Chapter Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Seven
Joseph
May 2002
She was having a good day.
She didn’t stir much last night. When I woke, I was surprised to find her in a deep sleep. I cuddled close behind her until I felt her wake. She turned and burrowed into my chest, kissed me good morning. We made breakfast. Pancakes. Something usually reserved for the grandchildren. But she felt like having pancakes, and we don’t deny ourselves any indulgences now. Not when we are so close. She spread strawberry jam on one of them, she said she wanted to try it. Do something she had never done, even though it was a small thing, a silly thing. She took a bite and laughed, shrugged her shoulders. I spread some on mine too.
She napped on the couch while I worked in the garden. After an hour I came inside and washed up, cleaned the dirt beneath my fingernails and dried them on a dish towel. I knelt before her on the couch. Slid my hand into hers, raised her knuckles to my lips.
Saliva dripped from her mouth. I wiped it with my thumb. She drooled often as she dozed, and once it happened while she was awake, in the middle of a conversation. She joked about it, something about being hungry, a joke to cover humiliation.
I whispered to her, still asleep, “I’m sorry you didn’t get to do all you wanted.” Her tremor, her bone-thin arms, the dual pianos rendered silent in the study. The tan-skinned memory of her so alive in my mind, swimming ahead of me as we raced toward Captain’s Rock.
She stirred at my touch. She woke with a smile, as if departing a particularly pleasant dream. I asked, “What would make you happy today? We can do anything you’d like.”
“Me?” She looked so content. Her green-gray eyes soft and dreamy. “I have everything I could want. I’ve done it all.”
“I’m sorry...” I said, sheepish.
“What for?”
“I feel like I failed you.”
“How can you say that?” She brushed her fingertips through my hair. “I played my concerto, didn’t I?”
“There was so much on your lists you never got to do.”
“The lists weren’t what it was all about. They were a starting point, a way to feel alive.” She smiled. “This year was more than I could’ve asked for. And it’s not over.”
“No, it’s not over.” I began to cry, knowing too soon, it would be.
She raised her eyebrows and said, “Being with you, that was my greatest dream of all.” She kissed me and my salty tears slid between our lips.
We sat together in the garden, the flowers in full bloom. The morning air was warm, the sky a clear and endless blue, a perfect day for May. Her face turned pink as the temperature rose. Her skin so delicate, paper-thin. We decided to plant daffodils for Rain’s baby. She was due in a couple of weeks.
Evelyn walked to the violets, her footing steady. She picked one and slid it behind her ear. It was something she would have done when she was young, spinning in the meadow of wildflowers. She smiled and lifted her hands to the sky. They didn’t even tremble as she said, “What a beautiful garden you have made for us, Joseph.”
She was having a good day.
A brain attack, they sometimes call it.
A stroke.
Like a stroke of luck. A stroke of good fortune. A stroke of genius. All things I can’t reconcile with the fall of her arms, her body, into the violets. The words crumbled beneath her tongue, her legs crumpled beneath her body. Her slack face.
Evelyn perched on the counter, pulling me toward her for a kiss. Evelyn with long wet hair, lying on her back on the dock. Evelyn with Violet on her hip, dancing in the kitchen. Evelyn at the piano, straight-backed and focused. Evelyn mixing cake batter with a wooden spoon. Evelyn swimming ahead of me in the waves. Evelyn wrapped in a towel after a shower. Evelyn in her violet dress emerging from the train. Evelyn laughing. Kissing me. Holding me. Her body nestled in the curve of mine in our bed. Evelyn .
The ambulance. The hospital. Curled against her in the adjustable bed, kissing her cheeks. Gripping her hand. The children were there right away...or it may have been a while. I can’t be sure of when. The stroke of a clock. The stroke of midnight.
There wasn’t enough time. We didn’t have enough time. We were supposed to have more time. Another month together. Then we’d go together in each other’s arms. Her arm was numb, she told me. She couldn’t feel my touch. She couldn’t feel me grab her, and she couldn’t say what she was trying to say, she couldn’t see me.
We were supposed to have more time.
She was having a good day.
We made a beautiful garden together, Evelyn.
That is what I wanted to say before she fell.
We made this garden. And it is beautiful.