The Memory of Us

by Lisa Sorbe

  And the future I’d worked so hard for?

  Up

  in

  smoke.

  I knew there was no way I could go to Arizona with a baby on my hip. No way to escape this place—this life—when I had West and a child to provide for. I’d heard about West’s baseball scholarship to the University of Minnesota last summer, and there was no way I was going to take that from him. As usual, I’d be the one to sacrifice. The one to stay up all night and work all day and waste away, growing more and more dead-eyed as the years flew by.

  Of course, I should have discussed all of this with West before leaping to conclusions. But I was a scared kid who was suddenly faced with the challenge of having a kid, and I wasn’t thinking straight.

  I was acting out of fear, my logical mind too caught up in the problem to see the haste in my actions.

  So a week after taking the test, I made an appointment with a clinic in Minneapolis.

  I went alone.

  I’m hustling out the door to meet with Corrine when I run smack dab into West.

  Literally.

  His chest is a wall of cut muscle and white t-shirt and spicy cologne that makes my mouth water. For a minute, all I want to do is melt into him, lift my arms and lace my fingers around the back of his neck and pull him down so I can taste his lips. Maybe jump into his arms and wrap my legs around his waist so I can feel every bit of his desire.

  Because right now, when I look up into his eyes, I can see it.

  And it makes my knees weak.

  West reaches up to steady me, cupping my shoulders with his large hands. The tank top I’m wearing leaves my skin exposed to his touch, and a slight shiver ripples through me, cascades down my spine.

  “Good morning.” West’s hands move down my arms, over to my hips. With a smirk, he pulls me against him. Hard.

  Whatever we felt for each other hasn’t diminished in the twelve years we’ve been apart. Nor did last night seem to satiate our arousal. If anything, the previous evening gave us a taste of what we’ve been missing, and now we’re like addicts begging for more.

  “Hey.” The word is more of a breath than an actual response. I suddenly feel shy, like I did we when slept together back in high school, like I’m exposed in a way I’ve never been before.

  Sex with West isn’t just about baring my body. The man has a way of peeling back the very layers of my soul.

  He bends his neck, pushing his lips against my head and murmuring into my hair. “You’re on your way out.”

  “Yeah.” I give in, leaning against his chest and hooking a finger in the front belt loop of his worn work jeans. When my thumb flicks the button along his waistband, West moans.

  “Ready for more so soon?” His tease is a gruff whisper in my ear.

  “Yes.” I don’t even have the strength to flirt, to play coy or hard to get. Like last night, I’m limp and pliable. Putty in his hands.

  If I think about it too hard, it’s rather annoying how I can be tough as nails in every aspect of my life except for when it comes to this man. This want, this desire I have for him, for the way he makes me feel, turns me into a submissive pile of mush. I mean, here I am, pushing myself on him like a damn bitch in heat.

  Then again, it’s nice to let someone else take the reins for once. Last night with West, I didn’t have to be the one in charge. I didn’t have to take care of every tiny, minute detail. Instead, I shrugged out of my toughness like an old worn out dress, grateful that someone else was taking charge for once.

  And it was so freeing, submitting that way, letting my ego along with all sense of responsibility drop like that.

  With Brent, sex was so mechanical. The act was physical, nothing more. Standard. Missionary. Get it in and get it done. Just an act to check off a list.

  This week’s orgasm?

  Check.

  But with West? The man is a goddamned miracle.

  He laughs, catching my chin with his thumb and forefinger and tilting my face to meet his. “Do you think you can wait until tonight? Or am I gonna have to call in sick to work?”

  I bite my lip. As much as I would love to have him call in sick to work today—and every other day I’m back in Wolf Lake—I can’t let him. “About that… Maybe we should talk. About yesterday and,” I pull away, though his hands don’t leave my hips. “about last night.”

  “No.”

  “No?” West sounds so firm, and I’m more than a little shocked.

  “No. I don’t want to talk about last night. I wouldn’t, you know, mind recreating last night, but…” His voice trails off and he presses his lips together in a sad smile. “Look, I know you’re leaving in a month. I know you’re not here to stay. And I know,” he raises his eyebrows, “that this isn’t going to lead to anything other than what it is now. And that’s…okay.”

  I frown, surprised at his words. Surprised he’s being so casual about this when, before, he was anything but.

  Still, I’m cautious. “So let me get this straight. You’re okay with doing what we did last night…again?”

  He runs his fingers through my hair while his eyes roam my face. “Yes. And again and again and again…” I blush, which makes him laugh. “And again.”

  I lean in closer, tentatively wrap my arms around his neck. “So we’re keeping this strictly a booty call thing. You call me when you’re feeling randy…”

  West cocks a brow. “Randy? Who says randy?”

  I smack his chest lightly. “Me, nerd. And I can do the same? When I’m feeling…horny?” I smirk up at him. “Is that word more to your liking?”

  “Elena.” West sighs, and he shakes his head like a man who’s given up. “I’ll take you anyway I can get you, for as long as I can get you.” He pauses and dips his chin so he can look me in the eyes. “For as long as you’ll have me.”

  “West.” It’s all I can say. My heart is swelling into my throat and I can barely swallow past it. So I just tighten my arms and squeeze him to me, hoping action alone will convey what words can’t.

  “I’ll take what I can get, okay? No pressure this time.” West’s breath is a tiny flutter against my hair, and his hold is just as tight as mine. “I can get through eternity if you’ll just give me this one month.”

  It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

  The old saying rises to the surface with West’s declaration, and though I still dislike the message, I think I finally understand the sentiment.

  Corrine stares back at me, her expression defiant despite the nervous twitch in her left eye. The slight fluttering of her lid is the only indication that suggests she’s more nervous about this diagnosis than she’s letting on.

  I clear my throat. “What type of cancer?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Corrine shrugs and flattens her palms on the blue and white checkered placemat in front of her, pushing out creases only she can see.

  “Okay,” I say slowly. “And you’re not pursing treatment because?”

  Ever the spitfire, she doesn’t just frown, she scoffs, expressing her offense with a grumble of curse words. “I’m not letting those doctors inject poison into my body just so they can make a buck. And after those”—her lips work to come up with an appropriate word—“vultures have bled me dry, I won’t have anything left for Macy and Mitchell. Or the grandkids.” Her voice catches on the last word, and she looks away, clearly embarrassed.

  “But don’t you think your family would rather have you than your money?” I’d gotten a look at the outline of the will Corrine scribbled out on a ripped piece of notebook paper, and the woman has way more than one would think, considering the way she lives. Her home looks almost exactly the same as it did when she sat for me and West, with only a few upgrades in the kitchen and a new sofa in the living room. But it’s neat and clean, because this is Corrine we’re talking about, and even though most of the things in this house have been here for well over thirty years, the place doesn’t feel dusty. It’s als
o uncluttered, another sign Corrine doesn’t splurge much on herself. Her only indulgence, it seems, are her cigarettes—which are more than likely what landed her in this predicament.

  “I’d rather they have the money.”

  My mouth drops. Corrine’s twin son and daughter were just leaving high school when she began babysitting for us, so I don’t know them well, if at all. But I can’t imagine they’d be on board with this. From what my mother mentioned in years past, they both live down in The Cities. “Do they know? Mitchell and Macy?”

  Corrine shakes her head. “No, and I don’t want to tell them. And don’t you go telling ‘em.” Her eyes flick up to meet mine, and I suddenly feel like I’m seven years old again. But I’m not, I’m thirty, and I stick my chin out defiantly.

  “They have a right to know. Christ, Corrine! You tell me you’re dying, that you’re not even going to try to beat this thing, and now you’re saying you don’t want your family to know? That’s completely selfish!” My breath is heavy, my heart feels like it’s going to beat right out of my chest, and I have no idea why. What do I care if this woman dies? If she does or doesn’t tell her family?

  “Excuse me?” she snaps. “I’m trying to spare them months of worry. How, pray tell, is that selfish?”

  I lean forward, resting my elbows on the table and clasping my hands. “Because,” I say, doing my best to keep my voice measured, “they won’t have time to prepare. To process what life will be like without you. When you…go…it’ll be a surprise. Like a punch to the gut. They’re going to get the air knocked out of them, Corrine.”

  But shakes her head, and her hand strays to the pack of cigarettes sitting next to the placemat. It’s a nervous tick. Everyone has one. Corrine’s is smoking. Mine is scribbling things on paper, to-do lists of things I think will finally make me happy once I accomplish them but never do.

  I throw up my hands. “Fine. It’s your business, and it’s not my right to interfere.” Picking up my phone, I study the website I pulled up about making wills in Minnesota. Considering my focus is on criminal law, I don’t have much experience in this area. Though, from what I can tell, it’s pretty easy to make a will in this state. “I’ll print out the form and bring it over this afternoon. It won’t be difficult to fill out, but I can stay and offer some assistance, if you’d like.”

  “Yes, that would be nice,” Corrine says, looking just over my right shoulder.

  I push my chair back. “You’ll need two witnesses here when you sign it. A notary isn’t necessary, but it will make it self-proving, which can speed up probate. And I’m a Notary Public, so I’d be happy to do that, if you’d like. Since I’m a neutral third party and not your attorney, it won’t be a problem.”

  Corrine is silent, though she does meet my eyes when she nods.

  We rise together and I follow her to the front door. After stepping through it, I turn. Corrine pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose and looks up at me, and it hits just how much taller I am than she is. She used to seem so large, bigger than life, a force to be reckoned with.

  But time changes everything. Or, maybe, we’re the ones who twist reality to the point we can barely recognize it.

  Because now I feel like the force, the one that can’t be dismissed so easily. And I have one more thing to say. “Look, I won’t speak of this again. But I can’t let you make this decision without telling you that you’re wrong.”

  Corrine frowns, but by the grace of the stars, she lets me continue.

  “Yes, it will be hard for your family when you…die. I’m not saying it won’t. But I know from experience how it feels to have someone ripped out of your life when you least expect it. You know, there one day, gone tomorrow. Twice, actually. And it…it sucks.” I shift uncomfortably, and it seems I finally have Corrine’s attention, because she cocks her head, considering me. “If I could have known it was coming, what was going to happen with my dad, and then… Anyway, maybe it would have been easier. The aftermath. Dealing with it all. Maybe we, maybe my mom and I and Mi—” I sigh. “Maybe we wouldn’t have gone into such shock.” Maybe Mike wouldn’t have turned into an alcoholic at sixteen and my mother wouldn’t have spiraled down into the pit of despair she dwelled in for so many years and never fully climbed out of.

  Maybe we wouldn’t have ended up this way.

  I take a step back from the door, bow my head, and hold up my hands. “And that’s all I’m going to say.” I turn and am halfway down the steps when Corrine calls out.

  “I’m not afraid to die, you know.”

  I look up at her, and she’s standing tall, strong. Defiant against the cancer ravaging her body, poking holes in her mind. “It’s my family I care about. I don’t want them to suffer. That’s all. That’s all I’m trying to do here. Keep them from suffering.”

  “I understand.” I offer her a small smile before walking across the adjoining yards to my house.

  I admire Corrine’s wish. I do. But she’s attempting the impossible.

  Because just by living, we suffer.

  And loving someone only increases the amount.

  The day I drove into Minneapolis, my heart wrapped up in grim determination, I got cold feet. I sat in my car in the parking lot of the Planned Parenthood Clinic, in silence, and watched the snow fall. It landed like confetti on my windshield, hiding me from the world. I didn’t leave the heater running, so the flakes stuck, and in my little tomb of silence, I listened to others come and go, heard the distant whisper of murmured conversations. The driver of a large truck next to me revved its engine, stomping on the gas like his vehicle was some apocalyptic war machine. And, as far as I was concerned, it might as well have been.

  The world as I knew it was over.

  My appointment time came and went, and I still couldn’t make myself move from that spot. I was caught between a rock and hard place. Turned out I couldn’t go through with my original plan, yet the opposite was just as inconceivable.

  I’d always been pro-choice, believing that a woman should be able to choose what to do with her body, her life. And maybe if I had gotten pregnant by any other guy, I would have gone through with the abortion.

  But it wasn’t just some guy. It was West. This baby was West’s. And during the drive down to the clinic, I could barely concentrate on the road. Images of West’s face kept popping up, memories of him as a flaxen-haired toddler with a tiny Buddha belly followed by a suntanned little boy with popsicle-stained lips. And then, as he was that night, The Night, all broad shouldered and shaggy-haired and vulnerable in a way I’d never seen him be before.

  I loved him. I loved him so much. In so many more ways than a girl could love a boy. Or one friend could love another. The love I had for West couldn’t be put into words, it was so immeasurable.

  And I couldn’t. I just couldn’t get rid of this baby.

  I chewed my lip raw in that parking lot, and when I finally left, I didn’t feel any better than I did when I arrived.

  The first thing I did when I got home was call West.

  And even though it was barely twenty degrees outside, we met on my porch, huddled in coats and scarves and hats and gloves, bonded now by so much more than we ever were before.

  When West walks in later that afternoon, I’m curled up on the couch, a notebook propped on my lap and a pen in my hand. I’ve been scribbling out a new workout routine for the last hour, writing each day down in clear print, adjusting the time and frequency and level of difficulty accordingly.

  Casper bounds up the stairs with West a step behind, and the dog reaches me first, bumping my hand with his muzzle and making the pen jerk. It skids off the page, giving the “o” of Tae-Bo a tail it doesn’t need.

  “Casper!” I scold, and he immediately hangs his head. I was on a roll, having written out each day’s workout from tomorrow all the way to December, upping the level of exertion I’ll need to expend as each week passes and my endurance increases. When I get like this, I’m in a zone, transporting mys
elf from the present to the future with a wave of my pen. It’s always been my way to get out of the Now, like in high school when I meticulously marked down every single step I’d need to gain a scholarship to ASU. I scribbled the same list over and over again, filling countless notebooks, drilling the dream into my head until I achieved it. I did the same when I got to college; whenever feelings of guilt or regret or doubt would creep in, I’d write and re-write the list of classes and credits I’d need to get from freshman year through law school, and in that flurry of chicken scratch, I’d bend time. CLE courses followed, and other things like hair care and workout routines and heathy eating… I whipped out schedules to make sure I kept up the look of perfection, of being put together on the outside when I wasn’t at all in the inside. I have notebooks back in my Phoenix condo that go on for years, transforming myself on the page faster than I ever could in real life.

  Whenever I feel overwhelmed with the moment or a situation, I grab a notebook like it’s a damn lifeline and plot out my life—day by day, month by month, year by year—until the rush of pen against paper finally calms me down.

  It seems I’m always looking to jump from where I am to somewhere else.

  Yet, here I am. With West. A place I’d swore I never would be again.

  And speaking of…

  West sinks into the couch next to me and lifts a brow. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” I barely lift my eyes from the notebook. I don’t like to be interrupted when I do this; it takes me away from the moment. I’m not in the present right now. If the date on the page is any indication—and it is, it really is—then today is really December 17th and I’m back in Phoenix, my body firm and strong from five months of kickboxing and weight lifting.

  “You okay?”

  West is staring at me, and it’s annoying.

  “Yeah,” I say, though my irritation is evident. “I’m fine.” I wave away his look of disbelief. “I’ve just been eating too much and not working out enough. I’m getting fat. If I keep going on this way, I won’t have anything to wear into work when I get home.”