminishing. I pushed against him, our bodies arching and shifting so he could plunge inside me deeper still. Faster, we fucked, and harder. The small pain as he hit my cervix only made the pleasure more intense. His hand closed over my cunt from the front, no longer targeting my clit.
I came and didn’t stop long enough to count the spasms. Joe thrust faster. The wet sound of my ass slapping his stomach became incredibly erotic as I imagined the slickness of my cunt coating his erection, of how hot and wet I was for him. Of how it must feel to be buried inside me, how my body caressed his cock and held it. My body embraced him, each thrust pulling another groan from me, groans he answered with whispered commentary about how much he loved this.
Fucking me. How good I tasted, how soft I felt, how delicious I smelled. Joe spoke the story of us as he fucked me, and I lost myself not only in the delights of our bodies but in the tale he spun so well.
He moaned my name when he finished, thrusting so hard inside me it thumped the headboard against the wall. Muscles in his stomach leaped against my ass. The hand cupped between my legs moved, his fingers finding my clit again and pinching it gently up and down.
I couldn’t even make a sound, so breathless with pleasure had he left me. My final orgasm didn’t wash over me in waves. It reared up and slapped me hard enough to make me see stars. It left me shaking and light-headed.
Then his arms were around me, our bodies still linked even though he was softening inside me. His face nuzzled into the softness at the nape of my neck and he held me tight and tighter.
I caught my breath, blinking into darkness. I couldn’t move, boneless in the aftermath of such glorious sex. I was aware of the tangled sheets around us and the dampness beneath, but I couldn’t make myself move.
I waited for Joe to let go of me, but I fell asleep before he did.
I woke to sunlight and Joe still tangled up with me. His deep breathing said he wasn’t yet awake, and I was careful not to disturb him as I extricated myself and hobbled to the bathroom.
Had I run a marathon? My body felt like it. Stepping under the steaming water, I winced as I rinsed myself and discovered a myriad of stings. I was raw and bruised, aching.
I waited for the guilt to hit me when I looked at my reflection while brushing my teeth. I waited for it while I threw on a robe and slippers and pulled my wet hair into a knot on the top of my head. By the time I headed downstairs to make some breakfast, I was ready to tell guilt to go fuck itself, when and if it ever bothered to show.
The smell of pancakes must have drawn him out of bed, because Joe appeared as I was setting the table. He’d showered and wrapped a towel around his waist. In the bright morning sunlight he was every bit as beautiful as I’d known he’d be.
He came up behind me to kiss the back of my neck. His hands slid into the gap of my robe and found my breasts. I let him touch me, my nipples getting tight under his touch, but after a moment he stopped and pulled away.
“This smells good.”
“Sit down. Help yourself.”
I’d made coffee, too, and poured us both mugs to sip while we ate. He made appreciative noises about the pancakes, but put his fork down after a few bites.
We looked at each other.
“Last night,” he said quietly. “Are you sorry about it?”
“No. Are you?”
He shook his head. “No.”
I sipped my coffee, watching him. He had spent the night. He had kissed my mouth. But none of that meant anything, in the end. Did it?
“Do you want me to leave?” he asked suddenly, leaning forward.
“Do you want to go?”
After a moment in which he wouldn’t look at me, he shook his head.
“Joe,” I said gently, and waited until he gave me his gaze before I finished. “I think it might be better if you did.”
His mouth tightened.
“I’m not ready for this to be anything more than what it was.”
“What was it, Sadie?” He sounded angry, but he looked…sad.
I didn’t have an answer for him, at least not one I came up with fast enough to suit. Joe crossed his arms and frowned.
“What should I do?” he asked. “Pretend it didn’t happen?”
“Maybe that would be best.”
“For who?”
“For both of us.”
He got up. The towel slipped lower, revealing a bit of hair I had to turn my eyes from. He scowled, looking fierce.
“For you, maybe.”
“Fine.” It took effort to keep my voice calm. “Yes. For me. It would be best for me if you left.”
He came around the table like he meant to reach for me. I didn’t realize until he did how I’d react. I pushed my chair back so abruptly it screeched along the linoleum like someone stepping on a cat. He withdrew. We squared off.
“Why?” he asked finally, gesturing between us.
“Because my husband just died, Joe, and I’m not in a good place to start anything new!”
His scowl deepened, lines bracketing his mouth. “This isn’t new.”
I took my plate to the garbage to scrape it clean and put it in the dishwasher. I felt him behind me, but he didn’t touch me this time.
“I’m sorry, Joe.”
“You’re not really asking me to go.”
I kept my back to him as I went to the sink to wash the mixing bowl and griddle. “This is absurd.”
“Why?” From behind me, his tone had gone deep. “Why is it absurd?”
“Because it is!”
“That’s not an answer!”
I turned. “I don’t have a better one, okay?”
We faced each other across the small expanse of my kitchen. In all the months of imagining, I’d never imagined him here. Joe wasn’t a part of this life, this reality. At least, he hadn’t been meant to be. Things were different now.
It terrified me.
“You can’t possibly think we’re ever going to be together.” When his only answer was a solemn look, I babbled on. “Because that’s just messed up, Joe. That’s really messed up. There are so many things wrong with that scenario, I can’t even begin to list them.”
“Try me.”
I shook my head, vehement. “No. No, I don’t want—”
“Sadie.” Joe put his arms around me from behind again. His chin fit just right into the curve of my shoulder. His breath was warm on my face. “I know you better than you think I do.”
I wanted to push him away, but he didn’t seem to want to go. I wished he were dressed. It seemed unfair to have this conversation with him when he had only the protection of a towel and I wore a robe, in such an intimate reminder of the night before.
“I’m sorry, Joe. I can’t do this with you. Not now.”
“Because of your husband?”
I turned in his embrace to meet his eyes. “No. Because of me.”
He let me go and stepped back. “Last night,” he said finally, with the dignity of man whose back is straight only because it hurt less than slouching. “You said you wanted this. Whatever it is.”
“How many stories have you told me?” My voice was hoarse.
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It does.”
He frowned. “It shouldn’t.”
“I wish it didn’t,” I said. “But it does. For years I’ve listened to your stories. Now, here I am, inside one. Right where I wanted to be all along. And I’m not sure what to do.”
Joe sighed and put the heel of his hand to one eye, as if his head hurt. Then he took it away to give me his full gaze. “You are not just another story to me.”
I drew in a soft, hitching breath. “I wish I could believe that.”
“But you can’t.”
We stared at each other. I wanted to touch him, to let him touch me, but it was suddenly all too much. Without the safety of knowing I couldn’t have him, I wasn’t sure how to want Joe, anymore.
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want you to be sorry. Shit. Be anything but sorry.” His hands opened and closed into fists at his sides. “What if we started over?”
I wasn’t sure what to say. He kept talking, filling in the silence so I didn’t have to. “What if we started at the beginning?”
I didn’t know what to do with my hands, so I gripped the edges of the sink and watched the foam dissipate, giving me a glimpse of dirty water beneath. I took small, shallow breaths that didn’t give me enough air.
I didn’t turn, though he moved so close behind me I felt the warmth of his body. “I need time,” I whispered. “To make sure I know who I am. How can you say you know me when I don’t even know myself?”
“I wasn’t the only one telling stories, Sadie. For two years I’ve seen you once a month, every month. I am not the only one who told stories. I just used more words, that’s all.”
I faced him. He stopped an inch away from touching my face. After a moment, he put his hand on my shoulder, and the weight of it was as familiar as a favorite story heard for the first time after years untold. For a while, two minutes or ten, the only sound in the kitchen was our breathing.
“Why do you think I kept coming back?” he asked.
“Why do you think I kept telling you, month after month, everything about me that nobody else seemed to see?”
I looked into his eyes. “I can’t be your answer, Joe. I can’t be the one who saves you from yourself. I don’t have what you’re looking for. I’m sorry, but I’m not ready to be your redemption.”
He took his hand away, and nodded once, slowly. He took step by careful step away from me until once again there was a universe between us. The lifted burden of his hand upon my shoulder left me not lighter, but heavier under the weight of that distance.
I washed every dish and pan under water so hot it turned my hands to crimson gloves at the ends of my wrists, but I didn’t notice the sting. I hadn’t had time even to finish when I heard a step in the doorway. I didn’t turn.
“From the first time you laughed with me, all those months, and all those stories,” Joe said quietly. “They were all you, to me. All of them were you.”
I waited too long to turn, because when I did at last, he’d already gone.
Taking my life off hold didn’t want to be easy, but I no longer refused to let it happen. I cherished my memories, the good and the bad, and didn’t discriminate between them. There were days I loved Adam with every breath I took and days I hated him for leaving me. For being unwilling to try. For making it impossible for me to remember there had been good times. For failing to stay the knight in untarnished armor he’d been to me.
Grief didn’t fall away all at once. Like paint chipping, it flaked off to reveal the original surface beneath. I had to strip myself down to that surface before I could think about refinishing. Spring brought flowers and sunshine. I worked in my garden and planted flowers Adam had loved…but I also planted ones I adored and he hadn’t liked.
There were days I forgot Adam was gone until I passed the still-closed door to his room. Days when my heart ached for him so fiercely I could do little but miss him. And then, there were days when I went to bed and dreamed of the scent of lavender and the taste of whiskey and rain.
I spent my time reconnecting with friends and family. Building my practice. I took my time in mourning that soon felt less like grief and more like growth.
Long ago, I’d been happy to be what Adam wanted. What he needed. I didn’t regret it, even now. I’d loved him with everything I had, but it was time to figure out what was left now that he was gone.
I thought I’d cry when I began to dismantle Adam’s room. There were charities that distributed used equipment, and it pleased me to know someone would benefit from the items we’d so carefully chosen to make Adam’s life easier. His chair, the bed, the adaptive devices, I packed them all up without even blinking and put them in the truck that came for them. His clothes went into boxes for the thrift store. His books I delivered to friends who’d appreciate them. Piece by piece, day by day, I took apart the room that had been his self-made prison, until all that remained were the bare floors and green-painted walls and the memories of how once we’d made love and laughed there.
Powering up Adam’s computer felt like holding his hand again. This was where he’d worked. Where he’d written. I’d joked to him that he’d have married that computer, if he could, and he’d never denied it. I meant to erase this last piece of him without even looking. Peeking into Adam’s files felt like a betrayal of the greatest magnitude, worse even than my months of listening to Joe’s stories had been. The box of wires and circuits was as much a part of my husband as the color of his eyes or his smile.
I didn’t need any of the data on the hard drive. I kept my own computer with all our financial data. Adam’s lectures were all saved on disk and the software was easily reloaded from the originals. Since I intended to donate the computer to a local preschool, I wanted to make sure everything else was wiped clean.
In the end, I couldn’t erase what was all I had left. I grabbed a handful of blank CD’s and began backing up his data. The class lectures and notes I deleted, along with the folders full of e-mail. His correspondence didn’t concern me. Nor did I bother transferring the websites he’d bookmarked or the copies of his online orders.
When I came to his personal documents, however, I stopped. I stare at the computer for a full, long minute before I could open the folder he’d titled “Sadie.”
He’d always craved feedback, reading me ten or twenty versions of his poems, the only differences between them the placement of a comma or choice of a word. When he no longer talked about his writing, I’d thought he stopped. But in that, as I’d been in so many other places, I was wrong.
Two quick clicks of the mouse took me to a place inside Adam’s head he’d refused to allow me for a long time. Here he’d typed, meticulously and with what must have been agonizing slowness, dozens of poems he’d never shared.
He wrote about his anger. Frustration. He wrote about the joy and satisfaction of being able to write, and of his despair when the words wouldn’t come. He’d filled document after document with his careful phrases, the small spare haiku and long, rambling free-form poetry he’d once mocked as cheating.
He wrote about how he loved me.
He wrote about how he hated me.
It was the most honesty I’d had from him since his accident, and he’d hidden it from me. Angry, I dragged it all to the trash. I hovered the mouse over the delete button, but at the last minute, I undid what I’d done and returned my husband’s words to the file he’d named after me. I burned them to a disk, which I labeled carefully and put away in the box where I stored special things like the clippings of his hair.
Those were Adam’s thoughts and dreams. Himself and me, painted in pictures of words. They were his perceptions and images, and whether or not they were true made little matter, now. They were Adam’s pictures. Adam’s stories.
Not mine.
It was time to stop being what Adam had needed me to be, or what he thought I was. Time to stop trying to be the wife I thought I had to be and become the woman I wanted to be, instead.