Chapter Twenty-Seven

Knight

1 Timothy 2:12

Jillian stared at her phone as the sun peaked over the horizon. AJ struggled to get to sleep the previous night, refusing to take any pills until after they’d had sex—sex that felt like making love, sex that gave her so much heartache and guilt. Luke was gone, she tried to tell herself, but he really wasn’t. Jessica died. Luke lived. Would it have been easier to move on had he died? Had Luke moved on? Had he made love to another? The ghost of the woman she once was couldn’t bear the thought, but Jillian Knight wished him a life filled with a wife who embraced his quirks and maybe someday little Joneses tearing his orderly life apart in the best possible way. She hoped her four-legged baby would live out the rest of his life in a house full of people who understood him the way Jessica had.

To avoid waking AJ, she perched in a chair outside the tent, wrapped in a blanket, waiting for her one-bar wireless service to return an answer to her biblical verse search. After churning in cyber circles the answer appeared on her screen.

“I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.”

“Fuck that,” she whispered to herself. Her finger hovered over the forward button as she contemplated sending the message to Jackson.

“Jill—”

She clicked off the screen and unzipped the front of the tent.

“Goddammit! AJ?” He lost consciousness and his body began to wrench in muscle contractions. She dropped to her knees beside him, watching in horror. There was nothing else she could do. It took less than two minutes that seemed like an eternity, and then he went completely limp. Her lower lip quivered between her teeth as she pressed her fingers to his neck. Closing her eyes, she swallowed hard, finally feeling his pulse.

“I can barely keep myself alive … I can’t do this,” she whispered, collapsing onto her side next to him.

After a few minutes he came to, focusing on her eyes with confusion in his.

“You had a seizure.”

“Sorry.”

Jillian huffed a small laugh. “You just up and left without anything, didn’t you? What is this? Am I here just to watch you die?” The bitterness bled through her words.

“I was dying with them … I’m living with you.”

“Well, then it’s a shitty way to live. You need some anti-seizure meds or something. I can’t watch this every day.”

“Take me back.” The defeat in his voice hurt worse than watching his body lose control.

“I’m not taking you back.” She crawled out of the tent, grabbed her phone, and walked toward the main road for privacy and better signal.

“I’m still getting texts.”

McGraw’s cynical laugh greeted her on the other end of the line. “Then let me bring you in. New identities, new location, maybe even a sex change. I always thought you should have been a guy.”

“Is that why you buried your cock in my ass?”

“What the fuck do you want?” On the outside he’d perfected the tough-guy role, but Jillian—Jessica—always ignited the fuse on his patience.

“AJ needs his anti-seizure medication.”

“Do you have a prescription?”

“No. He didn’t bring any with him.”

“You’re dreaming, little girl. I’m flattered you think I’m God, but I’m not. I can’t just thumb through a PDR and find him the right medication.”

“Clearly you’re an old fuck who hasn’t been to the doctor recently. Welcome to the digital age where everyone’s entire life, including their medical records, can be accessed online.”

“You’re asking me to break into the hospital’s database?”

“I’m not asking. Message me with the pharmacy information.”

*

Jillian and AJ continued south with her drug dealer on speed dial. Each passing day AJ seemed to be doing better. Jillian would have been skeptical had AJ himself not acted a little shocked. He admitted the doctors said radiation was a wait and see situation. She insisted he still take his medications, if for no other reason than the fact that she’d repeatedly sold her soul to the Devil, or vice versa, to get them.

“You’ve been gone a while. How long is Jackson going to let you gallivant around the country with me?”

Jillian grinned, keeping her eyes trained to the miles of Texas highway before them. “I occasionally check in with my parole officer … can you say the same? Besides, I told you Jackson’s too busy courting your ex-cleaning lady.”

“Courting?”

“Yes. He’s decided it’s time to marry and populate the world with little Knights. Pun intended.”

“I think she’s close to my age and maybe has a teenager or something. Shouldn’t he be courting someone in their childbearing years?”

“I like Ryn and I should land my fist in your junk on her behalf for making her seem old and barren. Not to mention she’s worked for you how many years? And you think she “maybe” has a child who FYI is twenty-one—a daughter.”

“She was my cleaning lady, not my psychiatrist.”

That hit so close to home.

“And honestly, I rarely saw her. Most people aren’t home when their cleaning lady comes, and she only came twice a month. She actually did more odd jobs for me. I don’t mind scrubbing toilets and running a vacuum, but laundry, dusting those stupid mini-blinds, light fixtures, and cleaning my fish tank…” she felt him glaring at the side of her head “…that’s the stuff she did for me and it didn’t require an exchange of personal information.”

“I think when you ask someone to wash and fold your tighty-whities there really should be an exchange of personal information.”

AJ shook his head. “It was more sheets and towels, occasionally my uniform or ironing some shirts.”

“Good to know … I thought she must have been pretty desperate for work. Anyway, I hope it works out. I’d love to be an aunt. I’d be the coolest aunt ever.”

“Is that enough?”

“What do you mean?” She stole a quick, sideways glance.

“Don’t you want to be a mom?”

“I feel like we’ve had this discussion.”

“I feel like you’re afraid to admit what you want, or maybe you’re even afraid to want it at all.”

“I don’t want you to die. I’m not afraid to admit that. I want a romantic date with cloth napkins. I want to always be on top when we have sex.”

The last part was a lie. Jillian realized her list of wants turned into her needs. Her deepest truth: she didn’t want everything she needed or maybe she didn’t want to need it. Needs were weaknesses.

“You’d be an amazing mother.”

She guffawed. “How can you even say that with a straight face?”

“Your compassion equals your strength, and you’re the strongest person I know.”

“Well, it’s a moot point. You can’t have kids and I choose you.”

“But—”

“I. Choose. You. And don’t you dare talk about the fucking cancer. You’re better … we’re better.”

AJ sighed, gazing out his window. “We’re better,” he whispered.

*

If he loved her, he’d let her go. AJ couldn’t get that thought out of his damaged mind. Jillian loved him and she let him go with a simple thank you. He blamed his selfishness on the tumor … by that point he blamed everything on the tumor. How much of her life could he steal and still feel like a man and not an inconsiderate bastard?

“How do you feel about ice cream?” She slowed, pulling into the dinky parking lot of an ice cream shop with a few picnic tables in front.

“I feel like you want some.”

“I do.”

That smile. When they first met he never imagined one day having a long list of traits he loved about Jillian Knight—quite the opposite. Life was nothing if not unimaginable. The woman was real. She never faked anything, not a single word, not a single smile. Every ounce of her being screamed, “Take me as I am.”

Hence the selfishness. If life was short, then AJ’s was less than a breath from ending, so he wanted to end it with something real.