Chapter 56
Chapter Fifty-Six
HAPPILY EVER AFTER
Bancroft
He walks to the front, his shoulders look heavy, but he straightens them, he knows the weight of what he’s about to do. I’ve never been a front row kind of girl, but I wasn’t given a choice this time. I turn back in my seat and look at all the people here, and I’m reminded why I hate the front row. Everyone can see me, and I am the one they are staring at.
It starts with an inhale, like he is about to dive into the deep-end and needs a single breath to carry him all the way. Maybe he does.
“There haven’t been many times in my life that I’ve been right when the person on the other side was my wife and I’ve been okay with that, reveled in it even. You see, I made a deal a long time ago that I wouldn’t need to be, because there was only one thing I needed to be right about, and it would be worth everything, nothing else would matter. And it was.”
The thought looks like it makes him want to smile, but his heart won’t allow it. My heart won’t allow it.
“When this happened, when it began , she sat me down and said, ‘we have to talk’ I thought she was going to tell me it was over. It was far-fetched, but it was all I could imagine that would merit that level of severity in her voice. Because losing her felt more possible than losing her. She looked at my face, one that undoubtedly was washed with fear and was gearing up for a fight, and she said ‘You can calm down, Will, no one is dead… at least not yet. ’”
There are a few huffs in the crowd, what might under different circumstances form laughter, but not here, not now.
“And then, when I told her I wouldn’t let it happen. She said she believed me like she had for so many things, for so many years, ‘but we should probably have a backup plan just in case’ and this time, I hate that she was right. This… was her backup plan. Her backup backup plan. Because her original plan was some version of an iron-man suit, but Robert Downey Jr. didn’t have a working one.” He rubs his hands over his face and fills his lungs with air as he dives deeper into the sea that is my mother.
“She was funny. Funnier in private in a way that wasn’t curated for anyone but her own brain, and it made her laugh. And that made me laugh… I was right years ago, when I said she loved me. What I didn’t know at the time… is what that would mean for our lives.” The way he talks about her it’s like he's sharing the deepest secret to exist.
“She loved me, more fiercely than I had any right to be loved by her.” He forces a swallow that looks painful. “Arden and I, we were neighbors, sort of, it’s one of the ways we met. And when people would ask ‘how did you meet?’ we could change the answer, because there had been so many times our lives had crossed paths slowly knotting us together. But for a time she was right there, and the universe mocked us for how much time we wasted being so near. One of the first times I saw her, really saw her, she didn’t even notice me. It was one morning getting a cup of tea from a shop on the corner, and there she was, before the world woke up. It looked like something she did regularly. I was out for a run, before the sun had fully risen, trying to clear my mind. And she did. As soon as I saw her. My mind went completely blank. I went to say something, to introduce myself, maybe it was the fact she was hurrying out the door or what I later found out was ‘the worst day ever’...” he recalls it so easily.
“Huh,” he laughs to himself and shakes his head softly. You can tell his eyes have unfocused and he’s looking at a memory, not this crowd of people. “I think this one has yours beat, darling.” He presses his lips together with a sad smile meant for her. He takes a breath, and another. “Love at first sight can mean a lot of things. But the undeniable way she was someone I wanted to know, changed my life. And falling in love with her was something I never deserved to do. That we existed in the same time, however the universe had destined, is enough. Being in her orbit in any way, is… was, enough.”
There’s a reverence and discomfort in the adjustment he made, one that makes me sick to my stomach, but he continues painting this picture that so few here would have been lucky enough to have seen.
“Then one day she walked through the doors of my life, one that I had been subconsciously holding open just for her. That despite the fact we had classes, coffees, friends, we spent years sharing without knowing. When the time came, I never knew she was on the other side of the street. Like the universe was mocking us…”
I spent my life hearing their love story, but growing up as their daughter meant I also lived it. Watching him share it now, like some great unveiling to the world, has everyone in silence. They are all just sitting in awe in all shades of black. But I have to look away from him, my dad who is trying so desperately to not fall apart, and I look around me to so many people I’ve never seen, doing exactly that.
“What happened next, I don’t know how to explain it. I’ve never tried to anyone but myself… But I think people confuse love and death. Standing here now, I know it. I died then. The most welcome death. There was no version of a life to exist without her.”
I watch the audience lean forward, caught in the gravity of their love story, but all I can see is my father trying to piece together a universe that no longer has its center.
“We became knotted together like wild vines seeking sunlight, our paths intertwined long before we were willing to acknowledge them. We had been weaving our threads into an intricate tapestry of a life we would one day have without ever knowing. Golden strings of fate pulling taut across time and space, creating a pattern so complex and beautiful that even destiny must have held her breath in anticipation. And when we finally gave in to that, it was a sense of déjà vu. The feeling of coming home to a place you've never been, but somehow always knew.
“And now, even without her here, all that’s left is love. Even in the physical absence of her, that love is left. If you don’t believe me as blindly as she would, it’s all,” he lets the tears fall without any reservation, “that love is all right here.”
He nods in my direction.
“I’m not going to stand here and talk about her accomplishments, she would just laugh it off. The big things she did, in school, at work, she was impressive, but more than that, she was captivating. She could make anyone feel seen. She adapted to what people needed, and it was marvelous to watch. How she could wrap anyone in kindness. She raised the bar for everyone in her life, never making them feel bad if they couldn’t reach it, she just gave them a boost.”
“So let me tell you about my wife…” His hands are wrapped around the podium in a way you’d think his years of teaching would have prepared him for, but it's clearly for stability above all else now.
“She loved a birthday. As long as it wasn’t hers.
“She kept a list of words that she adored, because she learned them, because the definitions surprised her, because she just liked the way they sounded.
“There are few things she couldn’t do, except keep a basil plant alive.
“Books were her best friends, but she was mine.
“She filled my life, she gave life, she made life worth living.
“She had a face that could launch a thousand ships and a mind that could sink them.
“Even on the days it took a little longer to climb high in the sky, on the nights it slept earlier, the sun would rise and set with her.
“When we got married, we were young, we didn’t know what we were doing, but we knew we needed to do it together. We were on the same team.”
My father isn’t known for meticulous preparation of things, and so far it’s clear to anyone listening he is pouring himself out at our feet. And I know she’d like that. Which is why his unfolding and straightening of papers against the podium feels out of character.
“I told you, she had a plan b. I’ve been given explicit instructions to read this exactly as she wrote it and not open it until I was standing here… so, here we go…”
I scoot to the edge of my seat, as if that will get me closer to her, but I feel fingers interlock with mine. Holding me steady. Ollie, of course. I can see my grief in those around me, and Ollie is one of those people. Though to him, she was so much more than my mother, she’s been in his life just as long.
My dad clears his voice from the front, preparing himself to continue.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to celebrate the marriage of… oh wait, this is the wrong speech… go ahead and file this one away for Banks’ wedding one day and skip to the next page…” he starts about as confused as the rest of us, but realizes, even in death, my mother loves a joke. He chuckles through tears and flips to the next sheet.
“Now that I have your attention. We are gathered here to celebrate. Maybe it doesn’t seem like that right now, but in preparation for this day, it started to feel more and more like a wedding, preparing a guest list, planning a reception, hell , I even got to pick out an outfit. I just don’t get to be there for any of it. At least not in a way that wouldn’t make this really weird. Because if you were at my wedding, or anywhere I have a glass, you know I love a reason to make a toast.”
He flips another page, and continues reading, and it's as if their voices have blended together. It may be him, but no one could deny her presence in the words.
“I’ve made a few in my day. And as much as I want to stand here and raise a glass of champagne with a toast that would have made my parents, or now-a-days my daughter, blush, this one is a little different. But as you taught me, Will, no matter how much it doesn’t feel like celebrating, there’s still something to celebrate and it still deserves champagne…”
I see my uncle Ethan move from his seat next to Ollie to approach my dad handing him a small bottle. He looks back at the paper as his hand covers his mouth in disbelief. His eyes are bright like she was, but reflective with tears he can’t control and would never try to.
In all my life, there was nothing he tried to limit for her.
“If everyone could look under their seats, and join me in one final toast.”
The space shifts around me, the sounds of people adjusting to reach beneath them to find small bottles. I look around the room, more people than fit in this space. Despite the size, like everything she did, she overflowed it. They are all here for her, in varying stages of life and shades of black.
I reach beneath my seat and find a small bottle of my own, like everyone holding on to it waiting for her direction, even now.
He takes a breath as deep as she was, and continues.
“My life wouldn’t have been worth celebrating if it weren’t for all of you. So thank you. No ending, no matter how unexpected or premature, changes that. No ending, no matter how sad, makes my life any less full of joy and happiness.
“Will, my love, you once told me that a day might come and things might change, but you would love me beyond that. You once told me that you didn’t need to understand it, but you needed me to feel the gravity of your love. You once told me that if I couldn’t see the future, you would see it enough for the both of us.
“Well, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry, things have changed. But I love you and Banks, beyond any sense of gravity. And you were right, you saw the future, you built it and because of you the love of my life became the love of my life.”
I’ve stopped hearing his voice, and instead the only voice I hear is hers.
“Cheers… to all of you.”
The pops of corks go off around me. And it makes sense. Only my mother would have her funeral go off with a resounding bang. I look around the room at these people who loved her, taking sips from the bottles. As the bubbles hit my tongue the tears hit my cheeks.
“That’s Arden for you. Once again saying it better than I could… Cheers, to you, my darling.” He takes a swig from his bottle and presses his eyes closed as tears run down his cheeks in what feels like a silent prayer, to the only god he ever believed in, her.