“Where were you?” she asked as she dragged a chair in from the dining room and sat down.
“I had some club stuff to take care of. Sorry I wasn’t around.”
She took her phone out of her pocket and recorded Nolan peeling potatoes. When he turned and saw her, he scowled theatrically and brandished the peeler like a weapon. He’d grown used to her phone always taking footage and photos.
“‘Club stuff’ was something he talked about occasionally, and did occasionally, but never elaborated on. It didn’t seem to consume much of his life, though. For the past several weeks, since that first night together, she’d had most of his attention.
“It’s okay. I’m glad you’re here. My dad should be here any minute. He’s been spamming me with texts.”
He finished the last potato and dropped it in the colander. “Okay, now what—rinse and quarter?”
“Yeah. You know how to make mashed potatoes?”
“Sure. I help my mom sometimes. She’s not much of a cook, but mashed potatoes aren’t exactly fancy.”
“Sorry. I thought—”
“That was a compliment, babe. Mashed potatoes are awesome. I don’t like fancy food.”
“Okay. I just want everything to be perfect.”
He stopped and came over to her chair, squatting before her. “Perfect is a myth. But it’ll be awesome. I promise.”
The front door opened. “Hey!” her father called. “Could use some muscle out here!”
Analisa didn’t know what he could possibly have brought that required muscle to bring in. How many bottles of wine did he think four people would drink?
But Nolan grinned and stood up. “You stay put. I’ll be right back.”
He walked out of the kitchen and around toward the living room. Stay put, he’d said. Fuck that. Analisa got up and followed. The front door was standing open, so she went out to the porch.
And found her father, brother, and Nolan pulling out of her father’s Range Rover two big collapsible banquet tables and a bunch of folding chairs.
“What the hell?”
Nolan, carrying a stack of chairs, stopped and leaned over for a kiss. She gave it to him. “I invited the club for dinner. They’ll be here in half an hour or so—ish. They’re not the most punctual people ever.”
“What?”
“You wanted a full house, you’re getting a full house.”
“But—but—I know you keep saying I have enough food for an army, but I really don’t. I can’t feed your whole club. It’s only a twenty-five-pound turkey!”
“Relax, babe.” He stepped aside as Tristan and her father brought in a table. “It’s all going to be awesome. I promise.”
~oOo~
Nolan kept his promises. Analisa’s house was full of people, and they’d brought food and booze. The women, most of whom, with the exception of Riley, she barely knew, came in with big trays and dishes of food, and they took over her kitchen—not displacing her, but joining her. Bibi and Riley, Sid and Veda, Faith and Coco. The men, too—Analisa lost count. And the kids—Lexi, Ian, a little boy named Tucker, and Declan.
Her house was bursting at the seams and rocking with talk and laughter. The game—or some game, maybe by now a different one—was on, and the volume kept getting louder and louder. The kids were in the back yard. One of the men—Demon, Analisa thought—had brought a bubble machine, and all the kids who could run, even Lexi in her pretty dress and fashionable boots, were running around her boring little back yard, chasing bubbles.
Bart came into the kitchen holding Declan. “He needs a change, babe.”
Her hands in a sink full of soapy water, Riley turned a deadly look on her husband. “Are you serious right now?”
“Hey—if you’re around, I don’t have to. That’s our deal.”
Faith, who was pregnant, though the only way anyone would be able to tell was that her husband, Demon, wouldn’t stop rubbing her belly, punched Demon on the arm as he was leaning into the fridge for a beer.
“Hey! What?” Demon complained, rubbing his arm.
“You’re changing diapers. Whenever.”
Bart laughed. “Careful, Deme. You start agreeing to terms already, before long she’ll have you agreeing to pop that kid out yourself.”
Smiling at the laughter behind her, Analisa stood at the sliding glass door and watched the kids play. She cracked the door open a little so she could hear them giggle and squeal. She knew she could go out there, but it seemed right that she should be separated from their play by the glass.
Today, this day. Only this one. Today she had exactly the life she’d wanted. Only this one day.
As if to agree with her, It coiled Its slimy fist around her insides and squeezed, and she doubled over, unable to withstand the pain with any kind of stoicism.
Nolan was at her side immediately, his arms around her. “Ani! What?”
She stayed in that folded position until the spasm let go. “I’m okay.” She grabbed his hand and stood straight again.
He looked hard at her, his eyes dark with concern. “You’re not.”
“No, I am. I promise. I need some more meds, but I’ll be okay. I’ll just sit down for a little. Not exactly me making dinner anymore, is it?”
“It’s still your dinner, babe. Full of family and chaos.”
She smiled. “I know. This is better. So much better than I had planned. This is perfect. Thank you.”
Nolan kissed her head and went to get her meds. Analisa noticed Bart, still holding Declan, watching them. She saw him make eye contact with Nolan, then smile a sad smile and nod.
She wasn’t sure exactly what had been communicated between them, but she knew enough to be able to read that sad smile. It was strange to have so many people know how close she was to leaving.
~oOo~
Dinner wasn’t exactly what she’d planned, but it was perfect anyway. Her soup was a hit, even though she noticed some raised eyebrows. The rolls didn’t bake right under the turkey—they were burned on the bottoms and raw on the tops—but Bibi had brought several loaves of fresh bread. The turkey turned out golden and moist. There wasn’t enough to go around, but Veda had brought a ham. And there was plenty of booze.
The tables made a long ‘L’ from the dining room and around the corner, the full length of the large living room. The kids ate at the coffee table, sitting on throw pillows. Analisa sat at the table next to Nolan, with tiny tastes of everything on her plate, and watched her family and guests dig in. She took video and pictures, and she felt good.
Her father and Tristan had a great time. Even her father seemed to forget that she was sick for a few hours, getting into a lively argument with several bikers about the state of the NFL. Tristan had sat outside with Double A and Trick for a long time, all of them drinking and talking with intently interested expressions.
She’d had to go lie down for a couple of hours after dinner, but she was up again and sufficiently dosed to feel pretty good while everyone was still around. While she’d rested, the kitchen had been cleaned, and everyone was sitting or standing around, talking and drinking. When she came out, it was obvious that the evening was winding down. They’d waited to be able to thank her and say good night. Or, she knew, for almost all of them, goodbye.
When it was just the four of them again, her father’s sad eyes came back, and this time her brother caught them, too. She knew why. This dinner had been wonderful. It had been perfect. It had fulfilled a dear wish.
And it had felt like a Last Supper.
Tristan hugged her hard. Then he hugged Nolan. And then he left.
Her father looked down at her, his brow creased and his sad eyes brimming. “It was a good day, sweetheart. I’m glad we had this.”
She hugged him. “Me, too, Daddy.”
When she released him, he turned to Nolan. “I was wrong to try to keep you two apart. You’re exactly what she needs. Thank you. You’ve given her what I couldn’t.” He held out his hand and, when Nolan
shook it, pulled him into a hard hug. “Thank you,” he said again.
And then he, too, left. And Analisa and Nolan were alone in their house.
He pulled her close, and she hooked her arm around his waist. She always felt safe tucked so tightly to his firm, warm body. Even now, she felt safe. And loved.
Leaning his cheek on the top of her head, he said, “That’s your whole list, isn’t it?”
“Almost. Just one more thing.” It would have been two, but she knew ‘spend Christmas with Nolan’ was not going to happen. So there was just one more—and she knew for a fact that one would happen. It was already happening.
“Make a movie?”
“No. That’s crossed off. I’ve been making it for a long time, and Tris will turn everything into a movie. So I can call that one done.”
“Then what?”
She shook her head, rubbing her cheek against his shirt. “I’ll tell you when the time is right. For now, it’s just for me. Okay?”
“Okay.” He kissed her head. “What do you want to do now?”
Only one thing, and she was pretty sure it would be the last time. “Can we go to bed?”
~oOo~
She couldn’t both lie flat and breathe anymore, so she slept every night propped on about a million pillows.
Now, they moved all those pillows off the bed. Nolan sat in the middle, his back against the headboard, and Analisa sat straddled over his lap. When he reached to the nightstand for a condom, she grabbed his hand. “I won’t get pregnant.”
He cocked his head. “Ani…”
“I won’t. I’m sure. Please?”
Nodding, he brought his hand around to her back instead. She curled her hand around his erection and lifted up, but when she tried to settle on him, she was too dry.
“Hold on,” he murmured, and stuck his fingers in his mouth. Then he slid them between her legs. He did that a few times, and then he rolled his wet fingers over himself. “Now.”
He slid into her easily.
“Oh,” she gasped. It felt different, just the two of them. Hotter. Better. Closer. And she began to get wet.
Nolan hugged her close and tucked her head against his neck. Holding her tightly, he rocked. They moved together quietly, slowly. All of it was different from the way they’d been together before, but it was perfect. Intimate and loving and sexy.
When she came, it washed over her before she’d even known she was close, and it was slow and gentle, just a rolling tension and release, over and over. When he came, she felt him, felt his semen leaving him and then leaving her as he stayed inside her, still moving.
Neither of them was willing to end their connection.
~oOo~
In the middle of the night, at the end of the Thanksgiving weekend, Analisa woke up with her whole insides, her heart and lungs, her stomach, everything, clenched in a fist of fire. She would have screamed, but she had no air. She flailed her arm out, looking for rescue, and slapped Nolan in the head.
He was awake immediately, pulling her into his arms, yelling her name. When he turned away to grab his phone, she wanted to beg him to hold on to her, but there was no air anywhere.
And then the pain simply stopped. Completely. There was no air, but there was no pain, either.
He was yelling into his phone for help. It broke her heart to see him so scared. It broke her heart to think of leaving him. She had known real love, and her heart broke to know that he had, too, that she was leaving him behind to mourn her.
That was the last thing on her list: to know what it was like to have a broken heart. That had always felt to her like the most important thing in life—to love and lose and know that you’d felt everything there was to feel, that you’d really lived.
He’d gathered her up in his arms, and he was crying and saying he loved her. Over and over he said it.
She’d always known when she was sicker. She’d always been able to feel what was wrong inside her, and when it got more wrong. Now, she knew that there was no more wrong to be.
Summoning all the strength she had left, she reached up and put her hand on his cheek, rough with stubble, wet with tears. It’s okay, Nolan, she thought. I finished my list. And I stayed me.
She tried to tell him one more time that she loved him, but there was no air.
ELEVEN
Nolan sat on a chair in the corner of the room and watched Analisa’s father talk to the doctor. The doctor talked, and Donovan shook his head. Finally, the doctor put his hand on Donovan’s arm and then left the room.
Tristan was…elsewhere. In the hospital, Nolan was sure, but not in this room. He could barely be in here at all, and never for more than five minutes.
Nolan, on the other hand, hadn’t left. He looked at the bed. Analisa was gone. Her body was there, under the covers, filled with wires and tubes, but he knew that she’d left when she’d been in his arms. He’d seen her leave, seen her eyes, those amazing pale eyes, like moonstones, go flat and empty.
It didn’t matter that the paramedics had arrived and made her heart beat. She was gone, and the doctor had just told her father, for the second time in as many days, that there was no hope.
He watched as Donovan went to the side of her bed and picked up her hand. He stood there, staring down at his daughter, alone in the world with her.
Nolan stood up. “I’m going to go track down Tris.”
“No. Let him be. He won’t go far. Can we talk?”
“Yeah.” He went to the other side of the bed, but he didn’t look down at the body between them. That wasn’t his Ani.
“You heard the doctor, I guess.”
“Yeah. He said the same thing yesterday.”
“You understand why I can’t do it? You love her, too, right? I know you understand.”
He understood. But he said, “No, I don’t. You know she didn’t want this. This”—he waved at the bed without looking down—“isn’t her.”
Donovan lifted the slender, freckled hand he held. “She’s warm, Nolan. I’m holding her hand. You can’t tell me this isn’t my little girl.” His eyes went blurry. When he closed them, tears dropped onto the hand he held. Not Ani’s hand. Not anymore.
Nolan felt detached from all of this, like he’d left when she had, and what was happening now was somebody else’s life, somebody else’s problem. “It’s your call, Donovan. I don’t know why you care what I think.”
“Because she loved you. These past months, her whole life was about you. Didn’t you love her at all? How can you be so ready to let her go? Why won’t you even look at her?”
Nolan gripped the bedrail until it shook in his hands. “Fuck you. I do love her. I wasn’t ready. But it doesn’t fucking matter. She’s gone. She already left. I was holding her, and then I was just holding the thing that held her. She didn’t want this. You fucking know she didn’t want this. She wanted to be remembered the way she was. That’s how I’m going to remember her. She was beautiful and tough. She had life in her eyes. And her hands.”
Donovan’s eyes narrowed. “You knew her for three and a half months. Don’t presume to tell me who she was.”
Nolan thought about telling him what he knew, what she’d planned if It had gotten into her brain, but before he could, Tristan, standing in the doorway, said, “He’s right, Dad. She’s already gone. You need to love her the way she deserved to be loved. Think of it as the last thing you can do for her.”
Donovan Winter turned and looked at his son. “Tris…”
“I know, Dad. But we have to.”
~oOo~
Her funeral was huge. Hundreds of people converged on the Unitarian Church, most of them Hollywood types that knew Analisa’s father and had known her mother. Nolan stood off to the side, inside the doorway, and watched the long line of limousines dispatch beautiful people into the rainy, early-December day.
A line of motorcycles and a row of SUVs were already parked in the church lot. The Night Horde SoCal was all accounted for.
&n
bsp; Donovan and Tristan stood at the bottom of the steps, greeting attendees—Nolan couldn’t think of them as mourners. In the church behind him, Nolan’s brothers and their families sat. He himself stood between both worlds. Alone.
“Excuse me.”
Today & Tomorrow Page 12
