Seize the Day

by Curtis Bunn

  And then I hung up. Didn’t know how he got my number and didn’t care. But I knew I didn’t want Kathy’s husband calling me. I’d have more to say to him if he did, though.

  I noticed something: My fear and depression went away after hearing from Kathy. That was the power of love. I had a bounce in my step and even grabbed my cell phone and downloaded the Facebook app so I could access it anywhere and anytime.

  Hearing from Kathy moved me far away from Walter’s family drama and even my own issues. I felt like living.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  WILL READING

  Kathy did not e-mail me back that night, but I slept far more comfortably than I had in a month—after crying myself to sleep. That was my routine.

  That was the first night, though, I went to sleep with some pleasant thoughts, which likely accounted for the dreams I had: playing golf, teaching kids, dancing—fun things.

  In the morning, I realized I had gone the entire previous day without eating. I stepped on the bathroom scale and I had lost six pounds since I went to the doctor…without trying. How can you eat when you know you’re going to die? I had problems eating when my daughter was sick with Bell’s palsy, fearing it was something worse. I couldn’t eat when Kathy and I started to drift apart. And after my violent stomach pain of a few days ago, I was afraid to eat.

  “Daddy, you’re not helping yourself by not eating,” Maya said. “At least you should go to Whole Foods and get some juice. Drink the green one with spinach, kale, apples and lemon. It has lots of protein. That will give you something in your system and some nourishment. Please promise me you will get something.”

  “I will, sweetheart. I’ll stop by there on the way to Walter’s lawyer’s office in Sliver Spring. He’s reading his will today.”

  “Oh, wow. I don’t know what to say about that. I will be with clients, but call me when you can.”

  We hung up and I headed to the lawyer’s office. Traffic on the Beltway was notoriously horrible, and even though it was technically after rush hour, the lanes were bogged down. Candice called me and I was glad to break of the stop-and-go monotony.

  “I hope I’m not doing too much,” she said, after the pleasantries, “but I have pretty much arranged Walter’s funeral. I have the funeral home, the church, a program and all I need is the green light to put everything in motion.”

  “How did you do all this? Why did you?”

  “He wanted me to; that’s what you said. Walter was very kind to me, Calvin. I never asked him for a thing, but all of a sudden, every week for several weeks he would leave money at my desk. And we began to talk, and the two things I got from talking to him was that he was troubled—he never gave me any details, but it was apparent; and he didn’t believe he had any family, even though he had a brother and a son.

  “He told me: ‘My family exists, just not in my life’. I asked why and he said, ‘They just don’t love me.’ It broke my heart. I know you knew Walter; he was a kind man. What could have made him take his life, Calvin?”

  “He wasn’t well, Candice. He was bipolar. He suffered from depression. And without the proper medication, which he didn’t always take, it apparently made him more erratic. I was at his house the last two days and read a lot of his stuff—he became more depressed this time of year, when school was out. I think the kids, helping the kids, teaching them, interacting with them, kept him straight, for lack of a better word.

  “Listen, I know you’re struggling with what you could have done to help Walter. Don’t do it to yourself. I have done the same thing. In the end, his illness got the best of him.”

  Eventually, we both made it to Mr. Watson’s office. He was a thin man with a serious expression. He was all business. We sat at a conference table in his office: Mr. Watson at the head, with me and Candice closest to him across from each other with Donovan next to me and his son next to Candice.

  Mr. Watson offered us water and got to it: “I will read this uninterrupted. There really are no questions to be asked. It is all laid out. If you agree to the terms, I will give you documents to sign and we can be on our way.

  “I knew Walter for nine years. He solicited my services from a recommendation and I have been working with him on addressing his health, his mental health concerns: He was bipolar and acutely depressed. It was remarkable for me to see him one day be lively and attentive, and another day quiet and withdrawn. He had few people in his life—you all amount to it. His students, of course, meant everything to him. He was someone who was in the profession strictly out of passion for the kids. He was wealthy enough to retire nine years ago when I met him. But he wanted to help young people.

  “That said, here is his last will and testament…”

  I knew what was coming and so I waited for the fireworks. When Donovan learned he was getting nothing except money for his child’s education—which really was a big deal—he banged the table with both hands. Walter Jr. smiled. He knew the bulk of the money was his. But he was wrong.

  Mr. Watson laid out what Walter’s only child would get and the conditions he had to adhere to, and Walter Jr. pushed himself back from the table. “That’s it? All that money he has, and that’s all I get? And I have to do drug tests? This is some bull.”

  Mr. Watson did not stop. He went to Candice, and she held her breath and put her both hands over her heart. “Oh, my God.”

  “She gets two hundred thousand dollars and I get some chump change a month for a year and a half?” Walter Jr. complained. “You must have been his little sex toy.”

  “You’re so disrespectful,” she said. “I did something you apparently didn’t do. I treated your father with respect. That’s all he wanted.”

  Mr. Watson waited until they finished and continued. Donovan said to me: “No wonder you’re all in the middle of this—he left you two hundred thousand dollars, too. You manipulated him.”

  “You can feel whatever you want to feel,” I told him. “I had a relationship with your brother. I didn’t abandon him. If you want to blame someone, blame yourself. But I said it all yesterday: It’s embarrassing that all you both want is money, to where you actually fought over it. And now look at you.”

  Mr. Watson resumed before either could respond. And after he laid out the money dedicated to bipolar research and the scholarship fund for Ballou High seniors who were going to college, he said, “This is the will of Walter. He was of sound mind and body when he created this document. We went over it several times. It’s been signed by a notary. It’s iron-clad. Above all, it’s his will.”

  “Well, what if I want to, you know, take it to court, challenge it?” Walter Jr. said.

  “You’d be wasting the money he did leave for you on legal fees. There is no wiggle room here for any interpretation other than what is written here,” the lawyer said.

  “Came all the way here—”

  “To do the right thing,” I interjected. “Bury your brother.”

  “Man, I’m not prepared to do that,” Donovan said. “I’m headed back home tomorrow.”

  “We can have the service tomorrow—or more likely the next day,” Candice said.

  “Who are you again?” Walter Jr. asked.

  “I worked with your father at the school,” she said. “We were friends. Calvin said neither of you had done anything and that Walter, your father, had asked me to arrange his services. So I started already.

  “I don’t want to step on either of your toes. He was your family. But I do want to honor his wishes.”

  “Go ahead, do it,” Donovan said.

  Mr. Watson stepped back in with the legal matters to wrap things up. I signed some papers and received a check for two hundred thousand dollars. I felt so guilty about it that I couldn’t feel excited about it. And Mr. Watson could tell.

  “Calvin—and you, too, Candice—Walter cared about you and you should feel good that you were people he felt good about,” he said. “There were not many of them.”

  I looked at Walter Jr. and
Donovan and for the first time, a look a shame came over them.

  “What did Walter mean when he said in the will that he wishes he could give you more life?” Donovan said.

  I didn’t expect that. I had pledged to tell almost no one of my situation. I didn’t want anyone looking at me with pity and sorrow. So I lied.

  “I don’t know. Maybe he wanted me to be more lively and the life of the party. Or maybe he’s talking about my age and wishing I were younger. I don’t know.”

  Because I didn’t look sick, they bought that bull crap I told them. But when I glanced at Candice, I saw something different in her expression. She knew. Walter had told her.

  I diverted my eyes from her and went back to the business at hand. “So you need us to do anything for Walter’s service?” I asked.

  Candice said: “Not really. I just have to make the calls. He’s already at the funeral home. I have the chapel there held for the day after tomorrow. If that works for you all, then I will invite a handful of people from work and some students to the homegoing service.”

  “So neither of you have anything you want to add to this?” I asked. I still was amazed at how cavalier they were about things.

  “Sounds like you got it under control,” Walter Jr. said. “Just let me know the time and place and I will try to get off from work.”

  “You got off to be here this morning,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, I had to be here to see about this money.”

  “Wow,” Candice said.

  “Hey, man, listen: My dad and me ain’t get along. He helped out a lot at first. Then, after I came out of rehab and got myself together, he said he wasn’t gonna support me no more with money. Said I was dependent on him. Some shit about having to fail to succeed. I ain’t got time for that. He coulda just set me straight financially, know what I’m saying—and everything woulda been cool.”

  “What about you being responsible for yourself and your family?” Donovan asked. “I had my problems with my brother, but he was right about you: Do for yourself before you start asking people for stuff.”

  “Look who’s talking—the man who came all the way from California for my father’s money and going back empty-handed.”

  Donovan stood up and pointed across the table. “Don’t make me come over there and kick your ass.”

  “Come on. You couldn’t kick my ass yesterday so I don’t know why you trippin’ and thinkin’ you will today.”

  “Nobody’s fighting anyone—not in here,” Mr. Watson said. “Listen, I’m going to say this and then you can leave: Donovan, Walter didn’t leave you any money because you didn’t trust him. He was insulted that you believed he would try to seduce your wife, even after she said he had not. He was more than insulted. He was hurt. You knew of his bipolar condition and yet you never supported him in any way around that. He was bipolar; he wasn’t brain dead. He knew exactly what you weren’t doing. He decided to not let your child—his nephew—suffer because of your behavior.

  “Don’t go so fast, Walter Jr. Your father blamed himself for your drug addiction. He said something about giving you so much that you became someone you never had been. Spoiled, to the point where you expected him to take care of all your needs—as a grown man of twenty-seven. He found that to be a problem, and the fact that you dressed like a twenty-year-old and acted like one, too. He was trying to help you grow up. But because it didn’t involve receiving money, you didn’t see a need to be a good son.”

  “Hey, look. This is getting too heavy for me,” Donovan said. “I’m not going to sit here and be judged by a dead man. So…”

  And he got up and left, with Walter Jr. following behind. I looked at Candice and she shook her head. Mr. Watson gathered the paperwork and placed it in a file.

  “Thank you for being here,” he said. “Listen, I see this all the time; family fighting over money instead of grieving over the loss of a life. It’s a sad reality.”

  We thanked him and left. Candice and I walked in silence to the underground parking lot. When we got to her car, she looked up at me. “I’m so sorry about…about the cancer,” she said. “Yes, Walter told me. I can’t even believe it, Calvin. You look great. I was scared when I saw you with this new bald head. I’m assuming this is from chemo.”

  “Nope,” I said. “I shaved it off, in honor of my friend, Kevin, who died not that long ago. He always wanted to get a bald head because he thought he’d look cool. But he never got the chance. So I did it in honor of him. When my daughter saw me like this, she started crying. Said it scared her.”

  “Can I do anything, Calvin? I…I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how you’re here right now. I would be going crazy.”

  “I am going crazy. The funny thing is, dealing with Walter’s death and his family—his sick family—is a distraction from my own problems. I wish this wasn’t the distraction I had to deal with, though—especially with his brother and son acting like that. Amazing.”

  “Donovan is just jealous of his brother, even in death. You would think that wouldn’t be an issue with family, but it is. Walter did more with his life and Donovan never got over it. And when his wife made a pass at Walter, Donovan just lost it. They haven’t been the same since, even though Walter told the wife he would not do that to his brother—and she corroborated his story. Donovan was jealous. You know how you men are. Your cars and your women—those are the untouchables.”

  “That’s funny, Candice. I guess that’s true in this case. But to just flagrantly come after the money… And the son, he’s nothing like I would have expected with Walter as his father. He’s a tattoo away from being a hood rat.”

  We laughed, which felt good because I hadn’t done much laughing. “Well, you obviously was a big part of Walter’s life,” I said.

  “One part of me can’t even believe he left me two hundred thousand dollars. Another part of me can because that was him. A giver. And that’s what I’m going to let people know at the funeral.”

  “You’re right. And if you need me to do anything, let me know. I can be a pallbearer. I can get the other pallbearers.”

  “That would be great. Please do. I will e-mail you the program and all details this evening,” Candice said. “We can start contacting people tonight. Walter didn’t want a big production. But I want it to be worthy of the man.”

  I hugged Candice and we departed. Spending that little time with her felt good. She was a good person. Never had a cross word with anyone. Never spoke badly about anyone. Always managed a smile and encouraging words, even as her world was unraveling. Believed in God and His power. Her faith was a force and it showed in how she handled herself.

  Those were the kind of people I enjoyed being around, the kind of people that uplifted you without trying. Some people were subtle with their influence over you. Others were in-your-face brash. I would take either over the negative, always-complaining, woe-is-me folks I encountered too often. Those people were draining.

  I hadn’t given it much thought until I needed people for uplifting—I didn’t have a lot of those people in my life. My daughter could lift my spirits with a mere smile. Candice was a joy, but I only saw her when school was in session and not that much then. My boys that I connected with on occasion for golf or carousing were cool—good guys with good intentions. But they didn’t inspire me. The memory of my parents gave me a mix of sadness and love at the same time.

  Kathy was like Candice in this sense: She gave off positive energy. And with that spirit and my love for her, she was ideal for me. I became determined to reconnect with her.

  On the way home, I stopped by Whole Foods and purchased a variety of fresh juices and some Alkaline water. I observed the people there and wondered if anything of them had cancer. I couldn’t tell, just as they were right there with me and did not know of my condition.

  My friend, Petey, called the all-natural fanatics the “nuts and berries” crew. If they ate everything from this place, they were bound to be healthier than mos
t. But they looked malnourished to me, unhealthy, like they were thin and hungry.

  “Everything in moderation,” my mother used to say. “You can’t eat too much or drink too much or anything too much. Find a balance.”

  I needed a balance. I needed something or someone to level off my fear of dying and disappointment in my friend’s suicide and frustration of dealing with Walter’s son and brother. I needed Kathy.

  Just saying that, though, was scary. I had told myself all my adult life that I didn’t need a woman. I dealt with women and enjoyed women…but I didn’t need a woman to round out my life. Well, this was a different time in my life and the only woman I knew who had the right mix of fun, spiritual strength, calm and intellect to give me balance was Kathy.

  And she was married.

  I felt funny about being in contact with her, even though I did not have intentions on anything but being uplifted by her voice and spirit. When I got home, I ate some oatmeal with the juice (kale, spinach, lemons, pineapples, apples) and I felt OK. I believed what I had eaten triggered that major stomach issue I had the previous week—spicy pasta with garlic and scallops. So I toned down my food choices.

  No more spicy anything. Everything would be mild and easy to digest. I was scared into this eating profile. It was mid-July, and I had not told the school my condition. I was afraid to face the fact that I likely would not be able to return to school in September—if the doctors were right. I’d be too weak or…dead.

  Those sad thoughts were about to consume me when my phone made a chime I had not heard before. I checked it and realized it was an indication I had a message in my Facebook inbox.

  It had to be Kathy. And suddenly had a spring in my step, as if I was injected with a dose of adrenaline. I clicked on the message and my smile got wider as I read:

  Calvin, you ought to know without me saying that you could never leave my mind. I’m almost mad at you (smile). Really, we were young and not the people we are now. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. Honestly, I still care for you. Of course, my life is different from yours. I have a family.