This Is Not How It Ends

by Rochelle B. Weinstein

  There was my future to consider, and while I enjoyed working with Liberty and the patients, I knew the clinic wasn’t my life’s work. I missed teaching and the relationship to my students. Observing the people I loved, they all had their passions: Jimmy had his art, Ben cooked, Liberty had her practice. Even Philip—to leave us all a little richer, to leave us better people than we were before.

  While I wore my ring as a symbol of great love, the prospect of marriage seemed to vanish beneath the burdens we carried. The marriage license we’d eagerly obtained weeks ago remained stuffed in a drawer by our bed. I’d come to terms with the fact that I’d never be Philip’s wife, something I had once wanted more than anything.

  November arrived, bringing with it cooler temperatures and a break in the humidity. Only Philip’s sensitive skin had us shuttered indoors, hurricane glass separating us from the delightful weather. His pain was mostly under control, a crippling lethargy the only sign of his approaching demise. Together, we took Sunny for short walks and spent afternoons lounging in the hammock in the backyard. I’d read to him some of my favorite books, and he’d fall asleep, snoring beside me.

  Sometimes Ben and Jimmy would come around, and we’d sit at the table, working on puzzles and eating ice cream. Jimmy was painting again, and he prided himself on sharing his projects with Philip. Philip marveled at the latest creation of all of us at Morada Bay. Our arms were interlocked, and we were facing the ocean. Jimmy. Ben. Philip. Me. “Remember this name, Jimmy boy.” Philip reached for a piece of paper next to his bed and scrawled the name of one of his private dealers. “Keep painting and be sure to contact this gentleman. He’ll take very good care of you and your talent.”

  Jimmy’s face was a reflection of how we all felt about Philip and his generosity.

  On the days when Philip felt an extra burst of energy, we’d all meet at Morada Bay, and sing our favorite songs. And when we’d come home, we’d huddle under the covers watching old movies—Gandhi, Splendor in the Grass—and he insisted on the original Endless Love, which silently wrecked me.

  There were moments of laughter and sadness, delicious food and tasteless powders, hand-holding and holding on. Liberty visited often with strange concoctions that promised miracles. Philip welcomed her kookiness. The two of them actually bonded over crystals and “certified healing potions.” “NAET is for crackpots, but there’s no better crackpot than you, Liberty.” Adoration seeped from his eyes.

  Friends and coworkers made trips to the Keys with one intention: to let Philip know what he meant to them—charismatic leader and respected role model. He left them with words of praise and wisdom, guiding motivation to take with them long after he was gone.

  Natasha flew in. She was kind and melancholy, and we parted as faithful friends. “He loved you, Charlotte.”

  “He loved you, too,” I said.

  “Bruce wanted to be here. Philip was always his favorite patient.” By then, we were both crying.

  Meghan and Myka pitched in whenever they could, staying for days at a time. Meghan was a bridge to Philip’s past, and I reveled in the stories she’d share about Philip as a small child. Through her long line of memories, he never lost his boyish charm, his zeal for life.

  “Thank you for taking care of my brother,” she said.

  “You don’t have to thank me.”

  “I never felt unloved,” she said. “He was always there for me. Always.”

  “I know. He has that way about him.”

  Philip, for a time, was in such good spirits it was hard to imagine the insidious monster latched to his veins, drawing out life. His jokes were sillier, his laughter louder and deeper. “A guy was admitted to the hospital with six plastic horses in his stomach. They’re saying his condition is stable.” And “jokes about PMS are not funny. Period.” I was going to miss the lilt of his tongue. The exaggerated way his sentences unrolled like lyrics. The way he called me dahling and Chahley. It was unfair to have to say goodbye.

  Jimmy completed his NAET treatments. Like me, he took the careful steps to introduce the allergens to his system. After two weeks, he completed all three, and I could tell Ben was a wreck, waiting, watching—anticipating the entire treatment to be a farce. To Ben’s surprise, Jimmy passed—not all, but two out of the three. Peanuts remained a pesky threat, though the reaction level had declined significantly. It brought me back to that morning in the market, Ben and I racing against time. But he and Jimmy were satisfied with the results, and they’d made great strides since that frightening morning. I glanced at Liberty, reading the concern on her face. She would want nothing more than to cure Jimmy of all his allergies, but each patient was unique, and for some, it was a matter of further treatments.

  On the days when Philip had doctor’s appointments, we’d drive to Miami together in the convertible, music blaring on the radio. We’d sing at the top of our lungs, our words dancing across an infinite blue sky. After the last appointment at Mount Sinai, with its alarming lab results, we were returning to the Keys. I could tell we were nearing the end; Philip’s tumor markers were rising exponentially. He held my hand on the seat beside him, and I watched him belt out the words to an Eric Clapton song. I was holding the wheel, and Philip, he was tapping on the dashboard, so alive, so willing to touch the universe closing in around him. Clapton sang about the woman by his side, about being glad she was there, and Philip crooned right along, singing the words to me in his terrible, out-of-tune voice. One second. That’s all it took to take my eyes off the road to look at him, to freeze the passage of time and remember him light and free.

  In that glance, I would forever have proof of our love, proof of our existence. He grinned at me, and I knew that Philip was sent to me for reasons I might never understand. His laugh exploded through the air, and his uneven melody played in my ears. I already knew how this day would stay with me long after he was gone. After the final goodbyes, I would have the wind that tickled my hair, the love that poured from his lips, the beauty of the land propping us in its hand. And as we climbed through the marshes of Florida City and hit the final bridge by Gilbert’s, I exhaled, trusting, for once, that the world would be okay. I hadn’t even realized I was holding my breath.

  Ben was right about needing help. Philip couldn’t get to the bathroom himself, and despite his weightless body, I couldn’t manage him alone. Feeding became a challenge as he spit food back at me, angry for his neediness, furious to have to rely upon others. I tried not to remember my mother in this ghostly state. The nurses had assured me I’d forget the sight of her fragile, shrunken body—her wild, darting eyes. Cancer ravaged bodies, but losing the self, autonomy and pride, was far more destructive. Of all the heartache we endured in those final days, nothing hurt worse than watching this vital man stripped of dignity. It was a cruel fate.

  Philip, in his sober state, refused help. But when he saw the toll it was taking on me, he agreed to one nurse. “Female. Preferably good-looking.”

  Judith was her name, and she was a beautiful brown-skinned woman with big eyes and braids that lined her back. One of Judith’s many gifts was taming what was left of Philip. People in her profession were trained for war. Philip’s emaciated body was controlled by an innate stubbornness, but he was no match for Judith and her iron fist. She got him to eat, she urged him to be kind, and they even learned to joke about the size of his penis. Sometimes I’d find them giggling, Judith adopting his British accent. He was teaching her the lingo. Bugger meant “jerk,” sod off was to “piss off,” throw a spanner in the works was to “screw up.” She entertained him, a momentary reprieve from his limitations.

  Ben would faithfully arrive, relieving Judith from Philip’s occasional assault. He’d be armed with food for me and shakes for Philip. And when Philip was particularly belligerent, insisting, “I’ll piss on this floor. Just you watch!” Ben could coax him out of his spells. “You remember what I told you, mate . . . You take care of my girl . . . You promised.”

  Later, I’d s
idle up to Ben. “What’s he talking about?”

  “I have no idea,” Ben would answer. “He’s delusional.”

  “I hear you people talking about me,” Philip would snarl.

  “It’s the voices again.” Ben would smile at his old friend, sadness lining his eyes.

  “They’re not voices. They’re my friends.” Then he’d tell a joke: “What do you call the wife of a hippie? Mississippi.”

  Somehow, his madness fortified us, a necessary levity that dissolved our shared pain.

  Judith’s appearance in our lives was met with gratitude, though a single woman raising three kids deserved time off. That meant there were hours when I was actually alone with Philip, and there were moments I was really afraid. I was afraid he’d die in front of me, or he’d die when I left the room. I wanted to be there, and I wanted to be far away. Ben and I would sit at the table holding our coffee mugs, the threads of those conversations pitiful. How much Jell-O did he get down? When was the last time he emptied his bladder? Could we up the Dilaudid?

  At Judith’s insistence, we maintained a schedule of dosages and defecation. The absence of one or the other told caregivers a story.

  Thanksgiving arrived, and Sari’s mom and dad were taking Jimmy to Disney for the week. Ben and I were on the porch, the sun fleeing to the west. My nerves were shot, I hadn’t slept, and I had taken to drinking shakes—swallowing food was a growing problem. Makeup and hair fell low on the priority list, and I succumbed to swollen eyes and fingernails that cracked and split. Philip was asleep, and Ben was swinging on the hammock, his long body curved into the ropes.

  For all intents and purposes, Ben was all I had. Philip would be gone soon, I was without parents or siblings, and I had forgotten to have children. The number from Nashville turned up on my screen a few more times. I plugged in his name, Paul, so he’d show up in my contacts. It wasn’t that I was intentionally ignoring my father, I just needed some time to work through my feelings. Giving him a name was a small step in making him real.

  I collapsed in the hammock beside Ben, and we swayed lazily in the breeze. His body was a warm comfort, and mine was starving for affection. Sunny found us there; his cold nose poked through the ropes.

  “I’m going to stay here when Jimmy leaves for Orlando.”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “I want to be here,” he said. “For him.”

  Ben was as much Philip’s family as I was. He’d held Philip’s head when he vomited into the porcelain bowl, he’d cleaned him after he had an accident in the bed. He ran to the store for diapers and puppy pads that we slid under Philip when he was asleep and less likely to bark at one of us. There weren’t many men I knew who would’ve devoted themselves so entirely to someone. “He’d want you here. He loves you.”

  His body softened. “There’s something you need to know, Charlotte.”

  No, came to mind. Don’t. We didn’t talk about it anymore, our mishap—what I liked to call it—was long behind us. And when Ben’s hand covered mine, I wasn’t prepared for what came next. When he finally spoke, it was a whisper. “I’m leaving the Keys.”

  I sat up, the hammock swaying. He was staring at the water, unable to meet my eyes.

  “Jimmy has his grandparents in New York, and Sari’s sister’s kids are there. The trip to Disney is for them to be together. So when I tell him we’re leaving, he’ll understand.”

  A line of birds crossed the sky, and I wondered how it would feel to hitch myself to their wings. I had little fight left. There were too many goodbyes, too many endings.

  Ben continued. “If there’s anything I’ve learned from Philip—besides awful jokes and useless facts—it’s that we have to live while we’re alive. Losses hurt—man, they’ve crippled me—but we have to pick ourselves up and find happiness again. Sari taught me that. I believe she wanted that for me. And Philip wants it, too.”

  I lay back beside him, deflated, not saying a word. The sky was clear, and I could see for miles, everything except the future.

  “Say something.”

  My head hurt. Like a metal vise was crushing it in its jaws. “What is there to say?”

  Did I have this fantasy tucked deep down in my shameful basket that Philip would leave and Ben and I would find each other again? Maybe. But it was too painful to think about now. It was wrong on so many levels. Ben and I would always have Philip connecting us. A future with him would be marked with betrayal and sadness. A band of deceit.

  “A fresh start is good,” I finally said. “For all of us.”

  Rivulets of water fell from my eyes. I didn’t wipe them away.

  “I’m going to miss you.” My voice cracked. “I’m going to miss you and Philip so much.”

  He hugged me, dropping his head in my hair. “I’m going to miss you, too.”

  CHAPTER 37

  November 2018

  Judith, Ben, and I spent Thanksgiving week providing round-the-clock care for Philip. In between sponge baths, dosing pain medications, and reading to him from the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, we reminisced. Ben managed to prepare a turkey, pureeing the meat in a blender so we could spoon-feed Philip soup. In typical Philip style, he refused to eat that week. Ever a rebel, he had to tell the gluttonous holiday who was boss.

  That’s when things took a sudden turn. When someone is dying, there is a period of time before the actual death that is met with a surge of energy. This heightened vigor turns the weakest strong, and caregivers falsely believe their loved ones are on the upswing. The irony of the transformation is that the bout of renewed energy usually signifies imminent death.

  Philip was eating again, laughing, the surge a nasty trick.

  That night, the three of us were certain it was time. Philip’s breathing came in a shallow whistle. He gathered us in the room—more like, “Get in here, blokes.”

  He was so thin and ghostly, but there was an awareness to him I hadn’t seen in days. It reminded me of when we first met, and I held on to it, an anxious need to record everything about to be lost. A single tear escaped his eye when he looked at the three of us, but he was quick to wipe it away with his scrawny fingers. “You all look wretched!”

  Judith gave it right back: “I don’t see you winning any beauty contests, Thomas.”

  Thomas was the name she’d given him after she spotted Tom Hiddleston in her Us Weekly and swore he was Philip’s twin. She was being kind, referring more to the photos that hung from our walls, Philip and I in happier, healthier times.

  Ben and I were speechless, a mind-numbing awe that this was our friend, my lover. Remnants of Tom Hiddleston had all but vanished, though the twinkle in his eyes reminded us he was once there.

  Philip was as chatty as ever, rambling on about another boat trip and making plans for a new year that would never come. Then he said to Judith, “Don’t they make a lovely couple? No two better people in the world right there.” Judith gave me that look that meant nothing good. I slept beside Philip that night. My hand against his chest told me he was alive. Maybe my love for him would save him, or maybe it would set him free. No one ever talks about the end. How in days leading up to it, you beg a higher power to take your loved one away, to relieve them of their suffering. And then when they pass, you can’t imagine anything more horrible. The finality. The dissolution. It’s the great paradox, the ill-fated hypocrisy: In life we watch them suffer. In death it is we who suffer. There is no in-between.

  When I opened my eyes that morning, I was scared to look at him. My fingers found his throat, his wrist, searching for the beats that meant life. He was still here, though the beats were slow-paced, weak in measure. I was a combination of feelings. Rolling over, I spotted Ben sleeping in a chair beside us.

  Judith entered and fixed Philip before she said anything to me. She wiped beads of sweat from his face and toweled the railing that kept him from falling out of bed. “It’s soon,” she whispered. “Prepare yourselves.”

  And right before s
lipping out the doorway, she nodded in Ben’s direction. “He sat there all night. I’m not sure who he loves more. You or Philip.”

  We’d been preparing for the end for months, though nothing cushioned the blow of death, eased its razorlike tear. I clung to the burst of energy, but it disappeared as quickly as it emerged.

  Judith prided herself in seeing Philip through to the end. She continued to prop him up and wipe invisible stains from his face. She trimmed his facial hair and saw to it that he smelled clean and fresh despite the evil lurking in his veins.

  Philip was in and out of consciousness. When he opened his mouth, we understood few words, but we knew. He was telling us with his eyes—and the way he’d clutch our fingers—that he loved us. That he would miss us. That he was grateful for our being there, even when he fought us.

  Ben and Judith left us alone, and I slid in beside him, kissing his forehead.

  “I love you, Philip. You’re the biggest and the best thing to ever happen to me. I didn’t think I had room in my heart for someone like you, but you changed my life. You changed everything about me. I’m going to miss you so much,” I said, crying. “I’m not sure how to live without you. I thought I knew. I don’t.”

  His breathing was steady, and I knew he heard me. He squeezed my hand harder.

  “I love you, Charley,” he whispered, as flimsy as the air. “You would have made the most beautiful bride.”

  I was insanely desperate for him to live, clinging on to foolish notions. Fumbling in the bedside drawer, I found the license and dropped it in his hand. “Now. Let’s do it now.” I heard myself calling out for Ben and Judith. They came rushing in, and I could tell by their faces my screams signaled something else.