Destined

by Gail Cleare

  I went to the side of the bed and reached for his hand, but I flinched when I saw that an IV needle was attached to his forearm. I didn’t want to disturb it, so I put my hand lightly over his instead. He felt alive, warm. Tony came up behind me and stood close, putting his hand on top of mine and Henry’s. We gazed at him in silence. He looked very ill. I teared up and felt like crying but held it back, realizing that my headache had started to abate and I had regained a little bit of self control. Tony’s hand felt very warm on top of mine. I tried to conduct his energy through to Henry’s hand, below mine. The three of us communed while we watched Henry breathe in, and out.

  In a minute Michael opened the curtain again and smiled at us, motioning with his head for us to go. I looked back at Henry from the doorway. He did look very peaceful, and the expression on his face was relaxed, serene. I felt that he was out of danger, that he was going to be OK. I was incredibly glad that we had been allowed to see him tonight. Somehow, it allayed my worst fears and allowed me to move on.

  On the way home I called Siri on Tony’s cell phone, even though it was three o’clock in the morning. She answered after the first ring.

  “How is he?” she asked in a hushed voice. I heard a child mutter sleepily in the background.

  “He’s going to be OK, but he did have a heart attack,” I answered.

  “How bad?”

  “I don’t think they know yet.”

  “So he will be in the hospital for a while?”

  “Yes, we’ll find out more tomorrow. They’re doing tests.”

  “It’s very late, Emily, don’t worry about the store tomorrow morning. Bella and Amy and I can handle it until you get in.”

  “Thank you, Siri. See you tomorrow,” I said, glad to know it was true. We would all see each other tomorrow, thank goodness.

  We drove home to Tony’s house and went straight to bed, holding each other close as we lay thinking in the dark, too tired to sleep. I drifted off around dawn, finally giving in to relaxation and trying to center my scattered thoughts on a positive outcome.

  Two weeks later, Henry was back home and we had settled uneasily into a routine. He was installed in his domain on the second floor, and we were bringing his meals up to him. He was on a very strict diet, so Siri and I were cooking for him several times each day. The doctors were concerned about building up his strength, and they said he was underweight. They told us this was a common problem with older people who lived alone, since cooking for only one person seemed like too much trouble. Tony had bought a little mini-fridge for the study, and we kept it stocked with beverages. I had set up a tea-making station on the corner of Henry’s desk, bringing up the old electric kettle from downstairs, where we replaced it with a new one.

  I had never been in Henry’s bedroom before, but now I was getting to be quite familiar with it. Furnished with old dark walnut furniture, with floral wallpaper and white lace curtains, it still showed many signs of Margaret’s presence. Her portrait, in a black oval frame with a simple ivory mat, stood on the tall dresser where Henry kept his clothes. The matching chest of drawers and vanity table had been hers, and her perfume bottles and knickknacks still sat on the lace-covered tops. Her mirror, comb and hairbrush were made of silver inlaid with mother-of-pearl birds and flowers. A beautiful carved teak box from India held her jewelry. Inside the large closet, her clothes occupied the deepest recesses, pushed to the back but not removed, nearly gone but never forgotten.

  Tony had temporarily moved back into the rooms on the third floor of Henry’s building, and he was living in two places at the moment. Three if you counted my apartment, where we spent some time as well. He laughed and said this was nothing new to him. But it was putting a strain on our relationship, and we missed each other at night too often, especially after how close we had been before.

  I felt funny about being with Tony right upstairs over Henry’s head, so we had taken to sneaking off to his place or mine during the days, snatching random opportunities to be alone together, to snuggle and make love. It was fun in a way, we turned it into a game. We pretended to be international spies meeting for a top-secret affair. But we usually slept alone at night, and that was very sad, for me. I was a total sucker for this man. It was like an addiction to some chemical substance, and the chemical was his pheromones. He smelled so absolutely wonderful to me that a sniff of his neck would make me high, make me spin away with fireworks and flashing stars going off in my head. He smelled like fresh-baked cookies to me, and it made my mouth water.

  Henry’s insurance covered the cost of a visiting nurse and physical therapist, both of whom came by on a regular basis. They gave us instructions for his care that we followed religiously. I wasn’t sure how much longer the benefits would last, but he was recovering well, and there were a lot of us nearby to help. The whole neighborhood had pitched in, one way or another. It was very heartening. Henry was a bit embarrassed by it all. Whenever Josie came over with something special for him and labored up the long stairs to deliver it personally, his cheeks turned pink and his blue eyes twinkled. She sat in the visitor’s chair we had placed next to the bed and watched him eat, talking constantly. He loved it and was perky for hours. Josie nourished him in more ways than one. I hovered in the hallway and listened in for a while one time. She was talking to him about Margaret.

  “Remember the time we all went up to that lake, at night, and Margaret says, let’s go swimming, and you and T go in the water buck naked?” Josie asked, and they both burst into laughter. “You two was so funny lookin’, you’re all skinny and white, with your little white butts shining like the moon! Her and me, we couldn’t stop laughing,” she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

  Henry ate another bite of the special low-fat turkey lasagne she had cooked for him.

  “Those were the days, my friend,” he said regretfully. “Life was a lot of fun then.”

  “It still could be, you old fool,” she said, shaking her finger at him sternly. “You just gotta get up out of that bed and come see the world! Life is good, Henry. You need to remind yourself of that.”

  There was a moment of silence in the room. I tiptoed away, back to the study where I’d been boxing up a shipment of books to be sent out. I had taken over the Internet business, which turned out to be quite substantial. Siri and Bella were in charge downstairs now, with Amy’s help, but we all found reasons to be passing Henry’s open door on the second floor whenever possible, to look in and see if he was awake and might feel like a chat.

  Bella and Siri and I snuck up the stairs to the third floor one morning while Tony was out jogging. They had never seen it before. It had obviously been a fully functioning apartment at some time in the past. At present it was partially furnished and needed some updating. Where downstairs the space was divided into a few rather large rooms, up here the same footprint had been arranged very differently. There were three bedrooms, a study, a livingroom, a dining room, a kitchen big enough to hold a table and chairs, a pantry, and a very nice full bath containing both a stall shower and a claw foot bathtub. The girls looked at the spacious layout enviously, especially Siri, whose family of five was packed into a four-room apartment. Tony’s little suitcase was in the master bedroom, where we had made up the big bed with clean sheets. A couple of his shirts were hanging in the closet and a razor and toothbrush were in the bathroom, but otherwise there were no signs that he was in residence. He wasn’t spending much time up here.

  Tony had heard back from the University and was going for a second interview next week. It was a good thing he didn’t have other commitments at the moment, because he was really bearing the brunt of Henry’s needs. While the rest of us worked to keep Henry’s business healthy, Tony worked on the man himself. Up early every day to go running while the visiting nurse was with the old man, Tony made breakfast for two and carried it upstairs on a tray. Tony sat in the visitor’s chair and they ate together. They were often still up there talking and laughing when I came
in at eight. I usually went up first thing to check on everyone, taking away the dirty dishes when I went down the back stairs to start the day’s baking.

  Tony helped Henry with his personal needs, for which we all were extremely grateful. I was glad we women didn’t have to intrude on his privacy in order to take care of him. My job was to cook and keep the money coming in. During the days, everyone took a turn checking on our good-natured patient, and someone was up there sitting with him for much of the time when he was awake. Henry joked that he had never had such a charismatic personality before the heart attack, so it had obviously made him more attractive in some way.

  We had brought one of the little lunch tables up from the shop and set it up in Henry’s study, so that as soon as he could get up and walk around a bit, the three of us could sit there together for dinner. Afterwards, Henry usually watched TV in his bedroom for a little while before falling asleep. This was a chance for Tony and me to play spy vs. spy in the kitchen, while we did the dishes. Sometimes this involved shutting ourselves into the pantry to make out in the dark, which was amazingly tantalizing. It was hard for me to go home alone after that. I really, really missed Tony when I lay under the skylight alone at night looking up at the stars, feeling the memory of our kisses still tingling on my lips.

  Henry was improving every day, and that was the most important thing. He got up out of bed and started to walk up and down the hallway. He got out of his bathrobe and into his regular clothes and came into the study, at first to sit and watch me at the computer, telling me what to do about this and that, and then eventually to sit in front of the monitor himself again.

  When I first checked his email to reply to any urgent matters I had discovered that Henry had an extensive ongoing correspondence with many people from around the globe. I sent a note to all of them saying he would be offline for a while due to illness. Many of these people were very concerned to hear it, sending back cheerful messages in various languages, which I dutifully printed and delivered to him. I learned that while Henry didn’t have any actual relatives that we knew of, his family of friends stretched far and wide. His influence was felt strongly by many of us. Little by little his strength began to return, and the melodious sound of his “Farewell!” as he hung up the phone was soon echoing through the halls, just as it used to.

  One quiet afternoon Laurie came over for an espresso and a chat. Siri and Bella joined us and we gathered at the coffee bar. Laurie seemed excited and her eyes sparkled, her cheeks glowing with color. She pulled a computer printout out of her bag and waved it at us.

  “Guess who’s going to be here next week!” she demanded with a big smile.

  We all shook our heads and shrugged.

  “Why don’t you just tell us, honey?” said Bella, patting Laurie on the back.

  “Starhawk!” Laurie announced what she obviously found to be an astounding and wonderful fact, looking thrilled. We greeted her announcement with attentive silence.

  “OK…um, who?” Bella asked. Siri and I didn’t know either.

  “You have never heard of Starhawk?” Laurie asked us in amazement.

  “Nope,” said Bella succinctly. She walked behind Laurie and made a crazy face, indicating with her finger that Laurie was loco.

  “Who is Starhawk, Laurie?” I asked. “And where is he or she coming to, exactly?”

  “She’s a very famous feminist author and activist. She’s written, like, a dozen books. She’s also a witch!”

  “Riiiiiiight!” said Bella, rolling her eyes.

  Everyone laughed, Laurie too.

  “No, really, her books are wonderful and she’s incredibly smart. Now she’s into this thing called ‘permaculture’ which is very interesting to John and me. It’s a kind of totally organic farming that sustains the planet. Starhawk is an eco-activist.”

  “Wow,” said Bella, “She sounds pretty cool.”

  “I would very much like to hear her speak,” said Siri.

  “Me too,” I said. “When is it happening? Let’s all go!”

  Laurie showed us the email printout. She had heard about it from one of her organic produce suppliers, whose name appeared in the “from” header. We all agreed it would be fun to go out at night together, and made plans to attend.

  When the night arrived we piled into Laurie’s Green Thumb van and drove over to the college chapel, where the event was taking place. It was interesting to me that a Pagan priestess was going to speak at the same podium where a Christian minister would normally stand. Laurie told us that the chapel was nondenominational, and was used by many different groups and faiths for meetings and services.

  We found a parking place and walked up to the door. Several women stood outside handing out pamphlets about closing down Yankee Rowe, our local nuke, and other hot political topics. Inside the doors there were long tables on both sides of the foyer, with tickets being sold on the left. A young woman with very long blonde hair, wearing an old fashioned gown made of calico print, sold us our tickets. She had dazzling cornflower blue eyes and was gorgeous without a speck of makeup. Next to her was a dark-haired boy about twenty, pierced and tattooed with chains hanging from various parts of his body. He looked intense, too, in a different way. The lobby was crammed full of people, mostly women of young to middle age, milling around and talking excitedly. Books were being sold at the table on the other side of the doors. We moved past and entered the church itself, making our way down the center aisle to find seats. The chapel was nearly full.

  I looked around at the other people, fascinated. The crowd was mainly female. Some of the women had short-cropped hair and mannish clothes, obviously Lesbians. Other women were blatantly girly, dressed in ruffled silks or flowered prints and wearing their hair long and flowing. Some of them had put sparkling glitter on their faces and in their hair, and many displayed colorful tattoos. A group of considerably older women with white hair and conservative clothing were sitting in the front couple of rows. A few apparently gay men and college professors were sprinkled throughout the crowd. And then there were the three theatrically dressed long-haired wizards who stood brooding on the periphery like Rasputin, sending their dark electric gazes around to scan the room for…what? An innocent young victim? A bed partner for the night? A talented new magical apprentice? My imagination went wild.

  “What’s with that, anyhow?” whispered Bella, who was sitting next to me. She nodded her head toward the nearest wizard, who wore a dark purple velvet beret over his shoulder-length curling locks, and sported a neat little Zorro-style mustache and goatee. A large silver pentacle medallion hung on his chest. We couldn’t see what it said from where we were sitting, but it looked ancient and mysterious. He caught us looking at him and scowled. Bella nearly exploded from withheld laughter, making a helpless little snorting noise. I started to catch it from her, but then a woman got up from the front row and approached the podium to speak. The crowd settled down and was quiet. The woman said she was a representative from the group who was sponsoring the event, the Men’s Education Center. I found that ironic, but wonderfully so. Then she introduced Starhawk, who stood up and took the stage.

  She was a nondescript heavyset middle-aged woman with chin-length dark frizzy hair shot with quite a lot of gray. She looked either Jewish or Mediterranean in origin, with an olive complexion. She was dressed simply in a purple top and black pants, with no jewelry or makeup. I felt a little disappointed. This was the famous witch? And then she started to talk, and smile, and look around making eye contact with us all, and I realized in a flash that she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. She drew herself up and suddenly looked much taller, majestic. She transformed herself and radiated power. A little charge went through me, and I shivered with excitement.

  All eyes were riveted on her as she told us about her experiences in New Orleans, where she had gone with a group of fellow activists to help with the recovery effort immediately after Hurricane Katrina. She was funny and clever, and her voice
throbbed with a slow, sweet energy. As I watched her, something blurry wavered in front of my eyes for a moment, then disappeared, then shimmered in the air again. I rubbed my right eye, blinking to clear it. But the fuzzy glow was still there, when I looked at Starhawk. The rest of the room looked normal. The glow was coming from her, I realized. She was radiating some kind of aura. It shone around her in a thick band about a foot wide.

  “Can you see that too?” I whispered to Laurie, who sat on my other side.

  “What? See what?”

  “That light around her!”

  Laurie gave me a huge smile and squeezed my hand, nodding. I noticed that tonight her earrings were little silver pentacles hanging from silver chains. I remembered my intuitive vision of her at a Wiccan ritual, and wondered what she would think of my encounters with the spirit who seemed to inhabit Henry’s house, or the information I sometimes got when I touched certain people. I had never mentioned it to her, being so used to keeping my odd experiences private. Most people weren’t very comfortable hearing about this kind of thing, and the teasing I received as a child had taught me to stay silent. Maybe Laurie would feel differently about it, perhaps she had even had some similar experiences. Mr. Paradis had certainly accepted it calmly, as a matter-of-fact thing. And Tony thought he could change the future with his mind. Maybe I was not so odd after all!

  Starhawk told us that she had learned in New Orleans that the best person to know when all services and systems break down is not the Harvard PhD, but the person who knows how to make a composting toilet. We all laughed. Then she went on to talk about how in our society we over-value intellectual skills, rather than practical ones. What it really takes for the world to work right is both, in collaboration, she said, and they are equally valuable to society.