The Beach House (19 page)

Chapter 6

Joe pushed open the bedroom door with his hip and backed in, a tray of tea and toast balanced in his hands, Josi at his feet. “The fog has set in with a vengeance.”

Maggie propped her pillow against the headboard and sat up. Josi joined her, butting her head against Maggie's hand to have her ears and chin scratched, rewarding the effort with a loud, body-rumbling purr. “It's making up for last night,” she said, running her hand along Josi's back.

Joe waited for Josi to settle before putting the tray on the bed and pouring a cup of tea for himself and Maggie. The pot was one they'd picked up in London thirty years ago on their one foray over the Atlantic Ocean. He opened the blinds before joining her on the bed. “How did you sleep?”

She hadn't, but he would only worry if she told him. “It was a perfect night. I had the most wonderful dreams.”

“What would you like to do today?”

She took a tentative sip of her tea to test it. She didn't know whether it was the cancer or the medicine, but she was losing her sensitivity to heat and cold and had burned herself several times lately. The tea was perfect. She curled her hands around the bright yellow mug and took another sip.

“I've been thinking about something.”

He cocked an eyebrow as one corner of his mouth lifted in an anticipatory smile. “Yes . . . ?”

Instead of answering, she looked at him as if it were for the first time. “You are without a doubt the most handsome man I've ever seen.”

He chuckled. “That said, you can be assured you now have my complete attention.”

“You really are, you know. No one who didn't know you would ever believe you're almost ninety.” She shook her head. “
Ninety
, Joe. Did you ever think we'd be around this long?”

“If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be here at all.”

“Sure you would. You were the one who taught yourself to walk and talk again. All I did was stand back and watch and offer a little encouragement every so often.”

“Oh, is that what you're calling it now?”

She hid her smile by dipping her head to take another drink of tea. Time and distance had mellowed the memories of what had been a horrendous two years in their lives. Worry and frustration over Joe's stroke had driven them to the very edge of their coping abilities. But they'd come through even stronger and with a profound appreciation for the lengths they would travel for each other.

“So tell me what you've been thinking about,” Joe said.

“I know we made a lot of plans before we got here, that there were a lot of places we were going to go and things we were going to see . . .” She wished she knew for sure whether the itinerary they'd made up was for her benefit or for his. “But I've been thinking—now this is just a suggestion, it doesn't mean we have to do it if you don't want to. Anyway, I was wondering—now I want you to tell me the truth about how you feel, this is just an idea I came up with . . .”

“Why don't you just spit it out, Maggie?”

Josi rolled to her back and stretched, her length taking up half the bed. “What do you think about having Susie and Jason stay with us in the mornings while Eric works on his book?” she said in a rush. “It wouldn't be that long. They're only going to be here another week. With the ice cream and everything else we did yesterday, I never got around to making Jason's chocolate chip cookies. If he and Susie were here, they could help me. Then when we were through, you could help them with the fireworks pictures they were going to make for their mother and their new stepfather.”

“Are you sure you want to do this? What about all the plans you made?”

“They don't seem so important anymore.”

“Whatever makes you happy makes me happy, Maggie. That's all I've ever wanted.”

“It's more than being happy. I don't think about
me
so much when I'm with them.” And she knew Joe didn't, either. While making a pilgrimage to familiar and well-loved places of their past together had seemed like a good idea at the time, she'd come to realize how maudlin the whole thing could become. She wanted Joe to remember her smiling and living each day in the present, not the past.

She looked into his eyes to see if he understood, but all she could see was the now familiar mixture of love and sorrow and pain. “Are you sure it's okay? This was your time, too. I don't want to take anything away from you.”

“As long as we're together,” he said, “none of the rest matters.”

“We still have to convince Eric—and the kids have to want to come.”

“We might have our work cut out for us with Eric, but I know exactly what the kids will say.”

“There's something else.” She put her mug back on the tray. “It's important that you answer me truthfully.”

“I always do, Maggie.”

“But this is different. I think you would do anything to please me now.”

“I can't give you an answer until you tell me what it is.”

She ran her hand through her hair, experiencing a small mental blink at the unfamiliar feel. Once so thick she purposely had it thinned with each haircut, it now barely covered her scalp. “Am I being selfish? Is it unfair to Jason and Susie to let them become my friends?”

He put the tray on the floor and settled her into his arms. “Fair or not, my love, it's too late. They're already attached.”

“Our time here was supposed to be so simple. How did it get so complicated?”

He kissed her and touched his finger to the end of her nose. “I guess life had one last lesson to teach you.” He laid his cheek against the top of her head as she nestled deeper against his shoulder. “How about if I talk to Eric and we let him decide?” he suggested.

“Listen,” Maggie said softly.

“What are you hearing that I'm not?” he asked after several seconds.

“The ocean and Josi's purring have the same rhythm.” Joe's heartbeat was part of the mix, steady and strong in her ear where her head rested on his chest. They were the sounds of life, each with its own cadence, its own meaning, and its own duration.

 

Eric stood at the screen door and watched as Jason and Susie walked off hand in hand with Joe and Maggie. Bundled up in jackets and sweats against a fog that had hung on tenaciously for two days, the four of them had decided to brave the cold and head for the beach to build sand castles. Eric would come down later to judge their efforts, the winners to be excused from helping to clean up after lunch.

Joe hadn't tried to hide his surprise when Eric agreed to his and Maggie's proposal to watch the kids so that he could work. What Joe didn't know and Eric didn't tell him was that he'd already given a lot of thought to their concerns about Jason and Susie becoming too attached. While the eventual loss of someone they loved wasn't a lesson he would have purposely chosen for them that summer, when balanced against the joy of knowing someone as special as Maggie, there was no question which Eric would choose for his children.

If he had a regret, it was that they hadn't met sooner. Shelly's parents had had a difficult time accepting a grandparent role. Jason and Susie dated them in a society where youth and its trappings were coin of the realm. Visits were limited to occasional holidays, preferably at Shelly and Eric's house, far removed from the possibility of running into one of their friends. This was accomplished with a subtlety and skill of a queen controlling worker bees.

His own parents were gone, killed in a hotel fire when he was a junior in college. By the time the litigation cleared, he was a startlingly wealthy, twenty-five-year-old orphan.

Joe and Maggie were the closest Jason and Susie would ever get to the ideal for grandparents. He wasn't about to deny his own kids something he wished he'd had for himself.

Absently scratching his mustache, Eric closed the door against the fog and went back to work.

 

Maggie packed wet sand into a tomato sauce can that had both ends removed. She then carefully released the sand, creating a corner post for her and Susie's horse corral. Lying on her belly, her gaze intently focused, Susie shoved a stick into the post to act as railing.

“Good job,” Maggie said.

Susie looked up and smiled, swiping a hand across her forehead where her bangs had escaped her jacket hood. Sand caught in her eyebrows.

“Come here a second,” Maggie said, reaching for her. She instructed Susie to close her eyes while she removed the sand. Instead of going back to work, Susie climbed up on Maggie's lap.

“How come we couldn't bring Josi?” Susie asked.

“I'm afraid she's not much of a beach cat.”

“ 'Cause she doesn't belong here?”

“Something like that.”

“The way me and Jason didn't belong with Mommy and Roger on their honeymoon?”

“Not exactly. We don't let Josi play in the sand because she'd get it in her tummy when she licked herself.” The second part was a lot harder. “Your mommy and Roger went on their trip by themselves so they could become even better friends. Best of all, you and Jason get to be with your daddy.”

“And you.” She put her arms around Maggie and gave her a hug.

“And me,” Maggie said.

“Will you come and see me and Jason when we go home?”

“I would if I could, Susie, but I'm going to be a long way away.”

“That's okay, you could drive your car.”

“Even farther than that.”

“But how will I see you?”

Maggie touched her hand to Susie's chest, covering her heart. “You'll see me in here.”

Susie thought a minute and then frowned, obviously confused. “In my tummy?”

Maggie laughed. She ran her fingers over Susie's stomach, tickling her. “Yes, right in your tummy. Every time you eat homemade ice cream or chocolate chip cookies, I'll be there giving you a great big hug.”

Laughing, Susie squirmed out of Maggie's grasp and landed in the middle of their carefully constructed farmhouse. When she saw what she'd done, instead of being upset, she laughed harder. Falling backward, she rolled from the house to the corral.

As Maggie joined in Susie's merriment, the ache in her side that she'd been trying to ignore for the past half hour began to gain control. In spite of the warning, Maggie lay down beside Susie and rolled along behind her. When she sat up again, it wasn't pain that stole her breath, it was an overwhelming sorrow. It seemed she wasn't as ready to abandon the life still left to her as she'd believed.

She looked up and saw Joe and Jason heading toward them, their hands full of shells and rocks and various other intriguing items they'd picked up on their walk.

“We're going to build a spaceship,” Jason said. “Wait till you see the stuff we got for it.”

Joe came over to check on Maggie. “What happened here?”

Susie giggled, bending over and hiding her face with her hands.

“You don't want to know,” Maggie said.

He studied her before saying, “Pill time?”

She nodded.

After adding his stash to Jason's, Joe reached in his pocket and surreptitiously handed Maggie her medicine. Brushing sand from her back and shoulders, he said, “I assume this is something I don't want to know about, either?”

“We were smashing the house,” Susie said.

“I see,” Joe said. He looked at Maggie. “And you were doing this because . . .”

“It was fun?” she suggested.

“You do realize, of course, that this creates a serious handicap for you in the contest.”

He would stay there until he saw that she was all right. Just as he would stay at her side for as long as it took her to die, at home or at the hospital. He would be there when she was put on machines that would prevent her from ever uttering another word.

Even if she wasn't afraid of the expense, how could she allow her and Joe's time together to end like that?

Her moment of indecision washed away, clearing her mind the way each outgoing wave cleared the sand. She was glad that the questioning had come this one last time. When she left Joe there could be no doubt that she was doing the right thing.

Chapter 7

Maggie was with Eric when he got the call that sent her on a wild journey between joy and despair. She was still on that journey two days later.

Shelly had wanted to know if Jason and Susie could stay with Eric another week while she and Roger settled into their new home.

Of course, Eric had told her, he would love having them, as, he was sure, would their new friends, Joe and Maggie.

Which meant they would be there for her birthday.

Which meant her life could not become the tidy little circle she'd so carefully planned.

She delayed telling Joe until that night when they were alone. No additional words were necessary as they sat on the sofa in the living room and held each other, Josi draped across their laps as if she, too, were a part of the decision-making process.

“I'm sorry,” Joe said. He understood her turmoil as readily as he understood her reasoning.

“Thank you for not trying to convince me that their staying an extra week is part of some big master plan.”

“A master plan would mean someone had found a cure, or a way to stop the pain. I've accepted that isn't going to happen, Maggie. At least not in time for us.”

She hated that he believed her a coward, but she could not burden him with the truth. He would give his life to save her. She knew this without question. And he would sacrifice everything for her. This, too, she knew without question. To Joe, relinquishing his financial future was simply to whisper “I love you” as he told her good-bye.

Josi tucked her nose under Maggie's hand, instantly responding with a purr when Maggie scratched her ears. “Now I have to pick another day.”

“Not tonight you don't.”

“If I put it off, I'll only think about it more.” She was afraid that without a set time, she would wake up each morning and find a reason to stay the day. She loved fog as much as sunshine, tea and toast as much as a cozy dinner. Her heart soared whenever she spotted a hummingbird at one of the flowers, and Josi never failed to make her smile. But as important as every breath she drew was Joe. If she could have loved him only a little less, she could have stayed.

She wasn't sure what happened when someone died. As a young girl sitting in catechism classes, her belief in heaven and hell had been as unquestioning as her belief in neighboring towns. As she grew older and ventured into the world, her faith suffered damaging blows from unanswered questions. How could the God she'd been led to believe loved children let so many die such cruel deaths? Was He, as so many sincerely believed with prayer and behavior and avowed appreciation, so busy determining the outcome of basketball and football and baseball games that He had no time to help those beset by famine, flood, and pestilence?

In the end she'd decided it wasn't God she questioned so much as His organized believers. Not until she'd completed her religious journey did she discover Joe had traveled the same road, only years ahead of her.

Their church was small, just her and Joe and God. They tithed by working to preserve the earth He'd created and the animals that called it home. Only one word was in their gospel, and they relayed it by action, not preaching. That word was love.

“Are you awake?” Joe asked softly.

She tilted her head up to look at him. “I was just thinking.”

“About?”

She hesitated telling him, afraid he might interpret her questioning as doubt. But an insistent inner voice demanded she take the chance. “What happens when we die.”

“And?”

“I know what I'd like to happen.”

He gave her a heartbreakingly tender kiss. “So do I. What do you suppose the chances are that it will?”

“We'll be together, Joe. That's the one thing I know for sure. If there's no heaven where I can wait for you, I'll always be in your heart.”

“Oh, Maggie, we were so blessed to have found each other. We really have no right to ask for more.” A sob caught in his throat. He swallowed. “But I want it all. I want to spend eternity with you.”

“If there's a way, my darling, I'll find it. Even if it's on a cloud in another universe, I'll go there and make a place for us.”

 

Three days later, after they had lunch with Jason and Susie and Eric, Maggie told Joe she was tired and that she was going to take a nap. When Joe went in an hour later to see how she was doing, he found her curled up in a fetal position, her skin damp, her heart racing.

“The medicine . . . isn't working,” she said, looking at him through pain-filled eyes. “Get Eric. He'll know what to do.”

Joe said a silent prayer that Eric was still home. During lunch he'd said something about taking the kids to a movie that afternoon. He glanced out the window as he picked up the phone and saw with relief that Eric's car was still there.

Eric took one look at Maggie, bundled her up, and put her in his car. The five of them were at the hospital ten minutes later. Joe stayed with Jason and Susie while Eric saw Maggie through the maze of admission and diagnosis.

Caught up in his own spiral of fear and grief, Joe didn't notice the effect their rush to the hospital had had on Jason until he became aware that he was no longer sitting with Susie. He was pressed against the wall, watching the now empty hallway where his father and Maggie had disappeared.

Joe went up to Jason and laid his hand on his shoulder. “I saw a soda machine in the lobby. Would you like one?”

Eyes wide with concern, Jason looked up at him. “What happened to her?”

“Maggie's sick, and the medicine that's been helping her stopped working. Your dad is helping her get some new medicine.”

“Is she going to die?”

It was a question that needed a parent's answer. Joe didn't know what to say.

“She is, isn't she?”

Joe nodded.

“Can I tell her good-bye first?”

Closing his eyes against the familiar feel of tears burning the back of his throat, Joe nodded again. With an innocent love and caring, Jason had summed up something Joe had struggled with for months. It was a gift to be able to say good-bye, to share the last moments, to say one last time “I love you.”

“She would like that,” he told Jason.

He leaned against Joe, drawing support, giving comfort. “I don't think we should tell Susie.”

Joe glanced over his shoulder. Susie was watching cartoons on the television that had been mounted to the wall. She was oblivious of the drama being played out around her, protected by her years and innocence. “You're a very special big brother, Jason.”

 

After they got home from the hospital, Maggie slept the rest of the day and through the night. The next morning she was groggy from the new medication but eager to see Eric and the kids. Susie arrived first, bounding up on the bed without hesitation or thought that the trip to the hospital had been anything but routine. She settled in beside Maggie, reaching for Josi and digging her fingers into the cat's thick mane.

“Daddy said we couldn't stay,” she said, plainly believing Maggie would get him to change his mind.

Eric stood at the doorway, Jason at his side. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Very well, thanks to you.”

He smiled. “I'd be happy to take the credit, but I think it really belongs to those yellow-and-blue capsules the hospital sent home with you.”

Maggie saw fear in Jason's eyes, and it broke her heart. Had she known he would be exposed to her illness this way, she never would have let their friendship grow. “I'm sorry if what happened yesterday scared you,” she told him. “But you can see how much better I am today.”

Still he didn't say anything.

“I told them they could only stay long enough to see you and say hi,” Eric said. “If it's all right, we'll come back for a little while this afternoon.”

Susie looked up at Maggie, a plea to be allowed to remain in her eyes.

“Of course it's all right,” Maggie said. She put her hand over Susie's. “I have a job for you when you come back.”

“You do?”

“I've tried and tried and can't find Josi's red ball. I thought maybe you could help me look behind the sofa.”

“I could do it now,” Susie said. “I could look under the TV, too.”

“We'll check on the way out,” Eric said, holding his hand out to her.

Jason stayed behind as Eric led Susie into the living room. “I'm sorry you're sick.”

“Me too. But most of all, I'm sorry about what happened yesterday.”

“It wasn't your fault. You didn't want to be sick.”

“You're a special young man, Jason,” she said. “I'm so glad you came to stay with your father so you could become my friend.”

He stood very still, as if torn between being there and running away. Finally, he came into the room and crawled across the bed, flinging himself into her arms. “Joe said I could say good-bye, but I don't want to yet.”

She glanced up and saw Joe standing in the doorway. The look in his eyes told her all she needed to know. She ran her hand over Jason's shiny, sweet-smelling hair and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “We have lots of time,” she said softly.

“Promise?”

“I promise. How many more days before you go home?”

“Five.”

“I'll be right here for every one of them.”

Eric came back. “Jason, it's time to go.”

“I'm going to draw you a picture of me and Susie and Dad,” he told Maggie.

“That's a wonderful idea. Will you bring it with you when you come this afternoon?”

“Is that okay, Dad?” He inched toward the foot of the bed.

“Maybe if you're feeling up to it, we could come for dinner and order another pizza.”

“I'd like that,” she said. “What do you think, Jason?”

“I found it,” Susie squealed before Jason had a chance to answer. “Here it is.” She poked her head between her father and Joe, her hand held aloft. She tossed the ball onto the bed in Josi's general direction. Josi waited for it to come near, slapped it with one paw, watched it roll away, and laid her head back down on the comforter.

“It's nap time,” Maggie said in an attempt to explain Josi's lack of interest. “I'm sure she'll feel more like playing this evening when you come back.”

“It wouldn't hurt you to take a nap with her,” Eric said to Maggie. He gathered Jason and Susie and started them down the hall. “Call if you need anything,” he told Joe. “Anything at all.”

When they were gone, Joe came in and moved Josi so that he could sit next to Maggie. The cat gave a low rumble of protest, stuck its paws out for a stretch, and flopped over on its side. “She's getting a little thick around the middle,” Joe said.

“It's all the treats the kids have been feeding her. They love to see her sit up and beg.”

He took her hand in his. “How are you feeling?”

“I'm going to let you get away with asking that because of the new medicine.”

“If I get to ask, then I'm entitled to an answer.”

“I'm a little lightheaded and a little tired, but there's no pain.”

“None at all?”

Because he was asking about the cancer, she could give him an honest answer. She wouldn't tell him about the ache in her heart or how her throat hurt from holding back tears.

“None at all,” she told him truthfully.