Your Life Without Me.  

They meet at her hotel instead of the restaurant he suggests because she’s expecting an important call later that day. He suspects this isn’t entirely accurate, though Kem has never lied to him before and there’s no reason for her to start now. The call most likely exists, but she’s exaggerated the importance. Established a reason to excuse herself from his presence if needed.

He knows how this works because he’s done it countless times himself, meticulously cultivated a chain of events that would excuse his absence from an annual charity function or allow him to duck out of an awkward family gathering. He’s done it all his life because while he loves his family and wants the best for them, he’s never felt at ease in their company. Not for years now. His father’s eyes remind him of every hurtful thing they’ve said to each other. Each apology exchanged between them. And he knows this is what she must feel when he invites her to lunch. Practically begs her to talk to him, just for a little while. She looks in his eyes and sees if onlys. She touches his hand and feels regret.

But he meets there her anyway. He’s never been very good at walking away.

"By the window?" He knows her preference, but asks her anyway, just so she’ll be forced to address him directly. She likes the window seat—a booth. Not chairs, because she spends much of her time in Africa sitting on splintered wood from creaky benches. When she bothers to sit at all.

"Just water please."

He starts to echo her order, then reconsiders. It’s an old habit of his, mirroring her responses, allowing her to guide the conversation. But after everything that’s happened, the pain he’s suffered the past year, he figures that change could be a good thing. What they both need. Perhaps keep them from making the same mistakes again.

"I’ll have tomato juice."

Her nose wrinkles and it makes him smile.

"You hate that, don’t you?"

"It’s good for me. After—" He dismisses the rest of the sentence, not wanting to bring up his illness again by explaining he that needs the potassium. They’ve already had that argument. Her angry that he didn’t call sooner. Him pointing out that she’d never called at all.

"You cut your hair again." She plays with her knife, nodding toward his forehead, which in turn causes him to skim a hand across the shorn locks.

"Yeah." His response is inadequate. But the only one he can manage at the moment. He’s glad she noticed, probably more glad than he should be.

"I like it short." She smiles when she says this. And he smiles back.

"I know." He plays with his knife as well. Old habits die hard. "I did it for you."

Her fingers move onto the knife.

"I know." She replies.

***

She wakes up each morning and turns up the heat on the thermostat, refusing to relinquish the sheets she’s wrapped around her body until the room has grown significantly warmer. She sleeps in socks and almost falls a few times because of them, the floor too slick to trek around in thick white cotton. But her feet are always cold and the alternative means getting even less sleep than she already does. So she promises herself to move slower next time and is careful to reach out a hand just in case she falls again, because there’s no one there to catch her anymore.

She hasn’t been back to Africa in months and she’s grown used to the thickly heated air that fills her room early there in the morning. France is almost as cold as Chicago, but not quite. And while she’d always welcomed change in her life, she finds her need to travel waning as she gets older. She has a newfound appreciation for routine. And the cold makes her irritable; prone to snap at others at times.

She eats when she can, usually with others because she was reminded to do so. Hours past while her head is bent toward a computer screen, her fingers cramping as they protest her relentless commitment to her research. The work she’s doing would be impossible in the Congo, so she does as much as she can, while she can, knowing it could be several months before she gets the chance again.

She only turns on the lamp at night, allows just enough light to find her things. Navigate across the room. She checks on her mother, promises to call more often. Then slides into the right side of the bed and turns her back on the vast space left empty beside her. She doesn’t fall asleep immediately, she never does. And she’s always cold. Despite the extra blanket she’s draped across her shoulders. She’s always cold.

This is her life without him.

***

"You’ve lost weight."

He says this every time he sees her, despite the fact that she hadn’t lost a pound in over a year. But she doesn’t correct him, only shrugs her shoulders as the waiter brings their entrees. Fish for her. Soup and sandwich for him.

His eyes are slightly brighter than they were yesterday, which pleases her more than it probably should. She’d forgotten how difficult it is not to look at him, not to study every moment of his body, commit it to memory. She’s done this since the day they met and touched him quite often as a result. This is difficult for her as well, not touching him. And she eats her food a bit faster because of it, just to keep her hands busy.

"You’re working in the ER again." It’s her fallback to fill the silence. Ask him about work. Tell him about her own. "I’m sure they’re glad to have you back."

"I don’t know most of them." He says this quickly, before dismissing the topic outright. "I’m thinking about going back to Africa."

She places her fork across her plate.

"You could get sick again." She cried for two days after he told her that he was ill. That his kidney was failing and she hadn’t even known until they’d implanted him with a new one. She’d given up the right to be angry, and yet couldn’t stop feeling betrayed. Terrified that she’d lose him the way Joshua slipped away.

"I know." He sits his spoon down as well. His eyes never leave hers. "But I’m going anyway."

"You could get sick." She frowns at the slight wavering of her voice. And he sits back in his chair as she looks up at him. "Is that what you want? After everything—"

"I want you." There’s anger in his voice. Something he has every right to feel. She falls silent, fearing that any response would only lead to more tears. And she’s tired of crying. She’s done that too much for one lifetime.

"Kem."

But she wants him too.

***

He tossed the comforter on the floor beside his bed three months ago and hasn’t picked it up since. Never comfortable with sleeping naked (he had a bad experience at summer camp with a spider that he’s never been able to quite shake), he allows his boxers to remain firmly in place, while his pajama bottoms rest deep in the recesses of his dresser drawers. The temperature is well below freezing, and it takes everything in him not to open a window, let some of that snowy air fill his room. The last thing he needs after almost dying from kidney failure is to succumb to hypothermia in his sleep.

Mornings are juice and eggs, no coffee for now because he’s still in recovery. If things look good after his next check up, he’ll be allowed tea again. Which wouldn’t have done anything in the past but earn distain and derision on his part, but is now something he looks forward to as he leaves his house for work. He misses caffeine because it was taken away. Just one of many things he was forced to let go.

He craves work until he’s actually there. And then it’s nothing but noise and strangers. People come to him with stomach pains, minor burns and tell him that they’re sick. That he needs to fix them, make them well again. But their cheeks are flushed from the cold, their stomachs carry an inch or two of extra weight that they put on during the holidays. And he wants to correct them, let them know just how sick a person can be. How their bodies could turn against them at any second.

They smile, ask him questions about the old days. The doctors who’ve come and gone from these halls. And he feels older, though he’s pretty sure he’s not that old. Tired, though he has more energy now than he’s had in months. Half the day passes before he allows himself to glance at the clock, knowing he’ll inevitably do so for the remainder of the day.

He takes the same train that he rode countless times with Mark Greene. Remembers the time Mark lost his glasses there. They hunted for them for over an hour, and got yelled at the by driver before finding them next to the exit doors. He passes the diner he and Dr. Benton had breakfast—one of the few times they’d had an actual meal together. He remembers a number of things on the walk home, before shuts the apartment door behind him. Then he turns on CNN and nukes the leftovers from his lunch that day. Finishes dinner before the game comes on.

He picks up the phone receiver. And puts it down again. Stares at it a few seconds before he sheds his clothes and brushes his teeth. Prepares himself to end the day.

This is his life without her.

***

He doesn’t intend to come inside her room, and yet it happens anyway. He only wants to stay with her for as long as possible—put off having to say one more in what’s become a series of goodbyes. He’s watched her walk away from him so many times that he’s made up his mind to leave before she has the chance. To kiss her cheek and wish her luck. Because he only wants the best for her in the end. That’s all he’s ever wanted.

But when his lips graze her skin, he’s struck by yet another memory. This is one of Africa, of a bright arid sun and brittle grass beneath his feet. Of ice cold water in dingy chipped glasses. Of smiling brown faces. Of her naked against stark white linen sheets.

He remembers the life he had with her, before they came to Chicago. Before they watched their child’s ashes float away by the lakeside. He remembers how it felt, being there with her. Something he hadn’t realized he’d forgotten until now.

So he kisses her. Because he doesn’t have it in him not to. And it’s nothing like before, where their occasional slips resulted in an awkward joining of their bodies. A grasping for something they’d lost long ago. Their previous lovemaking had been an act of commiseration, of sadness. But he feels none of these things as he tastes her—really tastes her for the first time in years. His kiss is urgent, a bit harder then he intends, but he feels her responding. Her fingers clinging to his shirt lapels as he kicks the door closed behind them.

***

She’s prepared to give him this. When he kisses her, she figures it’s the least she can give, a brief moment of intimacy after pushing him away for so long. But there’s more than just desperation in his kiss. There’s heat. It’s not the kiss of her husband, but that of her lover. The man who kept her awake every night for six days after they met.

She remembers that woman. The one reckless enough to make love to a man she barely knew, move in with him without asking where he born. If he was married. That woman loved it when a man touched her, craved it even. But sex was now just another thing she avoided whenever possible. And sex with John had somehow become another way of mourning her son.

But as he tears at her shirt and grinds his hips against her, she welcomes him. She hears low, throaty noises and realizes that they’re coming from her. He’s rough, perhaps too rough, his hands pulling and pinching her nipples as her skirt pools around her ankles, but she’s past caring. Welcomes the pain of his touch. Responds in kind when she grasps the hard length of him.

They fall into a writhing heap, bodies rubbing against one another, stroking, pumping their hands up and down. In and out. Their mouths run across skin, making them damp as they taste salt on their tongues, and there’s a brief moment of shifting into place, of her legs spreading, his hips nestling between them.

And then he’s inside her.

Their bodies move, hard and fast. Slamming against each other without pretense. Just a frantic need to reach their goal. And she comes quickly, much quicker than expected, the orgasm making her head tilt back against the pillows with a breathy, triumphant shout.

He comes soon after and she feels that familiar warmth inside her, belatedly realizing that they didn’t use protection. That he hadn’t offered and she never asked. But she didn’t want to. She holds him against her body, her legs still wrapped around his waist and doesn’t want anything from him but this. To be this woman again. The one he’d fallen in love with and who loved him back.

"Don’t go." He doesn’t look at her when he says this. Just presses his face against her shoulder. "Don’t leave this time Kem. I can’t—I can’t keep doing the same things, making the same mistakes."

He lifts his head then. Pushes the hair from her face as her eyes open once more.

"I always end up back where I started." He says. "With you. And I don’t want to walk away anymore. I can’t."

"John."

"Just don’t—leave. Please."

She lifts her hand his face. Traces her fingers down his cheek and says yes. Because she can’t bring herself to turn away again.

She doesn’t have it in her to let him go.

***

They spend the day as they did the night they met. Making love until their bodies are spent and listless. Touching whenever they can. And he knows that this is the life he wants, the one that still scares the hell out of him at times. The one that almost broke him.

He wants it back, the pain. The suffering and fear that comes from loving someone. He wants that back. And he’ll take it all, the good and the bad. Everything in between.

Because it’s a life with her.