The Empty Jar

by M. Leighton

  His breath hisses angrily through his vocal cords. “Maybe I…” he begins harshly. The muscle along his strong jaw tenses as he grinds his teeth together, a tell of the temper he’s had for as long as I’ve known him. “Maybe I just wanted to know what your chances would be if you did take treatment. I wasn’t there when you got all the details.”

  “Is that what this is about? About me getting the results while you were out of town?”

  “No, it’s not that.”

  “Because I was just sparing you, Nate. When I saw the scan, I knew. I already knew it was bad. There was no reason for you to have to sit there and listen to her explain it. I didn’t want you to have to go through that.”

  “But maybe I needed it. Maybe I needed to hear it. Maybe I wouldn’t have even considered asking you to take the treatment if—”

  My heart skipping a few beats, I fumble when I ask, “Is-is that what you’re asking me to do?”

  Fear grips me, stretching my every nerve as taut as the strings on a guitar.

  He closes his eyes and shakes his head once. “No. No. I could never be so selfish. I just thought... I just… I wanted to know if there was any hope. Anything that could be done. Things she hadn’t told you or things you weren’t willing to discuss with her. Or with me.” Nate sits back and scrubs a hand over his face. “I guess that was just me hoping, hoping you’d missed something, hoping that I’d get different answers. I was just…hoping.”

  I sit silently across the table from my husband, twisting my hands in my lap. I knew he was hurting, and I did everything I could to keep this from touching him. But the truth is, there’s no way to protect him from what’s happening to me. The only thing I can do, I’m already trying to do—make the very most of every day, every hour, every second we have left.

  And hope that’s enough.

  Reaching across the table with one hand, I curl my fingers around my husband’s. For the first time I can remember, they’re cold. Cold as ice. For years, I’ve teased Nate about being my own personal heater. I can curl around him on the couch or in the bed, at the drive-in or in the pool, and he keeps me cozy. It seems his body temperature is always at least a hundred degrees hotter than mine. He’s always warm. Every inch of him.

  Until today.

  His cool fingers chill me to the bone.

  “This is the best thing for both of us. I promise. Sometimes it comes down to quality over quantity.”

  Nate nods, his smile of acceptance tight and forced. “I know. Now, I know.”

  “This trip will probably be our last good times together. When the pain gets too much, there will be drugs and oxygen and hospice. But we have this. We have today. Now. Let’s make this count. Let’s love enough for the rest of my life,” I suggest with a wry half-grin.

  His next words stop my heart.

  “No, let’s love enough for the rest of mine.”

  I don’t reply.

  I can’t.

  I only rub the back of Nate’s strong hand with my thumb. I know at some point I’ll have to have the “you’ll find someone else, and you have my blessing” conversation, but I also know he’s not ready for that now.

  Honestly, maybe I’m not either.

  I want him to be happy. Of course, I do. More than anything. He’s my Nate. My soulmate. His happiness feels like my happiness. But the thought of him laughing with someone else, the idea of him loving another woman, the mental picture of him putting his hands on my replacement…

  I can’t bear the thought of that.

  Not just yet.

  He’s mine.

  And I’m his.

  At least for a while longer.

  Neither of us speaks as we finish our tea and scone. Enough has been said. Maybe too much. There’s such a thing as too much truth, and I think we’re at that point. For now anyway.

  Neither of us can shield the other from the pain.

  Neither of us can change the future.

  Neither of us can make the other unknow what we now know.

  Our only choice is to go forward, one step at a time, one day at a time, into the future. No matter how brief that future is.

  Enjoying the scenery and each other’s company, Nate and I say very little as we tour the birthplace of Shakespeare and then the home in which he retired. We say even less when we visit the Henley Street Antique Centre. Neither of us wants to buy things for a future that seems so empty.

  But we touch.

  Every chance he gets, Nate touches me, brushing a strand of hair behind my ear, grazing my neck with his lips, rubbing the curve of my back with his palm. And I eat it up. I absorb it like nourishment for my soul.

  We walk so closely that we bump shoulders, and when we stop, we stand so closely that I could fall over and never hit the ground. Nate would catch me without even trying.

  He is a pillar of fire at my side—the heat I’ve always been drawn to, the one person in the world I’ve never wanted to leave.

  As we walk the streets, hand in hand, I look around me and let my imagination take flight. Compared with tourist destinations in the U.S., being here is like being thrown back in time. Many of the buildings appear to be simply restored, still boasting their Tudor faces, as if time forgot to pass them by. The cool air carries with it the scent of literary history, smelling of old books, as though the spirit of Shakespeare himself is opening and closing books all over the cloudy sky.

  Or at least that’s how it seems to me. But I want to be in a different time, a time when my husband and I are enjoying rather than escaping, when we are running toward something rather than away from it.

  So I let whimsy take my mind to another place.

  Glancing around, I can easily envision the women who pass us dressed differently. I can picture them made up in Elizabethan finery—brightly colored, heavily padded, and bejeweled. And the men, I can imagine them laced up from head to toe, the ridiculous clothing of that time making even the smallest of movements a challenge.

  I journey back with all my senses, back to a simpler time. Back to before. Even if it’s just for a moment, for a moment that exists only in my imagination.

  Because “before” for me means Before Diagnosis.

  ********

  Later in the evening, Nate and I enjoy a quiet dinner at the Rooftop Restaurant and Bar above the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, overlooking the River Avon. Our conversation is soft and inconsequential, our gazes lingering and meaningful.

  I manage to keep my contented smile intact even as I force food into a stomach that threatens to reject every bite. Silently, I pray prayers I don’t really believe are going anywhere. But I pray them anyway.

  Out of desperation.

  Sheer desperation.

  I ask that my nausea be a result of stress rather than the progression of my disease. Because if it’s not…if it’s progression…I won’t last three months away from home. Our trip will be ruined.

  So I pray.

  I haven’t suffered much with symptoms up to now, and I hold fast to the hope that I won’t.

  Surely the universe can give us three short months.

  Surely Nate and I can have that.

  Six

  Lay Your Hands on Me

  Lena

  It seems odd and counterintuitive that sex would get better after a terminal diagnosis, but I have found that to be the strange truth. Lately, Nate and I make love more often and with more fervor than ever before, even during our youth.

  Maybe it’s the knowledge that our time together is limited. It’s ironic really. Life got in the way before, but now that life is being taken away…

  Or maybe it’s my sudden lack of concern with my thicker thighs and fuller stomach.

  Maybe it’s simply that we are both more open about our love and our feelings and our desires than ever before. (I mean¸ there’s no reason to hold back now.) Maybe that’s it.

  Or maybe it’s just desperation. Because we are both desperate. I can feel it.

  Still, I ca
n’t be sure what it is, but something is at work between us.

  After we watched Wendy & Peter Pan at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre earlier, Nate tucks me into our rental car and spirits me back to London as though we are being chased. There is an air of urgency about him, one that I shared but don’t understand. Or maybe I do. Three months is an eternity in some instances, but when it is some of the last months, it is but a heartbeat.

  And then it will be over.

  Back at the hotel, with his fingers wound tightly around mine, Nate pulls me into the elevator and then into his arms, kissing me with an abandon that would’ve embarrassed me at any other time in my life. After all, we aren’t alone in the little car. But I don’t care. I’m as eager to be kissed as he is to kiss.

  At our floor, we break apart just long enough to rush from the elevator and to our room, Nate flinging open the door and then slamming it shut behind us. From that point on, it is a beautiful tangle of hungry moans, clinging lips, and seeking hands.

  We finally make it to the bedroom. Our lips, our hands, our hearts can’t seem to get close enough, warm enough, deep enough.

  We just can’t seem to get…enough.

  Nate unbuttons my blouse, tugging the tails from the waistband of my slacks, and then pushing the slinky material from my shoulders. With a fevered mouth, he kisses a trail down the curve of my neck and across my clavicle, easing away my bra straps as though they were made of magic and he is a talented magician.

  “Nate,” I whisper, reveling in the feel of my husband’s name on my lips, the sound of it in the room with us, in the air. It’s like if I exhale it, I can then breathe it in all over again, take him inside me. Keep him with this body forever.

  Fingers trembling with need, I pull my husband’s shirt over his head. Shakily, I thread the button of his pants back through the hole, hasty to get my hand inside his trousers, anxious to palm his erection.

  I wind my fingers around his thick length, stroking a groan from deep in his chest. The sound rumbles from him and into me, shooting through my body and landing squarely between my thighs.

  Breathing heavily, Nate bends his head and takes one of my tingling nipples into his mouth, working it with his tongue until he drags a soft whimper from me. I dig the fingers of my free hand into his hair and clench my fist, something I know he loves.

  “Shit!” he hisses, backing away from me to run a hand over his face, searching for his composure.

  Nate’s green eyes are smoky with passion, and he looks, for the most part, like a horny frat boy. Like my horny frat boy.

  “I want to look at you before you drive me so crazy I can’t see straight,” my husband explains as he struggles to catch his breath.

  “You are looking at me,” I quip, a languid grin stretching over my face as I reach for him.

  He holds me at bay, lacing his fingers with mine and then bringing our joined digits to his mouth. “No. Really look. I want to memorize you.”

  Carefully, as though he’s worshipping not only my skin, but the connection we share, Nate kisses each of my knuckles. My heart pounds. It pounds with desire, yes, but it also pounds with a love so profound I can’t describe it. I can only feel it. Revere it. Bask in it.

  Treasure it.

  Releasing my hands to my sides, Nate reaches down to tease one nipple, his gaze locked on mine and eating me up as he does so. Slowly, deliberately, his arms come up and around me to unclasp my bra. My breasts fall gently from the confines of the cups.

  Lovingly, Nate strokes my skin, his touch as light as a summer rain, before he moves to my waist to unfasten my pants. He squats before me, nudging the material over the curve of my hips then letting it fall to pool around my ankles. My panties follow, Nate’s warm palms skimming the outsides of my thighs as he traces the length of my legs.

  When I stand before him in nothing but the wedge of lamplight coming through the open bedroom door, he steps back to admire what he so carefully revealed.

  “You are the most incredible woman I’ve ever seen. As stunning outside as you are inside.” He takes a step closer. “Do you know that I still fantasize about you?” Nate rakes the backs of his fingers over the tips of my heavy breasts. “About doing things to you? Hearing you say my name, feeling your body so tight around mine? Have I ever told you that?”

  My mouth is dry, and I’m spellbound.

  Heart swollen, body aching, I shake my head. “No.”

  For years, I’ve been self-conscious about my physique. Despite Nate’s insistence that he loves my body, I’ve never been able to shake my insecurity. I know my husband loves me, but I’ve always been afraid that one day he would see my flaws more clearly than he would see the things he loves about me, that he would realize there are prettier, younger, thinner women out there. But he never has. And I hate that I’ve underestimated him all this time, hate that I’ve wasted so many years being so neurotic.

  “I do. I’ve never met someone who could so thoroughly captivate me. Even after all these years. I’m not sure I ever really thought it was possible—to still want someone this much after so long—and yet... Here I am. Captivated.”

  When Nate lowers his mouth to mine, I taste the salt of the tears I can’t contain. Nate leans away and looks down at me. “What’s the matter, baby?”

  With the pad of his thumb, he wipes away a single droplet before it can run down my cheek.

  “You’ve always made me feel beautiful, even when I didn’t think I was, but now…” I swallow at the growing tightness in my throat. “For months now, all I see when I look in the mirror is the monster living inside me, but not you. You don’t see it. You still see me. Just me. You look at me the way you always have. Like I’m perfect. Like I’m still perfect.”

  Cupping my face, Nate leans his forehead against mine. “You are still perfect. No one will ever be so perfect in my eyes. Ever. I’ll want you this much, this way, always. Always.”

  When his lips take mine, they are at once gentle and passionate, reverent and reckless. Nate never loses control, though. Not once does he hurt me, not even with the grip of his strong hands.

  But he thrills me.

  God, how he thrills me!

  He lets me know with his body how very much I mean to his heart. He whispers his love into my ear, he moans it against my flesh, he strains with it between my legs.

  And when our release finally comes, and Nate is buried deep within my body, I hold him to me with every ounce of strength I can muster. I draw him into me—his body, his seed, his love—and tuck away the memory of it, far into one corner of my mind, knowing that every breath and every heartbeat we share are some of the best of my life.

  And some of the last.

  Seven

  Someday Just Might Be Tonight

  Lena

  Six weeks.

  It’s already been six whole weeks since we left the States. To me, it feels like the blink of an eye. London, Paris, Germany, Switzerland—I’ve explored them all with my favorite person by my side, and each location was just as amazing as I expected. While it could be my mindset, the kind rife with the determination to enjoy every millisecond Nate and I are afforded, I suspect that Europe is, all in all, just a great place, full of beauty and charm.

  The only less-than-ideal moments begin on our first morning in Rome when I wake to a debilitating bout of nausea. Since being diagnosed, it has never been this bad. My heart fills with dread and disappointment.

  Again, I pray. I pray that it is transient. Maybe even something I ate. Because I know that if it is related to the progression of my disease, it will officially end our vacation. I know I won’t be able to go on like this for six more weeks. And that makes me feel emotionally sick.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to call for some crackers or some juice? I think if you get something on your stomach it—”

  With eyes still closed in an effort to keep from having to race to the bathroom again and heave up nothing more than bile, I reach out until I feel Nate�
��s hands. I take his fingers, fingers taut with the helplessness I know he’s feeling, and I quiet him.

  “No, but thank you. It won’t help. This is…this is just part of it.” It’s all I can do to keep my voice strong, without waver. I turn my face further into my pillow, hoping he won’t be able to see the fine tremble of my chin. It’s one of the many things about my body that has sprinted beyond my control—my emotions.

  “I know, baby, but…” Nate kneels by the side of the bed, resting his mouth against our entwined hands. “I just thought we had more time. I thought for just these three months, we’d be enough ahead of it that you wouldn’t feel this way. I just wanted to give you a few weeks of peace and freedom and happiness. Three months of perfection.”

  I crack an eye and find my husband’s worried gaze on my face. “I know you did. I had hoped for the same thing, but the progression is unpredictable. Doctors can estimate and give educated guesses, but no one really knows. Maybe this will pass, though. Let’s just wait and see. Give it a few days. We don’t have to give up yet.”

  “I know,” he sighs. “It just…I’m just… It makes me mad as hell. Can’t we have this? Christ Almighty, can’t we just have this?”

  I’m surprised by his sudden burst of anger. Nate hasn’t gotten angry even once since the diagnosis.

  Maybe he’s due.

  Still, my response is calm. I don’t need to add fuel to his fire. “I hope so. I’ll do everything I can to make it work out for us, babe.”

  He visibly deflates. “That’s not what I meant.” Another sigh, another shake of his head. “I don’t want you to be dragging yourself around Italy, Greece, and Prague feeling like shit just because you think this is what I want. I can still give you the royal treatment at home, where you’re more comfortable. I just…I just wanted to give you this. Give you Europe.”

  “I know. And I love you for it.”

  At the mention of home, I feel a stab of wistfulness. I’d give anything to be in my own bed, surrounded by my own things. Everyone is like that when they’re sick. But I would never tell Nate that. This trip is as much for him as it is for me. Maybe even more so.