What I Shouldn’t Want

Chapter 5

NORA’S POV

Mr. Okafor died at 2:40 in the afternoon, holding his daughter's hand.

I've done this more times than I can count, and I still stand at the foot of the bed with my hands folded and wait until the family is ready. His daughter kept saying "okay, Daddy, okay," over and over, and I stayed quiet and let her say it. When it was over, I recorded the time, called the doctor, and straightened the sheet over his chest. That's the job. You stay steady so they don't have to.

It was in the supply closet afterward that I came apart. Just for a minute, with my forehead against a shelf of gauze and my fist pressed to my mouth.

"Nora?"

Priya was in the doorway, still in her cardigan, a clipboard held against her chest. She's twenty-six and has worked here eight months. She's the only one who ever asks me anything and then waits for the answer.

"I'm fine."

"You're not."

"I'm fine. Long night."

She didn't argue. She stepped in, closed the door behind her, and handed me a paper cup of water from her pocket like she'd brought it for exactly this. "You've been double-shifting for three weeks. Dr. Ames noticed. He's going to say something."

"Let him."

"I'm not asking what's wrong," Priya said. "I'm saying when you want to tell someone, I'm here. That's all."

I almost told her. The words were right there: I slept with my husband's brother and I can't stop thinking about it. I drank the water instead and said thank you, and she nodded and left me alone.

I finished my shift at eleven. I drove home without turning on the radio.

My house is small and white with a crooked porch light, and Daniel and I bought it six years ago, the week after we got engaged. It had been dark for three days. I parked, sat there with the engine ticking, and saw the truck.

It was parked on the street, two houses down. Caleb was sitting on my front steps with his elbows on his knees.

Don't, I told myself. Drive away. Go to Dana's.

I got out of the car.

"I told you it was better if I stayed away," I said, walking up the path.

"You did."

"So why are you here?"

"I fixed the porch step. At the lake. And then I didn't know what to do, so I drove." He stood up. He looked exhausted, and his hands were jammed in his jacket pockets. "I've been sitting out here since nine. I figured if you didn't come home I'd leave."

"That's not an answer."

"I know." He looked at me. "I can't stop, Nora. I've been trying for two days. I'm not asking you to say anything. I just needed to see you."

I should have told him to go. I should have said it clearly, and I should have meant it.

"Dana came to see you," I said instead.

"She did."

"She told me. She said she asked if you were being careful with me."

His mouth twitched. "She threatened to drown me."

"That sounds like her."

We stood there in the dark. A car went by on the street, and the headlights slid over us and left. He was close enough that I could smell the sawdust on his jacket, and under it, just him, something warm and clean that I'd stopped being able to forget.

"Come inside," I said.

"Nora”

"Before I change my mind."

I unlocked the door with a shaking hand. He followed me into the dark hallway, and I didn't turn on the light. The door clicked shut behind him, and I turned around, and he was right there.

"This is a mistake," I said.

"Yeah."

"We said never again."

"I know what we said."

"Caleb”

He kissed me, or I kissed him. I honestly couldn't have told you. It was just suddenly happening, his hands on my face and my back against the wall, and the whole day, the whole last week, drained out of me. It wasn't desperate this time. It was slower and more sure of itself, and that was somehow worse.

"Where's your bedroom?" he said against my mouth.

"Not that one."

"Okay."

"The guest room."

I couldn't have him in the bed I'd shared with Daniel. Not that. He understood without my explaining. He just nodded and let me lead him by the hand down the hall.

The guest room was cold and smelled like laundry soap. I turned on the little lamp by the bed, and the light was low and yellow. For a moment we just stood there looking at each other. He reached out and undid my scrub top one button at a time, like he had all the time in the world.

"You don't have to be careful with me," I said.

"I want to be."

"I'm not going to break."

"Yeah?" His thumb slid over my collarbone, over the mark that had faded to yellow. "You looked pretty close to it in that kitchen."

"That was different."

"Was it?"

"Yes." I pulled his shirt over his head. His chest was broad and scarred in places, a long pale line along his ribs I'd never seen, and I put my mouth on it. "That was me needing something. This is me wanting it."

He sucked in a breath. "Is there a difference?"

"I think there has to be."

He laid me down on the bed and kissed his way down my body, slow, unhurried, and when he pulled my pants off and settled between my thighs I felt my whole body go tight with nerves and anticipation. He looked up at me, his hair falling across his forehead.

"Tell me what you like."

"I don't..." My face burned. "Daniel and I, we didn't really..."

"Okay." His voice was gentle. "Then I'll find out."

And he did.

His mouth was warm and patient and it took me apart. He kept looking up to watch my face, reading me, changing when I gasped, staying when I arched. I got a hand in his hair and held on, my hips lifting off the sheets. I heard myself saying his name, then please, then God, then nothing coherent at all. When I came it rolled through me in long, shuddering waves, and I clapped a hand over my mouth to keep from crying out.

"Don't," he said, pulling my hand away. "I want to hear you."

"Caleb..."

"Let me hear you."

He climbed up over me, and I reached down and wrapped my fingers around him. He was hard and hot in my hand, and he groaned and dropped his head against my shoulder.

"f**k, Nora."

"Now," I said. "I want you now."

"Condom”

"I'm on the pill. And I haven't... there hasn't been anyone. Not in a year, before."

"Me neither. Not since before I left." He pulled back to look at me. "You sure?"

"Yes."

He pushed into me in one long stroke, and we both groaned. I wrapped my legs around his waist. He moved slowly at first, deep and deliberate, and I felt every inch of him. He held my hands against the mattress and kissed me like he was drowning.

"You feel so f*****g good," he said, rough against my ear. "I can't think. I've thought about this for so long I can't think."

"Don't think. Just feel it."

I rocked up to meet him, and the rhythm broke apart, got faster and harder and less polite. The headboard knocked the wall. I didn't care. I raked my nails down his back and he swore and drove into me harder, and I told him not to stop, and he said he wouldn't, he wouldn't, he never would. I came again, tight and bright, clenching around him, and that pushed him over. He buried his face in my neck and shook, and I held him through it and felt his heart pounding against mine.

Afterward we lay tangled together, sweaty and breathless, neither of us speaking. He had one arm around me. I stared at the ceiling.

"This is bad," I whispered.

"Yeah."

"We're not going to be able to stop."

He didn't say anything. His thumb moved slowly across my shoulder. After a minute I felt his breathing even out, and I realized he'd fallen asleep, finally, for the first time in two days.

I stayed awake and watched the lamplight on the wall.

On my nightstand, across the hall, my phone buzzed once. I didn't go look. I already knew it would be Dana, or Marianne, or the hospice. Somebody who loved me and didn't know what I'd done.