The Affair

by J. L. Berg

  “I remember visiting Grandpa with her when I was a teenager. By then, he just saw her as the lady who brought him a candy bar every day.”

  I could imagine her sad smile all the way from here. “She was that lady for a long time.”

  “You would think it would have helped to write about it,” I said, looking down at the tattered journal on the sofa cushion next to me.

  “She wasn’t like that,” she answered. “For her, the journal was a way to catalog the events of a day, not the feelings that went along with it.”

  “But clearly, not all the events.”

  “No,” she agreed. “Just the ones she wanted to remember.”

  We hung up after that, and I began the process of getting ready for bed. I saved my progress on the computer, making sure it was backed up, and carefully closed the delicate binder for the night. But as I made my way upstairs to the childhood bedroom I still refused to leave, I couldn’t help but think about the words my aunt had said just moments earlier.

  If I’d kept a journal about the last two years of my life, what would it look like?

  Would I have written everything down? Would I have recorded every nitty-gritty detail, or would have I just included the things I wanted to remember?

  Because, honestly, that version would be a whole hell of a lot shorter…

  Every journal entry my nana had written included a few sentences; just short facts about her day. But what had she left out?

  What had she been trying to forget?

  “Nana, I’m nervous,” I confessed as I followed her down the long, empty hallway.

  It smelled like floor cleaner and rubbing alcohol, and the mixture made my stomach turn a little. Every door had a name on it. Some had two.

  The one we stopped at, I recognized the name immediately.

  Before she knocked, my nana turned, her warm, weathered face bent down toward mine. “It’s okay to be nervous,” she said.

  “What if he doesn’t recognize me?”

  Her head tilted, and her lips pressed together. It was a common expression I’d seen on many adults.

  Especially when they were trying to be comforting.

  She placed a tender hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “He probably won’t, dear. He hasn’t remembered anyone in some time.”

  “Not even you?”

  She shook her head, her eyes downcast.

  “Then, why do we go? If he doesn’t remember us?” I asked, surprising her by my blatant honesty.

  “Because we remember him.”

  The next day, I was dragging.

  My eyes looked like they were carrying enough baggage for a summer holiday in France, and there simply wasn’t enough coffee in the world to give me the energy I needed to function.

  Between going to bed too late and the constant tossing and turning all night from the vivid dreams of my grandparents, I was dead on my feet.

  “You okay?” Sawyer asked as I shuffled my heavy feet into the store.

  My eyesight was blurred, and my mood was less than cheerful.

  “Yes. Fine,” I spat.

  “You sure?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  A soft grin fell to his lips. “ ’Cause you’re wearing pajama pants. And your hair …”

  “Oh God…” I groaned, my eyes peering down to the plaid nightmare I had going on there. Quickly making a run for my office, I slammed the door behind me and pulled out my phone, so I could check my appearance in the camera.

  Another groan filled the air.

  How did I forget to brush my hair?

  How did I leave the house in these pajama pants?

  Had I even showered?

  Nearly falling into the office chair, I barely heard the door open, and Sawyer stormed in.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked again.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  He didn’t seem convinced and began to look me over. “Your cheeks are flushed.”

  “I just ran in here.”

  His eyebrows rose. “I highly doubt you’re in such bad shape that you’d get winded from that.”

  I feigned a laugh. “Clearly, you don’t know me that well.”

  “Unfortunately, I do.” He stepped closer.

  “What are you doing?” I asked when he rounded the corner of the desk.

  “Checking your temperature.”

  His hand went to my forehead, and he shook his head. “I can’t tell well enough with my hand.”

  Without giving any warning, his fingers brushed back my hair, and his lips fell to the skin on my forehead.

  Is he kissing me?

  Before I had a moment longer to freak out, he was standing back upright.

  As if nothing had ever happened.

  “You’re running a fever.”

  “What?” I said, somewhat bewildered. “I am not.”

  “You are. You’re burning up.”

  “And you could tell by what? Kissing me?” I gawked, my arms folded tightly around my chest.

  He looked down at me, obviously not impressed. “I did not kiss you. I checked your temperature. Everyone knows that is the best way to do it.”

  “Everyone? Everyone knows?” I stammered.

  Wow, maybe I am running a fever.

  “You need to get home,” he demanded.

  “I’m fine,” I said, rising from my chair to prove my point.

  But unfortunately, my body disagreed, and the room began to sway.

  And then everything went dark.

  I awoke to the sound of a radio playing a country song.

  I hated country. Who was playing this garbage?

  Cracking an eyelid, I turned my head to see Sawyer in the driver’s seat of my SUV, humming along to the crappy song.

  “What …” my voice croaked. “Why are you driving my car?”

  He gave me a quick glance before returning his attention to the road. “You passed out on the floor—you don’t remember? You’ve been in and out since.”

  I looked down at my pajama pants, my hand floating up to the rat’s nest that was currently my hair. My head was hammering, and my body ached.

  And then I remembered the kiss.

  Or the not-kiss, as he’d called it.

  “That doesn’t explain why we are in the car,” I said, my eyes closing on their own.

  Was it always this bright outside?

  “You needed to go home. I obviously wasn’t going to let you drive yourself,” he answered very assuredly.

  “So you left the store unattended?!” My eyes popped right back open, a wave of panic taking over.

  Was the store unlocked?

  Were there random people roaming around?

  What if someone wanted to buy something?

  What if someone stole something?

  I felt dizzy.

  “Whoa there. Calm down,” he said, placing a hand on my shoulder. I hadn’t realized I’d jolted forward in my seat. “I locked up and placed a sign on the door that we were closed for the day.”

  “Closed?” My voice was barely above a whisper.

  “I know it’s not ideal, but there was no one else to drive you, Elle.”

  No one else…

  I had no one else. That was a sobering thought.

  “I can take care of myself,” I snapped back, leaning against the window, the cool glass feeling like heaven against my hot cheeks.

  “Not today, you can’t.”

  We didn’t say much after that. My eyes fell shut again, and I thought I’d drifted off because one second, I was plotting his demise, and the next, he was carrying me into the house.

  “I can walk,” I said defiantly, feeling equal parts angry and turned on in his arms. Although it could just be that fever he’d kept saying I had.

  It was hard to tell at this point.

  “I tried to wake you. You wouldn’t budge,” he said, letting me down at the front door.

  “Well, thank you,” I said. “I can take it from here.”

&
nbsp; He waited for me to unlock the door, and I assumed he’d leave after I stepped inside. Instead, he followed me.

  “What are you doing?” I barked.

  “I told you, I closed the store.”

  “Okay, so go back and open it up!” I demanded. “I’m home, and I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I am a grown woman after all.”

  As if my body and he were on the same team, my legs chose that moment to wobble, sending me careening into his arms.

  “Perfectly capable, huh?” His mouth twitched with amusement.

  I tried to roll my eyes, but I was just too damn tired. So instead, I just let him help me over to the sofa. And when he offered me a blanket, I took it.

  He was obviously going to stay, so why bother trying to fight it?

  Besides, it was nice to be near him again.

  Even if for a little while.

  “Get that spoon away from me,” I snapped. “I am not an invalid.”

  Sawyer grinned, a silver spoon in one hand, a bowl of soup in the other. He appeared indecisive. My stone-cold gaze must have set him straight because seconds later, he finally set both down on the tray in front of me.

  “Fine,” he agreed. “But I’d make an excellent nurse; you can’t deny me that simple fact.”

  My eyebrow rose as I dug into the soup. It was the first thing I’d eaten in what felt like a million years. I’d never salivated over canned chicken noodle soup so hard in my life. “Okay, fine. I will concur that you’d make a pretty damn fine nurse. Happy?”

  “Quite.” He settled back in the chair next to me, making sure to keep his distance.

  He’d no doubt been an excellent caregiver throughout the day, but a lot of that hinged on him actually keeping himself healthy. So, while he’d been here, he’d been keeping a safe distance from me and my germs.

  I’d tried not to take it personally.

  “How do you feel after your nap?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “About the same.”

  He didn’t look impressed.

  “What? You expected me to get better after a few hours?” I asked.

  “Well, you can’t blame me for hoping.”

  “Do you even know how the flu works?” I laughed. Or tried to. It was a little hard when everything inside of you felt like it’d been run over by a truck.

  “Yeah, but it’s been a while since I had it.”

  “Why don’t you come over here, and I’ll remind you?” I waggled my eyebrows, making him laugh.

  He shook his head, holding his hands out in front of him. “Nope. All good over here. Plus, I prefer my women without snot dripping out of their noses.”

  “What?” My hands ran up to my face. I was completely mortified—until I saw him chuckling.

  “I’m kidding.”

  “You’re evil. I take back my earlier comment. You’re a terrible nurse. Your bedside manner sucks.”

  I snuggled into the couch, having eaten what I could of the soup. From my vantage point, I watched him. It was as if the last two weeks hadn’t happened. As if my fever had given us a pause in whatever had been going on between us.

  Or maybe it was a bridge.

  I just needed to figure out how to get to the other side—and stay there.

  “Have you been working on them?” he asked, pointing to the black binder on the coffee table.

  “Yeah,” I answered, pulling the blanket around my shoulders. “I’m done with that one. I need to get a few more from the guest bedroom.”

  “How’s the dictation going?” he asked, a small smirk spreading across his face, as if he already knew the answer.

  “It’s going okay,” I answered slowly.

  “You really are the worst liar.”

  “Okay, fine. But if you knew the answer, why did you ask the question?” I asked.

  “Because I wanted to see if you’d actually tell me a straight answer.”

  I let out a frustrated breath. “I just couldn’t get used to it.”

  “You don’t like giving up control,” he said, correcting my answer.

  “That’s probably true, but your dictation software is still terrible.”

  He just shrugged—that casual shrug I’d grown to love so much. “Where are they? Back here?”

  My eyes grew wide. “Yes, but you can’t go back there!”

  “Why not?” he said, already rising from his chair. “Is it your bedroom?”

  “What? No!” A brief thought of him in my bedroom ran wild through my brain.

  Wowza.

  Suddenly, I felt dizzy again, but it had nothing to do with my fever.

  “Then why are you so jumpy?” he asked, pulling me back to reality.

  “Because it’s messy in there.”

  “So?” he said, already on the move.

  I got up, fully intent on following him.

  That got his attention.

  He instantly turned back around. “Sit back down.”

  “No,” I argued. “Not if you’re going in the guest bedroom.”

  He took on an expression that somewhat reminded me of a parent coddling a child. “I’ve seen a mess before, Elle. Messes don’t scare me.”

  I let out a breath, one I hadn’t been aware I’d been holding.

  “Now, lie back down while I pull a few more of the journals out. It will give us something to do while you rest.”

  I was going to argue with him again, tell him he didn’t actually need to stay with me all day, especially knowing that the store was closed with both of us out.

  But I knew it was no use.

  He was here, and he wasn’t leaving, no matter how much I argued.

  Somehow, when I knew this, my heart felt a little lighter.

  And the only word to describe the emotion I was feeling was cherished.

  I felt truly cherished.

  “Damn,” I heard his voice echo when returning to the living room. “When you said there were a few more in that room, I don’t think I prepared myself for what that truly meant.”

  I turned to see him carrying a large cardboard box, his arm muscles bulging from the effort it took. If I’d known this little trip to the guest bedroom included an arm show, I wouldn’t have complained nearly so much.

  “I guess I didn’t realize how many there were,” I said, trying not to stare directly at his biceps. “My mom sort of locked everything of my nana’s in that room after she died and never really talked about it.”

  “Well, there are a lot of binders. Either you sign on to this project for the next few years or you resign yourself to the idea of dictation because this is going to take a long time.”

  I mentally groaned, looking at the gigantic box.

  Obviously, he could see my frustration. “Okay, how about this? Since you are not exactly in the physical or mental state to do anything right now, why don’t I do some of the dictation, so you can perhaps get a feel for it? Maybe if you listen, you won’t be nearly as intimidated by the idea of it?”

  “Okay,” I agreed, just happy with the idea of hearing his voice.

  “Yeah?” He seemed pleased with himself. “Let me find a good one to try out. Or is there a specific one you want me to find? Are they in order?”

  I sort of gave him a dazed look. “I don’t think my grandmother was that organized, and neither am I. I am just putting them in, and I figured I’d organize them later.”

  He nodded, already bent forward in the box. “Good plan.” He carefully pulled another black binder out, this one virtually the same as the one on the coffee table. But he didn’t stop there. His curiosity had obviously been piqued. “There are several more like this,” he said. “Standard two-inch black binders. But way down here, there is a small box.”

  Now, he wasn’t the only one who was curious.

  “A box?” I found myself rising to a sitting position on the couch. “Can you get to it?”

  He nodded. “I just need to move a few more binders. Man, your grandma was a hoarder.”

/>   I laughed. “Not really. Her house was pretty minimalist, but she loved these journals. There used to be a closet in the hallway stuffed with them. Just rows and rows of black binders she’d filled up over the years.”

  “Oh, I’ve got it,” he said, his hand elbow deep into the large cardboard box, both of us a little too excited over this find.

  “It could be her jewelry,” I said as he pulled it out. “She always kept it in a box kind of like that.”

  He gave me an amused look as we got our first look at the treasure. “Black plastic binders and an old shoebox for her jewelry. Your grandma must have been the most practical woman on the planet.”

  I nodded, a small smile on my face. “She really was, but God, could that woman bake.”

  A grin spread across his face, and he paused his rifling. “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah. That’s what I remember most about her. I used to count down the days until Christmas time when we’d get our package from Nana, full of Christmas cookies. Oh, and her cinnamon rolls!”

  He laughed. “She sent you cinnamon rolls … in the mail?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, didn’t everyone get cinnamon rolls in the mail at Christmastime? Man, what I wouldn’t give for one of those right now—well, maybe not right now. But any other day. And her oatmeal raisin cookies! Those were to die for.”

  He made a sour face. “I’m not a fan of anything with raisins.”

  “You’d love these. Guaranteed. I remember one day, when our family was visiting her over the summer, I was helping her make them, and I randomly suggested that she trade the raisins for chocolate chips. You would have thought I’d suggested putting rat poison in them.”

  He chuckled, his eyes bright with laughter. “I wouldn’t complain if you brought some of those in—even if they did have raisins instead of chocolate chips.”

  “I wish I could. I don’t have the recipe.”

  “Why not?”

  Giving a sort of shrug, I answered, “She never wrote it down. We have a lot of her other recipes. I could make you a batch of Divinity if you want.”

  “What the hell is that?” he asked, his face contorted with confusion.