Part 10 (2/2)

”s.h.i.+t, Sara. I'm sorry. It's really late. Are the girls with a sitter right now?”

”No, they're with Kevin tonight. And it's okay. I think we both needed this for closure. But I guess I should get going.” She didn't want to go, dreading the emptiness of the dark house across town. So when John offered to make up the couch for her, she didn't argue.

”I can let you use one of my t-s.h.i.+rts,” he suggested. ”Or... I guess Rachel's stuff would probably be better.” She nodded. There had been a few items of mine that she'd tucked into her box, including a couple of her own clothes that had somehow made their way into my closet. She pulled one of my night s.h.i.+rts out of a box.

”This should be fine,” she told him. He gave her an extra toothbrush and then made her bed up while she got dressed in the bathroom.

”Goodnight,” he said to her when she emerged, giving her a hug. He caught a whiff of my smell mingling in with her perfume, a new aroma that both caught him off guard, intriguing him.

”Goodnight,” she murmured. She looked up at him with curiosity when he paused without letting her go. There was no mistaking the look in his eyes. It had been so long since anyone had looked at her that way, she missed the part where he saw me, and she only saw the part where he found her desirable. Without thinking, she closed her eyes and leaned in, feeling the way his hands gripped her shoulder and moved to comb through her hair before lining her cheek with his finger and tracing the outline of her lips.

John knew he was making a mistake. He knew it was Sara in front of him, trembling in a s.h.i.+rt I used to wear often. But he looked past her blonde hair and saw me in the similarities of her features. He hadn't been this close to a woman since the last time we'd been interrupted during our love making, a moment that felt centuries old. And beyond wis.h.i.+ng I were the one in front of him, he felt the natural pull of needing to be near the softness of a woman. When he looked at Sara, he knew it was her. But the familiarity she presented in her appearance and fragrance overwhelmed him into losing the ability to think. He leaned forward and caught her waiting lips with his own, crus.h.i.+ng against them in a dance of tongues and pa.s.sion.

I crouched in the corner, frozen by the scene unfolding in front of me. I was afraid to stay, but more afraid to leave. I could feel everything the way it felt to be touched after countless nights alone, the elation of being in each other's arms, the confusion that went alongside it, and the sadness that each of them stuffed down as they pretended in the moment that this was something it wasn't. I wanted to tear myself away. My biggest fear was unfolding in front of me in a way I knew would haunt me for eternity. But something new was emerging from this nightmare. I found peace in their relief and growing pa.s.sion, feeling more human than ever as their emotions transferred over to me. The irony didn't escape me. All this time I had affected John through my presence. Now he was affecting me.

They made their way to the couch, their mouths and hands never leaving each other. John knew he couldn't bring her up to the bedroom, feeling it would be like stepping on holy ground. But the made-up couch served as a middle ground for the crime he was about to commit. Her hands tore at his s.h.i.+rt, and he slipped it over his head. She ran her hands across his chest, pulling her fingers through the hair that covered it and tugging to send a s.h.i.+vering shock through his body. John unbuckled his belt and stepped out of his pants, then pulled Sara's s.h.i.+rt over the top of her head. She stood naked in front of him, her pale skin trembling in the shadows of the room. John pulled back the covers and she laid down within them, drawing her breath in as his skin made contact with hers within the warmth of the blankets.

Sara's hands traveled the whole of John's body, running them along the pulsing muscles of his back down to the curve of his hip as he hovered over her, afraid to let his whole weight press against her. Sensing this, she pulled him closer, feeling the release of tension as his body crushed down on hers. She could feel his heart pounding against her own, beating faster as she sent a flurry of kisses across his cheek, his neck, his chest. Unable to get close enough, she arched into him as his hands smoothed over her body, exploring every inch of her skin.

He couldn't find the raised scar that blemished my back. It was what kept him grounded, knowing that, enveloped by my scent, it was nonetheless Sara he lay against in the darkness of the room, and not me. When he found himself immersed in thoughts of me, he searched for the scar again on Sara's back, both relieved and disappointed when he couldn't find it. But Sara felt good to him, the softness of her body differing from the tightness my muscles had possessed in the weeks before my wedding, a result of a quick series of workouts rather than a lifetime of exercise. Sara's body, while slender, remained soft from afternoons chasing children rather than working out at the gym. It matched the downy texture of her skin, and John ran his hands over every inch of it, pausing when his fingers found the hardness of her nipples. She gasped at his touch, arching her back even more in the process. Leaning down, John took her nipple in his mouth, pressing it between his lips before letting his tongue flick against it. Sara could feel the sensation at the tip of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s was.h.i.+ng over the top of her head and radiating throughout her body until she was burning with desire. She grasped at him, pleading to come closer with every kiss she peppered across his skin, unable to find her release until he entered her in an explosion of pa.s.sion. The room was ablaze as they made love to each other, searching for comfort in a world that had swallowed them whole. John buried his face into her hair, breathing in as their bodies moved together in one fluid motion.

”You smell like her,” he whispered, his movements slowing as he voiced his thought. She tightened her hold on him.

”Please, just go with it,” she said. She didn't elaborate, afraid that too many words would take away from the moment. She knew he missed me, even as his body molded against hers. He needed this to be able to move past me, but also to feel close to me. She needed this for a different reason - just to feel wanted once again. She couldn't bear the thought of being rejected, and in her mind she begged him to forget me for just a moment and continue making love to her or to remember me in secret as he found comfort in her body.

John lost himself in the scent of her hair, grasping her skin so tight it reddened in patches that would bruise later. The room evaporated around them as they became one breath together. And in a final moment, they burst into flames within a frenzy of ecstasy, mounting to a final explosion that both gave them life and left them breathless.

No words were spoken as the pa.s.sion subsided. John stroked Sara's hair against her back as she lay against him. Sara ran her fingers against the damp hair on his chest as her eyelids grew heavy. I remained a connecting thought between the two of them, feeling the different edges of guilt as they drifted off to sleep. But more than that, they both found comfort in being able to help each other in a pain that no one else could ever understand.

Nineteen.

John had left sometime during the night to go to his own room. Sara had felt him get up, leaving behind not only more room for her to sleep but also a cool void, and she burrowed under the blankets to get away from it before falling back asleep. But in the early hours of the morning, she found herself awake in a house that wasn't her own, questioning the wisdom of their actions the night before. It was more than the fact that I existed in the very fiber of this house, even after John had gone to great lengths to keep me boxed up behind closed doors. It was more than the fact that she had just gone past an invisible boundary with the man her sister was supposed to have married. It was more than the fact that John was the first man she had been intimate with since her husband moved out. Of every fear that tumbled through her mind, the biggest worry she held was the realization that once the sun crested over the San Francisco hills they would be faced with the morning after and it would likely end with a speech that sounded like ”It's not you, it's me.”

”I just can't do this anymore,” Kevin had told her in the privacy of their bedroom after the girls had gone to bed. ”We're just going through the motions, and it's killing me.” It had been coming for a while, and on this night these words were spoken after a long and drawn out argument about Kevin's hours at the office and the distance he kept even when he was in the house. But still, when Kevin spoke the words out loud, it drove salt into the already gaping wounds of Sara's heart.

”You can't just give up, Kevin. This is a marriage, and you're not even trying,” Sara shot at him, her words solid stone even if her insides were tumbling pebbles.

”This is no marriage, Sara. I feel like an outsider with you and the girls. Ever since you became a mother, you have s.h.i.+fted toward that role one-hundred percent, and there's nothing left for me.”

”That's not fair!” Sara shouted through a whisper, afraid that her anger would wake the girls across the hall. ”Because you're gone so much, being their parent has been totally left up to me. I spend most of my time here taking care of them, even with the flower shop! Even though that shop is taking up so much more of my time now that Rachel is dead and I'm left with a whole business to flounder in on my own! You don't do anything except go to work, come home, then plop your a.s.s on the couch and expect a hot meal to be placed in front of you. You haven't looked at me the way you used to in months, maybe years. f.u.c.k, I can probably even count on one hand how many times we've had s.e.x in that amount of time. There's nothing left for you? What the f.u.c.k are you giving me?”

”I have nothing to give you, Sara! That's the point!” Kevin yelled. Sara raised her hand in fury, looking toward the girls' room through the closed door.

”Shhh!” Her whisper was icy. ”We don't need to wake them up.”

”I have nothing for you, Sara,” he hissed.

”Then why are you pinning all this on me?” she asked him, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng. He hung his head at the question, the silence hanging between them like fragile icicles ready to drop. She waited for his answer, the fury inside of her ready to pounce at any word he spoke.

”I don't know,” he said in a soft voice. ”I guess I thought things would be different, or that things would go back to the way they used to when the girls grew a little more.”

”But things are always going to be different than they were then,” Sara said. ”We were young and selfish back then. We had nothing to focus on but ourselves and each other. Things changed forever when we chose to have kids. Now the focus is on Lily and Megan. That's never going to change.”

”I know, Sara,” he sighed.

”So what is it? You don't want to be a dad anymore?” she demanded. ”It's kind of late for that, isn't it? Leaving me isn't going to take that away.”

”No, that's not it,” he shot back. ”Of course I want to be a dad. But I can't stay in a marriage where I feel like I'm just the paycheck, coming home to your little family of three while I am merely the outsider.”

”What are you talking about?” Sara demanded. ”Those girls adore you! They wait for you to come home every single day and pounce on you once you walk in that door! When you come home, they don't even see me anymore. It's all about Daddy.”

”I don't love you anymore!” Kevin blurted out. Sara gasped, the words slicing right through her. They both stared at each other, neither one able to believe the words had been spoken. Her hands trembled as she lifted them to her mouth, her eyes filling with tears. The regret was evident in Kevin's eyes, but it was too late. ”I'm sorry, Sara. I didn't mean that. I-,” but she waved him off with a flip of her hand as the tears broke over the barrier of her eyes, spilling down her cheeks.

”Don't. Don't even try to take it away. You said it. You finally said what I knew was true.” She sank down on the bed, fighting with all her strength to keep from breaking down in front of him. ”Is it someone else?” she asked him. ”Is that why you've been spending more and more time at work?” He shook his head.

”No. There's no one else.”

To Sara, that was almost worse. He wasn't leaving because his heart was being pulled in two directions. He was leaving because he couldn't stand to be with her anymore.

”I suppose we could try counseling,” he offered as a weak gesture. She shook her head.

”I think it's too late for that,” she told him. ”I think you should just go.”

”I'll go in the morning,” he said. ”I want to say goodbye to the girls.”

”And say what?” Sara demanded. ”That you're giving up on this family? That you don't love their mother anymore? No, you need to leave now, tonight. I can't have you in this house for another moment.” She got on the floor and dug a bag out from under the bed, flinging it on the bed in front of him.

”And what are you going to tell them?” he asked her.

”I'll think of something. After all, I'm the one who is solely devoted to the kids, so much that my own husband doesn't want me.”

”Sara, wait. This isn't fair. You can't make me leave without any kind of defense at all. They're my kids too. Please don't make them hate me,” he pleaded. She looked at the ground, then up toward the ceiling to keep from losing her emotions.

”I'm not going to make them hate you,” she said after some hesitation. And she made an inward promise to try her best to make this as fair for Lily and Megan as she could. ”I'll tell them something, that Mommy and Daddy need some time apart, like a vacation or something,” she said in a quiet voice. He nodded.

”And what if this isn't a vacation, Sara? What if this is the end?” He opened his drawer with reluctance, pulling out socks and s.h.i.+rts and placing them in the bag on the bed. Sara digested the reality in the words, reading the final answer that lay in the concealing folds of the question.

”One thing at a time,” she told him.

True to her word, Sara had let the girls know that she and Daddy were taking a vacation from each other. She answered their frightened questions as best as she could, trying to keep the answers lighthearted and full of hope, unable and unwilling to hint that the end was inevitable. She promised they both loved them very much, and that the girls could see their Daddy anytime they wanted.

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