I sat for a moment, said the first real prayer of thanks I’ve said in a long time, and headed home.
* * *
Along the way, I had to stop the car twice to rest. My body felt as if someone had wrung it inside out, and I was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes on the road.
I pulled over by the side of the highway and took in the colors of the sky. With so much dust in the air, the sunsets this summer are spectacular. Who could imagine that the right combination of dirt and light could be iridescent? Like sparks of pure joy, or swirls of color dancing.
When I got home, I took a walk through the gardens to check on the flowers. Every day, it seems, they grow straighter, taller, and more vibrant.
They looked revived and rejuvenated. I marveled at their resiliency—and mine.
Then I turned down the quilt on the bed, put on my softest T-shirt, and let peace carry me into a deep sleep.
* * *
Today I cleaned all morning, going through the last junk drawers in the kitchen. Rubber bands, old keys, twist ties. All the minutiae of life that we tuck away, afraid to let go because we might need it someday.
I pulled the garbage can over to the drawers and tossed the little things by the handful, then pulled out the drawers themselves and shook them free of the crumbs and dust that had collected in the corners.
There. Another item crossed off the list. The place has come a long way in the last couple of weeks.
I watered the flowers and pulled a few weeds in the memorial garden. Then I picked a bouquet of purple asters and set them on the kitchen table, adding a splash of color as bright as the freestyle painting on the wall.
Joe came over after lunch. I heard that familiar crunching sound of the car on the gravel driveway and went out to the porch to welcome him. He carried grocery bags in both hands. “I didn’t forget the steaks,” he said, setting the bags on the porch swing to give me a hug.
I held the door open for him, thankful for the cool air in the kitchen. “How did your trip go yesterday?” he said, putting the steaks in the refrigerator and taking bread and salad out of the bags.
“Fine,” I said, not sure how much to tell him.
“I don’t mean to pry,” he said, sensing my hesitation.
“No, that’s okay,” I said. “I’ll tell you about it later.”
“It’s up to you,” he said, turning to look me in the eye. “I know this is sudden—our spending time together this way. You have every right to keep your life private. If you feel I’m stepping over the line, just tell me, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, wanting any line between us to simply disappear.
* * *
We spent the afternoon freshening things up around the place. He found the tools in the shed and made a trip to the hardware store to get some supplies; then he started in on the pipes and the tile and the bathroom ceiling, patching things up, making the house look like someone lived here again.
I puttered in the kitchen, starting a cake for supper, marveling at the sharp sweetness of the vanilla and the texture of the coconut. Joe came in, on his way to the shed for more tools.
“Mmm,” he said. “Your mom’s coconut cake?”
I nodded and held out a spoon filled with batter.
“As good as ever,” he said, licking it clean. He set the spoon in the sink, then turned around to look at me. “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he said, “do you have something big coming up this weekend?”
I felt a shiver run through me. “No. Why do you ask?”
He looked at the calendar on the wall. In all my excitement about his coming, I’d forgotten to take it down.
“Just being nosy,” he said. “You’ve got Sunday circled, and it looks like you’ve been marking off some days, like you’re counting down to something.”
“No,” I said, thinking fast. “I’ve been trying to lose a few pounds, and that’s my deadline.”
“Oh,” he said, apparently satisfied. “Well, since I’m being curious, can I ask you another question?”
I froze, wondering what would come next.
“Sure,” I said.
“Why did you have the mole on your face removed?”
I hadn’t realized how much it was a part of me. Holly had noticed, and now Joe, too.
“Got tired of it, I guess. Didn’t want it to turn into something worse. Plus, it wasn’t attractive.”
“I always thought it made you unique,” he said. “Like your fingerprint.”
* * *
Joe and I took a walk into the hills after supper when it finally started to cool down. We climbed over the barbed wire fence and walked into the Logans’ hay field, the one we talked about buying back for Mama someday. That was when we looked toward expansion. A bigger family, more land, adding on, seeing the world.
From the top of the hill, we could see the pond and the valley stretching out in front of us. The cicadas were humming, a low buzz that sounded comforting and alive. I could smell the freshly cut hay, the same smell I’ve known since I was a baby. So much history. So much beauty. So much I’ve taken for granted.
Joe put his arm around my shoulder and drew me close to him, taking it all in.
“It hasn’t changed much, has it?” he said.
I shook my head, listening to the quiet and remembering.
I thought back to the day of the accident. Romeo was recovering from an infection in his foot. He seemed as calm and steady as always. Joe had told Rose she couldn’t ride him again until he fully healed. But he was doing so well, almost off his medication, and she begged me to let her ride him. So I did, not really thinking anything of it.
Joe came to me later and said, “We weren’t going to let her ride Romeo.” His voice sounded constricted, almost strangled. He’d simply made a statement, but his words pierced me as though he’d plunged a dagger right through me. My remorse immediately turned to defense.
“True,” I said, feeling myself slowly turning to stone.
He said just one word: “Why?”
“Because she begged me,” I said. At least that was honest.
He said nothing and walked away. I thought he had turned against me, because how could he not? I’d turned against myself.
So, tonight, out there on the hill, with his arm around me and the sky growing pink in the west and the moon coming up in the east, I asked him what I should have asked him sixteen years ago.
“How could you still want me when I killed our daughter?”
He turned, took my shoulders in his hands, and looked right into my eyes. “I never thought you killed her.”
“Don’t you remember the day you asked me why I let her ride Romeo? When I told you, you didn’t say anything, you just walked away. I knew you were blaming me, just like I blamed myself.”
Joe was quiet, his shoulders slumped. “I wasn’t blaming you,” he said. “I was thinking I would have done the exact same thing.”
* * *
I had forgotten desire. The pilot light that burned in me all those years—even through all the miscarriages—blew out when Rose died, and it never came back. Those last years of our marriage weren’t without sex, but they were without passion. And, honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever felt it since. That lightning-fierce hunger to be touched, the primal need to be entered and known. I’d forgotten. Forgotten what it felt like. Forgotten that it mattered.
But in the last couple of days, close enough to Joe to feel his breath, to stand next to him and feel the strength of his steadiness, I began to remember. It started as a quiver inside me, much like the first fledgling wings of Rose’s movements when I was four months pregnant and started to believe I wouldn’t lose her like the others.
The quivers had taken root and were traveling through me, like nerve endings being fired after long dormancy, like a switchboard lighting up the night sky. A buzz. And once again, a hunger.
And then, the doubts. What if the pearls contained some sort of deadly virus and could be transmitted?
What if sex after such a long abstinence was painful? What if my body couldn’t consummate what my heart wanted? And, just as I feared when I was seventeen, what if I gave myself to him and he walked away? Lord, I thought, doesn’t that fear ever go away?
We walked back to the house tonight in silence, but together. Together in a way we haven’t been since Rose died.
When we got back inside, we stood in the kitchen with our arms around each other, and he kissed my hair and my forehead. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Then he kissed me the way he always had. The way he did even after Rose died, when my body and soul went numb and couldn’t return the longing.
We lost ourselves in each other slowly and patiently, remembering each other’s bodies. Everything about him felt familiar. His scent, the curve of his ear, his firm but gentle grasp, the way he kissed my head and arms and legs.
Then he held me until he fell asleep.
I felt the warmth of his body, the softness of his breathing as he slept. I wondered what would have happened if we had stayed together. Could we have gotten to this place while we were still married, or would we have continued our anger and fear as long as we were both there as daily reminders of it? Did we need to live our own lives for a while so we could find joy in each other again?
Why had we missed all those years together? Because of anger and blame—letting them get the better of love.
Death is not the thief of time. Guilt is.
DAY NINETEEN
I woke up next to Joe in the middle of the night, and I felt the greatest joy and greatest sadness I’ve experienced in a long time. I lay in bed for a minute before I got up to use the bathroom, listening to the sound of his breathing. Rhythmic and steady.
When I came back to bed, he rolled over, half awake, and gathered me in his arms as if receiving me. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“I am,” I said. I rested my head on his chest, tucked my feet between his legs, and felt completely at home.
Joe drifted back to sleep instantly, but I lay awake for a few minutes. I heard Daddy’s clock strike two a.m., the soft swishing of the ceiling fan above us, the hum of the air-conditioning as it cycled on and off. Each sound so ordinary, so remarkable, like a small symphony in the hush of the night.
So this is what it means to be alive, I thought.
Maybe what led me to take the pearls wasn’t despair. Maybe it was numbness and resignation. I don’t know that I turned away from life. I think I simply forgot what it is.
I’ve debated whether to tell him about the pearls, just as I did with Father David. I think it would make him feel guilty, and now that I know the liberation of guiltlessness, I want the same for him.
And yet, if there’s a chance for us to have a real partnership again, it can’t be built on secrets.
* * *
Joe said he saw the cats this morning. He got up early and had the coffee going before I got out of bed.
“I put out some food for them,” he said, “and all of them came right away.”
He filled a mug with coffee and handed it to me.
“What do you mean, all of them?” I said.
“The mother cat and the four kittens,” he said.
“They were all here?”
I looked out the door at the porch. Sure enough, one kitten crouched at the food bowl, eating. One sat on a chair, grooming itself. And the other two chased each other out in the yard while the mama cat watched, unconcerned. Just as if it happened this way every day.
“Yep,” he said. “You called them here. It worked.”
I felt relief wash through me, but right behind it came the wave of sadness I’d felt in the middle of the night.
Once again, I thought, I gave up too soon.
* * *
Responding to an inner prompting last night, I pulled a pound of bacon from the freezer and defrosted it. I made Joe a real breakfast, just like I did when we were first married.
The crackle of the bacon frying sounded so crisp and clear, it filled the entire house. When I poured milk into the eggs and whisked them together, it reminded me of stirring the paint in those old cans until the colors came to life. I sank deeper into the sensations, feeling the power of brushing paint on the wall without any limitations.
I remembered running through the backyard with Holly when we were girls. Jumping off the couch and dancing through the living room.
My body remembered the feel of Rose’s hair when I braided it for school. The cool water of the lake the night Joe proposed. The force of the wind the day we were married.
The smell of the breakfast almost overwhelmed me—not in the nauseous kind of way I experienced during my pregnancy with Rose, but with a sweet sensation that brought me to a halt.
I stood by the kitchen table, one hand on the smooth back of the chair, and closed my eyes, breathing in the aroma as though awakening from a long sleep.
I remembered when I was little, before Daddy’s accident, when Mama made these kinds of breakfasts. It made me think of September days, when the morning air was cool, the sky overcast and threatening rain, while the house was lit up like a star, and the swaddling smell enticed me out of bed, wrapping me in a blanket of comfort.
It will be September in a few days. I don’t know if I’ll ever have that experience of a September morning again. But I have the memory now. And for now, that’s more than enough.
All these years, I could have been remembering hundreds of beautiful moments with Rose and Mama. And I chose to lose my heart to sadness instead. I would do it differently now. For whatever time I have left, I will remember the joy, not the heartache.
“Joe,” I said as I set the platter of bacon on the table, “how about if we go visit Rose today?”
* * *
This afternoon, we stopped at Nancy’s to pick up some flowers.
She squealed when she saw the two of us together. She came out from behind the counter, wiped her hands on her pants, and gave both of us a big hug.
“Good lord, Joe,” she said, “this is the best surprise. Where did you come from?”
“I think Meg conjured me up,” he said, giving me the same look he did when we were dating.
“Heavens, girl, you look good,” Nancy said. “I’ve missed you, but it looks like you’ve been getting lots of rest.”
“Too much,” I said. I’d put on my blue sundress, which makes my hair look almost as red as it did in high school. My long nights of sleep have erased the circles under my eyes, and my skin is tan from all the time I’ve spent in the yard the last couple of weeks, trying to restore balance to the plants.
“Thank you for giving me the time off,” I said. “I didn’t realize how much I needed it.” Without thinking, I pulled a couple of spent blooms from a pink petunia on the counter.
“You’re sure welcome,” Nancy said. “Really, you’ve been doing me a big favor.”
She kept looking back and forth between the two of us, as though she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
She turned back to the cash register, put a stack of twenties in the drawer, and closed it with a snap. “Business has been so slow, you know. But it’ll pick up. I hear there’s finally some rain in the forecast.”
She leaned on the counter and stared at us. “I have to tell you how happy it makes me to see my two favorite people together. Right as rain, that’s what it is.”
“I agree,” Joe said. “We’re on our way to the cemetery and wanted to pick up some flowers.”
“Sure, sure,” she said, “just pick out whatever you want.” She chatted with Joe while I gathered flowers from the coolers and wrapped them in tissue paper, taking in every detail, every scent and color, just in case it was the last time.
* * *
On a Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks before Rose was born, Joe told me he was running up to Mama’s to fix her kitchen faucet.
“Shouldn’t take long,” he said. I was stretched out on the sofa in the family room, reading Better Home
s and Gardens and moving as little as possible. My enormous middle had taken charge of my body, and I could do little but obey it. My doctor never said I needed bed rest, but my ankles did.
“Need anything before I go?” he said.
I looked around at the stash of magazines, the glass of water, the bag of carrots, and the TV remote, all within reach.
“Nope, I think I’m set,” I said.
“Okay,” he said, kissing me good-bye. “See you in an hour or so.”
I lay back and looked out the window at the burning bush in the yard. It had turned bright red, so much so that in late afternoon, it cast a pink glow inside the house. It pleased me to know that one of the first things Rose would see in this new life of hers was a shrub at the height of its fall color.
After a few minutes, I got up to go to the bathroom for the twentieth time that day. It was not an easy task to heave myself off the couch or lower myself onto the toilet, but I managed, feeling elephantine and catching a glimpse of my swollen face in the bathroom mirror.
Then, panic.
We were almost out of toilet paper.
I’d been going through it at the speed of light, and I hadn’t been keeping up on household inventory since I’d spent so much time lazing around.
I used the last bits of paper on the roll, then waddled to the kitchen to call Mama. I figured Joe could run to Ted’s Market and get some on his way home.
“How’s the faucet coming along?” I asked Mama when she picked up the phone.
She paused. “Faucet?”
“Yeah, the one Joe’s fixing.”
Another pause. “Hmmm. I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
I lowered myself into a kitchen chair, puzzled.
“He left here about thirty minutes ago,” I said. “He told me he was headed to your place to fix your leaky faucet.”
“Well,” she said, “it’s news to me. Maybe the faucet belongs to someone else and he just said my name by mistake.”
“Maybe,” I said, knowing Joe didn’t get confused very often.
“Is there something you need?” Mama asked, hearing the perplexed tone in my voice.
“No,” I said, “just toilet paper. For some reason it disappears faster than usual when you pee seventy times a day.” I tried to keep it light.
Twenty Page 16