He amped up his pace even more. “Fuucck.” As he drove into me relentlessly, my body finally gave in, pulsing in orgasm all around him. When my body went limp, he sped up his pace for a few thrusts, then rooted himself deep within me, allowing his own release.
Many hours and more orgasms later, my head lay on Brody’s chest as I listened to his heartbeat. Filled with new hope, I fell asleep feeling oddly calm. Maybe it was euphoria from the best sex of my life, maybe it was the way I felt safe and protected as Brody wrapped me tightly in his arms. Whatever it was, the feeling wouldn’t last long.
Chapter 13
Brody
It was late by the time I finally got to Marlene’s place. It took me nearly two hours to drag my ass out of bed once Delilah left for work. And I’d made her late, too—but I couldn’t resist one more go around when I saw her in that little black skirt she was wearing. She was dressed so prim and proper, with her high-heeled pumps and her hair pinned up on top of her head. My hard-on was raging to bend the librarian over the bedframe. She left with her clothes slightly disheveled, her hair hanging loose and a just-fucked smile on her flush face. It was a good look for her. A really good look.
I’d be paying for a night of pretty strenuous cardio later. Midweek practices were always the hardest. It was going to be a killer after last night and barely any sleep. But I didn’t give a shit. I hadn’t felt this good in a damn long time. Four years, to be exact.
Grouper was cleaning the floor in the dining room when I passed by on the way to see Marlene. Without a ball to float his way, some improvisation was needed. The lunch service was done for the afternoon, but the staff was still putting away the leftovers, so I grabbed three small milks from a crate that one of Grouper’s maintenance guys was lifting and yelled, “Go long. Or you’re going to be cleaning up a puddle of cow piss.”
Grouper grumbled something but took off running toward the other end of the food hall. I sailed the first two mini milk cartons into his hands. Just as he was about to catch the third one, Shannon yelled to me and distracted Grouper. The third milk went through his open hands and hit him in the shoulder, right before falling to the ground and exploding all over the place.
“You can’t throw for shit.”
“Super Bowl MVP, old man. Super Bowl MVP.”
Shannon’s face warned me my afternoon was not going to be as uplifting as my morning.
“What’s up, Shannon?”
“She’s having a bad day, Brody.” Her voice cracked as she reached out and touched my forearm. The nurses at Marlene’s home were incredible. They’d seen so much heartbreak with these old people; it took a lot for them to get choked up.
“Physically or mentally?”
“Mentally. She remembers some things about Willow. Things she hasn’t remembered in a long time.”
Marlene was distraught and crying when I entered her room. I sat down on the side of her bed and took her hand. “What’s going on, Marlene?” I couldn’t judge what her memory was haunting her with, and I didn’t want to make it any worse than it needed to be.
“It’s Willow.”
Over the past four years I had learned to talk about Willow. It hadn’t been easy at first, but time had dulled the pain that hearing her name had made me feel in the beginning.
“What about Willow?”
“She called me last night. Said she was going to come see me next week for my birthday. Then the police came this morning.”
I looked to Shannon, who shook her head. “Someone did call her phone last night.” She lifted Marlene’s chart and flipped the pages. “The night nurse wrote it down. We suspect it was a telemarketer. Maybe the person happened to have had the name Willow?”
Marlene began to sob.
Shannon whispered, “She’s been doing that off and on for hours. Keeps rambling on about the police and a body in the river.”
Blocking Willow from my daily life was one thing, but the memories were still buried inside of me. Our memories. The good ones outnumbered the bad, even if the bad ones overshadowed the good.
“It’s okay, Marlene. It’s going to be okay.”
I was reassuring her the same way I had four years ago in the hospital waiting room. The same internal battle haunted me. Only now, Marlene’s dementia wasn’t early-onset. The days when she remembered the details of her granddaughter’s life were few and far between. There was less reason to tell her the whole truth now than there had been back then.
“Blue. She was so blue, Brody.”
The vision that had taken me almost a year to stop seeing every time I closed my eyes came barreling back. Willow being wheeled into the emergency room. By the time the river incident happened, she was already frail. My Willow was long gone, replaced by a three-bag-a-day heroin junkie who would disappear for weeks at a time. Her occasional visits were usually to steal what we were no longer willing to give her.
Marlene’s cry broke into a sob. I wrapped my arms around her. The night they pulled Willow from the East River wasn’t a night I ever wanted to reenact. Unfortunately, this was our second go around on the highlight reel of Marlene’s life. If only the memories people lost were just the bad ones.