by Lee Woodruff
The constant click, click, click of the kitchen wall clock seemed to expand in volume as they sipped their hot chocolate. It was Alex who broke the silence.
“Do you … do you believe in God?” He looked at her directly.
Maura sat still, forming her answer. “I do. I want to believe that somebody else is in charge, that there is an order to all this chaos.” She looked up with a half laugh. “But I’m really pissed off at HIM right now.” Alex grinned, visibly relieved.
“I read something once,” she began. “About the Holocaust. Someone asked a rabbi how he could believe in God after what had happened to the people in the concentration camps. His answer was that God never promised that life wouldn’t bring pain or suffering. He never told us life would be fair. He just promised to love us and walk beside us during the journey. I think about that sometimes when I get angry that this happened to my family. And I guess it makes me feel a little better on some days.”
“So where do you think you go when you die?” Alex asked.
“I guess I’d like to think that a part of you sticks around. Watching. Protecting, like a guardian angel. I had a dream once that James was doing that. I’d like to believe in angels,” said Maura softly.
Alex nodded but was silent.
“But I think you go somewhere really beautiful,” offered Maura suddenly. “Somewhere very different from where we are now. I want it to be someplace so much better and easier and less weighed down than life here on earth.”
“I’d like to believe in heaven, but I’m not sure I believe in God,” said Alex in a measured voice. “I want to. But I don’t.”
“It’s a hard concept to get your head around … believing in something you can’t see.” Maura nodded. “Especially when you witness so much evil in the world. There are no good reasons why babies die and moms get cancer and people go hungry. Some folks try to tell you that things happen for a reason, but I don’t believe that.” Maura was quiet for a moment, collecting herself. “There is no good reason why people you love get taken from you. No grand plan that I can see. I don’t think anyone is up there moving the tiny chess pieces around.” Alex nodded solemnly.
“But I do think just the everyday living is easier if you believe in something bigger than yourself.” She opened her mouth and then shut it, taking a gulp of the cooled hot chocolate instead. Maura paused, considering her words, and suddenly looked up at Alex, brows furrowed.
“I’ve never really told anyone this except my family. But what I saw, what Pete and I saw, brings me the only real comfort I have. It makes it a tiny bit easier.” Maura drew in a breath, and Alex sat perfectly still.
“At the end … in the hospital, James knew we were there. At least I believe he did. He would sometimes open his eyes or turn his head toward our voices. I know he heard us.” Maura shot a quick look at Alex.
“And right before he passed from this world, he saw something so utterly amazing, so beautiful, that he was actually reaching toward it with his hands, like he was trying to grasp it or to catch something. And he was smiling. Even in all that pain and medication he was smiling.” Tears brimmed in Maura’s eyes as she kept speaking. Alex looked down, blinking. When his eyes surfaced, there were tears swimming in them.
“It was a pretty amazing thing to witness, but it was also sort of terrifying. A big part of me didn’t want him to go to whatever it was he saw. I wanted him to stay right here with us. But as his mother, I also could see his excitement. There was so much broken inside my little boy that I knew his life here on earth would be … different … painful. If he even recovered.” Maura shifted on her stool and studied Alex’s expression. He was completely absorbed with what she was saying.
“You know, I remember a few years ago when I was talking with James about heaven. He stopped me and told me to ‘talk about something else.’ When I asked him why, he said it made his heart sad to think that his dad and I would go someplace that he wouldn’t be able to visit. He said, ‘I don’t want to think about when you die ’cause I never want to be without you.’ Those were his exact words.” Tears distorted Maura’s vision as she smiled at Alex. “But that thing that he saw? I know it was more wonderful than any place or vision you or I can imagine. I know this because I saw it on his face. It was the very first time in his life he ever truly wanted to go somewhere without me. He had absolutely no fear at the end, almost like he knew the answer to a secret. That was where he wanted to go.” Maura stopped, and a little moan left her throat. Two teardrops fell onto the counter, and she absentmindedly blotted them with a napkin.
Tears now filled Alex’s eyes and spilled down his face. He let them come unabashedly at first and then swiped them off his cheeks with the sleeve of his faded blue sweatshirt.
“I miss him more than you can imagine,” said Maura softly. “Some days I think I’ll just simply implode. But if I have a tiny bit of peace, it’s in remembering that moment. James saw where he was going next. And it was a good place.”
Maura blew her nose into the napkin and brushed her hair back behind her ears. She leaned forward and reached out impulsively, closing both of her hands over the top of Alex’s one as it lay cupped on the kitchen counter. Alex looked up gratefully and met her gaze. They sat in silence for a few moments, two people bound intrinsically together by a shared tragedy. Maura understood then that he too would never be the same. The loss of James had connected them in immutable ways, and yet she could not have fathomed the solace she felt in simply sitting here with Alex. It was an unexpected gift.
“Thanks. Thanks for telling me about that,” he finally croaked in a gravelly voice. And he looked down as she pulled her hand away and stirred, rising to set her mug in the sink. Alex cleared his throat.
“So I guess I’d better start working on the God thing.” Alex reached to lighten the moment for them both. And Maura laughed, clearing his mug and lowering it into the sink next to hers.
She turned to him with renewed energy in her voice. “Do you want to see his room?”
Alex looked up and blinked twice. “Yeah.” He nodded. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
Maura entered first at the top of the stairs. She observed Alex as he stepped into James’s room and began examining the objects, the baseball trophies and medals on ribbons, the small rectangular bulletin board on the wall, an elementary school reading program certificate. The neatness of the room magnified its emptiness.
Alex picked up a toy rifle leaning against the bookshelf in the corner.
“I had an Airsoft gun just like this when I was his age.”
“He loved playing with that around the neighborhood.”
“You know, I’m thinking about joining the army,” he blurted out suddenly.
“Really? That’s a big deal. Wow. The army.”
He nodded. “There’s a guy I work with at Lowe’s on the weekends. Dante. He was over in Iraq. He’s, like, twenty-four and he’s got this sick tattoo on his arm, this skull and snake symbol from intense stuff that happened over there. He’s talked to me about what it’s like, stuff he did. I don’t know, it just sounds like it might be for me.” He met her eyes, and she noticed that in between the hazel color were little flecks of gold.
“Do your folks know?”
“I haven’t really told anyone yet. I just talked to the recruiter in Chicago last week. I’m still … I guess I’m still making the final decision.” He set the rifle gently back down against the bookcase.
“Do you have family in the military?’ Maura asked carefully.
“Nope,” said Alex.
“What do you think your parents will say?”
Alex smiled ruefully for a moment. “They’re probably going to freak out when I tell them. I don’t think they have any idea.” He was thoughtful for a moment. “But maybe they’ll be glad to get me out of the house.” Maura winced. She hadn’t spent much time thinking about Alex’s life. She considered what the Hulburd household must feel like, the tensions and disappointment, the ach
e his parents must feel and the stain that his actions had brought upon all of them in some way.
“Even though the wars are winding down it sure seems like it’s a mess over there, in Afghanistan. Are you scared you might be sent there?” Maura said.
“A little. But I’ll be ready,” said Alex.
“And why the army?”
“The army?” Alex smiled. “My friend Dante says it’s the best job you’ll ever hate.” He laughed nervously and then turned serious. “I guess I like what I hear about it being a brotherhood. You go through basic training with a bunch of people and you get deployed as a unit. You belong together, you watch their backs, and they watch yours. I like that, I guess.” Maura inclined her head slightly, studying him.
“Dante talks about going back. He says being over there was the most alive he ever felt.” Alex paused for a second. “Plus, he says that girls can’t resist the uniform.” Maura chuckled and Alex responded with a smile, lightening the energy of the room.
Downstairs Alex grabbed his parka and put on his yellow and blue running shoes. He stood awkwardly by the front door and thrust his hand out. Maura grabbed it with both of hers and pulled him closer, throwing one arm around him in an awkward half-hug. As she opened the front door, a blast of cool air flumed into the foyer.
“Do you worry about dying if you go over there? Do you think about that?” Maura said softly. The abruptness of the question halted him. The obvious fact that he was choosing to put himself in harm’s way, whatever the motivation, hung between them.
Alex turned and looked her straight in the eye before he bent his head to zip up his parka. “All the time,” he said, stepping over the threshold and out the door. “I think about dying all the time.”
34
Out of the corner of one eye, Margaret watched her husband bring the oversize plastic spoon to his lips, and as he opened his mouth, half of the cottage cheese fell off. Now that Roger was home from the rehab hospital, he was getting stronger, more capable, little by little. But it was painful to watch how slowly he moved, the times the spoon fell from his grip or the food plopped back onto the plate.
Roger followed her with his eyes, expectantly, as she moved from the kitchen sink to clear his plate. His look reminded her of a puppy that needed to go outside, the unconditional dependency and devotion that could feel, at inconvenient moments, like a millstone. She smiled back at him with the expression she had once reserved for children during mealtime, the maternal satisfaction of tending to your loved one’s elementary needs.
The odd feeling of having Roger all to herself was both satisfying and frightening. He looked up at her in a dully expectant way that both fulfilled her and broke her heart. He was able to walk, slowly, with an uneven gait, but he was walking. It was more the fine motor coordination that was hard. She’d watched him try to write his name the other day, and she’d had to turn away. The stroke had impaired movement on the right side of his body, and he was right-handed. The therapist had told them it was hard going to teach yourself to eat with your left hand and retrain your body to use the nondominant side, but it was entirely possible. The corner of Roger’s mouth still drooped, making it difficult for him to enunciate words crisply.
Margaret was bone tired. The adrenaline she’d felt initially in Florida by his bedside, the constant checking and waiting for him to come out of it, had evaporated. That heightened vigilance had taken its toll. She had been so relieved when Erin had arrived to help move him home, far away from that town and from anything that had to do with Julia Rolon. Margaret had done everything she could to protect the girls from learning the circumstances of Roger’s stroke and the existence of that woman.
Maura had almost uncovered something when one of the nurses talked about the family member she had met when their dad was brought in, the same one who had visited at night once or twice. Her daughter had looked puzzled and questioned what the nurse meant, said she must have been mistaken, and Margaret had firmly interjected, claiming there had been no such family member.
“I think it was someone from the hotel who accompanied your father behind the ambulance,” Margaret quickly corrected, giving the nurse a marble stare as she retreated.
No good could come from the children discovering Julia’s existence. It would only crack the foundation of the pedestal they’d all placed him on. They’d had a good childhood, with two loving parents, and now they had their own lives, their own families. Seeing their father incapacitated like this was hard enough. Besides, thought Margaret, the connection to Julia had been effectively severed; at least she assumed it had. How would Roger even reach her? He could barely punch in the numbers for a phone call and certainly couldn’t work a computer. No, presumably, all of that was behind them now. Still, the image of the overripe, tentative woman standing in her husband’s hospital room left a dry coppery taste in her mouth. A Hispanic person no less. All that Latin blood, no wonder Roger had been bamboozled. Oh, she looked demure enough when she had introduced herself, but Margaret could smell the wantonness coming off her, the vulgarity in those full rouged lips. She probably had a drawer of frilly lingerie, all the window dressing that would appeal to Roger but none of the substance.
She thought of her old Roger, so full of himself and in command. She loved the way he entered public places—restaurants, the country club—knowing that he cut a fine figure, understanding that people’s eyes fell pleasingly on him. Margaret tortured herself, imagining him laughing with Julia, loudly preordering dessert soufflés before the meal, or the “top shelf” liquor. She envisioned him steering Julia through a room with his hand on the small of her back, the things he did with her.
What would the precious Julia think now? Would she have the fortitude to minister to this new Roger, this diminished person? Would she have wanted to stick around for this part of the bargain?
Now that Roger was home from the rehab hospital, Margaret was assuming multiple roles: wife, caregiver, cheerleader, coach, teacher, attendant, and yet she had been surprised by how the sheer tactile experience of touching him and going through the simple physical rehab exercises together could fulfill her, give her a renewed purpose. It was rewarding to be needed in sometimes physical ways that gladdened her husband’s life. But on the other hand, his recovery was not the arc of a child learning. On other days she viewed it for what it was, the slow and often frustrating process of relearning and stumbling, measuring improvements in tiny increments. There were days when she could not help but feel that their world together had completely unraveled and collapsed around her.
When Roger had first come home, the girls and Stu had helped her move him into the downstairs guest bedroom so that he didn’t have to tackle the steps. She’d changed the bedding and set up the first-floor bathroom with all of his toiletries. For now, Margaret still chose to sleep upstairs in their bed. It gave her a sense of comfort, and of course, sleep was everything if she were to maintain the strength to care for her husband. Erin had given her a set of baby monitors in case Roger needed her in the middle of the night, but the crackling noise they made had disturbed her, like a ghost in the machine, and so she’d left them unplugged.
There was a big part of her that desired to sleep next to Roger. But the exhausted part of her relished the nights she didn’t have to push on his shoulder for snoring too loudly or shrink into one corner of the bed while he sprawled across the rest of it. She’d move him back upstairs eventually, but she’d have to see how it progressed. It would take time, they had all told her. But it had been almost four months since Roger’s stroke. This was a process, a marathon, and not a sprint, all of the therapists constantly reminded her. She was sick of that glib phrase.
Margaret thought about her past ambitions for traveling in their retirement. Were they all out the window now? Years earlier, she had started a file of newspaper and magazine clips detailing places she’d like to see—sightseeing destinations, places of historical value. Occasionally she had flipped through the clippings, a
roundup of the best Alaskan cruises, a tour of Venice, and an expensive African safari. Would Roger ever be able to manage that kind of active travel now? The doctors had told her that although recoveries inched along, many things were possible. But lately she’d been bumping up against the creeping reality of his limitations, her spirits and adrenaline flagging with the recalibration of her expectations.
Margaret still had a few more changes to make around the house. Pete had installed a bar in the shower for Roger, and he knew a man who could build a ramp in the back if his balance didn’t improve. She might have to get to that too. The thought of overseeing those details exhausted her.
Roger had finished the pudding and set his head back in the den chair, dozing off. They had worked him hard in rehab today. She liked his young physical therapist, Shane, who wore a silver hoop earring in one ear and some kind of shaggy haircut. Stu had explained to her that this was called a mullet. The kids had told her that earrings in men no longer meant you were gay when she’d commented about that. They were just a statement, Erin had said. She smiled, remembering how both of her daughters had worked to convince her to get her own ears pierced.
“Over my dead body” is what she had always told them. “Putting holes in your skin is for savages,” she had joked. But in the end, she had let them take her to the jewelry store in town where the salesclerk used a gun to pierce her ears with two tiny gold studs. Margaret groped at her own lobes now involuntarily, fondling her small flower-shaped diamond and pearl earrings. Lately, she’d been so tired that she’d often forgotten those little touches she always took pride in—bracelets, a scarf, some of the accessories she knew made the difference between letting yourself go and presenting your best self.