The Space Between Us

by Anie Michaels

  Then Charles became ill. The illness, the cancer, didn’t go away as we originally hoped. And once we accepted that the cancer would, in the end, take him from this life, we started planning. I’d never planned for anyone’s death before, but Charles was adamant that she wouldn’t be burdened with another parent’s death due to cancer. He made decisions, and even though I didn’t agree with all of them, I honored them. Who was I to argue with a dying man? His choice, to not tell her he was dying, was something I struggled with. I tried, over and over, to convince him that she would want to know. That she would want to spend as much time with him as she could.

  “To do what? To watch me die? She did that with her mother and I watched it ruin her. I watched her sit next to her mother as she withered away. I saw what it did to my Charlie and I won’t have her go through that again. She doesn’t need to know.”

  Charles was a hard man to persuade. I’d done it a few times in my life, when I was younger, trying to convince him to let me date his daughter, to take her away for a weekend, to sleep in her bed when we were home for breaks from college. But I couldn’t convince him to tell his daughter he was dying. He knew what I knew. That she would be at his bedside, crying and remembering her mother, crying and mourning her father, and breaking on the inside. He didn’t want that for her. I understood.

  “I love her, Mr. McBride.” I hadn’t called him that in years, but it felt right at that moment. I felt like I was fifteen again, asking him in his living room if I could please be his daughter’s boyfriend. That was the first time I admitted, out loud, that I loved her. And it remained true since then. “I love her and I always will. I will do everything to make sure she is taken care of. You don’t have to worry and you don’t have to hang on.”

  I felt the slightest pressure on my hand as his fingers gripped mine in the faintest way, the way you would imagine a man on death’s door would squeeze your hand.

  “I promise. I will take care of her.”

  I saw his chest rise, then fall, and then rest. The beeping of the machine slowed, his heart rate dropped, crawled, stilled. Rachel came in to make the machine stop its slowing, dragging beeping, and I watched as the monitors went blank.

  I found myself, an hour later, sitting in my car outside of a house I never thought I’d visit again, not until a couple months ago anyway. This was one place I avoided, one person I avoided. I knew, from the beginning, when I stood by Charles as his only ally in death, that this was the next step. I knew it was coming, but it didn’t make it any easier. I walked slowly to the red wooden door of the house. I gathered my courage and finally knocked. I heard footsteps from inside the house quickening, like my heart rate, as they neared. It pulled open and I was face to face with a piece of my past.

  Chapter Two

  Asher

  “Hello, Reeve.” I watched as her face moved from the pleasant look you plaster on your face when you answer your door, to the anger and annoyance that came naturally to Reeve when she encountered me. It had been quite a long time since we’d seen each other, since she told me frankly to “Fuck off” back in college. She was a loyal friend and that was what I was counting on when I showed up on her doorstep.

  “What are you doing here, Asher? How did you find out where I live?”

  “It’s a matter of public record. And it’s a small town, Reeve.”

  “What do you want?” She was just as icy as she was before and with good reason.

  “Can I come in?” I asked, hopefully, not wanting to have this conversation on the porch.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Mom, who is that man?” A little girl had poked her head between the door and Reeve’s hip. She had short blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Reeve bent down and put herself at eye level with her daughter.

  “He’s just someone trying to sell something, Baby. Go back in the living room and keep an eye on your brother, ok?” The little girl skipped away and I felt the clenching in my chest that I was accustomed to feeling when put face-to-face with children. Reeve stood and turned back to me. “I think you should leave. I have nothing to say to you.” She moved to close the door and I put my foot in the way.

  “It’s about Charlie,” I said, knowing that will catch her attention. I saw her face, clearly contemplating what to do next, and as I expected, her loyalty won out. She creaked the door open and stood back, silently and regretfully inviting me in.

  “You have five minutes.” I nodded, knowing I’d need more than that, but I’d take the five to begin with. She led me into her kitchen and motioned for me to take a seat at the table. She didn’t offer me something to eat. She didn’t ask me if I wanted some water. She just sat and stared at me expectantly.

  “Mr. McBride passed away about an hour ago.” Immediately her frosty demeanor melted away as her hand came to cover her mouth.

  “What?” She whispered.

  “Yes. He died at Willow Falls Memorial Hospital about an hour ago due to complications of bone cancer.” I watched as a tear fell from her left eye as I coldly told her about the death of a man we all regarded as one of the best on the planet. Inside, I was just as upset about his passing as she was, but I couldn’t show it. Right now, I wasn’t Asher, childhood friend of Reeve. I was Mr. Carmichael, lawyer and representative of Charles McBride.

  “Does Charlie know?” She asked through a broken sob.

  I nodded. “Someone from my office should be calling her shortly.

  “Calling her? She wasn’t there?”

  “She didn’t know. Mr. McBride had very specific wishes and Ms. McBride wasn’t informed of his condition.”

  “Ms. McBride? What the hell is wrong with you Asher? Her name is Charlie.”

  I ignored her comment. I knew it seemed like I was being an ass, but I didn’t know how else to act in the moment. I didn’t know how to be all the people I was at the same time. I couldn’t be friend, enemy, ex-boyfriend, lawyer and man completely torn apart all at once. I had to pick one and stick with it, so I chose lawyer.

  “Mr. McBride wanted to make sure that Ms. McBride wasn’t alone, so I am here to make sure that you will make yourself available to her at his service, but most importantly at the reading of his will. Mr. McBride was afraid that she wouldn’t contact you, so I am here to make sure that if you don’t receive a call from her that you are aware of the times of the service and the reading.” I paused and looked down at my hands. “He thought she might not reach out to anyone. That she might close up again and he wanted me to make sure you were there for her, that someone was there for her.”

  “Close up again? Damn it, Asher, she hasn’t opened up from the last time.”

  That tiny piece of information was like salt in a wound, but also like a sip of water in a desert. I was thirsty for information about her, desperate to know any tiny bit of information I could gather and I had been since the last time I saw her that day. But hearing that she was closed up, like a flower refusing to bloom, burned going down – stung like guilt.

  “Someone from my office will contact you with the exact date and times of the service and the reading. Can you agree to be at both?”

  “Yes. Of course I will be there. Will you be there too?” I looked her in the eyes for a moment, willing myself to be honest with her, to tell her that I would be there in an instant if I thought it was what Charlie wanted, but I knew better.

  “It was nice seeing you again, Reeve. You have a beautiful daughter.” I stood and walked through her door and out to my car without looking back. I started my car and drove to my place, purposefully avoiding the neighborhood that held all the memories burned into my mind. I prepared myself for an agonizing evening, and thought I might as well get some bourbon to ease the ache growing in my heart. My throat already burned from hearing her name on someone else’s lips, from hearing about how still, after all these years, she was still not the same person she had been before I had ruined everything. If I was going to burn from the inside out, I might as
well get drunk while it happened.

  Chapter Three

  Charlie

  I routinely tried not to study myself in the mirror. I never liked what I saw. Unfortunately, I found myself to be less in control than I would wish. So, here I sat, at my expensive vanity, in my expensive bedroom, of my expensive New York City apartment that overlooked Central Park, and all I could see was emptiness. But I didn’t want to see anything else anyway. I didn’t want to feel anything. Because, when I felt something, it was usually pain.

  I’m sure to everyone else I looked normal, maybe even happy. But I knew better.

  I picked up the big brush from the table top and used it to paint color on my cheeks, to fool everyone around me into thinking that my heart worked well enough to pump blood throughout my body, to make my cheeks this color. It didn’t though. My heart hadn’t worked in a long time. It was a miracle I was even here, breathing this air, existing in this world.

  “You ready to go, Bit?”

  My lungs stopped working, the air in them froze like blocks of ice. My throat closed up, the lights in the room dimmed. The brush in my hand fell with a loud bang onto the vanity again.

  He must have noticed my distress, because he came running into the room, his hands cupping my face.

  “Charlie, what’s happening? Are you ok?”

  I grabbed his hands and looked into his eyes, trying to remind my lungs how to work properly. “Why did you call me that?” I managed to gasp at him, holding tears back.

  “Call you what? Charlie?” He said, looking fully and truly confused.

  “No. Bit,” I cried, shocked by the pain it caused to even say the word. He continued to look confused, his brows crinkled together at the center of his face. Then they relaxed and I saw realization come over him.

  “I asked if you were going to be ready to go in a little bit.” He said softly. I finally realized what he had actually said and then I let the hurt wash over me. I allowed myself, as I had time and time again, to lean into David and use him as a receptacle for my sadness. He held me close to him, my face buried in his stomach, my tears staining his dress shirt which he would now have to change. But that wasn’t unlike him, he always changed for me – changed his plans, changed his mind, changed his life.

  When we met, he’d had so many plans for life. He was a successful doctor, moving up in the medical society of New York City, making a name for himself. He’d seen me and I knew he wanted me. I recognized when men wanted me. He wanted a wife, a mother for his future children, and he saw that it me, like many had. I was aware of how I looked on the outside and what I really was on the inside. It was more difficult for others to see what I wouldn’t show them. David, however, was the only one who got this close to me. Selfishly, I haven’t been able to let him loose.

  I couldn’t give him what he wanted, but didn’t push him away either. He thought that eventually I would “come around”, that I would marry him, give him children. I knew better and I told him so, but if I were a good person, I’d leave him. He was so good, so hopeful, so wonderful. And I couldn’t let him go.

  So like many times before, I let him comfort me and lied to him about the source of my sadness.

  “What happened just then?” He asked softly, after I had calmed down. I pulled back from him, wiping my face with my hands. I couldn’t look in his eyes as I lied to him. I never could.

  “That was the nickname Asher use to call me,” I said quietly, still trying to keep calm.

  “Bit?” He asked, curiously. It pained me to hear it, physically hurt me. All my muscles cramped up, my throat constricted. I nodded, trying to catch my breath. “That’s a weird nickname.” I let his comment float between us because I had no need or want to explain it to him. “How long ago did he die again?” I closed my eyes and turned from him.

  “Thirteen years ago.”

  I stood with my hands on the vanity, my head hanging between my shoulders, exhausted from everything that happened in the last five minutes. I felt David come up behind me and place his hands on my arms, brushing his palms up and down, trying to comfort me. Then his hand came down to the bare skin of my rib cage, just above my waist. He ran his hand along the tattoo I had done years before I met him. He softly caressed the letters that were forever scarred on me.

  “Are you still thinking of having this removed?” That was another lie I told him, that I was thinking of having it removed. I would never get rid of it. I didn’t want to. I wanted to see his name on me. I wanted to be reminded of everything. I wanted some part of him on my naked skin at all times, regardless of how sick and twisted it was. I needed it. But that’s not what David saw.

  “Does it bother you?” It should. It should bother him to see another man’s name tattooed on his girlfriend. It wasn’t small either. It ran along my entire side. It was beautiful.

  “I know he was your childhood friend and that you were traumatized by his death, but if you feel like you need the tattoo removed, I would understand and support you.” This was his niceness coming through again. He would never tell me how much it bothered him to see it on me. He would always say the right thing.

  “I’m still thinking about it.” Lies.

  Most of what I had with David was founded on lies, but they were necessary to make it work. According to the lies I told David, Asher was simply a childhood friend who died tragically in a car accident my sophomore year of college. According to my lies, Asher was my best friend and then was taken from me suddenly and unexpectedly. According to my lies, I never really recovered. So, the lies weren’t all lies. He was taken from me suddenly and unexpectedly, and I hadn’t ever recovered from it, but he wasn’t my friend. He was my everything, and I was fully aware the way I held on to him, even all these years later, was unhealthy and mostly sick. I didn’t care enough about myself though to fix anything.

  David gently kissed my temple, trying to sooth me. I saw his eyes meet mine in the mirror of the vanity and I watched as his mouth kissed down the side of my face, over my cheek, behind my ear. I watched as his lips moved to leave wet, open-mouthed kisses along my neck. I closed my eyes and leaned back into him, and I knew what it looked like to him. I knew he thought I was giving myself over to him, letting him make love to me to make me feel better, to feel close to him. He thought I was closing my eyes from pleasure. Lies. I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to see him anymore. I didn’t want to see him, I didn’t want him to see me and I definitely didn’t want to feel anything. No pleasure. No joy. No love. Nothing.

  His hands moved my bra straps off my shoulders and pushed them down to my elbows. I felt him pull the fabric down, releasing my breasts. His hands cupped me, squeezed me, and I pushed out the obligatory sigh that was expected of me. Lies. His hands moved over me, feeling my arms, my back, my ass, but as his hands floated over my belly I grabbed them and pushed them back to my breasts. I never let him touch my stomach. I never let anyone touch my stomach. I could never tell him why though; I didn’t have a good excuse. The truth was not something I wanted to share with him or anyone.

  He spun me around and his hands grazed down my back, his fingers sliding between the material of my panties and my skin, pushing them over the roundness of my ass.

  “What about the fundraiser?” I asked between his kisses, not really in the mood to pretend to enjoy myself.

  “We can be fashionably late,” he mumbled between my breasts. I gave in, because I always gave in. It was easier to give in than to answer questions or make up excuses.

  He pulled one of my nipples into his mouth and I knew I should feel something, but I didn’t. I heard my phone ringing across the room and moved to answer it. His fingers tightened their grasp on my hips. “Let it ring,” he said around my nipple in his mouth. I conceded and ran my fingers through his hair, going through the motions, hoping he’d buy it. When my phone started ringing again, I heard him sigh against my skin. He stepped away from me and I hurried to my phone, pretending to be affronted.

  I didn
’t recognize the number, but it’s local to Willow Falls so my heart rate peaked and I answered with a little break in my voice, wondering who it could be. “Hello?”

  “May I please speak with Ms. Charlie McBride?”

  “This is she,” I said as I pulled my bathrobe over my body.

  “Hello Ms. McBride. I am calling on behalf of the estate of Mr. Charles McBride. My name is Phillip Libman. Do you have a moment?”

  I was confused by the things he said, words that made me nervous. Why would he represent my father’s “estate”? “Um, I’m free to talk now, yes.”

  “Ms. McBride I am sorry to be the one to tell you that your father passed away this afternoon.”

  My first instinct was to laugh, so that’s what I did. I chuckled a little. Obviously, he called the wrong number. “No, there’s been a mistake. You must have the wrong person. My father is fine.”

  “Ms. McBride, I know this comes as a shock and I feel terrible to tell you over the phone, but your father, Charles McBride, passed away this afternoon from complications of bone cancer.”

  “My father didn’t have cancer. You’re mistaken.” Now I was angry. How dare this person call me and tell me my father died. David came to stand beside me, his hand on my shoulder, his eyes worried.

  “Charlie, did your father live at 5280 Pine Grove Drive in Willow Falls?”

  My heart faltered a little, skipped a beat or two. “Yes.”

  “Are you Charlie McBride, born to Charles and Anna McBride?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m so sorry. There’s no mistake.”

  “He wasn’t even sick,” I whispered as I fell back onto the bench of the vanity.

  “Can you come to Willow Falls as soon as possible? We have a lot to discuss with you.”

  I handed the phone to David and let him take down all the important information. He walked around, collecting pen and paper, writing things down, saying things to the man on the phone who told me my dad had died today.