Wait For Me Jack

by Addison Jones

  (She used to be queen of the remote, till they got Comcast. Jack had taken three months to get the hang of the new remote, and was now the undisputed boss of the television, which meant now and then Milly left the room in disgust. Sex and the City was a good one to send her skedaddling.)

  Milly sat down and Jack made his way back to the kitchen. Opened the bottle of pills and shook them all onto the cutting board. Quickly found the rolling pin and some foil. Covered the pills and began crushing.

  ‘Jack?’

  ‘What?’

  The kitchen and living room were a semi-open plan, so all he had to do was swivel his neck to see Milly sitting in front of the television. Her last evening watching television. His last, too. Quite nice to know; no more wondering when.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said. What. Are. You. Doing?’

  ‘Nothing. Getting another drink.’

  ‘The news has started, honey. I need the volume turned up.’

  ‘I’m coming. Just a minute. How about some hot chocolate?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said, how would you like some hot chocolate?’

  ‘I thought you were making a drink.’

  ‘I meant a hot drink.’

  He filled the kettle while he shouted to her.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘No thanks. It’s summer. Who drinks hot chocolate in summer?’

  ‘Oh, come on.’

  ‘Oh, all right.’

  The kettle began hissing. He scooped the ground-up pills into two mugs, added instant hot chocolate and returned to the living room. How long would the pills take? He’d kind of like to watch the last episode of Brideshead Revisited after the news. He’d seen it before, of course, but forgotten how it ended. His hands were shaking, and it took several seconds to find the volume control. He sat on the arm of his wife’s chair and watched the world’s stories, told by a man in a violet shirt and yellow tie. When had that become acceptable? The man was an obvious homosexual. How wonderful! He secretly, since Dulcinea Press, took some credit.

  Milly leaned into Jack, caught sight of his hands speckled with sun damage. Looked at her own skin; her hands belonged to an old lady. As did the white hair she spotted on the sleeve of her blouse. No connection to who she was at all. She wanted to say: Okay, enough! Joke’s over now. Back to my real self, please. She wondered who would die first. She sighed, because it would have to be him of course. He needed her, she mustn’t leave him alone. She’d see him out, tidy up afterwards. This made her feel tired. Obviously, she had imagined dying. For years, now. There was no end to the lovely dropping sensation when she did this. Yes, of course she was grateful for her life, but the strain of being Milly was too much some days. Could death be a sensual experience? For Milly, maybe yes. As for what happened next, well, Milly had decided to not accept non-existence for either of them. It was too final and terrible. Goodness sake, why believe in something that made your heart hammer in the middle of the night? What was the point in not believing that souls were immortal and more – that some version of heaven was a possibility? If the end result was a true mystery (and so far as she knew, no one had yet proven anything one way or another) and death came no matter what you believed, why not choose to believe the more pleasant version? To her, atheists like Jack were simply masochists and puzzled her exceedingly. A bunch of intellectual fools, embracing anxiety for no good reason at all.

  Milly was not worried about losing her husband, because worrying would be a waste of time. She’d never lose Jack. The tenacity of Milly’s love was like the revolutions of the planets.

  ‘There’s the kettle, Jack.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You are so deaf. I said, the kettle is boiling!’

  ‘Is it?’

  The last kettle boil, he thought. He watched himself think this.

  While he carried the two mugs of carefully stirred hot chocolate, and while the news presenter talked of earth quake victims in Peru and single mothers in Brooklyn, and while two teenage boys raced cars outside this house, Jack felt a sudden loss of balance and a strange, almost anaesthetic tingling at the top of his arm. He dropped both mugs.

  ‘Oh brother, Jack. What a mess! You sit down, I’ll clean it up.’

  But Jack could not move forward. Or talk. He thought: But it hardly hurts at all. How funny. And he was cranky – did he give permission for this sequence of events? What the fuck? That chocolate was going to stain the carpet. He just had it cleaned last month, damn it.

  And now his knees were buckling, a weakness travelled up his body and it felt almost nice to crumble up and sink.

  ‘Jack? Jack! Darn it, Jack. Get up this minute.’

  Jack was dying again.

  ‘If you’re messing with me, Jacko MacAlister…’

  A sulk just rising to the surface, her eyebrow almost cocked, lips almost pouting. Two year-long minutes passed during which, behind closed eye lids, Jack watched a slide show of his life. It was so cliché, he smiled. A sort of This is Your Life, or a movie preview. The highlights, plus some other weird stuff. But this meant it couldn’t be the end, right? Too corny to be anything as serious as death. But there they were, except not in chronological order, and some images of no particular importance at all. Colette’s green dress with the low neck, the feel of that silky fabric. That green Hillman, and pouring water into the radiator on the old Highway 5, near some chicken farms. The chicken enchiladas with black olives he ordered when they’d gone to Cabo San Lucas at last. Pregnant Milly when she was Billie, in her bra and underpants, laughing so hard she sprayed her beer all over him one humid summer night. The wake behind the ferry, the taste of Chardonnay brisk on his tongue and Cheryl’s hand in his. Then her hand became attached to buxom Lizbeth, and she asked him to dance. Shouted, dance with me! His mom was shouting at him about the ice chest, because he left the door open and all her ice cream melted. Jacko! I’m going to tell your father when he gets home. The phone call earlier today, with his daughter. The irritation. Then that same daughter as a newborn, the surprise of her. Charlie, limp and blue in that dinosaur sleeper, but this time when he shook him and shook him, Charlie opened his eyes and smiled. And then laughed, that infant chuckle. Then his sister, Ivy, and himself giggling, playing hooky from Mass, sneaking out St Mary’s side door and running down the sidewalk to the store and stealing beef jerky. The taste of the jerky, tough and salty, softening on his tongue. And the jerky became the jerky from the store at Dogtired Ranch; washing it down with cold beer. Cold rain, raining on the night when Louise drove away to live with that weirdo, Coffee Enema Bob. It poured and poured till the fish pond flooded over. And the heat spell the summer the fish pond dried up and the tar on the road outside their house bubbled up. Sitting in the dirt and nudging potato bugs till they rolled into balls; rolling white bread into beads and the crust into a snail shape before shoving it all in his mouth; chewing the liquorice weeds that grew on the corner of Railroad Avenue and Verano. Telling Milly that Dulcinea was the perfect name for his publishing company, and her look of admiration. Opening a bottle of cold champagne on the deck, and a yellow jacket drowned in his glass, and Milly poured him another. The way the deck had aged, and the way it had looked in the beginning, so solid and smelling of resin. Three times, that deck had been renewed. The way he felt when he bought the house lot, choked with blackberries, and he’d sketched ideas for the architect in his yellow pads. As if he was God. But wasn’t it the best house in the world?

  It was enthralling to watch. The longer he watched the more his heart swelled, and he’d cry if he could. He was falling in love with his own life. His chest was positively swollen with love. Jesus Christ! Every minute, so dear, so familiar, so…particularly his. He’d definitely buy a ticket to see this movie, in 3D. And to hell with the expense, he’d get a giant bucket of popcorn and Coke too.

  ‘Jack, that’s enough now. Knock it off, Jack. Jack?’ Defiantly and tearfully.

 
; Milly closed her eyes tight, tight. Opened them, but did not look at her husband’s face. Her mouth was twisted, as if tasting something repulsive. All her life, she had to wait till events were hours – days – old, before really comprehending them. She literally could not feel the truth of the present. And so part of her was still watching the television, waiting for the commercials to be over and the news to come back on. Thinking about how to clean that hot chocolate up, and about her granddaughter’s twentieth birthday later this week. The plants in the bedroom that needed watering. The dogs that needed letting out before bed. Unless they were dead, of course. She wanted to turn the volume down again because the commercials were so irritating, but the remote control…well.

  ‘Jack,’ she said automatically, but stopped herself telling him to turn the volume off.

  Then she clumped her walker frame to the wall socket, leaned over and pulled the television plug out, almost falling over.

  ‘For heaven’s sake!’ she said with disgust, but then her voice frightened her, with no Jack to hear it. The movements of her own body scared her, with no Jack to witness them. The side of her facing Jack sensed a void now; her skin felt a chilliness. She made her way to him, quickly, as quickly as she could, with little whimpering noises, because something in her was lurching towards him. As if he was about to disappear from sight for ever, unless she could reach him in time. The ball was still in her court, right?

  ‘Hey! Jack. Wait for me, Jack.’

  There he lay, on his front, his face half hidden and pale. She didn’t cry or make a sound, but her face crumbled. She looked the least pretty she’d ever looked, including the times she was straining to push out babies, and the time she’d screamed that she hated not just her husband, but her husband’s guts.

  I hate your guts!

  The living room was suddenly jam packed with the ghost-strangers rushing silently to other rooms, except the fat old lady who might be Louise and the small boy who might be Charlie. The boy sat on the arm of the chair and the fat old lady was so close, Milly felt the gravitational pull of her soft bulk. There was a rasping sound suddenly, and she held her own breath to listen closer. Jack turned his head slightly and opened one eye. Milly screamed a tiny scream, and the room gradually seeped back. Fat lady and boy, gone.

  ‘I’m calling an ambulance. Stay where you are, sweetie.’

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t. Call. Blance.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Justa. Spode. E. Pi. Sode.’

  Milly helped Jack lever himself up using her walker. Everything in his body hurt, but in a distant surreal way. Sensations were difficult to interpret. What was that throbbing in his chest…pain? Had pain always felt like this? Strange, strange, strange. An hour later, they were both in bed. Tuesday was finally done. It had seemed very long, yet here they were already, at the end, false teeth taken out again, remaining teeth brushed, non-existent dogs ignored. They snuffled their goodnights and curled up away from each other. Just a light blanket over them as the night was still warm. Buttocks comfortably snuggled against buttocks. They did not kiss goodnight. Milly’s sleep was light and fragmentary, a smooth flat pebble skipping over turbulent water, but Jack’s sleep was sudden and deep. He considered the view, then jumped off the diving board into the cold green Pacific, sunlight pouring down, and echoes filling his ears. As he exhaled for the last time, Milly turned towards him, unaware he was no longer dreaming, and she kissed the spot between his shoulder blades. She often delivered this belated kiss, and actually so did he. Sometimes.

  Seven hours later, Milly woke.

  ‘Jack. What time is it?’

  ‘Jack!’ in her most nagging tone. ‘I said. What. Time. Is. It. Feels like we slept too long.’

  ‘Jack! Oh God, Jack. You’d better not be. Wake up!’

  She sat up in bed.

  ‘How dare you! Did I say you could? You get back here right now, do you understand?’

  Curled on to his side, Jack’s mouth was pulled by gravity into a half-smile. Milly slumped, defeated. The birds outside suddenly seemed too loud, as if they’d entered the house. She carefully leaned over him to double check. Bastard! Then she got back under the covers, and without another thought went to sleep. She slept and slept and slept. Every time her mind approached consciousness, she slid back down under the safe dark cloak, where everything was as it had always been and she was asleep with her Jack who had driven her crazy most of her life and could not be allowed to leave it. His body was the only body her body knew. She’d never fallen asleep beside another man. His Old Spice and scratchy chin were still there, but just silence where there used to be snores sounding like a rubber ball bouncing, and farts lasting minutes.

  Eventually a painful need to urinate forced her to leave Jack alone in bed. She did not look at him. In fact, she had on her You’ve really blown it this time, I’m not speaking to you face and went to unlock the front door, flick each venetian blind open, collect the newspapers from the driveway, make herself a cup of coffee. She moved as creakily as ever, but efficiently. Then she went back to bed.

  When she next woke, it was to the sound of crickets about three thirty in the morning, and as she calculated this fact, she realized she hadn’t eaten for almost forty hours. She clanked and creaked with her walker, down the hall to the kitchen. At the refrigerator, she felt for the bacon, eggs, butter, milk and cheese and cooked an extravagant omelette, oozing with cheese and crispy bacon. She’d always had a greedy appetite. Then she dumped all the greasy plates and cutlery and frying pans into the sink for Jack to wash, because he’d been such a bad sport, staying in bed and missing this midnight feast. Typical. It was all right when he planned a party, but let someone else take charge and he just wasn’t interested. And who did he think was going to clean that hot chocolate off the carpet?

  She suddenly sensed the shape of her life, as if it was in the hall just behind her, over her shoulder. A physical object. There she’d stood in her life before Jack, and now here she stood, Jack-less again, as if those decades in between had shut up like an accordion no one wanted to play any more. She felt light, hardly knew herself. She was still angry, a bit. How dare he! She closed her eyes and saw him heading out the front door in some eternal weekday morning, yellow Brooks Brother’s shirt, his old leather briefcase swinging. Kissing her quickly on the lips, tasting of coffee and smelling of Old Spice. See you later, hon. That old distracted goodbye of his seemed to echo over and over. It took so much for granted.

  She curled up under the quilt on the sofa and drowsily watched the sky turn grey, then light grey, then a bold blue with birds, clouds, cars passing. She almost drifted back asleep, when the phone rang.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘No, you didn’t wake me. Not really. What do you want, Sam?’

  ‘Oh yes. Your father’s home.’

  ‘No, I’m afraid you can’t speak to him. Not right now, dear.’

  ‘Because…because he’s…well, because he’s still in bed.’

  ‘Elisabeth said he invited you to dinner Friday?’ She frowned. Her daughter had always irritated her. The boys, never.

  ‘He invited everybody? No, you don’t need to bring anything. Just yourselves.’

  ‘Look, Sam. I don’t know how to say this, so I’m just going to say it. Your father’s dead. He died in his sleep. Can you swing by today sometime, help me sort it all out?’

  Milly took to sleeping on Jack’s side of the bed, and with her head on his pillow she tried to imagine the dream that took him away so it could sneak her away too. She didn’t know about the diving board at the Sutro Baths, but the letting go – she could rehearse that. And wait for it. Boy oh boy, then he’d catch it.

  Seven Years Earlier

  A Decent Martini

  Christmas Eve 2007, San Miguel, Marin County

  2:42pm

  What a week! Rain, rain, rain. Jack noticed newts and slugs everywhere suddenly. And mud – his car was a me
ss. Okay, they needed the rain. The hills were finally fully green, after a month of merely glimmering green, then retreating back to brown and gold. It was good to be able to flush the toilet again, any old time you wanted. But still – rain was annoying. It felt like he had to learn all over again how to keep dry – which shoes not to wear, which jacket was waterproof, and where the hell had he left that old umbrella ten months ago? Had he thrown it out? He’d forgotten how damp everything could get. Even the firewood.

  Then that accident on Saturday. Idiot teenage boy, slowing down so quickly, before Jack had a chance to even think about finding the brake pedal. Between the physically painful sound of metal crunching and Milly’s hysterical yelling, he’d almost had another heart attack. Then Sunday afternoon they got home from lunch in Tiburon, and realised they must somehow have left her cane in the parking lot. Unless she’d thrown it out the window. He’d been too tired, too drunk to drive all the way back. He was hanging on to his licence by the skin of his dentures. And to top it all off, the Christmas card this morning from his sister, Ivy. Oh God, her infinitely sweet spider handwriting. It always reminded him of that endearing gap between her two front teeth.

  Dear Jacko:

  I been to a lot of funerals lately, and I don’t want to hear about yours. Or wonder why you haven’t written. So if you don’t mind, I’m going to say goodbye now, while we can both write.

  Merry Christmas! And goodbye. You been a good brother.

  Ivy

  And then, scrawled at the bottom and up the margins:

  PS. I’m 3 years older, remember. You don’t need to fret yet.

  He knew it by heart. By God, that girl always knew how to get to him. Yes, Ivy, at eighty-three, remained that girl. The last time he saw her she was nineteen and climbing into the cab of a Mayflower moving van with her brand-new husband, bound for Summers County, West Virginia. Ivy had written to Jack all those years since. Short erratic letters full of dry humour and bad grammar. Pithy snapshots of her life as it unfolded. She always seemed surprised by events, and reported new husbands and new dishwashers with equal amazement and many exclamation marks. As if to say: Do you believe it? This really happened to your sister, of all people!!! He used to imagine her one day writing: Do you believe it? I friggin died today!!! What a hoot!!! Her words in loopy curls, at first in fountain pen, then a black felt tip. Now and then, a typed letter. Never a word-processed letter, much less email, which Jack used all the time now. He wrote back about once to every dozen of her letters. His own tended to be longer, yet they never seemed to be getting to know each other better. Their relationship remained frozen, with him a sneaky shy nine-year-old, hiding her favourite hair clip so she had to chase him round the porch and tickle him till he damn near peed himself. Then she always pulled out something sweet from her pocket. Or beef jerky. They’d both loved beef jerky.