So I speak to the woman she is now, who may be more sensitive than I give her credit for. “I’m sorry for what I said about you being naïve. Your optimism has always been one of the things I most love about you.”
Her eyes fill. “You think I killed him.”
I recoil. “Why would I think that?”
“Because I didn’t take him to the doctor when I knew how breathless he got. And I did know it. I’m not stupid. I didn’t take him to the doctor about the memory thing either, and if I’d done that, the doctor might have discovered the heart problem, and if he had, Dad might still be alive.”
Shifting my hands to her knees, I give them a little shake. “Would Dad have been happy with that?”
“No! He didn’t want any of it! But that isn’t why I didn’t take him to the doctor. I did it for me. I didn’t want to know he was sick. It was my fault, not his,mine.”
“No,” I insist, but she races on.
“He was my life here. Oh sure, I have the shop and friends, but Dadisthis place. He built it, and he ruled it. You both have other homes.” Her gaze widens to include Margo, who has come close. “Not me. I’ve lived in this house my entire life, and I’ve lived with him that whole time.”
“Oh, Annie,” I breathe, seeing her loss in ways I don’t see my own. She’s the one whose daily life will be different. Of course, she would feel Tom’s death more intensely than either of us. “I’m sorry.”
“But I’mnotsorry it’s been that way, don’t you see? We’ve been good here together, Dad and me. I understood him. I worked around his moods, and he loved me for that. The house has been filled with people, and now it’s empty. Everything has changed.”
“Not everything,” I say, thinking of all of us here now.
Margo adds, “Not Sunny Side Up. Not Bill—”
“—who wants tomarryme,” Anne wails.
She sounds panicked, which I don’t understand. “But that’sgreat,Annie. You were afraid he wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t want to be tied down to a baby, but then when he said the wordmarriage,I freaked out. Like, marriage is forever—I mean, it wasn’t for Mom and Dad, but you should be thinking forever when you go into it, shouldn’t you? I have no idea what kind of husband he’d be. I have no idea what kind offatherhe’d be. I mean, he works in a prison.”
“So did Dad—well, almost,” Margo says, stretching it even with the qualification, though I’m not sure the remark registers with Anne, who remains centered on Bill.
“He has a criminal record, meaning he spent time on theinside.And his tattoos, all those tattoos?”
“I thought you liked them,” I say, startled again.
“Ido,but tell me the truth, I mean, seriously, is he the kind of man Dad would want me to marry?” When neither of us is quick enough to speak, she says, “See? You agree. Okay, sure, Dad got used to seeing him around, but that’s a whole different thing from my being married to the guy. And having his baby? Dad woulddie.”
Squeezing her knees, I whisper, “Dad is not here.”
“Besides,” Margo adds in a very Margo, very Tom, very firm tone, “even if he was, it’s not Dad’s decision to make. It’s yours.”
From the look of the tears that have begun to trickle down her pale cheeks, this doesn’t comfort Anne. “That’s fine for you to say—for both of you. You’ve been making decisions for yourself all these years, but I haven’t.”
“You absolutely have,” I inject. “Look at the shop—”
“Dad’s been part of my life. And I wanted it that way. I liked knowing he was here. I liked knowing he depended on me to keep the house running, and when he got forgetful, I liked being able to help. I didn’t rush him to the doctor, because I wanted things to stay the way they were. I’m an enabler—that’s what I am, anenabler—and now he’s dead.”
“Annie.” I grasp her arms to be closer to her heart. “There is no correlation between what you did or didn’t do and his death.Hetold me that he didn’t want doctors or medication. But you, you made his last years happy. You didn’t cause his memory problemsorhis heart problems. You made his life better in spite of them. Think of him having breakfast at your shop. Going down there gave him purpose. He loved it.”
She seems hesitant, but the ghost of hope in her eyes says she wants to believe.
Margo joins in. “You blame yourself, but what about us? We weren’t here. You did it all. But what’s the point of our agonizing over it,” she pleads. “It’s done.”
“You mean, he’s dead,” Anne says.
“Which,” I argue gently, “is what he wanted. It is, Anne. Don’t you think so?”
She doesn’t answer.
