Chapter Thirteen - Epilogue
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Epilogue
AUNT AMY IS early for dinner.
Asher takes her coat and hangs it by the door. She warms her hands by the wood stove and remarks on how cozy everything looks. I think I see the glimmer of pride in her eyes when she looks over at me. I invite her to have a seat, make herself at home.
I made spaghetti, my mother’s recipe, but I tweaked it a little.
Asher says it isn’t terrible, and I believe him.
I bought some Italian bread, too, and Billy said you should have a green salad with spaghetti, you know, all that rabbit food.
Because that’s what it is, food for rabbits.
Although, he supposes turtles eat that stuff too.
Don’t they? Turtles and rabbits…and what else?
Maybe birds, but don’t birds eat bugs? And hawks eat rabbits, ain’t that something else?
He’s never seen it himself, but his old man told him this hawk swooped down once and got this poor rabbit by the ears.
It was out by that creek, he thinks. You know the one.
By the park. So anyway, you should have a salad with spaghetti, for sure. It’s some kind of rule.
We pass everything around the table. Asher drinks a beer.
I get Aunt Amy some wine, and I just have some ice water.
I worry over every detail, wanting it all to be perfect.
Aunt Amy wouldn’t say anything if something went wrong, but still.
I want her to be comfortable, and I watch her as she eats, hoping she likes the food, hoping it’s not getting too cold or too warm in the cabin, and I ask her if she’s too cold or too warm.
I keep getting up to get her napkins, to refill her wine, until she lays a hand on my arm, her expression gentle, telling me to relax.
“Have you gotten a telephone yet?” she asks both of us. “I’d like to be able to call or for if there’s some emergency.”
“We’ll get one in the spring,” Asher says. “When it’ll be easier to put in a phone line.” He smiles over at me. “But we’re okay for now. I won’t let anything happen to him.”
And Aunt Amy looks from me to him, a tiny smile on her lips. “Well, all right. I suppose as long as you’re safe, it should be all right.”
We eat for a bit, and then I ask, without really thinking about it, “Have you heard from…?”
She dabs carefully at her lips with a napkin. “He hasn’t phoned. Or written. Maybe you can write him. Or call him?”
“I don’t know,” I say, honestly, because I don’t. Maybe I’ll visit Pops instead and see if he’s really off the drink. I hope, for his sake, that he is. And that his newfound sobriety will last. But I don’t know. It’s something I’ll leave unfinished. For now.
We don’t have a television, but there’re records. We play Edith Piaf and talk and Aunt Amy says she remembers buying one of Edith’s records years ago. She liked to dance to one of the songs with one of her girlfriends.
We talk about how when it gets warmer, we might get a boat to take out on the lake.
Nothing fancy. A rowboat probably. I envision trying to learn to swim, Asher teaching me.
We might go fishing too. Asher tells Aunt Amy about that abandoned store and how he’s going to buy it.
She seems intrigued when he tells her he’s just going to leave it how it is.
No building, no tearing down. It’ll just… be.
We plan out what we’ll do when it’s nice outside again.
When it gets really hot. When it gets cold again.
The seasons will come and go, and with each one I’ll be with him.
It’s exciting, but sometimes I worry. I worry about my own immortality and his.
I love him so much that I want him to live forever. For all the seasons to never end.
Aunt Amy leaves and we clean up the dishes.
He washes and I dry. Afterward, I sit at my typewriter while he goes outside to bring in more wood.
Then it becomes just like a typical evening, what we do after dinner.
He asked me once if I wanted a television, if I missed it.
I said I didn’t really miss it. Sometimes I feel like I’m watching television in my head. Especially when I’m writing.
I’m working on something that I don’t know what I’ll do with just yet. It’s a world in which éponine didn’t die. Right now I’m using her name, but later I’ll probably change it.
Asher lays a stack of wood by the stove. He stomps snow off his boots and takes off his coat. He places his hands on my shoulders and looks at what I’ve just written.
“Can I read it later?” he asks.
I shrug. “If you want, but it’s not right yet.”
“How do you know when it’s right?”
“I feel it, I guess. It just…feels right.”
“I see.”
I turn to look up at him and smile. “Do you?”
He smiles back. “Maybe you could write about what would’ve happened if that cop guy didn’t kill himself.”
“That’s an idea.” I jot it down on a notepad.
“Is there a name for this?” he asks, leaning over to kiss me on the cheek.
“Name for what?”
“Changing something that’s already been written.”
“I don’t know.” I think about it. “And I’m not really changing it. It still exists. I’m just… adding to it, I guess.”
“Fixing it?”
“Maybe.”
He leans over the chair, nuzzling into my neck “You don’t say?”
I lean into his touch. “When you add to something, when you keep adding to it, then I guess it doesn’t really end. It just keeps going. It just begins.”
“I like that,” he whispers in my ear. “I hate it when stories end.”
I turn so I can see into those deep blue pools of sky, just endless sky and endless sea, and it’s all for me. I caress his face. “Oh, don’t worry.” I slide a hand over his chest. “This one won’t ever end.”
THE END