With a smile already on his face, he said, “I love what I do. It’s one of the few professions that uses both sides of your brain—the creative and the analytical. I can feed my moods.”
“What mood are you in right now?”
“Analytical.” Turning back to his house on paper. “I need order, logic.”
“How bad is it, Hazel? Tell me.”
He knew what she was asking, but it wasn’t that easy to answer. “Telling you means I’ve come to accept it and I haven’t. So I’m just going to keep working on this project.” He peeked over at her. “I’m sorry.”
Their conversations had been full of words like sorry and I love you. But she realized that sorry only came to be because the I love yous existed. She preferred the latter though she understood they must grieve through a process of guilt and gratefulness.
“You don’t have to be.” Jude, of all people, understood the power of denial. She just hoped his denial didn’t end in his death. She opened her book and picked up where she had left off a few days earlier.
The day had been exhausting for both of them, but they lay in bed together after midnight wide awake. They tried for sleep, but it was hard sought and restlessly eluded them. Finally Jude gave into reality. “I can’t sleep.”
“I can’t either. What are you thinking about?”
“What am I not thinking about?” She rolled toward him and asked, “Make me forget.”
“If one day you’ll help me remember.” He wrapped his arm under her neck and she moved closer. “I’m scared I’ll forget how to control my hands and draw, or sketch, or touch you the way I want, the way you like.”
“You’ll not forget, my love. If you do, I’ll be your hands. I will. You can teach me.”
“How to touch you?” he asked.
Jude moved on top of him, took his hand, and placed it on her breast. “Teach me everything.”
His hand squeezed and she closed her eyes, her body stimulated awake from his touch. Sitting up, he kissed her collarbone and felt her—the dip of her waist right before it meets her hips, the roundness of her bottom, and then back up to her firm breasts. Her body was a compass to his life’s journey and he planned to explore and conquer.
With his mouth on her skin, he tasted her sweetest valley and hills. His hands rolled over her stomach and between her legs, which opened for him like the petals of a flower. “You like this,” he whispered, then kissed the top of one of her breasts.
“I do.” She shivered under his words.
He lifted up until her eyes met his, holding her gaze while he moved down her body. He kissed her where the secrets she only shared with him were hidden, like treasures.
She smiled and let her mind and body relax back. Rain started hitting the windows and she turned just to catch the beginning of the storm outside. While her body was revered into its own brewing storm, she let her thoughts thunder toward tomorrow. Taylor straightened over her and thrust inside her, no patience for the weather inside or out.
The temperature rose in the room, their bodies melting from the heat. She reached above her, her fingers grappling for leverage. When she kissed his shoulder, she fell back, lightning striking. “Taylor!” she cried out as his own tornado ripped through him. “Jude!”
They watched the raindrops hit the window until they fell asleep in the early hours of a new day.
The storm got louder throughout the night, the sky lighting up from booming lightning. Jude woke up just before when sunrise should have happened. She moved to the chair and watched the weather taunt her as if it could predict her future.
When Taylor stirred, his arm reached out, feeling for her. She said, “Is it a sign?”
He opened his eyes and she was the first thing he saw, making him smile his sexiest, most peaceful smile. “We don’t need signs. We have love and truth on our side.”
“I was told by the doctors I can’t have children.” She just said it. Like his disease, this fact picked at her bones, eating her alive.
Taylor sat up slowly not sure if he should go to her or give her space. “Which doctors?”
“Bleekman’s. They said the drugs have done damage to my insides. Do you think you can heal my body like you’ve healed my soul?”
Afraid to look at her, to let her see his sadness, he stared out the window at the rain. “I don’t think you should have kids with a man who won’t be there to help you raise them anyway.”
His tone was flat and she hated it. “You can’t be consumed with death when we have so much life to live. A baby of yours…” she looked away from him, “would be a gift.”
Anger surged over his grim reality of a future. “Those doctors would tell you anything to hurt you.”
“We’ve never used birth control and I’ve not gotten pregnant. I think they were right.”
“Jude,” he started, shaking his head ever so slightly. “I’ll do this if you need me to, but I don’t think we need to talk about something we can’t control before our appointment this morning. We can pick it up later tonight if you want.”
She pulled out a cigarette and lit it while staring out at the city on the other side of their glass refuge. “I started smoking because my uncle hated cigarette smoke.”
Another piece of the puzzle clicked into place, the rounded edges of her confession sharp with pain on his already beaten heart. “What if I asked you not to?”
Exhaling smoke, she then replied, “I’d quit for you.”
“I want you to stop smoking. I don’t ask much of you, but this I ask because I love you and even if I can’t live a long life, I want you to.”
Jude dropped it in a glass of water on the floor. “For you, anything.” Standing up, she said, “I’ll make breakfast.”
With all the talk of what they couldn’t do, he wanted to focus on what they could. Tucking his hands behind his head, he watched her naked body walk by and into the kitchen. He just hoped the shades were drawn in the living room. Getting up, he went to take a shower. He wrapped a towel around his waist before joining her in the kitchen.
He formed around her back, encompassing her. She stopped scrambling the eggs and leaned her cheek against his. He whispered, “It’s going to be okay.”
“You’re not mad at me about the birth control?”
“How can I be mad when I didn’t use any either.”
She moved the spatula around the skillet, then turned off the flame. “Living dangerously, Mr. Barrett?”
“Is there any other way to live these days?”
“Yes! Safely.”
“I guess I didn’t mind being tied to you before we tied the knot.”
Jude’s body stilled and she turned in his arms. “What are you saying, you crazy man?”
“Don’t call me crazy,” he teased.
Her fist lightly pounded his chest. “Never,” she replied with a smile. “But you’re saying you would have had a baby with me?”
“I still will if you play your cards right.” He waggled his eyebrows for extra emphasis.
“But I can’t.”
“I don’t think you should believe anything those doctors told you. You can find a doctor here in the city. We can do tests to see, but I’m not going to believe you can’t just because those psychos said it.”
She kissed his chin and then his lips. “Thank you. Now let’s get you fed and we’ll start getting ready.”
Taylor settled on the barstool with a plate and fork in front of him. Jude poured two glasses of juice and set one down for him. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
“I will always take care of you.”
Just before he had a chance to take a bite, a knock on the door surprised them. Their eyes met, panic setting in. Taylor stood and whispered, “Don’t worry. I’ll answer it. Go to the bedroom and get dressed. He watched her hurry into the bedroom and checked the time. 8:08. Too early for company. He tightened his towel around him and looked through the peephole. Two police officers stood on the other side of the door. “Hello?” Taylor called.
“Mr. Barrett, please open the door.”