The Cabin

by Wilder Jasinda

  God, Adrian. You never did anything the easy way, did you?

  I am putting off reading the letter. It represents his last words to me, when I thought his final words had been heard a year ago.

  I’m tempted to have a drink before reading it. Slam vodka till I’m dizzy rather than read this.

  What could he have to say? Why make Tomas—and me, more to the point—wait a whole year?

  Why now?

  I was just starting to find something equilibrium.

  I can almost hear his sarcastic laugh, when that thought runs through my brain. Because no, I am not finding anything like equilibrium. I nearly overdosed a patient. I should tear up my RN certification. I am not okay. I sleep three, four hours a night. Sometimes up to five. Sometimes less.

  I barely eat. I’ve dropped to about a hundred pounds, on a five-foot-ten frame. I’m a stick, nearly skeletal. My cheekbones could cut you. My hipbones, my pelvic bones protrude. You can count my ribs. I have no energy. I’m sick all the time. I snap at everyone. I am filled with rage and sorrow and bitterness. I have moved beyond grief. This is something else.

  This is the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

  I am not anything like fucking all right.

  The letter shakes noisily in my hands, and I know I need backup for this.

  My purse is on the counter, and it feels very, very far away. My legs struggle to support me, and I wobble like a newborn fawn. Brace myself on the counter with one hand and paw through my purse until I find my cell. Drop it on the counter from nerveless fingers. Swipe clumsily to open it. Find Tess’s speed dial, and it rings on speakerphone.

  “Nads, babe, hi.” She’s in the car, I can tell. “What up?”

  “I…I need you.”

  “I’m there. Give me…seven minutes, tops. Don’t…don’t do anything.”

  “It’s not like that. I just need you.”

  It nearly was like that several times. I sat in the tub, once, a month ago, bubbles up to my neck, and contemplated dropping the plugged-in curling iron in with me. I contemplated it like one would contemplate having a fourth glass of wine, or that last bite of chocolate mousse cake.

  I didn’t. Some fucked-up part of my soul told me that Adrian would be so angry if I did. And for some reason, that stopped me. A dead man would be mad at me if I committed suicide.

  Okay, Nadia.

  Another time, looking for Tylenol because I had a headache, I found a bottle of leftover Nuclear Option painkillers. I had a bottle of vodka downstairs. A handful of these, a few long slugs from the Goose. Bye-bye, cruel world.

  Again, I didn’t. I took one Tylenol, put away the vodka, and binged on a season of Dexter until my next shift.

  Two days ago, driving home from work. I’d spaced out and found myself drifting into oncoming traffic lanes. Fortunately, for me, it was three in the morning and the road was empty except for me. But I’d thought, it would be so easy. Find a semi, swerve in front of it.

  But then I realized I’d be dragging that poor innocent driver along with me, and having cared for head-on collision victims, I couldn’t do that to anyone.

  The thoughts occurred, is the point. Tess’s worry is not unfounded.

  I hear the front door, Tess’s heels clicking rapidly. She smells like Chanel perfume, and looks like she just came from the boardroom of a multimillion-dollar company.

  “Where were you?” I asked, by way of greeting.

  “An interview. I accepted a position as the head of an IT department downtown. I’ve been working from home for so long, I was getting bored with it. I’m alone at home like all the time. So I figured, fuck it. Take a nine-to-five. It’s so close to my condo that I can walk to work, and it’s a stone’s throw to my favorite bar and a nice steakhouse. I’m going to love it.”

  “Congratulations,” I say, summoning a genuine smile of happiness for my friend. “I’m proud of you for taking your life back. You’re reinventing yourself.”

  She sighs, smiles, nods. “I really am, aren’t I? Honestly, Clint divorcing me is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I’m a new woman.” She grins lasciviously. “I’m getting so much good dick, Nads, you don’t even know.”

  I snort. “I don’t need or want to know, Tess-icles. But good for you. I’m glad you’re happy. I mean that, hon. I really, really am.”

  “I know,” she says, setting her purse on the island next to mine.

  She shucks her power suit jacket, wearing the matching maroon pencil skirt and white silk blouse, unbuttoned to reveal a provocative but not totally immodest amount of cleavage. Kicks off her nude pumps—Louboutin, judging by the signature red bottoms.

  She then comes to sit beside me, sees the envelopes. “What are those?”

  “Letters. From Adrian.”

  She blinks. “Um…come again?”

  “Tomas Anton came to visit just now. He delivered these. They’re from Adrian. He gave Tomas instructions to deliver them today.”

  “Today?”

  I nod. “He died one year ago today. At three thirty-three.” I glance at the clock—it’s 9:15. “Five hours and forty-two minutes ago.”

  “Today is the one year anniversary.” She glances at the ceiling. Blinks. “I should have been here sooner, Nadia. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. You have your life to live.”

  She shakes her head. “It’s a major milestone.”

  I heave a shaky sigh. “I haven’t read it yet. I don’t want to. I’m scared.”

  “I can only imagine.” She touches my forearm. “Want me to read it to you?”

  I shake my head. “I just…I need you here with me when I do.” I sniffle. “I’m…I’m not fine, Tess. I say I am, but I’m not.”

  “I know. No one expects to you to be.”

  “I almost dosed a patient with too much medication yesterday. Not a lot. The patient likely wouldn’t have even noticed. But my coworker did, and told Dr. Wilson.”

  “Nadia, god.”

  “I know.” I swallow hard. “I think…I think I have to resign. I’m clearly losing my competency.”

  She side-hugs me. “Nadia, the problem is you’re not taking care of yourself. You’re so skinny now I could put you in my purse. You look like you’re not sleeping.”

  I lift my scrub top to show her my torso. She inhales sharply. “Yeah, that might be part of the issue.”

  “Nadia…” she breathes. “You’re a skeleton.”

  “I know,” I whisper.

  “When was the last time you ate anything?”

  “I…” I try to think. “I don’t know. Before work yesterday, I think? I had half a bagel.”

  “Jesus, Nads. You’re the nurse here, not me, but I almost think you might need hospitalization.”

  “Possibly.”

  “This is officially an intervention,” she says. “From now on, I’m not leaving you alone until I know you’re healthy enough to be left alone.”

  I want to deny the need. But I can’t. “Okay,” I whisper. “I think that might be a good idea.”

  She flicks a finger at the envelopes on the coffee table. “So…what’s the deal with the key?”

  The notecard with the key sits on top of the envelope.

  “I don’t know yet. I haven’t read the letter, which I’m guessing explains it. There’s an address, but I don’t recognize it.”

  Tess plugs the address into her phone. “It’s…several hours north of here. Near the border, in the mountains. Looks like it’s on a lake.”

  I lift the letter and unfold the pages onto my lap. “Okay. Here we go.”

  I begin reading.

  Dearest, beloved, darling Nadia,

  I have put off the writing of this for too long, I fear. Everything else has been arranged. It’s all ready. I know without a shadow of doubt that I’m nearing the end of my time on this planet. I want to deny it, I want to pretend otherwise—continue to pretend otherwise, I mean. But I can’t. I have waited too long and now my hands sha
ke so badly I can barely make this legible. I’m sorry if it is not.

  Ye gods, what a morbid opening to this letter those words are. I do not have either strength or courage to begin again, however, so…onward.

  Firstly, and most important: I love you. You know this. I hope I have—and believe I have—shown you with my life and my actions in our marriage how deeply and truly I love you. I know you are likely still struggling with anger toward me over having hidden my illness. But I also think you probably understand, because you know me. Better than I know myself, I think.

  It bears repeating, in writing: I love you, Nadia Bell.

  All I have done, I have done because I love you. Because love is not a feeling, but an action. My life is ending, but yours is not. That’s the most salient fact, for me. I am going to die, and you will remain living after I am gone.

  By the time you read this, I will have been a year in my grave. I hope, I pray—and I am not a religious man, as well you know—that you are healing. That you have grieved, and mourned, and found strength to…be okay.

  But I know you, Nadia. I know you better than you know yourself.

  Here is what I know. You will have spent the past year working yourself to the bone. Worse, I fear. I am afraid that you are not sleeping. That you are not eating. That you have thrown yourself into a killing number of hours at the hospital. I have nightmare visions of you collapsing from exhaustion, hunger, and sorrow. I lay awake at night, yes, in physical pain, but in metaphysical pain. In worry for you.

  You will not do anything so rash as outright, direct self-harm. That is not your way. You will be indirect about it. You will attempt to work yourself to death.

  I don’t know how else to put this, my love, except bluntly: I do not want to meet you in Heaven for many, many years yet. You are too beautiful, too wonderful, too mesmerizing and talented and funny and sexy to leave this world prematurely. While I live, I am selfish with you. I hoard you. I gather the glittering treasure that is you unto myself and I protect it greedily, refusing to share it, like a dragon. Do you know, when we go to the beach and you’re flaunting your body in that little blue bikini you wear so well, a part of me, a caveman part of me clamors to cover you, so no one else can even have the gift of seeing even that much of you? I never say anything, because I am not so boorish as all that. You would not tolerate such behavior from me. But it’s here, inside me.

  I suppose I should apologize for the floridity of my writing, but delirium and exhaustion and pain and the narcotics conspire to make me verbose. You know how I am. I love the feel and the taste of my own writing. I have always been guilty of lapsing into purple prose, as my editor likes to say.

  What was my point? Oh, yes. Now that I am going to die, I know I must let you go. I cannot hoard you to myself any longer. Beauty like yours, love like yours…it deserves to be shared. Someone out there needs you, and you need them.

  You will sicken from an excess of grieving, Nadia. You will shut down and the processes that generate your energy and your love and your affection will atrophy, and all that makes you YOU will shrivel. And that is a tragedy I cannot countenance.

  I Will Not Allow It.

  So. I have given you a year. 365 days from the day of my death. A year in which to grieve. A year in which to mourn. To let yourself drown in your sorrow, however you see fit.

  Now, though, my love, it is time to move on.

  I am gone.

  You must LIVE. You promised, remember? I say this proactively, because when I feel the end approaching, I will make you promise. I will exact an oath from you to Live. And you WILL promise, Nadia. I know you.

  So. You promised, remember?

  Live.

  That means moving on.

  You have not been living. You have been surviving, and probably barely even that. Now it is time to let go of my ghost, to resume breathing. To look ahead and see the coming march of years of your life, and see them not as decades in a gulag of despair, but as years which can and should and will be full of joy and happiness.

  You have to let me go, Nadia.

  Please.

  But I know you cannot and will not do this—not on your own, so I am going to help you.

  The second envelope, which I imagine you opened first, contains a key and an address. There is a lovely little cabin on a picturesque little lake, up in the mountains. I had a realtor take me on a virtual tour, as I could not travel to see it in person, but it is amazing. It’s a snug little place, cute and quaint. Rustic, perhaps, but there is electricity and plumbing.

  I want you to listen to me now, Nadia, and do exactly as I tell you. You just have to trust me. Pack your things. Just clothes. Bathing suits, yoga pants, sweat pants, jeans, your favorite hoodies. Bring your whole closet, if you want. You will be staying there for some time.

  Leave the house as it is. Just leave it. I have made arrangements through Tomas to have it taken care of in your absence. Bring only your personal effects, clothing, toiletries, etc.

  Just go. Put the address into your nav, and go. Right now. The moment you finish this letter, go.

  Tess: I know you’re sitting with her, and first, thank you, thank you a million times for the care and the love I know you will have shown my wife. See that she follows these instructions. Help her pack. Send her on her way.

  When you get there, Nadia, I want you to unpack. Put your things in the drawers and the closet. I have made arrangements so that you will not have to do anything but unpack. And then, after you’ve unpacked, I want you to take a glass of red wine—your first in some time, I imagine, if I know you at all. And I want you to sit on the porch and sip it slowly, and just…BREATHE.

  Feel what you feel. In the words of those yoga instructors you like, let the emotions flow through you, notice them, and let them go on their way.

  Take up yoga again. There’s an adorable little dock—take your yoga mat and do some sun salutations out there at sunrise.

  Just learn to BE, Nadia. You’ll have forgotten. Now it’s time to relearn.

  There will be more for you to do in learning to live again, but the important thing for you to hold foremost in your mind, my love, is this: I WANT you to move on. In every way. Please. When I made you promise to live, this is what I meant. Move on.

  Love again, Nadia.

  Yes, even that.

  It hurts to say this, I admit. You’re mine.

  But I’m gone, now. And it’s time for you to live again. You have too much love to keep hidden inside. To keep buried under my skeleton.

  Dig it up, that love. Dust it off. Try it on, and then, before you feel ready, use it again.

  I want you to. I expect you to.

  If we meet in heaven and you have spent the rest of your life alone, I shall be angry with you, my love.

  Life is for the living. So live.

  I want to keep writing. I have so much I wish I could say to you. But this letter must serve a purpose, and that purpose is to help you live again, and to tell you that I love you, and that I want you to move on.

  I love you. I am grateful beyond the capacity of human language to express for every single second I have had the privilege of spending in your presence. You have loved me well, more than I deserve and more yet. You have made my life a more beautiful place, my love. And even in this harrowing experience of dying, you have continued to love me with understanding and grace and gentleness and affection. I hope you look back on our life together with joy, Nadia. Remember me as I was—alive, and loving you. Remember all the good times we had, and hold on to them. They’re yours forever.

  And now, my darling Nadia, I must say goodbye.

  This is not the last goodbye for me, for I have some time yet, but for you, these will be the final words from me:

  I love you.

  Thank you.

  Live again.

  Yours in life, in death, and beyond,

  Adrian

  It is a long, long time before I am able to stop crying.


  When I can see, albeit with stinging eyes and a plugged nose, I realize I am alone, curled up on the couch, clutching Adrian’s now tear-stained letter. I hear a noise: thump, thud, thudthudthud, thump…

  I look, and Tess has already packed all of my belongings. There are four suitcases by the front door, and she’s hauling down a fifth, along with a smaller duffel bag.

  She’s sweated through her blouse. She wipes at her forehead with the back of her wrist, blows a curly tendril of hair aside. “Okay. This one, with the stripes, is all your athleisure wear, so leggings, yoga pants, booty shorts, tank tops, long-sleeve running…things, headbands, all that. Next, in the plain black Swiss Gear, is your more formal, dress-up stuff. This will have all your skirts, hang-up blouses, sundresses, and your little black dresses of all colors—because a little black dress, as we all know, is a particular style not just a color. You have some power suits in here, but I don’t see why you’d need them, number one, and number two you’ll have to put on, like, thirty pounds for them to fit. But they’re in here.” She’s pointing at each suitcase in turn. “This puppy, mister ugly ass turd-brown whatever the fuck this is, has sweaters, sweatshirts, hoodies, cardigans, one heavy coat, one leather jacket—your best one—your best jean jacket, a windbreaker-slash-raincoat, and…I think that’s it in there. Oh! Your big fuzzy purple guy, you love that coat.”

  Her voice takes on the tone of a game show host.

  “And in the hard-sided red suitcase, I’ve packed your shoes. Sneakers, running shoes, TOMs, three pair of heels—red, black, and nude—slippers, rain boots, hiking boots…leather knee-high shit-kicker boots, pretty much one of everything.” She taps the last suitcase. “And in here, jeans and T-shirts, and that’s pretty much it.” The duffel bag, then. “This is bare essentials makeup—not the full set up, just the basics—your hairbrush, all that good stuff. Your cell phone charger. Your Kindle and a charger cord and block for that.”

  She winks at me.

  “Also in the duffel are a couple of your, ahem, rather dusty lady happy time buzzy fun helpers.”

  I blush. “Tess, really?”

  “I was being circumspect in consideration of your delicate sensibilities.”