The unstoppable urge to come swept over me, as though I was turning to ice. It began as a clenched jaw, then I felt the tension of it flex the muscles in my chest and arms. I felt my breath seize in my throat and then every fiber in my lower body strung tight so that when I exploded deep within Leticia I was rigid and locked in a paroxysm – a convulsing seizure that left me breathless and reeling. The blood pounded in my head, and my vision swam. I felt myself tumbling – falling down a deep dark tunnel, overwhelmed by a sense of satisfaction and completeness so that for many moments I struggled like a drowning man before, somehow, I clawed myself back to the surface of consciousness.
Leticia was laying on her side, calm and quiet, her breathing steady. Her hands were still cuffed behind her back. Tenderly, I unfastened the catches and freed her arms. She was gazing up at me, her expression serene and peaceful. I lay down beside her on my back and she wrapped an arm across my waist and molded her body to mine. I felt her breath on my chest like a warm desert breeze.
For long moments we lay in silence. I flicked off the bedside lamp and a blanket of darkness wrapped itself around us. Leticia sighed – a blissful sound, and then she said in a small quiet voice, “Jonah, let’s pretend this will last forever.”
Chapter 24.
Leticia lay sleeping peacefully beside me, as I stared rigid and tense at the ceiling. My hands were balled into tight fists, my jaw clenched. Every muscle in my body was under stress.
I lay with my eyes open, staring at the ceiling. Nightlight filtered in through the bedroom window but beyond the glass a howling wind swayed through the trees and cast grotesque shadows into the bedroom.
I barely realized.
Leticia’s words haunted me, tearing at my soul.
I lay unsleeping throughout the night, appalled and stricken by the unspeakable cry of my conscience until the first rays of morning broke across the horizon and I faced the new dawning day with cold despair and dread.
Chapter 25.
I was in the kitchen, sitting in the gloom of early morning when Leticia appeared uncertainly in the doorway.
The morning was crisp and clear. On this side of the house the sun’s light had yet to reach above the distant mountains – the kitchen was cold, and still held the gloomy shadows of the previous night.
Leticia was wearing one of my shirts like a short dress, the sleeves bunched up to her elbows. Her hair was a tousled tangle, and her face without makeup looked innocent and sweet.
“Jonah…?”
I was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, watching tendrils of steam drift up from the mug. My eyes felt as though someone had thrown a handful of grit into them. I felt impossibly tired. I rubbed at the unshaven stubble across my jaw and my hand felt the bones of my cheeks made into harsh angles. Under the touch of my fingers my face felt gaunt and haggard.
“Come and sit down,” I said simply.
Leticia came to the edge of the table like a timid forest animal. Her face filled with concern. “Is everything alright?”
I ignored the question. “Would you like coffee?”
Leticia shook her head. She sat down across the kitchen table from me. She drew her knees up to her chin and hugged her hands around her legs. Her eyes were wide and unblinking, intuitively sensing my grave expression and made concerned by it.
I cleared my throat. I sat rigid at the table. I stared across the space to Leticia and said slowly, “I have a lot I need to tell you. A lot that needs to be explained – things that cannot wait. Please don’t interrupt me, I need to get this said.”
Leticia nodded solemnly. Her face had turned pale and a shadow of worry moved behind her eyes. She took a deep breath like she was settling herself… or maybe preparing herself.
I stared for a long moment down into the mug before me, but the answers weren’t there. I lifted my eyes back up to hers.
“Trigg lied,” I said flatly. “She lied about everything, Leticia. She lied about the size of my tumor, and she lied about my chances of living. Trigg told me the tumor was too large for surgery. She told me I had less than two years to live. It was all a lie – a deliberate lie to manipulate me, and make me dependent on her.”
The shock registered slowly on Leticia’s face, her expression one of disbelief that transformed into a look of incredulous horror. She stared at me, aghast. Her eyes became dazed and wide and I saw a glistening well of tears that made her eyes swim.
“Are you sure?” she asked in a whisper.
I nodded. “I’m certain,” I said and my voice was inflected with sudden bitterness. “My doctor – Dr. De Niro – went over the latest MRI scan with me. The tumor I have is much smaller than Trigg led me to believe.”
“The bitch…!” Leticia gasped.
I held up my hand. “There’s more,” I sighed. “Trigg was medicating me for headaches – headaches that I never had. The medication she was giving me was actually causing the headaches and the seizure – Dr. De Niro believes Trigg induced that seizure. He believes she caused it to happen at a time when she was nearby so that she could save me, and make herself indispensible.” I glanced away for a long moment and then drew my eyes slowly back to Leticia’s. “She was playing a dreadful dangerous game with my life.”
Leticia looked speculative, and then said with some intuitive feminine knowing, “Trigg loved you, didn’t she?”
I inclined my head. “We had a brief affair before I met Caroline.”
Leticia smiled faintly, as though unsurprised. “And Trigg wanted to keep you for herself, so she convinced you that you needed her.”
I nodded. “And it worked,” I said. “Until Dr. De Niro sent the scan from the clinic and all my medical records to a surgeon in New York. I spoke to him, Leticia. He believes he can operate. He believes I have a fifty-fifty chance of surviving the surgery and living a long full life,” I said. “He is flying here today and I am going into surgery tomorrow.”
“So soon?” Leticia’s voice was alarmed.
“Yes,” I said. “The surgeon wants to operate immediately. Any delay at all will increase the risk.”
“But you have a chance, right? You have a chance to live, Jonah.”
I nodded, but said nothing.
Wonder and relief chased away Leticia’s dread. A single tear spilled over the lashes of her eye and ran down the smooth curve of her cheek – but it was a tear of joy. Her eyes became bright and alive and there was a hitch of breath in her throat, like the sound of a suppressed shriek. Overcome, she reached out her hand towards me. “Jonah, that is wonderful,” she breathed. “I am so happy for you!”
I shook my head, didn’t take her hand.
I sat back in the chair as if to give myself space – as if to keep my distance.
“There’s more,” I said. “We need to talk about us.”
In an instant, the ominous sound of my voice transformed Leticia once again. Her hand on the table lay motionless, and then slowly she drew it back and covered her mouth with it.
I lifted my eyes to hers and my tone was as grim as that of a judge pronouncing a sentence of death. “Leticia, I have to end our relationship. I’m sorry – I truly am – but I can’t see you again after today.”
Leticia flinched. She recoiled in her chair as though she had been struck. She shook her head slowly as though she was denying the words to herself. “But Jonah…”
My eyes became hard as stone. I felt my jaw clench. I felt suddenly cold with dread.
“It has to be this way, Leticia,” I went on resolutely. “What you want… what you want from me – I just can’t give it to you.”
Raw pain and anguish seeped into Leticia’ eyes. Her shoulders began to slump and her expression became blank and remote. She stared, but not at me. She was staring past me, her eyes lost into empty space.
“It’s not just because I may die in surgery tomorrow,” I explained. “I’m not shutting you out to protect my heart or yours. It’s more than that. You want me to love you, but I
know that I can’t.”
Suddenly Leticia seemed to come alert. She sat upright in the chair, feet planted firmly on the ground and she leaned forward to reach out to me.
“Jonah, I don’t understand. I know you don’t love me yet, and I accept that. But I haven’t given up hope. I haven’t given up hope that – in time – you will learn love. You will learn to love me. Every moment we spend together, both in bed and out, helps strengthen that connection we have.”
Leticia stood up suddenly and her expression became beseeching. “Dammit, Jonah! Don’t you dare tell me that you don’t feel the connection we have! Don’t you dare try to tell me that you don’t have feelings for me. I’ve seen it in your eyes, I’ve heard it in your voice, I’ve felt it in the way you touched me!” She was leaning over the table, panting. Her expression was tortured with the sudden desperation of her emotion.
I sat back. I didn’t move. I stared up into Leticia’s face with sad, empty eyes.
“I’m not denying any of that, Leticia,” I confessed heavily. “I won’t deny that I care for you, but I can’t deny a deeper truth either.” I closed my eyes, rubbed at a swirling dark pain in my head, felt the cold cramping clench of a fist squeezing tight around my heart. “Leticia, there was something I said during our interviews – something I told you that has been haunting me ever since. It’s something I can’t deny because it is an eternal truth that I believe, and that dooms us.”
Leticia frowned, and I could see behind her eyes her mind replaying my words, as though searching her memory without success. She glared at me, shook her head in confusion.
“I told you that women marry men hoping their love will change them, and it never does. The man never changes,” I said with finality. “I realized that no matter how hard you try, and no matter how much I want to feel love… I just won’t change.” My voice was rusty and strained, racked with a pain that seemed to paralyze me.
“Jonah!” Leticia cried my name as though it were an exclamation of her pain. She came suddenly around the table to me. I rose from my chair. Leticia wrapped her arms around me and I stood like a statue, cold and remote while she imprisoned me in her embrace.
“Give us a chance,” Leticia cried, and I heard the pleading timbre in her voice. “All we need is time. You can’t condemn us. You can’t deny us the chance to love each other because you’re facing surgery tomorrow.”
I tore myself away from her. Leticia’s arms fell heavily to her side and she stood there, suddenly very small and broken. She was sobbing, tears streaming down her cheeks and dripping from the line of her jaw. She swayed towards me again and then stopped herself.
“Leticia, I’m not ending this relationship because I am facing life or death surgery tomorrow. I’m ending this relationship because if I survive I don’t want your life to be wasted or our relationship to be a hollow empty façade. I’m letting you go now because you deserve to be loved by a man who is capable of loving. In your heart, your dream for us is unattainable. I don’t want a white picket fence, and I don’t want children,” I said. “I don’t want the hearts and flowers of a romance novel. It’s not me. It’s not who I am. It’s my world – my way, and I wish with all my heart that I could live happily ever after in your world. But I can’t.”
Leticia suddenly flew at me with terrible pain and heartache contorting her face and flashing in her eyes. I was unprepared. She lashed out at me, and I swayed my head away at the last instant before her nails could rake bloody lines across my face.
“You selfish bastard!” she shrieked her anguish. “You won’t even give love a chance!” She struck at me again, but I trapped her wrists. I crushed her to me. Her whole body was trembling and shaking, and the terrible agony of her crying shook her shoulders so that she heaved within my arms. She flailed and dashed her anger against me like ocean surf against a rock until she was spent and softly weeping. She pressed her palms flat against my chest to push herself away from me, and there was a stricken look of revulsion and wounded betrayal in her gaze.
I could not bear what I saw in her eyes.
I let her go.
Leticia staggered away and collapsed to her knees on the cold kitchen floor.
I did nothing.
I was silent now, staring down at Leticia, straining to hold back my own agony – my own terrible pain and remorse. A part of me was torn by sympathy, and the enormity of the hurt I had caused threatened to overwhelm me. Behind the dark remote flint of my eyes I died a little inside…
Leticia was shaking wildly. She turned her face up to mine and there was despondency and despair and humiliation torn across her face, crashing over her in a relentless surge of tears and sobbing.
“Jonah… just one last chance…” her voice rasped in terrible hopelessness, and then trailed away to nothing.
I shook my head. My heart was cold and heavy as a stone. “Leticia, we never had a chance,” I said sadly. “I know that now. I am sorry. I wish that I had realized it sooner.”
Chapter 26.
It was late. It was dark.
Outside a storm was brewing in the night sky. Thunder rumbled, so close overhead that my office window rattled in its encasement. A flash of blue light jagged across the sky and hard rain began to lash against the glass.
I sat hunched at my desk, burdened and glowering darkly into empty space.
Sometimes doing the right thing can feel so very wrong.
Was Leticia right? Had I disguised my selfishness beneath a cloak of nobility?
I sat back and sighed. I didn’t have the answer. All I had left was my wavering beliefs.
And guilt.
And sadness.
And despair.
I poured the glass half full of whisky then slipped the knot of my tie. I sipped at the glass but the alcohol tasted sour and bitter.
I stared down at the sheath of legal documents on my desk, then picked up the pen and signed my last will and testament with a sudden flourish.
I sealed the documents in an envelope and left them on the desk beside the phone.
The phone…
I paused, frozen for a moment, and then picked up the receiver and slowly dialed.
It’s never too late to do the right thing.
I screwed up my courage…
The dial tone echoed in my ear for long seconds before Leticia’s familiar voice answered.
“Hello?”
“Hello,” I said, feeling my heart begin to race with anxiety. “It’s me.”
“Jonah?”
“Yes.”
I heard Leticia make a little hiss of pained sound. “Go to hell,” she said softly.
I stared at the blank wall before me. “I probably will,” I confessed.
There was a long, agonizing moment of silence – a moment where everything hung in the balance. I could sense Leticia’s pain, and hear the soft muffled sounds of sobbing down the line.
“What do you want?” she faltered, and then her voice became harder. “Haven’t you hurt me enough?”
I took the blow like a punch to the heart. “I’m sorry,” I said, lowering my voice to a whisper. “I called to apologize.”
More silence – this time longer. I felt my grip on the receiver tighten until my knuckles where white.
“You’re a bastard,” Leticia muttered. I imagined her, standing in her apartment, maybe by the big living room window. I visualized her, rigid and unyielding, hurt beyond belief by the way I had ended the relationship – the cruel way I had rejected her… turned my back on our future. I imagined her eyes red from crying and her face distraught, her sense of devastation.
“Yes,” I said. “And more… and I’m sorry.”
Leticia huffed cynically. “Sorry, Jonah? You’re sorry? For what? For breaking my heart, or for being a callous, selfish bastard?”
“Both,” I said softly. And then I took a deep breath and pushed myself out of the chair. I needed to pace.
“Leticia… I was wrong,” I admitted, and then it
all came out in a rush of words that had been gnawing at my guts for hours. “I was scared,” I confessed. “Terrified. You don’t understand. You see me as some kind of an expert on women… and maybe I am. But I’m not an expert at emotions, Leticia. I’m not. Last night in bed you said that we should pretend ‘this would last forever’. It terrified me, because I realized I might not live… and I wondered if I could ever truly love you. I didn’t want to lead you on – not when I couldn’t promise you the future you saw for us. I did the one thing that would set you free. I went cold. I shut down. I locked you out and turned my back… because I had nothing I could offer you. Not even hope.”
Leticia stayed silent for a long time. I paced the floor, prowling in the shadows, listening to her ragged breathing down the line. Finally she said, “So why are you calling now? To clear your conscience?”
“No,” I said. “I’m calling to ask you to forgive me,” I said simply. “Leticia, I was wrong – and I can’t believe I made the same mistake again. It took Tiny’s death for me to realize I was wasting my life, and that every moment was precious and should be seized…” my voice dropped suddenly to a hushed whisper. “And it took the loss of you – the raw breaking ache I’ve had in my heart all day – to realize that I don’t want to live without you.”
I heard Leticia gasp – a sharp intake of breath like a tiny sound of shock.
“I… I don’t understand…” she said softly, and I could hear the falter in her voice. The dismay. “Jonah, yesterday you told me that men never changed. That’s why you ended our relationship. You said that we never had a chance…”
“I know.” I threw my hand into the air in a gesture of exasperation. “And I was wrong about that too,” I admitted. “I believed with complete conviction that men never change, Leticia. I believed it right up to the moment I felt my heart break when I realized I had lost you. Men do change,” I said, and then shook my head, not really understanding what I was saying, but knowing now for certain that it was the truth.