Slumping onto the bed, Diane had sat stunned, reading the rough outline of her husband’s journey into a place that he feared promised the end of everything. The loss of everyone he loved. Her feelings were tumultuous. She felt cheated, angry that he had kept so much from her. She’d read the pages awestruck that Gregory had found a place to tend the ever enlarging wound that his life had become. She wished he had confessed his fears but the more she read, Diane knew that he had withheld these thoughts because he loved her. He wasn’t able to spare her the sight of his decline. He could, he must have felt, at least protect her from being torn asunder as he was, haunted by what he could not evict from his life or even explain.
Diane slowly, meditatively, finished the pie, took a sip of water, and then said, “You know, at night in bed, I lay beside Gregory and take all of him in. It seems to be claiming him so fast. On my really bad nights, when I kiss him good night, it feels like an internment.”
“What about the support group?”
“I went a couple of times, but with my caseload there’s often a conflict. Somehow, I figure I can always find my own way. Besides, Lauren, she’s always there, and even Sean sometimes helps out. Bruce is with Gregory now. And your calls keep me sane.”
“Take it one day at a time. After all this time, it’s still the way George died that gets me. One minute he’s standing at the foot of the bed putting on his pajamas and the next he’s slumped on the floor, dying of a stroke. One minute I had a husband and the next I didn’t. I was buried, too. Sometimes it still feels like I am. I’m digging myself out a bit more each day. But you sound like you’re digging your way in.”
“Of course. I can’t help but remember his bout with cancer. Comforting Lauren and Sean, assuring them that no, Gregory was not going to die, and that his prognosis was good. The absence of intimacy between us for nine long months. But Paula, this is different. We’re going to lose this fight. I’ve begun to think that we’re called boomers because just as we hit our stride, just as life begins to make sense, it all blows up in our face. It all goes boom.”
“That’s just too much to think about on a girls’ night out like this. Can we pass on that right now?”
Upstairs in the sanctuary, the quartet had been joined by a buxom, honey-colored singer. The space pulsed with the sound of hands slapping thighs, murmured voices singing along, and snapping fingers offering up a lazy, syncopated undertow.
During the intermission, when the audience stood and stretched, walked over to greet friends, or went back down to the basement for more food or drink, Diane noticed a man staring intently at her. He was then walking through the crowd over to her. He was tall with a gleaming shaved head, a neat moustache, and a palpable solidity. He was substantial, yet fit, and he wore his size lightly.
“I think we’ve met before,” he said leaning on one of the folding chairs in the aisle.
“Really, where?” Diane responded.
“Your last name is Tate?”
“Yes.”
“Is your husband an architect?”
After a pause that drew attention to itself, she finally said, “Yes, yes he is.” She hoped this man did not hear the falsity in her voice and she tried to defeat it by looking him straight in the eyes. “He’s the co-founder of Caldwell & Tate Architects.”
“Yes, yes, that’s him. A couple of years ago his company built a brand new high school over in Brentwood. I was the principal there before I retired. They did a great job. The only school with solar panels in the city, very green, environmentally friendly. Full of light and color. The kids and staff loved it. You came to the ribbon cutting. After the speeches and pictures, your husband was being interviewed and you told me you were a judge in the family court. You asked me about the number of students at the school in the adoption or foster care system. If I recall, we talked about that for a while before Mr. Tate came over. I got another chance to thank him and then he whisked you away.” He extended his hand and said, “My name is Alan Rich.”
“I do remember now,” Diane said, hoping that they would hear at any moment the announcement of the beginning of the second half of the evening that would preempt any inquiries about Gregory.
“How is Mr. Tate?”
His bated and genuine interest in her forthcoming answer forced Diane to blurt out, “He’s fine, just fine. Please excuse me, I’ve got to go to the ladies’ room.”
She made her way through the milling crowd, breathlessly pushed open the door to the ladies’ restroom, and scrambled into a stall. She could handle the odd friend who didn’t know or hadn’t heard, but on this night, a night designed as an escape, a new quandary arose: How to inform those who knew Gregory only from his work? Of course, his fellow architects had heard that Gregory had retired or knew the truth, but what did she owe someone like Alan Rich? The thought of giving voice to either the truth or a lie struck her as punishment that she, Gregory, and even Alan Rich did not deserve.
When Diane entered the house a few hours later, she found Bruce sitting on the sofa in the family room beside Gregory. Bruce had volunteered a week ago to stay with Gregory sometimes if she wanted to go out.
He stood up the moment she entered, tossing his head back and his eyes to the ceiling. “How do you do it? Handle him, I mean? He kept talking about some meeting that he and Mercer had with the mayor years ago and keeps telling the same story over and over.”
Diane checked her desire to tell her brother-in-law to stop talking about Gregory as though he wasn’t present or as if he were deaf. “What’ve you two been doing?”
“Watching the History Channel,” Bruce said reaching for his jacket and striding quickly toward the front door. Clutching the doorknob and avoiding Diane’s gaze, he stammered, “We ate something, and he got to walking all over the house. I had to follow him to make sure he was okay. He took a nap and woke up as soon as I settled down for a rest of my own. He wanted a glass of water and then knocked it on the floor. In desperation, I hoped the television would calm him down. Diane, I had no idea.”
“The symptoms seem to worsen in the evening and at night.”
“My offer still stands, but I need time to kind of recover, you know.”
Then, in a move that was both awkward and unexpected, Bruce leaned forward and kissed Diane on the cheek before hurrying through the door.
Diane locked the door, kicked off her shoes, and walked into the living room where she found Gregory staring at the television screen, watching the erection of the Brooklyn Bridge unfold. As she got closer she could hear him mumbling, his fingers drumming the arm of the sofa.
“When I finally got down to the district building Mercer was fuming,” Gregory said. “Pacing up and down. Back and forth on the sidewalk in front of the building. I was late because I’d spent the night before tossing and turning and didn’t get to sleep until five o’clock in the morning, and our meeting was at ten o’clock. Well, he starts to light into me and then I tell him to save it, and we rush up the stairs back into the building.”
Gregory laughed loud, a hearty bellow, and clapped his hands. Suddenly aware of Diane’s presence he turned to face her and, buoyed by her presence, he continued, “We cool our heels for another half hour, all the while going over the presentation. This is make or break for us. The chance to design the first office building in the U Street corridor since the riots. Our chance to make something rise from the ashes. When we get called into his office, he walks over to us like he’s honored that we came. I’ll never forget what he said: ‘Come on in, brothers. Come on in.’ Like me and Mercer grew up with him down there in Itta Bena, Mississippi, picking cotton. And he’s got his staff, most of them black, all around him at the conference table. Waiting for us. Ready to do business. And he leans back in his mayor’s chair and says, ‘Sit on down. Y’all got a reputation that precedes you. A good one. Now tell me why y’all should get this contract. And make it easy for me to say yes.’ And you know we did.”
Diane had heard the story hund
reds of times by now and she sat down beside Gregory and held his cheeks in her palms, looked into those still-magical gray-blue eyes and said, “Gregory, that’s a wonderful story.”
And when Gregory began again, saying, “When I finally got down to the district building …” Diane gently placed her head on his shoulder and said, “Yes dear, I know, that was one of the best days of your life.”
Chapter Twelve
AUGUST 2013
This morning his wife hands him off like a package to Cecelia, who stays with him during the day. Diane cares for him but he cannot any longer care for her. And caring for her is the thing he wants never to forget. His wife kisses him good-bye and then it is Cecelia and him. She has brought the morning paper in and hands it to him.
“Here’s your paper, Mr. Tate,” she says, removing her jacket.
She goes into the kitchen and prepares a cup of coffee and they sit together at the kitchen table. Cecelia is a tiny thing: slender and small-boned, large eyed. He remembers that she told him she is twenty-one. He looks at the newspaper, reports from a world he is no longer a part of.
After they have finished their coffee, Cecelia sets a jar of coins on the table and pours out the pennies, dimes, quarters, and nickels. This is his favorite game. Gregory’s fingers slide toward the coins, and he sorts them into piles. Across from him Cecelia methodically stacks her coins as he quickly builds towers of quarters. He is playing with money but he remembers the thrill of winning and the feeling of being first.
“You’re too fast for me, Mr Tate. Just too fast.”
“You’re too slow. I think you let me win. Don’t let me win. I want to beat you fair and square.” Gregory pouts.
“All right, but be careful what you ask for.” Cecelia laughs. “How many of these to make a dollar?” she asks, placing a quarter in her palm and holding it up for Gregory to see.
“I think it’s three.”
“Almost, Mr. Tate, it’s four. Four quarters to make a dollar.”
“I was good at math. I needed it in my work. I don’t know what happened,” he says staring at Cecelia quizzically.
At lunch, Cecelia stands over Gregory and begins to cut his chicken into small pieces. The knife, the fork, held in her hands instead of his, the concentrated look on her face as she cuts the meat into small pieces, disturbs him. Anything sharp—knives, scissors—are hidden from him. These are the things he still knows. His hand moves quickly and abruptly pushes Cecelia’s hands away. The sudden sound of the knife and fork dropping and clattering onto the kitchen floor cuts through the anguish.
“Don’t,” he demands. “Stop, I can do that.” The words are meant to hurt her and salvage his pride but they accomplish nothing. Cecelia reaches onto the floor and retrieves the fork and knife.
“Mr. Tate, now why you wanna be mean like that when I’m here to help you?”
He watches her go to the sink and wash the fork, dry it with a paper towel and place it beside his plate. Head bowed, Gregory grabs the fork and stuffs his mouth with the rice and peas and chicken.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles as Cecelia sits down across the table from him.
“Mr. Tate, you don’t have to apologize. I know you didn’t mean it.”
“But I did.”
After lunch, Cecelia tells Gregory that Diane has asked her to pick up some things at the drugstore. Gregory looks outside and sees the sun shining, closes his eyes, and presses his face close to the living room’s picture window, his cheeks bathed in the sun’s rays.
“Mr. Tate, get your jacket now, and we’ll be ready to go.”
He opens the closet and pulls out a thick winter parka, gloves from the top shelf, and a wool scarf. When Cecelia comes into the living room and finds him dressed this way, ready to go, she smiles and says, “I don’t think you need so much, you’ll burn up.”
Gregory stands his ground. “I’m ready to go.” And when she approaches him to remove his coat, he sits down on the sofa stubbornly crossing his arms.
“All right, Mr. Tate, we can’t go out until you’re dressed properly. And look at you, you still wearing your house slippers.” The sight of his feet melts his resistance, and he removes the heavy coat and scarf, removes his slippers and slides his feet into his shoes. He stands up and Cecelia stops him. “One more thing.” She ties the laces.
Rising from her knees, Cecelia is suddenly gay and begins dancing around the room. She has earbuds in her ear and holds her iPod. She slips a bud into Gregory’s ear and he hears “Don’t Worry Bout a Thing” by Bob Marley. The song transports him to a room of red and blue lights, bathed in the smell of liquor and warm bodies. Fingers balled near his ears, he moves in time, in rhythm. Cecelia places the other bud in his ear and for how long he does not know, for how long he does not care … the party, the blue and red lights go on and on. He sees women held too tightly, hears men’s gruff, easy laughter. He feels a slap on his back. He is unmired. His tears are for joy.
The song ends and Gregory tumbles back on to the couch and asks, “Where are you from, Cecelia?”
“You know I’m from Jamaica. You told me you’ve been there. I came here to join my mother. To study to be a nurse’s aide. I came to America to take care of you.”
“Yes, Jamaica, I’ve been there.” Gregory removes the buds from his ears and hands them to Cecelia. “The water is so blue,” Gregory says wistfully. He looks further off and says, haltingly, “Marley, Manley, and Garvey.”
“Oh, you know your Jamaican history, Mr. Tate. I tell them all the time you know more than you let on.”
At the drugstore, Gregory walks beside Cecelia as she takes products from the shelves. They walk to the pharmacy in the rear of the store and she stands in the line. It is there that Gregory sees Randall Cullen: the short, muscular body, the jet-black hair Gregory always wondered if Randall dyed. They are friends. He still knows what it means to be a friend. They spot each other at the same time, and Gregory calls, “Hey Randall,” just to hear himself say what he is sure is the man’s name.
Randall unfurls a smile that is the most beautiful thing Gregory has seen in months, a beacon that reminds him of good things.
“Hi, Greg. Hi, man, how are you?” Randall asks as he approaches Gregory standing in line beside Cecelia. He peers at Gregory through those thick glasses as though searching vainly for signs of life.
Gregory marshals a confident smile and throws his arm around Randall’s shoulder and pulls him aside, a few feet from Cecelia. Suddenly he does not want Randall to know that he is with her.
“You don’t call me,” Gregory says, waylaying the words, piercing his friend with an accusatory stare, moving in so close to him that he can hear Randall’s breathing, see the pores on his face, smell the sweetish tinge of tobacco on his breath. “We can talk about the Middle East, those damned Republicans, the city council, like we used to.”
Randall shakes his head. “Greg, we talked a month ago. When I got back from those six weeks in Athens. And then Diane invited me over for dinner. We had a good time.”
“We did?”
“I brought you and Diane a vase and a small rug.”
The hopeful lilt in his friend’s voice stings Gregory as he realizes he must have again let someone else down, someone besides himself.
“I’ve checked on you and Diane regularly, but it’s time for us to go to dinner again, okay?”
Gregory rallies with a smile and says, “Call me. Don’t be afraid.”
“Sure, sure. I will,” Randall tells him. But Gregory hears the disappointment in his friend’s voice and hates himself, hates that he cannot remember any of what Randall has told him, hates that this man who he still knows as a friend, is not a friend, but a liar.
“Who was that, Mr. Tate? A friend of yours?” Cecelia asks as she comes to Gregory’s side holding a bag of prescriptions and they watch Randall walk away.
“I don’t know.”
As Cecelia prepared to leave that night, she told Diane that Gregory had se
en an old friend in the CVS. “I think I heard him say his name was Randall.”
“Oh, Randall Cullen. Did he remember him?”
“Yes he seemed to. They talked for a while.”
“How was he today?”
“Oh you know, Mrs. Tate, it was a good day and a bad day. He performed pretty well on the games we played. But when I told him to get ready to go to the store, he dressed for winter. He couldn’t remember how to tie his shoes. But he told me that Marcus Garvey and Bob Marley and Michael Manley are all from Jamaica. And when I asked him if that man in the store was a friend, he didn’t know.”
They heard Gregory’s steps hurrying toward them from the living room, heard him furiously shouting, “Why, I can tie my shoes. Do you think I’m a baby? Of course I tied my shoes. I dressed for winter because it is winter, just look outside.” He strode over to the kitchen window and pointed to the still light summer sky. “She’s lying, why is she lying? Why is she lying about me?”
Diane gave Cecelia an envelope with her pay and signaled for her to leave them alone. She stood in the middle of the kitchen holding her husband, flooded with remorse, withered by fatigue, craving his once strong arms to comfort her.
“Why did she lie? Make her tell the truth.”
The weekend stretched out before Diane. Before, when she came home from work, she would change into comfortable clothing, sprawl on the bed or sofa and vegetate before deciding if she would cook or they would order in. Now there was a part two to all her days, a studious girding for the unexpected.
She had grown increasingly vulnerable, unsure, felt sometimes unsafe alone with Gregory. It has not happened yet, but she could snap, surrender to the growing urge that quietly summoned her to ignore Gregory’s needs and tend, without guilt, without shame, to her needs, her desires.
The Wide Circumference of Love Page 13