by Webb, Peggy
When Jean woke up she discovered she’d been crying in her sleep. She turned to her side and hugged the covers around her shoulders. A red leaf broke loose from the sweet gum tree in her yard and drifted down to rest on her windowsill. She shut her eyes, and fresh tears rolled down her face.
The grandfather clock in the hall, an heirloom passed down through three generations of Tylers, chimed out the hour. Eight o'clock in the morning. There were so many hours left in the day . . . but only six before the anniversary of Sonny's death. One year ago at exactly two o'clock in the afternoon she'd been standing in the downstairs hallway talking on the telephone while a car came out of nowhere and killed her child.
Gasping for breath, she struggled out of the covers and fumbled on the nightstand for tissues. It was such a small sound, blowing her nose, but it echoed around the room, magnified in the emptiness of her house.
Oh, God, she needed someone. Reaching for the phone, she automatically dialed Maggie's number. The phone rang only once before Jean replaced the receiver. It was Saturday. Why should she ruin the weekend for Maggie?
A morning breeze freshened over the gulf and, turning inland, stirred the branches of the sweet gum tree. Another painted leaf drifted to the windowsill. She got out of bed and drew the curtains to shut out the sight of red.
In the bathroom she gazed at herself in the mirror.
Her cheeks were filled out, her hair had regained its gloss. She even had a love life ... if you could call what she and Curt did love.
She had become very good at pretending.
It took a while to adjust the water in the shower to her liking. When she got in, she stayed an hour, scrubbing and scrubbing.
She couldn't get the red leaves off her mind, and when she finally got out of the shower she didn't know whether her face was wet with water or soaked with tears.
Taking small, precise steps she made her way to her closet. She'd worn white wool to Sonny's funeral. The dress was buried at the back of her winter clothes. She pulled it off the hanger, then hugged it to her chest as she made her way to the bed.
The clock in the hall ticked off the time. Another hour? Sitting on the edge of the bed with the white dress clutched in her hand, she didn't keep count. Time had ceased for her the day she put her son into the ground.
Finally she stood up and dressed. She took extra care with her hair, her nails, her makeup. Sonny had always been proud of her looks.
She didn't want to disappoint him.
On her way to the car, she stopped in the kitchen, trying to decide what to eat. The decision was monumental and took her another thirty minutes. She wasn't hungry, but she knew she had to eat in order to keep from fainting.
At last, sustained by a glass of milk and two graham crackers, Jean got into her car and made her way to the cemetery. She sat in her car a long time, seeing the markers through the wrought iron gates. The last time she'd gone through those gates she'd been leaning on Paul's arm and following a tiny coffin.
Through the wrought iron bars she could see the monument they'd erected for their son, a marble angel with its beautiful carved face lifted toward the heavens. Slowly Jean got out of her car and walked toward the angel.
The breeze had picked up speed and chill. Standing at the graveside she shivered. Was Sonny cold?
A stillness came over her as she waited at the graveside, and after a while she felt as if she and the angel might have been carved by the same sculptor.
"Jean?"
Paul was standing on the opposite side of the grave. She hadn't heard his approach.
She merely nodded, for her mouth was too stiff to form words. He came around and stood beside her.
"I thought you might be here."
They looked at each other; then ashamed and guilty, they let their glances slide away. A lone gull soared in from the gulf and drifted over the marble marker, its unbearable whiteness gleaming in the cold October sun. Jean shaded her eyes to watch the gull's upward flight. When it had climbed high enough, it absorbed the blue from the sky and vanished, transfigured.
Oh, Sonny, my precious one, son of my womb, child of my heart.
"I said things I didn't mean that day, Jean . . . and afterward."
Paul was waiting, waiting for her understanding, waiting for her forgiveness. Even in her suffering, she was gracious.
"So did I, Paul."
"I'm sorry we hurt each other so."
She squeezed his hand, then let go. He was so warm, so alive.
They stood together a while longer, their bodies almost touching, their hearts miles apart. Then he kissed her cheek softly and walked away.
Relentless, time marched forward. The burning sun warmed the earth and stole the chill from the breezes. Leaves betrayed by the changing of the seasons were cast adrift by the trees. They floated around Jean and landed at her feet. One of them, its formation ravaged by the wear and tear of summer, fell onto her white dress and rested there, blood red, shaped like a heart.
She brushed the leaf away, then got into her car and drove home. Carefully. As if she could barely remember the way.
She opened the door to the silence of her house. Holding on to the railing she made her way upstairs to her bedroom. Then, still wearing her white dress, she went into the bathroom and took down her bottle of Valium.
o0o
The three of them sat on a quilt Susan had spread on the sand. Jeffy's laughter beat the air like the wings of birds. Paul caught Susan's hand and smiled at her.
"Have I told you how much you and Jeffy mean to me?"
"In a thousand different ways."
Beside them, Jeffy struggled upward. "Look, Paul. Only two legs," he yelled, squealing with laughter. His other leg lay on the quilt, the silver aluminum of the little cane burnished by the setting sun.
"Don't go too close to the water."
"I won't, Mommy."
She turned to Paul. "Dr. Freelander thinks he might be ready for surgery soon."
"Everything's going to work out fine, Susan." Paul squeezed her hand. "For all of us."
o0o
Later that evening, lying in his arms, Susan remembered his words. She rolled to her side, and propped on her elbow, gazed down at him.
"Paul, what did you mean this afternoon when you said everything was going to work out for all of us?"
Paul touched her cheek, then traced her lips with his fingertip.
"For Jeffy . . . for me . . . for you."
"For you and me together?"
He drew her down and kissed her. And the need rose again in them, bright and beautiful. If this wasn’t love, it was so close that no one could tell the difference.
Much later, they drew apart and he reached for her hand. She hung on, was still hanging on when the phone rang.
Alarmed, she glanced at the clock. Midnight.
He sat up with her and put his arm around her waist as she picked up the receiver.
"Susan Riley?"
"Yes?"
"This is Maggie McKenzie . . . Bill's wife."
A cold lump of dread settled in the pit of Susan's stomach.
"Is Paul there?"
'Yes."
"I need to speak to him."
Silently she handed him the phone, then watched long enough to see the puzzlement on his face turn to concern. Susan couldn't bear to watch any longer. She left the bed and walked to the window, keeping her face turned resolutely away from him.
She didn't have to hear Maggie's voice to know what she was saying. She was taking Paul away as surely as if she'd come into the bedroom, looped a rope around his neck, and dragged him off.
"I'll be right there," Paul said. The click of the receiver was loud in the room.
She hugged her arms around herself, waiting.
"Susan." Paul put his hand on her shoulder. "It's Jean. She's taken an overdose of Valium."
She felt as if all the life had suddenly been sucked out of her. White with fear, she turned to face him.
"I knew ... I kne
w when the phone rang."
"I have to go to her, Susan."
She searched his eyes and saw agony, studied his face and saw pain. Don't go, she wanted to scream, and then she felt selfish, selfish to the core.
"Please understand . . . she needs me."
“I understand.”
“Thank you.” He kissed her cheeks first, then kissed her on the lips. Already, it felt like the touch of a stranger.
"I'll call you," he said.
He left her standing with her back at the dark window, hugging herself and staring at the closed door. She'd forgotten to ask if Jean was alive or dead.
Book 3
". . . {He} knew that his life would never be the same again. ..."
Flannery O'Connor
from Wise Blood
Chapter Twenty-eight
The week before Thanksgiving it became clear to the Baxters that their son Mark would never fully recover from his stroke, and so they sought out a high-powered lawyer in Jackson, Mississippi, thinking that anybody who chose the laid-back sea resort of Biloxi as his base of operations couldn't be all that serious about law. The lawyer moved swiftly. News was delivered to all parties concerned on Thanksgiving Day. The suit was filed against Blake Medical Center, Dr. Curtis Blake, and Dr. Paul Tyler.
Papers were served on Paul in his office. The lawsuit was not unexpected and in fact seemed to be just another misfortune in a long string of them.
Holidays were not exempt from sickness and death, and he'd chosen to work so Luther could be with his wife and three children. The thought of celebrating Thanksgiving—or any other holiday, for that matter— held no appeal for Paul. Lately he seemed to go around in a perpetual state of tiredness. Luther said he was working too hard, and although Bill never let on, Paul could see him constantly looking for signs of surreptitious drinking.
The real problem, of course, was a loss of joy hidden by layers of deceit. Every now and then Bill would study him and say, "You miss her, don't you?"
He didn't have to say yes. Bill understood. He also understood why it had been necessary to leave Susan and stay with Jean. Susan was strong; she could handle anything. It was Jean with her terrible fragility who needed him.
The night he'd left Susan's bed, the night Jean tried to commit suicide, his life had gone into a sort of holding pattern, like a giant plane running out of fuel but with nowhere to land.
Paul bent his head to his hands, remembering. . . .
Maggie had met him in the hospital corridor.
"Oh, God, Paul, she tried to kill herself. I didn't know what else to do but call you at the Riley woman's house."
He let Maggie's aspersion to Susan slide. Tonight was not the time for recriminations.
"It's all right, Maggie." He put his arm around her shoulders. "You did the right thing."
Maggie began to sob. "I didn't know what else to do. Bill's out of town and Jean had no one ... no one . . ." She clung to Paul, racked with grief.
"What happened, Maggie? Can you tell me?"
"She took an overdose, climbed into bed with that white dress on . . . you know, the one she wore to Sonny's funeral. She meant to die." Maggie drew out her handkerchief and blew her nose. "At the last minute she must have changed her mind, panicked . . . Oh, God, I don't know."
Paul patted her shoulder, offering comfort. It was all he could do at the moment. Jean was in the hands of others.
"Take your time, Maggie."
"I could barely hear her on the phone. I thought it was a prank at first. I started to hang up."
A fresh gale of weeping overtook her.
"I practically flew over there . . . found her in the bed and called the ambulance . . . Will she make it, Paul?"
There it was, the question everybody asked of doctors, as if there existed somewhere beyond the miracles of modern medicine a secret network of knowledge sent down to them from the Throne of the Almighty.
"Only time will tell." It was a platitude he'd learned early in his career.
He coaxed Maggie to the sofa, then got her a cup of coffee. He was already wired by tension, so he settled for water.
Later, when they'd finished with Jean, he stood at her bedside holding her hand. Her face was a white oval, almost lost in the whiteness of the pillow. When she saw him she cried silently with her eyes wide open, accusing him.
"Jean." He bent over and began to arrange her hair. She'd never liked it mussed.
"Don't leave me," she whispered. "Please, Paul . . . don't leave me."
"I won't."
. . . And he hadn't . . . except that one time, to tell Susan.
"You're going back to her?" They'd been standing in her den facing each other. Her face was filled with despair, but it was her voice that had torn at his heart the most. Susan, who had always believed in him, Susan who had always been filled with such optimism, sounded forlorn and hopeless. He didn't know if he could bear it.
It had taken every ounce of his willpower to keep from carrying her down the hall and spreading her upon the brass bed that had somehow become theirs and holding onto her until the reason for his going disappeared.
"She's in bad shape, Susan. If I let her die, we'll all be destroyed."
Susan wrapped her arms around her waist and hugged herself tightly. The arms holding her should have been his. But touching her was out of the question. One touch and he could never leave.
"I hate her for doing this. Does she think she's the only one who's ever suffered loss?"
"You're stronger than she is, Susan."
He hated watching her struggle for self-control, hated even more knowing he dare not offer her any comfort.
"I don't want to be strong; I want to be weak and needy. I want you here holding me when I cry and scrubbing my back in the shower and keeping my feet warm in the bed and . . ." She covered her face with her hands. "Oh, God, Paul ... I can't stand this."
He started toward her, and they met in the middle of her den, then stood with their arms around each other swaying, rocked by their mutual agony.
"Make love to me, Paul."
"God knows, I want to, but it would only prolong the agony." He held her closer. "Please don't ask me to, Susan."
"I'm shameless. I'll do anything to keep you." She gave him a fierce look that reminded him of mother lions defending their cubs. “What about Jeffy?"
"I'll tell him."
"Don't you dare break my son's heart, Paul."
"I promise."
Too many hearts had already been broken; he didn't want to add one more to the list.
He'd held her a while longer, then kissed her one last time and tiptoed down the hall to Jeffy's room. He was sleeping in the soft glow of a night-light, curled into a ball with one arm around his teddy bear. Hollow despair settled over Paul. He'd held that frail little body close, had felt that downy little cheek pressed against his, had applauded that courageous little spirit as Jeffy turned tragedy into triumph.
"Jeffy," he whispered.. My son.
On the bed Jeffy stirred and stretched, then opened his eyes and squinted in the semidarkness.
"Jeffy . . . it's me . . . Paul."
"Paul!" He sat up in his rumpled Big Bird pajamas and spoke to his teddy bear. "Don't be scared, Henry. It's Paul." He gave Paul a cocky grin. "Me and Henry's not scared."
I am. I'm terrified.
Paul sat on the edge of the bed, careful not to alarm Jeffy by making too much of the visit.
"You're a brave boy, Jeffy."
"Yeah. Big too."
"That's right. You're a big boy." Paul brushed the downy hair back from Jeffy's flushed face. It curved around his fingers and clung there. How could he ever say good-bye to this child? "And strong too. You're getting stronger every day."
"And when I'm real strong, we'll swim with the dolphins, won't we, Paul?"
"Someday." Would they?
"Someday soon?"
"Not soon, Jeffy. First you'll have your surgery, and then . . ."
; "... and then when I get a new heart, me and you'll go off in your boat and swim with the dolphins." Jeffy nodded his head vigorously. "Won't we, Paul?"
"Yes, we will." Tenderly, he lifted the boy to his lap and cradled the small head against his chest.
"You got a big lap." Jeffy giggled and snuggled close. "Me and Henry like that, don't we, Henry?" He moved the teddy bear's head up and down, then tipped his head back so he could see Paul's face. "Henry said yes.”
Paul could only nod and smile. His skin felt so tight, the smile was painful.
"Are you sad?" Jeffy touched his cheek.
He hadn't been aware that it showed.
"Yes, Jeffy, I'm sad, I'm sad because I'm a doctor and there are a lot of sick people who need me now . . ." Jeffy's frail arms stole around his neck, and his tender cheek pressed against Paul's.
"You going away, Paul?"
"Yes, Jeffy. I'm going away" Easier to say than to explain the complexities of life. To a child, if you weren't there you were away.
"My daddy went away. He never comed back."
"I'll come back, Jeffy. I promise you."
The little boy regarded him with solemn face and wise eyes. "Here. Take Henry." Paul felt the fuzzy stuffed bear being thrust into his hands. "He's a brave bear. He'll watch over you."
Jeffy's face was resolute and flushed with pride. Refusing his gift would have been cruel.
“Thank you, Jeffy.”
"I got Mommy to watch over me, and you don't have nobody."
The bear was warm from Jeffy's body heat. "Henry and I will take good care of each other." He tucked Jeffy back into bed, lingering over the folding of covers, stealing one last look at the child who was so like his own. "Night, Jeffy."
"'Bye, Paul."
Jeffy closed his eyes, a signal the leave-taking was over. Paul left quickly, for it was the only way he could bear to go.
Susan was still standing in the den with her fingers pressed to her mouth as if she were holding on to his last kiss.
"Thank you for giving me time alone with Jeffy."
She'd merely nodded.
Her trust had been her farewell gift.
They hadn't said good-bye. Goodbye was final, no return.
In the end she'd been strong, as he knew she would be. She hadn't asked when he'd come back, or even if he'd come back.
