16. Becks A Happier Life
MONDAY, JULY 12, 1976
Tip: Food is not a trend. When planning a menu, ask yourself: Will people still eat this in ten years? Did people eat this ten years ago? If the answer is no, for heaven’s sake, do not serve it. I know that I sometimes bend to your father’s will on these matters. But, do as I say, not as I do always applies. Trends come and go; the simplicity of timeless meals with the ones you love is forever.
Telling Townsend’s parents about the engagement had not gone well. There had been a lot of dramatic crying and “Where did I go wrong?” on his mother’s part, a lot of silence from his father, and plenty of “You’d better hope I’m still around to pray you out of purgatory” from his youngest sister, who was fourteen. To his family’s credit, though, they never once mentioned disowning Townsend or not being a part of their lives. (They did, however, give Becks—whom they had not even known existed until this announcement—the third degree about how they would raise their children.) Becks was glad that Townsend’s family at least heard them out, although she privately thought he could have done a slightly better job of easing them in by at least mentioning that he was dating someone first. Men.
While the Saint Jameses had begrudgingly consented to their so-called mixed marriage (it made her feel like they were part of a pie, wet and dry ingredients poured in the same bowl to disastrous results!), Becks had not confirmed she would raise her children Catholic and knew that was highly unlikely. Although she wasn’t terribly keen on Methodists at the moment, either. She wondered if she could see herself stepping foot in any church after all this.
Townsend took her hand as they drove away. “Well, my darling, that went better than I thought it might.”
Incongruously, she burst out laughing as if she were an overfilled balloon that could no longer take the pressure and had finally popped. Townsend laughed too. “One down, one to go.”
He squeezed her hand as they pulled into her parents’ driveway. Becks felt ill. She shook her head. “I don’t think I can do this, Townsend. Twice in one day?”
“I know. But once we get this over with, we can go on about the business of being happy. Not telling your parents doesn’t change the truth of the matter at hand, and the truth is that we are getting married.”
“Well, I can’t argue with that, now can I?”
Becks knew her parents would be home. Wednesdays were for church, Thursdays for bridge, but Tuesday was for family.
When she walked through the front door, calling, “Mother, Daddy,” her father saw them first. The look he gave her caused her to drop Townsend’s hand. “What are you doing here?” he asked Townsend, glaring daggers at him.
“Well, sir—” Townsend started, but Reverend Bonner cut him off.
“Did I not make myself clear in my office?”
Townsend looked at Becks, who was very grateful that her mother bustled in, perfect in her heels and pearls as always. “Now, dear,” she murmured, “that’s no way to greet company—or your daughter.”
“That boy is not company,” he seethed, which Becks found rather funny, since Townsend was twenty-nine years old and very much not a boy.
“Children break up, darling,” her mother soothed. “And they come to their senses.”
Becks didn’t know what came over her, but she blurted out, “We’re here to say that we’re getting married and there’s nothing you can say to stop us!”
Her father’s face got very red, and he coughed.
“Oh, my good Lord,” her mother said as she examined her daughter’s left hand, noticing the ring for the first time. “How will you manage to hold up your arm?” She paused. “You’re a grown woman, Rebecca, and Townsend is a gainfully employed physician. Why would we try to stop your marriage?”
That’s when Becks realized her father had been true to his word: He had not told her mother the truth about Townsend.
“Because he is a…” Reverend Bonner pointed at Townsend and managed to exhale “Catholic” before he fell to the floor, clutching his left arm.
“Call emergency services,” Townsend ordered to Becks as her mother screamed. He immediately started chest compressions. Even as he found his rhythm and performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, Becks could tell by Townsend’s stricken expression that he knew Reverend Bonner wouldn’t pull through. Still, Townsend was the one who rode in the back of the ambulance, who underwent the task of admitting him even though he would later tell Becks he knew it was useless.
After Becks and her mother arrived at the hospital, Townsend sat with Becks all night in the waiting room while her mother sat vigil at her father’s bedside. They prayed for a miracle. To the same God, as it were. When Becks’s mother called with the worst news of her life, she was no longer hysterical; she was eerily, hatefully calm. “I hope you’re happy,” she hissed at her daughter. “You killed your father.”
Becks dropped the phone and burst into tears. All Townsend could do was hold her.
Forty-one years later, it was still the worst moment of her life, even worse than finding out she was dying herself. Your own demise was nothing compared to the cruel knowledge that you had caused someone else’s.
Becks hadn’t been welcome at her father’s funeral.
Now, all these years later, she wondered what that funeral was like as she sat in a sliver of sun on the front porch, writing out her wishes for her own funeral in her notebook. She had been trying to hide how wretched she was starting to feel as best she could, napping when Townsend was out on the boat, begging off their flights or lunches and blaming her newly busy schedule on bridge or book club or Old Homes Tour preparations whenever she had a doctor’s appointment. Daniel had been a lifesaver, keeping her pain in check by delivering these lovely little shots of a drug called Numorphan. She had read articles about how people got terribly addicted to it, that many addicts preferred it to heroin. But, as Daniel argued, “Becks, I wouldn’t really worry about rehab in your future.” So she didn’t. She instead felt grateful that, for days at a time, she could ignore the fact that everything in her body hurt.
There was, however, still the issue of telling Townsend, which Daniel hounded her about daily. She could feel death tiptoeing in, creeping around the edges of her life. There were plans to be made, nurses to be hired, hospice to be arranged. A funeral to be planned. Becks wasn’t the kind of woman to leave any of that to chance, so she would handle it. She would handle it all. Which is why she was making lists of all that needed to be done when she was gone. But, for now, finding the entire exercise far too macabre, she decided to focus on the guest list for her last dinner party of the summer. This would be the last summer supper she would ever throw, so she wanted to take the extra time to make sure it was perfect.
Her children would be there, Virginia and Lon, with their significant others. She had met Lon’s girlfriend once, briefly, and she was just dying to meet this Robert fellow. Townsend was too. Virginia seemed truly happy with him, and there was nothing that made Becks happier than imagining that her daughter would be well taken care of.
She would invite that darling Violet who had just moved to town because, on the off chance Virginia ended up moving here, she knew Violet would invite her into the fold, introduce her to everyone. Daniel and Patricia would be there too, of course.
She glanced at the checklist that always guided her:
Place cards
Flowers(from her own yard, arranged by her own hand. Oh, she did adore summer!)
Welcome champagne
Full ice bucket
Ice tongs polished
Linens ironed
And on it went, a seemingly endless list of details that a good southern hostess like Becks knew by heart. It wasn’t unlike the checklist she undertook before flying. Altimeter—set. Flight controls—free and correct. Fuel gauges—checked. Instruments and radios—checked. Propeller—exercised. In the plane or in her home, Becks could identify at practically a glance whether she was prepared. Even still, you had to work the checklist.
It occurred to her that this cancer was something she didn’t see coming, couldn’t have prepared for even with a checklist. A woman who was always prepared had met her match, and it felt like a cruel joke.
The sound of one of those insistently loud—and way too fast to be safe—Oldsmobiles rumbling down the street gave Becks pause. She was shocked when it turned into the driveway of the house next door, which was almost always empty. Her neighbors had sold it to a man who made it a rental—of all the dastardly things to happen to a proud and elegant street like this, where houses were passed down through family lines.
She watched through a gap in the bushes as a man got out, stretched, and retrieved a small bag from the front seat. He used a key to open the front door of the house. Becks sighed. Well, it was starting. Here he was, a renter. She didn’t love the idea of a single man living next to her, especially one with a noisy car. No family. Becks went back to her notebook, but, moments later, had the uncomfortable feeling of being watched. She looked around and gasped when her eyes caught the man, in an upstairs window, staring at her. He didn’t wave but also didn’t look away, his gaze on her firm. A shiver ran down her spine. She looked away, uncomfortable, and, when she looked up again, he was gone.
The door opened, causing her to jump, and Townsend walked out onto the porch and kissed his wife, who sat up straighter. She closed her notebook and slowed her breath. She was so on edge these days.
“What are you doing, my love?” he asked.
“Just making a list for the last dinner party of the summer.” She smiled brightly. “I thought it might be fun to have the kids.”
“Now, that would be fun!” he said.
“Who knew grown-up children would be such a joy?”
“I know,” Townsend said, bringing his coffee to his lips. “We should have had grown-up children first.” He paused. “Can you imagine how fun it’s going to be to have grandchildren?”
Tears, unbidden, sprang up in Becks’s eyes, and she looked out over the water so Townsend couldn’t see them. She couldn’t imagine grandchildren, actually, and that was just as well. Because what use was it to dream of something she wouldn’t live to see?
“Speaking of our future grandchildren… Since Virginia and Robert will be here I thought I might invite Violet so she can meet them.”
“Robert?” Townsend questioned.
Becks looked at him incredulously. “Robert? Your daughter’s boyfriend whom we are dying to meet?”
Townsend laughed. “You know I always want to forget Virginia’s boyfriends,” he said, covering his gaffe.
Becks had been so preoccupied with her own health lately that she perhaps hadn’t been as attentive to Townsend’s as she should have been. He was very forgetful lately. That was normal at seventy, wasn’t it? But what scared her was, when they got in their plane to fly last week, he turned to her, his face stricken, when it came time for his flight checklist. She could tell he couldn’t remember what to do. As soon as she started the list for him, he rattled the rest of it right off. So maybe it was nothing. But if it was something… She opened her notebook and scribbled, Get Townsend appointment with Daniel. Either way, she needed to make sure he was taken care of when she was gone.
“Who should our last couple be?” she asked. She tapped her pencil to her chin. “How about Ellen and Milton?”
“That would be fine,” Townsend said.
Ellen and Milton were their closest friends besides Daniel and Patricia. Plus, she was calling on Ellen quite a bit outside of book club to help her organize this Old Homes Tour—which, she was learning, was quite a bit more work than she had perhaps originally imagined. At least it meant that some of her excuses to Townsend were legitimate ones.
Townsend looked at her lovingly. “May I request Chef Evelyn’s cheeseball for an appetizer?”
“You may request whatever you like,” she said, making a note. “We won’t be having a trendy cheeseball at my last dinner of the summer, but you are free to ask.”
Townsend laughed. “All right then. It is your birthday, after all. Whatever you like is what shall be.”
“Ten-layer chocolate caramel cake?” she questioned. She knew she wouldn’t live to see another year after this one so, at this party, she’d have her last slice of birthday cake to celebrate for the last time.
“Pulling out the big guns,” Townsend chuckled. “Could we have that salmon loaf I love so much?”
Becks wrinkled her nose, and he laughed. “Townsend!”
“So no Watergate salad?”
Becks smiled warmly at her husband. He was still so handsome, even after all these years, and he had such a strength about him. He was in excellent shape from fishing every day the weather allowed—and some the weather didn’t—hunting, and his daily walks around town. When they first married, she spent so much time worrying when he was off on his adventures. What if he was caught in a storm? Or by a stray bullet? Or by a rogue wave? She wished she could take the worry back now, give herself the gift of unencumbered happiness.
Townsend had a tanned and ruddy complexion that made him look younger than he was—younger than she, she suspected, since she was having trouble keeping her weight up now. The rapid weight loss was making her face more wrinkled and saggy, no matter how much Oil of Olay she applied. Yes, aging was a tricky animal. But she’d never really reach the true ravages of it. And she was, she had to admit, a little bit okay with that.
Becks, if she was honest with herself, had never really wanted to grow old. Yes, it broke her heart that she would never see her children marry or have children of their own, that she wouldn’t be the one to sit by Townsend’s side as he took his last breath. But she also didn’t want to have to slow down, use a walker, lose control of things one should never lose control of. She didn’t want dimming eyesight or damaged hearing or a befuddled mind. And, in the vainest way, she didn’t want to look old. So if someone was going to have to die before their time, it was okay that it was her. She could handle it.
“Watergate salad,” she said in response to Townsend’s question, “is an aberration. Jell-O pudding, whipped cream, and marshmallows do not a salad make.”
“Yes, but when you add the walnuts and cherries and pineapple, it becomes a veritable health food.”
Becks laughed and relented. She wasn’t going to deny her husband the wishes of his heart—or stomach. “We will have Watergate salad this week,” she sighed. “But not for the last dinner party of the summer.”
“Hooray!”
She made a few more scribbles in her book. They would do fondue with the younger group this week, too. It was always nice to have something to do with one’s hands, especially for those less trained in the art of conversation.
Townsend sat beside Becks. He kissed her and, as he pulled away, studied her face, frowning slightly. Self-conscious, she tried to look away. “Becks, is it my imagination, or do your eyes look a little bit… yellow?”
Jaundice was a symptom of pancreatic cancer, one of the only visible ones. She had tried to hide it, but how does one hide yellowing eyes?
She waved him away. “It’s probably just the sun.”
He studied her again. “Are you sure? Because you look jaundiced to me. Maybe we should call Daniel. Or I could take you in myself and do an examination?”
She smiled at him brightly. “Darling, you worry too much.”
He kissed her again. “All right, then. But keep your eye on it, and let me know if you change your mind. I’m off to conquer the seas.”
She held up her book. “I’ll be right here conquering home economics.”
They both laughed. Townsend got up and then turned back to her. “A flight before dinner?”
“A flight before dinner,” she agreed, already imagining the quiet of just the two of them, up in the air, a world away.
“Becks?”
“Yes?”
“It has been worth it, right?”
“What has been worth it, my love?”
“Our life together. Was it worth the pain it caused you, the separation from your mother? Because I’ve been doing some thinking after your visit. I worry sometimes that—”
“Shhhh,” Becks said, standing up and walking to Townsend. “I could not possibly have had a happier life.”
He nodded. “Me neither.”
She thought he seemed choked up, but he recovered quickly. Townsend kissed Becks then, wrapping his arms around her, their bodies radiating in a perfect sliver of sunlight. If anyone had walked by, they would have believed them to be much younger, lost in each other’s embrace, savoring the feel of each other like they always had.
In that moment they were ageless, weightless, timeless. And that’s, Becks thought, what true love can do.