by Ka Hancock
He swallowed. “I’m afraid you’re being a little naive, Lucy.”
“I guess that’s possible,” I said, bristling.
“I didn’t mean to imply—”
“It’s okay. I’m young and you’re probably right—where you’re concerned, I might be naive. But here’s breaking news: you might be, too. I don’t have any answers, and as much as you think you do, you don’t either. I don’t know if I want to be with you, Mickey, but I think it’s okay to find out. So . . . I guess you just need to decide if this thing is worth exploring.” I put my key in the lock. “If you decide it is, meet me on my roof tomorrow night. You bring your answer. I’ll bring the sunset.” I opened the door and walked into my apartment, and when I turned to face him, there was such anguish in his eyes that I didn’t know what else to say. “Think about it, Mickey.”
When I shut the door, my heart was pounding and I just knew I was not going to see him again. I got my one fabulous date, and because of it, the girl in me wanted to open the door and run after him. But another part of me, seasoned well beyond my age, still knew Mickey was a damaged man, a frightened man. But as true as that was, I could not deny our connection. I may have been young, but I’d felt old since the day my mother got sick. Mickey was older, but he was filled with such vulnerability. I leaned against the door completely frustrated because none of it mattered. None of it mattered because I was not going to see him again.
The next day I went through the motions of what I was supposed to be doing, every minute focused on the time. This day had to end so I could get on with my life. Until it was over, there was possibility. Tomorrow that possibility would be dead. I’d call Lily, and we’d have lunch. I’d tell her all about the wonderful date she’d had a hand in, then I would rehash all the details of how it ended and let go of each one as I described them to her. But I had to get to tomorrow first.
Finally, at twenty after seven, in shorts and barefoot, I went up to the flat roof of my apartment building. It boasted incredible views of Boston and Cambridge across the river. A big equipment shed was in the center, and chimney pipes protruded all over the place. A table and a spattering of lawn chairs were bolted down in the best corner, but I wandered to the opposite edge and sat down.
I was alone for the time being, but that could soon change because the roof was a popular place at sunset. I sat down and let my legs dangle over the edge as I watched night drain the blue from the sky. A couple of times I thought I heard the metal door open behind me, but with so much city noise I couldn’t be sure. I just knew Mickey never showed up. Finally, when I realized it had to be past nine, I gave up and said hello to tomorrow. This was probably for the best. I got to my feet and walked across the roof.
I was just about to the door when I saw someone sitting at the table. He stood up and for a minute I wasn’t sure it was him. But as he walked toward me, the moon came out from behind a cloud and dispelled any doubt. His eyes bored into mine, and in three long strides he was in front of me. His face held his every hope and fear, urgent and unsaid, but completely evident. For a moment we just looked at each other.
Then Mickey pulled me roughly to him, found my mouth, and kissed me like he’d invented the concept.
six
JUNE 8, 2011
Today my friend Nathan Nash will bury his wife. I don’t know how he hasn’t imploded. I know hell, but the prospect of losing my wife was unparalleled torment. Reality, I’ve learned, is much crueler than insanity. Insanity can be medicated, subdued, sedated. Watching Lucy dissolve, be ravaged from the inside out, was a wall I couldn’t push through. I could do absolutely nothing but hold her and breathe. Just breathe, as her beautiful hair fell out in my hands. Just breathe, as she lay in my lap whimpering, the poison intended to save her burning a path through her. All I could do was watch and breathe until cancer gave up and let go of her. But it did let go of her, a siren prayer was heard, a miracle granted. Lucy got better. And then I got worse. My relief turned to mania, then delirium. Insane irony. I’d just held on so tightly to my anxious hope that when it was no longer required, it seemed I had no outlet. The timing was unforgivable. My wife recovered slowly without me on an oncology ward while I recovered slowly without her, miles away at the state hospital. We were almost strangers by the time it was over, altered, weak with gratitude, tentative in our trust of life and second chances. I think we held each other for a solid week.
I woke with a start, realizing I’d fallen asleep with the framed contract pressed to my chest like the portrait of a lost lover. As I lay there, I realized I had spent most of the night recalling our history and imagining our future, and now I absolutely understood what Mickey meant by not being able to shut down his brain.
This morning, I couldn’t seem to stop thinking of us as parents, myself as a mother. I saw me chasing a naked, slippery little girl down the hall after she’d escaped the bath. I saw me pushing her in a grocery cart down the aisle at Mosely’s Market, little legs swinging from the child seat, one red sneaker untied. I saw myself trying not to laugh when she cut her own bangs. I saw Mickey reading to her in the big window seat in her room. Our daughter, in Cinderella footee pajamas, snuggled in the crook of her father’s elbow, both of them hunkered behind a big picture book.
I was simply not prepared for this.
I’d put away the idea of being a mother years ago out of sheer necessity. By the time Mickey and I made it official, and I finally went in for my tubal ligation, I had pretty much accepted my life and buried any self-pity so deep it eventually stayed there. I settled for being a surrogate mother five days a week at the high school and put away what was never meant to be. I never once imagined a determined little swimmer would get through the knot.
But every time I thought of this baby—this baby that was never supposed to be—she grew more and more real. Today my entire life looked different.
The phone at my bedside rang and I knew it was Mickey. I picked it up and groggily said, “Hi, are you mad?”
“Yeah. You didn’t call.”
“I know. I’m so sorry.” I yawned, then coughed. “I think I’m getting a cold. I just came home and went to bed.”
“Call Charlotte.”
“It’s nothing,” I said, getting to my feet. “But I’ll see her today at the memorial and I’ll mention it. So what are you doing this morning?”
“Lucy, what’s wrong? I hear something in your voice. Tell me.”
“Mickey,” I said, surprised as always that he read me so well. “I think it’s just Celia,” I lied. “She’s been on my mind, you know. I wish you could be with me today. That’s all.”
“I’m sorry, baby. I’d be there if I could, you know I would.”
“I know. . . . But, hey, Friday is just three days away.”
“And Lily and Ron are with you today, right?”
“Yes, they’ll be there.”
“And, Lu, I’ll be thinking of you the whole time I’m making my papier-mâché birdhouse in crafts group.”
Despite myself, I had to laugh.
He did, too, his big, booming, wonderfully normal laugh. “I know I’m better when everything here starts to feel like material.”
“You’re so much better. And you’re coming home. We’re going to have such a great weekend.” We have so much to talk about.
I showered, blew my hair dry, and put on my only black dress, a loose, flowing shift with elbow-length sleeves. As I stood in front of the mirror, I was thinking I looked pretty good in black. It complemented my auburn hair, fair skin, and green eyes. Of the three of us Houston daughters, I looked the most like my dad. Though I only knew him for a little over five years, I always imagine that, had he lived, we’d be close. I know I’ve idealized a father where none has been, but, oh, how I would love to talk to that man today. How I’d love to be the same kind of parent I remember him being, answer the hard questions in the same magical way that has stayed with me all these years.
Then I did a dumb thing. I do
n’t know what I was thinking, but I wadded up a pillow from the bed and stuffed it under my dress. There I stood, maybe a tad disproportionate—maybe about fifteen months pregnant. Even so, as I looked at myself in the mirror, I took my own breath away. It would be okay, wouldn’t it? I knew we hadn’t planned for this; we’d done what we could to prevent it. But here it was. It would be okay. I’d be so careful. I’d see Charlotte every month, so that if anything in my chemistry changed, we’d be right on it.
And who knew? Maybe a baby would snap Mickey out of his bipolarity. Anything was possible, right? And Mickey almost always rose to the occasion. Mickey, my wonderful Mickey, was the same man he’d always been. But that didn’t necessarily mean he couldn’t be a great father, did it?
I rubbed my manufactured belly until I heard the train whistle, which in Brinley was more reliable than the kitchen clock. It was 10:30. With a final look at my pregnant self, I tugged the pillow out from under my dress and dragged myself back to reality. What had Charlotte told me to do? Just be. Just be pregnant. I ran a brush once more through my hair and leaned into my reflection. Somehow it would be okay, wouldn’t it?
I was just shutting the front door when Ron and Lily pulled up in front of my house.
Ron waved.
“You lazy suburbans,” I shouted. “You live just around the corner.”
Ron shrugged as Lily hopped from her side of the car. “Ron’s going to meet us there,” she said. “I need to borrow some shoes.” My sister was wearing a white blouse and a black skirt and was indeed barefoot. “Can I borrow those pointy, red mules?”
“They’re hard to walk in.”
“No, they’re not. I’ve worn them before.”
We went back upstairs and I waited on my unmade bed for Lily to rummage through my closet. She came out wearing not only my shoes, but my favorite necklace and some earrings she’d given me for Christmas. She picked up the framed contract that I’d slept with and looked at me. “Which rule were you thinking of breaking, Lucy?”
I wondered when I should tell Lily about me—or, if I should tell her. Of course I had to tell my sister—we’re so close I was surprised she didn’t already know—but of course I couldn’t. Not until I’d told Mickey. So even though I was bursting to tell her, I just looked up at her and shrugged.
River’s Peace Cemetery sits on the border between Brinley and Ivory-ton, less than a mile from my house. It was a beautiful day so Lily and I walked. We passed the grand old English Tudor that was Withers’ Funeral Home and spotted Lainy Withers just pulling onto the street. She rolled down her window and offered us a ride.
“We’re going to walk, Lainy,” Lily said, clearly trying to prove a point about the shoes. “But thanks.”
“Dr. Barbee says I should be walking, too,” Lainy shouted. “But I just don’t want to.”
We laughed as she drove away. Earl Withers and his son, Chad, were probably already at the cemetery, having been put in charge of the graveside service. The Witherses handled most of the funeral preparations in our township. They had taken care of both of my parents.
At the cemetery, cars lined both sides of the narrow lane leading to Celia’s gravesite, where an accumulation of well-wishers surrounded Nathan Nash. Celia and Nathan had grown up in the area and married and raised their family here until last year, when they moved to Arizona. They were beloved in our small community, and no one expected to see them back so soon. Especially under these circumstances. Celia Nash had been vibrant and successful in her own right. She’d put Brinley on the map as a bestselling author of children’s books.
I spotted Muriel Piper getting out of her Cadillac. She looked like the definition of ancient sophistication in her ivory linen suit and tasteful jewels. She was with funny Oscar Levine, her beau of the last quarter century. Oscar was also dressed to the nines with his signature ascot, and when they saw us, they waved.
“How goes the flower planting?” I asked when we got closer.
Muriel laughed. “My knees can’t take it. I’ve hired the Story twins to finish for me.”
I shook my head as she eyed me critically. “Lucy, this dress is lovely on you. It’s a rare woman who looks good in black, but you pull it off swimmingly. And you,” she said, turning to Lily. “Just fabulous. I love the shoes!”
“Why, thank you, Muriel,” Lily said, jabbing me with her elbow.
We followed them up the path, where we found Ron and Nathan talking to Earl Withers near the makeshift podium. Celia’s husband looked subdued and a bit overwhelmed, standing a few yards away from a brass urn that held the remains of his wife. When I hugged him, he trembled against my neck.
“Thanks for coming, Lucy.”
“Wouldn’t have missed it,” I murmured lamely.
“Is Mic with you?”
“No, I’m sorry. He’s still at Edgemont.”
“Oh, I did hear that,” Nathan said. “Let’s get together when he’s feeling better.”
I kissed his cheek. “It’s a date.”
Standing just past Nathan with a large basket of African daisies were George and Trilby Thompson. Whenever someone in the township died, gruff old George always ordered in the most beautiful annuals and made sure everyone got one as a memento. They’d been doing it for years. I hugged Trilby. “I heard you broke your foot, how are you doing?”
“Oh, it was just a sprain, but that’ll teach me to dance around in a room full of clutter.”
“Here ya go, Lucy,” George said, handing me a flower. I took it and kissed his cheek.
As I turned away, my neighbor Wanda Murphy pulled me into her chest, which was as cushy as a down pillow. “I heard your Mickey was doing better.”
I thought of my husband working over his papier-mâché bird-house. “Yeah, we got through another one, Wandy.”
“Yes, you did, sweetheart.”
I squeezed her hand as Lily tugged me toward Jan, whom she’d just spotted. Jan Bates looked elegant in her black suit and white-spiked hair. She patted our faces, and I could see she’d been crying. Lily and I wrapped our arms around her.
“I’m such a mess,” she said. “I knew she was gone, but this makes it so . . .”
“Oh, Jan, of course this would be tough on you,” Lily said to her mother-in-law.
I nodded, unable to add anything. Jan had illustrated all of Celia’s books, and the two of them had been good friends.
Jan pulled us both closer. “And I can never come here and not think of your parents.”
I’d thought this same thing as Lily and I passed our parents’ markers and instinctively reached for each other.
Over Jan’s shoulder, I saw Jessica Nash standing all alone. Celia’s daughter had her mother’s strawberry blond hair and her wide-set eyes, which were now swollen with sadness. I excused myself from Jan and Lily and walked over and put my arm around her.
“Oh, kiddo,” I said. “There’s just nothing in the world meaner than losing your mom. I bet you miss her every day.”
She nodded. When I was pretty sure I wouldn’t cry, I said, “I was just a little older than you when mine died.”
“Did it happen all of a sudden, Lucy, like my mom?”
“No. She got sick and it took her a long time to die.”
Jessica swallowed her emotion. “Which do you think is worse?”
“I think they’re both terrible and we should both still have our moms.”
We shared some tears until Jess’s grandmother motioned her to a seat near the graveside. I walked back over to Lily, a little lost in my own hurt, remembering things about my mother’s death I hadn’t thought of for a while. The train waking me up when I’d fallen asleep in the chair next to her bed. Her sunken eyes steady and unafraid as she asked me if I was ready. Her warm, warm hands.
I slipped my hand in Lily’s and let the soft hum of our small community temper my old sadness, even as we gathered to say good-bye to another of our own. It was soothing, and I remembered how it had wrapped me in peace when I’d
been here burying my own family. I’d been a little girl and curiously detached at my father’s summertime funeral. I was a teenager and much more emotional when we all gathered here for Mom. But I remember every detail of both days and the strength I drew from these same people.
“Oh, she made it,” Lily said, jolting me back. I followed her gaze to a familiar BMW parking at the bottom of the hill. A moment later, our sister’s long legs preceded her out of the car. Priscilla wore a formfitting black suit and ridiculously high heels, so she was careful on the gravel path. Once she reached level pavement, she waved at us and walked over to Nathan, who was, I could see, touched that she was there. He hugged Priss, and his big shoulders shook as he buried his chin in her loose blond hair. They’d all gone to school together. Nathan, Priss, and Celia had been great friends. Priss said something in his ear and hugged him again, then walked over to us, fingering away tears beneath her dark glasses. Lily and I each took a hand and Priss kissed us both, then whispered to me, “You didn’t call me back.”
“Sorry,” I said, grateful that Nathan had started to address the gathering.
He was tender in his remarks as he recounted what had happened to his wife, and how painful it had been to be so far from loved ones when it happened.
“Without her,” he said, “anywhere is too lonely, but she’s part of Brinley Township, and this is where she would want us to be.” He shrugged. “We’ll all be okay because of you, our dear friends. Thank you. Thank you for everything.”
The memorial service was beautiful but utterly devoid of the spirit I’d felt when my parents died. We hadn’t been religious per se, but the minister was unequivocal in his assertion that there was a God and that He was in charge. Just hearing that had somehow softened the loss, at least for me. That, and my dad’s promises.