Those We Love Most

by Lee Woodruff

  There was always a point in her visitation of his room where the finality of his loss reared up and overwhelmed her. Life stopped at the edges of this room. Maura sat back down on the bed, holding her head as she let the sobs come, and then lay down, curling like a caterpillar on the thin SpongeBob bedspread.

  Rascal, as if understanding her distress, moved over to nuzzle her ankles the way he did when he wanted a dog treat or to be lifted onto a lap. He yelped as she hoisted him up to James’s bed, absentmindedly forgetting to support his back with both hands. Rascal settled in the C-curve of her curled body and let out a sigh as Maura began to stroke his silky ears. The dog missed James too.

  It had been James who had first noticed when Rascal seemed to struggle on the stairs last winter. Maura had guessed it might be something with his hips, or maybe his back. If only she’d known where that would lead, how something as innocuous as a visit to the veterinarian could be a catalyst for the fulcrum event in her life.

  As the dog’s mobility had steadily shrunk, Rascal began to drag his back foot slightly, and she’d called for an appointment. It was probably nothing, she’d told her son, old age. Dachshunds were notorious for back and disc problems, and he was at least eight years old.

  Rascal had been James’s more than any of theirs. He had begged for a dog practically since he could speak, and it had become part of the bedtime ritual. He began to step up his requests to include other times of the day, if they passed someone walking a dog or saw a movie where a dog was featured. It became clear to her that at some point having a dog was essential to her eldest son’s childhood, like jumping in piles of raked leaves, playing flashlight tag, or learning how to ride a two-wheeler.

  Pete had ultimately joined the chorus, arguing with her that they should do this for the kids. “Every kid deserves to have a dog,” he’d said to her. “It’s not like I won’t be around to help too.” But in her mind there had been no question it would be she who ended up with the dirty work, she who would be walking in the early hours with one of those little blue plastic bags in her hand as her dog crouched to poop with an embarrassed hunch. There were times when she’d felt her resolve slipping, and she would conjure up just this image to stick to her convictions.

  But a part of her had always understood that all of this was just a slow process of erosion. Adding a dog to the family would simply be a matter of time. Once she was pregnant with Sarah, she and Pete had already determined that she would stay home with the kids full-time. She’d quit her job at the hotel’s corporate offices and ceased commuting into Chicago. As she gradually adjusted to a new rhythm of life as a stay-at-home mom, she’d finally relented.

  Maura could vividly remember how James was practically bouncing out of his seat with anticipation on the drive to the county animal shelter. They had all spent an hour looking over the dogs and holding them, but he had fallen in love with a dachshund mix, black for the most part with sand-colored markings around his eyes and ears, and a batonlike tail. The owner had died, explained the shelter worker, an older person, and they believed the dog was five or maybe six, but he was house broken, loving, and most importantly, he needed a home.

  Almost immediately James decided that the dog would be named Rascal. He’d been a fan of the old black-and-white “Our Gang” movies that her father had introduced him to, and he explained to Maura and Pete that the dog had a “rascally” look.

  When Rascal’s pain turned out to be a disc issue, Maura had entered the world of veterinarian visits and dog medications. While he had never been fully healed, they had all learned to handle Rascal more gingerly. Rascal let out a small whine, bringing her back to the present in the hush of the room. She lifted him carefully down onto the floor, and he moved toward James’s small closet.

  Maura could tell that the smell of the boy Rascal loved was present for him too as he circled the room, sniffing. She wondered what those scents told him and how a dog processed someone’s prolonged absence. How long would Rascal remember? That dog had been the origin of so much happiness for James, and then after that one visit to the veterinarian, such an unexpected source of joy for her. But she wouldn’t think about that part of her life now. That part, like mothering James, was over.

  With what felt like enormous effort, Maura lifted her head off James’s pillow, took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly, squaring her shoulders before rising and leaving the room. Rascal followed out into the hall, close at her heels. With one last longing look, Maura pulled the door shut and turned the handle with a soft click.

  8

  “I want to just look at you for a moment. I’m so relieved you are here.” Julia was sipping a chardonnay at the hotel restaurant by the beach. Her deep purple silk sundress created a giant splash of color in the mostly white-toned vista of the patio. “It was so awful to leave you like that last time. You practically ran out of the car at the airport.” She leaned toward him in her chair, looping her arm through his on the table. Her vivaciousness felt rehearsed and cloying.

  “We just have the one night,” Roger said, changing the subject. “It’s a quick meeting, more information gathering, and then back to Chicago. We’ve gone through more financing scenarios with this client than I can ever remember. It’s frustrating actually, the guy is just putting us through the paces. He’s not very experienced.” Roger tilted his head back slightly to sip his bourbon and soda.

  Julia looked at him adoringly. There were times he felt he could be talking about deodorant soap, and she would still hang on his words. That quality about her, her rapt devotion, used to make him feel omnipotent. Tonight, after a delayed flight and thunderstorms over southern Florida, he simply felt impatient.

  “Did you pack some things to stay at the hotel with me?”

  “I did. It will feel like a minivacation.” She smiled at him, the corners of her eyes rising pleasingly, and he relaxed. “We’re going to order hot fudge sundaes from room service and eat them in bed. I don’t care if we drip ice cream all over us!” She laughed wickedly. Tonight would feel good, Julia would feel good. He could unwind a little. Everything had been so tense and somber at home.

  He had told her on the phone that he didn’t want to talk about his grandson, didn’t want to relive any of the details or discuss it. They were all moving on, or trying to anyway.

  “We don’t need to dwell on anything bad. Ever,” Julia had purred. “Tonight is a celebration of us. So we need to get busy.” Her laugh tinkled.

  After Roger paid the bill, they headed down to the beach, Julia holding her sandals in one hand and wrapping her thin shawl around her shoulder. The cooler breeze near the shoreline was a relief in the wilting humidity. The tide was rising and, farther out toward the water, the spill of the floodlights from the hotel receded, and she leaned against him. He pulled her in for an embrace. Roger could still conjure up that old excitement, the newness of her, the lack of familiarity. And then a flash of conscience, a pang. Roger had always been an expert at compartmentalizing, and he’d never had much use for guilt, but an image of Margaret sitting at home alone loomed in his mind for a moment and then mercifully retreated.

  “Let’s go back to the room. It’s so windy,” Julia said. As if sensing his momentary mental absence, she tugged his arm toward the hotel. As they approached the stucco entryway, Roger observed an elderly man in a wheelchair with a younger woman, perhaps his wife or maybe a daughter, pushing him up the boardwalk from the beach. “Let’s never get old,” Julia proclaimed in a loud whisper. “I want to stay just the way we are … like this forever.”

  Roger was struck for the moment by the juxtaposition: the infirmity of the man and the dutiful caretaking of the more youthful woman. He could see her clearly now as she bent to speak to the gentleman at eye level and then offered assistance while he slowly raised himself up in the wheelchair to stand. “I’ll bet that’s his daughter,” Roger said, still studying the couple, inexplicably drawn to their interaction. “I hope it is anyway.”

  �
��All I know is that will not be me,” said Julia, matter-of-factly. “When Frank was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, I became his full-time nursemaid. It was a labor of love, caring for him.” Julia paused, softening her voice. “But I lost myself then. For three years. And it’s taken me this long; it’s taken me finding you, to feel alive again. I don’t envy that woman, whoever she is.”

  Julia had mentioned her deceased husband before, but there was an uncharacteristic vehemence in her voice now that surprised him. She slid her arm down the length of his and grasped his hand firmly. They walked up the hotel beach ramp, now directly behind the couple as they peeled off to the lobby restaurant.

  Back in the room, after two generous scotches and some wine, Julia pulled off Roger’s loafers and made a show of undoing his tie. He felt himself relax into the night. The tensions of the travel had faded and he concentrated on the sheer pleasure of her, working the zipper on the back of her dress. But after a few minutes, after some writhing and repositioning, Roger found himself unable to focus, unable, to his horror and great shame, to become aroused. Each time his ardor would flag he would focus on it, will himself unsuccessfully to put his head in the moment, which only compounded his embarrassment and failure. “I … I’m sorry,” Roger said finally, rolling off her with more than a little frustration. This had never happened with Julia. With Margaret, perhaps, there had been times he had excused himself with fatigue or mumbled something about one too many drinks. But this utter failure, this lack of control over his own body, panicked him. True, he was preoccupied with the deal and worn out from a day of travel. But Julia had always known how to soothe that part of him, to tease out the fun side and inflame his passion.

  “I really am sorry,” Roger said again and rolled on his back. He could read disappointment and maybe even mild alarm in Julia’s eyes, but now she was on top of him, over him, rubbing his shoulders and cooing, unwilling to admit defeat. “Why don’t we just lie here,” she said, reaching for her sheer nightgown and pulling it back over her head. “Let’s just lie here and talk … and cuddle. We don’t have to do anything. I just want to be with you.”

  For the first time with Julia, Roger experienced the distinct sensation of not wanting to be touched. How ironic, he thought, all of those nights he and Margaret seemed to keep a football field between them on their king-size mattress, and now here he was, fighting the unfamiliar urge to fling Julia off, to wave her away abruptly and just fall asleep with his own thoughts. In his own bed.

  As if sensing this, Julia rolled away from him and onto her back. She inched her right foot over to touch his calf, and when he didn’t respond, she withdrew.

  “Is it me?” she asked somewhat tentatively.

  “You? No. Julia, it’s me. I’m just having a hard time shutting off so many thoughts tonight, I guess. You know this never happens.”

  “Hmmmm.”

  “I’m thinking we get a little rest now and then in the morning, well, we have a whole new day. My meeting doesn’t start until nine.”

  “I’d like that. Everything is always better in the morning.” Julia’s voice brightened and she rolled back toward him, laying her head on his chest and shoulder, her gardenia perfume overpowering. As he reached down to draw her closer with his free arm he felt a hopeful stirring, an increased sense of security and peace. Roger leaned to turn off the bedside lamp and pulled the covers up over them both. The air-conditioning was on too high, but neither one of them had the energy to get up and adjust it.

  As he closed his eyes, he thought about being with Margaret on the night after the funeral. As they crawled into bed she had begun to softly weep, and he had drawn her to him. They had lain like that, wordlessly, for a long time, her head resting like a stone on his chest, and he had felt protective and united. Roger had savored the strength and satisfying heft of being integral to his whole family that night, of being deeply needed. Julia was asleep now. He could hear the growing sound of her almost cartoonish exhales of air. And before Roger drifted off he experienced a sense of warm anticipation about heading home. It was suddenly a place he very much wanted to be.

  “Maura, you need to eat,” Margaret urged.

  “I am, Mom, I do eat.” Maura was picking at the glops of tuna poking out of the sandwich. Next to her at the table Sarah’s chubby fingers were grasping one buttered noodle at a time.

  “You don’t eat enough. Even Daddy was commenting that you look too thin.”

  “When is Dad coming home?” Maura asked.

  “Dinner tonight. And then he’ll head over to your house to see Ryan.”

  Roger had been spending more time at Maura’s lately, taking Ryan into the city for a hot dog last weekend, and he had bought tickets to a Sox game this Sunday. The grandchildren seemed to be resurrecting themselves, recovering their old personalities and moving forward. Her daughter was a different story.

  It was agonizing for Margaret to witness her child so transformed and in so much pain. What had happened to James was one thing, unspeakable and unimaginable. But to see your once vibrant daughter gutted like a fish, well, that was almost more than a mother could bear.

  At least Margaret had succeeded in getting Maura to eat a little before she and Sarah headed home for naptime. She spent the rest of the afternoon in the garden, allowed herself one cigarette, and then wrote some thank-you notes at her desk. In the remaining hour before dinner, Margaret drew a bath. The late August day had been hot, and she’d gotten into some prickers near the shed that had left little red itchy bumps on her forearm. The soak would be soothing. She climbed in, sunk down to her shoulder blades, and closed her eyes, feeling the release of a long day as the setting sun projected a deep orange glow on the wall from the bathroom window.

  She’d invited Maura over this afternoon for lunch, hoping to lure her out of the house a bit more, distract her with a change of scenery. There really were no words to help. Those old chestnuts about time healing all wounds or the folks who thoughtlessly said “thank goodness she has her two other kids” were simple fools. She would wait it out with Maura, that was what she’d do. Time could be whittled away with constant motion and momentum until one day the pain would release its tight pincer-hold on her daughter. It was all she had to offer, her ability to roll up her sleeves and help Maura white knuckle her way through the worst of the grief.

  Margaret would wet mop the kitchen linoleum and then tackle the flecks of mold in the shower. She would read to Sarah and defrost the garage freezer, knocking the thick chunks of ice away with a screwdriver. The activity level in the Corrigan house, with just Ryan and Sarah, still seemed so chaotic. Ryan had multiple activities and sports, equipment for this and forms for that. Sarah was walking everywhere, language blooming at warp speed on her tongue.

  The light toward dusk had begun to purple and soften the room. Running more hot water to warm up the bath, Margaret wondered if it had been just sheer will that had propelled her through it all back in her days as a younger mother. She came home now from the stretches of time spent at Maura’s, the veins throbbing in her legs, steeping a cup of lemon tea, drawing the utter silence of the house around her like a cape.

  And yet Margaret was satisfied that her presence was a comfort. Just being there to care for them all and usher them through the day gave her a sense of purpose, and creating some order out of the utter devastation in that household was satisfying. Order was what Margaret understood best.

  It bothered her still, after all these years of marriage, the way Roger came into the house and threw his possessions around willy-nilly, shedding the responsibility of the workday at a dizzying speed. Glasses, loose change, wallet; his items claimed no particular place in the world and therefore he was constantly asking her, “Have you seen my car keys? Do you know where my watch is?”

  Years ago she had hammered in little hooks for the keys and she’d found an old silver bowl, a wedding present from a fraternity brother of his, that she’d designated for the contents of his pockets when h
e walked in the door. “You can put your key chain and wallet here,” she’d tried to coach him night after night, pointing to the bowl on the table by the front entrance. But he was unable to think like that, unable to remember something so methodical. She shook her head now, smiling in exasperation at the futility of her system. The bathwater rippled forward, the bubbles stilled to a weak foam at the edges of the tub.

  That was during an earlier, somehow much simpler time in their marriage, when the current between them ran stronger. There was ease in the circumscription of their roles back then. She was the dedicated mother on the home front, he the gallant breadwinner, walking in the door just before cocktail hour with a huge smile, arms open wide for his excited children. Stu had still been in diapers, and Margaret’s days were filled with completing the physically demanding tasks of a young mother—loads of laundry, grocery shopping and cooking, picking up the toys, soothing cuts and bruises, wrapping birthday gifts, and making doctors’ appointments.

  There had been plenty of good times, the rhythm of strongly connected stretches periodically followed by weaker ones, the feeling of moving in lockstep and then occasionally drifting, operating independently, like any marriage, she imagined. But it was when they were a team that she and Roger functioned best. And somehow, picking through the carnage after James’s death, they had begun to feel like they were fitting back together after a long absence, returning to a kind of synchronized orbit. Margaret leaned back in the bath and closed her eyes in satisfaction at that thought.

  When the water grew tepid she stood up, letting the rivulets drip off her body. Easing out of the tub, Margaret dried off with a thick towel, and thought about the fact that in a month it would have been James’s tenth birthday. Then there would be Thanksgiving, Christmas, and looming ahead would be the anniversary of his death. All of these unwelcome firsts would be fresh cuts, she thought.