For Better, for Worse, Forever (13 page)

A
pril stood in the middle of the room, looked Kelli straight in the face, and told her. She’d thought she would be able to get through the whole story without crying, but as she quietly delivered the news about her impending death, as she watched Kelli’s eyes widen and her hand clamp across her mouth to stifle sobs, and saw tears trickle down Kelli’s cheeks, April wept with her.

“No! No!” Kelli kept shaking her head.

April closed the distance between them and took her friend in her arms, trying to comfort her. “Don’t cry. I hate to see you cry.” It struck April as odd that she, the one who was dying, should be comforting the one who was not, but it seemed the right
thing to do. Kelli was devastated, and April wanted to help ease her pain. It was as if she were removed from the situation. As if it weren’t her they were talking about, but some other person, some mutual friend.

Between sobs, Kelli managed to say, “I knew it was going to be bad news. I knew by the way you were driving around today, visiting all the places where we grew up, that you had something heavy to tell me. Oh, April, I’d give anything if it wasn’t this kind of news.”

“I wish it was something else too.”

“Your doctor … he’s positive? There isn’t any mistake?”

“No mistake.” April fumbled for tissue from a box on her vanity and handed a wad to Kelli. “It’s been hard to even think about it. Some mornings I wake up and I feel real mellow, and then it hits me: I’m going to die. It sort of spoils the whole day.”

Kelli blew her nose and attempted a smile at April’s dark humor. “It isn’t fair.”

“What
is
fair?”

“Well, not
this
!” Kelli sank onto the bed and grabbed April’s hand. “That settles it. As long as you’re here, I’m not going to leave
you. I’m quitting school and moving back home.”

“Kelli, you can’t drop out of school. I won’t let you.”

“And I won’t let you die without me.” Kelli dissolved into fresh tears.

April settled beside her on the bed. “Everybody has to die sometime or another, Kelli. You have to go on with your life.”

“I’m putting my life on hold and you can’t stop me.”

“Look, I don’t even know when this might happen to me. You can’t sit around in some kind of deathwatch.” She made a face. “It’s unnatural.”

“Says who?”

“Says me. You’ve planned to go back to Oregon in two weeks, and that’s exactly what I want you to do. I—I don’t want you to hover over me, waiting for me to keel over.”

“That’s not what I’ll do.”

“You won’t mean to, but it’ll happen. I remember what it was like to watch Mark die. I didn’t believe it was happening. I felt helpless because I couldn’t stop it. It was a nightmare, and you shouldn’t have to go through it.”

“And so what am I supposed to do? Sit in Oregon and wait for my phone to ring? Wait for your mother to call and drop the bomb on me?”

“Yes.”

Kelli shook her head furiously. “I won’t. I won’t be three thousand miles away while you … while you …” She couldn’t finish her sentence.

“Everything you’ve told me about has been about Oregon. It’s where your life is. It’s where all the people you care about live. It’s your home. And it’s where you should be.”

Kelli stared down at the soggy tissue in her hands. “I care about you too.”

“Then go back to school. Go do all those things I can’t do.”

“What about these next two weeks?” Kelli switched tacks.

“We’ll have a good time. Just like we used to have together.”

Kelli eyed April skeptically. “Right. We’ll have a great time thinking that this is the last time we’ll ever be together.”

“I don’t like it either,” April said sharply. “But I can’t make it go away. It’s hard
enough watching my parents going crazy over it, I don’t need to see you suffering too. I—I need to have fun, Kelli. I need to concentrate on something besides what’s happening to me.”

This was the argument that persuaded Kelli. April saw acquiescence on her friend’s face. “We’ll go into the city. We’ll spend a few days at my mother’s. Her place is small, but it’s in SoHo and there’s a million things to do, lots of places to go.”

“We’ll be like Siamese twins,” April said. “Joined at the hip.”

Kelli gave her a bittersweet look. “Until we’re surgically separated,” she said. “Or whatever it is doctors do with twins who share one heart.”

Kelli’s mother welcomed them, hurrying off to her job in the mornings and letting the girls sleep in. They roused themselves by midmorning, then set out with an agenda to do only the things they felt like doing. They spent two full days browsing department stores and boutiques, trying on the choicest clothing, the most fashionable wardrobes. On another day they ate lunch in Central
Park on a blanket under a tree, rode the subway from one end of one route to the other, and spent the rest of the rainy day in a giant bookstore in Times Square.

They spent a day at a trendy beauty salon, where Kelli had her dark hair streaked with bright fuchsia and April considered cutting hers but chickened out at the last minute. She opted instead for a rainbow manicure, having every fingernail painted a different color. They pierced their ears in three more places and bought diamond studs at Tiffany’s for every new hole. They had tattoos put on their ankles. Kelli chose a dolphin and April a hibiscus. “It reminds me of the islands,” she said.

One night Kelli’s mother brought home a gorgeous arrangement of tropical flowers—orange-hued bird-of-paradise, red and yellow hibiscus, pale pink and lavender orchids, and snow-white gardenias. April sat it on the kitchen table and stared at it all evening. The scent was heavenly, and when she closed her eyes she could almost see the turquoise ocean and smell the salt-tinged air. And she could see Brandon’s face, sun-browned, his hair bleached blond, his eyes as blue as the sky.

April told Kelli about her love of sailing, describing the sound the wind makes as it billows out the sails, the sharp snap the nylon makes when the boat comes about. “That settles it,” Kelli said. “Whenever I get married, I’m going to demand a honeymoon in St. Croix.”

“Lots of people do.” April told her about the wedding gazebo she’d seen with Brandon.

“Sounds like heaven.”

“Just like heaven.” Afterward, April grew quiet, and that night she went to bed early, choosing not to stay up and watch the video she and Kelli had rented that afternoon.

As their two weeks together passed, April began to experience more frequent episodes of vertigo. One day she couldn’t even get out of bed. Kelli sat by her bedside, and they played cards and board games. April kept losing her concentration and had to give it up when she started having double vision. Kelli asked if she should call April’s parents, but April refused adamantly. The following day April seemed fine.

Two days before Kelli was scheduled to return to college, they stayed at April’s for one
final sleepover. “I’m going to miss you,” April told Kelli in the privacy of April’s bedroom after dinner with her parents.

“I can cancel my ticket. Just say the word.”

“You’ve seen how it’s going to be for me. Once I start getting worse, I won’t even know you’re in the same room. Believe me, it’s better that you remember the fun we’ve had. Not the bad stuff.”

Kelli turned her head, and April knew her friend didn’t want her to see any tears. April got up from where they were sitting on the floor and went to her closet. “There’s something I want you to have,” she said. She disappeared into the walk-in closet and emerged dragging an enormous box.

Kelli’s eyes widened. “Big box.”

April plopped it in front of her. “Open it.”

Kelli lifted the lid, pushed aside layers of tissue, and gasped. “It’s your wedding dress.”

“It’s yours now.”

“But I can’t—”

“Yes you can. We’re the same size. At least we were until I started this stupid medication. I know it’ll fit you. Try it on.” April
stood and lifted the ivory-colored gown, wrapped in tissue, from the box. “Please, Kelli.”

Mutely Kelli stood, slipped off her nightshirt, and slid on the undergarments that April offered her one by one from her dresser drawer. When Kelli was sheathed in silk, April helped her into the magnificent dress. Seed pearls, sequins and lace, and layers of satin caught the lamp’s light and gleamed. April fluffed the skirt, pulled the train so that it flowed behind Kelli on the carpet, and stepped aside. “Look,” she said, nodding toward the full-length mirror on her wall.

Kelli stared at her reflection. The cut of the dress made her waist look tiny. Her trembling hands smoothed the bodice. “It’s the most beautiful …” Her voice broke as words failed her.

April watched her friend and felt a lump rise in her throat as she remembered the day she had worn it for Mark. “Till death do us part,” she had whispered to him. And death had parted them quickly.

“I don’t even have a fiancé,” Kelli said, her gaze never leaving the mirror.

“You will someday. It would make me very
happy to know that you wore this dress on your wedding day. I’ll make sure Mom knows you’re to get it. She’ll put it into special storage until you’re ready for it.” April paused. “It’s important to me, Kelli. I want you to have it.”

Tears slid down Kelli’s cheeks. “It will be an honor to wear this dress in your memory.”

April stepped behind her and gazed at both their images in the glass—Kelli dark-eyed, dark-haired; April with a mane of red hair and light blue eyes. Their reflection reminded her of a superimposed pair of photographs, of two images slightly misaligned: Kelli alive and vibrant, April pale and otherworldly. Like a ghost staring over the shoulder of her friend.

She did not go to the airport to see Kelli off, but once Kelli had flown away, April felt desolate and friendless. And she kept experiencing dizzy spells, nausea, and more slurring of her speech. A woman from hospice who’d lost a son to cancer came for a visit, and April’s parents made arrangements to convert the dining room into a sickroom. And finally
one morning she sat upright in bed as her words to Kelli about sitting around in some kind of deathwatch came back to her. She had bid goodbye to everything and everyone who had meant anything to her in New York. She padded downstairs into the breakfast room, where her parents sat. They glanced up, startled by her sudden appearance.

“Honey, are you all right?” her mother asked, springing up to take her hand.

“I want to go back to St. Croix,” April said. “That’s where I want it to happen. Please, Daddy, please, take me back there right away.”