One More Breath

by Delaney Williams

  “Again,” he says gruffly.

  Having already come multiple times, I doubt this is possible, but I will never tell him that. Knowing Ander, he’d make it a goal and we would work on it all night long. So I keep moving, rocking and twisting my hips to help his piercing hit my g-spot even better.

  When I feel that familiar feeling, I know I am going to come again. “Ander!” I rock on him as he pushes up into me and comes on a violent thrust. Spent, we lie on the sand, the waves lapping at our feet.

  “Ander, I think you are going to be finding sand in places it shouldn’t be,” I tease. He says it is worth it and that it is also my job to wash it out. Bonus!!!

  He unties my hands and helps me put my suit back on. As we stand, I sway and grow dizzy. Blaming it on the sex, he picks me up and carries me back to our hotel, tucking me into bed. As I am falling asleep, I can hear Ander and Lola talking about going out to the beach to look for shells. I smile. When I glance at the night table, I notice my phone is blinking with a message. I pick it up and listen. It is my doctor telling me to call him as soon as possible. With that one statement, all my bliss and happiness disappears and I pass out.

  ANDER

  I am now a married man, something I never thought I would be again, and I am actually happy. This is all new to me. My wife is sleeping, and Lola and I are playing in the ocean, looking for shells. By the time the sun starts to go down, both Lola and I are hungry and tired. The rest of the wedding group left after the wedding to either return home (Cora and Wyatt) or stay at a different resort for a well-deserved vacation (family). It is just me, Leire, and Lola here now. As we towel off and head up to get ready for dinner, I can’t get the smile off my face. I am so in love and happy, I am sure I look like a fool.

  I put my arm around Lola’s shoulders, asking her about her boyfriend, who headed back with Cora and Wyatt. She says she broke it off with him before he left because her heart had different plans. Hmmm… I wonder what those plans are and I hope she is thinking of my friend. Is that weird? I tell her to follow her heart because she can’t go wrong. Then I toss out that age is just a number and she shouldn’t let it be a deterrent, but that I think her finishing college before doing anything serious is important. She glances and I smirk to myself. She likes an older man. Now, I just have to hope that man is Wyatt.

  When we get back to the room, I go into my room and find Leire still asleep, phone in her hand, replaying a message over and over. I pick it up and listen, and my heart stops. All the joy I had been feeling disappears. We need to return home as soon as possible. I pull up the airline number and find the only flight leaving the next day, booking us three seats. I also quickly arrange for a car at the airport. Then I wake up my wife.

  Leire slowly wakes up then, as realization sets in, she starts to panic. I pull her to me. “Leire, sweetheart, this is not good for the baby. You need to calm down. I know you are scared. I am scared. But we are together. Hell, it could be nothing. The doctor could be calling about a simple infection for all we know, okay?” I turn her face to me and wipe at the tears. I lean in and run my nose against hers. “In good times and in bad; in sickness and in health. We do all this together. I already called the airline and got us on a flight home tomorrow. Now, you need to call the doctor and get us in as soon as you can. We will be home around 3 pm. If he can fit us in after then, that would be ideal. But you have to get it together to do this.

  “Don’t you dare pull into your head and fool yourself into thinking you never should have done any of this. I can see it in your eyes. First, we don’t know if it is cancer. Second, if it is, it would have come anyway. In no way would I ever let you go through this alone. We do this as a team. So, get up and call the doctor. I will get us some room service for dinner. The baby needs food.” She nods her head and starts dialing, while I pick up the room service menu and the room phone, placing an order. I also request new sheets, since I hadn’t rinsed Leire off after our beach sex.

  When I’m done, I look over and see her staring at the phone in her hand. “Leire, sweetheart, what did the doctor say?” I ask.

  She looks up, like she forgot she wasn’t alone. “The doctor will see us tomorrow at 6,” she robotically says.

  I walk over and pick her up, beginning to strip her out of the beach clothes she is still in. I hold her as I walk into the bathroom and turn on the shower. When the water is warm, I enter with her still wrapped around me. When the water hits us, I can feel the sobs leaving her body. I pull her close and begin whispering in her ear all the things we are going to do as a family.

  For a long time, she just sobs. Finally, when it seems she has no more tears left, she looks up at me. “Why do you still want me? I am broken. Nothing works. I am death.”

  What? That’s what she thinks? I set her down in front of me and force her to look at me. “Leire, I love you for so many reasons, I can never list them all. I love you because you stood up to Brittany and gave me my daughter back. I love you because you make me smile and laugh more than anyone I have ever known. I love you because you are so smoking hot, I can’t look at you without getting hard. I love you because of the little sounds you make when you are sleeping, and coming, and thinking, and staring off into space. I love you because when you think no one is looking, you close your eyes and pinch yourself. I love that you think what you have with me is so good, it must be a dream. I love that you have taken Lola in as your own, no questions or wavering. I love that you support me in every little thing I do. I love that you love my family and they love you. Shall I continue?”

  By now, she is crying again. She looks up. “No,” she states. “Thank you so much, Ander. Thank you for loving me even though I am broken. Thank you for giving me this little piece of happy I never thought I would have. Thank you for showing me that love does exist and that I am worthy of it. But, mostly, thank you for this.” She wraps her arms around her belly.

  The baby… Where does the miracle baby fit into all this? I love that baby, but I can’t live without Leire. I really hope the doctor’s news tomorrow is something not nearly as bad as we are thinking. I turn off the shower and wrap us up in the huge white towels.

  As we sit on the bed, cuddling into each other, just breathing the other in and gathering strength, a knock comes at the door. “I got in! The college called!” yells Lola, and both Leire and I let out small laughs. At least there is that. We look at each other and hug and kiss, promising with our eyes that we will do this together.

  As we dress, I help Leire so it takes less bending and energy, then we head to eat. When we reach the table where Lola has set the food and she looks up at us, her face drops. She looks at me. I shake my head at her and, amazingly, she complies. She helps Leire into a seat and places a little amount of food on her plate, sensing that she won’t be eating much. Whispering in her ear, I remind her she needs to eat for the baby. She nods and slowly begins to eat.

  After what has to have been the most silent meal ever, we go to our rooms. Leire curls up on the bed while I pack. I then pick her up and move her to the chair so I can change the sheets on the bed, then place her back in it and climb in behind her. I turn off the light and pull her to me. Together, we hold each other throughout the night, hoping for morning to come quickly.

  ****

  In the morning, we shower and I dry Leire off. She has become somewhat of a robot, not doing much of anything. After we dress, we head to the tiny airport in Providenciales, where we wait with a thousand other tourists, all happy from their trip, like we should be. Some people even come up to Leire and ask when she is due. When she fails to answer, I give them some sort of bullshit answer about how we are headed home to get some information about the baby and right now isn’t a good time. I don’t care if they feel like jackasses when they walk away. Sure, I could have used more tact, but they were hurting Leire and I wanted them to hurt in return. So screw them. They can give me all the evil eyes they want, but they are not going to get to me. My wife and child are
my concern and, right now, my wife had not spoken more than a handful of words in twenty-four hours.

  After a rather uneventful flight home, I drop Lola and the luggage off at the house, then drive to the doctor. Halfway there, I receive a text from Lola saying the house is amazing and that it will cheer Leire up. Smiling slightly, I shake my head. If only something as simple as decorating could get through to my wife. When I pull in at the doctor’s office, Leire grabs my hand even harder. I turn to her. “Babe, we are in this together. I am not ever going to leave you or back out because of the trials we face. It is you and me. Always.” Giving her hand one last squeeze, l get out and walk around the car to open her door.

  She steps out, looks up at me and, maybe seeing the truth in my eyes, shakes her head and says her first words in hours. “Together.” With that, we head in.

  We sign in at the desk and take seats in the corner of the room where we can sit without being disturbed. When they call Leire’s name, we stand and walk steadily to the room, following the nurse. She checks Leire’s blood pressure and heart rate, then gets out a device that allows us to hear the baby’s heart. The strong, fast beat relaxes us both somewhat. I am going to see about buying one of those. Then the nurse tells us the doctor will be right in.

  It is the fastest doctor/nurse exchange I have ever seen. The second the nurse opens the door, the doctor comes in and looks at me. He nods, then turns to Leire. “Leire, honey, we have always known this was a possibility. The lymphoma is back. The good news is that we caught it relatively quickly. It will be easily treatable with 100% remission if we start it now. Okay?”

  Leire looks at him, down, then up again. “What about the baby?”

  “Oh, Leire, honey… The chemo will be too much for the baby and it won’t make it through the treatment. But you can always hope for another miracle or even adopt. The important thing is that you are alive to try.”

  Leire stands. “No.”

  The doctor and I look at her. “No?” we say together.

  “You both heard me. No. I will not be treated until after I have this baby. There is no way I will allow you to kill the baby with this treatment. You need to look into other options. Find out how to treat me after the baby, then we will talk. Until then, I have nothing more to say to either of you.” She turns and leaves the room, leaving us with mouths agape.

  I sit down. “Doctor, can we treat her after the baby?” I ask.

  “Not likely. It will be too late for traditional treatment. The only thing we could do is watch and wait. We would induce her at about thirty-two weeks, or as soon as the baby is viable and healthy, then begin an experimental treatment that might give her a chance. Now, most likely, her cancer will be pretty advanced, so we would begin with high-dose chemotherapy, along with radiation therapy with a stem cell transplant. This gives us a way of giving her high doses of chemotherapy and radiation therapy, replacing blood-forming cells destroyed by the cancer treatment. Stem cells are immature, or unlabeled, cells. Immature blood cells are often removed from a donor patient, or relative of the patient, and are frozen and stored. This is where you may just be very lucky. Hopefully, we can successfully use the stem cells in the umbilical cord from the baby to treat the mom. This will guarantee a match and it won’t require searching for a donor. The stem cells are gathered, frozen, and kept until after the chemo is complete. Then the stored and frozen stem cells are thawed and given back to the patient through an infusion, just like those she received for blood. It would be lifesaving and, more than likely end the entire cancer recurrence process completely. These re-infused stem cells grow and, eventually, restore the body’s own blood cells, taking over as fully healthy and fully her own.”

  I stand, staring at him. This seems unbelievable. Our baby could save the life of my wife? This is just too…futuristic to imagine. “What is the downside, doctor? I mean, this all sounds amazing and it seems like you are giving me a cure, but I need to know the downside before I get too excited about this.”

  The doctor moves to his table and sits down on the rolling chair. “To freeze the stem cells, without the storage time, will be about $2,000. It is never covered by insurance. I will get a treatment plan together. I will put her on a steroid treatment plan that won’t only work in our favor for the cancer, but help the baby be ready when it’s born early. Together, we will get her to a place she needs to be for treatment and we will get her cured, despite the rough route she is making us take. Okay, Mr…?”

  “Ander. I am a tattoo artist and I don’t have insurance. I was planning on getting it as soon as the baby was born. I offer it to my employees, but I never saw the need for just me. So I am going to need to know cost and I am going to come up with it, no matter what.”

  The doctor looks at me skeptically. “These treatments run hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, especially since we are talking stem cell transplant. This is going to be expensive, to say the least. I will give you a hospital advocate and they can help work out a payment plan, but I can’t tell you a specific cost.”

  “Doctor, this is my wife and child. There is no number you could put on this plan that I wouldn’t do. So set the plan and get it going. Get me the numbers as soon as possible and I will get my end going.” With that, I turn and leave.

  I find my wife sitting stoically by the door, waiting for me. I take her arm and lead her to the car. On the way home, I tell her all about the treatment, the stem cells, and everything. While I am excited, she isn’t. She turns to me. “Baby, I know you are excited about this, and I know I should be, too, but this is expensive. There is no way we would ever even begin to afford the treatment, let alone the transplant. I want to believe, but I just can’t bring myself to right now.” Okay then. I can deal with that.

  I pull the car into the garage at the new house and walk around to let her out. When she steps out, I cage her in with my arms. “Here is how it is going to go. You are going to grow our baby. You are going to focus on being the best mom you can. We are going to have this baby and begin treatment. I will work something out for paying for it. You don’t get to worry about that. Your job is simply the baby, okay?” She nods. Then I pick her up and place her on the hood of the car, pulling her panties down as I go.

  “Ander, I just got told I have cancer again. I am not really feeling like having sex right now.”

  “You are right. You were just told you have cancer. What better time to have sex, to enjoy life’s gifts as often as possible, huh?” I finish with a well-placed lick of her cunt and flick of her clit. I flip her over, placing her arms out and spreading her legs so she is more bent over the car than on it, and continue licking until I know I have her. She is pushing back into my face, moaning and begging for more. I stop and stand up. “Does this mean you do want sex?” I smirk.

  “Yes, damn it! Yes! I want your cock in me. I still need to feel wanted and feel womanly. I want you in me now, Ander!” Who am I do disappoint my wife?

  I slam into her in one swift motion, drawing moans of pleasure and pain from both of us. Knowing Lola is home, we want to finish fast so we both work her, her playing with her clit and me setting a fast pace. When we come, it is together.

  Leire turns around and gently holds my face. “Thank you for reminding me I am still alive. That I still have things to live for and strive for, like you and Lola and this baby. Thank you for showing me that life is still life, sick or not, and that it continues on. But, most of all, thank you for loving me so completely.”

  She kisses me gently and pulls her pants on, knowing she is just smearing my come on her clothing and legs. After she is dressed, she winks, kisses me again, and smiles the first smile I have seen since we had sex on the beach. I have made her smile and it is the greatest feeling in the world.

  I go inside and, seeing Lola and Leire talking quietly, I head to my office. I need a way to come up with thousands of dollars, but as a tattoo artist, this is nearly impossible. I start by calling Cora and Wyatt, telling them I’m hol
ding an emergency meeting in the morning to see what ideas the team can come up with. Then I go out to my family, hold them close, and watch a movie together. I am going to enjoy the simple things more now. Holding both Lola and Leire close, my hand on Leire’s stomach, it doesn’t matter what the movie is. I don’t even think I notice.

  LEIRE

  On the outside, I am a mask of calm. But inside, I am in hell. I am trapped in my body by a baby I just can’t bring myself to kill to save myself. I know the odds of saving myself at the end are slim, but at least Ander will have his child. I hope he will love this little baby with the love he has shown me. He is my rock. I know he is in his den trying to find a way to fight an un-fightable disease.

  So I lounge around, talking to the baby and cleaning what I can. I need something to keep my mind off the waiting. We have approximately four more months to go before the baby can be born. They want to do a cesarean at thirty-two weeks, and when Ander and I went in, I was about four months pregnant. This means I have a little time to get things together for the baby.

  Getting an idea, I grab the keys and run to a local paper store and buy some beautiful blank books. I also buy some random cute cards…just because. I am going to write to my baby. I call the doctor and find a place that offers pedicures with a 3-D picture so I can see who I am talking to, then call them and make an appointment. I leave Ander a message saying I have some errands to run. What is he going to do? Punish me? The thought sends thrills through my body. I hope he is still attracted to my body. God knows that after treatment, he won’t be able to be near me. I will be so gross.