The bracelet on my table was nearly finished, and I was relieved to know I could soon ship it off to the young leukemia patient. When I was done attaching the gold clasp, I rose, and the calmness that had centered me while I worked evaporated. Two days had passed, and I assumed that, by now, Paige or Luke must have told Nona that I'd left him alone. I was surprised that Nona hadn't reported me to Faye. I was due at the Ryders' in a half hour, and as I threw on a clean shirt and put on some lipstick, blush, and eyeliner, I rehearsed the explanation I had prepared to give to Nona. In spite of my anxiety and dry mouth, I found I was also more excited about the visit than I had any right to be.
WHEN I got there, Jim was sitting at the kitchen table with Nona, filling in a records chart.
“Hi, sunshine,” he said.
“Hi.” I glanced over at Nona but could read nothing on her face except worry and exhaustion, a face full of effort. My heart twisted in sympathy. That morning, sitting at the table, if someone had told me that, within months, Nona and I would become adversaries, I would have found it impossible to conceive.
“How is everything?” I asked, everything meaning Luke.
“The same,” Nona said.
I waited while Jim finished with the paperwork and gathered his things together.
“So,” he said, “did you hear about the duck who went to the drugstore to buy some prophylactics?”
“No,” I said, although it was an old joke, one I knew. “I haven't heard that one.”
“Well, the druggist asked him, 'Do you want to pay cash, or shall I put it on your bill?'”
A tired smile creased Nona's face. She waited for the punch line, which Jim delivered in a cartoon voice.
“I'm not that kind of duck,” he said.
Even knowing the joke, the way Jim told it, I had to laugh. It took Nona a moment to get it, and then she laughed, too.
He stood up. “Ready?” he asked her.
Nona nodded. “Jim's taking me to the Stop & Shop,” she said.
I looked at him, raised a brow in question. This was not part of his job.
“I have to go anyway,” he said.
I suspected this was untrue. “I'd be happy to run you there,” I told Nona.
“You stay here with Luke,” she said. “He mustn't be left alone.”
I looked at her, trying to determine if there was a hidden message there, but Nona was picking her handbag up from the counter. “Anything I can do while you're gone?” I asked.
Nona shook her head. Jim took her arm, opened the door for her. “Oh,” she said, remembering. “Rich—the man you spoke to on the phone the other day—he might be coming by to pick up the trash.” She pointed to a pile of trash bags by the back door. “I didn't set it outside because of the raccoons.”
“Got it,” I said.
JIM'S JEEP had no more than pulled out of the drive when I heard Luke's bell. My heart gave a queer jump. I combed my fingers through my hair, felt my scar, tucked my shirt in my jeans. He was in the chair by the window and looked thinner than I remembered. I recalled Faye's response on Sunday when I'd asked how long he had to live. Weeks or months? Yes.
“Hi,” I said.
He stared at me, and again I had the queer sensation he could read every thought my mind had conceived. “Where's Nona off to?”
“Shopping,” I said.
“So does it make you feel good?”he said after a minute, his voice gone flat.
“What's that?”
“Coming here. Being a do-gooder.”
“Yes,” I said straight out. “In fact, it does.” I think my acknowledgment surprised him. “What? You'd rather your mother didn't get any help?”
“I don't like taking charity.”
“So you'd feel better if you had to pay me?”
“Feel better?” He gave a mirthless, hacking cough of a laugh. “No. I'd feel better if I wasn't lying here waiting to die.”
“Yeah, well I'd feel better if I had some kind of life myself,” I said, and then immediately regretted the comment.
He opened his eyes and looked straight at me. “What exactly is it that's so bad about your life?” he said.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just talk.”
He gave me that piercing, truth-seeking look.
I sighed. “You don't want to know.”
“Why?”
“Trust me. It's boring.”
“I'm listening.”
I looked around, wanting to get off the subject. We had been told not to sit and talk about ourselves when we visited. “Church visitors” Faye called the people who came to the room of a dying person and filled the air with talk of their grandchildren and their most recent trips. You go there to help, she'd told us early in the training, to offer the comfort of being less alone, and to listen, not to talk about yourselves to someone in the last portion of his life. Scanning the room, I saw a small oil painting on the wall that I hadn't noticed before. A dory pulled up on the shore with similar subtlety of composition to the painting in the living room. “I like that,” I said.
“You want it,” he said. “It's yours.”
“I just said I liked it.”
“Guy I knew in college did it. What? You thought I was a high school dropout?”
“I wasn't thinking anything, really,” I said, although that was exactly what had gone through my mind. “I mean, I don't know any more about you than you know about me.” Not true, and he knew it.
“What did they tell you about me? What was in my chart?”
“That you're forty-five and a fisherman.”
“Was,”he said. “I was a fisherman.”
“Let's see,” I went on. “You're divorced with a daughter. You didn't want hospice coming in.”
“Really? Well, they didn't tell me a damn thing about you.”
I knew this wasn't true. The caseworker had given both Nona and Luke some information about me. Without waiting to be asked, I crossed to the chair by the bed. “I'm thirty-two,” I said. “I was born in Richmond, Virginia. I have one sister who's two years older than I am. When I was fourteen, my daddy died of a massive heart attack. Lily—my mama—is still alive. I graduated from the Art Institute in Chicago and taught high school art until last year, when the school district eliminated my job.” I paused to take a breath.
“You finished?”
“Not quite. I'm not married. No children. I make jewelry. I guess that's about it.”
“Boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don't think I'm capable of it,” I said, surprising myself with this answer.
He studied me for a minute, and I felt a flush heat my chest, spread up to my throat. And then he smiled and said, “Do I know you?” in a way that made me smile, too, like we were both discovering a long, shared history we were only now remembering. It was that kind of eerie moment of recognition that could make a person believe in past lives.
“So,” he said, “do you know how to play backgammon?”
“It's been a while,” I said.
He indicated that I was to pull up a chair by the card table. While I set up the board, he ran through the basics, reminding me where to place the stones. For a time, while the two of us sat there and played, I swear I could nearly forget how ill he was. I was a tentative player; he was ruthless and lucky, throwing so many doubles, I accused him of cheating. We played three games, and I lost them all, crying “enough” after the third. He put the stones in their storage slots, then closed the board. The Lab, who had been curled up on the makeshift dog bed, rose and crossed to me. I rubbed his ears and the ridge of his spine, felt the coarse and oily fur of a water breed.
“You like dogs?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“He's my third. All from the same line. This one was the pick of the litter.” He looked over at the Lab. “Isn't that right, boy?” Rocker thumped his tail against the floorboards.
“He's beautiful,” I said.
Luke stared at the dog. “There was this famous actor out in L.A. who owned a horse,” he said.
I waited, wondering where he was going with this.
“So this actor, he got cancer.”
I focused on the dog, unable to meet Luke's eyes.
“He'd been born somewhere out in the Dakotas, and that's where he wanted to be buried.” He stopped and stared out the window at something I couldn't see. He fell silent, and I wondered if he was thinking about his own death and where he would be buried.
“Private funeral,” he said after a moment. “Then he was cremated. Those were his instructions.”
I waited, petted the Lab.
“Families don't always do that, you know. They don't always do what a person wants.” It was like he was talking to himself. I didn't interrupt.
“Well, about a week later, a few of his childhood friends and what family he had left all met in his hometown in the Dakotas. About eight of them in all. They rode on horseback out to this particular site where he wanted his ashes buried. One of them led the actor's horse along with them. When they got there, they braided the horse's mane with flowers they had picked, and bunches of sage. They said whatever it was that was in their minds to say and buried the actor's ashes.”
I could actually picture it. The circle of people and horses beneath the endless sky. The vial of ashes. The solitary horse, his mane bedecked with Dakota sage. Luke's next words took me by surprise.
“They shot the horse and buried him there, too.”
I stared at him, too shocked for words.
“That's what the actor wanted,” he said, as if I had argued.
“God.” My fingers tightened on Rocker's fur. “That's terrible.”
“Yes,”he said. “Yes.”
He laid his head back on the pillow, closed his eyes.
I felt that he had told the story deliberately, to shock or test me.
He opened his eyes and looked at me for another moment or two, then picked up the remote and flicked on the tube, my signal to leave.
“I understand, you know,” I said.
“Yeah? Understand what?”
“About being sick. Having cancer. I know how you feel.”
He gave me a hard, dismissive look. “I don't think you know the first goddamned thing about it.”
I crossed to his chair, knelt on the floor, bent my head forward until my hair fell forward over my face, revealing the bald circle and smile-shaped scar. After several minutes, I got up, flipped my hair back.
He was staring out the window, his face set. “What happened?” he said.
“A tumor.”
“When?”
“Five, nearly six years ago.”
“Malignant?”
I swallowed. “Yes.”
“So you had chemo?”
“Radiation,” I said. I had refused chemo. Lily and I had fought for hours over this decision, but I wouldn't cave. I wanted a future that held the possibility of children. I didn't tell Luke this. “Did you have chemo?” I asked.
“No. What was the point? To go through that to gain what? Another month or two? Forget it. So your cancer, did they get it all?”
“Yes.”
“What do they call it? Clean edges?”
“Yes.”
He turned away again. “Then you can't possibly understand how I feel.”
“No,” I said. “You're right. That was presumptuous of me.” Still, something had changed between us.
“So is that why they sent you here?” he said. “Because you're a survivor?”
“No,” I said. “They don't know.”
“Who?”
“Anyone here. At hospice.”
He stared at me, studying my face. “Is that a fact?”
“Yes.”
“So do me a favor?” he said, his voice neutral.
“What's that?” I said.
“A friend of mine is supposed to be stopping by to pick up the garbage.”
“Rich,” I said. “Nona mentioned it.”
“If you're still here when he comes, tell him I'm asleep, will you?”
“Company might be good for you.” The words escaped before I could contain them.
He snorted. “What would be good for me is to be back out fishing, earning a living. Having a life.”
His eyes told me everything. Would you want your friend to see you looking like this? “Please,”he said. Just that. He needs me, I thought, and with that knowledge came the end of any good sense I ever had. Up until then, I'd had no idea of the mighty seductiveness of being needed, feeling essential. I reached out then and circled his wrist with my fingers, startling myself as much as him. It was the first time I had touched him.
“Okay,” I said. “I'll tell him you're asleep.”
I WANDERED back to the living room, my hand still remembering the bones of his wrist, the grainy coolness of his skin, the beat of his pulse beneath my fingers. I cupped my palm to my face, inhaled, but smelled only the familiar almond scent of hand lotion. I didn't completely understand the impulse that took me then, but it drew me upward, up the stairs and straight to his bedroom, to the closet in his room. I opened the door and pulled one of the flannel shirts from its hanger. It was green plaid—the kind of moss green that flattered Irish black hair, dark eyes—and was soft with wear and washings. When I slipped it on, it hung nearly to my knees, the cuffs concealed my hands, suggesting the man Luke once had been. When I took it off, I didn't return it to the hanger but folded it carefully and rolled it into a tight cylinder, the way Lily had taught me to pack for a trip so that clothes would not wrinkle. I brought it back to the kitchen, and, in one more action I would later have cause to regret, I put it in my tote. I didn't stop to question why I was taking his shirt. (Stealing his shirt, I would later hear.) I knew only that I had this irrational urge to take something of his. I wanted some part of him for my own.
LATER I heard a car pull into the drive. Expecting Jim's green Jeep, I was surprised to see Paige's rusted Volvo.
“Hi,” I said, determined to be cordial. Paige looked tired and like she was returning from a night spent hard. That long blond hair could have used a decent brushing. She tracked in mud.
“Hi,” Paige said.
“Look,” I began, “about last time—”
“Forget it.” The girl's voice was sullen but not openly hostile, as if she had decided on a workable truce. She looked toward the closed door. “Is he awake?”
“I don't think so.” I'd heard the television switch off a half hour before, then nothing but silence from Luke's room.
“Damn,” Paige said, peeling off a tattered sweatshirt to reveal a cropped T “How do you stand the heat in here?” Without waiting for an answer, she began rummaging through a cupboard, shoving aside cans of Ensure. I wondered if she behaved this way with everyone or just with me. Twenty-two going on sixteen.
“Doesn't Nona have any Tylenol around here?”
“In the cupboard next to the sink,” I said. Even standing three feet away, I could smell the stale, sour-skin smell of a hangover.
Paige found the bottle, shook out three capsules.
“Long night?” I asked.
Paige flashed a quick, surly glance in my direction, checking for condemnation. Whatever she saw reassured her. “Wicked,” she said.
I retrieved a can of ginger ale from the refrigerator. “Hydrate,” I said. “Most hangovers are caused by dehydration.”
Paige reached for the soda. “What are you, a nurse or something?”
I laughed. “Just the sorry voice of experience.”
“So you're what? An alcoholic?” Her voice rose. “Great. They sent an alcoholic to take care of Luke.”
“Relax, will you? I'm not an alcoholic, just have my own history of hangovers.”
Paige held the can against her left temple, then her right, and then she flipped the tab and took a swallow. After that, she downed the capsules. Too many, but I knew enough to keep my mouth shu
t.
“Where's Nona?”
“Jim took her to the Stop & Shop. She should be back soon.”
“Jesus,” Paige said suddenly. “What's all that doing there?”
For one frozen moment, I thought Paige was looking over at the counter where my tote sat, flashing neon with the bulk of Luke's shirt inside. Then I saw the girl was staring at the pile of black garbage bags stacked by the back door.
“Trash,” I said. “Rich is supposed to come by today and pick it up.”
“Ah, Rich,” Paige said, and took another swallow of soda. “Rich the Wonder Man. Have you met him?”
“Not yet. Why?”
Paige whistled and then pantomimed blowing on her fingers, extinguishing a flame.
“Hot?” I said.
“Torrid.”
I recalled the sound of his voice the one time I'd heard it.
“We're talking off the scale,” Paige said. “Posi-fuckin'—tively radioactive.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Or good, depending on how you look at it. George Clooney before he went gray. I don't go for older men, but I'd seriously consider jumping his bones.”
“Really?”
“Like that's going to happen.”
“Why not? He's what? Twenty years older. That's not impossible.”
“He's Luke's^friend,” Paige said. “It's too creepy to think about getting it on with my father's friend. Ya know?”
I nodded, thinking, this child wears her id right on the surface.
“You might be tempted, though,” Paige continued.
“He isn't married?”
“Rich doesn't marry. His women live with him until he moves on. So, are you interested?”
“I don't think so.” Gorgeous cowboys who hadn't grown up were the last thing I wanted. God knows, I'd had my share of those in Richmond.
“What? Are you married or something?”
“No. Just not interested. Let's just say I've already had more than my quotient of bad boys.”
Paige laughed out loud and raised the can in a mock toast. For a moment, things were fine between us, almost as if I were sitting here with Ashley or a younger friend talking about the age-old, ageless topic of men, but then, wanting, for Luke's sake, to forge a real connection, I spoiled it.
The Lavender Hour Page 9
