chapter 41
Decca
Gus had no services today, so when he didn’t answer his phone for the third time, and still hadn’t called me back, a chill began to seep out from the marrow of my bones, cracking and freezing everything along its frosty path.
Something must have happened. With Jim.
Something happened.Since when did I start thinking of dying in euphemisms?
It was because we had time. There was still so much time. Wasn’t there? He hadn’t even been confined to his hospital bed. I wouldn’t have gone to this stupid non-interview if I’ve thought we were this close. Now here I was, three hours away, unable to be with him. Unable to console my family, or share what was—what might be—happening.
I called Bethany. There was no answer. I texted Soula. No response. Not from Jim, or Raynie, or even Sofia.
I called off lunch with Chris and drove straight home, making it there in record time.
When I pulled into my driveway, Bethany was waiting for me on the porch steps.
Immediately, she got to her feet and strode toward me, wrapping me in a tight hug. I pressed in and squeezed her, tears forming as we held each other, crying and unmoving.
“I knew you’d know when none of us answered our phones,” she said. “I came here, thinking you might… Gus wouldn’t let anyone call you. He didn’t want you to be alone with the knowledge and have to drive home. I agreed. I’m sorry if that made it seem like we’d forgotten you. I promise, you were the first thing on our minds.”
“Where’s Gus?”
“He’s there.” She didn’t need to explain where there was.
“Is Jim…?”
“There’s some time.”
I nodded and took a deep breath. “This feels awful, but it isn’t a tragedy. Jim needs people to remember that right now. So he can be at peace.”
It was dusk by the time we got to Franklin. The Victorian house blazed against the deep teal sky. Light poured out of every window. Cars packed the parking lot.
All my family was here in this house; locked together in grief in a morbid way that comforted me.
It wasn’t the time to think it, but I couldn’t help it: I had a family again.
I’d always had Bethany and Soula, and we’d always be best friends, but they’d found their partners, now. Partners that took precedence, just by default of their proximity.
Marrying Gus had given me a partner as well, even if he was currently operating under cool denial. But it had also given me a grandmother who taught me to bake her traditional recipes, a mom who liked me… okay, and a Dad, who loved me like I’d always been his daughter. They’d all taken me in as an extension.
I wasn’t just welcomed, I was wanted.
Every choice I’d ever made had led me to this moment, and I wasn’t going to let Gus push me away anymore. Especially not for my own good. This was my own good.
Here was where I had a role to fill. A role Jim and I had planned for.
I could do nothing about the fact that I hadn’t been there to hug my husband when the hospice nurse told Raynie these were Jim’s final hours, or hold Sofia’s hand as George and Bethany finished up the last of their business matters, diverting calls to other funeral homes. Hopefully, I’d make things a little better now.
Raynie seemed to be fighting with someone on the phone in the kitchen when we came in. Bethany took the phone from her and took care of whatever emergency was on the other end. In the Blue Room, Waylon sat on one end of the loveseat, Athena sprawled over his arm, fast asleep. Yia-Yiá was on the other end.
“They’re upstairs,” Waylon said, standing up and laying his daughter down next to her great-great-grandmother, who smiled down at her and gently brushed the hair off her forehead. Waylon reached out to squeeze my shoulder.
The upstairs was too bright for Jim’s eyes. I flicked off some of the lights.
Jim was already in a deep, deep sleep he wouldn’t wake from. The sleep before death.
Soula lay curled on her side in the bed next to him. Her eyes were closed, but I knew she probably wasn’t sleeping, just processing this by shutting everything out. George sat motionless in one of the chairs from the mauve room downstairs—the chairs Bethany hated and desperately wanted to recover—his arms and legs crossed as he stared sightlessly down at his father.
Where was Gus? I looked around.
From the dark corner stepped my husband, coming forward and wrapping me in his arms, telling me with his touch what he couldn’t say—couldn’t think—in words.
We held each other forever, sharing this moment. For once, I didn’t have to fight him. He was letting me in.
“The hospice nurse told Raynie this morning. I didn’t believe it. He was up and walking a few days ago.”
“Fast is nice, sometimes. Maybe not for us, but for him.”
Slowly, he pulled back, but he kept his hand linked with mine.
“How did it go?” he asked.
“Gus, now’s not the time. Let’s just be here for each other.”
When I pulled back from his embrace, his eyes were soft, with a resigned sadness.
“Let’s wish Jim a happy journey.”
I may have only known Jim for a short while, but his love resonated with me. The impact of his death would leave behind a crater in my life.
In all my grief, all the people I’d known who’d , I never really shared the experience with anyone. When my mom died, I was young. My grandmother was already in her sixties.
The loss of a mother felt different from the loss of a daughter. Plus, Granny’d had to put her feelings aside to deal with the logistics of me. There was paperwork, weeks spent in foster care, and finally, moving to Middle Tennessee, which had felt like an entirely new world.
Neither of us had talked much about Mama until a year after, once everything had been settled. We talked about her in the garden. Toiling with our hands to work out our grief. But for me, it had already been dulled.
This was a bright grief, sharp and stinging. But it was so much better with all of us sharing it together.