The Space Beyond (The Book of Phoenix)

by Kristie Cook

  “Damn, Bex, you look good in a thong. Turn back around,” he said while he began unbuttoning his shirt.

  When I did, I stepped forward to help him, but he shook his head, already done. He slid his shirt off and then his undershirt. I reached out to touch his chiseled chest, wanting to lick his ink, but he grabbed my wrist and yanked my arm down.

  “On your knees,” he said.

  I looked at him with a smile playing on my lips.

  “On your knees,” he ordered again.

  “As you wish, Mason,” I said as I dropped to my knees.

  He smiled down at me and brought my hand to the bulge in his pants, making me rub it.

  “Release my cock,” he said, and I undid his buckle and the button and pulled down his pants and boxer-briefs together so that he sprang out at my face. His fingers brushed across my lips, then slid inside, and I sucked them for a moment before he used them to open my mouth wider. At the same time, his other hand clasped the back of my head and pulled me closer to him, so I had no choice but to wrap my lips around him and take him in. “Fuck me with your mouth, Bex.”

  And hearing him moan, feeling him tremble, knowing I was making him lose control now, that I could bring him to this … it made being a little submissive worth it. His returning of the favor made it worth it, too. When he was satisfied, he lifted me up to the counter, not complaining now about my ass being on it, and played with my tits before dropping to his own knees and spreading my legs wide. I couldn’t help but look at the window, gazing at our reflection and wondering if anyone else was watching, too. Just in case, I did everything to make it a great show, especially when he sprawled me on my stomach across the café table right in front of the window as he entered me from behind and pounded until he collapsed on top of me, both of us trembling.

  “I love you exactly as you are,” he whispered in my ear afterward, sending an aftershock down my spine.

  My days may have been boring as hell, but sex with Mason made up for it all.

  Now, I sat on the couch at Mason’s immaculate condo, the remote in one hand, and my other one rubbing between my legs, teasing myself while I wished he was home. I thought about making a mess just so I could have something to do by cleaning it up. Daytime TV bored me. Arts and crafts were never my thing, and what would have been the point? Mason had thrown a bit of a hissy fit when he saw some of my things out, decorating this place and making it look more like a home. Turned out, it was a silly matter—he said he felt like my angels were staring at him, making him feel guilty for even touching me in an inappropriate way. Even so, if I were to bother making something with my own two hands and he threw another fit, I’d probably punch him.

  I tossed the remote on the coffee table and glanced at the clock for the sixtieth time in an hour. Yep, I’d caught it at every single minute. And there were still another ninety-eight minutes to go before Mason should be home. I’d already done the prep work for dinner, so I had eighty-eight minutes to spare before I needed to start cooking. Mason didn’t like eating the minute he arrived home, needing time to wash off the ickiness of his day first. Sissy hadn’t answered her phone the last time I called, so I couldn’t even kill time talking to her.

  I flopped sideways onto the hard couch, rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling. I could never be a housewife. I’d lose my damn mind.

  I thought about letting my mind wander into another daydream, maybe finish rubbing one out, but that didn’t even sound good compared to the real thing. I wanted to be hot and achy for him. Eighty-seven minutes, I thought with a sigh, my groin already throbbing. Hmm … I wondered if Mason would freak out if I made and served him dinner wearing nothing but an apron. We’d had sex in the kitchen, after all, although we’d spent an hour afterward bleaching everything. No food had been out, though, and how would he react to my naked hooha so close to his dinner?

  My cell phone rang, making me jump.

  “Sissy,” I said, a little excitedly when I answered. “I’m so—”

  “Bex,” she interrupted with panic in her voice, “you need to get to the hospital immediately.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Mama’s bad, and they’re taking her in the ambulance now. Call Mason, okay?”

  She hung up without another word. I shot off the couch, ran for my shoes and purse and then for the door while dialing Mason. His voicemail greeted me.

  We lived only a few minutes from the hospital, and I arrived there right before the ambulance pulled into the emergency bay. When I tried to follow them inside, though, they shooed me out, telling me to go around to the front desk and start the paperwork. The middle-aged brunette at the desk handed me a clipboard at the same time Sissy came running through the doors.

  “What happened?” I asked her as she threw her arms around me.

  Sissy stepped back and wiped at her cheeks. “She had a rough night last night, barfin’ every time she ate or drank anything, and she just kept gettin’ worse today. The last couple of times she ralphed, it was blood.”

  “Ohmagosh.” I took her hand and pulled her into the waiting room with its pale blue walls and lines of blue vinyl-covered chairs. The obligatory TV in the upper corner of the room showed the weather. We sat in the first two seats we came to—only one other person sat in the corner, his crossed arms resting on his round belly and his head lolled to the side as he snored. Hopefully the empty waiting room meant the ER wasn’t overly busy inside.

  “It’s not the first time there’s been blood,” Sissy said. “It happened a few months ago, when I first started helping her? The doctors said she’d probably irritated her stomach or esophagus linin’. But, Bex … today it was nothin’ but blood. Loads of it, like she was a damn vampire and just sucked someone dry or somethin’. The home nurse Mason hired doesn’t come today, so I was by myself. It was scary as shit.”

  I slid my arm over her shoulders and pulled her close to me—as close as we could get with the chair’s arm between us. She tucked her face into my neck and began to shake with sobs. I stuck the clipboard between my hip and the chair and wrapped my other arm around her.

  “This is bad, Bex,” she said between sobs. “I feel it in my bones.”

  “Shh,” I soothed as my hand stroked up and down her back. “No jumpin’ to conclusions. Let the doctors do their thing. Mason will do whatever it takes.”

  She sniffled and drew in a ragged breath. “Is he here?”

  “He’s here at the hospital. I got his voicemail, but surely they paged him down to the ER since his patient is here.”

  After Sissy calmed down, I filled out the paperwork with her help and gave the clipboard back to the woman at the front desk. She wasn’t able to give me any news. We waited for what could have been minutes but felt like hours … or days. So many times I was tempted to call Mason again, but if he was busy with Mama, I didn’t want to interrupt him. Finally, someone came through the double doors and called our last name. Sissy and I hurried over to the motherly woman dressed in scrubs with cartoon zombies all over them. She had a messed up sense of humor.

  “We’ve stabilized your mother,” she said, “and they’re taking her to the ICU now.”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Is she going to be okay?” Sissy asked at the same time.

  “I can’t tell you any more than that. Her doctors will come talk to you when they can. ICU’s on the second floor.”

  We had a few more papers to sign, and then we hurried to the elevator and the second floor, only to find ourselves a few minutes later waiting in another room, this one called a family room. The space was much smaller than the one downstairs, pale green instead of blue, and with only a few chairs and a door to close for privacy. I couldn’t help but imagine how many times a day doctors walked through that door to say, “We did everything we could.” Were we the next fami
ly to hear those words? How would I react if we were? Mama’s and my relationship was still rocky at best. I didn’t know anymore if more time—whether days or years—would improve it. But that didn’t mean I was ready to say goodbye forever, either.

  When an older man with gray hair curling around his paper hat and wearing blue scrubs approached the door, my lungs froze mid-breath. Another man jogged up behind him, this one younger, probably in his late thirties. They exchanged a few words before opening the door. Where was Mason?

  A few pleasantries and introductions were made, followed by the older doctor, Dr. Wilcoxson, saying, “Your mother’s in serious condition, but stable. She has some internal bleeding, but we’re not sure where yet. We’re going to keep her in the ICU overnight for close observation. If she remains stabilized, we can discuss options tomorrow. We may have to go in for surgery.”

  Sissy had all kinds of questions, most of which I didn’t understand and they didn’t know how to answer. They just kept saying Mama needed rest and time before they’d have more definitive answers.

  “Where’s Mason?” I finally blurted out.

  The doctors exchanged a look.

  “Who?” Dr. Wilcoxson asked.

  “She means Dr. Hayes, sir,” Sissy said, giving me a dirty look. Shit. I could get Mason in trouble if I showed too much familiarity. “Mason Hayes?”

  “Oh, of course,” the younger man, Dr. Munthe, said. He obviously recognized the name, but his dark brows pushed together, he cocked his balding head and squinted his brown eyes as though confused. “Um, I haven’t seen him in a long time. I guess you’d have to ask his attending. Why?”

  Now Sissy and I did the look-exchanging-thing. Not at the “attending” part because I didn’t know or care what that meant.

  “He’s Mama’s doctor?” I said, unable to mask the sarcasm. “Shouldn’t he be here? Shouldn’t he be the one deciding what to do?”

  Dr. Wilcoxson’s bushy, gray brows pinched together as he looked at Dr. Munthe again.

  “We’re your mother’s doctors,” Dr. Wilcoxson said. “Most people prefer speaking with us than a resident, especially when the condition is this grave and surgery may be involved.”

  “What?” I snipped, thoroughly confused.

  “Oh, I know,” Sissy said, her hand going to her chest. “It’s your office Mama goes to, right?”

  “Yes,” Dr. Wilcoxson said with a nod, his shoulders relaxing. “We’ve been seeing her for a few years. We’d been hoping to avoid where she is now.” He shook his head, and his mouth turned downwards. “She’s a sweet woman, your mother.”

  My eyes popped wide. He couldn’t have been talking about my mama. Maybe that’s where the whole confusion started—these guys had the wrong family.

  Dr. Wilcoxson placed a hand on my shoulder. “She’s confided a lot to me. You’re Bethany, right?” He waited for me to answer, but I could only nod, feeling dazed. “She regrets so much, young lady. She’s had a rough go at it for a while, and we’ve been fighting it together. I’d hoped my son-in-law here, Dr. Munthe, would be able to continue the fight with her long after I retired.”

  “And we will,” Dr. Munthe said. “We won’t let her give up.”

  Sissy moved closer to me and took my hand. “We won’t either,” she said. “Right, Bex?”

  “Yeah. Right,” I murmured distantly, my mind still reeling.

  “We’ll be back in the morning,” Dr. Wilcoxson said, “and see how she’s doing. You two may as well get some rest. There’s nothing to do overnight but pray.”

  “We can’t see her?” Sissy asked.

  “Maybe for a few minutes after she’s settled in,” Dr. Munthe said. “But she really needs her rest.”

  The two doctors left, and Sissy plopped into a chair.

  “You’ve never met them?” I asked as I turned toward her.

  “I did in the beginning, but only for a minute when I’d taken Mama to an appointment. Dr. Wilcoxson had walked her to the waiting room. I don’t remember seeing either of them here last time she was in the hospital, though. It was always Mason and a couple of other younger ones.”

  I dropped into the seat next to her and whipped my phone out of my purse. I dialed Mason’s number, but his recorded voice answered again instead of his real one. I texted him to call me. I crossed my arms over my chest and slung one leg over the other, the top one swinging impatiently. After ten minutes had passed, I texted Mason again. Still no answer.

  Chapter 19

  The clock on the wall ticked by as we waited on both Mason and the nurse to come get us so we could see Mama. Finally at seven-thirty, the nurse came in.

  “One at a time,” he said.

  “You go first,” Sissy said to me. “Then you can go home.”

  I hesitated at the doorway of the dark room where Mama lay unconscious, on a bunch of machines that filled the space with a rhythm of hisses and beeps. With a deep breath of chemical-infused hospital air, I crossed over to her bed. I didn’t know what to do, so I simply stood there, holding her bony hand in mine, my gaze stuck on her bloated stomach that made her look like she had a baby bump. Her skin was yellow with jaundice, and dry and papery, like the outside of an onion, and I was afraid it’d peel off just as easily.

  The nurse had given me ten minutes, and for nine of those minutes I stared at her, stray tears rolling down my cheek as flashes of memories passed through my mind, some good but most of them horrible. A more recent one of a time I’d gone to see her and Sissy came up. Sissy had made a quick run to the store, leaving us alone. I’d been okay with it when she left because Mama had been sleeping, but then she woke up.

  “You know, I’ve been sober for a few years,” she’d told me. “Straight, too. Completely off everything. Been goin’ to those anonymous meetings and all.”

  Several thoughts had run through my mind. I was glad she’d cleaned herself up, but if she had, why didn’t she come back to us? A few years ago meant she could have at least come to each of our graduations. Come to see Grams.

  “It took me a long time to build up the nerve to call ya’ll,” she went on. “I thought ya’ll were better off without me, even if I was clean. Too many hurts there between all us. I reckoned you and Sissy didn’t need me struttin’ back into your lives right when you were startin’ ’em. My sponsor said I needed to, though.” She paused for a long moment, catching her breath. I had nothing to say, because both she and her sponsor were right—we didn’t need her waltzing back into our lives but that didn’t mean she shouldn’t have tried. “See, as part of the twelve steps, we’re s’posed to apologize to the people we’d done wrong. I’d made a few calls, including to your Grams. My mama. I had to tell her how sorry I was for bein’ such a mess.”

  She stopped again, this time tears choking her up. I had no idea she’d talked to Grams before we’d received The Call. Grams had never said anything, so I’d figured when Mama called us, it was the first time she’d heard from her, too.

  “She wouldn’t listen to me. Said it was ya’ll, you and Sissy, who really needed to hear my apologies.” Mama sniffled and blinked. “I didn’t think ya’ll would give me the time of day, and I was scared. I’d done you and your sister the most wrong. I didn’t see how on earth ya’ll could forgive me. I didn’t want to see the hatred in your eyes I knew you had for me.” Her voice had weakened, and her breath rattled in her chest. But she seemed determined to tell me all of this and pushed on. “When I finally got the guts to call or maybe even go see you, I learnt I was sick. I tried to get better at first, but when they said I prolly had less than a year, I realized for the first time how short life can be. You’d think I know that with your daddy and all, but we never think that applies to ourselves. So, then I realized how little time I had left to make amends with you … to make sure ya’ll would be okay. Especially you, sugar. I didn’t want hat
e to ruin’t your life. Even if you couldn’t love me again, I wanted you to know I still loved you. Always had.”

  Tears had been flowing down my cheeks by then. I swiped at them hard and inhaled a deep breath. Once I’d regained control, I looked over at her. Her eyes had closed, and her jaw had gone slack.

  “I love you, too, Mama,” I’d whispered, but I didn’t think she’d heard me. I didn’t know if I wanted her to hear me.

  That was the last time I’d seen her awake.

  Once again, I brushed tears from my cheek. Even if I forgave her, I’d never forget what she’d done to us. And that’s what made standing here so hard. Part of me wanted to bolt, still thinking she deserved to die alone, but most of me couldn’t do it. The nurse tapped on the glass door. My time was up. As I turned to leave, Mama’s eyes fluttered open. It took her a moment to focus on me, and when she did, the corners of her mouth moved in a small smile.

  “I’m here, Mama,” I whispered.

  “Thank you,” she mouthed.

  “Be strong, okay? You fight this.”

  She blinked once, which I didn’t know whether that meant yes or no or nothing at all, but I took it as a yes.

  “They won’t let me stay in here any longer. It’s Sissy’s turn now. But I’ll be back.”

  She blinked again, and then her eyes fell closed. The machines continued their steady sounds, so I figured she’d fallen back asleep and nothing more serious.

  I waited in the family room while Sissy visited Mama for her allowed time. My phone finally rang right when she returned.

  “Where the hell are you?” Mason demanded as soon as I answered, his voice angrier than I’d ever heard it. “I come home to a mess in the kitchen, no dinner, and you’re gone!”

  A mess? There was one covered platter with pork chops marinating in the refrigerator, and a single bowl in the sink.

  “I’m at the hospital with my mama,” I snapped back, my nerves worn. “If you’d answered your phone or even checked your voicemail or texts, you’d know that. Where the hell have you been?”