Both Sides Now

by Barbara Ferrer

  “He’s still lost, but coping.”

  “Story of all our lives.” I sighed. “So, what are the details?”

  After writing down times and dates and addresses, I hung up the phone and crept down the hall. Easing into the room, I closed the door and leaned against it. I had to wait for my eyes to adjust once again to the shadowy dimness, for my heartbeat to subside enough for me to be able to hear over it, but after a few seconds, there—there it was. I could detect the reassuring rise and fall of the covers—the sounds of movement and breathing. They were faint, but they were still there.

  God, no…I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want it to be my turn yet.

  Nick

  October 5

  “Nick, relax.”

  “He’s a miserable little shit and I don’t trust him.”

  “Language, bebe.”

  I looked away from Lawrence and Marilyn making their way down the aisle just long enough to raise my eyebrows at Nan. “You used worse when they ran out of your favorite ice cream last week.”

  “That was at the cafeteria, this is a funeral. And you’re in a house of God. Show some respect. Or at least keep your voice down.” There went that wave of the hand that reminded me of my mother. “You’ll meet us at the cemetery?”

  “Yeah.” I tightened my fist. “I won’t be long.”

  With a light touch on my back, Nan slipped from the pew, joining the crowd leaving the church to make their way to the cemetery and later on, the wake. And when I say crowd, I mean crowd. Ray and Marilyn were those rare individuals who were everyone’s friends—knew the name of every customer who came through their Hialeah butcher shop. The big church had been all but standing room only with more still expected at the cemetery and wake. Even without Lawrence, Marilyn hadn’t lacked for emotional support. But it was Lawrence who had mattered to her.

  After the last footsteps faded, I opened my hand and stared down at the smooth tiger’s eye beads joined together by small silver links. After looking around my house and coming up empty, I’d sucked it up and finally called my mother, asking if she maybe knew where my rosary was. Being my mother, she’d replied, of course she knew where my rosary was. Implicit, of course, was that I was a horrible ingrate for not keeping better track of the rosary she’d ordered from the Vatican complete with a blessing from el Papa himself and given to me on the occasion of my First Communion.

  Late the next day, Fed Ex had dropped off the package; when I opened it, I found my rosary housed in a new carved wooden box, its silver cross so bright, I just knew Mami had to have polished the sucker with a toothbrush.

  And Tico had said it wasn’t about penance. Bullshit. And mentally added another three or four Hail Marys for thinking in those terms.

  Hell, I still didn’t know why I’d felt compelled to do it. I could’ve returned Tico’s rosary to him—told him I’d bought a new one or found mine. I simply could’ve returned it without even seeing him, but something about that…it struck me as cowardly. Left me with a sick feeling, imagining lying, even if it was by omission, to Tico. Not just because he was a priest. But because he got it—had some clue what was going on in my head.

  The hollow sound of footsteps echoing in that way unique to deserted churches penetrated sometime during my first decade of Hail Marys. By the time I looked up at the end of the series, she was there sitting beside me, her head tilted back as she looked around. In a black suit and with her hair pulled into a loose knot, she was nearly unrecognizable. But even without looking, I’d have known it was Libby. She had an air around her that was easy for me to recognize. Not in a scent sort of way—although she had that too, a light, smoky vanilla that was very her—but more like the immediate area around her was…calm.

  “I really like churches, you know? Especially Catholic churches, but the traditional ones. Not the ones that look like the mothership just landed.”

  I stifled a laugh. “I know what you mean.” Not exactly the brick Gothic monsters I’d grown up around, but the stucco and red barrel tile roof of this church did put me in mind of the old mission churches I’d seen on trips to California and Texas. Definitely more traditional vibe than postmodern mothership. I followed her curious gaze past the various stained glass windows, over the altar decorated with its arrangements of white and yellow flowers, and down toward the rosary I had looped around my hand. “Not a big churchgoer?”

  “Not with a Cuban hippy mother.” She smiled. “I’ve gone a few times with my grandparents, but I’m a lot more familiar with a sun salutation than this. You?”

  “Classic lapsed Catholic. But old habits die hard.” I shrugged as I glanced down at my rosary.

  Her skin was warm as her fingers brushed against mine, touching one of the smooth tiger’s eye beads. “Do you need me to leave you alone?”

  “No. It won’t take me long.” But I wanted to do it because even though my faith was for shit, I wanted to send some good thoughts on with Ray—give some for Marilyn. And to have something to do with my hands that wasn’t strangling Lawrence, the arrogant jackass.

  Wanted to try to find that quiet place in my head where I wasn’t so…on the edge, all the damn time.

  “You sure?”

  “I’d enjoy the company.” I started to bow my head, then froze at the sight of the sun streaming through the stained glass window just behind Libby’s head. The intense light made the pale green glass panels in the window exactly match the pale centers of her eyes.

  Unexpected. Definitely a little eerie. But oddly, not disconcerting.

  “What is it?”

  I blinked, half expecting it to be an illusion. It wasn’t. “What?”

  “You’re staring. Tell me I didn’t get grease on my shirt. I checked and—”

  “Why would you have grease on your shirt?”

  She didn’t glance up as she smoothed down the front of her shirt, also light green, I noticed. “Got a flat on my way up here. It’s why I was late.”

  I already knew she’d come in late. Nan had said, when she sat down before the service, that Libby had called to say she was running late—that if she didn’t make it to the service she’d meet us at the cemetery. At one point during Mass I'd turned and spotted her sitting toward the back of the church, head bowed.

  I grasped her wrist. “You don’t have grease on your shirt.” But she did have a black smear running along the outside of her hand.

  Out of sheer instinct, I started to reach for my handkerchief, catching myself only at the last second. A woman who could change her own flat didn’t need me playing caretaker. So I settled for pointing at the streak instead, watching as she rummaged around in her bag, muttering under her breath. Finally, I just grasped her wrist again and put my handkerchief in her palm.

  She stared at the white cloth. “It’ll get stained.”

  “It’ll get washed.”

  I turned back to the front and picked up where I’d left off on the Rosary. Mostly so I didn’t have to look into her face, because that surprised expression? The way her entire being softened and she smiled? Twisted something inside my gut.

  Speed-praying my way through the last four decades, I silently recited the Hail, Holy Queen and crossed myself a final time, the silver of the crucifix cool and soothing against my lips despite the faintly bitter aftertaste of polish. Silently, Libby and I made our way out of the church, pausing on the wide front steps.

  “Why didn’t you call Triple-A?”

  “Because I’d probably still be waiting.” She tilted her head, her hand coming up to shade her eyes against the afternoon glare. “How’s Marilyn doing? I mean, I talked to her for a second after the service, but I couldn’t really get much of a read.”

  Slipping my sunglasses on, I said, “I think more than anything she’s relieved it’s over, you know?”

  “I know she was happy that Ray got to see Lawrence one last time.” Her voice was gentle—almost as gentle as her hand on my shoulder.

  The gentle tone, coupled with the m
ention of the little fucker’s name, had me tensing, the skin around my eyes going tight and itchy. “You heard.”

  “Nan told me. Just me, as far as I know.” Libby’s hand on my shoulder was warm even through my suit jacket as her fingers tightened slightly. “You did a good thing, Nick.”

  A good thing? I recalled again how I’d had him bent over his fancy crocodile desk set, pinning him across the back of the neck with a hockey stick as I informed him he was coming to the hospital. Voluntarily or on a stretcher, made no difference to me, but he was coming. And he’d come, and it had brought Marilyn—and hopefully Ray—a measure of comfort. From that standpoint, I guess it was a good thing, but I didn’t really want any props for it. Any decent person would’ve done the same.

  “How’s Katharine?”

  “Fine.” A whole new tension took hold. “Fine,” I repeated, adding a nod and a smile, hand shoved casually in the pocket of my dress slacks, all the better to conceal the clenching and unclenching of my fist.

  Oh, damn. The open, concerned expression that had been on her face as she asked the question faded to the same neutral, careful smile and nod with which I'd just tried to bullshit her.

  “That’s so good to hear, really.” And with that, the vet left the rookie absolutely schooled. “We should probably get going if we want to get to the cemetery—or maybe I should just head over to Marilyn’s house and help get things ready for the wake. Showing up late to two ceremonies is kind of tacky…”

  I caught up with her at the bottom of the stone stairs, grabbing onto her arm like it was a lifeline. “Fine’s the last goddamn thing it is, Libby.”

  Her shoulders rose with the deep breath she took. Curving her hand over mine, she said, “Despite what you might think is evidence to the contrary, I’m really not into causing people undue pain. If you don’t want to talk—”

  “I do.”

  After giving my hand a final squeeze, she headed toward the parking lot. “Come on.”

  I released her arm and followed her toward a silver Volvo station wagon that—practical as she struck me—seemed the most unlikely car for her to be driving. Nice, but bland.

  “Won’t this be out of your way to bring me back all the way over here?” Since the cemetery and the wake were several miles away in Hialeah.

  She just smiled and waved at the passenger seat.

  “But—”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  Fine. I wouldn’t. Frankly, I was damn tired of worrying.

  I didn’t say anything else until she slowed, casually guiding the car into a parallel space with an ease that suggested she’d done this a lot.

  “The beach?” I glanced out my window at the roiling water and expanse of sand dotted with the few souls braving the threatening weather.

  “I think better by the water. It’s more peaceful.”

  Watching her, I believed it. As she removed her jacket and shoes, tossing them into the back seat, her face got calmer, her entire body more relaxed. Same way I’d always felt lacing up my skates—taking a deep lungful of that cold, damp air before stepping on the ice and letting everything else fall away.

  I looked up from slipping off my shoes and socks. “What about the cemetery?”

  Libby took my jacket and shoes and put them in the back along with hers. “We’ll catch up at the wake.”

  Okay. I’d addressed the most important things. The rest—I’d just go along for the ride. Or walk, as it were, staying just far enough back that the waves couldn’t get to my rolled up dress slacks, but close enough for the sand to feel damp and gritty beneath my feet and the occasional faint spray to hit my face. After a while though, I started to wonder what, exactly, we were doing there. Libby wasn’t saying anything—she simply walked, holding her skirt down against the occasional wind gust. Every now and again, she'd stop and stare out over the horizon with a blissful, faraway smile as her toes curled into the damp sand.

  I didn’t know if she was waiting for me to make the first move or waiting for me to give her some indication I wanted her to make that move. Maybe I thought since I’d acknowledged my lie—that things weren’t fine—that Libby might help me out.

  Guess I should’ve known better.

  “She’s not the same.”

  Libby walked closer to the water, allowing the waves to wash over her feet. “I know you’re smart enough to realize she wasn’t going to remain the same, Nick.”

  “No—I didn’t think that. But I thought at least we’d be the same.” I squatted down, dragging my fingers through the sand as I stared out at the murky sky. It was easier to talk facing the incoming storm, somehow. “I mean, I can hardly remember when we haven’t been together, Libby.”

  First week in the dorms at Boston U. I’d spotted a tall, redheaded spitfire and that had been all she wrote, man. I was completely gone. And that was before I’d even spoken word one to her.

  “Half my life I’ve spent with her, and we’ve gone through so much together. Figured out how to go through things together. To have her cut me out so completely now—”

  “You never told me what she has.”

  “Breast. Found it in her right, but Kath wanted to be proactive and opted for a double mastectomy. It’s in her lymph nodes too, it’s just…it’s fucking awful, Libby. Everyone tries so hard to be positive about it, talk about how young she is, how healthy otherwise. But you know Marco doesn’t bullshit…and when he uses numbers like less than fifty percent…”

  Once again, I noticed just how warm Libby’s hands were as they covered mine, prying a huge piece of broken shell from one of them. Her voice was calm as she said, “Last thing you need is stitches.”

  I lifted one hand and rubbed at the corner of my lip with a knuckle. “Would hardly be the first time.”

  “No, but now’s kind of crappy timing.”

  “Is there ever any good timing?”

  We both knew I wasn’t talking about stitches. But she didn’t answer the question either. Instead, she led me back up the beach to a faucet where we rinsed our hands, then climbed a set of stairs to a wood pavilion with a bench where we sat, overlooking the beach. “So she’s shut you out?”

  I rubbed at my lip again, taking comfort in the old habit. Kath had hounded me forever until I broke it, saying it looked unseemly, but right now, I didn’t give a shit about unseemly and Libby didn’t strike me as the sort of woman who would care.

  “I know where you’re going with this Libby, and I know I’m a hockey jock and you probably think I’m all sorts of a sexist, walking hormone, but no—it’s not that she’s losing her hair or that she doesn’t have breasts. Okay, I mean, in a way…” I amended myself. “I guess that does have something to do with it.”

  Jesus. I hadn’t even said that to the counselor I’d seen a couple of times. Then again, I tried to control myself around her. Scared so shitless that everything out of my mouth was wrong that I’d wound up saying next to nothing.

  “How so, Nick?”

  “I want to help her cope. Did all the research, looked for hours at pictures on the net and in the surgeon’s offices so I’d be prepared. Read books written by women, by men, by couples. Hell, I even went and consulted doctors on my own so I wouldn’t make her feel bad or self-conscious with some of my questions.”

  Laying it out, all the details, the frustrations, had the rage starting again, hot and acid in my gut. I needed a breather, and Libby, I guess sensing that, didn’t press for anything more. Tilting my head back, I kept rubbing at my lip and stared at the clouds as they transformed from light gray blobs to dark, ferocious smears across the sky, bearing down and hemming me in.

  “I don’t have a fucking clue if anything I’ve done is the right thing because she’s shut down so hard, she won’t let me close enough to find out.” With conscious effort, I quit rubbing at my lip and forced myself to meet Libby’s gaze again.

  “At first, I thought it was the surgery. Because she…” My voice faded, unable to form the wor
ds.

  Libby tried to help me out here. “I think every woman worries about what she’s going to look like afterward.”

  “Actually, I don’t think it’s so much the looks as—” I took a deep breath and finally said it. “She’s lost all feeling there, Libby. At least all pleasurable feeling. First, there was a lot of obvious pain from the surgery, now she’s uncomfortable because of the expanders they put in for the reconstruction after she’s done with treatment.”

  At least that’s what I thought it was, not that she was telling me. But she’d always taken such joy in how they felt. Over the years, I’d learned so many different ways to give her pleasure and now—nothing.

  “Plastic surgeon told her she could have the reconstructive surgery at the same time as the mastectomy, before beginning treatment. She looked him straight in the eye and said ‘Why?’ in this completely dead voice.”

  “Oh God, Nick, I’m so sorry.”

  Libby shifted to her knees and moved her hand back to my arm. I stared at it as if from a distance—tan and slightly square, the grease stain lighter, but still visible on the outside of her palm. So different from Kath’s, long and elegant, able to control a room full of rowdy executives with the subtlest of gestures. Able to control me, as she held one up, cutting me off in midsentence while she said in that same dead voice she’d used with the surgeon, “Just leave me alone, Nick. Please.”

  But how could I? And she kept retreating, holding up that hand, and saying, “Just leave me alone.”

  “You know, she hasn’t let me see her—what she…looks like—since before the surgery?”

  “You haven’t seen her at all?”

  At my sharp laugh Libby’s hand fell away from my arm. “I didn’t say I hadn’t seen her, just that she hasn’t let me.”