Taking care of her had always been as much a part of Joe as his blue eyes and deep, rumbling laugh. How could she have expected him to be any different now? “All right, but no more than half an hour.”
“A half hour it is.”
Chapter 2
Jason said little during dinner, eating his pizza without looking up, as if being there for a meal were punishment instead of a treat. Susie chattered with the ease of a practiced hostess, keeping the conversation flowing with questions and comments and tidbits of family gossip that frequently left Eric at a loss for words.
When they had finished eating, Susie excused herself and went to the bathroom and Joe and Eric got up to clear the dishes, leaving Maggie and Jason alone together. Taking advantage of the moment, Maggie held out her hand to him and asked if he would mind helping her into the living room. She’d sensed that he’d assumed the role of caretaker after his parents’ divorce and that it was a way she could breach the invisible barrier that stood between them. He looked at her wrinkled, knobby fingers and hesitated a moment before slipping his small, perfectly formed hand into hers.
She let him lead her into the adjoining room, moving even more slowly than usual. “Should we sit with Josi, or over there next to the table?” she asked, shamelessly using the cat as bait to tempt Jason into sitting next to her rather than in the single chairs by the table.
Jason stared at the cat stretched out along the back of the sofa, its length making it seem even larger than its twenty-one pounds. “Does she like kids?” Jason asked.
“Almost as much as I do,” Maggie answered.
“We’re not allowed to have a cat. Mom’s allergic.”
He moved toward the cat tentatively, as if stalking prey. Josi noted his approach through one partially opened eye. With his knees pressed into a cushion, Jason put out his hand. Before making contact, he looked back at Maggie. “Are you sure it’s okay?”
“I’m sure.”
He touched Josi’s foot. Her other eye opened. He moved to the thick thatch that covered her belly. Her head came up. Slowly he ran his hand along her side. She yawned and stretched, then put her head back down and turned on her purring motor.
Jason grew wide-eyed at the loud, rumbling sound. He pulled his hand away and held it against his chest. “What’s that?”
“It means she likes you.”
“It sounds like she’s growling.”
Maggie sank into the cushion next to Jason. Josi dropped her tail possessively over Maggie’s shoulder. As if drawn by an irresistible force, Jason reached out to run his hand along the length of the cat’s thick fur. His fingers brushed Maggie’s cheek, and she felt as if he were petting her also.
Susie came into the room. “Can I pet him?”
“It’s not a him,” Jason said. “It’s a her.”
“Can I?” She looked to Maggie for her answer.
“Of course you can. She likes it best when you’re very gentle.”
Susie crowded in beside Jason. With her hand open flat, she touched Josi’s head. “Why does she make that noise?”
“It means she likes me,” Jason said.
Again Susie looked to Maggie. “Does it really?”
Maggie nodded. “It means she likes you, too, or she would have stopped.”
Impulsively Susie leaned forward and gave Josi a kiss on the end of her nose. “He smells funny,” she announced.
“It’s because she had fish for dinner.”
“Yuck,” Susie exclaimed, and backed away, losing interest. “Do you have any toys?”
“I have books,” Maggie said, only then remembering there were several children’s books tucked in the game cupboard. “Would you like to read one with me?”
“Okay.”
Joe did a quick check of the goings-on in the living room as he finished drying a glass. For all that had been fair and wonderful in Maggie’s life, the cruelty was that she’d never been able to have a child of her own. They’d tried to adopt but had been turned down when the agency found out about Maggie’s epilepsy. By the time a medicine came along to effectively control the seizures, they were old enough to be grandparents.
“She’s really good with them,” Eric said when Joe came back to put the glass away.
“I sometimes wonder if God didn’t keep her from having her own children because there were so many others who needed her.”
Eric didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally, gently, he asked, “Is it cancer?”
Joe looked at him. “How did you know?”
“After a while you can see the battle signs even when someone is trying as hard as Maggie is to hide them.”
“She never complains.” Because he didn’t know what else to do, Joe dipped a sponge in the soapy water and began wiping down the counters.
“How far along is it?”
“They don’t give her much time.” The words scraped his throat on the way out. He should have been used to the pain by now, but it came on fresh each morning when he foolishly allowed himself a moment to believe he was waking up from a nightmare. “One doctor said a month or two, another one told us she could still be here Christmas.”
“No one, I don’t care how good he or she is, can predict that kind of thing with any certainty,” Eric said. “I’ve had patients who should have lived a year or more who died within weeks after being diagnosed. And others who confounded every medical tenet and lived weeks or months or even years beyond what anyone believed possible.”
“But most people die when you expect them to, I suppose.”
“Yes, most people do.”
Joe nodded.
“If there’s anything I can do to help while you’re here, please let me know,” Eric told him.
“Julia was sure you’d feel that way.”
“You talked to Julia about me?”
“Maggie or I give her a call every couple of weeks. She’s had a pretty hard time of it since Ken died, and sometimes she just needs someone to talk to. She said you and Ken were a lot alike in some ways, kinda like you were cut from the same kind of fabric, only one of you was plaid and the other stripes.”
Eric fished the last of the silverware out of the dishwater. “Ken must have been pretty special.”
“The best. I’ve known a lot of people in my life, and not one of them was his match.” Joe had taken Ken’s heart attack almost as personally as Maggie’s cancer. “He and Julia were one of those once-in-a-lifetime kind of things. She’s gonna be a long time finding someone to replace him—if ever.” He picked up the dish towel again and then the silverware Eric had dropped in the drainer, fanning them out to dry each one separately.
“She’s a young woman,” he went on. “It’s hard to think of her living all that time without anyone.” His voice softened when he said, “I can’t imagine living all that time without Maggie.”
“How long have you been married?”
“Sixty-five years this past March. Maggie was twenty and I was twenty-three when we tied the knot.” He shook his head. “I think of all that’s happened since—how the world has changed and how we’ve changed right along with it—and it still seems like it was just yesterday that we were standing in front of the preacher in that little chapel in Reno.”
“You were married in Reno?”
“You probably thought that was something your parents’ generation started,” he said, grinning. “But it goes all the way back to me and Maggie.” He folded the dish towel and hung it over the sink. “Before I forget, if you happen to be talking to Julia any time soon, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say anything about Maggie. With all she’s been through since Ken died, we decided not to tell her until . . . well, you know what I’m saying.”
“I understand.”
“How about a cup of coffee? Wouldn’t be any trouble to make a pot.”
“We should probably be going,” Eric said. “I don’t want the kids wearing out their welcome.”
“Couldn’t happen,” Joe told h
im. “They’re better medicine for Maggie than anything she’s been given so far.” He stopped before entering the living room to give Eric a chance to see for himself. Susie sat at Maggie’s feet, playing with the seashells Margaret had left on the dining room table. Jason had curled himself into Maggie’s side and was listening to her read Lassie Come Home while Josi rumbled away, her head taking up most of Jason’s lap.
“They don’t get to visit their grandparents very much,” Eric said. “I can see now I’m going to have to do something to change that.”
“Maggie and I would be more than happy to pinch-hit while they’re here with you.” The offer was more self-serving than benevolent. He would do anything, strike any bargain, to give Maggie something to look forward to when she got up in the morning.
“I’d like that.” Eric stared at his children, the depth of his love and caring reflected in his eyes. “Jason needs a lot of attention and understanding right now. He really took it hard when I moved out. His mother has just remarried, and he’s had to accept that the four of us are never going to be a family again.”
Eric stuffed his hands in his pockets and went on. “She’s on her honeymoon. Which is why the kids are with me now instead of August.”
“If I’m not prying,” Joe asked with hesitation, “how do you feel about the marriage?”
“It was inevitable. Shelly’s a beautiful, caring woman.”
“Daddy,” Susie called to him. “Come see what I made.”
Joe hung back to watch Eric with his daughter. Eric crouched down on the floor next to her while his hand slipped around Jason’s swinging foot. He was a man who communicated through touch. Joe liked that. And he liked that Eric wore his heart on his sleeve when it came to his children.
Maggie looked up and caught Joe’s eye. She gave him a contented smile and then went back to her story.
When they’d first found out about her cancer, Joe had tried to talk her into staying home that summer, terrified of anything that might tire her and possibly steal a minute of the time they had left together. But she’d insisted they come to the beach house, and he could see now that she’d been right. She had one last gift to give and had found the perfect little boy to give it to.
Jason probably wouldn’t remember the lady with the cat who had read him stories and shared a pizza with him, but somewhere deep in his mind Maggie would make a difference by letting him know that he was special and worthy of the gift of her time.
Chapter 3
It’s a beautiful morning,” Maggie said as she stared out the living room window. The feeder had drawn a flock of house finches. They swooped and landed, darted and chased, as they vied for prime positions while down below, crested sparrows calmly and peacefully went about cleaning up the spilled booty.
Joe came over to stand beside Maggie, moving slowly as he worked out the kinks that came from a hard night’s sleep. He put a finger under her chin to tilt her head back for a kiss. “What are you doing up so early?”
She put her arms around his waist and laid her head on his shoulder, the touch and smell and feel of him as familiar and welcome as the air she breathed. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I was thinking about Jason. He’s special, Joe. I know it’s a lot to say after only just meeting, but I don’t believe I’ve ever known another little boy like him.”
“How so?”
“He has a gentle soul. All that time he and Josi were together, he never once teased her by tweaking her ear or tugging on her tail. And he didn’t panic or try to get away when she grabbed hold of his hand to stop him from rubbing her tummy. Something like that isn’t calculated, Joe, it’s a part of who Jason is.”
“Susie’s pretty special, too.”
Maggie smiled. “If I could have custom-ordered a little girl for us, she would have been just like Susie.”
He pressed the second kiss of the day to her temple. “What can I fix you for breakfast?”
“An English muffin—and tea.” She didn’t feel like eating; she rarely did anymore. It was one of the ironic things about dying. For what had to be the first time in fifty years she wasn’t worried about putting on weight. Her clothes hung on her, making it difficult to pretend, even on the good days, that she wasn’t in the midst of her last journey.
She didn’t regret dying; in a way she was grateful it had come the way it had and that she would be allowed to handle it on her own terms. Her heartache came from leaving Joe. Given the choice, she would have had him go first. Bearing the sorrow and loneliness would have been her final act of love.
Even in heartache, Joe would survive. After his last physical the doctor had told him that as long as he stayed out of the path of a speeding truck, he easily could live to be a hundred.
That day Maggie had been the only one to see the forlorn look in Joe’s eyes at what should have been good news. It was then she’d made up her mind that when she left him, it would be with memories of their long life together, not of a death prolonged by ever-incapacitating cancer.
Beneath that decision rode one more compelling and urgent. From the day she’d been diagnosed, what she’d feared the most was something she could never share with Joe. She knew this man who’d been her best friend and lover for sixty-five years. He was incapable of simply letting her go. In his mind he could deal with a “do not resuscitate” order, but never in his heart. For whatever years were left him, he would wonder if he’d let her go too soon; he would imagine the day or week or month she might have lived to be the most important they had ever shared.
If she lingered, Joe would sell his very soul to make her last days as easy as possible, and he would allow her no say in the matter. She could not bear the thought that the cold reality of the cost of dying could leave Joe to live the rest of his life in poverty.
It had taken weeks of impassioned persuasion to convince him that her final moments ought to be of her own choosing. She wanted to be lucid when she told him good-bye, not in a vegetative state with machines and clinicians controlling her final moments. After the life they had shared, how could she leave him any other way? When, at last, he understood it was not cowardice or fear that drove her, but a rational and reasonable wish, he relented.
Maggie had chosen her birthday because its symbolism had irresistible appeal. She thought of the day as a circle, marking her life’s beginning and its end. Joe had held her in his arms for a long time after she told him, saying nothing. Finally he’d said he would go along with all that she’d asked—save one thing. He would not leave her to die alone. She’d argued and then pleaded, but he wouldn’t budge, telling her that she should have known he was too stubborn to let her have everything her way.
“You’ve left me again,” Joe said. “Are you thinking about Jason, or is it something else this time?”
She looked up at him. “I was thinking about us. I must have done something really special in my last life to be rewarded with you in this one.”
“If that’s true, you’re going to have one heck of a life next time around.”
She shook her head. “This is it for me. It simply doesn’t get any better.”
“You’re right,” he said softly.
“What are we doing today?” Unlike the past, where their August at the beach house had been unstructured, this time they’d made plans. Some were purely sentimental—watching the hummingbirds at Carmel Mission and looking for otters off Point Lobos. Others were things they’d always meant to do but had put off because of finances or circumstance—a round of golf at Pebble Beach for Joe while she drove the cart and a picnic on Fremont Peak.
“Today is lunch at the Steinbeck house.”
It was a treat they hadn’t missed giving themselves in years, even when they’d been so broke that they had to cash in the change Joe kept in an old whiskey bottle at the back of his closet in order to go. “Did you make reservations?”
“Yes,” he replied indulgently. “Last week.”
“Your favorite quiche is on the menu.”
“Ah, it’s truly wonderful how you spoil me.”
He gave her a surprised look. “But you told me that you wouldn’t marry me unless I did.”
“Did I really? How clever of me.” It was her turn to give him a kiss. “Remind me what else I made you promise.”
“That I would wash the dishes and do my own laundry.”
“Hmmm, we seem to have let that one slide a little.”
“Maybe it was vacuum and clean the bathroom?”
She gave him a playful poke in the ribs. “I think it was probably more along the lines of convincing me I was the most beautiful woman in the world and doing it with a straight face.”
“No, you would never let me off that easy.”
The wonder of it was that in sixty-five years, the desire had never faded from his eyes. “What time are our reservations?”
“One.”
“And how long does it take to get there?”
He eyed her for several seconds. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“I must be losing my touch if I have to spell it out for you.”
“Are you sure?”
“The spirit is willing. I don’t see why we couldn’t give the flesh a chance.”
He grinned. “You won’t believe what you just did to me.”
She took his hand and started toward the bedroom. “I will if you show me.”
When Joe removed Maggie’s nightgown it wasn’t skin ravaged by time and gravity that he saw, but the body of the young woman who had lain beneath him on their wedding night, her breasts full and firm, her stomach flat, her thighs as smooth as a calm sea and as soft and beckoning as a lover’s whisper.
He knew her body as well as his own, where and when to touch her, how to move once he was inside, when that alone would bring her to climax and when she wanted or needed more. There were sighs that told him when she was ready and a quick, barely audible intake of breath that let him know to move faster.
In his care not to hurt her, he awoke a poignancy buried months earlier by fear. Unlike Maggie, Joe had been slow to master the ability to live each day as it came without thinking about what was ahead. With the diagnosis, the once easily put aside knowledge that life was finite no longer provided a shelter. At eighty-eight, with all but a handful of their contemporaries gone, he should have been better prepared for the inevitable. But he could not bear to acknowledge that the rules of life applied to them, too.
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