Reese Gabriel - Own Me Wholly!

Thomas on life support.

Caroline needs pain?

She sure has her fill now, doesn't she?

After I met Thomas and we fell into each other, I begged him not to take me to any of the meetings, I rationalized six ways from Sunday that I didn't need it, that we had it under control, that there was no way in hell I would ever drink with him around, all he had to do was say, “C, no.” And that was it. But he told me it didn't work that way, and I knew he was right, it wasn't fair to make him be the entire program for me. He knew I was scared, though, so he let me be baby girl. I held his hand the whole way.

"Do I look pretty, Daddy?"

"You look beautiful, baby girl, are you ready to go inside and make Daddy proud?"

"I'm scared, there's so many people in the room."

"I know, but Daddy will be with you."

"Promise?"

"Baby girl, you know Daddy will never leave you…"

He has left, though, hasn't he … at least in the ways I need him.

"Do I have to talk?"

"Yes, baby girl, you need to tell the people about yourself."

"I can't.” I bury my head against his chest.

He soothes me, telling me what we will do later, what my reward is going to be if I am a good girl.

It is a very adult reward.

I sigh, and discretely touch his erection. “I love you, Daddy."

"I love you, baby girl."

Brian is undoing the straps, I am limp as a rag doll, think I might be sobbing, but I don't have tears left. How long does it take to make more? I wonder.

He's whispering things in my ear and he's holding me, very, very tight. I let go in a different way, sharing it all through the pores of my naked body skin to skin, far too much life experience than he could understand, but it's funny, I don't feel older, superior, I feel like woman, embraced by man. Fresh, strong man.

"Brian … I don't know what I'll do without him."

He doesn't answer me with any platitudes, for Thomas or me. He just rolls us both under the covers. He makes a cocoon, cradling me against his back. Together we make it feel okay.

I must have dozed off. The next thing I recall is hearing a cell phone, not my own. I sit up, groggy. Brian is facing away, talking. His hand is on his hip. I love his naked ass. The rest of him is good, too. Solid. And man shaped.

He clicks off the phone and turns back, a strange look on his face. “It's Thomas,” he tells me. “He's … awake."

"But that's good news."

"Yea … I guess I'm still just in shock. From the whole thing."

"I know the feeling."

We dress quickly and quietly. A united front. A terrible way to have to end this latest “session” as he puts it, but probably the best way, because it keeps us from breaking into our usual post-coital fight.

I let him drive.

His hand moves across the seat, I find it and hold on for dear life, even as I tell him we should probably go in separately.

"You want to go first or should I?” he asks.

"You're the dominant,” I say, only half joking.

"I'll go first,” he declares before I can tell him if I'm joking or not. “Wait outside, follow me in after about five minutes. I'll tell them I called you."

I do as he tells me. My hands are shaking too much for a cigarette.

I wonder why Monica didn't call me.

My mind starts playing tricks. She doesn't want me here. She knows.

Something worse is going on, though, ever since I had that feeling in the shower of a spirit passing through me. I feel like the worse kind of traitor for thinking this way and I wouldn't dare say it, but I don't think this waking up is good or permanent.

I drop my lighter and kick it in frustration.

"Caroline."

It's Brian. Behind me.

"You scared me."

His face is expressionless.

"He's gone,” I whisper.

He runs his hand through his hair. “I don't get it, he had his eyes open, they said, he squeezed Monica's hand."

"He was saying goodbye."

Brian's eyes tear up. “Not to me he fucking didn't. He was always leaving me in life now he does it in death."

"Brian, it was more than he could handle. He held on long enough so we could come and see him and talk to him. No other man would have been that strong. Who knows what extra pain he went through?"

"Is that it, then? Nice and cut and dried? Your hero Daddy dies and now you'll worship him in death? How cozy, for you, Caroline. A taker, right to the end."

My lip trembles. Experience tells me he is wont to turn like this, opening me for love and then ripping my guts out, but that doesn't keep it from hurting. “You really shouldn't talk to me anymore right now, Brian."

I go to walk inside. Can't let him see I'm barely able to stay upright.

"Stop, Caroline, that's an order."

I ignore him; I have to.

Monica's upstairs and Kasey and Erin. They need me.

I'm going to have to see him at the funeral. I hate myself for obsessing. This should not be about me or about Brian either. Unfortunately he has this way of preoccupying me.

I hate to say I'm glad for the distraction of helping Monica and the girls, but it is helping to keep me on track. I think if they were to turn to me individually or as a group and say, Caroline, you just don't matter, I think I would go into a tailspin the likes of which I have never known.

It's strange, but I feel Thomas’ absence less than when he was in a coma. At that point, I was seeing his body and just feeling torn apart that he wasn't really in it. Now I have this sense he is free and I hear him constantly in my brain. He's the one guiding things, he's in control.

Monica seems to be drawing on this, too. She's calm, resolved, focused. At least when it comes to business and funeral arrangements. The psychologist in our building has warned me this won't last.

"She's in shock right now. It's like when a limb is severed. The body shuts off the nerve endings. This is survival mode. She's getting through the funeral, doing what she has to. At a certain point the natural anesthetic will wear off and she will feel an explosion of emotion. Guilt, fear, anger, you name it."

I can't help but read me in there. The psychologist has no clue what Thomas has meant to me.

The girls are acting true to form. Kasey has emerged to rival Monica as the executor of the estate. A couple of times Monica has had to remind her whose spouse this is going in the ground and whose decisions they are to make.

Erin is quiet.

Except with me. She seeks me out constantly, talking about her groups, clothes, everything in the sun other than Thomas. This is normal, too, says the psychologist. She is filtering everything through her fairly fragile adolescent self.

Monica misunderstands it as selfish and has lectured her on more than one occasion. I think Monica sees herself in her daughter and that makes her unhappy.

Kasey would probably be all over Erin, too, if it weren't for the fact that she were already catching heat from her mother. I find Kasey surprisingly empathetic with her little sister.

She's growing up. You have to in a situation like this.

Back to Brian. He never did come back upstairs. The four of us women said so long to Brian, waiting for the men from the funeral home, with their dark, pinstripe suits and squeaky shoes. They zipped him in a blue velvet bag, and oh god, was that hard. In that single act, seeing his face get covered over, all the injustice, the total impossibility of it washed over me. But then, just as fast, the numbness set it.

The men in the suits were right there, with forms to fill out, distracting and focusing Monica. Not as cruel as it seemed.

Two days later we were gathered at Bushnell.

The national military cemetery south of Orlando. It is located in the country. The ride was long. Erin had headphones in the limo, Monica told her twice to turn them off.