Page 46

46

Last Words

Jake

“I’ve been thinking about that Secret Santa copycat act that was in the news…” she says in the dark.

I open my eyes, but I don’t see that much more than I did when they were closed. What little light there is comes from beyond her darkened head next to me on my pillow.

“I think they should keep working together. Two heads are better than one.”

I watch the outline of her profile against the dim gray wall, a shape I know well. She’s spent so much time half turned away from me. She turns to me now and it vanishes.

“Have you figured out what you want to do with the rest of your life?” she whispers across the pillow. She threads her fingers through mine, and they begin to tingle.

“I was thinking,” she continues, “you seem to like…normal, everyday things. Boring, real life.” She squeezes my hand. “Nights in, and messes to clean, and cooking to do. And if that’s what you want to do instead of jet-setting around the world and ticking off a bucket list…you could move in with me. I’d like that.”

I can’t feel her hand in mine anymore. It’s completely numb.

She wasn’t supposed to actually want any of this.

For a moment I’m so tempted. I try to math it in my head, knock it all into an equation that doesn’t produce zero-sum in my favor. I throw in my two hundred thousand from Las Vegas…but there’s nothing else, really. It’s a laughable offering when what Dodi deserves is an entire living, breathing person for the rest of her life. I can’t tidy up this equation because it’s all a fucking mess, and I hate messes.

I think of all those sharp edges left by the last bump in her life. It’ll keep happening—every time a blow happens, another crack, another row of shards to prick other people with, and herself too. Keeping people out, keeping her locked in, alone.

“I don’t care if we can only do this for a little while,” Dodi says, as if reading my mind. “I want to be with you. You want that too. That’s all most people want at the end, to be with family. I know how much that sucks to not have family.”

I think of that night on her sofa, drinking wine. Laura gazing with hearts in her eyes at the two of us clasping hands. Bill gruffly teaching me to light a fire.

I can’t help but think of Cat slipping her hand into mine at the mall.

“I’d like to have you with me…because I—”

I cut her off before she can say it. “How would that be good for her?”

I’m asking how it would be good for Cat because I can’t ask how it would be good for Dodi. She wouldn’t put up with that. But their life isn’t some Jenga tower I can smoothly slip out of. I was counting on a year, maybe, but what if I turned selfish and decided to milk as much time as I could? What if I really deteriorated, and changed, Cat watching from her place on the rug as I slowly faded away, Dodi watching Cat watching me, and regretting this choice she made to see me through to the end. I know I’m capable of it. I’ve already been so selfish. I should have carried on as I had been, loner temp gray-rocking through the world.

I can hear her lick her lips. “Maybe when she’s older, she’ll remember a relationship where two people looked after each other. I don’t know how else she’s going to get an example of a healthy relationship. Jake, I—”

“We’d have to pretend to have a healthy relationship?”

Dodi doesn’t laugh. I didn’t expect her to. I don’t feel like laughing either.

“I think I’ve only said this out loud to a few people in my life, but I—”

“The thing is…” I say, cutting her off again. She hesitates, waiting for me to finish. “I’ve got everything figured out on my own,” I lie. “I don’t need your help after all.”

She inhales deeply, like she’s about to plunge into cold water. “Jake, I lo—”

It’s going to feel so much worse if she says it out loud. “I think we should get an annulment.”

I imagine a hairline crack added to all the rest, but a tiny one, with no sharp edges sticking out. Neatly and mercifully done.

She doesn’t speak again, but she doesn’t leave, either. She knows why I’m doing this. She has the mug. We both lie there, fingers threaded, so still and quiet, I don’t know which one of us falls asleep first.