The Song of David

But I wasn’t going to spend whatever time I had left being sick.

I’d never been good at in-betweens. All or nothing. That’s who I was. All or nothing, dead or alive. Not dying. Not sick. Dead or alive, all or nothing.

Having made my decision, I called the doctor. I actually heard relief in his voice when I told him I was ready to go ahead with what came next, and his relief terrified me. He cleared his schedule and just like that, the craniotomy was set for the following day.

I pulled back onto the highway and left my sister’s shadow in the rearview mirror. I headed back home, back to Millie, suddenly desperate to see her.





MILLIE OPENED THE door to greet me, a smile on her lips, my name on her tongue, but I didn’t wait for her to release it. I wanted her to keep it, savor it, and never let it go. I needed my name to stay inside her so that I wouldn’t float away like a word that’s already been spoken. So I pressed my lips to hers and swung her up in my arms like a man in a movie, and my name became a cry that only I heard.

I felt slightly crazed, and my kiss was frantic as I barreled up the stairs with Millie in my arms. My legs didn’t shake and my mind was clear, as if in its health my body was rebelling too. I wanted to roar and hit my chest. I wanted to shake my fists at the heavens, but more than anything I wanted Millie. I didn’t want to waste another second with Millie.

Then we were in her room, the white comforter pristine and smooth, like Millie’s skin in the moonlight, and I laid her across it, falling down beside her. I was anxious. Needy. I wanted the safety of her skin, the absolution of her flesh, and the promise that came with it. I wanted to take. I wanted to cement myself in her memory and leave my mark. I needed that. I needed her. She matched my fervor like she understood. She didn’t understand. She couldn’t. But she didn’t slow me down or beg me for reassurance.

My hands were in her hair and tracing her eyes, fingering her mouth, pausing in the hollow of her throat. I wanted to touch every single part of her. But even as I lost myself in the silk of her skin and the sway of her movements against me, I felt the horror rise up inside of me and shimmer beneath my skin. It wouldn’t be enough. It wouldn’t be enough, and I knew it, even as I closed my eyes and tried to make it be enough. I couldn’t breathe and my heart raced, and for a moment I thought I would tell her everything.

She must have mistaken my fear for hesitation, the cessation of my breath for something else, because she cradled my face in her hands and pressed her forehead to mine. And then she whispered my name.

“David, David, David.” It sounded like a song when she said it. And she kissed my lips softly.

“David, David, David.” She chanted my name, like she couldn’t believe it was true, like she liked the way it felt in her mouth.

“I love the way you call me David,” I said, and remembered the line from my silly song, the line that had no rhyme.

“I love that you are mine,” she breathed, and the fear left me for a time. It tiptoed away and love took its place, love and belonging and time that can’t be stolen. Millie said she had to feel to see, and she saw all of me. Her fingers traced the contours of my back like she was reading a map, following a river to the sea across a long expanse, over valleys and hills. She was thorough and attentive, her lips and cheeks following her fingers, her tongue testing the textures that needed more attention. When Millie made love she actually made love. She created it, drew it, coaxed it into being. I’d always hated that term and preferred a little baser description, maybe because it felt more honest. But with Millie, nothing else fit. And she didn’t just make love, she made me love. She made me listen. She made me feel. She made me pay attention. I didn’t hurry or take. I didn’t rush or push. I closed my eyes and loved the same way she did, with the tips of my fingers and the palms of my hands, and I saw her so clearly that my eyes burned behind my closed lids.

She was confident in a way she shouldn’t have been, confident in a way that is born from knowing you are loved, and I reveled in that. She wasn’t the girl in sexy lingerie, wondering if she should pose her body this way or that. She was a woman deeply in love and completely lost in the experience. She didn’t ask me what I liked or what I wanted. She didn’t hesitate or hold back. She didn’t plead for pretty words or reassurance.