Before I Let Go, page 13
“I’m sorry, Josiah. That had to be hard.”
“Yeah. She was in the kitchen.” A hoarse laugh escapes me. “Food was that woman’s love language. Best cook I’ve ever met.”
Best person I’ve ever met.
“She used to carry unopened packs of socks and underwear in all sizes around in her car so when homeless people asked for money like at stoplights, or whatever, she could offer them.”
“She sounds fantastic.”
“She was. I saw a homeless woman downtown the other day. She didn’t have on shoes. Her clothes were…She was obviously on hard times. And all I could think was, What would Byrd do? How would she help? Yasmen still rides around with socks and underwear in her middle console because of that.”
“They were close? Your ex-wife and Byrd?”
“She was like a second mom to Yas. They were extremely close. First time my aunt met Yasmen she said, ‘don’t let this one get away.’”
“And what did you say?”
My smile fades, bitterness hardening the line of my mouth. “I said, ‘never,’ but she did get away, huh? Joke’s on me.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, how far along was your ex-wife when she lost the baby?”
“Thirty-six weeks.” I grip the arms of the recliner. “She was in the restaurant alone. Closing up. I told her…”
I shake my head and slam my teeth together to stifle words that may sound like I blame Yasmen for what happened. I don’t.
“I asked her to let someone else lock up, but Yasmen was always in the mix. She had such a great pregnancy. No complications. It never occurred to her something like that could happen. Didn’t occur to me either. I was away.” I roll my shoulders, trying to relieve the tension, wishing I could roll off the guilt. “Shit. Isn’t our time up yet? Like, is it time to go?”
“We just started,” Dr. Musa says. “You were saying you were away. Where were you?”
“I was at this stupid convention in Santa Barbara.”
If ever I could take something back, it would be going on that trip. Yasmen wasn’t due yet, and we both agreed it would be best for Grits if I attended, but I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as soon as the plane took flight. I kept texting and calling to make sure she was all right. By then, we’d already buried Aunt Byrd. Maybe it was the fragility of life that made me anxious, having just lost someone I loved so much. Maybe it was a premonition. Whatever it was, it kept me up the first night in the hotel. The next day when the hospital called to say Yasmen had lost the baby, one fire-torched thought ran through my mind.
I should have been there.
If I’d been there, she wouldn’t have been closing. The restaurant wouldn’t have been empty. She wouldn’t have fallen. Those precious moments wouldn’t have been lost with her cell phone in another room while Henry wasn’t getting air.
And then he was gone.
“Do you want to talk about the trip to Santa Barbara, Josiah?” Dr. Musa asks, his soft, kind voice cutting into the riot of my thoughts.
I swallow past the emotion scorching my throat. See, this is why I don’t do this shit. This is why I leave well enough alone.
But is it really well enough?
“Do you think the losses you experienced so close together contributed to the failure of your marriage?”
A rough chuckle rattles in my throat. “You could say that. I knew things were really bad, but one night she just…”
I used to alternate between blocking the events of the night Yasmen ended things and playing them over and over in my head, analyzing if there was anything I could have done or said differently that would have changed the outcome. That would have saved us.
“Do you want to talk about that night?” Dr. Musa asks. “We have plenty of time.”
Hell, no.
Why would I unpack one of the most painful nights of my life with this stranger? My mouth is open, and the refusal rests on the tip of my tongue, but an image intrudes, shakes my absolute certainty that this dude can’t do a damn thing for me. It’s Kassim, walking into Dr. Cabbot’s office, looking back over his shoulder at his mom and me. Nervous, scared, uncertain, but assured because Yasmen said it was okay not to always be okay.
You, too, Dad?
Me too.
I clear my throat, swallowing the sharp response I had planned for Dr. Musa and look down at my hands gripping my knees.
“Do you want to talk about that night?” Dr. Musa repeats, his voice quiet like I’m some skittish animal who might bolt.
“Sure,” I finally answer, hoping I don’t regret this. “What do you want to know?”
Dr. Musa glances at his watch and smiles. “We may have time for everything.”
Chapter Thirteen
Josiah: Then
I drive home from Grits slowly, barely registering all the things that so captivated us about Skyland when we first moved here. My mind is still buzzing from a day that started before the sun was up and ended long after it was down. I turn onto First Court, our street lined with well-manicured lawns, neatly trimmed bushes fronting seven-figure homes. It had been the perfect setting for all our ambitions. You don’t live in the heart of Skyland without paying the price for location, and the price is high. Had things gone according to plan, we’d have no problem paying that price, but things went to shit, and our mortgage has become an albatross hanging around my neck. Mentally drowning in a sea of bills and past-due notices, I almost miss the white paper pinned to the garage door.
“What the hell?” I mutter, taking in our slightly overgrown grass and shabby bushes. The landscaper who services most of the houses on our street was scheduled to come today. I get out of the car and snatch the note.
Check bounced.
It’s scribbled on the grass-stained paper, stark and offensive. A muddy trail of shame and fury wends through me. I haven’t bounced a check since college, and now that I live on a street of million-dollar homes, it happens?
I pull out my phone to check our balance. Sure enough, our account is overdrawn. To save money while we’re finding our footing again in Byrd’s absence, Yasmen and I took pay cuts. It made sense, especially since she’s barely been to Grits since we lost Henry. With our reduced revenue, I had to trim fat somewhere, and I wasn’t going to reduce pay for our staff. They have families, responsibilities. We can weather this better than they can.
Or I thought we could.
Pulling Deja and Kassim out of Harrington would feel like yet another admission of failure, but we may have to do it.
I crumple the paper in my fist, my emotions as tangled as these bushes. My life as overgrown and unkept. One more thing I’ll have to deal with tomorrow.
I walk into our dream house and immediately want to turn right around and leave. The curtains are hung with hurt here. The floors are waxed with it. It lingers heavy and pungent in the air. I’d rather work at Grits fourteen hours a day than do the work of grief waiting in this house. The last few months have been a sinkhole. Of course, we all need time, but there’s something so dark and cold and desolate about the place Yasmen’s in now. I can’t reach her. I want to grab her and drag her back into our life, or what’s left of it. I want to beg her to remake it with me. To rebuild this restaurant’s reputation with me. We’ve always been partners. Am I being selfish to want her at my side again? Or am I just lonely? Frustrated? Bitter? All of the above?
Yeah. All the fucking above and I hate myself for feeling this way.
I blow out a harsh breath, shoulders drooping from the day and from what’s left of the night. The staircase may as well be Mount Everest. I poke my head into the kids’ rooms. Each of them sleeps peacefully. It’s hard to protect them from how we’re falling apart because if we’re not treading in freezing, silent water, we’re thrashing in hot springs, screaming the house down. I can’t believe this is us. We said we’d ride for each other till the wheels fell off. Lately our marriage feels like a blowout, both of us grabbing at the wheel, tires screeching, spinning out of control, every day narrowly avoiding a cataclysmic crash.
When I check our bedroom it’s empty. I know she’s in the nursery. My shoes have concrete soles when I take the few steps to the room at the end of the hall we’d used as a home office before we needed it for the baby. I’d suggested we store the nursery furniture until we figured out what to do with it. We need to repaint, move the desk and printer back. Wipe away all traces of what we hoped this room would be, but Yasmen would flip if I even suggested it. I stand in the door to the room, watching her, preternaturally still in the rocker, like she left her body behind and is elsewhere. A carousel lamp we bought after Deja’s first ultrasound sits on the table, slowly turning, spreading light and throwing shadows on the walls.
“Babe.” Fatigue makes the endearment gravelly on my lips. “It’s late. Come to bed.”
I honestly can’t blame her for choosing any place other than that cold stretch of mattress in our bedroom. In the king-sized bed our bodies don’t have to touch, don’t touch anymore, but it feels like it’s not big enough for the two of us and the ghosts who hog the covers.
She doesn’t turn her head to look at me, her gaze remaining fixed on the wall. My heart seizes in my chest every time I see the cursive writing—Yasmen’s handwriting—a cheerful baby blue against the dark gray paint we selected for Henry’s nursery.
I know the plans I have for you…to give you hope and a future.
Deja and Kassim each had a nursery rhyme for their wall, but Yasmen saw this verse on a greeting card somewhere, Jeremiah 29:11, and wanted to use it for Henry’s.
“Do you ever think about him?” Yasmen asks, still not looking at me, her voice frighteningly steady.
I lean against the wall and cross my arms over my chest, a flimsy guard for a broken heart I haven’t figured out how to articulate.
“Of course I do.”
“You never talk about him.” Accusation steels her soft words. “You’ve never cried for him.”
I have no defense for that because she’s right. As much as it hurt to lose Henry, as much as the pain sawed my insides, no tears ever fell. Not even at his funeral with a casket so tiny it broke me in half to think of him inside. No tears. No cracks. At first I convinced myself I was being strong for everyone else, but then I realized I couldn’t cry. As acutely as I hurt inside, my inability to express it made me feel like a robot. Like a monster.
And that’s how Yasmen looks at me now when she finally turns her head to meet my eyes. Like I’m some kind of android who couldn’t possibly empathize with her human pain.
She twists her fingers in the silky fabric of her nightgown. Not nightgown. Negligee. Something I haven’t seen in a long time. No, never. A negligee I’ve never seen. Is it new? Did she buy something new? A sexy, new thing? For her? For me? For us? Skimpy and barely covering her generous curves, the silk clings to the swell of her hips and strains at her breasts. She rises, abandoning the rocker and crossing the room to stand in front of me. I will myself to stay on the wall, not pounce on her the way my instincts demand. The carousel lamp casts soft lambent light across her body, touching the gentle slope of her shoulders beneath tiny straps, caressing the full roundness of her breasts and the nipples peaking beneath the silk.
I want to fuck her.
Fast. Right here. So hard and deep we’d dent the wall. I’d come quickly because it’s been too long. And then we’d stumble to the bed and do it again. Slow. Savoring each other because I almost forgot the taste and sound of her pleasure. It would take all night to remind me. It’s like she can read my thoughts. Promise shimmers like gold dust in her night-dark eyes. She steps so close I smell the scented oil she adds to her bath and runs through her hair. She pushes my arms down and stands flush against me, body to body. Her breasts pressed to my chest. She tips up on her toes, holds my stare, and angles her mouth to capture mine. First the top lip between hers, and then the bottom. Deliberately, she slips her tongue inside, wrenching a groan from me. This is our ritual, this kiss. A gentle sucking. A slow, licking hunger. I love kissing her. Always have. Not as a prelude to sex. Not with her. Just the act of tasting, touching her lips, loving her one stroke and one breath at a time.
“Fuck me, Si,” she gasps into my mouth, the words wreathed in mint and boldness.
Her body is fuller since the last pregnancy. Her breasts rounder, heavier. I test the weight of them in my hands and thumb her nipples reverently.
“Jesus, baby. Yes.”
Those are the only words I can manage because this is all I’ve wanted and haven’t been able to make myself ask for. Not when she’s been so sad. Not when the world has been on fire and every ship sinking. I knew sex couldn’t be the most important thing. Her getting better, feeling better—that was paramount. But I was wrong because this feels urgent. The scrape of her teeth across my lip—essential. The sweep of her tongue inside my mouth—necessary. Every breath feels like a gasp before dying and my heart races, speeds to catch up with the desperation of her hands caressing my chest, of her fingers, sure and steady at my zipper. I drag the silky gown up her thigh, envisioning the firm naked legs wrapped around my waist. I hesitate, knowing where I want to touch her, but still unsure that she wants it. It’s been so long and this is the first time she’s been interested in sex.
“Yes,” she breathes, scattering kisses over my jaw, sucking at my neck. “Touch me there.”
I slip my fingers over her and then inside. I pause. I know how she feels when she wants this. She’s wet and slippery and slick when she wants me. And suddenly, the heat drains away. The new negligee. The way she is freshly waxed and smooth between her legs. Even the mint of her breath at midnight. It all feels calculated. Deliberate, not desperate. Wrong, not raw.
She pulls back just the smallest bit to study my face in the dim light, a frown pulling between her brows. “Come on.”
“Why?” I demand, even though I know. I dread her answer, have avoided this conversation, but knew we’d have to have it. One more fight.
“Why?” She laughs, and it’s breathless, nervous. She looks down at the floor, catching her bottom lip between her teeth. “I want another baby.”
“No.” The word torpedoes from me, startling us both. Her wide eyes meet mine. “No more babies.”
No more losses. No more death. No more risk. No more grief.
“Yasmen, the doctor said—”
“What?” She inserts another inch, two between us, her frown morphing to scorn. “That it’s a risk? That I might—”
“Die?” It’s ejected from my soul, bounces off Henry’s nursery walls. “Yeah, is that what you want this family to go through? Another death?”
She ignores that, presses back into me. In the set of her mouth, in the sureness of her hand reaching between us to grab my dick, there is a confidence that my desire, the way I always want her, will override everything else, will obliterate my objections. And there was a time when the soft femininity, the perfect weight of her against me, would have been enough, but when she reaches between us, I know what she’ll find.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, the smooth, beautiful face lined by consternation. “You want this.”
I haven’t been hard this whole time. Haven’t been hard in a long time. The hungry kisses and searching tongues and ragged breaths—all real. All a cry for closeness, for intimacy, for contact we haven’t had since the day she returned from the hospital with empty arms. I wanted to want it, but my body didn’t respond. We’ve always had this, the fire that ignites at the slightest touch. At a glance. We’ve lost even that.
We are a disaster. Her, plotting to seduce me to get a baby we can never have. Me, reaching for the fire that used to spark between us, and finding only ashes. Whatever exists between us now is dry and flaccid.
“Why would you want another?” she asks, her voice climbing. “You didn’t even want Henry.”
“That’s a lie.” My anger flares at the injustice, at her well-aimed arrow. “What the hell, Yas?”
“What am I supposed to think? You weren’t even there.”
“That’s not fair. You—” I cut myself off, draw a deep breath. “You told me to go to that convention, and you know it. You weren’t due. We couldn’t have known—”
“That I would almost die alone? That I would lose him on the floor?” Hysteria colors her voice in shades of sorrow. “That I would—”
I pull her close, hold her the way I wasn’t there to do when it counted. She hates me for not being there when she needed me? Not as much as I hate myself.
She jerks in my arms, struggling like I’m constraining her, not comforting.
“Let me go. I don’t want you to touch me.”
My arms abruptly fall away. “That was fast. A minute ago you were begging me to fuck you.”
“I want a baby, Si.” Tears water her words even as they grow louder. “Just give me another baby and we—”
“And so I’m what? Your stud horse or your husband?”
“You’re being unreasonable. You want to fight. I just want to—”
“To fuck, I got that. So you can have a baby, no matter what I want. No matter the risk. Despite what the doctor said.”
“I’ve talked to the doctor again and she—”
“Without me? You consulted the doctor about having another baby without even discussing this with me?”
I grab her hand and pull her from the nursery, down the hall, the stairs, through the living room and kitchen to the garage. Away from our kids’ curious ears, this has become our boxing ring. Where, when our icy silences crack, we come to scream and screech. Yasmen’s Acura MDX sits prettily beside my Range Rover in our garage, in our elite zip code, and it should be the stuff of our dreams. But it’s instead a deep freezer, stuffed with metal monsters whose headlights glare at our inadequacies and scowl at how naive we were to think this would ever be enough.
“We’re not having another baby, Yas.”
My voice comes out hard, unyielding. I can’t lose one more thing. One more person. I can’t lose her. I wouldn’t survive it.
