The Third Angel

by Alice Hoffman

  “He should have been a musician really,” Paul's mother said.

  She had been scraping vegetables into the sink. Then suddenly she stopped; she seemed withdrawn into silence. Frieda bent over, no longer speaking, felled by despair. She was sobbing without any noise or any tears as the tap water ran.

  Allie went to Paul's mother and embraced her. She felt no one could understand this except the two of them. Only they knew how it felt to be watching Paul on the lawn, slipping away.

  “This cannot happen to him,” Frieda had said.

  There were bits of onion and carrot in the sink. When Allie half shut her eyes and gazed across the room, past the bunch of cut lilacs, everything looked purple.

  “I'm so, so sorry,” Allie said.

  “How can I live without him in the world?” Frieda had said. “He's not like other people, you know. He hides his true self because he's so easily hurt. And now this is the end. There is no way back.”

  They stood there crying, then they pulled themselves together and went back to fixing dinner. They were similar in that way; women who made the best of things, even their own mistakes. That night, they cooked some of Paul's favorite dishes. Beef stew, which he couldn't even take a bite of. Too heavy, but his favorite all the same. He loved the scent and called from the parlor, “Thank God I'm not a vegetarian, ladies.” But sometimes the essence of a thing was enough; he could never have digested the stew. Frieda had also cooked creamed peas. That would be better. He might manage a few bites. Saffron rice. He loved the color and was a huge fan of Indian cuisine. A strawberry mousse with cream. Just the sight of the dessert would suffice. Paul's father helped him back inside the house; he was too weak to sit at the table in the dining room, so he went to the couch in the parlor and stretched out there, exhausted from the trip across the room.

  “Mother, I can't believe you fixed all this!” Allie heard him say when Frieda brought him his dinner on a tray. She adored him for that, for the way he appreciated his parents and older people in general, for kindnesses she'd never even known about, for the way he lit up when he talked about football and his grandfather and this house where he'd grown up. She loved him at last, when it was too late. He hadn't even the energy to get off the sofa. “You don't have to be this good to me,” he said to his mother. “I don't deserve it.”

  On those visits they would sleep together in the single bed in the guest room. It had been Paul's room once, and all his belongings were still displayed, trophies and plaques. He always asked for the window to be left open so that he could listen to the birds.

  “This is where I dreamed of you,” he told Allie when they got into bed.

  “Liar,” she said. She wrapped her arms around him, carefully.

  “I spent all my years here looking out the window, wanting to escape, and now all I want is to be here again.”

  ALLIE HAD NO doubt that Frieda would know the time of his passing was near. She had been an oncology nurse, and her father a country doctor. She'd known recovery would be difficult as soon as they'd told her the diagnosis. Frieda didn't question the fact that Allie and Paul were getting married that very day. She only asked what she could do. Allie suggested she bring flowers. Frieda wished it was still lilac season; she wished they had more time. But she was practical and always had been. She woke her husband from his nap and said, “This is it. We have to say good-bye.”

  Allie phoned the superintendant registrar who was to marry them and apologized for needing him to appear on such short notice. Then she called her mother at her hotel and asked her parents to come over as quickly as possible.

  “Don't bring anyone else,” Allie had told her mother. “I can't deal with anyone else.”

  When she was done with her calls, Dr. Crane came and sat next to her and took her hand. He knew this was the day.

  “I'd have to be stupid not to know,” Allie said. “I mean, his mother was a nurse and she told me the situation was dire. I brought my wedding outfit anyway. But I didn't get a dress with a veil and all that lace. That would have been foolish.”

  “Love has nothing to do with the here and now,” Dr. Crane said.

  Allie looked up at him, surprised. Had she said she loved Paul or did he just know? It was a funny thing for a doctor to say. Maybe she'd misheard him. She hadn't slept all night. She was wearing tan slacks and a black T-shirt and sandals. It was hot, but Allie was wearing a gray sweater thrown on over her shirt. Whenever she was tired like this, she grew cold. Her pale hair was tied back in a ponytail. She'd lost fifteen pounds without trying. That had never happened to her before. This had never happened, the way she felt.

  “But I'm in the here and now,” she said to the doctor.

  They sat together for a while, then they went back to Paul's room so Dr. Crane could check his vital signs. The doctor put a hand on Allie's shoulder before he left and she almost lost it then.

  “Thank you,” she managed to say.

  She rushed out to use the ladies' room. She didn't want to leave Paul alone for any amount of time, so she quickly peed and washed up, then hurried back to his room. There was no real night or day in the hospital, but this was the time between shifts so it was quiet. The hallway felt like a world in outer space, somewhere between universes. Allie stopped outside of Paul's room, the way she used to stop at the door to her mother's room on her way to bed. She would close her eyes and recite a secret spell she'd invented, one she'd never even told Maddy about, to allay her fears. She was terrified that someone would die on her watch. She had dreams about Death, and sometimes she heard him speak. He would wake her from her sleep and on those nights her skin was cold. She would creep out of bed and go peek inside her mother's bedroom to make sure she was still alive. Perhaps it was more of a prayer than a spell that she whispered.

  I will do anything, I will give up anything. Just don't let anyone die today.

  When Allie got back to the room, Paul was tossing and turning, agitated, in pain. Sometimes the end was so fast it was shocking, that's what Paul's mother had told Allie. And Dr. Crane had warned her not to have any expectations when the cancer returned. The illness was like that, mysterious, headstrong, making its own rules. Just when you thought it might edge along forever, everything exploded. There was no longer any need to wear a mask; there was nothing to protect him from.

  Paul was burning up with a fever. He looked beautiful, alight from inside. A falling star. Allie got a wet washcloth and held it to his forehead. She could feel the heat through the folded cloth.

  Don't let him die today.

  “Dear Allie,” Paul said when he realized she was there. “Go home. Just leave me.”

  Allie sat on the edge of the bed. “We're getting married,” she said.

  “You can walk away,” Paul said. “You served your time. I'm a bad man.”

  “Yes, I know. But I like you that way.”

  He didn't laugh as she'd hoped. “Really bad, Allie. I did something I can't tell you about just to hurt you. We can't get married.”

  She had known when she saw her sister in the dress shop; she could always read Maddy when other people couldn't.

  “It doesn't matter what you've done. We're getting married today.”

  “I thought we were getting married on the twentieth.”

  Allie said nothing.

  “I see,” Paul said. “My darling girl.”

  The man in the bed next to Paul, the one visitors had to pass by in order to reach Paul's bed, had died. The other man behind the curtain, the one near the window, had had surgery to remove his leg. He was an American and young, a graduate student from New Jersey, whose family would soon arrive. But for now he had no visitors. When Paul closed his eyes, Allie went to look in on his roommate, Rob Rosenbloom. Rob was awake. He had a morphine drip, too.

  “Hey,” he said. “How's our boyo?”

  Rob was in his midtwenties. He was long and lanky, with wild dark hair and blue eyes. He'd been studying at the London School of Economics when he fe
lt the lump in his leg. He'd been a crew fanatic and had joined up with a London Borough team, so he thought the bump was a pulled muscle. It wasn't.

  Now he told Allie that Paul talked to himself all the time. He was tormented, but Rob didn't tell her that part. Paul cried in the night and Rob had to lie there and listen.

  “We're getting married this morning,” Allie said. “Here. In this room. It's such an imposition. I hope you don't mind.”

  “Of course I don't.”

  “Yes, well, there won't be many of us, so it shouldn't be too noisy. Just his mom and dad and my parents. We'll just inconvenience the hell out of you while you're recuperating.”

  “He's sorry for all the things he's done,” Rob said. Rob had an athlete's body, except for the leg of course, and a clear, open face. He looked even younger than he was. He worked for a firm in Manhattan that had let him take six months to live in London and accept the fellowship he'd been offered. “He doesn't think he's worthy of you.”

  “Are you a mind reader?” Allie asked. “How do you know all this about Paul? He never says a word about how he feels.”

  “I listen to him.” Rob was looking at her as though he knew her. “He is so sorry, Allie.”

  “Should I get you your breakfast? I can ring the nurse. They have excellent porridge, although I don't recommend the eggs.”

  “I'm fine,” Rob said.

  “Yeah, sure. So am I.” Allie laughed. “We're both fine.” Her nose was running for no reason. “I didn't think I'd ever fall in love. I didn't think I was capable of it.”

  “It's a good day for a wedding,” Rob said. “I'd offer to stand up for him, if I had two legs.”

  Allie felt stricken. She went to Rob, then leaned down and kissed his forehead. He smelled like a boy, like someone who shouldn't be in a hospital bed.

  “He's so sorry you can't even believe it,” Rob said.

  When Allie stood up her nose and eyes were running like mad. “I hope you don't mind.” She blew her nose. “I'm falling apart.”

  Rob laughed. “I think I'm the one falling apart.”

  “Oh. I'm sorry.”

  “Don't be,” Rob said. “It's nice to have a beautiful woman around.”

  Allie buzzed for the nurse to bring Rob's breakfast.

  “Paul's asleep,” she told the nurse. The nurse had brought a tray for Paul as well, which she then stored on a shelf. It was a token meal of applesauce and a soft-boiled egg. Paul had stopped eating when he'd been admitted to the hospital. His body shut down haphazardly, Dr. Crane had said: eyes, digestive system, muscles, bones, respiratory system, brain.

  It wasn't a real sleep, however. Allie realized this as she got into bed beside him. It was a drugged sleep, a faraway sleep. His eyes were open. It was the last kind of sleep; when you're no longer fully awake, and won't be again. They were face-to-face. Paul said something but Allie couldn't hear him, not even when she put her ear up to his mouth. She thought it was something about a mockingbird. She hadn't wanted to fall in love, but she had. Just the tiny bit of information about him, his preference for mourning doves, for example, now seemed the most important fact on earth. She wanted to remember it always. She wanted to study doves, their habits, their bone structure.

  “This is our day,” Allie told Paul. There was a ridiculous lump in her throat. Like a golf ball or a round bit of bone.

  Her parents arrived first. They looked terrible. Allie's mom hadn't slept and her father's face appeared bloated and red. Bob Heller was so guarded and unemotional. If he started to cry, Allie would be undone. She couldn't think about other people now. That was why she hadn't invited her sister. She wanted things kept simple. It was the only way she could get through this. One minute at a time.

  Lucy had stopped at her daughter's flat to pick up the bride's wedding suit. She'd brought along a strand of turquoise beads for Allie that had belonged to her own mother, something borrowed, blue, and old all in one. What was new was a pair of flats Lucy had bought on the way, darting into The French Sole since Allie hadn't had time to pick up the shoes she'd ordered.

  “I wasn't planning on dressing up. I was just going to wear this,” Allie said of her slacks and sweater. “Who really gives a damn? We don't have to wear masks in here anymore. It's beyond that now.”

  “Wear the wedding suit,” Rob called from behind the curtain. He really couldn't help eavesdropping. He was less than a foot away.

  “Who the hell is that?” Allie's father wanted to know.

  “Rob Rosenbloom. He's from New Jersey. He doesn't know it's not polite to shout things out in a hospital room. Do you, Rob? We Americans have no manners.”

  “I'm only trying to be helpful,” Rob said. The Hellers went around to introduce themselves and apologize for commandeering the room.

  Allie decided to take Rob's suggestion; he was an outside observer, after all, and most likely had a more rational view of what seemed to Allie like insane behavior. A wedding in a hospital—who did that? A conversation with her parents as if this was any other day and they were arguing about her wardrobe instead of sobbing at Paul's bedside. Allie went to the ladies' lounge. She took off her clothes and stared at herself in the mirror. A woman came in and stopped in her tracks.

  “I'm getting married,” Allie said.

  She was wearing a bra and underwear and heavy socks. She looked too disheveled to be anyone's bride. Her white suit was on the lounge sofa. The woman came over and hugged her. Being in the hospital together was like being on the front line; you didn't need to be privy to everything about someone to know them. The facts of a person's life were made up of medicine, pots of tea from the lunchroom, sorrow, disaster. That was enough.

  “God bless you,” the woman said.

  “Thank you,” Allie said as she stepped back.

  The other woman went on to use the toilet while Allie proceeded. When she came back out to wash her hands, Allie was dressed. She had even combed her hair. The woman nodded her approval. “Very pretty.”

  Allie thanked her and gathered her worn clothes together. Every little piece of kindness felt huge. She went back to Paul's room. Paul's parents had arrived while Allie was dressing. Frieda sat on a chair beside the bed. Bill was speaking quietly with Allie's dad. Before this summer, Allie hadn't even known that Paul phoned his parents every Sunday. He could tell the difference between the trill of a warbler and the song of a lark because Frieda had taught him the difference. He was spoiled and selfish, but he was also a dutiful son who loved his mother and always wanted to go home to Lilac House. He had known how to love someone, and she hadn't.

  “You'll never find another man like Paul,” Frieda had said to Allie during one of those weekends when Paul was no longer in remission. “Love can be complicated or it can be simple,” she'd told Allie.

  Allie had laughed. “Paul's such a complicated person.”

  “But loving him is simple,” Frieda had said.

  Allie had listened to what her mother-in-law-to-be told her. To love someone so complicated you had to be committed to a single emotion—the way you loved him—no matter what. In that way, it was indeed simple.

  “Then that's what I'll do,” Allie had decided. Paul's mother, who had seemed distant when they'd first met, a cautious woman who'd seen scores of Paul's girlfriends, had thrown her arms around her.

  “Sorry about that,” Frieda had said afterward, embarrassed by her emotional display. “I swear I'll never cry in front of you again.”

  She hadn't, until now. Seeing Frieda break down was too much. Allie left Paul's room and went back into the hall before anyone saw her. She composed herself. She told herself she was in a play and she had a part and she was sticking with it. She was not going to become hysterical or run away or do anything that might hurt Paul's parents. She stopped at a phone booth and called Georgia and asked her to be a witness.

  “I'll be there in ten minutes,” Georgia said.

  When Allie went back to the room Frieda was blowing her nose. “D
arling girl,” she said. Frieda had brought along a bouquet of white roses. She came to embrace Allie. “Lovely suit,” Frieda said. “Perfect.”

  “Silk,” Allie said. Having a normal conversation seemed utterly mad.

  “Think of all those silkworms working away somewhere. Now you're getting married. Paul will be a married man.”

  The thought of what was happening was overwhelming to Frieda; she dissolved yet again. She seemed delirious. She whispered to her husband that there was someone standing against the wall. She'd seen it all before in childhood. Her father had been a doctor, after all, going from house to house. Frieda was convinced it was the Angel of Death.

  “We don't believe in that, darling,” her husband said softly. “We believe in the hereafter.”

  The nurse came in and shooed everyone out so she could see to Paul.

  “I'm a nurse,” Frieda said. “I can stay.”

  “Not with your own son,” the nurse told her. “It's not a good idea. You can come back as soon as I'm done. I'll be quick about it. I promise.”

  Frieda was not easily convinced to leave.

  “Come on, we'll get a quick cup of tea,” her husband said. “We'll get take-away cups and bring it back and she'll be done by then.”

  Before Frieda left she turned to Allie. “They're probably right. I don't think you want to see this on your wedding day. Come with us, Allie.”

  “I'm fine,” Allie said.

  Allie had seen terrible things before, after all. She had seen her mother after her surgery, unable to get out of bed. She had seen the fragile blue veins on her scalp when she took off her wig. There was no way to be embarrassed or repulsed. Allie had never been squeamish; it had been weaned out of her. When the others left, she stayed. She sat beside Paul and held his hand.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Hello,” Allie said back to him.

  The nurse was changing his bedsheets first. For several days he had been defecating in the bed. It was so difficult to move him they no longer bothered and a diaper chafed against his skin, plus, Allie wouldn't let them do that to him. No diapers. Even if he didn't know or didn't have the strength to care, she cared for him. He hadn't eaten all week, so there wasn't much left to him, only a tiny dropping, like that of a fox.