“I hate those damn things. They give me nightmares, you know that.”
“Fine, but you’re still taking one before we leave today, so I know you’ll at least get a nap when I drop you off. If I check on you at midnight and find you wide awake, I’m going to be pissed and tell the kidswe need an intervention.”
I take another sip of coffee to buy me some time. “Fine.”
She sets her cup aside and takes mine from me, putting it on my desk.
Then she hugs me, a tight hug, the kind that it takes me a moment to relax into and return, the way it always does.
But she waits me out—the way she always waits me out.
Because she knows I need it.
Idoneed it.
Other than hugging mykids, and the occasional platonic hug I get from others, this is the only real physical contact I get anymore. And…
That’s something else killing me slowly from the inside out.
The loneliness.
Ellen and I were snugglers, touchy-feely. Case used to razz us about that in college. But our kids grew up loved. I don’t know how many nights we all piled onto the couch to watch movies, snuggled together,all of us. Even coaxing Case in with us plenty of times, although she usually sat down next to Ellen, with the kids between us, and me at the other end.
A family.
As Logan, and then Ryder left for school, our cuddle pile grew smaller.
Then we lost Ellen, and those first days after I returned, it was all of us minus Ellen on the couch, crying, laughing over memories, or just sitting there watchinghome movies. Then the boys left for school again.
Then it was me and Aussie, and sometimes Case. Then Aussie left for school once she graduated from high school.
Case has never asked or offered to “cuddle” with me. I feel a little bit of a wall between us, one that was always there but never noticeable before, because we had the buffer of Ellen and the kids.
I never ask her, either.
Exceptright now, I can feel the knot I’ve tied in the end of my rope loosening in my fingers. “Can you come over to watch TV with me tonight?” I force out before I can regret it and second-guess myself out of asking.
Her breath catches, and from her hesitation I know she’s going to say no.
“I mean, it’s okay if you don’t want to. Or if you have plans,” I add, so we can both save face.
She sighs.“Let me talk to someone first.”
Then I realize what she means. She really does have plans. That churns up a strange mix of jealousy and disappointment I don’t know how to process, so I shove it down into the depths from which it emerged and try to ignore it.
I try to sit back, but she won’t let me, so I don’t fight her. “It’s okay if you have plans. I understand.”
“George,” she says in thatfirm but gentle tone, “that wasn’t a no. Please,stop.”
I hate feeling this weak and vulnerable, even in front of her.
I should be stronger, dammit.
But when I close my eyes and try to sleep, I hear the screaming.
The wind screaming through the hole in the fuselage.
The way people around us screamed.
