“And it is, but I know you love to get out and sightsee and I’m not up for that. Plus, it will give me a bit of time with Jacob.” She sits on the edge of the bottom bunk, pulling one of his favorite bedtime stories out of the suitcase. These are things I worry about when she’s gone. If it was just us guys going on a trip, I never would have thought to bring books or toys to keep him occupied on the flight down here. No matter how much Alyssa assures me I’ll be great at being a single parent, I have my doubts. And isn’t it completely screwed up that she’s the one talking me down from an emotional cliff?
“Okay, but how, exactly, is that taking time as a family? If you’re with him and I’m off with your hospice nurse that seems to be the exact opposite of what this trip was supposed to be.”
“We had all day today and we’ll have from the time we get back on the boat tomorrow night until we get back to Miami. Please, let me have a little bit of mommy and son time with him.” Alyssa’s sitting on the bed, her knees pulled tight to her chest. Seeing the way her t-shirt hangs off the sharp lines of her too-thin frame, it’s impossible to deny that she’s getting worse. I held her in my arms as we slept for the first time in months last night and I almost broke down in tears. Hopefully, tonight I will be able to enjoy a night with my wife without worrying that I will hurt her if I roll over in my sleep.
“Okay,” I whisper in her ear as I pull back the blankets. She lays down, rolling on her side to face me. “If that’s what you need, we’ll do our own thing tomorrow. But as soon as we’re back on the boat, no more splitting up. Deal?”
“Deal.” Alyssa scoots closer to me, resting in the crook of my arm. I turn out the light, wondering if either of us will wind up sleeping tonight.
With Alyssa and Jacob safely aboard a seventy-foot glass bottomed yacht, Melanie and I wind our way through the streets of Nassau. Like me, she wasn’t thrilled at the idea of spending the day with me, but for different reasons. After months of doing everything possible to avoid being alone with me at any time, she has essentially been left with no choice.
There are times I look at the world around me, wondering how it is that people can be so happy when there’s so much pain in the world. This morning, I’m feeling particularly gruff, wanting to scream at the people laughing as they walk down the streets of downtown Nassau. They’re able to act as if they don’t have a care in the world while my mind is still back at the yacht. Jacob has the benefit of childhood innocence. He was bouncing around, excited that he was going on another boat, this time to spend time with his mommy. He has no fucking clue that she begged and cried for this time alone with him, knowing it’s the last time she will have to create such memories.
No amount of psychobabble bullshit can change the fact that I wonder how the sun can be shining or a warm breeze can blow gently off the seas. The bright orange blossoms on Poinciana trees dance in the wind, adding to the spectacular landscape. I don’t want sun and warmth and color. The weather back home is much more fitting of my mood, gray and sullen. There, Mother Nature seems to understand that there is no vibrancy in my life right now because I wake up every morning terrified that I will open Alyssa’s bedroom door and find that she’s slipped away from us in the night.
By the time we ascend the Queen’s Stairs that lead to Fort Fincastle, I’m willing to do just about anything to break the uncomfortable silence. The void between us is painful because I can still remember when Melanie and I would talk for hours about everything and nothing, flowing seamlessly from one topic to another. Melanie wasn’t simply my lover, or my submissive for a time, she was my best friend. The person I talked to about everything. As we continue along the path, I look around, making sure that there isn’t, by some freak chance, anyone I know near us. My throat feels like I drank a cup of sand when we got off the ship this morning as I ready myself to dig deep and find that place where Melanie and I meant everything to one another.
“I’m freaking out here,” I mumble, staring straight ahead. They’re four simple words, but saying them out loud lifts a hundred pound weight off my chest. Melanie keeps walking and I wonder if she heard me. I’m not sure I can say it again. She squints her eyes as she turns her head to me, shielding her gaze from the sun with her hand.
“That’s normal, Xavier. No one expects you to be strong all the time,” she assures me. I’m expecting her to keep talking, but instead, she looks ahead and keeps making her way to the ancient stone fort in silence.