Chapter 33
33
Jane, you remember summer skin, don’t you? Wishing certain novels to go on forever? Max asleep in his crib on his belly, his hair matted to his head with sweat, my voice reading you Yeats on the sofa? Do you remember dreaming of a painting that you could never finish? It was white. I think I remember you saying that once.
What about the sound of a garbage truck? Do you remember watching a bubble become ice on sand? And our tradition of Black Forest cake on the first day of daylight savings? My first book of poetry? You always said it was your favorite because of that line about doves. You’d never read, you said years ago, anything so true and so dear.
Thank you.
Last week, I remember, you told me that you suddenly remembered the North Star—and waking up, wondering if you were still alive.
In the dark, just the two of us, I sing you a song that I hope you remember. It is the one that always got stuck in your head. Who was it? Bruce Springsteen? I can’t remember. I just want you to have company. Something to carry with you. Something to carry you.
I stand up. My knees just about break. I open the window for a brief moment to let the air in. I think, You should have the salt breeze that you loved so well. When you feel it, a smile spreads over your face. Even I can see that. Even now. My heart lurches. For a moment, I forget the direction in which we were going. I forget what I was trying to say.
Don’t get cold.
I hold your hand under the blanket and squeeze to remind you. To remind me. To ward off anything that tries to get between.
Jane, I hope you remember that you were never alone. Not when I was in the kitchen. Not when I went for a book, a walk. Not when I stood in the closet and held my own face, told my own self it was all right.
I hope you remember that before I left your side, I always checked your water, that you had a telephone nearby, and all the times I put my hand against your chest because it is this thing that you and I have done for years. There is a charge passed from me to you. There is not so much a beating now, but maybe footsteps when the lights are out.
Tiptoe. Thump thump.
I fall asleep on the floor next to you, my head on a blanket that smells like you.
When I wake up, my hand is in yours. You are squeezing it.
Abe? you say. There’s more. This is it.
I want to ask you if you’re talking about precision or time. Instead, I close my eyes. In this way, I let you take care of me.
You remember being here, in Orient. You remember, in winter, naked roads, spayed trees. You remember, in summer, strawberry pie and black sea bass sold on the side of the road. You remember rainbow beach umbrellas, cornfields, the lady with one goat who made cheese and sold it from her car. You remember learning to preserve and pickle. Blueberry-peach. String beans. You remember the pride of the pantry. You’d never had a pantry before.
You remember when we bought this house—how grand it seemed, and also forgotten, powdered with cracked windows, giant doors, mint shutters. You remember a tall bluff, like the Pacific Northwest, wind-whipped trees, salt like acetone, water on three sides.
You remember thinking, or maybe I do: Of all the places, this one. The gentle davening of gentle tides.
You remember finding a tomahawk in the backyard, lining an entire wall with sea glass, painting the foyer a color called black green.
You remember having pillows made from blankets we’d found in France, Mexican pottery in the kitchen, a drawer for our spices, warming hooks for our robes, feeling the weather in a way you just can’t in the city—all the senses. You remember sweet peas, clouds, buds, thunder and rain.
You remember that was around the time, on East Eighty-Eighth Street, visiting an old friend, I was mugged in broad daylight. You remember they used a pipe on my knees. You remember I didn’t care about the wallet, the cards, the money, only the notes from you, the Chinese fortunes, and the coffee card: one away from a free cappuccino, I’d said.
You remember it was around then, too, that the cancer came back. It was a shock; it was inevitable. You remember you’d just gotten your AARP card in the mail and how we joked about that. What choice did we have?
You remember Max sending flowers. When he came, he brought bags upon bags of food, but he didn’t stay long. I don’t blame him, you say. How could I blame him?
You remember sleeping till four in the afternoon, headaches, two rounds of chemo and a new pill that made you see everything more pink. You remember feeling that you couldn’t fight in the same way anymore. You remember getting out of breath, just standing. You remember needing sunglasses until bed.
You remember, that time, it spread to your pelvis, the nodes, and a particular one near the base of your spine, and aorta. You knew because your right leg kept going numb. That is a thing that happens. Goddamn it.
You remember Dr. Isham and knitting him a scarf and a hat for his new baby not so he’d give you special treatment but because he stood like he was chilled.
I remember you making everyone kinder, softer, better. Always.
You remember how everything hurt. Your bones. Your belly. Your heart.
You remember remembering the things that kept you holding on. You had dry cleaning to pick up and the New Yorker subscription that needed renewing and a half a lemon, unwrapped, in the fridge. You remember wanting to learn how to do a diagonal basketweave stitch and make butternut squash ravioli from scratch. And Max.
You remember during treatment, everything a circle: the dreaming, the not dreaming, the walking, the not walking. Soft socks making soft sounds on the soft carpet, something always half-eaten and the wrong temperature on the nightstand. You remember everything felt halved.
You remember the time you met Bea in the Park—you had to take a cab—and she told you to make a little bit of art every single day—a purple squiggle, a black thumbprint, your name inside out and backward—and you did. And maybe that’s why. She had become a professor whom students dedicated their life’s work to. She is magnificent, isn’t she? you say. You beam.
You remember when you went into remission but how you felt we’d aged anachronistically. Your insides were different. Mine, too, in a way. And something about time travel et cetera on the page.
You remember the relief and the terror of growing older: your skin changed first, bones second, teeth third. You remember clothes fitting differently not because you were thinner but because you were less. You remember every time David visited, no matter how young his boyfriends were, or maybe because of that, being alarmed by how old he appeared. And what that meant of us too. Time moves in one direction and isn’t that really, really something.
You remember when sand started bothering your feet.
You remember sudden dangers in everything: car alarms, snow, stairs. You remember using more bandages, Dr. Isham telling you how you really needed to watch the thorns. You remember not watching the thorns and bringing him a thorny bouquet of flowers and smirking. He slathered you with ointment and laughed and he showed you photos of his kids on his phone. You asked him how his wife was doing with young ones, and genuinely wondering. Fine, he said. She’s a trooper.
You remember a series of dreams: a car, a fireplace, a scruffy white dog who sat on your feet. You remember we discussed moving over chow mein from Shun Lee—and selling the brownstone, same day, full ask to a couple with three kids. They paid in cash.
You remember we moved in the spring. You remember butterflies from the porch, sun tea, your studio upstairs, besotted with light. You remember road and water and light like a photograph here, edited. You remember clouds that don’t cloud the sky.
You remember joining the Y, a swim cap, salted pickled rye and French cheese, a tab at the local bookshop. We became board members of our little museum, joined the tiny yacht club in Orient so we could meet new friends for turkey sandwiches and vinho verde.
You remember that everything felt easier, sweeter, slower. We read Wendell Berry every morning. We wore hats to bed. We lived side by side, like two swings in the sunset. Kicking our legs, making everything move, together. The scene goes by.
I make us toast and tea. From downstairs, I call to you a dozen times. I’m coming right back, Jane! Just a minute, my love! Toast en route! Tea too!
Alas: your mouth is too dry for bread. The whole thing becomes paste, very white. Don’t choke. Are you hungry? For heaven’s sake, I think. I should have known.
You remember when you started giving your art away. You can’t take it with you is something you’ve always said. So much was placed, sold, but people were always asking you for something small: any little doodle or inking. You always said yes.
You remember putting away certain pieces for Max.
You remember wearing sweaters most of the year.
It’s a funny thing. Days cannot get longer except in the words. And yet.
I remember one day, on the porch, holding your hand, your unsick hand. I asked you where you wanted to go, what you wanted to do. You remember saying you just wanted to stay here for longer. I remember. You were healthy then. But still, Yes, I thought. I think.
Take a break. A breath. That feeling when you don’t want a novel to end but this.
Every word must count.