About a month after my wife died, maybe it was two months, my mother and father reportedly rented a U-Haul, loaded it up with everything that was in our apartment, and gathered me up, and brought me home. I say "reportedly" because those days were a blur. If I had any coherent thought during those months, it was visions of my wife, and then the reality of a large, black void that was now my life. I was lost elsewhere.
My parents did everything they could think of—from taking me to doctors who prescribed little bottles of pills to bringing every person I'd ever cared about to my bedside, but nothing worked. I wasn't coming back.
My mother, Laura, would rub my back, and lean over me, whispering into my ear, the flesh of her lips grazing my earlobes, sending chills into my brain. Sometimes, exhausted, she would lie next to me in bed, spooning me against her body. I could feel her breasts pressed up against my back as she stroked my arm. Willing me, I suppose, back to life.
She had given birth to me once, and now it seemed as if she was ready to give birth to me again, as if she could expel me from the darkness back into the light with sheer will.
I was her favorite child. It had remained unspoken all of these years, but everyone knew she had a fondness for me. My brothers and sisters would tease me and I would protest—but a part of me always knew that they were right.
"David," she whispered, the tip of her tongue grazing my ear.
Her voice was almost a purr as she pressed her pelvis against me. I don't know what it was, whether the sound of longing in her voice or the pressure of her warm belly against me, but I felt myself pushing back against her. It was a subtle movement, but she felt it, and the hand that she had on my bicep quickly found my thigh.
I unfolded my body slowly, stretching, and turned over to face her.
