Chapter Five
Five
Joseph
July 2001
The tide is high, spilling over the dock when we claim our usual spot, awaiting our children and grandchildren to trickle in throughout the morning. The Fourth of July fell a few days ago on Wednesday, timing that extends and dilutes the celebration, the sky booming and popping every night for a week. Cardboard hulls of spent fireworks litter the dunes.
Our oldest grandkid is twenty-seven years old, Jane’s only daughter, Rain. She was our first grandchild to get married, last summer she said I do to Tony Sanducci, a stocky Italian boy who works for his father and grandfather at Sanducci’s Auto Body off Boston Post Road. They rent a garage apartment in town, so they are quick to join us, striped beach chairs slung over their shoulders. Jane, finished with her morning segment of the local news, is a few steps behind. When they reach us, Rain drops her chair and seizes me in a long, tight hug.
She knows.
There it is again, the pang, the simmering remorse, the low tremble of guilt for the grief we’ve invited into our haven. Even today, Evelyn’s seventy-sixth birthday celebration, is steeped in sorrow.
Violet and Connor wait for their two oldest to arrive by train for the holiday weekend; Molly, twenty-two and settled in Providence after graduating from Roger Williams, Shannon, twenty, lives in Brighton for the summer while interning at the Museum of Science, padding her résumé before her senior year at Boston University. They show up before lunch toting coolers of sodas and grinders, Violet and Connor, and all four kids: Molly and Shannon, along with Ryan, his last summer home before college, and Patrick trailing behind, ten years younger than their oldest, a happy accident at twelve years old, consumed by his Game Boy. He tucks it away when he sees me, sheepish. More long hugs, faces that look like towels wrung too tight. I expect questions that don’t come, their pained stares follow me even when I close my eyes. Our decision lurks like a lengthening shadow, a dragnet catching moments thick with melancholy. Violet blinks away tears when Connor leans over to ask Evelyn how she’s feeling. Jane stares across the water, lost in thought. Thomas’s absence is glaring, a staked flag brandishing his disapproval.
Rain drags her chair beside me. “Grandpa, tell those stories from when my mom was a kid. About how she was always getting into trouble?”
Jane lets out a low laugh. “How much time do you have?”
“You know all those stories,” I say.
“I want to hear them again,” she says, leaning her head on my shoulder.
Since today is Evelyn’s birthday, we all try our best to forget, or pretend. We eat cellophane-wrapped sandwiches with salt and vinegar chips and bagged cherries, spitting the pits into the sand. The blue sky endless above us, streaked with thin clouds like leftover jet streams. A plane roars past towing a banner advertising fresh lobster for $6.99 per pound at Hal’s Seafood Shack. The sun warms us after each swim, drying our bathing suits as we lay on towels stiff from the clothesline, chasing away the sadness we all feel heavy like a stone.
As the tide goes out, a game of touch football ensues on the sandbar, the grandchildren muddy when it inevitably turns to tackle. I press myself to standing, wanting to join them, all my grandkids, playing here together once more.
Is this the last time?
Evelyn reclines beside me, her hair is pulled back and dry; she’s opted to stay out of the water when she woke this morning feeling so unsteady on land.
“Feel up to a walk?” I ask.
“You go ahead.” She shades her eyes with her hand. “I’m getting a kick out of watching.”
I follow the familiar footprints, avoiding colonies of snails and hermit crabs. Cheers as I approach, my grandkids smiling, their torsos and thighs and shoulders streaked with mud.
“Hey, no taking out the old guy.” I lift my hands in mock surrender. “But we can toss it around a little.” Ryan grins and rinses the football in the water seeping toward us, the sandbar already shrinking, before throwing it to me. His last summer before college, nearly an adult, all that’s behind me is his now to unfold. We form a wide circle and pass the ball, alternating between catch and keep-away, reciting memories that exist as family folklore from all the times they’ve been retold, until the water passes our ankles, sending us back to shore.
Behind our chairs, Evelyn stashed a box of empty wine bottles and a couple of well-rinsed jam jars, along with notepads and pens wrangled from the junk drawer. Send a message in a bottle. A line from an ancient dream list brought back to light, one of many we hoped to cross off this final year. Dreams, and little pleasures she wants to hold one last time, like the strawberries we ate off the vine, small as my thumb, ruby red and warm from the sun. Chocolate malts and salted fries. The first bite of a ripe nectarine. Sleeping with the windows open to the summer air.
Most of all, days like this.
Evelyn assigns bottles to each of us, passes out the pens and paper, and the kids kneel nearby, taking turns writing against the wooden armrests or each other’s backs.
I fake a peek at Evelyn’s page and she whacks me with her pen, laughing. “No copying, mister.”
So I write the only thing I can think of, J the four messages we left went unanswered, one that included the details for tonight.
I hug Thomas, a fleeting embrace he slips out of, and say, “Glad you both made it.”
He plucks a piece of lint from his sleeve. “Yeah, sorry. Some work things came up that couldn’t wait.”
I lean on my chair at the head of the table. “It’s Saturday, Thomas.”
Thomas takes off his sports coat, hangs it on the back of his seat at the far end across from me. “New York doesn’t stop on Saturdays, Pop.”
“I swear I never see him either, if it makes you feel better.” Ann gives me a side hug and passes me a bottle. Her arms are sculpted twigs, her sleek dress hangs off her slight frame, her blond hair glossy and straight. She is nearly as tall as Thomas and equally as successful, a director of an advertising agency in Manhattan, their offices a few blocks apart. She always brings something for us from the city to add to the meal, gourmet cheeses, imported liqueurs, intricate pastries. They treated us to dinner at Windows on the World when we took Rain to see a Broadway show for her sixteenth birthday. Evelyn got a little woozy at the height, and Rain couldn’t stop leaving our linen clad table to press her palms against the glass, in awe of the doll city below, miniature and infinite.
I accept the red wine, thanking her. “I know your schedules are busy, but it’s an important day. And the beach was beautiful. I wish you could have been here.”
“Well, we’re here now, aren’t we?” Thomas is noticeably short with me. “How’s dinner coming, Ma?”
“We are setting it out now. You’re just in time,” she clucks happily, adjusting silverware that was already in place.
“How are you feeling, I think, is what he meant to ask,” Ann corrects, then turns to Evelyn with tenderness. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m better now you’re both here.” She squeezes Ann’s arms. “But enough about me, food’s getting cold.”
The rest of the family takes their seats and we dig into our steaming plates, ravenous after a day in the sun. Violet and Connor sit apart, their children between them. When they first met, they nearly shared a chair at dinner. I don’t think they’ve shared more than a few words today. Violet to comment that Patrick needed sunscreen; Connor to ask if she wanted a ham or turkey sandwich from the cooler. Their relationship hung together by kids, by logistics of a shared home. We can’t leave them this way, dangling above the depths, without knowing if they will find a foothold, without providing a rope for them to grasp. I have always liked Connor. With the first handshake, he struck me as genuine, steadfast through their whirlwind romance and swift engagement. Still, I like Connor. Still, I root for him.
As everyone has their fill, and conversations turn to talk of work and school and summer plans, I stand to make a toast. Wineglass in hand, I gaze over the heavy pine table, the mismatched chairs scoured from all over the house, everyone squished elbow to elbow around its perimeter. The dishes brim with roast pork and gravy, corn on the cob, potatoes au gratin, sautéed green beans. A chipped butter dish is passed along with salt and pepper shakers adorned with sailboats. The closet door behind the table is ajar, exposing the teetering pile of board games and puzzles. Expectant faces turn my way, forks and knives paused, the slightest breeze blowing in the open windows, our house a solitary lit bulb in the dark.
“Evelyn, it’s hard to believe another year has passed. You’re seventy-six today, and you’re still as beautiful as you were at sixteen, getting off that train. I don’t think we could have imagined what all our years together have brought us.” I pause, nodding toward the rest of the family. “All the joy you all have brought us.” I turn back to Evelyn. “Thank you for spending your life with me. It has meant everything. I love you. Happy birthday.”
Glasses clink, happy birthdays echo around me. Evelyn, her eyes shiny with emotion, says, “Thank you.”
A tear trickles down Jane’s cheek, our independent and stoic first child. I think of California, of her wildness, all limbs and hair and fury. I can’t remember the last time I saw her cry. She shakes her head, defiant. “You’re not doing this.” The table grows silent.
Violet, always quick to show her cards, sniffles loudly. Once, as a child, she found a robin’s egg in the grass, far from any nest. She wrapped it in a towel and kept it in a box by her bed. I could hear her sing to it at night, but it never hatched. Her tears as she buried it made my heart heavy. Their tears now almost make me reconsider everything. Take away the pain, hatch the egg, set the bird free to fly.
“It’s irrational.” Thomas glowers.
Ann swats his arm. “Save it, okay? This isn’t the time.”
“Well, according to them, we don’t have much time left.”
“It’s our life. It’s our decision,” Evelyn says lightly—perhaps too lightly. “Do you really want to have this conversation in front of the kids?”
“It’s not just your life. It affects all of us. Including them.” Thomas gestures to the grandkids with his fork as they look down at their plates.
Evelyn concedes. “Well, that’s true. Violet, Connor, are you okay with this?”
Violet nods. “They’re adults now, and anything you say will make it to Patrick whether we like it or not. It’s important they hear it from you.”
Thomas cuts in, his voice sandpaper, “How are you going to do it?”
“Why do you have to go there?” Connor speaks for the first time, his Boston accent coming through, his reddish brows narrowed at Thomas.
Thomas leans forward. “Because if they have thought this all through I’d like to know. How?”
“Don’t be sick, Thomas.” Violet’s face is white. The grandchildren are silent. There is not even the scrape of forks against plates. Patrick has always been dragged into conversations he is too young for, growing up with much older siblings, but now I turn to him, afraid this is too intense for any twelve-year-old, even him. His cheeks are pink, eyes downcast. I worry about the memory he will carry of tonight. How this discussion will inform his own thoughts on life and death, how our decision will mark him, change him, and his older siblings, and Rain too.
“It’s a fair question,” Jane says.
“It’s not magically going to happen. You have to do something. And someone has to find you when you do. Any volunteers?” Thomas glares at his sisters. “That’s what I thought.” He turns to us. “We need more information if we’re supposed to be on board.”
“Pills, Thomas, alright? There are pills that will do it. An ambulance can take us away. It doesn’t have to be traumatic.” Evelyn’s tone is flat, controlled. “There isn’t a pretty way to put this. We know what it means. We know it sounds crazy to you—”
“You think?” Thomas takes a swig of his wine.
“—but you are all going to have to live without us someday, and at least this way we can prepare, and really make the most of the time together.”
“But why set a date? If you really don’t want to live without each other—which is a separate issue we’ll get to—why not wait until one of you goes, and then off yourself?”
“Jesus, babe, the kids,” Ann chides.
“That is what we’re talking about here! What, I’m not supposed to say it?”
“Grief almost killed me once.” Evelyn’s voice is firm. She pauses, faltering. “I don’t agree with your father’s decision, but I can understand it. I can’t imagine life without him either.”
“We’ve had so much loss... I know exactly what I’m in for,” I say, reaching for her hand. Stage two. “And I wouldn’t survive losing you.”
“But that’s life,” Jane says. “People die, people find a way to move on.”
“Maybe so, Jane. But I don’t want to live without your mother. She doesn’t want to live without me. Heck, there’s no guarantee I don’t go first, out of nowhere, leaving her alone as she continues to progress. If we don’t do this...if we let fate decide, we could be widowed for years, decades, even, if either of us lives as long as Grandma did.” Widowed for decades ripples through me, roots me again in certainty. Gives me strength to assure them without stumbling. “This has nothing to do with how much we love you all, please know we love you so much. But you have your own lives, separate from ours, and those lives will go on. Our lives—” I gesture at Evelyn “—have always contained each other. I’ve only known this world with your mother in it. A world without her, frankly, isn’t one I want to wake up in. Please, Thomas, try to understand.”
He is stone-faced, our thoughts and fears heavy on the table.
“I think it’s beautiful actually,” Violet pipes up, wiping her eyes on a paper napkin. “To love each other that much.”
Connor, silent at the other end of the table, fumbles with his place mat.
“Not again with this...” Thomas throws up his hands.
Jane interrupts, “That’s a nice idea, but it’s bullshit—”
“Mom...” Rain warns, cringing.
Jane plows on, “I’m sorry, but no, I don’t think your life ends when one of you is gone. Hell, I’m alone, and I’m perfectly fine. What about continuing to live for yourself? Mom, what about all you wanted to do?”
Evelyn nods. “That’s what this year is for. That’s why the symphony is so important, and why I need your help. I can’t do it without you.”
“But you could have many more years,” Jane sputters. “And if one of you went before the other, you’d still have so much to live for.”
“Thank you!” Thomas slams his palm on the table, startling Ann, visibly tense by his side.
“What about that Death with Dignity thing they passed out in Oregon? A few years ago?” Jane asks. “Mom, if you wait until you’re really sick, we would all support that. None of us want to see you suffer, obviously.”
“I considered all the options before making my decision. I’m not going to Oregon, or Switzerland, or anywhere so far from home. I am going to die. And I want it to be here.”
“And of course,” I add, “I wouldn’t qualify, even if Evelyn went through all the red tape. So this way ensures we can go together.”
“Of course you don’t qualify! You’re not dying.” Thomas nearly laughs.
“Dying isn’t the only thing that kills us, son,” I say, and the table falls silent.
“I won’t know you kids. That’s a certainty. I won’t know myself. I don’t want to deteriorate into someone you don’t recognize. What it did to my mother...how she was at the end, she had no idea who I was most of the time. I don’t want you to be so exhausted by the burden of my care that my death is a relief. I won’t put you kids through that.”
“But you seem really good, Mom,” Violet pleads. “What if in a year you’re the same, couldn’t you just wait and see?”
“Making the decision now, when I’m of sound mind, that’s the only way I can be sure I have the strength to go through with it. If I keep pushing it off, I’ll never do it. There will always be another day, just one more day , worth living for.” Her voice catches.
I’m relieved they know about Evelyn’s diagnosis, even though she resisted telling them. She didn’t want to be treated differently, she said. But that wasn’t it. When she told them, it became real. It’s not something a year from now, her choice, in her control. It’s facing the thief while he is still in the house, knowing you’re helpless to stop him.
“I can’t protect you, although I wish I could...” Evelyn falters. “This isn’t going away, and it’s not going to get better. I know it’s hard to imagine, but you’ll be okay, all of you.”
“You don’t know that,” Violet whimpers.
“Yes, I do,” Evelyn assures her, then turns her attention to Jane. “I’ve always wanted to live life on my own terms. And my death? It isn’t any different.” Evelyn lifts her chin toward Thomas, her eyes softening. “And, honey, I’m not asking you—I’m not going to change my mind.”
The family grows quiet again.
Evelyn peers at all the faces turned down, studying their plates. She smiles, mischief in her eyes. “Enough with all the long faces. It’s my birthday. And we are going to celebrate.” She stands, pressing her weight into the table. “You know what? I didn’t go for a swim yet.”
Thomas looks up, jolted. “What?”
“You heard me. Let’s go.” She turns and walks out the front door without another word, the screen door clattering behind her. Everyone gapes over the remnants of dinner, unsure what to do.
I shrug, and push back my chair to join her.
Outside, a warm breeze blows through my hair and I limp to catch up, my leg acting up this late at night. I hear the screen door creak behind us, once, twice, three times, amid the distant pop of fireworks. She grins at me, her eyes shine in the moonlight. “Are you sure?” I ask. The sharp pains she has been complaining about worry me, the slowness, the shaking. How quickly could she continue to progress? Maybe playing it safe will keep her longer.
“I don’t have much to lose, do I?”
Maybe she has every right to be reckless.
We make our way down the narrow driveway in the dark, paved with the crushed shells that gave the Oyster Shell Inn its name. I offer Evelyn my steady arm, but she slips out of it to walk on her own, a subtle refusal I expect even before reaching for her. We don’t need light to guide us. The familiar crunch underfoot, the path that empties into Sandstone Lane lined with fragrant swamp rose in full bloom, the road that curves east toward the sea, passing towering oaks and switchgrass-covered dunes until we turn the bend marking Bernard Beach, the ocean opening before us, resetting something in me each time. I know my way like I know Evelyn, vividly and completely.
Together we reach the sea, her entourage trailing confused in her wake.
“Don’t let your grandma beat you all in there.”
“Mom, no. This isn’t...you shouldn’t—” Violet starts.
“And you wonder why I didn’t want to tell you kids?” she teases, her voice twinkling with an inside joke all her own, amused anyone could tell her what she shouldn’t do.
She holds on to my shoulder and slips out of her shoes, sinks her toes in the cool sand. Then she walks alone to the water, and I let her go. She doesn’t need me now, in this moment, she is her own guiding light. I watch her until she is nearly enveloped in the dark, stars shimmering above her, the moon reflecting off the water in bright flowing rings.
On a night like this, I can’t help but think of my own parents; I wasn’t ready, there was so much I wanted to share with them, so much I wished they got to see. I would never have been ready for goodbye, although I always knew, at least in theory, that it would come. Children are supposed to bury their parents, that is the natural order of things. I can’t prevent their grief any more than I can prevent my death, the best we could do is delay it.
But losing Evelyn, outliving the person who is the source of my heartbeat, or watching her wither into a rag doll version of herself, a pianist who could no longer use her hands to create the music she loves, or to wait until she doesn’t recognize me, until she ceases to be Evelyn at all, to walk through the halls of our home alone...that would be impossible to endure.
How many more years could we share, if we left it to the stars? I remind myself we’ve had more years together than most, and somehow, that will have to be enough.
Our grandchildren run past whooping and cheering, fully clothed, and dive off the dock. Jane follows, tugging me along by my elbow before chasing after the kids. Rain and Tony run after her and leap off the dock in synchronized flops. Evelyn has made her way up to her knees when I reach her, past the gentle break, and I am grateful for the calm of Long Island Sound, the lakelike ease of entry not found in the harsh crashes of open ocean. The hem of her skirt moves with the subtle current, the water icy and ocean floor uneven beneath my feet. Violet rushes after her children and Connor follows suit, cannonballing into the blue-black surface. Only Thomas and Ann remain on shore.
Evelyn’s face glows. “Let’s join them, huh?”
“I’ll follow you anywhere.”
She grabs my extended arm, and we slide farther in, floating in the familiar depths in the moonlight.
Jane calls out to her brother, “Thomas and Ann, come on!”
Thomas’s voice booms, “You all are crazy. Jesus, Ma, you’re going to get pneumonia.”
“It’s July! Come join your crazy mother!” Evelyn screeches back.
The grandkids cheer.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this.” Thomas and Ann walk toward us, carefully slipping off their shoes. Thomas rolls his pant legs, and they ease into the water up to their calves. “Happy?”
Jane and Violet share a grin, dart toward Thomas and tackle him at the knees. They grab for Ann, and she flees, splashing through the water, but they are faster and soon she is under too. They come up, sputtering and chuckling, soaked and finally surrendering to the game.
The three-quarter moon shines bright on the water around us, illuminated with flashes of red and green and gold, the air rich with laughter, splashes, and the boom and crackle of distant fireworks, Evelyn in the center of it all. My stomach tightens, knowing what this swim will cost her, of what the next day will bring, but she is not thinking of tomorrow. The ocean a black and sweeping lullaby, our children and grandchildren swirling beacons around her, like fireflies, like silver minnows glittering beneath the surface, flecks of dust dancing in a stream of sunlight, like the clearest night dotted with stars.