Chapter Thirty
Thirty
Joseph
May 2002
The sun streaming through the window warms me, floods each detail of the hospital room in crisp light. The ringlets fall from Rain’s tied-back hair, propped up with pillows in bed, Tony in a vinyl chair by her side. Jane sways, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, her face illuminated by the bundle in her arms. Her first grandchild—a whole new kind of endless love. Marcus lingers by the door holding a glinting balloon, and his crinkled eyes betray his bubbling affection as he admires her.
Last week we scattered Evelyn’s ashes, standing together on the sandbar, watching them float away on the wind like wisps of a dandelion. Connor stroked Violet’s hair as she sobbed into his chest, their marriage a teetering boulder that had to fall to find solid ground. Thomas whispered a choked goodbye as we turned back to shore, his red-rimmed gaze on the horizon and Ann clutching his arm. Rain picked a bouquet of violets, scattering them on receding waves. My feet were bare and my pants rolled to my knees as we stood together, in the moment I was never supposed to witness, but there I was, my sunken prints proof as I turned away, footprints that would disappear with the incoming tide. Marcus put his arm around Jane and she leaned into him, rooted and steady. She let him hold her up.
Today, he shares the moment by giving it fully to her.
“She’s perfect,” Jane whispers. A milestone we never experienced with our oldest daughter, when it was her turn. Was she alone in the hospital? Was she afraid? We never welcomed our first wrinkled and pink granddaughter swaddled in newborn cloths, never saw the blissful exhaustion on Jane’s face, now mirrored in Tony and Rain. What we missed, meeting Rain at fourteen months, we always tried to make up for. Now this newborn, our great-grandchild, enters the world as I plan to leave it. What will I miss, when this hello is followed so soon by a goodbye?
“Eve,” Rain says. “We named her Eve.”
Eve. With skin so pink and new and her eyes so wide and unblinking. I am torn in two; I am trapped inside a well barren with grief and Eve is fresh falling rainwater, pouring in and raising me up. Shattering and healing me. Eve. Evelyn’s ashes carried away on the ocean breeze, glittering through schools of minnows and nestled in the shells of hermit crabs, she has made her way back to me once more.
“Dad, do you want to hold her?”
Jane places the baby in my arms, and the sweet smell of her overwhelms me. She is wrapped in the blanket Evelyn sewed, a pastel yellow, and my stomach lurches with the ache of missing her. Each day without her an empty eternity.
Look at the beautiful garden we have made, Evelyn. Together.
At home I kneel by the edge of a flower bed and dig, sweat gathers at the base of my neck in the heat. The topsoil is dry from a streak of warm May afternoons but underneath it is cool and moist. The bulbs in my palm are hard and brown, conceal the buds of sunshine they hold within them, daffodils for Eve, the first flowers to bloom each year as winter fades away. I dig a patch of shallow holes, then press the bulbs into the soil. Smooth the top layer of dirt and water them, the cool liquid washes over the earth, gives them life.
Next year and each year after, Rain and Tony will sit on this bench, the Oyster Shell Inn their home, hold Eve in their arms or watch her walk and run and dance among the flowers when these daffodils usher in spring, their blossoms golden and radiant.
There is so much beauty here to be seen.
Inside, the ivory keys are cool to my touch, but smooth, comforting. I sit at the Baldwin where Evelyn spent so much of her time, filling our home with her music, soothing melodies finding me as I worked in the garden. I press one key and it lets out a low echo. It is so quiet here.
I stand and lift the cover off the bench, where her sheet music is kept, and where our letters lay hidden. We planned to leave them on the counter on our last day, for our children to find. I’m not sure if Evelyn ever finished hers. Her writing got so small, difficult to read, toward the end. Though my envelopes were sealed months ago, I worry what I had to say wasn’t enough, was never sure how to begin to say goodbye.
I shuffle through the sheet music for the letters tucked beneath, sift past mine to find hers. Four white envelopes where there should only be three. I flip through, Jane, Thomas, Violet all in a tight, pained scrawl. Beneath them, the fourth letter is labeled Joseph , in the looping cursive I remember .
My hands tremble as I tear it open. I sink back onto the bench and read.
December 24, 2001
Dear Joseph,
If you’re reading this, it means I’ve left you before I said I would. I am so sorry, sweetheart. Please know wherever I am, I miss you terribly. I’ve never known a world without you in it, and I don’t want to imagine the next one without you either.
You are asleep beside me, as I write this. You should see yourself when you sleep, it is one of my favorite things, even with your hair all mussed and your mouth hanging open. If I wasn’t afraid to wake you, I’d steal a kiss right now. Open-mouthed and everything. It’s Christmas Eve, well, Christmas morning now, I guess. It’s the middle of the night, and as usual lately, I’m wide-awake. I can feel myself going where you can’t follow. I notice my lapses, and it scares me. But in a strange way, it assures me, too, tells me I’m making the right decision, even though leaving you all behind is the last thing I want. This isn’t something I can will myself through, not something I can outrun.
Which brings me to this. If I’m already gone, don’t go through with it, please. You still have so much time, and the children didn’t expect to lose me yet. I hope they can see now it was never really my choice. But it is yours. Don’t do anything because you promised me. I know you carry guilt for things outside of your control, and my fear is you will somehow add losing me to the list. Please, Joseph, don’t. Let me put you at ease. There is nothing to feel sorry for. You are the reason for all my joy. You are my life, my biggest dream come true. You saved this family, and in every way, you saved me. How can I thank you for never letting me go?
It has been an incredible, beautiful life together. I couldn’t have asked for more. And still, I don’t know how to say goodbye to you. It wasn’t part of the plan, you know. And maybe that’s the point. There couldn’t be a plan, not really.
I love you, Joseph. I love you for waiting for me so many years ago. And wherever I am now, there is no rush to join me, because I will wait forever there for you.
Love,
Evelyn
I read it over and over, the lines blur with my tears, weak and lost in her words until I can’t hold myself up. I lean against the piano keys and the house echoes with the low notes pressed beneath my arms. The hum that follows trembles through me, at once emptying and filling me with its sweet sadness.