“Family stuff.”
“Yes. Family stuff.”
“You told him? About the kids?”
I shake my head. “No, but I told him about us.” I suddenly feel like my insides are exposed, and it makes me feel squirmy. “I told him that my marriage is falling apart, and my best friend is dying, and I want some personal time to work on those two things.”
“And he was okay with it?”
I rock my head back and forth. “I’m not sure okay is the right word. But he allowed it.” I hold up one finger. “He did ask me if I could still do payroll, so I told him I could. It’s not a big deal.”
“So, you’ll work part time?” Eli asks.
“No more than ten hours a week for the next two weeks. But it’ll ease his burden and it won’t feel like such a pain having me gone.” I look at him. “Is that okay with you?”
“Since when have you had to clear your schedule with me, Bess?” He snorts out a laugh. “Whatever you want is fine with me.”
“Well, if it becomes a problem, I’ll reevaluate.”
“Sounds good.” He grins at me. Then he suddenly sobers. “Does this feel weird to you?”
“Does what feel weird?” I watch his face for clues, but I find none.
“This talking thing we’re doing. Does it feel weird to you?”
I raise my brows. “Should it?”
He shrugs.
“Does it feel weird to you?” I ask, and I brace myself for his response.
He shakes his head. “No, actually it feels pretty damn good,” he says.
We walk around the side of Jake and Katie’s house and walk up the porch steps, still chatting and laughing together. When we hit the top step, we look up to find everyone staring at us. Jake and Katie stand slack-jawed, and Aaron’s eyes get big, almost comically big, in his face. Mr. Jacobson lets out a snort.
“What?” I ask. I look down at myself, thinking maybe I dropped some food on my shirt when I was cooking. I see nothing. “What’s wrong with all of you?”
Aaron grins. “Nothing.” He reaches into the cooler for a soda and passes it to Kerry-Anne. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“Then why are you all looking so funny?” I ask.
Aaron looks over at Jake with mock horror on his face. “Dude, I think she just called you funny-looking.”
“I don’t care what she calls me as long as that bowl has loaded baked potato salad in it,” Jake says. He reaches for the bowl and whistles as he looks inside. “My favorite.” He points a finger at Eli. “If you try to hog it all, things are going to get ugly,” he warns.
“She made me my own bowl,” Eli taunts.
Aaron pretends to pout. “What do I have to do to get my own bowl?”
“You have to marry her,” Mr. Jacobson says. He looks from me to Eli and back again, a supreme look of satisfaction on his face.
“And put up with her snoring,” Eli adds.
I elbow him in the side, and he ducks down and kisses my cheek, which makes me lean into him a little. Everyone goes still. Completely still. Then they all immediately go back to normal, like somebody scratched a record and time stopped.
Why are they being so weird?
32
Bess
“How did it go at the doctor’s office?” I ask Aaron as we stand hip to hip at the double sink in Katie’s kitchen, washing dishes.
He lowers the collar of his shirt and shows me a neat row of butterfly stitch bandages where his port used to be. “They took my port out.”
I feel like he has just kicked me in the gut. “So you’re officially done. Done. Like, no more. Done?”
He nods slowly. “I’m done.”
“Did they give you a time frame?” I ask quietly.
The older kids are all outside, and Katie just went to give her youngest two a bath so they can go to sleep, while Jake and Eli make a fire in the fire pit so the older kids can roast marshmallows and make dough doggies. Still, Aaron looks around to be sure they can’t hear him. “I didn’t want one,” he admits. “Call me a coward if you want to, but I don’t want to plan for it. I want to plan for a good summer and nothing else.” He arches his brows at me like he’s waiting for reassurance.
“You’re not a coward,” I say quietly. “You’re the strongest man I know.”
He shakes his head. “I’m just playing the cards I was dealt. That doesn’t make me strong. It makes me normal.”
“The words Aaron and normal have never been synonymous, you jackhole,” I say playfully. I pick up a fingerful of soap bubbles from the sink and flick them in his direction. I force myself to sober as he wipes his face. “How was Sam?”
“She was surprisingly, weirdly composed, honestly. I expected some crying or histrionics, but she asked a few questions, and she sat silently and listened the rest of the time.” He nods like he’s reassuring himself. “I think she’ll be okay.”
“Not much she can do about it otherwise, is there?” I toss out.
“Nope. Trust me. I’ve tried.”
“What did you try?”
“I researched all the chemical trials that are going on. I didn’t qualify for any of them. I saw three different doctors at three different hospitals and they all had the same opinion. In the end, I’m supposed to die from this, and those are the cards I’ve been dealt. Now I can either enjoy the game or I can throw a fit about the fact that I’m going to lose it someday. I choose the former.” Suddenly, he nudges me hard in the arm with his elbow. “So,” he says loudly, and he glares at me, his eyes wide.
“So…what?” I ask, my voice filled with petulance.
“You and Eli were looking pretty chummy when you walked up tonight.”
Heat creeps up my face. “Stop it,” I say, and I look over his shoulder to be sure no one can hear us. “We did not.”
“You guys were laughing. And he kissed you.”
“He kissed my cheek, you big dummy.” I elbow him so hard that it shoves him over a couple of feet.
“And you didn’t even slap him. You just blushed like you used to do when you were sixteen and he was within ten feet of you.”
I suck in a gasp of abject horror. “I never blushed!” I point my index finger at him. “You shut your stupid face right now or I’ll shut it for you.”
He falls over because he’s laughing so hard it hurts his stomach. “Oh, my God, it’s like we’ve gone back in time! You just told me to shut my stupid face!” He cackles and clutches his stomach, rocking forward, unable to catch his breath.
I grin more to myself than to him and I try to bite it back but can’t. “I hate you so much.”
He lifts his foot and kicks me in the behind with it. “You love my stupid ass, even if you don’t want to.”
Silence settles over us and Aaron says nothing for a minute.
“Hey, Bess…”
I reach over and turn off the water. “Hey, Aaron,” I parrot.
He rolls his eyes. He waits a beat. “Do you believe in heaven?” he asks.