The Opposite of Love (17 page)

James shook his head, looked away. “No, I suppose not. My mother showed up like Florence fucking Nightingale after thirty years, so it’s fine. I’m being looked after.”

“It’s not that I didn’t want to look after you—”

“Then what?”

“It’s the hospital, because of what happened when I was—“

Connie entered the room holding a plate and paused for a moment before sliding it onto the coffee table in front of James. “Don’t mind me, I need to go out for a bit.” She retrieved a sweater from the dining room and quietly slipped out. Melanie stared at her own hands and tried to make them unclench.

“How has it been, having your mother here?” She was stalling, she knew, but even the few words she’d spoken on the subject of hospitals had carried the subject so close to her father’s death that she could feel her self-preservation kick in.
It’s too personal, too painful, don’t tell him this.

“Oh it’s great. She won’t shut up. I think she wants a do-over or something.”

“Wouldn’t you like to have her in your life again?”

James looked at Melanie with something like pity. “Not everyone wants their parents around. Not every parent is worth having around. Just because someone gives birth to you doesn’t mean that they’re good people. There is no cause and effect. One has nothing to do with the other.”

Melanie thought about this. Her parents were good people, so she had no experience to compare with his. It seemed to her that if it was possible to have a relationship again, he should try, but she couldn’t say why.

“She didn’t parent you the way she should have, the way you needed, and I get that. So maybe don’t think of her as a parent. That ship has sailed, right? So think of her as someone who cares about you and wants to be there for you now. That has value.”

“Yes, I suppose it does.” James raised an eyebrow at her. “And apparently that sentiment is rarer than I thought.”

Melanie let the stab go without comment.

“I think this could be a good thing,” she said, “if you give it a chance.”

“Enough about that.” James scratched his scalp violently with one hand, as if to scrub the subject away.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. James closed his eyes for long periods and then opened them again looking a little disoriented. The sight of him under the effects of painkillers was endearing—the vulnerability, the sweetness of succumbing to sleepiness. When he opened his eyes again, Melanie found herself saying something astonishing. “I want you to know that I love you.”

James raised his eyebrows at her. “When did you decide this?” His voice was low, almost a whisper.

“When I heard you were hurt. I was terrified of losing you.”

“And yet you didn’t come. I don’t get it.” He closed his eyes again.

Melanie shook her head. “I know. And I will explain it to you. But you need to sleep right now.”

“It’s the drugs…”

“I know. Just rest.”

Melanie moved over to the foot of the sofa and sat on the floor. One bare foot stuck out from beneath the blanket and she took it gently in both hands and rubbed the sole with her thumbs. James gave a contented hum, then began to snore. When Connie returned, Melanie whispered that she would call soon, and left.

She sat in her car for a few minutes staring straight ahead. Granted, she hadn’t gone to the hospital, but she had fought the urge to bubble wrap her emotions and to insulate herself from the fear. James may not have understood that yet, but for her, it was a huge step. Bigger than she’d ever taken before. Soon, she would have to tell him why and hope that he understood.

James awoke
in the dark to the sound of the wind in the trees. He sat up and took another pill. There was still a sandwich on the coffee table, but it appeared to be fresh and not the one that had gone uneaten. He took a few bites and lay back down.

When Melanie had sat down in the very chair his mother had just vacated, he’d had such a moment of longing, the two women blending together into one unattainable person. The sharp disappointment he felt toward his mother when his grandmother took him in he now felt for Melanie since his mother had stepped up. The one who cared for him was never the one he wanted, never the one he loved.

Melanie had looked so beautiful in her jeans and white blouse, her face tan, her hair pulled back. He was tempted to push her away for not coming to him and fretting over him in his hospital bed, for not chasing away his mother and demanding the right to look after him herself. But god, she was so pretty. He wanted to forgive her, to let her back in, to scold her and let her make it up to him. But he knew she wouldn’t take it all at once. There would be a delicate balance of contrition and reparation on her part, and crumbs of forgiveness on his. When all was said and done, she would belong to him, but it would take time.

Melanie came by every day for the following week, and each time he behaved coldly, offering the possibility of forgiveness but withholding the gift itself.

“After this, how can I trust you to be there for me when I need you?”

Her brow creased and she shifted in her chair. She looked at the carpet when she spoke. “Because I want to be there for you. I can promise you that if there is another hospital in your future, I will be there for you. I’m prepared for that.”

“What’s changed?”

Melanie looked him in the eyes. “I love you. I realize that. I want to be there for you more than I need to protect myself.”

He didn’t bother asking her about her issue with hospitals again, and she didn’t offer explanation. She said she’d be leaving for Mexico with her sister in a few days for a weeklong vacation, something they’d planned months before, but he just shook his head and questioned her loyalty, leaving him in his condition. The truth was, he had been on his feet since the third day out of the hospital, but he didn’t let on to her.

The day before she was due to leave she came over in the afternoon. The front door was unlocked so she knocked and then let herself in, calling out to him.

“I’m in the bedroom,” he answered. He’d been sleeping in the guest bedroom downstairs in order to avoid the stairs, and his mother had taken the master, and his bed, making him wish he’d never turned the third bedroom into a gym.

“Hey handsome,” she said, giving him a kiss. He had been on his laptop when she knocked and was now lying flat on the bed in just his boxers.

“Hey beautiful,” he said. She brightened at his tone and at the first pleasant thing he’d said to her since the accident. The gesture seemed to make her brave and she sat down on the edge of the bed, ran a hand over his chest. He put his hand over hers and pressed it to his lips.

“You’re in a good mood,” she said.

“I’ve missed you.”

“I’m here now, sweetheart.”

“That’s not what I mean.” James eyed the front of her blouse and smiled wickedly.

Melanie glanced at the bandage on his thigh. “Are you… can you…?”

James sighed and let go of her hand. “No, I probably can’t. The pain would be tough. I miss being with you though. And if I don’t come soon, my balls are gonna explode.”

She smiled, and on cue, said, “I have an idea.”

Melanie closed the door and locked it, and with a gentle touch she pulled his boxers down and off. “You tell me if your leg starts to hurt, ok?”

“Ok,” he breathed. His cock was already hard with anticipation. He checked the clock.

As Melanie stroked and licked and pulled, he propped his head up on a pillow and watched. Within moments the lipstick she wore was gone to just the pale fullness underneath, but then her lips brightened pink again from the friction as she sped up. He felt himself getting too excited and he closed his eyes and flexed his right leg until the pain pulled him back from the edge. After ten minutes, Melanie had a film of sweat on her brow and she stopped to remove her top. Positioning herself between his legs, she was careful not to touch the injured one, and she went to work with a renewed enthusiasm, pinching his nipples, cupping and then licking his balls, forcing his length as far down her throat as she could, choking, coming up for air, smiling mischievously at him and diving back in. And whenever things got too close, he simply flexed and let the pain cool him off.

After some time, she asked to get on top of him, but he said the pressure would probably hurt.

“I don’t know if this is going to work,” she said.

“It will. I’m close. I’m sure it’s just taking longer because of the pills.”

She continued with eyes shut tight in concentration, little exertive noises coming from her throat. It took a while before the flexing tactic no longer worked and the pleasure obliterated the pain completely. He came in a back-arching spasm that pulled him almost off the bed. Melanie rolled clumsily to the floor and leaned her back against the dresser, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, panting, sweating, her eye makeup smeared, her face and chest flushed scarlet. She massaged her jaw with the heels of her palms. James looked at the clock and cursed inwardly; it had been forty-five minutes. He had been aiming for an hour.

He smiled at her and laughed.

… it’s only when we can tolerate not being in control that we make a place for the miraculous to happen.

— Erica Jong,
“Any Woman’s Blues”

Chapter Ten

“I can’t go.”

Over the phone, it sounded like Sarah had a construction crew working in her kitchen, but if Melanie concentrated, she could pick out the sounds of the dishwasher running, the microwave beeping and a small child banging a plastic cup on a hard surface.

“Tell me you’re having trouble going to the bathroom. Otherwise, I don’t think I want to hear this.”

“Braden has an ear infection.”

“And?”

Sarah laughed. “You really live in a different world, you know that?”

“I’m very aware,” said Melanie. “What does an ear infection mean?”

“It means I can’t go. He has a fever and I have to be here until he gets better.”

“Or what happens?” Melanie asked. She realized she was pushing, but she was frustrated that Sarah was canceling on their trip. She wondered if her sister had even considered all her options or just bagged it immediately. “What would happen if Richard took care of him?”

Sarah was quiet for a moment.

“Truthfully?” she said finally. “What would happen is his father would give him his medication, probably even on time and as instructed, and Braden would get better. However, there is a minuscule chance that Braden would go on with his life until one day in his twenties when he turns to me after a few drinks at Thanksgiving and says, ‘Why weren’t you there when I was sick?’ And frankly, Melanie, if you must know,
that
is the reason I can’t go.”

“Ah. Ok, makes sense.”

Melanie was half joking.

“Motherhood is not a regular job, Melanie. If someone says you didn’t do a good job selling them a house, you can just say ‘Go fuck yourself,’” said Sarah. Then, away from the phone, “No honey, mommy said ‘truck.’” Then to Melanie again, “The whole goal behind being a parent is to be able to say you did a good job. And being there when your child is sick and scared is a very big part of that.”

“Ok, I get it,” said Melanie. “You can’t tell your future adult son to go fuck himself.”

Melanie had planned the trip to Cancun several months in advance to give Sarah enough lead time to plan her escape. Of course there would still have been a dozen calls home every day to check that everyone was not disintegrating without her care and instruction. But if it meant getting her to a beach and getting a drink in her hand, the incessant calls could be endured. Now, though, the plan was ruined by an ear infection?

She eventually hung up with Sarah, grabbed a beer from the fridge and went outside to sit by the pool, bringing her cell phone with her. She set the phone next to the beer on the patio table and stared at it. The plane was leaving in the morning with or without her, and while going alone appealed to her very much, it was Mexico, and her mother would have a stroke if she found out. Still, there was no way she was going to cancel her trip. She needed this.

She picked up the phone and dialed.

“Hey handsome,” Melanie said when he answered. She wondered why she felt like she was selling something. It was a trip to Cancun after all, not life insurance.

“Hey yourself. What’s up?”

“I’m going to Cancun for five days. Wanna come? My treat.”

“Just like that?”

“My sister had to cancel. Sick kid. Ear-bleed or pink-worm or stink-eye. I don’t know what.”

He laughed. “You’d make a great mom.”

“Yeah, yeah. So what do you think? Can you get away?”

“Sure. When do we leave?”

“Plane leaves at nine a.m.”

“I’ll pick you up at seven,” he said.

“Perfect,” she said. “Oh, and Derek, don’t forget your swim trunks.”

As soon as they’d checked into the resort, Derek was off paddle-skimming or sky-surfing or some damn thing she’d never heard of and he’d never even tried before. Melanie sat on the hotel’s groomed beach on a lounger, watching people play in the water.

She’d slowed down physically in the past few years, but it wasn’t a decline in energy, it was an increase in knowledge. As a child there was the activity, the adventure, the discovery. The go, the run, the climb. But why? Did she remember Disneyland? No. Did she catch the monkey by the tail? No.

In her twenties and early thirties, she was driven by a panicky desire to accomplish. Make good grades, make an impression, make your mark, make more money, make something of yourself. And there seemed to be a time limit, as though once the gates of college opened, you were a thoroughbred racing to fulfill your potential, and you had five years, give or take, to do it.

Being almost forty now, in paradise, on a beach with a cocktail, Melanie was inclined to sit very, very still. To watch the waves and appreciate their rhythm and roar. To luxuriate in the breeze and to rejoice in the occasional, sudden gust of wind and the way it threw the palm leaves forward and back and rustled them like cards in a deck. This place had all the activity it needed without a single roller coaster.

Lift a drink. Put it down. Be still. Repeat.

The sun was setting in postcard colors. She would be able to hear the bustling activity of the breeze all around her, even when it was too dark to see it.
Perhaps then I will move
, she thought.

She had only momentarily considered inviting James on the trip. But for one, he was still recuperating from his wound and wouldn’t be able to get around very well, and second, he’d started studying for the sergeant’s exam. Derek was still on summer break and it had been too long since she’d seen him.

Additionally, Melanie had looked forward to talking to her older sister about James, running some of the more challenging relationship situations by her to see what she thought. And even though that was no longer an option, she felt she could gain more clarity in James’ absence than with him lounging on the beach next to her, whispering into her ear.

It wasn’t until the second night that Derek brought up the subject of James.

“I guess it’s safe to assume things didn’t work out.”

“Actually no, we’re still together,” she said. “But you might say we’re at a bit of a crossroads.”

She decided this was her opportunity for some quality feedback, perhaps advice even. She told Derek about the footprint on the car window when she came home from Austin and her subsequent conversation with her mother. She told him about the shooting and how hurt James had been when she didn’t come to the hospital, how she was still trying to win his trust back. Melanie decided to keep James’ secret about his parents to herself, partly out of loyalty to James, and partly because she still hadn’t come to terms with how he spoke to his mother at the ball. But she revealed all the sordid, sexy details about their trips to the Green Door, including her blindfolded display with James in a room full of people. She watched his expression carefully for signs of judgment or shock, and there was something there, she just couldn't quite read it.

To her surprise, rather than taking Catherine’s side on the subject of whether the episode during her Austin trip was cheating, Derek backed up Melanie’s earlier position that James was probably not the right guy for her. But now that she’d resolved to make it work, she found herself defending him.

"My mother wasn't entirely wrong you know. We didn't have an agreement to be monogamous at the time."

"And now you do?"

"Yes."

"Then why are we in Mexico together?"

"Because my sister couldn't go. I told you that."

Derek raised an eyebrow. "You have more than one sister. You have friends who are female. Why are you here with a man you're having sex with?"

Melanie shrugged. "I like your company. And we're friends. The sex is incidental."

"But does James know you're with another man?"

Melanie rolled her eyes. "No, of course not. But you make it sound so illicit. I'd tell him if I thought he'd understand."

"Understand, or approve?"

Melanie sipped her wine and pretended not to hear him.

"Would you understand if he told you he had a woman that he slept with from time to time, but it was no threat to your relationship?"

"We've known each other for four years, Derek."

"Doesn't matter. You're not being honest. You shouldn’t be together if you can't be honest with each other."

"As far as I know he's been honest with me for the past few months, ever since we cleared the air."

Derek took a swig of his wine and glanced around the restaurant. A tropical storm had started brewing over the Caribbean and heading toward the gulf, so the restaurant was only about half full of patrons. Thus far the weather had remained beautiful, and Melanie stared out the window at the indigo of the horizon as darkness descended.

"I just want you to be happy, Mel," Derek said. "Do you think this guy can do that?"

"I don't know. ‘You never know’—your words."

Derek rolled his eyes. "I'm getting a little tired of my words."

Melanie laughed. "Then let's not talk."

They went back to the room with the remaining half bottle of wine and had sex until midnight, alternately riding each other hard and then savoring each other in long, slow strokes.

Derek woke her in the morning for some more of the slow stuff, and after breakfast, more of the high-energy sweaty stuff on one of the balcony lounge chairs. By the time they made it out to the pool that afternoon, Melanie was deliciously sore.

Melanie was on her second Mai Tai and was feeling mellow. Derek was lazily swimming in the hotel pool while Melanie watched. The sky was still clear, but they’d been warned that the tropical storm in the gulf could head their direction if the wind changed even slightly.

Melanie wasn’t thinking about that. She was thinking about James’ good traits, adding them up and piling them—fluffing them even—to see how many there were. He still had the shininess he’d had when they met. He still had the masculine strength that made her feel safe, protected, and distinctly female.

She wanted to make it work; she’d finally committed to that much. It was only a matter of finding a way now. She needed to forgive him for lying, to trust him, to respect him, and therefore, to love him.

Melanie took a sip of her Mai Tai and glanced around the pool deck at the sunbathers. This particular resort didn’t cater much to families so there were only a couple of children around. She watched a man walk out from the main building and head toward the pool area. He reminded her of her father—not as he was, but as he might have been, had he lived. The man had a salt-and-pepper beard. He was probably in his late fifties and wore khaki shorts and sandals with no shirt. He was thin and fit, but not particularly muscular. He walked over to a woman Melanie took for his wife, kissed her cheek and spoke to her briefly, then went to the tiki bar.

Derek was floating on his back in the pool with his eyes closed. So peaceful, Melanie thought. She had only recently delved into the art of sitting still. Derek had it mastered.

She turned her attention back to the man at the tiki bar, who turned with a drink in each hand and headed back toward his wife. But halfway there, he put the drinks on a table and sat down hard in a chair. Melanie sat up in her lounger. Something was wrong.

As he leaned to the side, Melanie whispered, “No… no.” He fell to the pool deck and Melanie stood as if to go to him, then stopped.

The woman he had kissed ran to him, kneeled, and rolled him onto his side while the man seized. Within a minute, it was over. The pool staff draped a towel over his torso and the woman held his hand while he lay still. A small crowd had gathered and the woman assured them he would be fine.

“Are you ok?”

Derek was standing next to her. She hadn’t realized how far away she’d been until his voice pulled her back, dragged her over several decades of sharp remorse.

“Mel, you’re shaking,” he said. “Come sit down.”

She sat on her lounger and faced him as he sat across from her.

“It’s just a seizure, Mel. He’ll be ok.”

He’ll be ok. Melanie was amazed at the all-encompassing power of that simple statement. His wife had known what to do, and he would be fine.

“Yeah,” she said, nodding.

“Then what’s got you so upset?”

Looking down at her hands, she found they were shaking badly. She could feel her whole body trembling. Her Mai Tai sat on the side table and she grabbed it and held it in both hands, finishing it off in several swallows.

“Can you do me a favor?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Can you get me a shot?”

After a shot of tequila, her body still felt like it was in the throes of a caffeine binge. After two more shots, she was feeling like herself again, only chattier.

Part of her felt like letting it out, finally telling someone. Like that might change it somehow, might heal it a little bit. She'd never told anyone the story though, so she didn't know. Reliving it could make it worse. It could bring it all back as real as the day it happened. Then again, in ways, it was still that real. Sitting across from Derek, she considered how hard it would be to tell the story to James if he asked again. Just like before, Derek would be good practice. He would be safe.