“Of course, of course,” Lily’s mother said. “Lily is here with me; we will head right over.” As if in slow motion, she returned the telephone to the cradle. Lily held her breath.
“It’s Henry, your brother,” said Lily’s mother, as if Lily would not know who Henry was. “He’s had a very serious car accident,” said Lily’s mother. “We have to get over to Strong Memorial Hospital.”
Lily picked up the phone and dialed. “Let me see if I can get a hold of Donna so she can take the boys off the bus for me.” Part of her hoped that Donna would not answer the phone; she wasn’t sure she could handle anymore tragedy today.
“Mom, no one is answering,” said Lily “I have to go home. If I can, I’ll catch up with you later.”
Betty already had her coat on and was fishing through her purse for her car keys.
“OK,” she said. She absentmindedly kissed Lily on the forehead. “You stay and finish your tea. Tom, don’t wait dinner for me.”
“Call me later,” said Lily as her mother closed the door behind her. Lily felt a small rush of relief at being left behind, quickly followed by sharp pangs of shame and guilt. She looked down at the half slice of banana bread in her hand, and returned it to the plate.
Lily’s mother called late that evening to tell Lily that Henry had survived but was in a coma. Family members were encouraged to come to the hospital at their earliest convenience, and many were starting to gather. But Joseph and Pierce were already sleeping, thank God. She would come down in the morning as soon as she got them off to school.
The next morning, Lily followed the lines that marked the linoleum tile, as the woman at the front desk of the hospital had instructed her. Take the red elevator to the orange level and then follow the blue lines to the intensive care family waiting area. With each new color, she prayed for tears to come. Ironic. She’d spent the last few years of her life doing nothing but unsuccessfully trying to squelch tears and now that she really wanted to cry, she couldn’t find any sadness inside. How would it look to show up at her comatose brother’s bedside with dry eyes?
Lily arrived at the family waiting area, and discovered Henry’s wife Diane emerging from his room.
“Oh, Lily!” cried Diane. She threw herself into Lily’s arms. In the five years since Henry had married Diane, it was the first time Lily could remember ever touching her. Her stiff body was bony and cold; her pin straight blond hair smelled sterile, like rubbing alcohol.
“Any change?” Lily asked.
“No,” said Diane. “I’ve been by his side all night, but he hasn’t responded at all.” Diane’s sunken eyes and pale skin bore witness to her vigil. “In fact, I was just going to go join the others in the cafeteria to get a quick bite to eat, but I hated the idea of leaving him in there alone. Would you mind staying with him for a bit?”
“Absolutely,” said Lily. “That’s why I came down, to see him.” It was true in one sense, but the whole truth was that she came down because she knew it was expected of her. And because she was still afraid to stay home alone. After all, as her mother had reminded her, an Order of Protection was still just a piece of paper.
“You’re an angel,” said Diane. “I won’t be long.”
“Take your time,” said Lily, hoping that she wouldn’t.
Henry was laid in the bed, swaddled in white sheets. His exposed arms were tucked in closely at his sides. Lily had expected to see tubes coming out of his mouth and his nose, like in the movies, but the only machine was a heart rate monitor that was attached to his index finger with a small blue clip. It steadily blipped out the tenuous rhythm of his life. Lily had never seen him so quiet and still. So benign. She stopped a few feet from the bed. The heart rate monitor blipped. Telephones faintly twittered at the nurse’s station down the hall. A woman laughed. Lily took a step closer to the bed and placed her open purse on the bedside table next to a bottle of lotion and a box of tissues.
“Hey, Henry,” said Lily.
The heart rate monitor blipped.
“I’m sorry about your accident.” She was.
Lily looked about the room, noticing her reflection in the screen of the silent television that was mounted to the wall.
“I hope you’re not in pain,” she said. Of course. Goes without saying, doesn’t it?
The heart rate monitor blipped.
Lily and Henry had barely spoken to each other as adults. Lily had always assumed that their continued mutual indifference - which manifested itself in the way they simply pretended not to notice one another - was the preferred course of action over talking about what had transpired between them in the chicken coop those many years ago. Small talk hardly seemed like the next step. Yet neither did death.
The landscape of their family would be forever changed in many subtle ways if Henry died. When asked how many children were in her family, the answer would be reduced by one. There would be a hesitation in their voices whenever they obliged friends by rattling off the names of their brothers and sisters; the list would shorten, but almost imperceptibly. Would Lily still be the ninth child in a family of twelve? Or would she now be the eighth in a family of eleven?
Was that all? Just the names and numbers would be different? Wouldn’t her life change in any real way if Henry never woke up? Lily scanned her memory for an image of joy or a remnant of tenderness, for a single happy scene from her life with Henry in it. But all she could feel was fear. All she could sense was the dank hard floor of the chicken coop against her back, the dead fly suspended in a cobweb over her head, the weight of Henry’s body thrusting all of the air from her lungs.
Henry’s face was still, and had Lily not known he was in a coma, she may have mistaken his state for one of peaceful rest. Didn’t seem fair, though. For him to rest peacefully and leave her carrying the burden of her memories, of her shame.
“I wish I’d had the nerve to ask you about that,” said Lily, surprised at this burst of courage. “Maybe if I’d gotten some answers from you, I would be able to find my peace, too.”
Lily was buoyed by the resulting silence, emboldened by the realization that she could say whatever she wanted and he couldn’t do a damned thing about it. He couldn’t tell her to shut up, or dispute her. He couldn’t hit her or run out of the room. He could no longer ignore her; he could no longer hurt her. It seemed to be an emerging theme.
“Why did you do that to me, Henry?” she blurted. “Why? What did I ever do to you?” She rifled through her purse and then plucked a tissue from the box on the bedside table. “You were three times my size, Henry - you were heavy, and every time you laid on top of me I thought I was going to suffocate. I was terrified that you would forget I was there, that you would fall asleep, trapping me, crushing me.” Her voice grew louder. “I was just a little girl, you know?” With a stomp of her foot Lily grabbed the bedside table with both hands. She shook it and cried, “You were my big brother, Henry... Big brothers are supposed to protect you!”
Lily’s face burned white hot. “I thought you loved me - I thought I was special! I didn’t even realize what you were doing. I was nothing more to you than some kind of a toy, like nothing, like a rag doll!”
Using the full force of her body, Lily shoved the table, sending it flying on its wheels across the room. It collided with the wall, dumping the contents of Lily’s purse, the lotion, and the tissues onto the floor. Lily froze, seized by the thought that Diane might return at any moment, or that a nurse could come running to investigate the racket. Yet she was unable to focus on anything except the purging of her pain.
Lily reached into her coat pocket and retrieved a brand new pack of Merits. She fumbled with trembling hands to pull the tiny cellophane tab, finally abandoning the effort and ripping the pack open with her teeth. She placed a cigarette between her lips and frantically patted down her pockets for a lighter before she realized that she could not smoke there.
After several minutes, her sobs waned and she said, weakly, “You were my big brothe
r.” Were. My big brother. Lily looked down at Henry. His face remained unchanged, but he seemed more vulnerable than before; fragile, but she did not feel sorry for him. The heart rate monitor blipped, then blipped again. This time, Lily had been the one with the power, and this time, she was the one who used it to discharge her pent up tensions while Henry lay defenseless. Yet somehow the score seemed no more settled; they were in no way even now. Lily would not be able to scream loudly enough or cry deeply enough to satisfy the debt he owed her.
Lily was exhausted, but strangely energized. She felt different in a way that she didn’t recognize. She crossed the room to retrieve the bedside table and collect the items that had scattered themselves around the floor. She wheeled the table back toward the bed. Sunlight strained to wriggle its way through a crack in the heavy drapes covering the window. She stopped and considered opening them before leaving the room, but decided against it.
It was the sort of cold that made you want to wail. It drilled right through your coats and layers and clothes, past your skin and blood and bones and stripped you of warmth at your core - which was just as well because it helped you find the tears you knew you needed to cry. It was perfect weather for burying a sibling.
Lily ran her hand along the smooth cold surface of the casket, wondering what it looked like from the inside - and why they lined them with all that fancy draping when the only person who might really enjoy it never would.
Lily envied the way all of their brothers and sisters stood under the tent at the cemetery gushing love for Henry, though it seemed to her that no one had much of anything good to say about him before his accident. Now he was the star of the family, suddenly sweeter and kinder and funnier than they had ever deemed him in life. The least you could do when someone leaves this world was agree that their presence was worthwhile. Lily was glad that it didn’t even really matter if it was true.
They all told their favorite Henry stories. Laughter mingled with tears and rain and ice fell around as they stood there, no one wanting to be the first to walk away - as if he wasn’t really dead, but only sleeping in that box, and could be awakened again by the clatter of memories.
Lily surveyed the circle of siblings gracing Henry’s coffin like a garland of wildflowers. As a group, their accomplishments were impressive; the desperate cultivation of the independence that had enabled them to survive their childhood and scratch and borrow their way into adulthood had sent each of them off in a newly forged direction, bearing less and less resemblance, as the years went on, to the simple river from which they flowed.
Alexander had worked his way up through local politics and was currently engaged in a campaign for Congressman - as a Republican. Betty Capotosti was incensed by her eldest son’s rejection of her values; he was embarrassed by her misguided loyalty to them. John was the first to fulfill Carlo’s dream of having a doctor in the family by becoming a surgeon. Jasmine - perhaps inspired by being the eldest girl in a family whose children always seemed to need more time, more love, more attention than their mother could give - dedicated her life to the rescue and rehabilitation of animals, feral and domestic. Violet’s birthing centers had popped up all over Rochester and in every surrounding town while Marguerite spent her evenings and weekends producing gallery shows, literary readings, and theatre openings, earning her a place of respect in the small but fierce regional artist community. Louis loved working with his hands, but hated classroom study. He had earned a sterling reputation as the best auto mechanic in town, and his stories were about engines and catalytic converters, which he always told with a dimpled smile on his face, gesticulating with hands that were permanently stained with grease. Charles and William, adrift in the aftermath of their parents’ divorce, had wandered into government-funded degrees in engineering at the nearby Rochester Institute of Technology. Ricci was the only one who figured out that intelligence and accomplishment were not the antidotes to the Capotosti legacy; money was. He obtained his undergraduate degree in Global Finance, and then his M.B.A. He’d made plenty of money for others in his career as an investment banker, as well as for himself. Iris was still living in Italy, working as Director of the Dimora Baia Dell’Incanto hotel, still the cherished wife of an adoring husband, still graced and blessed and special, simply by virtue of being Iris.
Catholics, atheists, evangelical Christians; Republicans, Democrats, and anarchists - the Capotosti siblings were a community unto themselves bound together now only by blood and so by grief. Just six weeks ago they had celebrated Thanksgiving together and now there Henry lay, sealed away, by all accounts - except Lily’s - as innocent as the day he was born.
Despite the years of arguments, childhood cruelties, and divergences in careers and systems of values and faith, they all stood shocked at their newly discovered impotence against nature - an impotence that was never more evident than it was at that moment, in the cold truth that no amount of love or laughter or happy memories could ease their pain or change the fact that one of them was no more.
When Lily was small, and she’d say her bedtime prayers, If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take, she’d often wondered if she would be the first of the Capotosti children to die. The only thing worse would be to be the last. The thought of attending all eleven funerals filled her with overwhelming sadness; the thought of having all eleven of them attend hers, with terror. Lily couldn’t help but wonder what her brothers and sisters would be saying about her, if she were the one who was leaving them behind.
“Remember how Lily married that asshole and spent twenty years living in hell?” Iris would say.
“She should have protected herself better,” Marguerite would say. “Or at all.”
“Oh,” Violet would chime in, “How about when she went bankrupt? That’d be the day I’d let anyone ruin me financially.”
“I tried to tell her,” their mother would say. “But she just didn’t listen.”
“And now she’s gone,” Jasmine would say. And then they would all go out for lunch.
That was Lily’s legacy: Disaster, pain, failure. Unless of course she contracted a dramatic disease that took long enough to kill her so that her siblings would have ample time to forget her countless shortfalls and crises, using their great capacity for compassion to fashion the image of a gentler, kinder Lily.
As his state had declined and it was clear that Henry would never regain consciousness, Diane had given the order to remove the feeding tube, according to the instructions left by Henry in his Living Will. One at a time, the Capotostis found their own way to say good-bye. Violet and Todd sat with him one Sunday afternoon and played CDs of old Beatles’ tunes, leaving Henry’s old Gibson guitar propped up in the corner when they left. Marguerite stopped by during the week and read to him - sometimes from Hemingway or Thoreau, and sometimes from a book of dirty limericks. Betty Capotosti simply sat with her son afternoons and held his hand as she recalled to him the stories of how, when he was small, he would spend entire afternoons building elaborate castles out of Lego blocks and then use her meat mallet to knock them down again.
Iris was the only one who didn’t get to say good-bye to Henry while he was still alive. She’d arrived in town the night before the funeral. Since Auntie Rosa had moved into the senior living facility, Iris had developed a custom of staying with Violet whenever she came home. After all, Violet had a guest room, a hot tub in the backyard, and an extra car to loan - the sort of hospitality that Lily could never provide. So her time with Iris was limited to the one or two authentic pasta dinners that Iris would whip up for whomever happened to be around - and when Iris was home, there were many. Because of the crowd that Iris magnetized, she and Lily rarely had the chance to sit down together, just the two of them. But it was better that way. If Lily were alone with Iris, and if they shared a bottle of wine or a quiet dinner, Lily might tell her about the darkness that dwelled within her. She might tell her how she understood why Dolores left this world as she did - whether it was a des
ire to permanently escape or to temporarily anesthetize herself, Lily understood; Iris never could. Such darkness did not exist in Iris’ world. It would only irritate her and augment the distance between them.
After the graveside ceremony, Lily exchanged a flurry of obligatory kisses and “I love yous” with her sisters before they all darted away through the chill rain across the parking lot to their cars.
“Lily, are the kids staying overnight with Joe?” Violet called out the driver’s side window of her two-seated sports car.
“Yeah - why?” Lily shoved her hands into her coat pockets, making a mental note to buy a pair of gloves.
“Come on over to Violet’s,” called Iris from the passenger’s seat. “We’ll have some hot tea and a little lunch, and then maybe later we’ll force ourselves to go out for a while. We’ve all been crying for days and we need to let loose a little - I think Henry would be mortified at the thought of causing all this sorrow.” Lily doubted that. She thought it would make Henry glad to lash out in such a grand and sweeping way, affecting all of his brothers and sisters with one act while depriving them of the opportunity to retaliate.
Regardless of what they would end up doing, it didn’t take a great deal of skill in math to figure out that the price tag for any activity that Iris and Violet had in mind would far exceed the ten dollars in Lily’s purse, which needed to last her through the weekend. Anyway, when the sisters were together they often chatted about vacations in the tropics and compared new pieces of jewelry their husbands had given them. Lily tried to smile and coo and offer congratulations, but as the years passed, time spent with them only accentuated her own feelings of inadequacy and it became increasingly difficult for her to enjoy their company. It would be too hard. Especially now.
“Maybe I’ll come by for a little while, but then I really have to get home. I have to go let the dog out.”
The Complete Series Page 114