“Yes, but—”
“You let him go off to that big, scary school alone, as you’re not in the classroom or at recess or lunch with him each day.”
“At the beginning of the year I ate lunch with him,” Cassie said, “until he asked me not to.” She should have felt surprised or even threatened that Pearl knew of Noah and the stress it had been sending him to kindergarten, but instead it seemed almost natural that she should know, as if they were old family friends or something.
“Noah asked you not to eat lunch with him, so you let him go a bit more, gave him more independence and freedom, even though it hurt.”
Cassie nodded. Yeah, it had hurt when Noah had asked her to let him eat with the kids in his class instead of her.
“But you weren’t giving up on him as a person, as your son,” Pearl continued. “You still loved him. You missed him when the two of you weren’t together, but in no way was that giving up on Noah.”
“That’s an entirely different situation.” Cassie folded her arms, as if to prove the strength of her point. “Kindergarten is not life and death.”
“Of course it’s not,” Pearl said kindly. “But it’s similar enough that you understand what I’m saying. “All that I suggested, then and now, is that you give Devon a choice to stay here on Earth in his present state or continue on to Heaven.”
“If he isn’t conscious of anything, I don’t see how offering him a choice will do any good.” Cassie frowned.
“There are many levels of consciousness,” Pearl said. “Simply because his MRI did not reveal activity in his brain does not mean it isn’t there.” She leaned back, appraising Cassie. “I’m surprised at you, Cassandra. So easily swayed by those test results when you’ve had the faith and belief all these years that Devon was listening and could hear you.”
“How did you—” Cassie decided she didn’t want to know how Pearl was aware of Devon’s MRI. Too much of what she said made sense, and Cassie hated hearing it. “I wasn’t easily swayed,” she said. “I’ve just been trying to face the reality that he isn’t going to come back to us.”
“If you can face that, then you can give Devon a choice because you love him.” Pearl gave Cassie’s knee a kindly pat, then stood. “I wouldn’t keep either man waiting too long,” she advised.
“Either?” Cassie also stood, looking down on Pearl by a few inches, though she felt the opposite, if anything. Pearl’s stature might be petite, but her words and her gentle way of persuasion felt overpowering.
“Many of us do not have the opportunity that you’ve had,” Pearl said, “to be loved completely and thoroughly by a man, to have him give you his name, claim you as his, care for you, protect you, and love you and only you. That is what Devon did, and you were fortunate to have those blessings and now memories. Cherish them, Cassandra.” Pearl’s eyes grew misty, and her gaze seemed to turn inward and faraway at the same time.
Recalling her own love?
After several long, silent seconds, Pearl inhaled deeply, seeming to come back to the present. “It is not only time for Devon to move on, but it is time for you to move on as well. Always cherish the old, but make room for the new. Live the life you will love and fill it with love.” Pearl reached out, taking one of Cassie’s hands in hers. “You are among the most extraordinary and fortunate of women, one of those rare few who has the opportunity to be loved completely once more, an experience that will be made sweeter yet from the losses you’ve suffered. Just imagine”— Pearl stretched out her free hand as her entire face lit— “happiness to equal or excel the sorrow you’ve known.”
A year ago, Cassie would have said she couldn’t imagine that if it didn’t include Devon, but she’d glimpsed that potential for second chances, a second love in her life, last fall, though to hope for such a thing still felt so very wrong.
“Don’t delay your future any longer, Cassandra. Don’t keep him waiting forever. He’s suffered a great loss, too, and needs you as much as you and Noah need him.”
Cassie tugged her hand free from Pearl’s and wrapped her arms around herself, wishing she had Matt’s comforting arms there instead. “When did this conversation become about Matt?”
“I don’t recall mentioning anyone’s name.” Pearl’s voice was chipper, and she tilted her head slightly, a knowing look in her eyes.
A retort died on Cassie’s lips as she realized that Pearl was right. She hadn’t used a name, but who else could she have been talking about besides Matt?
“You know what you need to do, Cassandra, and the sooner the better. All three of you are suffering for your delay.”
“That isn’t fair,” Cassie said. She didn’t need to feel guilt about Matt now, too. She’d hoped that talking to Pearl again would make her feel better, that the woman would have some explanations and maybe apologies, but somehow Cassie was the one feeling the need to apologize. If anything, she felt worse.
“Look,” Pearl said, staring past Cassie at the large clock on the opposite wall. “You still have thirty minutes left until visiting hours are over, time to say what needs to be said to Devon.”
“That clock must be wrong.” Cassie dug her cell phone out of her purse and glanced at the time. 8:30 p.m. Impossible. “It was 8:57 just a few minutes ago when I left Devon’s room.”
Pearl shrugged. “I’m only telling you what the clock says. Thirty precious minutes granted to you. I would suggest you use them wisely. It is not often any of us are given more time.”
“Yes. Of course.” Feeling as if some spell had been cast or she was in a trance, Cassie turned away. I know what time it was. Instead of clarifying her previous visit, Pearl had only confused things even more. Cassie paused at the edge of the carpet before she entered the hall. She looked back at Pearl, wanting to feel a sense of closure after this second encounter. “You don’t work here, and you aren’t a patient. Will I see you here again?”
“I’m working right now, and no, you won’t see me here again.” Pearl’s smile turned wistful. “My job demands that I travel frequently. Occasionally I am able to linger a while, as I did this past summer, spending several delightful weeks in Hawaii, but even that came to an end. It is rare that I am able to keep in touch with those I have helped.”
“I’m sorry,” Cassie said, though she didn’t quite know why. It wasn’t as if she and Pearl were even true acquaintances, let alone friends.
“Don’t be,” Pearl said. “I have many joys. Many sacrifices, too, as we all do. There is no love or happiness in this life without their counterparts of loneliness and sorrow. You have had your fill of those. Go now and start the path that will lead you the opposite direction.”
Words from a wise old woman. It would have all made perfect sense were Cassie the heroine of a fairytale, but in this modern world, kind, wise old women did not often appear to offer advice, wanted or not.
“Thank you.” It seemed the right thing to say. Cassie met Pearl’s eyes and for the briefest second thought she glimpsed a sorrow that matched her own.
“Be strong,” Pearl said. “The road to happiness is not always easy at first.” With that parting advice, she turned away and walked the short distance to the sliding glass doors. They parted for her, and she stepped through. The glass closed once more, and though Cassie continued to look, she could no longer see Pearl’s shadow in the light on the other side.
Gone from your sight, but not gone entirely. Just as Devon will be— if you will but free him. He will no longer be of this world, but your memories together will always be with you. It was Pearl’s voice once more, just as Cassie had heard it in the hall outside of Devon’s room. She glanced at her phone, expecting her thirty minutes to be nearer to twenty-five now, but 8:30 still flashed up at her. Thirty minutes more. Don’t waste it. You know what to do.
Tranquility settled over her. In the past, she’d never felt like this, either when coming to or leaving from visiting Devon. Everything is going to be all right. With purposeful strides, she returned to D
evon’s room. She entered and closed the door behind her, then drew the curtain around the bed for twenty-nine minutes alone with her husband.
“Another story, please, Daddy.” Asher dropped the oversized book at just the wrong angle on Matt’s lap.
Matt’s teeth clenched to avoid the word that came to mind, but he didn’t curb his temper entirely. “Be careful, Asher!”
Asher cowered beneath his angry glare. “Sorry.” He started to slide from the couch and only the deepest reserves of Matt’s long-spent patience pulled him back.
“I know you didn’t mean it.” Matt put his arm around Asher, reminding himself that he’d best be careful or his son wouldn’t want to spend this time with him. Still, he was five now. He needed to understand that a man could be hurt. What was it that Jenna used to tell the boys when they were climbing all over him? Be careful with Daddy, or you’ll never get a sister.
Austin had always claimed that was fine by him, he didn’t want a sister, to which Jenna would roll her eyes. Whenever they visited their friends with the six-month-old daughter, Austin was always first to want to hold the baby.
“Maybe I want one,” Jenna would say. “Too many boys around here.”
It was at that point that Matt usually said, “Oh, yeah?” then pulled her into the fray. Later at night, after the boys were in bed, he and Jenna would practice getting the boys that sister.
Wrong place for your thoughts to go. Matt imagined the emotions in his brain going berserk, just like in one of the boys’ favorite movies that portrayed the feelings inside a person as little people themselves. No doubt a large red warning button had just been pushed, again, and there was all sorts of scrambling in his head.
He’s done it again. Thoughts in the danger zone. Don’t let him cry in front of his kids. It’s gonna be a long night.
It was already a long night, longer than usual it seemed. Matt glanced at his watch and was shocked to see it was only 8:30. Hadn’t it been 8:30 a half hour ago? They’d already read six books.
“Daddy?” Asher’s little hand touched Matt’s arm. His voice was penitent but still questioning.
“One more story,” Matt agreed. He adjusted the book on his lap, remembering that his mother had read to him from it when he was little. He quickly found what used to be his favorite in the Richard Scarry volume, a story about a pig who could never keep track of his hat and had an extraordinary amount of accidents. In no time at all, Asher was giggling, so much so that Austin even left the game he was playing on the iPad and came over to see what was so funny.
They finished the pig story and read two more, and when Matt finally closed the book, both Austin and Asher were nearly asleep on him. Taking one in each arm, he carried them up the stairs to his old bedroom. He tucked the boys in and kissed them goodnight, only then realizing they probably hadn’t brushed their teeth.
Oh well. At least they were all eating better now that they were home and his mom was doing the cooking. He’d have to remember to watch her and get some recipes before they went back to California.
With his parents out for the night and the house to himself now, Matt went through their room and out to the balcony. He sat on their faded two-seater swing and tried not to think of all the times he and Jenna had enjoyed sitting out here— the stolen kisses they’d shared in this spot when they were dating, the time she’d held his hand to her tummy and he’d first felt Austin kick, or the hours they’d sat out here together, swinging and soothing the boys when they had ear infections.
Great memories. He was glad he had them.
The sound of the waves crashing onto the shore soothed the pain into something bearable and bittersweet. Remembering was still painful, but it was also possible now without falling completely apart.
Matt breathed in the fresh, cool, salty air, and his head cleared. The panic inside was over, at least temporarily. Tonight he could think of Jenna and remember the good between them. Coming home for a month had been the right decision. He hoped leaving the boys here for an additional month was also the right thing to do. Returning to his lonely apartment in Auburn was going to be rough, but he’d use the time away from them to work hard, to set things up for the upcoming season, to remember what being a workaholic was like, and then school would start again. Asher would go this year, too. There would be less daycare, less complications. Less Cassie. That was going to be tough, too.
Matt pulled his phone from his pocket and went to his messages. He put the phone on speaker and played hers for what might have been the hundredth time. When he came to the last part of the recording, he closed his eyes and imagined that she was here, sitting right beside him.
“I love you, Matt. I shouldn’t, but I do.”
He felt the same for her but couldn’t act on those feelings. It was ironic. He’d had every opportunity to show how Jenna how much he cared, and he hadn’t. How the tables were turned now. Maybe this was exactly what was supposed to happen to him, his own personal purgatory where he realized too late what he’d missed and then was tempted with what he most wanted and couldn’t have. Serves me right.
That Cassie had found something about him loveable gave him at least a glimmer of hope. Perhaps someday…
His mom wanted someday to come this summer and had a string of dates arranged for him during the month he’d be home. He supposed he deserved her meddling as well, the way he’d brought Cassie home like that, getting not only his hopes up, but his parents’ as well. Now his mom was going full out, acting on the cue he’d unwittingly given her that he was ready to date again.
It hadn’t been dating with Cassie, or at least it hadn’t felt like it. There’d been nothing hard about getting to know her, becoming friends, and falling in love. It had seemed the most natural thing in the world, as if they were destined to be together.
If only.
He played her message again, her admission of love like a balm to his soul. He shouldn’t love Cassie either, but he did, and it seemed there was nothing he could do about it.
Cognizant of the passing time on her phone, Cassie held Devon’s hand, still waiting for the right words to come some twenty minutes after she’d returned to his room. Pearl had convinced her it would be so simple to tell Devon he could go, so easy to convince him that she and Noah would be all right without him, but when it came down to it, she found she couldn’t do it. Devon was still here, and she wanted him to stay.
“Dev, this is such a mess. Nothing has gone like we planned.” She thought back to their wedding night, how they’d sat facing one another on the seat in the bay window, their bare feet touching as they talked for hours while looking out across the bay as the moon traveled over the Golden Gate. Life had been so full of promise then.
Devon was going to make detective in record time— five years, he’d predicted— and then they could start looking at jobs in other cities. Cassie was going to get her master’s, become a licensed therapist, and start a practice for troubled adolescents. Her job would be a bit more flexible with her own office and hours of her choosing. About a year into her business, they’d start a family.
“We have to have a boy first,” Devon had said.
Cassie pushed on his foot. “A girl would be better. They’re more responsible. She’d be a better example to a younger brother.”
“You mean she’d torture him.” Devon pushed back, so hard that Cassie nearly lost her balance and fell.
“I know what I’m talking about,” he continued. “I’ve spent a life under my sister’s thumb.”
“All right,” Cassie conceded. “Maybe we’ll get twins first, one of each.”
“Careful what you wish for,” Devon had said.
Oh, that she had been. Tears of regret clouded Cassie’s eyes. What had happened to Devon wasn’t her fault. She knew that, but still.
If only our last conversation had been better.
Forgive him and yourself, her mom had said. Of course. Mothers were always right, and this time was no exception. Cassie kn
ew what she needed to say and do.
She moved Devon’s arm, then climbed onto the bed beside him, lying on her side facing him, her head on his chest. The staff would not be okay with this, but she needed to feel close to Devon, just for tonight. She needed him to feel close to her, to feel the depth of her apology, even if his mind couldn’t understand it.
The steady rhythm of his heartbeat played in her ear, giving her courage. Some part of Devon was alive. Some part of him had to be able to comprehend her regret and sorrow and to forgive her.
“I wished—” Cassie took a deep breath. “— that you would stop spending money on things that didn’t matter.” Her voice was little more than a whisper, though she had been plenty loud when she’d said it to the door Devon closed when he went to work that morning.
“I was so angry when you left without talking to me after our fight the night before. I couldn’t believe you’d booked a houseboat on Shasta without consulting me, that you’d spent all that money when you wouldn’t spend it on trying to make a baby.” He’d used some of the money she needed to set up her practice, money she’d felt should only be used for that purpose or a baby, but never a vacation.
“It felt like you didn’t care that I’d graduated. It felt like you didn’t believe in me. It was almost as if my inability to give you a son had made me incapable of anything else. You were treating me different, Dev.”
Cassie took his hand in hers again and twined their fingers together, the way they used to hold hands when they walked up and down the pier in San Francisco.
“Every day of my life since you were hurt, I’ve wished I said something else to you that morning. I wish I’d let the money go and realized you were just trying to cope, too, that maybe you thought a week on the lake was just what we needed.” She’d give a lot for a week like that now. “But I didn’t say something else. I let anger and pride and hurt rule me, and instead of telling you I loved you when you walked out that door, I made a stupid wish.” That came true.
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