The Empty Jar(2)

“My heart,” I murmur, rubbing the tip of my nose back and forth over hers, wishing I could make things right, make things better. Change them.

But knowing I can’t.

“For yours,” she replies, as she has since the night I proposed to her just over sixteen years ago. One of the best nights of my life, and they’ve only gotten better with time.

Time.

I squelch the thought that erupts like an acidic volcano, spewing destructive lava through my mind. There are some things I won’t allow myself to dwell on. Not until I absolutely have to.

“We’ll celebrate our anniversary on the banks of the River Thames and we’ll celebrate every day after that someplace new. The French Riviera, Rome, Prague, Vienna, Belgium. Everywhere we’ve ever wanted to go, we’ll go.”

“What if the only place I’ve ever really wanted to be was in your arms?”

My chest tightens painfully as the still-new fear wraps its cold, black fingers around my heart. Quickly, before Lena can notice, I wrestle it into the background, just like I used to wrestle our skis into the hall closet every spring. I’d press them in with one hand, in among the other various debris of our life together, and then I’d close the door as fast as I could before they fell out. Both Lena and I both know to open that door with caution. We joke about it often and use it as our go-to analogy for awful situations.

We both know that one could easily be hurt by what rests behind it.

Summoning a smile, I reply, “That’s the one place that will always be available to you. They’re open twenty-four seven. Day or night. Rain or shine. As long as we both shall live.”

“As long as we both shall live?”

“As long as I live,” I explain.

I feel the slight shake of her head before she buries her face in the curve of my neck, trying unsuccessfully to hide her emotion from me. She does it often—tries to hide what she’s feeling. At least she does these days. And I let her. I know she needs to feel as though she’s somehow sparing me from her devastation.

But she isn’t.

I know. I always know. I am actually sparing her by pretending that I don’t.

They say ignorance is bliss. I think I might just have to agree. There are many, many things I wish I didn’t know because once you know, you can’t unknow.

I’m aware of the moment that she rallies, the moment when she, too, stuffs the skis back into the closet to be taken out only when they must. Or when the latch gives way and the door flies open unexpectedly, dumping those damn skis out onto the floor. I’m aware because she runs her hands up my arms, over my shoulders and then laces her fingers behind my neck, leaning into me in that way she’s always done when she wants more than just a kiss.

If I weren’t trying so hard to guard the closet door and those damn skis, I’d probably growl.

“Then let’s get this party started the right way.”

When our lips meet again, there is hunger. And desperation. And sadness. It rings like an inaudible bell in every touch, every whisper, every one of her soft moans. Within seconds, our tongues tangle in a sweetly familiar dance that is followed closely by sure fingers that undo buttons, tease skin and incite nerves.

She excites me.

She always has.

It isn’t until I sweep my wife into my arms and carry her, naked, to our bed that our lovemaking slows to the careful memorization of body and movement and moment. Even in the throes of our shared passion, the truth—and the future—is there.

It’s always there.

In the background.

In the closet.

With the skis.

Waiting…





Two

Bitter Wine

Lena



“Mimosas for breakfast? Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?”

I smile at Nissa, my neighbor. She and her husband, Mark, are our only really close friends. Since neither Nate nor I have many living relatives, and none that are actually close to us (emotionally or geographically), our neighbors are like family.

She is my best and only close friend and has been since Nate and I moved in next door to her. We bought this place two years after we got married, when Nate landed his first job as a financial analyst at a big bank in Charlotte, North Carolina. On our third night in the house, Nissa came to the back door, like we’d known each other all our lives, carrying an armload of casserole dishes containing every Southern-fried family recipe she could make. She was as different from me as night from day and we took to one another like bees to honey. Or like flies to shit, as Nissa is fond of saying. She never specifies who the shit is, though.

“What? A girl can celebrate, can’t she?”

“Of course,” she responds, enthusiastically draining most of her flute in one long gulp. “I’d just like to know what we’re celebrating. Since it includes champagne, I know you didn’t bring me here to tell me that you finally got pregnant. Although, as weird as you’ve been acting for the last few weeks, I wouldn’t have been surprised.” I swallow the lump in my throat, making sure to maintain my placid expression as I watch my friend. “So, what’s going on? Spill.”

I hold Nissa’s blue eyes with my own light brown ones, committing to memory the way this feels—to be sitting in my kitchen on a quiet morning, chatting with my friend as effortlessly as leaves fall from the trees in autumn.