I opened my eyes shortly after closing them, realizing that I wasn’t at all prepared for whatever was starting now, whether this was another exercise or simply an ending ritual. Cynthia looked at me as she spoke. “Feel your feet against the smooth cement of the pool,” she said. “Feel your belly in the warm water. Feel your strong legs and arms being supported by the warm water as it surrounds you and lifts you up.” She glanced around the group, then her eyes settled back on me. “You’re unconcerned about the past, unconcerned about what is to come. All you feel is the warm water and the beat of your heart.”
I closed my eyes for the final moments, wherein Cynthia instructed us to breathe deeply, five counts in and five counts out. Then she told us to hold our breath and submerge, which she said would steel us for the week to come, and when we came up again we would be rejuvenated.
On the ride home, I rolled down the window and felt the sunlight on my arm. Through the canopies of the banyans along Bird Road, the light scattered into dozens of warm spires. At the house, we found Dennis and Stuart on the back deck with Lola. Dennis’s wheelchair was not with them. This was something I’d noticed about Lola’s sessions with Dennis: she discouraged him from using the chair. For moving around, she helped him stand, supported him while he shuffled forward, then helped him sit again. It made me think I was allowing him to depend too much on the chair. If he could still walk, even slowly, even gracelessly, shouldn’t he? But to me he seemed so much more comfortable in the chair, so much less helpless.
They were laughing at something as we stepped onto the deck, and Stuart stopped in mid-sentence and looked behind me at Margo. I realized from his slightly spooked expression that they’d had an argument earlier that morning. “Does anyone want to go for a swim?” I said. I was thinking, really, that I’d had enough of swimming for the day and there were half a dozen things that needed to be done: laundry to be folded, prescriptions to be filled, groceries to be bought. But the sunlight was warm on the wood of the deck and the day was bright and clear, and the morning’s exercise had given me a free, relaxed feeling.
Lola told Dennis she could show him exercises he could do in the water, and asked me if I had a spare suit she could borrow. Margo said she had one, then gestured for Lola to follow her inside. By the time I’d helped Dennis change and rolled him outside again—we came around the front, because we hadn’t yet gotten around to installing a ramp off the back deck—Stuart was doing handstands in the shallow end and the women were watching him. Lola supported Dennis while he went down the pool steps, but once the water was up to his chest, she let go and stood a few yards away. “Swim to me,” she said. It reminded me of being at Stiltsville when Margo was a little girl, when Dennis taught her to swim at low tide. He would back up, let her swim to him, then back up again, until she was red-faced and sputtering and begging to be held.
Dennis was a good student. I don’t know if it was Lola, or the humility that came with the disease, or both, but he did as he was told. “Swim to me,” she repeated, and he did. They made it all the way to the deep end, and then she let him hold on to the side for a few minutes while he caught his breath. After they crossed the pool again, Lola led Dennis to the steps and he sat in the shallow water, squinting in the sun. I sat next to him. “What did you think of that?” I said.
He nodded. “Hard,” he said. “Feels good.”
Lola asked me if we had any bottles of water. “The big kind, half gallons.”
I nodded and stood up to get them, but Stuart beat me to it. He hoisted himself over the side of the pool and went inside—without using a towel, I noticed, but I didn’t say anything—then emerged with two gallon bottles of water. Lola took them and motioned for Dennis to stand again, which he did, shakily. She put one bottle in his left hand and one in his right. The second one dropped and she dove under and fished it out, then handed it to him again. She put her small hand around his to help him grip. When he had them both tightly in hand, she led him to deeper water, then said, “Do what I do.” She raised both hands above her head, slowly, then lowered them until they were beside her ears. He mimicked her, equally slowly, and I noticed the water in the bottles shaking. This is why we have a therapist, I thought. Because if I were to help Dennis with these exercises, I would have stopped the first time his arms shook. I would not have been able to stand the sight of my husband wobbling in the water. As it was, I had to look away.
As if she knew what I was thinking, Lola called out to me. “You see this? He should do this every other day. On land or in water, but water is best. More stable.”
“I thought I wasn’t supposed to tire him out,” I said, and Dennis looked over at me. It was my tone, I suppose: snappish.
“He’s not too tired,” she said. “Are you too tired?”
“No.” He smiled at me. “Not tired.” He lifted the bottles over his head.
Early the next morning, Stuart showed up at our doorstep. This was his new thing: early morning runs from their house to ours. When I opened the door, he said, “Is the captain awake?”
“He’s in the kitchen,” I said, and Stuart bounded past me down the hallway. From the living room, where I was straightening up, I could hear Stuart’s horsey laugh and Dennis’s brief pauseless sentences, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. The phone rang, and it was Marse, confirming dinner plans for that Friday night, with Paul, and even as I was saying I looked forward to it, my stomach tightened. I could not imagine a situation in which Dennis could socialize normally, or even close to normally, with an old friend. After I hung up, the doorbell rang again. Stuart went past me up the stairs—getting a swimsuit, he said—as I went to answer it. It was Gloria. “I bought a pie,” she said, and handed me a white box with a cellophane lid. “It’s lemon chiffon. Very soft.”
I thanked her and invited her in. We stood in the foyer.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” she said. “I was doing the shopping, and then I just bought this pie and drove over.” She looked around as she spoke. The cutout in the entranceway, where she’d once kept a marble bust that she’d inherited from her parents, was littered with mail and keys.
“You’re welcome anytime,” I said, and because she looked so lost and out of place, standing in the foyer of what used to be her home, I meant it.
“I don’t want to intrude,” she said.
“No, no. Stuart’s here. I think he and Dennis are going to swim.”
“I could make lemonade,” she said. “I bought lemons.” She put up a finger and slipped back out the door. Her car trunk slammed, and then she appeared again with a bag of lemons. “Grady likes them in his water,” she said.
“I have to get to work in a little bit,” I said.
Gloria looked disappointed. “It’s Saturday.”
“It’s only until one, and then I’ll be home.” This was a four-hour shift that I took twice a month, at time-and-a-half pay. It was a sleepy shift with only one doctor working. The few patients were worried mothers and their toddlers, or the occasional case of chicken pox or spontaneous diarrhea. It had occurred to me that I might have to give up working altogether, but then, as Stuart rushed down the stairs wearing swim trunks, waving hello to Gloria as he passed, I realized that this might not be necessary. For better or worse, our lives, Dennis’s and mine, had opened up in a way they never had before. From this point forward, our door would never really be closed. It was not even eight in the morning, and already we had guests. Lola was due at eleven. Grady would stop by at some point, I knew, to watch a home building show with Dennis or to check on the boat engines. Marse would rush by on her way somewhere and end up canceling her plans and staying for dinner, which we would fashion from the delivery food that had already started to arrive in tightly packed boxes. My privacy wasn’t a priority anymore. I knew, even before the tide was under way, that I had no choice but to ride it out.
That Friday night, Marse arrived with Paul while I was in the kitchen, arranging a plate of vegetables and hum
mus, and Dennis was in the guest room getting dressed. I had decided to cook, not because the delivery food wasn’t good—it was—but because it wasn’t special. It was green beans and manicotti and mushroom lasagna and steamed spinach, and no matter what I did to arrange it prettily on a plate, it always looked to me like it had come from a box. Instead, I’d grilled salmon and asparagus outside while Dennis looked on, giving me directions, and we’d argued over whether the salmon was overcooked. He’d told me I was incapable of taking directions, and I’d told him I couldn’t read his mind, and he’d said it would be a hell of a lot easier if I could. We’d ended up laughing.
Paul was wearing a white guayabera and tan slacks, and Marse was wearing a lime-green tank dress that accentuated her smooth tan neckline and thin arms. I was running behind schedule, and still needed to change out of the black cover-up and shorts I’d been wearing all day, so after pleasantries at the door—Paul handed over a bottle of wine, which he said he’d bought on his last trip to Spain—I led them onto the back deck and filled their glasses and put out the hummus plate, then excused myself and went to change. Paul looked to me a tad paunchier and maybe a little less cocksure than the young man I’d known more than two decades earlier, but essentially he was simply an older version of himself, with thinner hair. Dennis rolled out of the guest room as I headed up the stairs. He’d washed his hair and it was still damp. “They’re on the back porch,” I said. “I’m just going to put on a dress.”
“I’ll see you out there,” he said. “Relax, please.”
I changed into a sleeveless navy dress that I had worn only once, and that I thought showed off my legs, which were, at this point in my life, my best feature. When I came out onto the deck, Paul was talking and Dennis was laughing. “What did you do?” Dennis said, and Paul—to his credit—understood his slurred speech, and answered. “I fired his butt, and hers.”
Marse said to me, “Paul found his accountants having sex with each other in the break room.”
“You’re kidding,” I said, wondering how the topic of sex had been broached so early in the evening, with so little wine.
Paul said, “It was like something out of a movie. They’re both these mousy types. No one I’d suspect.”
“And you fired them,” I said.
“On the spot. But you know, it was only me who saw—we were closed, everyone was gone—and after, I thought that might have been rash. I mean, they were just having some fun.”
“Maybe you should let them come back.”
“That’s what I told him,” said Marse.
“I agree,” said Dennis.
“Maybe I should,” said Paul. He stood at the deck railing and looked out at the lawn and the water. “You’ve got quite a place here.”
The house was not, certainly, the fanciest or most well appointed of our friends’ (surely Paul’s Fisher Island bachelor pad was grand, and Marse’s condo downtown was virtually a palace, almost as large as our home), but living on the canal was a rare gift. The waning sunlight on the water was golden and rich.
“I don’t know if you remember,” said Dennis as clearly as he could, “but I grew up in this house.”
This time Paul didn’t understand. Marse spoke up before I could. “He said he grew up in this house.”
Paul nodded. “I’ve been here before. We stopped by once, before you were married. We picked up your father to go fishing. I didn’t come inside. I didn’t get to see this view.”
“We caught two marlins that day,” said Dennis, and Paul understood.
“This big,” said Paul, his arms wide, and we all laughed politely.
“It’s been too long,” said Dennis. “When was it? The air show? Margo was just a little kid.” I was surprised at how much he was talking. I could see the toll it took on him. He stopped after every sentence to swallow, then continued. “I remember being eaten alive in the Everglades.”
“We caught nothing that trip.”
“Who was that with us? Marcus?”
“Yep, Marcus Beck.”
“Good guy.”
Paul shook his head. “You know he died last year. I didn’t go to the funeral, I just heard through the grapevine.”
“We went,” said Dennis. “Nice service. His girls spoke.”
“Should I get the grub?” I said, and Marse nodded and offered to help.
In the kitchen, she said, “What do you think? I think it’s going well.”
“Sure.”
“You’re not reassuring.” She said it offhandedly, like it was a statement more on my character than on the moment.
“I’m sorry. I was so nervous.”
“You were nervous? I was nervous! I made Paul change his shirt twice.”
I found myself slightly shaky all of a sudden, as if I hadn’t eaten in a long time. I leaned against the counter with both hands. “I didn’t know what to expect. I don’t give Dennis enough credit, I guess. There’s no reason he can’t have friends, even now.”
“Especially now.”
“Something’s changing,” I said. My voice trembled. “People are here all the time. Gloria and Grady. And my goddamn son-in-law.”
“But isn’t that good? Don’t you need a break?”
“I miss my husband,” I said, but just then, I could see Dennis through the window, and I remembered standing in the same kitchen so many years before, watching Dennis and his father make their way toward the house from the dock, knowing that he was telling his father that he was going to propose to me. And now, he was more the same than he was different. His hair was lighter and thinner, but he had the same charming smile and the same way of moving his hands when he spoke. Of course there was the wheelchair, but it was easy, in that moment, to think that he was just sitting down, that we were just having some friends to dinner, and that instead of focusing on him, I should be focusing on my friend, who was in love. “I’m sorry,” I said, and I turned toward her and wrapped my arms around her shoulders. She hugged me back. She wasn’t much of a hugger, and let go early, but she tried. I said, “I’ve been so wrapped up. Paul seems very nice. And he’s obviously smitten.” This was true. While he’d been speaking, he’d glanced sideways at Marse every so often, as if for approval. He seemed robust and shining, like a person newly in love. I was envious of them, of course. I pushed down the envy—there was no room for it.
“He told me he loved me.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“I know you’re skeptical.”
I shook my head. “I’m not skeptical.” The decision was like a flipping switch: I would no longer be skeptical. Marse arranged the salmon and asparagus on a platter and sliced some lemons. I gathered plates and ice water on a tray, and together we stepped back into the evening, still warm but without the bite of the afternoon heat. The sunset was reddening. We sat down around the table, passing plates and filling them, and when we all had food in front of us, Paul did something I never would have expected. He brought his hands together and said, “I’d like to give a blessing.”
I looked at Marse. “I forgot to mention,” she said. “Paul’s a Christian. But he promises not to drag me to church.”
“Of course,” said Dennis. He bowed his head.
In a hushed tone, Paul said, “Lord, we give thanks for this abundant food, for this glorious day, and for old friends. Guide us and keep us. Amen.”
“Amen,” said Dennis.
“Amen,” said Marse.
“Let’s eat,” I said, and stood up to pour more wine.
The evening settled into a languor of the sort that happens only with old friends—it was this, more than anything else, that convinced me that the whole thing had been a good idea. Paul and Dennis made plans to go fishing, and after the meal I brought out a key lime pie and Paul assumed, incorrectly, that it was homemade, and we all talked about how the key lime pie from Publix was the best and there was never any sense in making your own because it wouldn’t measure up. Then we talked about a new development go
ing up down south, replacing a shoddy batch of mini mansions that had been leveled by Andrew, and how Paul knew one of the contractors and was thinking of buying there. His condo on Fisher Island was overpriced, he said, and the ferry was a pain.
“An awful lot of room for one,” said Dennis, and Paul said, “Aye,” and looked over at Marse, who was beaming. In all the years I’d known her, she had never lived with a man. The man she’d known best and longest was Dennis, and after I’d come along her friendship with him had channeled its way through me.
Paul offered to build us a ramp from the back deck to the patio. “It would take an hour—two, tops,” he said, and, as an example of how much our lives were changing, how unfitting our usual preferences had become, Dennis accepted the offer and said he would appreciate it.
It was dark now, and the water lapped quietly in the waterway and gurgled in the swimming pool. The mosquitoes were out. I lit the citronella candles that sat on the deck railing, and the light shone on our profiles. Paul’s face was round and fleshy in the torchlight, and hair showed at the neckline of his shirt. I could tell that he and Marse were holding hands under the table. Dennis’s face was sharp by contrast. He coughed a little and smoothed down his shirt. “I haven’t laughed this much in a while,” he said, and Paul leaned forward, as if to get him to repeat the comment, but Marse repeated it for him. She was another wife to Dennis. I’d thought this before, but it was truer now, with her running his errands (just that week she’d picked up his prescriptions for him, then stayed for dinner), and making meal provisions and repeating his sentences when guests couldn’t hear. She was almost as at home in the role as I was. I had shared him, a little, all those years, but I didn’t mind. Paul’s blessing came back to me. It wouldn’t hurt, I thought, to give thanks a little more often. But I knew that if I tried to institute a mealtime ritual, Dennis would scoff. It was fine for company, but for us alone, no ritual was needed.
One Saturday later that month, Paul came over to build the ramp, and while he worked, Marse and Dennis and I lolled in the pool. Marse had brought water weights—they were dumbbell-shaped floats that filled with water—and led Dennis through the exercises he’d learned from Lola. Margo and I had been to water aerobics that morning, and now she was taking a nap in her old bedroom, and Stuart was in the front yard, trimming the alamanda bushes, which he’d noticed were growing unruly. I’d let go of the gardener. The expense had seemed unnecessary in this time of tightening our belts. It was as if—as Marse led Dennis in his exercises and Paul hammered away on the ramp and Stuart gardened—we’d acquired a whole new staff.
Stiltsville Page 28