Fragile Bonds

by Sloan Johnson

  She reaches for my hand, not pushing me to talk when I shake my head. How can I tell Mel that I love her, and then later the same day be so upset about Alyssa? How is that fair to Mel? We sit in the darkness, listening to the sounds of the night surrounding us. “Stay with me tonight?”

  “Of course,” Mel responds without hesitation.

  She stands, never letting go of my hand. We walk into the apartment and straight to the bedroom. As much as I would love to feel her bare flesh pressed against mine, I know there’s no way I will be able to avoid temptation if she’s naked. I pull a t-shirt out of my top dresser drawer and turn away while she changes.

  “I’m sorry, Mel,” I sigh as we both turn to face one another in the bed. “I don’t want you to doubt me when I tell you how much I love you, but today’s one of those days I miss her.”

  She cups my face in her hands, moving close enough that she can just barely brush her lips against mine. “It’s okay. I knew there would be times that her absence is so strong we can all feel it. I don’t want either of you to think you can’t talk about her when I’m around. You miss her because you love her, too. I get it.”

  Mel rolls over to turn off the light beside the bed. “I love you, Xavier. Tonight might not be the best time for me to tell you that, but you need to know. And even if you still have nights like tonight a decade from now, it won’t make me love you any less.”

  Before I can find my voice to respond, Mel turns away from me, curling her back against my body. It’s not the way I envisioned our first night sharing a bed, but in some ways, it couldn’t be any more perfect.

  Chapter 20

  I wake up early in the morning, my body covered in a thin sheen of sweat and the weight of an arm across my stomach preventing me from moving. A lazy smile creeps onto my face as I turn my head to see Xavier still sound asleep next to me. I’m so focused on how peaceful he looks, I’m surprised when I feel the edge of the bed dip as I’m tackled by a little boy with messy brown hair.

  “You stayed!” Jacob squeals as he lands on top of me. I should have gone home last night! Now, I have to figure out how to explain my presence in Xavier’s bed to Jacob, who seems a bit too excited to see me this morning.

  “I did,” I whisper, pulling him onto my chest as Xavier rolls away. I know he hasn’t been sleeping well lately, so I’m hoping we can sneak out of the bedroom and let him stay here for a while. “Did you sleep well last night?”

  Jacob nods, squirming to try to free himself from my grasp. I look over the edge of the bed and see Brody pawing at the comforter, trying to join us. Knowing that will mean a certain end to Xavier’s slumber, I set Jacob on the floor and swing my feet over the edge of the bed. I see Jacob look at my bare legs as I get out of bed and I tug on the hem of my t-shirt. I quietly open the dresser drawers until I find a pair of sweatpants so I’m not so exposed. “Let’s go get some breakfast and let Daddy sleep, okay?”

  He places his little hand in mine and we head to the kitchen. “Why did you sleep in my daddy’s bed last night?” Jacob asks as I start cracking eggs into a bowl. Of course it was too much to hope for that he wouldn’t be curious.

  “I was really tired last night, so your daddy said I could sleep there. That way I wasn’t sore this morning from sleeping on the couch.” I’m not counting on this being enough of an excuse to appease Jacob, but it’s the only thing I can come up with before coffee. And I’m surely not going to tell him that his dad was having a bad night and asked me to stay with him. Or that I couldn’t stand the pain I saw on Xavier’s face and there was no way I could leave him.

  “You could have slept in my bed, too,” Jacob offers, wrapping his arms around my legs. “Daddy told me it’s okay for me to love you.”

  My knees threaten to buckle at his statement. Not because Jacob loves me, because I have no doubt that we have a nearly unbreakable bond, but because he felt the need to ask if it was okay to love me. It’s a reminder that I’m not his mother and that he is still grieving her loss. I’m the stand-in to him, the woman he wants to love him because his own mother will never be around for those moments again.

  I slide down the face of the lower cabinets until I’m sitting on the kitchen floor, reaching to bring Jacob into my lap. Holding his face close to my chest, the tears begin to fall. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m hurting them more than I’m helping, by allowing them to ignore the pain that is necessary for them to live healthy lives without Alyssa.

  “Melly, why are you crying?” he asks, his voice filled with innocent concern.

  I shouldn’t be here. Jacob is a good boy who should have had his mom here to make his chocolate cake and birthday dinner. She should have been the one wishing him a happy birthday. Alyssa should be the one making him breakfast this morning. Death has always been a part of life for me, especially when I was working for CompCare, but holding Jacob in my arms, I’m no longer able to see the objective side of death being something we’re all going to face someday. Someday is supposed to come when we’re old and gray, after we’ve watched our children grow up, get married and have kids of their own. No child should have to go through life wondering if it’s okay to get close to someone or if it’s a betrayal of their dead parent’s memory.

  “I miss your mommy sometimes,” I tell him. It’s my roundabout way of reminding him, again, that I don’t ever want him to think that I’m replacing Alyssa. He and his father also need to know that I’m not offering lip service when I tell them it’s okay to talk about her. And I do miss her. She may not have been part of my life for very long, but she left definite impressions on my heart and I do feel her loss every single day. It’s the reason I’m no longer with the agency. I can’t risk getting this close to another patient because I’m not sure I would be able to survive that loss.

  “You do?” Jacob leans back so he can look at me. His eyes glisten with tears as he studies my face. “Daddy said she asked you to make sure we’re not sad.”

  Every time Jacob opens his mouth, it feels like another fifty pound bag of sand landing on my heart. Each weight making me less certain that what Xavier and I are doing is healthy for any of us. I know I made a promise to Alyssa, but that doesn’t mean I have to be the replacement wife or mother, and at this moment, I’m not sure I will ever get past the feeling that I will always be second best to both of them.

  “She was very worried about both of you.” I’ve always been someone who knows what to say, without much thought as to how it’s going to be received, but this morning the words fail me. I feel as if I’m standing in the center of an emotional minefield and one wrong step will shatter the progress we’ve made with Jacob’s moods and bad dreams. “Your mommy loved you very, very much. You know that, right?”

  “Yeah, she told me she would always love me, even when I can’t see her.”

  “That’s right,” I confirm for him. “And that’s why she talked to me and asked me to do certain things so you will always know how much you meant to her. Your mommy didn’t want to leave you alone, but she was very sick.”

  “And now she’s my angel watching over me. That’s what Unca Braydon says. Is that true?” I let out a deep breath, silently thanking Braydon. I never pictured him as being the type of man to sit down and have deep conversations with a little boy, especially explaining how those we love become our angels once they’re gone. Why hadn’t I thought of that one?

  “He is right. Everywhere you go, for the rest of your life, your mommy will be watching over you.” I squeeze him tighter, wondering if I’m strong enough to live in the darkness created by Alyssa’s shadow for the rest of my life.

  “Even when I’m going pee?” Jacob giggles, breaking me out of the depression closing in around me.

  “No, I think she’ll give you privacy when you’re in the bathroom,” I laugh. The best thing I could do for Xavier and Jacob is pull away so they can heal and we can all move forward knowing it’s for the right reasons. If Xavier and I are meant to be together, we will be,
but only when the time is right. The problem is, I don’t think I could put even an inch between us without feeling the loss. “Should we finish making breakfast and take it in to your daddy?”

  Jacob jumps off my lap and pulls a bag of grapes out of the fridge. While I scramble the eggs, he works diligently to pull the biggest grapes off the bunch, placing them in a bowl to be washed. We work side by side, the entire time I’m chastising myself for wondering if he spent time in the kitchen like this with Alyssa before she got sick. Even if Xavier and Jacob are both able to love me for who I am, will I ever stop making these comparisons in my own head?

  I’ve been lying in my bed, wide awake, since Jacob came in and started jumping around. More than anything, I wanted to open my eyes and watch Mel interacting with him, but I didn’t want to ruin the moment. There’s a certain purity when the two of them are together, but I’ve seen them try to hide the connection they share when they know I’m watching.

  I also didn’t want to give myself false hope that this could be the way it is for us every morning. Her body next to mine last night was exactly what I needed at the time, but I’m consumed with guilt this morning. I used her. I did the one thing I promised both of us I wouldn’t do and begged her to stay with me, knowing she would do it, all because I needed something to replace the void in my chest. Just having Melanie close to me makes life better. It’s cliché and makes me feel weak to admit, but she has been my lifeline more times than she should have had to be.

  In the harsh light of day, I’m bombarded with doubt. I’ve always prided myself on being in control of my life, but for longer than I care to admit, that grip has been slipping away from me. I’m retracing every decision I made that has led me to where I am and I’m not sure how to feel about everything. It’s much deeper than the decisions of the past few months. I pull the covers tighter over my chest as I think about all the ways I failed Melanie when we were younger. The way I stopped caring what happened to me after she left. I was the king of assholes during that time in my life, using any woman I could get my hands on as a way to satisfy my primal urges without allowing myself to get close to anyone. I didn’t want intimacy. I couldn’t have the comfort of another human being because I knew, even though I wasn’t allowed to speak to her, that I had taken a piece of Melanie that was sacred.

  Alyssa was originally one such arrangement. She was a decent enough person, but never the type of woman I would settle down with, even if I was looking for that. Her body was fit without looking like she obsessed over every calorie that passed her lips or how many minutes she spent in the gym daily. She was low maintenance and always up for a good time. By the time she showed up at my door, pregnant, I was growing bored with her. I was angry with her, accused her more than once of tampering with the condom, which is ludicrous seeing as I never trusted a woman to deal with the only barrier guarding my precious freedom.

  No matter how much Alyssa told me she saw the changes in me after her first diagnosis, I’ve always wondered if I would have made them if not for the fact I thought she was going to die. The past few years have showed me that traumatic life changes make people do things they wouldn’t normally. The only thing I know right now is that I’m going to go insane if I don’t figure out a way to know, for myself, that I’m not making rash decisions right now. I owe that to everyone involved in this fucked up situation.

  “What does this mean?” she asks the oncologist, who has just informed us that Alyssa has acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Up until a few minutes ago, I wasn’t even aware that there were different types of leukemia. “I mean, is there anything you can do? Jacob and Xavier need me, so I want to do whatever I can to fight this.”

  For the past few months, I’ve watched Alyssa struggle to take care of the day-to-day needs of the house while battling persistent headaches. Instead of using Jacob’s nap times to catch up on housework, she has been curling up on the couch and going to sleep. And being the asshole that I am, I’ve spent three months in a state of constant annoyance at her laziness. I don’t require much from her in exchange for the luxury of being a stay-at-home mom, but I do expect her to do all of the things most mothers would do, including cooking and cleaning while I’m at work.

  As I watch her pepper the doctor with questions, trying to find out how she can come through the other side of this as a cancer survivor, I’m struck by her strength. Not once during the time since she started to feel sick has she tried to make excuses for work not being done. She has simply apologized to me. That should have been a huge sign to me that something was off, but I was too self-absorbed to see it.

  The oncologist sits talking about five-year survival rates and treatment options, but I don’t hear what he’s saying. I’m too busy watching Alyssa, admiring the determination in her features. It’s pretty twisted that it has taken something like this to open my eyes to the type of woman she truly is.

  “Daddy, we made you breakfast!” I’m pulled from my thoughts by my son jumping onto my side of the bed. Behind him, Melanie is carrying a tray with coffee, eggs, toast and a bowl of grapes. “She spent the night! Do you know what that means?”

  I look to Melanie and see the concern I feel mirrored back at me in her features. Even with a deeply furrowed brow and the corner of her lower lip drawn between her teeth, my breath catches at the sight of her. She’s always beautiful, but as Jacob just pointed out, this is the first time she’s spent the night in the same bed, and that somehow changes things. We all know it, but I’m most nervous about how Jacob thinks the relationship has changed.

  “What does it mean, buddy?” I ask, settling him against my hip. Melanie leans down to place a chaste kiss on my lips as I take my breakfast from her. We both look to Jacob to see if he saw the brief exchange, but he seems unphased. “You didn’t have to do this,” I whisper, my already wandering mind recalling memories of mornings when she used to bring breakfast into the bedroom, giving us both the fuel we needed for a day filled with sex and other darker activities.

  "I know,” she responds sweetly. She pushes her way onto the bed and I’m sandwiched between two of the most important people in my life. I won’t admit that there’s still a piece of me wishing it was Alyssa pressed against my side. “I’m sorry, Jacob, were you saying something?”

  “It’s nothing important,” he says with a wide grin. There’s something turning in his mind, but fear keeps me from trying to force him to speak. After our conversation last night and the bits and pieces of his talk with Melanie that I overheard this morning, I’m not ready to hear what he has to say. Just like his father, Jacob is filling the void left by Alyssa’s absence. Would he feel that same need if it was a different female in his life or is it because it’s Melanie that he has allowed himself to grow so attached? “Daddy, are you taking me to school this morning?”

  I glance at the clock, seeing that it’s just after eight o’clock. I’m supposed to be meeting with Braydon in an hour to finalize the paperwork and discuss who is going to take on which responsibilities within the club. He had offered to let me take some time after leaving Infinity to spend the end of the summer with Jacob and Melanie, but I can’t do that. I need the stability and structure offered by having a job to go to every day. “Melanie, I hate to ask, but could you take him? I have to jump in the shower and then I have to meet up with Braydon.”

  “Of course! You do what you have to do and I’ll take care of him.” Jacob starts giggling on my other side, causing both of us to stare at him. “What’s so funny over there?” Melanie asks, reaching across my body to tickle him.

  My traitorous body stirs to life as her forearm brushes against my hips. I lift Jacob’s body off the bed so I can make my escape without asking Melanie to move. If I face her, she’s going to know exactly what’s going through my mind right now.

  “Okay, your dad is gone, so now you can tell me what’s got you so happy this morning,” I hear Melanie say as I close myself in the bathroom. I lean against the sheet of oak, straining to hear th
e conversation on the other side of the door.

  “I’m happy because you stayed with us last night, silly!” There’s more giggling and I know they’re wrestling around on the bed. I’m beginning to regret telling Braydon I would meet up with him and contemplate calling to tell him I’ve reconsidered, but I can’t do that to him. His partner has already signed his part of the paperwork and skipped town, supposedly chasing after a woman he swears is his soul mate, and Braydon can’t handle everything at the club on his own.

  “I’ve spent the night with you a lot of times. Why are you so happy about last night?” she asks innocently. She’s a smart woman, so I’m not sure how she hasn’t figured out that she just pulled the pin on a grenade.

  “Because it means birthday wishes really do come true!” Even muffled by the door, I hear Melanie’s audible gasp as she begins to see where this conversation is headed.

  “And what was your wish?” she asks, very tentatively. I reach for the door knob, ready to give up on the idea of showering so I’m there for the rest of this conversation. Even though she can handle just about anything Jacob throws her way, this feels like one of those times she needs both of us. I peek my head out the door and see her looking over Jacob’s body, shaking her head at me. I cock an eyebrow, silently asking if she’s sure and she nods. I close the door and continue eavesdropping. Knowing that she’s wants to have this uncomfortable conversation with him one-on-one means more than she’ll ever know. I might not have clarity of my own intentions when it comes to Melanie, but I have no doubt she truly loves my son and that’s what really matters.

  “I wished that you could stay with us so I can have a mommy again,” he says matter-of-factly. “I don’t have a mommy anymore and I think my daddy really likes you, and I do too, so I want you to be my new mommy.”