I shrugged. “Hard to remember. Did we ever look like springtime?”
“Yes,” Eddie said in his great dental chair. “Both of us.”
I liked the thought of this—both of us—because I had known Eddie in his springtime, when he was beautiful. I went back to my story. “Once Buddy had pneumonia, once he was very sick, Jonathan came a lot. Buddy’s room was always full of family, my grandparents, my uncles, my cousins, all the fishermen in and out. As far as anyone could tell, Buddy had been happy with his life and had two regrets: he was sorry that he’d never been on an airplane, and he was sorry he’d never seen the Pacific Ocean.”
“Buddy had never been on a plane?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t know it either. I guess the work on the boat never stopped and the money he made went back into the boat, so he didn’t go anywhere. If he took a vacation, he went to the Cape or he went to Maine and worked on other people’sboats for a week. He once drove his mother to New York because she wanted to seeJesus Christ Superstar.”
“You’re making that up.”
“It was the seventies. Anyway, that was Buddy’s one trip to Manhattan and he’d be the first to tell you that it was not for him. But he was sorry that he never saw the Pacific. He had wanted to go to Big Sur. That was his dream. He’d seen pictures, and he liked the name. So one day there were too many people in the room and I went to sit in the hall and here came the hospital administrator I would later marry, and I started talking to him. Did he think Buddy could make it out to California?”
A stricken look passed over Eddie. “Did he die in California?”
“Stop,” I said. “Seriously, listen. Jonathan said he thought Buddy could make it. He said I should wait until he was stronger, but he thought it would work. He said as long as I got a nonstop flight, I should be okay, which was good advice. I bought two first-class tickets, Boston to San Francisco.”
“First class?”
“You remember how tall Buddy was, and he had a lot of pain in his back. I couldn’t fold him up in coach for such a long flight. I had no idea how expensive it was going to be. Then there was the rental car, the hotels, all of it on the credit card. My grandparents and my uncles wanted to kick in, the fishermen wanted to kick in, but nobody had any money. Thanks to the Power of Positivity, I’d made it through college without student loans, and everyone I knew had student loans. This would be my debt. Buddy and I were having a good time being together and I wanted to do that for him.”
“So how was the trip?”
For two people who had spent their lives looking at theAtlantic Ocean, it was like nothing we had ever seen—cliffs and rocks and the crashing sea. “Beautiful,” I said. “Have you ever been?”
Eddie nodded. “A long time ago. I went to some legal convention in San Francisco with Skip, a full-blown holiday. We rented a convertible and drove to Monterey, Big Sur. I’m glad Buddy got to see it.”
I did not let my story be derailed by the thought of Eddie and Skip driving down Highway 1 in a convertible. I only regretted that I hadn’t thought to rent one myself. “The trip exhausted him, but he was so happy. They loaded him up on steroids and antibiotics before we left. Sometimes he would walk a little ways, but mostly we stayed in the car. There were places you could park and the view was unbelievable. One day we were right there looking out at Big Sur and he told me he’d always thought he would drown. He said it was hardly an original idea, fishermen always think they’re going to drown. You know people who drown, and you hear the stories about the ones you didn’t know, and on top of that you’re looking at water all day. He said it wasn’t that he wanted to drown, but he felt like he’d spent his whole life planning for the wrong thing.”
“Did you ever have a premonition about how you were going to die?” Eddie asked.
“Me?”
“The only other person in the room,” he said.
“Car accident.” I had never said that before to anyone.
He nodded. “Exactly. All my life I was sure I was going to die in a car accident. It’s like we beat the devil once, so it must be coming back around for us later.”
“We’re all looking for the death we know. I’m sure that Buddywent over the side of the boat a time or two.”
Eddie nodded.
“Well, Buddy didn’t drown in the Pacific. We had a wonderful trip. It was the single smartest thing I’d ever done in my life. He never wanted to eat, so I’d get a couple of milkshakes and bring them back to the hotel room. We’d lie in our beds and he’d talk and talk. Buddy had never been much of a talker, so the whole thing was a revelation to me. He told me about fishing and my mother and how they met and when they got married. He told me how bad he was at having little kids and how much it meant that I’d come through for him anyway. He was so tired by then. He was tired and he was happy.”
“How long were you out there?”
“Four nights. The hardest part was driving into San Francisco at the end, leaving him in the terminal with the luggage, taking back the rental car, taking the bus back to the terminal. I’d been with him every minute and I didn’t want to leave him alone. But when I got back, he was sitting right there where I’d left him, big smile on his face. When I think of him now, I always see him at the airport terminal, waiting for me to come back. I got a wheelchair and I pushed him to the gate. He said, ‘In my next life, I’m going to be a Californian.’”
“So he died when you got home?”
I shook my head. “What was it you said to me? Why do people always guess?”
“It’s because I’m nervous.”
I went on with the story. “Buddy had the window seat, and I had brought one of those space blankets to cover him up.”
“Are you kidding? Like the one in the Buddy emergency bag?”
