Still (Grip Book 2)(65)

     



 
I can't stay away from her. I never could, and her pain, her tears draw  me, the same way her vitality and her beauty always have. There is  nothing about her that repels me, even when she tries her best to push  me away. I step close, cautiously slipping my arms around her, resting  my hands at the small of her back. She's stiff, resistant to any comfort  I offer, but after a few moments of stroking her back, she goes limp  against my chest, almost pliant. This is the closest we've been since  Zoe died, and I don't want to shatter it by bringing up the meds, or the  support group or the grief counseling-all things Dr. Wagner says will  help us-but I can't let this go on. It's not good for either of us.

The ringing phone in my pocket intrudes on the words I need to say.  Bristol stiffens and pulls away, the guard dropping back into place over  her expression. She retrieves it from my pocket, studies the screen,  and hands it to me.

"You should take it," she says hastily, grabbing the excuse to get out  of this conversation. "It's Charm. Your book is due soon."

"It can wait. We need to finish this."

"Let's make a deal." She forces a smile that she probably thinks fools me. "You answer the phone, I'll go shower. How's that?"

Does she honestly think she can fool me? Hold me off? Shut me out? No  way in hell I waited eight years for her only to settle for some  imitation of intimacy, some facsimile of the woman I know she should be.

"I'll take her call," I say, pressing accept. "But you better be in the shower when I'm done."

Her smile looks awkward, like her mouth forgot how to do it, but she  takes a few steps toward the bathroom. I feel a momentary sense of  accomplishment. She's out of bed, headed toward the shower, but I know  the real problems won't wash away. The anguish Bristol's waking up with  every day is subterranean, deep below the surface. It's infected the  very core of who she is. I can say that for sure because mine goes just  as deep.





42





Bristol





The darkness is heavy. It's tangible, like a weighted blanket trapping  me beneath my stale sheets. It's a living darkness, thick with blood,  wet with tears. Deep, so very deep. It's a ravine, and I'm at the very  bottom. It's toxic, and I breathe great lungfuls of it, like a miner in a  cave with no light, no air. Every morning I promise myself I'll do  better. I'll get better. I'll eat. I'll shower. I'll be kinder to my  husband. I won't take this pain out on him. As soon as my mind surfaces  from fitful sleep, though, I hear Zoe's heartbeat again, trapped in her  chest like infant fists banging against the fragile cage of her ribs,  longing to be free.

Thump, thump, thump.

A drum in the thicket of dense forest, her heartbeat reaches my ears,  drawing me-an auditory illusion, I know, but it's the only real thing I  can find in the dark to hold on to. I run toward it, desperate to see  her, to hold her one more time. Branches bite my face, rocks shred my  feet as I follow the sound of that heartbeat, the drum in the jungle. I  stumble and fall face first into an empty clearing. It's deserted,  desolate, and every morning, bamboozled by that sound, I pull the covers  over my head again.

Even my body plays tricks on me. It betrays me. My breasts surge with  life, engorged and ready to feed, but it's a joke in bad taste because  no one eats from me. I'm unessential. No one needs me to survive, and  what I need, I can't find.

My body is a haunted house. Those who lived here are dead and gone, and  my soul is riddled with ghosts. Phantoms travel the halls, walk the  rooms, raising the hairs on my body, but when I look, there's no one  there.

As I face myself in the bathroom mirror, I feel guilty about the things I  said to Grip. I'm aching with the memory of what we should have, but  lost. When I meet my reflection, I see a shell of myself, a husk of who I  used to be. Living with this dense darkness, this haunted house, this  abandoned womb, I don't think I can be that girl again.





43





Grip





"Okay, I'm actually done with the first draft." I sit on the unmade bed  and press the phone to my ear while I talk to Charm. "I finished all but  one before Zoe . . ."

I was going to say before Zoe came, but all Charm or anyone who knows  our situation would hear is before Zoe died. I let the words dissolve in  my mouth. That's what she is to others: an epitaph with no dashes, not a  year she was born and a year she passed away, but a solitary day, mere  hours.

"Okay," Charm says, that hesitation in her voice like everyone else's,  like she's not sure it's safe to talk to me yet. "Look, Grip, we can  delay this again if we need to."         

     



 

"No, it's fine. Your production team has been really patient, and I  appreciate that." I glance at the stack of printed pages splayed on the  bed. "All the poems are finished. I was just doing a final  read-through."

"If you're sure," Charm says, a bit of relief in her voice. "That's great. Just email it."

"Cool."

Silence pools on the line, and I'm not sure if she has more to say or if she's waiting for me to go.

"Um, how's Bristol?" Charm asks. "I called her, but it went to  voicemail. I haven't heard back, but I figure she'll call when she's  ready. I don't want to bother her."

I didn't want to bother her either, the first day, the second, the third  . . . but we're at day ten, and I think it's time someone bothered her  and shook her out of this. I'm probably the only one who can reach her,  but who's gonna reach me? I run a hand over my head. I need a haircut, a  shave. Have I showered today? Have I eaten? I'm as bad off as Bristol  is, but afraid to express it, to let her know. This kind of grief, it's  impossible to bear, but this, what Bristol is allowing, what she's doing  to herself-it's unsustainable. I love her too much to let it go on.

"Grip?" Charm prompts. "Bristol? How is she?"

"Oh, well, not great." A heavy sigh falls between us over the phone. "I  mean, we're not great, but I guess that's to be expected. We'll get  through it, but it'll take time."

And I'm not sure how.

"I've known Bristol a long time," Charm says. "Longer than you have,  actually, and I've never seen her the way she is with you. She's almost  unrecognizable, honestly. As long as I've known her, she was great at  putting up walls, keeping people out, but she doesn't have that defense  with you. Just don't give up on her."

I let her words wash over me, cleanse my discouragement away, and renew my commitment to reaching my wife.

"Giving up on Bristol is not an option," I say, swallowing my doubts. "But thanks for the encouragement."

"And how are you holding up?" she asks, her voice a little lighter. "Who's going to take care of you?"

"Bristol will," I reply. "We take care of each other."

My response comes before I even have time to think about it. I wondered  who would reach me if I'm occupied with reaching Bristol, who would take  care of me if I'm taking care of her, but that's the answer: we take  care of each other. We always have, and if we meant our vows, we always  will.

"Charm, I need to go." I consider the closed bathroom door. I don't hear water running or any movement.

"Of course. I'll be on the lookout for your email. This book is going to be amazing, Grip."

I don't give a damn and don't even bother responding, just hang up.  Charm will cut me some slack for my rudeness. Being around people is  hard because there are all these rules, all these things you have to do,  and the only thing I want to do right now is hurt, hurt and hold my  girl and heal.

When I enter the bathroom, the shower's not running and there's no steam  fogging the mirror. Bristol's on the floor, her long legs stretched out  flat along the tiles, her back to the tub. She cups her breasts where  two huge wet spots show through the T-shirt. Her head is bowed and tears  run unchecked down her face. I rush over to squat beside her.

"Baby," I whisper, gently moving her hands away. "It's okay."

It's not fucking okay. I'm an imbecile saying asinine shit. My  inadequacy overwhelms me in the face of her brokenness, in the reality  of mine. She gulps in air like she's drowning, going under. I want to be  her lifeline, but I'm sinking, too.

"My milk is drying up." She squeezes her breasts, pressing her eyes shut  and cutting into her bottom lip with her teeth. "Soon it'll all be gone  and I'll have nothing. It'll be like I never carried her . . . like she  was never here."

She opens her eyes, meeting mine with dark humor, her lips tilted to a bitter angle.

"You know I don't even have stretch marks." She tugs the shirt up and the edge of her panties down. "Except these."

She lovingly caresses a small patch of faint stripes at her hip. Her  fingers drift to the relatively small but still-red scar from her  C-section. "And this."

I was there for that scar. I watched them reach in and pull Zoe out.  I'll never forget cutting the cord, hearing that first squawk confirming  that our mission was accomplished, that Zoe had made it.