Where the River Ends - Charles Martin [105]
We ate hot wings until the snot dripped out of our noses and drank enough beer to numb the hot sauce on our lips. To walk off the buzz, we strolled down the boardwalk next to the beach and told each other how we’d met our respective spouses. I didn’t realize until we were headed back, walking up the beach, that she held her shoes in one hand and had her other looped through mine. I told myself, It’s just the sand. It’s too soft. Right?
We walked to the Waffle House and downed a pot of coffee. It was nearly midnight by the time we got back.
We stepped onto the elevator, the door shut and without a word or a moment’s notice, she pressed me into the corner. It had been a long time since anyone but my wife had kissed me. The little guy on my right shoulder sounded with the measured cadence of an ESPN commentator, “He might go all the way!” Both his arms shot into the air like an end-zone referee. “Score!” And the little guy on my left shoulder was standing there quiet as a church mouse. In his hand he held the picture of my Abbie that I kept in my wallet.
I tried to wriggle free and feed some oxygen to my brain, but that was not in her plan. When the elevator bell signaled the fifth floor and the doors slid open, she stepped through and, as she did, she reached up with her right hand and began unconsciously twirling the hair at the base of her neck. When she turned, an inviting smile had creased her face.
I watched her loop her finger through the thin, short hair behind her ear, then straighten it and let it go. She never should’ve done it.
It wasn’t the kiss, or her leg that she had wrapped around mine as the elevator lifted off, or even the pressure of her chest, taut stomach and narrow hips against mine. No, it was that finger twirling the hair at the base of her neck. And in that split second, her spell had broken. Like crystal on a marble floor, slivers shattered everywhere. Abbie, who’d taught me how to love, used to twirl the hair at the base of her neck as she stood at the sink cleaning dishes or standing in the shower while the hot water poured down her back or while she studied one of my paintings. It was a telltale sign that she was thinking.
In truth, I don’t know much about women, but I knew better than to get off that elevator. Inexperienced? Yes. Stupid? Not yet. Tempted? Just a little. My decision not to get off that elevator was a combination of knowing better and just plain cowardice. I placed my hand across the sensor that held the doors open and watched her walk backward toward her room. She had already unbuttoned and untucked her shirt and was dangling the room key in front of me.
Between treatment and exhaustion, cancer had robbed me and Abbie of any real physical relationship whatsoever. That’s not to say Abbie was ever unkind. She wasn’t. She did what she could, but there came a point at which my physical need had to take a backseat to her need to not be in pain—to be left alone. I stood in the elevator watching Heather undress in front of me. She backed up to her apartment doorway and by the time she slid her key in the door, her skirt had fallen to the floor. And whereas for the last six months my wife had worn granny-panties designed to hold the adult pad that assisted in the loss of bladder control, Heather had no such problem. The white lace thong was proof of this.
The little guy on my right shoulder had changed his tune. Instead of screaming, he was whispering. “Go ahead. No one will ever know.” Quiet man on my left shoulder hadn’t changed one bit. He simply stood, holding that wrinkled and faded picture and tapping his foot.
Love might leave, but the memory of its touch and the hope of its return doesn’t. Ever. It’s like that street in Hollywood where all the stars press their hands in the wet concrete. Abbie had long ago pressed her imprint into my heart. There on that elevator, Heather tried to place her hand into the dried form but it wouldn’t fit.