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“It’s okay.” I swing my feet over the side of the bed and look at my watch. “Are you going with Aaron today?”
She shakes her head. “He texted me and said he wanted to take Sam with him instead. He wants her to have an opportunity to ask any questions she wants to ask of the doctor.” She shrugs. “I still wanted to go, but he said it would be best if it was just the two of them.”
“She needs this time with her dad,” I remind her. No matter how involved Bess wants to be, Aaron is Sam’s father, and she needs to be as involved in this process as she can be. It’ll help to ease some of the pain later on, if she feels like she’s a participant rather than an observer.
“Hey Eli,” Bess says, and her cheeks color prettily. “Can you close your eyes so I can get my clothes?”
I grin. “Make me.”
She laughs lightly and says, “Please.”
So I make a show of closing my eyes and covering them with my hand.
“Thanks,” she says quietly, and I hear her feet as she pads across the floor.
“Can I open them now?” I ask, when I already know she hasn’t had time to get dressed.
“Eli!” she scolds, but she’s laughing too. It’s been a long time since I heard Bess laugh, and it feels good inside when I realize what it is.
Bess is happy.
“Okay, okay, fine,” I pretend to grouch.
“Will you put some ointment on my back and shoulders?” she asks. “I got pretty chewed up by bugs last night chasing Sam through the brush.”
She wants me to put ointment on her bug bites? Sign me up! “Since you asked so nicely,” I say, and I open my eyes to find her standing in front of me. She’s in a pair of jean shorts and a bra, and she has a clean t-shirt clutched in front of her breasts.
She pushes the ointment tube into my hand and turns away, reaching up to drag her long dark hair over her shoulder. I stare at her back. This is the most I’ve seen of Bess in years. It feels almost foreign, performing such an intimate task for her.
She’s covered in bug bites. “Why didn’t you tell me you were this bad last night?”
“Honestly, Eli…” She looks at me from over her shoulder. “My heart was broken, and I just wanted to be held.”
And I wanted to be held back. I wanted it desperately.
“Did you mean what you said last night?” I ask as I touch ointment to all of her bites, one by one. I go slowly because I’m happy to take care of Bess, and I want this moment of intimacy to last.
She looks at me over her shoulder again and her brow furrows. “What did I say last night?”
“You said you were tired of hating me,” I remind her. “Did you mean that?”
She nods. “I meant it with all of my heart and soul.”
“So, where do we go from here?”
She shakes her head. “I have no idea. I can’t tell you that we’ll be miraculously fixed, Eli. I don’t have any idea how things are going to go. But I can tell you that I don’t want to hate you anymore. It’s exhausting, carrying all that around.”
“Okay, Bess,” I say slowly. I touch the last bite with the ointment, put the cap on the tube, and hand it to her over her shoulder. “All done.”
“Thanks,” she mutters. She pulls her shirt on over her head and turns to face me. “Eli—” But she stops, bites her lip, and then stares at a spot on the wall behind me that has nothing on it. “Never mind.”
“What were you going to say, Bess?”
“Did you ever sign the divorce papers, Eli?”
“Not yet,” I admit.
“Why not?”
