She was smiling. “We’re more than friends, but I’m not going back to Los Angeles. And before you get yourself all worked up, Ed knows.”
“Don’t tell me you two are getting a divorce. I thought you said you were beyond that.”
“No divorce.”
“Where are you going if not back to LA?”
“We’re not sure, our cabin for a start. He’s tired of taking care of the kids. We’re neither of us really that kind of grandparent.”
“Now you’re making sense. You’ll need to give me a forwarding address so I can send your severance pay. You’re still fired.”
She nodded. “I’ve absolutely loved working with you, even back when you were young and stupid. There was never a dull moment. That husband of yours was worth the price of admission. Telling the IRS that he’s a U.S. citizen, like they didn’t know that. What an ass. But I can’t think of anything that I’ve enjoyed more than the vision of you drawing all over your mother. Figuring out the number of nights was a stroke of genius. Drawing the sun and the moon, the passage of time looking on. I hope she knows how lucky she is.”
“I didn’t think of them as the passage of time, her skinny hipbones just called out to me. I doubt she thinks she’s lucky. According to my aunt, she’s never really liked me. I stood between her and a man.”
“And now she’s sober and she has Arthur, and your aunt is still batshit. Let’s just put that one to rest. Along with cats, kittens, three chances, and all the other crap.”
“My father would not approve of your language.”
“I’m certain he’d approve of every word. I want to go back to sleep now, boss. I think you should call Jon and ask him to come here.”
“He can’t come here. We’ve talked about it. He needs to take his daughter to the mainland to look at schools.”
“They’re going to be your family now. Call him. Let him know how much you need him. If he loves you, he’ll come.”
“I don’t like tests. They’re not my style, you know that.”
“It’s not a test, Hannah, it’s a fact of life. You need him right now; you need to learn to ask for him. He loves you; he deserves to know that about you. Don’t leave an opening between you; it will get filled with the wrong thing. You’ve seen it a hundred times.”
“There’s no one filling it now.”
“No, you’ve seemed oblivious to that first AD trying to get at you.”
“I noticed him. He’s a nice boy.”
“So not this time, but you know what happens. Deal with it now when it’s just a nice boy.”
“My mother asked my father to come home and it got him killed.”
“Your father made a mistake. Unless Jon gets our Udaipur pilot, he’ll make it here in one piece.”
“Did you ask Ed when you were working?”
“Not often enough. Ed and I missed a lot of time together. I don’t recommend it.”
“That sounds kind of cryptic.”
“I can tell you one thing: do what you need to do to be together. In the end that’s how you get what you need. Don’t regret the missed time like we do.”
“I can hear women all over the world grinding their teeth at that little gem of wisdom.”
“I know, but I’m old, I can say whatever I want. I’m not saying don’t have a career; that goes both ways. I’m saying don’t hurt your life together in the process. It’s not always poetic and it’s not always justice, but in the end you’ll be glad.”
“Karin is weighing that now. They have the kids.”
“I know. For them there’s no rewind. Anyone who thinks there will be is just negotiating for the moment.”
“Do you think they can recover?”
“They will or they won’t. They’ll never get back to where they were. Scars cover the tenderness. She’ll never feel safe enough to leave her dress behind.”
“Did you do things that you regret?”
“What a dumb question.”
“I mean men.”
“Of course, though I wasn’t an A student like you are. I’m a different generation.”
“That’s not very nice,” I was laughing.
“Sometimes I think it would have been fun.”
“It’s not, at least not in hindsight. Practice doesn’t make perfect with the wrong man. Did you get over it?”
“Off and on. I didn’t feel the regret when I was happy. It came back when I needed to call Ed. Pay attention to that warning sign. That’s when you get into trouble.”
“Ed couldn’t fix the past.”
“No, Ed is the constant present. He loves me when I don’t.”
“So you haven’t forgotten?”
“I haven’t forgotten one thing. This morning I remembered hearing that I was an old friend’s first wet dream. Some remembering is good.”
“Wet dream?”
“I know. I didn’t even have to show up to be interesting. He was dying and told a mutual friend. He was a nice boy who grew into a nice man. He hadn’t forgotten anything either.”
“That’s sweet in a strange way.”
“He should have just asked me out; it might have been sweeter than a dream.”
“It sounds like I better call Ed, you need him right now.”
“Yes,” she smiled. “Call Ed.”
“Dede has offered me a job in Eastern Europe.”
“I know. You can’t escape Hollywood chatter, even in India. It’s a big opportunity for you.”
“What about you?”
“I’m not going to Eastern Europe. Been there, done that. It’s a fascinating place though.”
“I need to talk to Jon. I don’t think he’s going to like the idea.”
“Can you blame him? An empty dress can only get you so far.”
“A wet dream?”
She was laughing when I walked out the door.
My first call was to Ed. I related part of the conversation; I skipped the wet dream. Knowing them, he knew anyway. He was quiet for a long time. I told him what she was reading.
“Oh christ,” he said. “She’s reading that big sob again. I should be able to get there in a few days. You okay?”
“I’m fine. But I should warn you I fired her for being a slacker. I’m not sure I can cover your travel expenses.”
“Good job, she had that coming.”
“What’s going on, Ed?”
He was quiet for such a long time I thought we’d lost our connection.
“Ed? You still there?”
“I’m here.”
“I don’t like this. I grew up in a family of secret keepers. It’s pointless; I’m going to find out. I need to know now. I don’t want any surprises, I’m barely hanging on here.”
“She’s dying, Hannah. She’s known for a few weeks.”
“How do you know? That’s so fast. Has she even seen a real doctor? She keeps going to that guy who takes her pulses or something.”
“He’s a real doctor. She trusts him. His medicine is a lot older than what they have to offer in Los Angeles.”
“Dying?”
“She has late stage cancer. We had no idea. We really did think it was parasites like everyone else.”
“How can you be so calm about this? Why aren’t you here doing something? I’m going to call Dede, have her moved to Delhi.”
“No, you’re not. This isn’t up to you, or me.”
“Ed, this is crazy. I can’t just stand by like a little girl and not do something.”
“To answer your question, I’m not calm about it. But I also know there’s nothing to do. She doesn’t want to do anything about it. She wants her last time to be quality time. She’s enjoying herself there. He’s keeping her comfortable.”
“Wouldn’t she rather die in Los Angeles?”
“Why?”
“So the family can be around. Your son’s a doctor. He can do something.”
“She doesn’t want the family around. He agrees with her, he told her the truth.
He’s his mother’s son. He’s talking to her doctor there. She’s in good hands.”
“What about your daughter, the grandkids?”
“She’s talking to each of them. They’re saying what they need to say. A few more touches wouldn’t mean anything. I’ve been here to help us through it. I’ll be there in a few days to help you.”
I was shocked and exhausted.
“Okay.”
“Hannah, be sure her window is open. She says Chahel keeps closing it. She really likes the sound of the conch shell at the temple. And make her go up to the roof and get some sun.”
“Okay. Does Chahel know?”
“Yes. But don’t be mad at her, Hannah. She didn’t tell you because she knows you’d get into a spin. She’s waxing very philosophic right now about wasting time with worry. She loves you. She won’t leave without saying good-bye.”
“How can we say good-bye?”
“That’s between you two.”
I hung up and tried counting backwards to Hawaii time. I couldn’t make any sense of it so just called.
“Morning, I guess,” said Jon.
He was sound asleep.
“Margaret is dying. Right here. She isn’t sick with parasites at all, she has cancer.”
“Start over, H. I was asleep.”
I related the conversation with Ed to him.
“How am I going to say good-bye to her, Jon? All my talk about needing good-bye. I don’t have any idea how to do that.”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s like Ed said, you two will figure it out.”
“Have you ever done that?”
“No, I don’t think very many people actually do. How much time does she have?”
“I have no idea. But she plans on staying here until the end.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. You mean stay or come home?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know. She’s more a mother than my own mother.”
“Well, ask her what she wants.”
“I’ve been offered a new project in Eastern Europe, it starts in six months.”
“I think you should back burner that. Figure out what you want to do about Margaret first. And us.”
“Us?”
“I assume we’re still in your calculations.”
“I’m sorry, of course you are. I’m in shock is all.”
He was quiet on the other end.
“Jon?”
“I’m here, Hannah. What do you need from me?”
“I don’t know. Margaret said I should ask you to come, but it wasn’t because she said she was dying. It was before that. She thought I was going to make a mistake.”
“What kind of mistake?”
“That I’d lose my way some how, I don’t know. I’m so tired I feel like I’m hallucinating. I feel detached from the earth. I couldn’t even begin to figure out what time it is where you are. I still have so much work to do. The universes are colliding.”
“Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“No. I know how it sounds. There’s nothing. I just don’t know how to tell you what is. What’s going on. I don’t know myself.”
We were both quiet.
“How am I going to say good-bye, Jon?”
“Don’t. Just tell her you’ll love her forever and ever.”
“That sounds like a little girl.”
“That’s all I have to offer, that’s the only thing I know. It’s what my mother said to her mother before she died in the car. She was a little girl.”
I started sobbing. “Oh my god, Jon.”
We sat in silence for what seemed like an hour. Amy came in amped with energy and waving her arm at me to get going. The entire crew was standing around on the set, waiting for me to show up with the meal our lovers were supposed to be eating. I motioned her toward the kitchen. The guys had it all wrapped up. She and Chahel started loading it into the car.
“I need to go, Jon. I’m late for work. I don’t want you to spend any time worrying.”
“I’m in Honolulu. We’re leaving for the mainland in a few days. Call me later; don’t worry about the time. If we miss, I’ll call you back.”
“Don’t try calling here. My schedule is off the hook. The phone will just wake up the guys downstairs. They nap on the dining room table when they’re not taking care of us. I’ll try to reach you when I get a break.”
“Just call. Keep me posted.”
“I will. I love you, Jon. Thank you.”
“I love you forever and ever, Hannah.”
“I hope so, that would be a really nice life.”
I got in the car and rolled down the window to talk to Chahel.
“Open her bedroom windows. And get her up on the roof for some sun with her lunch.”
He went back inside. Amy looked at me sideways; she’d picked up on my borderline rude voice with Chahel.
“Margaret is having a bad day,” I said.
Somehow I got through the day. I went to see Margaret as soon as I got in. It was late, but her light was still on and she was reading. I sat down in the chair and we looked at each other.
“You know what I’m going to miss the most?” she asked. “Well two things really. Seeing you lug that needlepoint dress down the aisle with a train of sand. And watching you raise kids. I’d love to see how you handle that. I told Ed to buy them all ponies.”
“I hate ponies,” I said. “I’m so mad at you.”
“Why? Because you got to live two more happy weeks instead of unhappy weeks in your life.”
“Because you didn’t trust me enough to tell me.”
“I trusted you to call in the Army Corps of Engineers if you thought it would help. I know how you work. You think things are fixable if you try hard enough. I don’t want that.”
“But you’re not even fighting.”
“I’m not going to fight for the chance to be bald and bruised in the hospital, and die sprouting tubes. We did that movie eight years ago. Remember? My son says there’s no way out of this one. I trust him.”
“This isn’t a movie. Anyway, she bought time. What about Ed and the kids? Don’t you want the time with them?”
“They don’t need that kind of time from me. That’s time that has to do with them, not me. It’s like keeping an old dog alive long past the time when it would just go off and die under a bush if it was just left alone.”
“You’re not an old dog. We live longer than dogs.”
“Don’t pick it apart, Hannah. It won’t change things. Now I know how I’d handle it. I’m relieved actually. It’s fine.”
We sat in the buffalo bellowing and horn honking quiet of India for a while.
“I don’t know how to say good-bye,” I said. “I always thought I needed that because I didn’t have it, and now I realize I have no idea.”
“We don’t have to say good-bye.”
“That’s what Jon said.”
“Did you ask Jon to come?”
“No, I don’t want to start with that. He has his own life.”
“Then you shouldn’t marry him.”
“Of course I’m going to marry him.”
“Not if he has his own life.”
“He didn’t say that. He doesn’t think that way. He calls us Radna Krishna.”
“But apparently you do. I’d say that’s a disconnect.”
“I don’t feel like I have my own life. I feel like we live different lives.”
“We all live different lives.”
“Now who’s picking it apart?”
“You are, you always do. Then you confuse yourself into the wrong man.”
“Jon isn’t the wrong man.”
“I don’t think he is either. Did you tell him I’m dying?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“He said to tell you I’ll love you forever and ever. Then he said the same thing to me.”
“I wish I had the energy to
shake you. Ask him to come. I don’t know how else to tell you that. You need him.”
“I need you.”
“I’m spoken for.”
Chahel knocked, he brought in chai and rice pudding.
“She knows, Chahel,” said Margaret.
“I’m sorry, Chahel,” I said. “I didn’t mean to be rude to you earlier.”
“Chahel,” said Margaret. “Hannah is going to marry soon, like your daughter. A man named Jon. They’re going to have a baseball team that rides ponies.”
Chahel smiled his beatific smile and left.
“Don’t you think you confused him?” I said.
“I doubt it, he’s hoping for a cricket team. Be sure Ed doesn’t forget to pay for his daughter’s wedding. He only needs five-hundred dollars to make a huge affair.”
“Okay. You’ll come to mine?”
“If it’s in India. I want to meet Jon.”
I went to the Buddhist temple for some alone time and gazed at the red-horn masks. They snarled and glared back. No help there, I’m not Buddhist. I had no idea what I was supposed to feel about those beings, except that a few could use some paint touch ups.
I went back to the temple and tried calling Jon; it went to voicemail. I felt really stupid leaving him the message, but I told him I needed him to come. Then I told him he didn’t really have to come. I made it worse with all kinds of run around the block with a broom talk. I couldn’t reach through space and delete the message. I told him not to worry, I was just tired, to please call me.
Everyone spent the next few days running around like crazy people. We were racing for the finish line. The weather was loosening its grip, which gave us some relief. Amy had turned into an efficient work machine. She was starting to read my mind, or what was left of it. I made a note to self that getting a fresh helper midway through a project wasn’t a bad idea.
I kept Margaret’s secret. In return, she rallied and was up for breakfast in the morning and read on the terrace in the afternoon. She’d switched to Indian chick lit about contemporary women trying to make their way in the mixed messages of India. Like India has a corner on that confusion. All you had to think about was breast implants and the Virgin Mary to know that women live in a state of psychic split all over the world. I couldn’t begin to fathom how she could be worried about wasting time, and be reading crap like that in the same day. When I complained about her choice of reading material, she asked me what could be more important for her to read. Stumped me. She wasn’t looking for answers.
Mary Ellen Courtney - Hannah Spring 01 - Wild Nights Page 29