“Do you love Carson?” Savannah asked, stopping Meg cold.
“What? Why would you ask that?”
“You can’t answer a question with a question, that’s cheating.” Savannah took the boarding passes out of Meg’s bag.
“I just wondered why you—well, the answer is, of course I do. I’ve known him forever. He was like a member of my family, and—”
“Mom,” Savannah said, looking at her plainly. “I try to be straight with you about everything. Besides, I’m not a baby. I know you and Dad aren’t exactly hot for each other. You can tell me.”
Meg looked at her daughter, at the genuine care and love on her face, and realized that this moment was a wish granted. “Okay,” she said, “you’re right. But before I get into how I feel about Carson, let me tell you how it was.” And she began the story she’d wanted to tell Savannah for so long.
THE PLEASURE OF HAWAII HAD LITTLE TO DO WITH HAWAII ITSELF AND almost everything to do with the removal of mother and daughter from their previous lives. Because everything, Meg thought, watching Savannah bodysurf at Hauula Beach, everything that came before this precise moment was gone, done—figments of the past that mattered not at all to the roll of the surf or the caress of the Pacific breeze on their bronzed skin. The past was gone, the future not yet arrived, and so they lived in each moment, whether that moment was a sunset seen from the Coast Guard station at Kaena Point or a view of Saturn from one of the Mauna Kea Observatories—where the resident astronomers were pleased to give Carson and his close friends a tour of the night sky—or the moment when Meg sat on the sand alongside her daughter early one morning, Diamond Head rising stoically behind them, and told her she had ALS.
Had she ever done a harder thing in her life? Even leaving Carson that long-ago day had not been anything like this.
There was no easy way to broach the subject, so as they’d watched seabirds skittling across the foamy sand, pinkened waves breaking gently along the shoreline, Meg said, “Savannah, I need to confess something. What I told you was wrong with my arm and leg was a lie.”
“Well…so, what is wrong?”
Meg pursed her lips, then forged ahead. “I have something known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.” She described it as simply as she could.
Savannah’s eyes grew wide in disbelief and horror. Then her face crumpled and she put her hands to her mouth. “No, Mommy…” She shook her head. “No—you can’t…. Oh God, oh God! I’ve been—oh my God, I’ve been such a terrible daughter!” Tears streamed down her face. Meg’s chest tightened as if squeezed in a vise, and she tried hard to keep from sobbing herself. But in the end she couldn’t help it. She wrapped Savannah in her arms and rocked her.
“No, no,” she said, her mouth against Savannah’s wavy hair. “No, you are the best daughter ever.”
They cried together until both of them were red-eyed and blotchy and empty of tears. And then, when neither of them knew what to do next, they looked at each other and actually smiled at their bad luck, at the absurd paths life took. There was nothing else for it.
They walked the beach, holding hands, and then Savannah stopped suddenly and said, “Will it be horrible? Will there be a lot of pain?” And Meg assured her that no, when her time came, it would be exactly the opposite. This small grace made them both feel a little bit better.
Meg knew Savannah’s acceptance was temporary, a gift of this suspended time, but she was grateful for both of them to have it. The blessing of youth was the ability to forget—or if not forget, to continue. Savannah began to do what she, Meg, was doing: valuing their long days together without thinking too much about the raised axe above Meg’s head.
They had more long conversations. Savannah revealed that her last fight with Kyle and his roommate had to do with lewd photos and extortion; she confessed to misusing the credit card; she apologized for sliding into behaviors she was thoroughly opposed to—“I lied, I snuck around, I rationalized everything! I’m really, really sorry.” Meg forgave it all—of course she did, because hadn’t Savannah been punished enough?
They shopped, they swam—or Savannah did; Meg stayed, now, where the sand remained safely underfoot. They boated, they ate—poi and pineapple and fish that had been swimming only minutes before appearing on their plates. And sometimes, Carson joined them. But not too often. He was protective of the bubble of time surrounding her and Savannah. Her time with him would come afterward, after she delivered Savannah to Beth for a week of seeing the Berkeley campus and helping Beth get packed.
She’d thought it impossible that two weeks in Hawaii could make a dent in her regret for time lost with Savannah, but she’d been wrong. Sitting here on the beach, seeing Savannah in the glowing evening surf getting instruction from a girl she’d met there, Meg was content. The sun was on her back, her skin smelled of coconut; the world—her world, at least—was in order. What she did or didn’t do with her daughter twelve years ago, eight years ago, two, last month, made no difference to the joy of now. Life could be reinvented continuously. The past wasn’t gone, it was simply diminished, put in its place so that now could be appreciated, in the fullest sense of the word.
As for the future? Her body hadn’t let her forget what lay ahead, but at this moment that path was nebulous, irrelevant. It didn’t need to be trod while she was here. That was the pleasure of Hawaii.
Sixty
SAVANNAH WAS ASLEEP IN BETH’S GUEST BEDROOM UPSTAIRS WHILE MEG sat at the kitchen table, her mind as full as a river after torrential rains.
As ever, time had proved relentless; even Hawaiian trips couldn’t go on indefinitely. Here again was her future, only now it had become her present: a foggy night in a cottage on Panoramic Hill, minutes from the UC Berkeley campus, where her sister poured warm milk into a pair of brown stoneware mugs.
“I know she got a little off track,” Beth was saying as she set a mug in front of Meg, “but you’ve raised a great kid. You really don’t have to worry about her, you know.”
“Maybe not…but there are still plenty of things even a great kid can’t control.” There were a lot of things beyond anyone’s control, in fact, but she didn’t want to focus on those. The conversation she’d asked Beth to stay up for was about controlling one of the few things she could.
She circled the mug with her hands and said, “I’m hugely grateful to have you coming back to Ocala. Dad’s looking forward to having you around.”
“You’re my priority, you know.”
Meg looked down at the mug. “Thanks, but it’s Savannah’s welfare I’m most concerned with. Which is what I wanted to talk to you about.” She met Beth’s eyes again. “I plan to name you as her guardian in my will, and I want to make sure you’re okay with that.”
Beth put her hands around Meg’s and pulled them away from the mug, grasping them across the tabletop. “I’m honored.”
“It’s not just an honor,” Meg said.
“No, I know that.” Beth squeezed, then let go. “But she’s sixteen already; odds are fairly good that both you and Brian will be around to see her through to eighteen.”
The truth about what Meg intended for her not-quite-so-rosy future slid right to the very tip of her tongue before she bit it back. Instead she said, “I’m not much for playing the odds, okay, so I need to know for sure: Will you take care of Savannah in my place? No matter when that might be?”
“Meg, I’d give you my soul if you asked for it.” Beth’s eyes were so round, so sad and earnest. “I hate that you have to think about any of this…but I want you to know, I really respect how proactive you are, taking care of all this stuff way ahead of time. You’ve always been the sensible one.”
Not always.
There was no time, though, to dwell on what could not be helped by warm milk and a sister’s promise.
MEG’S FATHER MET HER IN THE PARKING LOT WHEN SHE CAME TO SEE HIM after her return. Blue passionflower bloomed along the lamppost behind him, the flowers hand-sized harbingers of summer. He wav
ed as she climbed out of the taxi, and walked over to give her his arm.
“Good trip?” he asked. She’d just gotten home from Beth’s late the night before.
“Marvelous. Beth and Savannah send their love.”
“When’s Beth getting here?”
“Next Thursday. I’ll write it down for you.”
They went slowly up the sidewalk to the building, her limp more pronounced than ever, and instead of getting impatient with herself, she took the time to notice the new pots of striped purple and white petunias outside one resident’s door, another’s long planter filled with red, white, and blue flowers—done for Memorial Day, she guessed, or in early anticipation of the Fourth of July. Another had put out a pair of copper-roofed bird feeders that gleamed in the sunset. Even here, where all the residents were in their own sunsets, so to speak, many of them made the effort to appreciate nature, to beautify their surroundings—to live, as long as they were living. She liked this about the place, and hoped it translated to the people cultivating friendships and taking care of each other a little, too.
“That leg’s getting to be a real problem,” her father said.
Everything was, in fact. “I’m seeing a physical therapist tomorrow.”
“Should a seen one yesterday,” he joked, and squeezed her a little to make sure she knew his teasing was affectionate. He never had been good at showing his feelings—not his caring ones, at any rate.
When they were inside and cooling off at the dining table with her father’s new favorite drink, the mint, lime, and rum Mojito, she said, “I need to thank you, Dad, for paying Bruce and for giving me Mom’s diaries.”
He looked surprised and embarrassed by her directness. “Well, sure.”
“You made her happy. Not just because you did those things—though if she’s watching, I’m sure she’s glad. But I mean, always. Did you read them, the notebooks?”
“I mighta looked at ’em a little,” he said.
“Then you know. She loved you despite everything. And I do too.” She gazed at him steadily, so that he’d feel the weight and truth of her words. “None of us knew how wrong things would go—it all looked really good, in the beginning. Anyway…I was angry with you for a long time, but I’m not anymore.”
“Aw, now Meggie…” He looked at his drink as though it had become the most fascinating thing in the room. “You’ve been too good to me all along—just like your mother. Crazy coot that I am. She’s waiting for you, you know,” he added, looking up at her.
She smiled. “Yeah, I think maybe she is.” It was a good thought, welcome and comforting.
“Yep,” he said, nodding. “I saw her the other night—you won’t believe me, but I’m telling you I did. Woke up at four or so—damn bladder. I think I might want them stones back if it means I don’t hafta pee every five minutes—anyway, I woke up and there she was, sitting on the bed, holding on to that blanket you used to carry with you everywhere.”
“What blanket?” Meg said.
“Don’t you remember? That blue-and-yellow flannel thing, with the little pink roses. I guess your Aunt Brenda sent it as a baby gift. You carried it around till it was nothin’ more’n a scrap. But it was new when I saw it the other night,” he added, scratching his head. “And I asked her, ‘That Meggie’s?’ And she said it was, and I said, ‘Guess you’ll be waiting for her.’ And she said she would.”
Meg had only the vaguest memory of the baby blanket, recalling the sensation of smooth, soft flannel against her face more than the fact of the thing itself. As for her father’s vision, she wouldn’t presume to doubt him. He looked convinced, and so although her logical doctor’s mind told her it was only a pretty fantasy, or perhaps a dream, she was glad to allow that it might be real. In fact, she was finding herself growing more and more curious about what she would find when her time came.
“Do you want me to give her any message when I see her?” she asked.
“Oh, nah. I see her regular enough.” He stood up and went to stand behind Meg’s chair. “I hope you’ll stop in now and then too,” he said, and kissed the top of her head. “I like all the attention. I’ll be back in a sec.” He walked toward the bathroom, then stopped and turned back toward her. “That reminds me, when’s Beth gonna get here?”
THE NEWSPAPER LAY ON THE KITCHEN COUNTER, OPEN TO THE OBITUARIES. Meg was puzzled at first—what kind of macabre message did Brian mean by this? Then she saw it: “Silver Springs Mother of Four Succumbs to Lou Gehrig’s.”
The headline must’ve caught his eye. It was a long obit, lovingly crafted by Lana’s family, no doubt, detailing every accomplishment of her too-short lifetime. Brownies and Girl Scouts, Spanish Club, gymnast, candy striper, Sunday School nursery teacher, wife, mother, widow, brave victim of a disease about which too little is known. Brian must have thought she’d be interested, particularly in the part that said Lana had “died peacefully surrounded by her children, sister, father, and in-laws.” No suicide for her. No stigma.
Well, that was the exact right choice for Lana—presumably it was. If Penny was to be believed, Lana had lived, and died, on her own terms. Just as Meg herself intended to do; better late than never.
She thought about Penny and about Lana’s girls, so dedicated to Lana. What would happen to all of them now? They were left to make do with so little, while she, Meg, had far more than anyone needed. She went to the phone.
“Hi, Penny? It’s Meg Hamilton.”
“Oh, hey there! I didn’t expect to hear from you again.” Ever, Meg thought. Penny said, “Maybe you saw the paper?”
“I did. I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“Oh, thanks, hon. She died real peaceful-like. Lungs just up and quit, you know?”
Meg knew.
“How are the girls?” she asked.
“Nicole is right depressed just now, but that’ll pass. Colleen wrote a poem, read it at the funeral. Should I get her to say it for you?”
“No—” She didn’t think she could bear that just now. “No, but I was wondering, are you keeping the girls, or—?”
Penny sighed. “I am. It’s crazy, ain’t it? How I think I’m gonna manage them and hold a job and get Lee back I purely don’t know. God willing, it’ll all work out.”
God willing. “I’d like to help out a little, if you’ll let me.”
“You?” Lana said, surprised. “Hon, that’s real kind of you, but you got a heavy load of your own. You need to just take care of you.”
“I can’t drive anymore. My arm—well, you know. So I’m going to sign over my car to you. There’s room for all the girls.”
“Now, Meg—”
“Please, let me do this for them, and for you. It…it’ll ease my mind.”
“Well, thank you, then. Heavens. Far be it from me to refuse a gift,” Penny said. “Now tell me, hon, how can I help you?”
“You already did.”
BRIAN LEFT WORK EARLY AND WAS HOME TO SEE MEG BEFORE SHE LEFT for Carson’s.
“I could drive you,” he said.
“No, but thanks.” This—waiting for a cab there in the foyer, with her packed bag sitting by the door—this was already awkward enough.
Brian sat on the settee next to her. “You think I hate you, but I don’t.”
“I don’t think that. You have a right to be…unhappy about all this. That makes perfect sense. I wish, well, I wish things had turned out better for you.”
He bowed his head. “Me?” he laughed ruefully. “Me, I’ll manage. It’s you who deserves a wish.”
“I’m getting it,” she said. She knew he had been referring to her disease, but she was trying to tell him how much joy there was in having just spent such wonderful time with Savannah. She was saying how glad she was that he could offer to drive her to Carson’s. She was getting so much of what she wanted, and she was grateful—that was what she wanted him to see.
“So…” he said, “you’ll let me know when to expect you home?”
She
nodded.
“It’ll be quiet around here this week…again.”
“You won’t notice; you’ll be gone most of the time.”
“I’ll notice.”
A horn sounded outside. Meg grabbed her cane and pushed herself up. “If you’ll take my bag, that would be great.”
He did, helping her outside and down the front steps as well.
They stood at the door of the cab. She leaned toward him and kissed him, pressing her lips to his cheek with fondness and regret. If she had only loved him better. If he had only loved someone else.
Sixty-one
“WELCOME BACK,” CARSON TOLD MEG, NERVOUS AS HE HELD OPEN THE door of the shed. She didn’t go in right away but stood on the step looking into the main room, leaning on her cane. The cane was new since Hawaii. He could tell she hated it, but without it she was too unsteady to walk more than a few steps, and that was worse.
“It looks just the same,” she said. “If only I did too.”
“You look even better,” he said truthfully. Except for the cane and sling—things that looked like aids for recovering from an injury, say—she appeared fine. He could hardly believe she was dying; such a thing made no sense. He said, “You’re more beautiful than ever, in fact.”
She held up the cane. “It must be my accessories.”
“Here,” he said, scooping her up. “Let’s do this right.”
He carried her inside, just as he’d once imagined doing after their wedding. If only they had long years of togetherness awaiting them—but who ever really knew whether that’s what they would get? He read in yesterday’s paper a sad story of a newly wed soldier struck and killed by a truck while crossing Route A1A in Pompano Beach. If anything, the bride would’ve been worrying over the soldier’s upcoming assignment to Iraq, not his jog across the road to a convenience store for grapefruit juice. Like Meg had said, life gave no guarantees.
He set her down in the kitchen. “I took the liberty of anticipating your every desire,” he said, opening the fridge. It was filled with all the things he remembered she liked—orange soda, pineapple juice, chocolate milk, Hostess Ho Hos—and whatever else he’d seen at the store that he thought might appeal. Wine, beer, soda, key lime pie, deli meats and salads; the idea was that they wouldn’t need to leave the place at all the entire week.
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