Losing Control(90)

I lose track of how long I lay there. Maybe it is only seconds before I feel the cool touch of his hand. Another moment and he's drawing a cloth across my face, wiping my mouth.

He pulls me into his lap and places the mouth of a bottle at my lips. I sip or he forces me to drink. It is all one and the same now. I allow him to cradle me like a baby because I’m too spent physically and emotionally to move.

We sit there on the edge of the road, a tall chain link fence at our backs and squat brick apartment buildings facing us. The sounds of our breathing—mine harsh and labored, his even but strained—is broken only by the occasional sounds of tires crunching the asphalt. Traffic is light, like the early Sunday morning it is.

“It's Mother's Day,” I say finally.

“I know.”

“How did you find me?”

“I followed you.”

I roll my head to the side and see a shiny sports car idling on the side of the road.

“No Steve today?“

“No, just me.”

Not ready to address the big issues, I continue to make small talk. “I didn't know you could drive. I can't.”

“You could learn.”

“Maybe.” Driving sounds interesting. What would it be like to handle four wheels instead of just two? Then another thought occurs to me and my brief spike of enthusiasm sputters out. “I wouldn't be able to pass a written test.”

“They probably have oral versions,” he says mildly. We sit like that for a few more minutes until I decide that our positions are too ridiculous for words. I’m not a child but when I push away, I find I have little strength.

With a sigh, I ask, “Can you help me sit up?”

He does and I realize where I am. The Flushing Cemetery. Without prompting, Ian helps me to my feet. The entrance is just around the corner. He places an arm around my waste and slowly we walk into the cemetery. Ian and I aren’t the only ones here. There are others leaving flowers for their mothers and somehow even that makes me feel a little less alone. It takes us several minutes to walk toward the back where I find the gravesite. A black granite headstone declares the dates of birth and death for both my parents. A shiver creeps up my spine. Is there room between the two of them for me? I want to lie down and pull the sod up like a blanket and just sleep forever.

But the arm around my waist is hard as iron and it is holding me back. I struggle, just slightly, but the arm doesn't move.

“You aren't alone.”

His gruff words whisk across the surface and then hover there. Will I reject them or allow them in?

“Will you let me comfort you, Tiny?”

“I’m so sad,” I say.

“It’s okay to be sad.”

“I’m just afraid that I can’t give you enough anymore.”

He presses a soft kiss against my temple. “I’ll take anything from you as long as it’s something.”

We stand there for a long time. I search the grave for signs of my mom but I don’t hear her in the wind. I rub my hand across my chest but I don’t feel her there either.

“She’s still there, even if you don’t feel her today,” he tells me. “One day you’ll realize how much of her you still carry with you.”

He’s speaking with a voice of experience and I want to trust him, to believe in everything he says because what’s the alternative? To feel empty forever?

I lay my head against his chest. “When will I be done grieving?”

“No matter how long it takes, I’ll be with you.”





Chapter 31


TWO WEEKS AFTER MOTHER’S DAY, Ian announces we are going out of the city.

“We’re going on a field trip today,” he says.

“Fine,” I answer. There’s plenty of people in the city who never learn to drive. It seems like an exotic task, and Ian is a master at it. I get a silly pleasure watching him control this big machine. “You look good behind the wheel.”

He smiles and shifts into another gear when the engine begins to rev. His large hand rests on the manual shifting mechanism, the light glinting off the hairs on the back of his hand. A feeling stirs between my legs and I shift, squeezing my thighs together. The motion causes Ian to give me a sharp look, one so full of hunger and desire I gasp.

The hollow space inside me begins to melt under that fierce glare. His hand drifts off the gear shift to my thigh. Giving me a slight squeeze, he says, “Driving will be one more thing I can teach you.”

The warmth of his palm seeps through my jeans and spreads down my leg and up my thigh. My fingers begin to tingle at the thought of caressing his forearm and solid biceps. Unconsciously I begin to rub that forearm, and his fingers move up higher on my thigh until they are nearly resting against the center seam between my legs.