Jake answered the door when Brian knocked and stood in the doorway for a moment, rocking on his feet, just looking at him. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Molly's head peeking out from the kitchen and waved Brian back so he could step out onto the porch himself. He pulled the door shut behind him. He stuck his hands in his pockets, "Look I'm gonna say this fast because we have about twelve seconds before Molls opens the window to listen in, so get your mental pen ready. You don't have to do this, whatever Molly said. Emma isn't your responsibility. Helping her isn't going to bring your wife back."
Brian blinked in surprise at Jake's words. He glanced to his left as a window cracked open and the curtains fluttered as Molly ducked back behind them. He looked at Jake solemnly, "Thanks, man."
"I figured someone had to say it," Jake said with a shrug.
"Is Emma home?" Brian asked.
Jake nodded, and turned for the door, swinging it open and waving Brian inside. Molly reappeared in the kitchen door. "Brian," she said, swiping a lock of hair behind her ear, "How are you? I didn't even know you were here." She smiled.
Brian glanced at Jake who smirked, then turned back to Molly. "Yeah, I'm here. Is Emma here by any chance?" he asked.
Molly nodded demurely. She pointed at the stairs, "Right up there." As Brian trotted up the stairs, he distinctly heard Molly hiss, "What'd you tell him before I got that window open?"
"It's not important," Jake replied.
Brian knew somehow Jake hadn't heard the end of Molly's curiousity on that subject, though. He wondered how long he had before she'd be at Emma's bedroom door with a glass, listening there, too. He decided he and Emma needed to go somewhere to talk because he'd do nothing but fumble and stutter if he thought Molls was listening in.
Emma's door was easy to find, it was open and light was spilling into the hallway from it. He edged to the door frame and peeked inside. Emma was sitting at an old fashioned roll top desk, bent forward, moving in wide motions as she finger painted. He leaned against the frame and watched her. Her bucket hat was abandoned on the mattress behind her, revealing her bald head. She was wearing a simple t-shirt and jeans combo with fluffy grey slippers shaped like kittens. Her eyes were closed as her hands moved.
Then she opened them and caught sight of Brian out of her periphial vision and let out a shriek.
"I'm sorry!" Brian called, stepping in quickly and catching a small cup of paint that she'd knocked from the desk. Somehow, none of it managed to spill on the powder blue carpet underneath it. He put it on the desk, "I didn't mean to scare you."
"Why the hell are you sneaking in like that?!" she cried, "My God, you gave me a heart attack." She had paint on her cheeks where she'd grabbed her face when she'd screamed. Brian bit his lip to keep from laughing at the colorful marks on her skin.
"I'm sorry. You were concentrating," he said, "I didn't want to disturb you." He glanced down at the painting and saw a swirling mass of color and shapes that, though they were too abstract to really identify the subject matter, seemed to tell a story in their intensity. "This is interesting," Brian commented, tilting his head to look at it more.
Emma blushed. "It's not finished."
"What's it about?" he asked.
Emma had never had anybody ask her what her paintings were about before. Plenty of people asked what they were, but never what they were about. She thought she was the only one that understood that her paintings told stories, that they lived and breathed with emotion and plot. She hesitated.
Brian glanced at her, "You don't have to tell me," he said, "Art can be really personal sometimes."
"It's about a fight I had this morning with Molly," she said quickly.
Brian glanced back down at the paint. Sharp edges, flaming colors, with a subtle blue speckled throughout. He could see it. He could hear it. The contrasts had taken on an almost audiable element that seemed to shout at him.
"Do you paint?" Emma asked.
A noise in the hallway made them both glance at the open door, but nobody was visibly there. Remembering his thought to go somewhere else, Brian looked back at Emma. "Are you hungry by any chance?" he asked.
Emma hesitated, the argument with Molly flooding back into her mind, recalling what they'd been fighting about. "I -"
"I just want to talk," Brian said.
Emma drew a deep breath. It would be easier to talk to Brian sensibly without Molly listening to their every word, she told herself. She could picture Molly barging in and interrupting them and making sure things went her way. Emma nodded, "Yeah, let's go eat."
Brian followed Emma into the hall, where they almost ran into Molly, who was scrambling to get up from a crouching position by the doorway. Molly had turned beet red and kept her eyes downcast to the floor, refusing to make contact with either of them.
Emma had forgotten how hard it is to eat spaghetti in even a semblance of grace until she was sitting across from Brian at a restaurant and there was no going back. She coiled the spaghetti as tightly on her fork as she could, but every time ended up with this extra strand she had to suck into her mouth which always managed to deposit a twinkle of sauce onto her nose.
Brian had ordered lasangna and didn't have the same dilemma she did. He watched her eating, though, thinking about the scene in Lady and the Tramp.
After a long pause of chewing and silverware clinking, their eyes met over the table and Brian took it as a cue. He wiped his mouth with the cloth napkin and cleared his throat. He opened his mouth to begin a speech he'd prepared on his way to the house, but Emma interrupted him.
"Whatever Molly told you to do tonight," she said, "You can just forget."
Brian paused, thinking of the painting and the fight and realizing Molly must've told Emma what she'd done, meeting Brian at the crack of dawn to suggest marriage to him. She must've given Emma a heads-up. Brian pressed his fingers together and thought for a moment, then he said, "Is it true that the treatment you're getting needs a second cycle?"
Emma stared at her plate, absently pushing a meat ball around with her fork. "Yeah," she whispered, "But it's ridiculously expensive." She closed her eyes, allowing her mind to refresh, and looked up at Brian. "I refuse to allow you to spend that kind of money on me."
"Without the treatment you're going to die," Brian said slowly.
Emma shrugged, "Not neccessarily. Lots of people live through cancer," she pointed out.
The waitress came by and replaced their basket of bread sticks.
"You're a brave woman," Brian said quietly, "You're brave because clearly you aren't afraid of death."
"I'm not. I know where I'm going."
"But you're a stupid woman because you're not trying to avoid it."
Emma stared at him for a long moment, feeling slightly abashed. She cast her eyes downward. "Don't judge me," she said.
"I'm not judging you," Brian replied, "I just think you need to think this over. Like really think about what it means. I know the whole argument some religious sects have over medicine and all being that God will allow only His plan to happen, but maybe the medicine being available is what His plan is."
Brian felt weird, talking about God and His plan again. It'd come out so natural, so freely. He hadn't talked about God - or thought about God, for that matter - since Leighanne had died. But it felt so right, the words he'd said. Medicine had flat out failed Leighanne. There'd been nothing they could've done for her, there was no way to save her.
"Then he needs to give me a shitload of money, doesn't he?"
"Or insurance."
Emma's eyes met Brian's. "Don't," she whispered.
Brian set his jaw, "Emma," he said quietly, "Don't you feel like I owe it to you? Don't you feel like, if nothing else in my life, I could at least do this much for you?"
Tears filled Emma's eyes, "Brian, it just doesn't work like that. You can't make up for the past with some good deeds now and expect it to be all gone."
He reached across the table, "I don't expect it to be gone. I know what I'm doing is essentially using an eyeddropper to put out a flame that I lit years ago..." he gripped her hand in his and rubbed the top of it with his thumb gently, soothingly, their eyes connected. "But Em, I want to do at least this much."
Her throat felt tight and she felt her lower lip quivering. She closed her eyes, fighting more tears from falling. She took in a ragged breath, then looked up at him. "I wanted to marry you twenty years ago," she whispered, "I wanted to run away to Tennessee and be your wife and have your children, and the part of me that wished for that fairy tale feels broken that this - this is how it's going to be... The part of me that wished for that fairy tale is screaming that it's too close to the dream to have it not be real." She bit her lip.
Brian felt his chest tighten. "Emma, please," he whispered, "Just this once, can't the prince on the white horse just rescue the maiden without the happily ever after?"
Emma swiped her eyes with her free hand, "I don't want to force you to be in my life."
"Nobody is forcing me to do this, Em," he replied, "I care about you. I do love you. And I just want to help you. We get married, you get insurance, you can get the treatment. When you're all better we can file and get this whole nightmare erased and you can find a real prince with a real kingdom to give you."
Emma could feel her heart breaking as he spoke. It'd all been reduced to this - to a fake wedding proposal for a fake marriage so she could be healed and go on to live a fake life with someone who was her fake soulmate... when her real soulmate was sitting right there, right across from her, wearing a strained smile.
"Please Emma," Brian whispered, "I already lost one woman I love, don't let it be two."
