Moment in Time

by Lisa Mondello

  I slowly run my hand over her smooth skin, pretending that I’m reaching for her clit again. And then my heart pounds as my hand travels over the same spot as before. The spot at the junction of her legs that had made my heart sink just moments ago.

  I feel it again and close my eyes.

  Jenna rolls onto her back. “For God’s sake. What?”

  When I open my eyes again, I see Jenna staring up at me. Her eyes as wide with the same shock and fear that threatens to bring me down.

  I take her hand and lead it to the place where my hand felt the lump.

  “Feel this,” I say.

  A small gasp escapes her lips. She pushes my hand away and she begins to rub over the spot in her groin. Tears fill her eyes and her bottom lip trembles.

  “Dammit,” she says quietly. She pushes me aside and bolts from the bed, running to the mirror over the dresser. She rubs at her groin area again while looking at her reflection in the mirror.

  I slowly walk to her and stand behind her as she checks the spot I’ve discovered. My mind goes over the last few minutes and I wish I could dial back to those sweet moments when we were about to make love and I saw the smile on her face as she anticipated me being inside her.

  Tears were now streaming down Jenna’s cheek. I can’t see her face directly, but I see the panic and despair in her eyes in the reflection of the mirror.

  “It’s back, Bobby,” she says. It’s only a whisper. But I can hear it as if she were screaming it.

  It’s back. She didn’t have to say what was back. I knew.

  “You don’t know that for sure,” I say, wrapping my arms around her.

  She throws my arms off her body and stalks to the window, not caring that that shades are open and there may be someone down at the beach who could see her nakedness. There are more important things on both of our minds.

  “Let me make you feel better,” I say. But it sounds lame even to my ears.

  “You can’t.”

  The tears are there, but there are no sobs. No screaming.

  “Talk to me, Jenna.”

  She pulls on her cut-off shorts without bothering to put on any underwear. She grabs a black tank top thrown over the overstuffed chair by the window and with quick, jerking movements, she puts it on.

  “I’m going for a walk.”

  “I don’t want you to.”

  “How are you going to stop me?”

  I grab her wrist and see the shocked look on her face as I force her not to run from me, even as I feel my own shock at stopping her.

  “Like this,” I say.

  She glares at me hard. She’s angry and I don’t blame her. What right do I have to stop her from doing what she wants? Every inch of her is heated and ready to explode. I know that feeling. I know what it’s like to want to just vanish and be gone so you don’t have to deal with the pain.

  “You can’t walk out of the house like this,” I say, hoping that will calm her some and give me time to think. Of what I don’t know. I just need to process all of this before my head explodes.

  Her bottom lip trembles slightly but she quickly recovers by jutting out her chin. “You never had a problem with the way I looked when you were fucking me.”

  I can’t believe what she’s saying. What she’s thinking. “This has nothing to do with the way you look, Jenna. I don’t want you leaving in the state you’re in. Not when I can see you’re ready to do something stupid.”

  She swings around with her fist ready to hit me. My reflexes react before my mind does. I catch her fist in my hand, holding all her fury back so she can’t unleash it on me. My heart is telling me I should have let her hit me. I should just let her get all that rage out on my body. She has every right to feel awful and defeated and want to hate and be angry.

  She collapses against me and I wrap my arms around her until her body is pressed against my naked body. I feel her shoulders shake and hear the muffled cries against my chest as she sheds tears on my skin.

  I swallow back my emotion. “I won’t tell you it’s going to be okay. But I will tell you that I’m here.”

  “You don’t want to be near me, Bobby. I don’t even want to be near me. My body is against me. No matter what I do, it… No good can come from this.”

  “That’s nonsense.”

  “Is it? I always knew there was a possibility that the cancer would come back. I just…I didn’t think it would be this soon. What the fuck am I even doing? I spent two years getting tattooed and pumped full of drugs and looking like a damned bald eagle and for what? My body failed me. I’m poison, Bobby.”

  “Shh,” I say, putting my lips to her head as she buries her face in my chest.

  That helpless feeling I’d had when I walked down the street and saw Donna’s car mangled and unrecognizable consumes me again. I know that nothing in this life is certain. Each moment could be the last breath of air we breathe. Each moment could be the last smile. But I don’t want to think about it now. I’m selfish. I want more. I want it all.

  As much as I want to hold Jenna in my arms and keep her safe, I know I can’t do that. I couldn’t keep Donna and Wyatt safe. And despite doing all the right things, I couldn’t keep that explosion from knocking me off my feet and messing up my leg. I can deal with the physical pain. I welcome it because it’s easier than feeling the pain in my chest. The kind of pain that chokes me and brings me to my knees. But no matter how much time passes, no matter how many times I’ve convinced myself I was protecting myself, I’m there again. I’m back to feeling that pain that cripples me. Granted, the circumstances are different. Jenna isn’t my wife or my child. But I…I care about her. And as I hold her in my arms and am crushed by the overwhelming need to never let her go, I realize that I love her.

  That overwhelming need to run consumes me even as I hold Jenna. I wonder if she can sense it.

  I look at the clock and see it is seven-thirty. I pull back and take Jenna’s face in my hands and look at her red-rimmed eyes and wet face. “You need to call your doctor. Now. He won’t be there, but you can leave a message. Tell him we’re coming to see him tomorrow morning. I’m going to be there with you, Jenna. You’re not alone.”

  I hold her in my arms and cradle her face against my shoulder. But I know I just told her the biggest lie ever. We are alone. Those were my words. And even as I hold Jenna in my arms, I’ve never felt more alone in my fear in my life.

  #

  Chapter Eleven

  Jenna

  Time has a way of standing still when you want it move, a way of speeding by when you want to hold onto something so dear. I spent the night sleeping next to Bobby and thinking about Gabby. What I wouldn’t do to have my little girl back. For those few precious months that she’d grown inside of me and was mine, she’d given me comfort like nothing else ever had in my life.

  Darkness envelopes me in a way that has nothing to do with a light bulb or the sun shining. I can’t get away from the darkness I feel. It’s as deadly as the cancer that threatens me. “I don’t want you to be around, Bobby,” I say into the darkness.

  “When? Around when? Tomorrow?” he asks, crushing me against his chest.

  “When I die.”

  He squeezes me tighter and I wish I could just melt into him. I want us to become one like we are when we’re making love.

  Downstairs I can hear Heather screeching about something. Penny is trying to calm her down in that soothing way she always does when Heather is off the wall. Lily is already in the shower, getting ready for the breakfast shift at the restaurant. I know this because I hear her sweet singing in the bathroom across the hall. She’s probably dancing in the shower. She always dances.

  With the rise and fall of my chest as I sigh, Bobby hooks me around my waist and pulls me closer.

  “That’s not going to happen for a long time,” he says. “You’ll be an old lady and have watched many sunrises as you walk that beach out there, Jenna. You’re not dying.”

  I want to believe
him. But even he knows he’s lying to himself. I press a finger beneath my eye to lessen the sting of tears. “You don’t know that. No one knows that.”

  “You’re not going to die, dammit,” Bobby says, as if he’s trying to convince himself that it’s true, that I don’t have cancer and we never have to leave this moment when I’m in his arms and feel safe.

  “I don’t want you to see me…the way I was. The way I could be again.”

  He breathes deeply and I feel the rise and fall of his chest against my body. I swear I can hear his heart beating even though my ear isn’t against his chest like it was earlier. I love to listen to this man’s strong, steady heartbeat.

  “What are you asking of me?”

  “If it’s cancer, if the doctor tells me I have to go back into treatment, you need to leave and not look back.”

  He shakes his head. “That’s not happening.”

  “Bobby—” I start to protest, but he stops me.

  “If I leave you, it’ll kill me. If I lose you… It’s not going to matter anymore. I can’t go through that again. So it’s not happening.”

  I realize he’s not talking about just leaving me to deal with this illness all by myself like Jared did. He’s talking about my death, something I have tried for two years to pretend wasn’t going to happen. And the pain he feels isn’t just for me. It’s for Donna and Wyatt.

  “You know, Bobby, it’s inevitable.”

  “I don’t want to hear—”

  “Not my death. Us. We’re going to end,” I say, drowning out his protest. “You’re going back into the military and I'm going to college. And if not college, then…whatever life has in store for me if this lump is anything to worry about. But the ending…we sort of knew that, didn’t we?”

  The flash of hurt that crosses his face levels me. Then his jaw tightens and I’m confused by the hard look he gives me.

  “Don’t do that.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t push me away by pretending that what’s been going on between us is just some fucking summer fling. It’s not. It may have started that way, but it’s not that. Do you hear me?”

  I can feel the emotion I’ve held back rise in my chest and bubble up my throat until it’s choking me and I can’t breathe. When I open my mouth to speak, a small sob escapes and my lips tremble. “I can’t do this to you.”

  “I can’t do this without you,” he says, holding me close. “I want this moment, even if it’s awful, Jenna. No matter how much time we have together, I want it. Even if it kills us both in the end. I’m not running away from you. Not now. Not ever.” He chuckles though I can hear the emotion he’s fighting back. “I just dare you to try to keep me away.”

  * * *

  Bobby

  At one time, running on the beach had given me comfort. I felt the pain. I knew I was healing. But as I walk back to Wayside after leaving Jenna in her room, all I feel is a pain of a different kind.

  Yesterday Jenna had called into work sick so I could take her to Boston. It had been a long day of waiting for a time when Dr. Remey, her oncologist, could see her. He’d examined the lump on Jenna’s groin, ordered some tests, and sent us back to Nantucket to wait for the results.

  The waiting is killing me. When Donna and Wyatt died, there was no waiting. Back then, I would have given anything to stop the clock and just let time stand still forever. In that moment before the crash, things were still possible. They were real. But in just a quick flick of a switch, the lights went out. They were gone. We were a family. And then I was alone, scrambling to figure out why I was left behind.

  When I reach the Inn, I decide to take the back stairs up to my room, like always, to avoid going through the lobby this early in the morning. But as soon as I round the corner, I realize it was a bad move.

  “You haven’t stayed in your room lately,” Aunt Beverly says. She’s kneeling on a mat on the ground, and digging in the dirt around the perimeter of a small garden. She wipes the dirt off her gloves as she glances up at me.

  “I thought you hired a gardener to do this for you,” I say, still headed toward the door that leads to the stairs.

  “I have a gardener and his crew does a nice job. But you know how much I like to get my hands in the dirt every once in a while. Don’t change the subject.”

  I stop walking as I reach the door. The conversation is going to happen one way or the other so I might as well get it over with. I sit down on the bottom step of the concrete stoop and rest my elbows on my knees. I look directly at my aunt.

  “I was with Jenna.”

  Aunt Beverly picks up the hand spade and stabs the dirt. “I thought I made my concerns clear that you were not to get involved with the girls from my rentals.”

  “I don’t know why,” I say. “It’s not like I went looking for something to happen. I should think you’d be happy that I found someone to care about again.”

  Her eyes grow warmer and her shoulders sag. “Of course I want you to find someone again. I love you. It’s just…”

  “What? She’s a grown woman. I didn’t seduce her. She didn’t seduce me.” It doesn’t matter that it was Jenna who’d approached me first. I went to her willingly. I wanted her. I still want her. I don’t know if I can get that need out of me ever again.

  “It complicates things.”

  I can feel the irritation rising inside me, so I stand up again as if that will keep me from blowing up. “Aunt Bev, life is already too complicated. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have been a widower at twenty-two.”

  “There are a lot of girls out there who would take advantage of your situation.”

  “Yeah? And what situation is that?”

  She wipes her hands on her apron as she stands up. “I have no children, Bobby. Who do you think all this is going to go to when I’m gone?”

  It takes a moment for me to understand what Aunt Beverly is driving at. “You’re leaving the Wayside Inn to me?”

  “Your father knows. It’s in the will. This and all the summerhouses. There are a lot of young girls out there who are only too happy to latch on to a man with money. And trust me, you’ll have plenty of it when you end your military career. Maybe not next week or next year. But eventually.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  She shakes her head as if her wisdom surpasses everything that I know about the woman I’ve fallen in love with.

  “You’re too young to understand these things. All women want security. They seek men who can elevate their standing in life. Jenna took time off from work this week to be with you and that tells me one thing. She’s after what she can get from you. Don’t get me wrong. She’s a very likeable girl and she does a fine job. But if she knows—”

  “Jenna may not live long enough to care about your money, Aunt Bev. She has…had cancer.” I blurt it out as if it’s still the past tense. I can’t bring myself to make it in the here and now. I don’t know when Jenna will hear the results of the tests.

  “What?”

  “Jenna found another lump the other day. She took that time off from work so we could go to Boston and have her doctor run some tests.”

  Saying the words aloud to someone other than Jenna makes it so scary and so real. From the look of guilt on my aunt’s face, I can tell she knows just how wrong she’s been to think badly of Jenna.

  “I’m sorry to hear this, Bobby.”

  “Me, too.” My aunt sighs. “I admit I was wrong and I’m sorry about what I thought about Jenna. She obviously has a lot on her mind, the poor girl. I’m sure she needed a friend.”

  I chuckle wryly. “Friend? Is that what you think this is all about? Didn’t you hear me earlier?”

  “Yes, I did. And now I’m more worried about you than ever. It’s just for a different reason. I don’t want you to go through the pain of losing someone you care about again.”

  I stuff my hands in my pockets and tighten my jaw to keep my emotions from getting the best of me. “It’s not me you should be
worried about.”

  I turn away from Aunt Beverly’s sympathetic gaze and yank on the door to the Inn harder than I need to. The door swings open hard as I walk through. Once inside, I feel the cool air conditioning hit my face and arms and my body starts to shake. But it’s not from the air. As I take two stairs at a time, I fight back the pain in my leg and hold on to the railing so I don’t tumble down the steps. I want to run. The urge is overwhelming me. But there isn’t enough beach on this island to get me far enough away from my fear.

  * * *

  Jenna

  “You should have called me.”

  My mother’s lecture is the last thing I need this morning. Getting a phone call before I even get out of bed is the worst.

  “I didn’t want you to worry,” I say, wrapping my light cotton robe around myself as I hold my cell phone to my ear.

  “That isn’t your call to make. I don’t have to tell you how livid your father was—”

  “And I care so much about what Dad thinks of this, right?”

  My mother’s heavy sigh distorted the sound on the phone. “He’s your father. We should be hearing about problems you’re having from you. Not getting a phone call from the clinic telling us you had tests on a lump. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Why did they even call you? They were supposed to call me with the results.”

  My heart is pounding. My mother heard from the clinic and knows something. But she’s not telling me because she’s more pissed off that I didn’t tell her about the lump.

  “They still have the house phone as the primary contact.”

  I want to stomp my feet. I want to scream at my mother for making the issue the damned control she’s had over me and my illness for the past two years.

  “Are you even going to tell me what the fuck they said?”

  “Watch your mouth with me, Jenna!”

  “Oh, yeah, because that is what’s so important right now. What did they say Mom? Or are you going to hold that information hostage to get me to do what you want?”