The holiday season is an interesting time for those in palliative and hospice care. Family members who have been around, suddenly aren’t because their lives become too busy. Family members who haven’t been around, suddenly are because there’snothing quite like guilt trips and good deeds. Even among an incredible staff, there are vacation requests and winter illnesses, and I have a list of others who want to work overtime just so they don’t have to go home.
Joy is high. Depression is high. Plenty of people are hit with both, patients and caregivers alike.
I get a break from medical conferences and training seminars, but I spend more days at the hospital than usual, virtual meetings traded for handshakes and chaos that require my presence. It’s nothing new to me. I’m happy to meet the demands of the job, and I made peace with my own feelings about this time of year long ago.
The holiday season is an interesting time for Lucy and me.
It’s when Michelle died.
Of course, Lucy’s always been nearby before, and we’ve found ways to celebrate a little of everything. We’ll do that from a distance this year, and I’ve been prepared for that for months. I’m restless though, and I want to be mad that it has so little to do with my daughter, and so much to do with the man I miss more than I should.
It’s been nice to have someone to talk to. It’s been nice to have someone to touch. It’s been nice to rediscover pleasure in a way I thought I’d buried years ago, only to have a friend wink and place it in my lap.
To be fair, Darren and I have still talked and touched, and I’ve welcomed his continued interest in my lap, but it’s been a series of fits and starts, and probably more my fault than his. I haven’tmade it to Trailhead, which means trivia banter has been traded for text messages and voice notes. My schedule has been less flexible than usual, so planning for a movie or dinner or a night in my spa feels out of reach. And the touching has happened during fleeting moments of pleasure, initiated by whichever one of us is a little more awake and usually beginning and ending against somebody’s front door or bent over a couch, the hellos and goodbyes implied on either side.
It's fun the Sunday afternoon Darren stops by on his way—and slightly out of his way—to work. I’ve been keeping my mind off the rest of the world by narrowing mine to the Harley I wrecked a few months ago, and when he texts to say he has a few minutes to spare, I warn him I might be too filthy to entertain him properly.
He sends anlolin response, and I’m nothing but sweat and grease when he pulls into my driveway.
“I tried to warn you,” I say as I push myself up from the garage floor, the black smudges covering my hands and arms keeping me from reaching for him. “I’m a mess. Been stuck inside my head all afternoon.”
Darren grins, brimming with mischief when he steps closer and brushes a knuckle up and down the zipper of my jeans. “Bet I can make you messier.”
His own jeans hide nothing about what’s on his mind, and a bulge I’ve admired for years has me licking my lips now. I’m not exactly sure how this will unfold when none of my nearby rags will get me clean enough to help, but Darren isn’t concerned, andI’m all too happy to let him back me into the closest wall. I land somewhere between my workbench and a row of gardening tools organized on perfectly placed hooks, and my groan carries further than usual when he unfastens my button without looking.
“I’ll get you dirty if I touch you,” I continue unnecessarily. I’ve made my point a couple of times, and Darren hasn’t given up on me yet. “Is this like the gallery opening, when you got me off and didn’t let me return the favor?”
“Nope. I can’t work an entire shift with my dick like this.”
“The keg room will be right there.”
His tongue is in my mouth right around the same time his hand is in my pants, pulling me free from my boxers and kissing me until I stop picturing him with anyone else. I kiss him back, giving as well as I get, and regardless of what happens over the next several hours, I’d like to think he’ll have trouble forgetting this. While I wasn’t fully aroused when Darren’s fingers first curled around me, I’m getting there fast. Whether my open garage door has something to do with that is anybody’s guess.
I don’t have time to think about our audience either way, his clean hands working quickly to undo his jeans and push his clothes out of the way. Mine, too. Then Darren has both of us in his grip, the spit he adds causing me to make some unholy noise, and I can’t tell one detail from another after that. We’re kissing, panting, biting, and growling while he braces himself with one hand next to my head, careful to keep from smelling like gear oil when he arrives at Trailhead. I can’t help but stare down at where he’s stroking us together, and though this should take longerthan it will, I’m not sorry that I start to shake. I glance across the street, then I forget about the neighborhood again when I’m compelled to watch myself spill all over Darren’s hand.
“Yes, baby. Give me everything.”
I do—anything else is a physical impossibility—and he uses the mess he promised to finish himself off, tipping forward just enough to make sure my old t-shirt gets painted with everything he can’t wear to work.
When Darren leaves, I wear it longer than I should.
We talk a handful of times in the days after that. We touch briefly when I stop by his house on the way to a hospital fundraiser. But everything is less fun on the Tuesday afternoon he mentions coming over again. He has the night off, and I’m already home, keeping my mind off the rest of the world by narrowing mine to the woman I lost ten years ago. When Darren texts to say he has no plans for the next several hours, I warn him I might be too distracted to entertain him properly.
It's the anniversary of the day Michelle died.
There’s nololfrom him. He calls me instead. Even as I answer, I’m not sure what else to say, but I know Darren can handle it—I’m counting on it, actually—and I bite my tongue hard just before I let it go.
“Too blunt?” I ask.
“Not even close. And now I just need to know whether it would be better for me to come over or leave you alone.”
“Better for whom?”
“You,” he says. “Only you.”
“I haven’t eaten in a while.”
“Okay. Is anything off limits?”