ChapterTen
Several miles away, Remy was gearing up for a difficult conversation of her own. “Wendell. We need to have a talk.”
She’d been too tired to confront him last night and by the time she’d risen this morning, ElderTransport had already taken him to dialysis. After leaving the hospital, she’d decompressed over a lobster-roll lunch eaten solo on a bench facing Rockland’s lovely bay. She’d chased that with a large amount of tea and an M&M cookie.
But now she was back at Wendell’s house. He was back. And she could no longer ignore the obvious.
She stood, hands on hips, in the living room. Wendell looked owlishly up at her from his recliner, wearing a sweater patterned with golf clubs, trying to soften her with his cuteness. She would not cave. “Your house,” she stated, “is in a state of extreme mess.”
“I gave up cleaning.”
“You can’t give up cleaning.”
“I can. I’m eighty.”
“You’re eighty and plenty healthy enough to clean. When you lived on Islehaven you did your part and helped keep the house straight.”
His darling face pruned. “This is the worst house I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“This is a charming Cape Cod–style home!” His white front door was flanked by gray siding and windows on each side accented with maroon shutters. The two-bedroom, one-bathroom house had been updated in the past decade. The interior bones were promising. “You’re located in a historic neighborhood just a five-minute walk to shops and restaurants. What more could you want?”
“My life on Islehaven back.”
The wreck he’d made of this place verified the concern she’d experienced when she’d seen him on Islehaven more than a week ago.
An untold number of items encircled them: newspapers, mail, clothing, books, lone shoes, bags of new purchases from Marden’s that hadn’t been unpacked, and miscellaneous trash.
Obviously, the contents of his larger Islehaven home had been shoved into this one. Now this square footage was straining to contain three times as many things as it should hold. So many cardboard boxes and pieces of furniture had been jammed into her guest bedroom that she had to sidestep through a canyon to get to and from the bed.
Remy dropped to a seat on his coffee table. Old magazines and empty wrappers crinkled under her butt. “Is there anything other than cleaning you’ve given up recently?”
“Groceries, cooking, driving, and laundry.”
“Excuse me?”
“I order take-out when I’m hungry. When I run out of things to wear, I send the laundry to a service.”
“Is there anything you haven’t given up on?”
“Showers and Indian food.”
It was almost as if Ruth Ann had conspired to bring Remy here, to show her the state of things. Remy could hear her saying,Do you see what I see? This is not okay with me, Remy. Not at all! He needs encouragement and a kick in the pants.
Wendell and Ruth Ann had two children who lived out of state. They’d honored their father’s wish to remain in Maine as close as possible to Islehaven and set him up beautifully here. But without his wife, Islehaven, or the community there he’d loved, his heart and spirit had been broken.
“Wendell?”
“Yes?”
“You can’t give up on the hard and necessary business of living.”
“I’m living,” he said half-heartedly.
“No. Not really. You’re marking time. You’re existing.”
Tears gathered in his rheumy hazel eyes. “Existing is the only thing I have left.”
“That’s not true. You’re very fit, for a man with kidney disease. You have an excellent brain. You have family and friends who love you. For more than fifty years you and Ruth Ann took care of each other. She cooked and ironed your pants, and you did the dishes and bought her candles. Remember how she loved candles?”
