She got in and spent a few minutes monkeying with the mirrors and adjusting the seat to fit her height.
“The brakes can be touchy so don’t slam them. And look out for deer. They like to jump in front of your car for fun out in these parts. You know what, I never even asked if you knew how to drive.”
“Of course I do,” she said, smirking at me. Then she pretended to search beneath the dash. “Where’s the thing to shift the gears?”
“It’s an automatic,” I said, playing along.
“Uh-oh. I only know how to drive rigs with a dog leg and a clutch. What’s a poor country girl to do?”
“Get out of here,” I said, closing the car door.
She rolled down the window, leaning her head out. “Call me if you need anything, okay? Even just to talk.”
“Sure thing, counselor. But no talking or texting while you drive. Now get on, I’m freezing out here.”
She smiled and pulled away. I stood and watched the taillights disappear down the driveway. It’s a strange feeling to watch your own car drive off. Like your life is going on without you. Which is kind of how I felt anyway with Estrella gone.
35
THE SOUND OF blaring music jolted me awake. I got up off the couch and walked down the hall and opened Mr. Hadley’s door to find him sitting on his bed singing along to “Dancing Queen.” His shirt was off and a tube was running from the IV pump into a port in his chest. He froze when he saw me. Then he reached to the bedside table and switched the music off.
“Good morning,” he said. “I’m either really high right now and am imagining you or this is really embarrassing.”
I hooked a thumb over my shoulder to indicate the living room. “I slept on the couch.”
“What about Estrella?”
“She drove herself home in my car.”
He nodded. Then he glanced at the old tape player on his bedside table. “I guess all we’re missing is Sebastian with his bullhorn and we could go out and jump burning cars today. June loved Abba. I’m more of a rock-and-roll man myself.”
“You seem to be feeling better this morning.”
He looked down at the port in his chest. “This port was for chemo,” he said. “It’s funny to think that I made it through the sixties without touching anything stronger than pot, and now here I am hooked up to an IV drip of Dilaudid with methadone mixed in for good measure. Some breakfast, eh? Oh well, it makes watching Good Morning America interesting at least.”
After he got dressed and after I had eaten a bowl of stale cereal from his pantry, we spent the morning watching TV and laughing together at all the stupid things that seem to be so important to everyone else in the world. Mr. Hadley was really funny when he was loopy. He had a take on everything . . .
“You know, these elections are sheer lunacy. It’s like a bunch of turkeys lining up to vote for Thanksgiving . . .
“If I were rich, Elliot, I’d leave a scholarship fund to buy every one of these kids a belt . . .
“This Viagra in these commercials has to be one of the worst things to ever happen to women . . .”
It really was a riot, until his meds began to wear off. I could tell it was happening because his energy seemed to wane, and his gaze would drift from the TV to the floor. The look on his face hinted that he was fighting off pain. He was coughing a lot too. It became clear to me just how hard it must have been for him to spend all those hours telling me his and June’s story. And now I knew what all those pills he was popping were for.
He hadn’t eaten yet that I had seen, so I made him some tea and melted butter in it when he wasn’t looking. Why not? The pamphlet said that high-fat foods were a good way to get needed calories quickly, and it all ends up in the same place anyway, right?
I called my office and let them know I’d be out all week and asked to have my cases reassigned. They weren’t happy about it, but I would have been hard-pressed to care any less. It wasn’t like the clients would miss me—whether it was I or some other suited swindler knocking on their door to hustle them out of their houses, what was the difference? I just didn’t much feel like going on any foreclosure sits right now.
Mr. Hadley napped, waking late afternoon in much better spirits. He took some pain medication and managed to eat an apple with a glass of Ensure mixed up from an awful-smelling powder. Then he put his coat on and headed for the door.
“Whoa, where are you going?” I asked, looking up from the pamphlet I was reading. It’s funny how protective you can feel of someone once you’ve watched them sleeping.
“I’m going to see June, of course.”
He said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world to do, and I guess after all he had been through while still managing his daily visits, it was.
“Hold on,” I said. “I’ll come up with you.”
We didn’t talk much, enjoying the sounds of the creek and the forest instead. It wasn’t raining, but it had gotten suddenly cold and there was a definite bite in the air.
“Is Estrella coming back with your car?” he asked when we were about halfway up the trail. “If not, I’ll spring for a taxi to take you home.”
“She’s bringing the car back tonight,” I said.
“Oh good. She’s a sweet girl. And smart one too. I really think June would have liked both of you.”
“Her mother’s coming to drive her back home since I’m staying here with you.”
He stopped on the path, eyeing me. I turned to face him.
“What?” I asked.
“You’ve done too much already, Elliot. Much too much. I’m very grateful, but you have a life to get back to.”
“I’m staying,” I said, “and that’s all there is to it.”
He leaned on his cane and eyed me. “Do I have to force you to leave?”
I smiled. “You already know I’m not above breaking in through a window.”
“I could call the police.”
“Don’t forget that I’m the executor of your estate with a power of attorney. I’ll have you declared incompetent.”
He laughed. “It wouldn’t take much to prove that.”
Then he continued walking on up the path. I followed.
“If you really plan to stay,” he said as we walked, “I insist that you let me make you up a bed in June’s studio. I have an air mattress I used to sleep on in there. It’s quite comfortable.”
“I can agree to that.”
“There’s more. I insist on buying groceries, now that I no longer have a mortgage payment to make. A growing young man like you can’t live on frozen dinners and MoonPies alone.”
“I can agree to that also.”
“And you’ll have to put up with being woken by Abba. Occasionally a little Lynyrd Skynyrd too.”
“Wow,” I said, “Lynyrd Skynyrd, look at you.”
“And you’ll need to promise not to try and talk me out of what I plan to do. That’s most important of all.”
“I don’t know if I can promise that, Mr. Hadley.”
“You have to, Elliot. I’m not ready yet, but there will come a time soon when I am. I don’t want it to be a fight. I know you think I’m doing this because I was being foreclosed on, but you’re wrong. I held off writing that letter as long as I could.”
I took in a deep breath of cold fall air, mulling over his request. I didn’t want to make a promise that I couldn’t keep, but I didn’t want to upset him either. It wasn’t my right to tell him how to live or how to end his own life.
“I’d be honored to stay with you through the process,” I said. “Whatever that looks like. No argument, just love and support. That’s what someone should do for his best friend.”
He kept on walking and never took his eyes off the path, but I could tell that he was smiling.
Mr. Hadley was asleep in his bed when E
strella and her mother arrived. It was getting dark and the resemblance between them was so striking that when I opened the door and saw her mother standing there with an armload of casserole dishes, I mistook her for her daughter and leaned in to kiss her on the cheek.
“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Ackerman,” I said, realizing my mistake as soon as I saw Estrella behind her removing a duffel bag from the trunk of my car.
“Oh!” she said, looking surprised by my kiss. “It’s nice to meet you too, Elliot. Estrella says very nice things and I know they’re true because we raised her to never lie. I whipped you up some of Estrella’s favorite dishes.”
I took the casseroles from her and stepped aside to invite her in. Estrella followed, lugging the duffel. I went to kiss her on the cheek but she turned her head and our lips brushed each other. It was a little awkward but kind of nice too.
She held up the duffel. “I figured a day or two might turn into more, so I brought you some stuff to wear from my dad’s closet. It’s all brand-new. Mostly Christmas gifts from me he refuses to wear. He swears Dockers are high fashion. I brought you a toothbrush and stuff too. Don’t worry, it’s not my dad’s.”
We all sat around the kitchen table and ate dinner together. I got the feeling they had already eaten but wanted to be polite. One of the dishes contained a pizza-pie casserole, and I could see why it was Estrella’s favorite. I liked her mother. Not only did they look alike, but they acted a lot alike too.
After dinner we all had tea.
“Are you sure you’ll be okay out here by yourself?” Mrs. Ackerman asked as I walked them to the door.
“I’m not by myself,” I said, smiling. “But yes, I’ll be fine, thank you. And thank you for the food too.”
She hugged me. It’s hard to explain how exactly, but it was a mother’s hug and it felt good.
“Those dishes are refillable,” she said. “You just call when they’re empty and we’ll bring more.”
Once her mother was outside on the porch, Estrella pulled me to the side. She wrapped her arms around my waist and looked up at me. She was smiling, but it was a sad kind of smile.
“He’s lucky to have you to keep him company,” she said. “I have to work tomorrow night but I can get Tom to cover me on Wednesday. I’ll borrow my mother’s car and come and hang out with you two. Maybe I’ll bring along some games for us all to play.”
“As long as you don’t bring Scrabble,” I said.
Then she bit her lower lip like she does, and I knew that she wanted me to kiss her. Which was more than fine with me because I’d been thinking about it since we hugged good-bye the night before. I leaned in and brought my lips to hers. We were kissing when her mother pushed the door open.
“Estrella, I almost forgot—”
“Mom! A little privacy, please.”
Her mother blushed, quickly handing me a book before stepping back outside and pulling the door closed.
“Sorry,” Estrella said. “How embarrassing.”
“Not for me,” I replied, leaning in and kissing her again.
She tasted like spearmint and honey. Maybe because of the tea she’d had after dinner. I’m sure I tasted like pizza pie, so I guess I’m lucky it’s her favorite.
I saw them off from the porch, waving good-bye as they pulled away. When they were gone, I stood there for a minute longer just looking out over the barn and the field and the tree where I knew Rosie was buried. I had almost forgotten the book in my hand. I was worried it might be a downer about grieving but it wasn’t. I could just read the title in the twilight, and when I did it made me smile—Peter Pan and Wendy.
36
I KNEW THE DAY would come when he could no longer visit June, I just didn’t think it would come so soon. It was the morning of my eighth day sleeping on the air mattress and I woke up late. Usually I could count on a wake-up call from across the hall as Mr. Hadley rocked his IV to the oldies. But today there was silence.
I found him still in bed, his eyes half open and his breath coming intermittently and rattling and wheezy in his chest. He had been sleeping more and more, his energy fading with each passing day, but he had always managed to rally in the morning. Not today. When he saw me he tried to smile, but I could tell he was in a great deal of pain. I cleaned his chest port with sterile gauze, as his home-care nurse had taught me to do, and inserted the IV. The methadone and morphine were supposed to keep the chronic pain at bay; the other narcotics were designed to act fast when he experienced breakthrough pain.
I spent the morning sitting on the bed with him, watching YouTube videos on my phone. He liked anything with animals. We watched a few hang gliding videos too. In the afternoon I came back from using the bathroom to find him standing in his robe holding on to the side of the bed. I didn’t want him to feel helpless so I fetched him his cane. It just wasn’t happening. He took two steps, then stopped, spinning a slow circle around his cane until he almost went down. I scooped him up and put him back in bed. He hardly weighed anything.
“Can I get you something?” I asked.
He was pretty doped up but he looked straight up into my eyes and said, “June.”
“How about we shoot for tomorrow.”
He shook his head and made like he was going to get up again. It nearly broke my heart. Then I had an idea.
“I’ll make you a deal. You stay here and rest and I’ll walk up there and take video. Then I’ll come back and we’ll sit and watch it together, okay? It’ll be just like you’ve gone yourself.”
I’m not sure he understood me, but tears welled up in his eyes and he rested his head back on his pillow.
It’s hard to explain why, really, since I don’t normally get all sentimental and stuff, but I had tears in my eyes too as I set out across the footbridge with my phone held out in front of me. Something about seeing the empty footpath passing by there on the screen, as if Mr. Hadley had already vanished and I were filming his ghost walking up to Echo Glen.
When I got back and had recharged my dying phone, we sat on the bed and watched the entire video together. And that’s the only way he would ever see Echo Glen again until he was buried there. I thought about carrying him up once—since he was so light—but he had developed a strange fear about going much of anywhere farther than the bathroom by then. And even getting that far required my help.
He grew restless at night, staying awake and staring at the ceiling while picking at his sheets. I’d sit beside the bed and read him Peter Pan. I must have read the entire book three or four times through, but it seemed to help him relax.
I thought perhaps I should go home for a little while, get some things of my own to bring back, but I just couldn’t get myself to leave. Estrella came by on the evenings she didn’t have to work, delivering more of her mother’s meals. She even brought a dandy quilt Mrs. Ackerman made for Mr. Hadley. She’d help me clean up around the house or do laundry, and then we’d eat something and sit together and play board games on the kitchen table. She brought Monopoly one night but it reminded me too much of my job. We didn’t talk too much about what was happening with Mr. Hadley; we didn’t talk too much about what was happening with us. We just hung out and made small talk mostly. And to tell you the truth, that was more than enough.
We’d hug when she got there and hug again when she left. We even kissed good-bye a few times. I knew there was more between us that needed to be explored, but everything seemed to be on hold. It’s a strange feeling waiting around for death. There’s a kind of silence that enters the house. I can’t really explain it, but you probably know what I mean.
When he asked me to open the dresser drawer I kind of knew what I would find. It was still a shock though. Maybe because it was so innocuous looking.
It was lying in the drawer by itself. A simple prescription bottle just like the others scattered about the room. The only difference was the sealed
safety cap and the warning on the label. Pentobarbital, it was called. Ten grams. Just enough to end a life, I guess. I felt like I was holding a bullet or a bomb. The directions said to drink it on an empty stomach followed by something sweet to help keep it down. I put it back and shut the drawer. He wasn’t ready yet, but when he was he wanted me to know where to find it.
I sat on the edge of the bed and we looked at each other for a long time without talking. I got the feeling he was sad, but not about dying. I think he was sad for me because he knew I’d miss him. He had not been out of bed for several days, and it had come to my cleaning him. I know it embarrassed him but it didn’t bother me at all. The home-care nurse had taught me how on one of her visits, and how to shift his position in the bed with pillows to keep him comfortable. He hadn’t eaten anything solid in a long time, but she said that was normal and okay.
The hardest thing was his breathing. I would sit in the dark in a chair beside the bed and listen to it. It sounded like he was choking or drowning. Surprisingly when he was awake this didn’t seem to panic him at all. I thought a lot about my dad while sitting in that dark room. I don’t know why. Maybe because he had died so suddenly and I hadn’t had any time to really say good-bye. They had taken him away already by the time the mill manager came out to the floor to tell me. I didn’t even get a chance to see him until I looked at him in the casket.
I was sitting in the chair beside Mr. Hadley’s bed one evening when I had one hell of a surprise.
“You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.”
When I heard it I thought maybe I was dreaming.
“Steve,” I said. “Who’s Steve?”
“Humphrey Bogart,” Mr. Hadley replied from his bed.
He hadn’t been talking for days so it shocked me.
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