by Liora Blake
“When you and I went to Idaho and I was this close to leaving Trevor behind, you told me your life was safe and stifling. You made me promise to think about having the same kind of life before I gave up on him entirely.”
I have to look away for a moment. The recollection of Idaho, being there with Kate when she was broken, being there with Jake when we were young and wrapped up in each other, is nearly too much. There is hope and heartache laced through both memories, so much that both moments feel too intense for now.
Kate pauses and takes a deep breath. “Whatever you do, remember this: he’s a real, live, person. Flesh and blood. Crowell and The Beauty Barn are just things, places. They can’t take care of you. It might seem easier to hold on to all that because they’re tangible, but they can’t give you what he can. They just can’t.”
She leans over and rests her body against mine. “There’s my attempt at a come-to-Jesus, atta-girl speech. Think about that before you decide. Do you want a bunch of inanimate things? Or do you want a life?”
I shove another handful of cookies in my mouth, pausing only to offer one headless elephant cookie to Kate. She scoffs but takes it. Sinking down a bit farther into the bed, I close my eyes and try not to cry again. Perhaps if I just stay here, in my bed, until the worst of this passes, I’ll find my way.
The head nurse at Ruth Ann’s care center calls a few days later. I managed to straggle my way into work today, surprised at how gloomy the store feels after being shuttered for a week. When my phone rings, I’ve barely gotten all the lights turned on and started surveying the fine layer of dust exposed under the glare.
She stops short of saying anything too specific, nimbly skirting around the obvious. There were enough clues in what she did say. Hospice team. Pain management. Keeping her comfortable. Thought you would want to know.
When I turn the “CLOSED” sign again and flip the lights off, I know that when I come back to this place, Ruth Ann will be gone.
Four hours later, I find a parking space at the care center and slowly turn the key in my ignition to shut off the engine. My head thumps to the steering wheel. I grip it tightly in my fingers, until my knuckles start to ache under the pressure. Nothing happens. Either I’m out of tears from losing Jake or I’ve compartmentalized all this crap into such airtight little boxes, my emotions can’t find room to rise up. Fine. I’ll take another round of numb for now.
Down the long hallway toward her suite, the head nurse catches my gaze and offers a timid smile with a half wave. If I weren’t quite so dependent on remaining emotionally anaesthetized, I would wave back. Instead, all I can give is a responding smile, so feeble it probably looks as if I only experienced a facial tic.
Stopping just outside her room, I pause and close my eyes, but reach to push the door open without waiting too long. If I do, I might not be able to do this. When the door opens completely, I can’t process anything but how ungodly warm her suite is. I remember this cloying awareness of smothering warmth from when my dad died. The stuffy heat of his hospital room, the way it accentuated each sensory experience. The acrid smell of infection covered by medicine and desperation. The sound of his rattling, slow breathing, the way the heated air seemed to keep it trapped there, insulated in the spare space. The way my skin felt clammy and feverish. I couldn’t move the air around me enough to push it away.
Stripping off my coat and scarf, I drape it across the slipper chair next to her bed and try to understand what’s next. What do you do when someone is dying before you? I think of Kate, the way she didn’t try to do anything else when my dad was dying. I’ll try that. Just maybe not right this second, though.
I busy my body by meandering about her small room, tracing a finger over her things. The antique vase with hand-painted pink peonies on it. A cut glass dish filled with hard candies, Starlight mints and butterscotch discs, as any proper old lady should have on hand. The soft edge of the white doily on her bureau. When my eyes absentmindedly fall on the photo of Ruth Ann and Vernon, I try to avoid lingering and looking at it the way I normally would, but can’t seem to pull my gaze away. I lean in closer, taking what may be my umpteenth look at it.
“Take that with you, Miss Lacey.”
I nearly knock it off the dresser when she speaks, but manage to avoid it, turning slowly to see her. She’s smaller than ever. Just a wan outline of the woman I’ve always admired. Instead of a peach complexion set off by high cheekbones and full lips, her entire face is bone-thin. And the way her now-silver hair is slicked back from her face in limp threads, I can hardly remember how dark it once was, always set in perfect pin curls I admired.
But Ruth Ann’s eyes remain closed, seemingly focused on each inhale and exhale that require all of her attention. Normally, I would protest a statement like that, claim I couldn’t or shouldn’t. But, God, she’s working so hard right now, all to stay present for another moment, and she took the time to utter words it probably tortured her body to say, so I can’t do anything but pick up my treasure and grasp it tightly in my hands.
Because I’m having trouble standing steadily, because I’m ready to do this now, I pull the slipper chair as close to her bed as possible and sit down gingerly. Setting the framed photo on my thighs, I try my best to do nothing but wait. It’s easier suddenly. The room less potently stifling, my skin less achingly warm. And when I decide to look at her, really look, I’m not fighting it anymore. There is the only the righteous sense of knowing how I could both want someone to stay forever and still understand how much it would serve them to go. I want her to leave this world unfettered, without my guilty desperation clouding the moment. I actually want her to go. Want to watch her go and wish her well.
Her breathing settles again, nothing but the rattling knock of her lungs doing what they must, and her frail hands twitch on the bedcovers, a bluish-gray mottling at the tip of each finger. I take and place my hand over hers, as gently and slowly as I can, forcing myself to keep it there, even when I think it might hurt my heart less if I pulled away.
“Tell me about home, Miss Lacey.”
When she speaks, uttering this simple request, I can’t find the words right away. All I can do is put my other hand on top of hers, so that my two hands are grasping her delicate one, and let my head slump forward until it meets my outstretched forearms. I close my eyes and the fat, heavy tears start to seep out. Opening them a crack, in my peripheral vision, I can see the photo still resting on top of my legs. Seeing those two, the abiding and tangible love there, it’s easy to understand why she wants to hear about Crowell in this moment. Why, when she is so ready to leave, she would want to know the happenings of an insignificant dot on a map, a place no one knows of, other than those of us who know nothing else but the way our lives have been defined by it. Ruth Ann Taylor found and nurtured a life there, with a man who loved her no matter what. Their love had no geography or boundaries, no right or wrong, and it lasted well beyond everything. If I tell her about Crowell in these moments, I’ll be doing something entirely more. I’ll be telling her about Vernon, sending her home to him with nothing but their history as a guide.
Allowing myself one gasping, sniffling little moment to crumble inside before speaking, I close my eyes and start to say good-bye.
“. . . The Talley brothers are painting their barn again. The one that used to be red? It’s going to be white now. It’ll look nice. White with black trim, I guess . . . The boys’ basketball team won their semifinals last week. Remember when they won state a million years ago? Cale Johnson was in Deaton’s, going on and on about how this team might do it again. . . . When I drove out of town today, it was trying to snow. There were those big, heavy clouds sitting low on the horizon, and it was so quiet out. You know what I mean, right? The way it gets so still before a big spring snow? It was just like that. . . .”
20
Five days later, we buried Ruth Ann in the Crowell town cemetery, in a plot of damp earth just
next to Vernon’s long-settled grave. It took twenty long years to get her back to his side—but it’s the place where she always belonged.
Kate held my hand, petted my hair, and stood there with me in the bitter cold until it was enough. Her hand, as wonderful as the gesture was, felt entirely wrong in mine.
I needed the weight and breadth of something more. I needed the roughness of thick fingers encased in a pair of fingerless gloves, so that I could rely on the sturdy reliability there. I needed Jake to take me home, feed me, and make me forget the hurt for a bit. I needed his body, the weight of it over mine, so I might know I was taken care of.
I needed him to fix it.
Instead, Kate dropped me off at home, asking for the hundredth time if I wanted her to stay the night. I promised her I would be fine. I was lying, but it was the kind of lie we both knew was happening, which made it easier for us each to swallow.
Inside, I find myself drifting from room to room. Dropping my coat and purse in the hallway, kicking off my shoes in the living room, meandering into the kitchen, where I actually stand in the middle of the room and turn aimlessly in a small circle. Nothing in my world is rooted anymore; everything has been tugged up mercilessly and tossed aside. The things I always counted on are spinning about and either disappearing or landing where they don’t belong. Ruth Ann is gone. The job I relied on for so long is now my own business. Kate and Trevor are making noise about finally heading back to California.
And Jake? He’s simply vanished. No pleading phone calls, no forlorn emails, nothing. Just as I worried he would do when we began this ill-fated journey, it seems he left me without even a good-bye. Again.
We fought and instead of finding a way beyond it, we broke. What that says about the durability of us together, I’d prefer not to explore. If I come back from this, because it absolutely feels like a tenuous “if” right now, there will be so little elasticity left in my heart, who knows how I might ever be able to let anyone get ahold of it again.
Yet, some days I would swear Jake and I are playing an impossibly juvenile game of chicken with each other’s hearts. I open my email too many times a day, holding my breath and hoping for something from him. Sometimes I even chant a little prayer as I do, and when it doesn’t work, I hate myself for even bothering. But even when I only find a spattering of worthless spam emails instead of the one I want, it’s as if I can feel him doing the same thing, all those miles away. Sitting in front of his computer, hoping I’m the one who gave in, that I’ve sent him a sign that this mattered and isn’t worth losing.
But my email continues to do nothing but offer me ten percent off new spring shoes and free shipping on orders over one hundred dollars, and taunt me to not miss out on various steals and deals. I don’t seem to have reached the retail therapy portion of this breakup yet, because none of those shoes are even remotely appealing. I used to buy things I knew I would never wear, stocking my closet with every aspirational dream I was holding on to. It didn’t matter that I might never remove the tags, or that I likely wouldn’t have the right place to wear half the things I buy: it was enough to know there was still a sliver of hope I might.
In my bedroom, I struggle to reach the back zipper on my most chaste black dress, contorting my limbs awkwardly until I can grasp the tiny pull and yank on it. And that struggle nearly brings tears to my eyes. If Jake were here, he would sense how desperately I needed to sink under something tactile, distracting, and carnal, just to stop feeling so much. He would have had my dress unzipped before my feet hit the staircase. He would have had me properly consumed by nothing but the way his body fits mine, the way everything else falls away when we’re together and how it obliterates, leaving nothing but weak satisfaction in its wake.
Once I struggle out of my dress and kick it into a heap on the floor, I drop onto my bed and tug at the still-unmade sheets until they cover me properly. The urge to check my email batters around in my mind. I try to ignore it.
Doesn’t work.
Without even sitting up, I drag my laptop over from the far side of the mattress and plop it on my stomach. No chanting prayers, I tell myself. No sending psychic messages out into the universe. No bargaining with some higher power that likely has bigger things to focus on: “I’ll give up animal crackers.” “I’ll be nicer to Dusty.” “I’ll send money when Sarah McLachlan shows me those pictures of abused animals on television. Just let there be one little ping of an email from him.”
I close my eyes and count to fifteen, more than enough time for the digital divide to upload and download and do whatever it must to load my email. Cracking one eye open, I already know, even before I’ve gotten a clear view.
Nothing.
Anthropologie cares. Zara cares. Nasty Gal cares. A handful of other dot-com retail clothing sites care.
Jake Holt? Not so much, it seems.
Death brings about a never-ending series of concise clichés from people’s mouths. All spoken as if grief has a word count of some sort. Two- and three-word phrases abound: “For the better.” “Loose ends.” “Final arrangements.” “A good life.”
I’ve been on the receiving end of so many of these phrases in the last few weeks. So much that I now understand how Kate felt right after James died. She used to say it was unbearable to be in the world sometimes, to hear the timbre in the inquiries, the way people would lower their voices and tilt their heads while speaking, every word reeking of a sympathetic condescension that makes you want to scream.
When Matthew calls and leaves a message, asking when I might be able to come up to Missoula and deal with the last of Ruth Ann’s estate, he speaks in full sentences, absent of any contrived sayings. With the exception of Kate, no one else has spoken to me that way in weeks. Even when I call him back and we set a day to meet at the care center so I can pack up the last of her belongings, he doesn’t fall into those short phrases. He doesn’t ask me how I’m doing. He simply gets to it and moves on. I’ve never been so thankful for cursory conversation in my entire life.
In her suite, most of Ruth Ann’s things are already gone. She had arranged to donate all her furniture and clothes to Goodwill, so what remains are her personal items. The small things that comprise the true story of who she is . . . or rather, who she was.
Pictures lean against the wall; small piles of jewelry and knickknacks line the floor. Tiny decorative boxes, delicate doilies, fragile figurines, cut glass bowls and vases. A pile of empty cardboard boxes in one corner. It isn’t much, but despite that, I’m overwhelmed the second I enter the room, coming to stand in the center and discovering I don’t know where to start. I can keep whatever I choose to and let the rest go. But choosing seems so hard. How do you decide? How in the hell do you get rid of things a good woman kept for so many years?
I flop to the floor in a heavy slump that collapses me into a cross-legged pile. Propping my chin into my hands, when I pause and look about, the reality of Ruth Ann settles around me. A casual observer might look at this remaining evidence of Ruth Ann’s world and see it as small. Modest and unassuming, with no legacy to speak of. But there was nothing less than abundant about Ruth Ann’s existence. She made a home, built a life, and left it with dignity and grace. How could anyone ask for more than that? And what’s more, she understood the power of a small life, as long as it was well lived. When she passed, I truly believe she never wanted for anything more than what she was given.
A few tears come at knowing that. Nothing too dramatic, not the blubbering that losing Jake has inspired, just a few silent tears that are more an homage to her good spirit than anything.
Once those tears make their way down my cheeks and over my forearm, I’m ready. One full inhale, a deep exhale, and I grab an empty box and dig in. I’ll just pack it all and take it with me. No decisions today. Those choices can wait.
A couple of hours later, I’m on the last box, tucking a few framed photographs into the re
maining spaces, when a soft knock raps at the open door of the suite. When I look up, Matthew is standing there, blasting that Cary Grant smile, soft and full.
“Wow.” He takes a glance about the room, taking in the nearly bare space, save for a handful of packed boxes near the door. “You knocked this out.”
I pull my hands up to my hips and survey the room for myself. I did. I totally knocked this out. The tiniest, silliest sense of pride rises up inside.
With a little head nod to acknowledge it all, I turn back toward Matthew. “Feels good.”
Matthew smiles again. “Yeah? I’m glad. Sometimes stuff like this, crossing things off a to-do list, they’re a saving grace.”
He locks his eyes on mine and doesn’t waver for a moment. Standing there dressed in what I assume is Matthew-casual, a pair of dark-wash jeans, suede chukka boots, and a wool sweater, everything about him looks just right. I realize then that he gets exactly how hard this all is. Without the little phrases to feign comfort, without any contrived sentiments, he knows.
When he gives up his stare, he pulls a file out from where it’s tucked under one arm and holds the folder up. “I’ve got the last few papers I need you to fill out. Life insurance claim form and a couple of signatures to collect the balance of her investment accounts.”
There is still a strange sensation of feeling like a scavenging crow over the life’s work of Ruth Ann. Laying claim on things I probably never deserved and picking away at the tiny shreds of meat on nearly stripped bones. I nod, then drop down to fold the top of the last box shut. Matthew moves forward and crouches down on the opposite side of the box. One of his hands comes to cover mine where I’m not-so-aptly trying to origami the flaps to stay shut.
“Hey.” I can see the slightest tilt of his head coming to see me better. “She wanted you to have all of this, Lacey. Ruth Ann didn’t have to; she could have left everything to charity, or her sister. But she didn’t. Don’t tarnish what she did here by feeling guilty, just be thankful for her generosity and leave it at that. OK?”
