Page 59 of Leather & Lark

I can feel Lachlan watching me in the rearview. But I can’t bear to meet his gaze.

“Your wife just broke her family’s heart,” Ethel says. “And she did it to save your life.”

NETWORK

Lark

How can we come back from this when you left me in the dark?

You left me in the dark.

But I can’t stop myself. I can’t stop wanting you.

I scratch through the last few lines of text and close my notebook, placing it back in my bag as I watch through the window of my aunt’s room. I’ve never been so blocked with a song before. It’s like I just can’t figure out what to say. I can’t hear the notes that should come naturally. I’d like to think it’s because I’m tired.So fucking tired.But I know it’s not just that. In the last ten days since we went to my parents’ place, Lachlan has crept into my thoughts, into my daily life. He makes coffee and breakfast every morning. He brings me little things every night, as though he thinks they might help me sleep. A silk eye mask. He blushed when he gave me that. An incense diffuser. Tonight, he’ll make me a cup ofchamomile tea and hand it to me with a haunted look in his eyes, just like he does every night. He’ll disappear into his room and then we’ll do the whole thing all over again tomorrow, over and over until we die.

But one thing Lachlan hasn’t done?Apologize.And I can’t seem to let go of those first moments we met. My hurt still festers, and maybe I just need him to open that wound. But he won’t.

“Well, fuck him,” I whisper and lean back in my chair.

“Yes, fuck him. I need to live vicariously through someone and Ava’s love life is boring. I’m half-convinced that husband of hers is a robot,” Ethel says.

A surprised gasp leaves my lips as I sit up straighter and look toward my aunt. She shoots me a devious grin before she raises the back of her bed.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you,” I say.

“You didn’t. I’ve been watching you stare out that window for the last ten minutes. That Kane boy getting under your skin?”

Though I roll my eyes at the teasing spark in my aunt’s voice, heat still creeps into my cheeks. “He’s trying.”

Ethel nods and coughs but waves me off when I rise to help her with water or tissues. This time her cough takes a long while to subside. Unease burns in my guts. Guilt creeps into my veins. She’s been so lively with all the scheming lately, but maybe it’s taken too much out of her. She suddenly looks so frail, pain etched across her crinkled skin.

Despite her protests, I press the call button for the nurse, who enters a moment later, followed by a doctor, who comes in while the fit still rumbles on. The doctor maintains her professional detachment when she tells me they’re going to administer an IVfor pain relief and antibiotics to prevent secondary infection, but I’ve been around facilities like this long enough to know that the prognosis of Ethel’s cancer is grim, and this might be the fast deterioration of a disease my aunt refuses to treat.

Ethel’s cough dissipates as they ready the fluids and prepare the cannula. “I don’t like needles,” my aunt says, her eyes darting toward the door to her room and holding there. I’m about to follow her gaze when she grabs my hand. “Sing to me for a distraction, girl.”

“What would you like?”

A melancholy smile lifts my aunt’s lips. “The one you sang at our anniversary party.”

It’s hard to believe it wasn’t even a year ago.

My aunt and uncle danced beneath the patio lights we strung up in the tent. They looked into each other’s eyes as I started to sing and I thought,I wonder how much love is out there like that, really. I wonder if I’ll ever find it. And if I do, I hope I deserve it.

And now I think,Maybe we don’t find it. It doesn’t just appear. It’s not fantasy, not a fairy tale. We make choices, note after note, chord after chord, until we create it.

I lean down and place a kiss on my aunt’s cheek before I clear my throat and sing:

I can’t give you anything but love, baby

That’s the only thing I’ve plenty of, baby

Scheme awhile, dream awhile

We’re sure to find

Happiness and I guess

All those things you’ve always pined for