The Lavender Hour

by Anne Leclaire

  “Nona called my father last night,” he said.

  “In Santa Fe?”

  “She thought he should know. In case he wanted to see me.”

  My chest ached. “And he's coming?”

  “No.”

  “He isn't?”

  “I didn't expect him to. We haven't spoken in two years. And before that, we did nothing but fight.”

  “But still.” I couldn't imagine being so angry with Lily or Ashley that I would refuse to see them if they were dying.

  He laughed, a sort of hiccup that turned into a cough. “You've got to admire a man who sticks to his principles.”

  I had no answer to that. There is a lot I can forgive in this world, but not a father refusing to see his dying son. I must have fallen asleep then, for I was awakened by a change in his breathing. A luminosity of sweat coated his skin. I wiped his face with a corner of the sheet.

  “Are you in pain?” I asked. I checked the IV bag to see if it was empty.

  “Jess?”

  “What?”

  “The painting.” He nodded toward the oil I had admired the first time I saw it. “I want you to have it.”

  I tried to refuse. I don't want the damn painting, I wanted to scream, but when he insisted, I agreed, although I could not be gracious about it. And even then, he wasn't satisfied until I actually took the painting off the wall and carried it out to my car.

  “It's time,” he said, when I returned.

  “For what?”

  “I need to go.”

  I assumed he needed help getting into the bathroom, but then I saw his face, filled with hard determination and surrender. In that moment, I had a glimpse of a future I was unwilling to see. My heart turned frantic, a small animal. “No.”

  “Last night, I shit the bed, Jess. Paige had to clean it up.” His face twisted at the memory. “That's what I have ahead. Shitting the bed and watching while my daughter or my mom cleans up.”

  “You can't give up yet,” I said, negotiating. I was prepared to bargain—to fight—for each day, for more time in the middle ground. “Aren't there things you want?”

  He smiled. “It's liberating not to care. Not to want.”

  “Surely there's something you want. I was thinking tomorrow I'd get the inspection sticker on your truck. Maybe we could take a ride.” I looked out at the familiar sights of his backyard—the bird feeders, the woodpile, the lilac bush—now blurred. I don't want to lose you. Looking back later, I would see that he had already gone.

  “Two things I'd like,” he said.

  “What?” Anything. I tried to convince myself he would get through this despair.

  “I want another cigarette.” He reached for the pack; I struck the match, my hands shaking. Neither of us spoke while he smoked. He finished the cigarette, down to the filter, coughing twice, long, hacking coughs. Then he turned to me. “The second thing,”he said. “Will you let me kiss you once more?”

  I thought about refusing, as if, by denying him this, I could keep him. That middle ground. Ridiculous, of course.

  I tasted first the chemical taint of medicine and the stale after-smoke of cigarettes, and then beneath those—as if uncovering the complicated layering of a rare perfume—the faint essential taste of him. No, I thought. I couldn't bear it. To have found him only to lose him. The bitterness of it weighted my heart, my bones, my being.

  “I don't want you to go.”

  “I know.”

  “I love you, Luke.”

  “Oh, Jess,”he said. “Don't.”

  “I can't help it.” My need was so great that I couldn't see his. “It's so unfair.” I began to cry. “I've waited my whole life for you, to feel like this.”

  “Don't,” he whispered. “It's okay.” He stroked my hair.

  “It's not okay.”

  “Listen, to me, Jess.”

  “No,” I said, my voice childish.

  His voice was fainter, more labored. “If you can care this much now, you will care this much again. If you can give this much now, you can give this much again.”

  “You give me…” I waited until my voice was steadier. “You give me too much credit. You think I'm better than I am.”

  “No, I don't, Jess. I see you clear,” he said, his voice weak but so full of kindness, it nearly broke me. “You're the one who doesn't know how good you are.”

  My fear and sorrow shifted, turned to anger. “How can you— how can you be so goddamned calm? Aren't you angry? Aren't you afraid?”

  “Not anymore, Jess.”

  “Don't you feel anything?”

  After a minute, he said, “Sad. It all goes by so fast.”

  “Then why not take what you have left?”

  He pulled away, closed his eyes. “I'm so tired.”

  “You need to sleep,” I said.

  “I want to,” he said, meaning something else entirely.

  Outside, I heard the song of a bird.

  “Cardinal,” I said.

  “Yes,”he said.

  The bird continued to call.

  “Did you know…,”he said, his voice so faint I had to strain to hear. His breath had become more labored.

  “What?”

  “Did you know birds practice while they sleep?”

  “Practice?”

  “Their songs.”

  “Can that be true?”

  “Scientists have proved it.”

  “That seems—” I wanted to tell him that this seemed like the most wonderful thing.

  He reached for my hand. “It's time,”he said, his eyes still closed.

  I tightened my fingers around his, as if by will alone I could keep him there.

  “Now,” he said. “While Nona is upstairs.”

  twenty

  I WAS IN the kitchen when Nona came downstairs. “Did you nap?” I asked, stunned to discover that my voice held steady, sounded normal.

  “I didn't think I could, but I guess I did,” Nona said. “What time is it?”

  “Three o'clock.” I feared the pain in my heart showed clear on my face.

  “Lord, I must have really dozed off.” Nona looked toward Luke's door. “How is he?”

  “Quiet now,” I said, after only the slightest hesitation.

  “Sleeping? That's good. He didn't get much last night.” Nona made a vague, indeterminate sound that could have been a sigh and sat at the table. She stared off into the backyard. “I wish you could have seen him when he was a boy,” she said. “He was a beautiful child.”

  “I'm sure he was,” I said, now on automatic pilot, as if drugged.

  “And good, too. So serious. What was the word one of his teachers used?” She paused, searching memory. “Earnest,” she said suddenly. “That was it. She told me he was an earnest little boy.”

  I didn't trust my voice to reply.

  “The word fit Luke exactly.” Nona smiled suddenly. “Did I ever tell you the story about his first haircut?”

  “No,” I said.

  “He was about four. I always cut his hair, but he begged and begged to go to the barbershop—like his dad, he said. Those days, he wanted to do everything his dad did—so I finally gave in. Well, he marched right in and sat down on the footrest of the chair. The barber patted the seat and told him that was where he was supposed to sit. Luke looked up at him—all serious—and said, 'Well, where are you going to sit?' His dad and I laughed about that for months.” Her smile faded. “It goes so fast,” she said, her voice so soft I could barely hear. “You wouldn't believe how fast it all goes.” She looked shrunken, old.

  Sad, he'd said. It all goes by so fast.

  “It hurts,” Nona said. “It hurts.”

  I reached over and stroked her hand. She looked at me, really seeing me for the first time since she'd come downstairs.

  “Are you all right?”

  I nodded.

  “You look tired. Lord, look at the time. You probably need to get going.”

  “I can stay.” I shoul
d stay. I couldn't leave Nona alone here. Not now.

  “No. You go along.” Nona looked at the clock. “Jim will be along soon.”

  Of course. Jim. I felt a moment of relief, absolved of responsibility. All wrong, of course, but suddenly I knew I couldn't stay there any longer. “I'll be back tomorrow.”

  “Yes.” Nona gave a weary smile. “Tomorrow.”

  When I left, Nona was sitting in the kitchen, staring off into the past.

  AFTER MY daddy died, I'd spent months in a dazed state, amazed that the rest of the world continued on, as if things remained perfectly normal. I felt the same way now as I drove back to Harwich Port. I pulled into the yard, looked over at Faye's, saw her car in the drive. I couldn't talk to her just then, but I couldn't bear to be alone either—not then—so I changed into a pair of jean shorts sawed off below the pocket and headed for the beach. My mind flitted on the surface. If I'd allowed myself to think of Luke, I would have collapsed.

  The beach was crowded with the first of the summer people. Just the other night, Faye had remarked that they came earlier every year. She'd said she could remember back when the tourists didn't arrive until the Fourth of July. And then, she said, sometime in the eighties, it seemed the crowds started to build in mid-June. Now the first of them arrived by Memorial Day.

  It was getting late in the day for sunning, but there were still dozens of bodies laid out on blankets, limbs exposed, glistening with lotion and courting melanoma. Two older women sat in canvas chairs beneath the shade of a huge orange umbrella, reading paperbacks. Down by the water, away from the sunbathers, a father and son threw a baseball back and forth. The boy looked about six and wore a fielder's mitt that swallowed half his arm. When I walked by, the father nodded and said hello. “C'mon, Dad,” the boy yelled. “Throw the ball.” I remembered how Luke had told me about growing up on the Cape, fishing with his dad. I thought of Luke's father then, wondered how he could have walked away, never to come back, not even now.

  Although it had been weeks since I'd gone running, I jogged the stretch from in front of the cottage all the way down to Wychmere Harbor and back, taking the loop twice, as if trying to force my legs to take me to a place beyond pain. Then I walked out to the end of the longest jetty and stared out at Monomoy Island. Even the sea breeze couldn't wash the taste of Luke from my mouth or the burden I carried. I was numb with the emotional kind of exhaustion that leveled more completely than physical labor, but even exhaustion couldn't silence my thoughts. Finally, when even the last of the stragglers had packed up and headed back to their rental cottages, I left the beach. At the house, I made myself a gin and tonic, and when the phone rang, I was sitting on the porch, nursing the drink. I rose slowly and went inside to answer.

  “Jessie,” Faye said. I heard her inhale. “Luke's passed.”

  I stared out at the street, at the sound beyond.

  “Jessie?”

  The previous Saturday, my across-the-street neighbors had arrived, and now I heard the sound of their television. The smell of the meat grilling on their barbecue made me nauseated.

  “Are you there?” Faye asked. “Are you all right?”

  This was the moment, of course, my opportunity to tell Faye everything.

  “Jessie? Shall I come over?”

  “I don't think so,” I said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “God,” I whispered. Then, in a louder voice, “I was just there today. This afternoon.” Now, I thought. Tell her now.

  “How was he when you saw him?”

  “In some pain. They had him on a morphine drip.” I was amazed at my ability to sound normal. “Do you think I should go over to be with Nona?”

  “Paige is with her right now. And Jim. He's calling friends from Nona's church.”

  “Oh. That's good. She shouldn't be alone.”

  “And the police are there, too,” Faye added, an afterthought.

  “The police?” This time my voice did shake. “Why?”

  “It's routine procedure in a case of an unattended death,” Faye said.

  I had to sit down.

  “You sure you're okay?” Faye asked. “I can come over. I know how hard this can be.”

  Get a grip, I thought. You can't break down now. “Thanks, but I need to be alone right now.”

  “Call if you change your mind. Promise?”

  I made myself another drink—this one mostly gin—and returned to the porch, numb with the knowledge that Luke was truly gone, refusing to think about the future. Sometime after midnight, I went upstairs to the studio and took out the envelope with his hair. I held the curls in the palm of my hand, ran a forefinger over them, as if that would connect me to him, but they held nothing of him beyond traces of his DNA. As I slid them back into the envelope, I lifted out one of the curls, then returned the other to the desk. I sorted through my materials until I found an empty locket and set Luke's hair beneath the glass dome. Months later, I would wonder what prescient sense led me to save one lock of his hair.

  twenty-one

  TWO DAYS LATER, Lieutenant Ralph Moody from the State Police called and asked if it would be convenient for him to stop by.

  “Why?” I managed, the receiver damp in my hand.

  “We're interviewing everyone who was present around the time of Luke Ryder's death,” he said.

  “Why?” I repeated. Faye had mentioned routine procedure, but nothing about this sounded routine to me.

  “Just a few questions,” he said.

  We agreed on eleven, and I showered, dressed, and roamed the house, too anxious to sit still. I didn't dare try breakfast, afraid I might vomit in front of Moody. He arrived precisely at eleven. I expected him to be in uniform, but he wore gray slacks, a casual shirt, and an unstructured jacket. He was a large man with close-cropped hair, neat at the nape, and a modified gut barely concealed by his jacket.

  “I'm surprised the police are involved when someone dies of cancer,” I said. My words echoed in the room. I wondered if they sounded as defensive to him as they did to me.

  “Actually, at this point, we've listed the cause of death as undetermined,” he said. His gaze held mine. His eyes missed nothing. He flipped open a small notebook. “When was the last time you saw Luke Ryder?”

  “The afternoon he died,” I said.

  “That would be June 7?”

  “I guess.” I made a pretense of having to think back. “Yes. It was Tuesday. If that was the seventh.”

  “And how was he when you left him?”

  “Sleeping,” I said. “He hadn't slept well the night before. Nona, his mother, hadn't been getting much rest, and she went up to try and get a nap, and I kept Luke company. We talked, and after a while, he nodded off.” I forced myself to shut up.

  “What did you talk about?”

  “With Luke?” I said, hedging.

  “Yes.”

  “I don't know. Birds, mostly.”

  “You talked about birds?”

  “Yes. He was teaching me to identify different birds by their calls.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No. He was getting tired.”

  “Did he seem depressed?”

  “Of course he was depressed,” I said, suddenly angry. “He was dying.”

  Moody was unfazed. “That afternoon—or anytime—did he ever mention taking his own life?”

  “He was depressed, not suicidal,” I said. A lie I would come to regret much later, but at the time, I was thinking only about protecting Luke. And Nona.

  Moody looked up from his notebook. “And he was alive when you left?”

  “Yes,” I said, amazed at my calm tone.

  “Well, I guess that about wraps it up,” he said. “Thanks for your time.”

  “That's it?”

  “Unless you can think of anything to add.” The cool eyes were steady on mine.

  “No. Nothing.”

  After he left, I went into the bathroom and threw up. When I was sure I could keep it do
wn, I made tea. I tried Faye at work, but she was away from her desk. I called Ashley and left a message on her machine, called a couple of people in my hospice group, let their words of comfort wash over me. None of them mentioned the police investigation, and I didn't tell them. I phoned Nona to see if there was anything I could do, but there was no answer at Luke's home. It occurred to me she was probably at the funeral parlor making arrangements for the service. I remembered the frantic time after my daddy died, days filled with appointments with the funeral director, minister, the manager at the club where Lily would hold the gathering after his funeral. Finally I went upstairs and put on Luke's shirt and sat in the window, looking out at the sound. My body ached, as if I had been in a car accident or fallen down a flight of stairs. I had forgotten how grief could settle in you, cause physical pain. Make bone and muscles hurt.

  THE FUNERAL was on Saturday. It was cool and overcast with rain in the forecast. Faye and I drove together to Luke's service. The funeral parlor was jammed, and we had to wait in line to sign the guest book. In the background, hymns were being played on an organ, and there was the sound of a woman sobbing in the distance. “I hate these things,” I whispered to Faye. We saw Jim and Ginny, standing together on the other side of the room, and nodded to them. Rich Eldredge was there with a group of other men, all in dark, ill-fitting suits. We managed to find two seats toward the back of the room. The sobbing was louder now—a tanned blonde who sat in the first row of seats directly in front of the casket. I didn't recognize her.

  “Poor Marcia,” a woman beside me said to no one in particular.

  Faye raised an eyebrow at me, and we both craned our necks to get a better look at Luke's ex-wife. A man and two women knelt by her side, attempting to comfort her as she held court like a grieving widow. Paige was among the missing, but Nona was there, sitting stiffly, separated from her ex-daughter-in-law by an empty chair. She wore a navy pantsuit, and her black hair was tightly permed. She stared straight at Luke's casket, which was closed. I was grateful for that. I don't think I could have endured it if it had been open. As it was, I began to shake—a shivering that took my whole body—then Faye reached over and clasped my hand, steadying me. I clung to her as if she were a life raft, and eventually Faye's warmth traveled through my fingers and up my arm, settling me. Without her, I could not have stayed.