“The girls are fine, sweetheart. The girls are grown and gorgeous and doing splendidly.”
He exhaled deeply. “I’m so sorry, Lynn. I’m so sorry.”
I shook my head and stroked his cheek, dually thankful for and confused by these middle-of-the-night moments of lucidity. The calm after was almost worth the storm of these hallucinations that no neurologist in the country could seem to diagnose or cure.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. You can’t help it.”
“That’s not what I’m sorry for,” he said, turning his head away from me, toward the bed we had shared for decades before he had been relegated to this one.
I felt my heart sink, a painful truth rushing back, a secret that, in the midst of caretaking and the fear and uncertainty of the day-to-day that is old age, seemed to ebb a bit.
“Do you remember our house in Bath?” he asked.
I smiled. “Remember it? Why of course I remember it. I brought all my babies home there.”
He turned to look at me again. “All of them,” he agreed. “You were so brave, Lynn. So strong. I’ll never forget you saying, ‘This is the only way this can happen. Either you’re in or you’re out.’”
I remembered. But I didn’t smile. That had been one of the worst nights of my life, leaving that house in Bath.
“Oh, Lynn, I’m so sorry,” he said again, noticing the change in my expression.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” I said. “This is my life, and I wouldn’t change any of it.”
I thought,Well, maybe this part. I couldn’t help but feel like life had stolen something so irreplaceable from me, left the foundation but blown over the home with all the memories inside. “They were good years, weren’t they, Dan?”
“They were all good years,” he agreed. “Even the bad ones.”
He smiled at me.
I turned away for a moment, thinking of all the things I wanted to say to him. In the day-to-day living, the breathing in, the breathing out, the one-step-in-front-of-the-other things, I had counted on him more than I could ever thank him for. But in the crisis moments, in those instants when the reins had to be taken, the emergencybrake pulled, he looked to me. I wanted to talk about it more, sensing that this could be my last opportunity. But, when I looked over, he was snoring again, the straining and sweating and wild-eyed abandon of a half hour ago replaced by the innocence of dreaming.
What he was dreaming of, I couldn’t be sure. But, in my heart of hearts, I hoped beyond hope that it hadn’t all been for naught. I prayed that the dreaming was of me.
Annabelle
A Dot on the Radar Screen
You should never worry about moving to a new town with your husband, according to Lovey, because, in reality, your husband is the only friend you need. That was a lovely sentiment, but, as I was learning, maybe not a totally true one. I loved Ben madly. But I needed friends.
It bugged me that, though I had made loads of acquaintances, I still hadn’t formed any great, call-you-on-the-phone, let’s-grab-lunch kind of friendships with a single person in Salisbury. All my life, through school and college and summer camp, I had been a people collector. They liked me, I liked them, and I formed instant bonds easily.
So, while I wasn’t thrilled about spending my Sunday afternoon getting primed, pressed and primped for what was going to undoubtedly be a very boring baby shower, I was going to go. I was going to smile and be chipper and politely sip champagne and toast a mother-to-be that I had met exactly once.
“So, how do I look?” I asked Ben, twirling in a pale pink dress with a pleated skirt that I thought looked very shower appropriate.
Ben raised his eyebrows at me. He stood up, put his arms around my waist and pulled me in for a kiss. “I don’t think I like that,” he whispered, his forehead resting on mine so that those lips, juicy and delicious as hot Krispy Kreme, were right in my line of sight. “I think you better let me take it off so we can find something else.”
I was ready to ditch the party altogether, when I heard the three soft raps on the French door that meant Emily was ready to escort me.
Ben gave me a downtrodden expression and whispered, “Tell her you can’t go.”
I shook my head and very, very reluctantly pulled away from him. “You better be here, ready and waiting, when I get home,” I said.
“Ready and waiting for what?” Emily asked when I opened the door.
“Um,” I said, “the mail.”
“It’s Sunday, love bug. The mail doesn’t come.”
