The Diary (20 page)

Even so, it came as a shock to Sarah and Emily when, a little more than a year after their father's death, their mother was felled by a massive stroke. The doctors were able to detect some brain activity, but because she was unable to speak, or even move, they couldn't say how much or how little she was aware of what was going on around her. Tests were still being done to gauge the full extent of the damage. In the meantime, their mother remained locked inside her frozen body, the woman who had been Elizabeth Marshall suspended somewhere in the recesses of her damaged brain like an embryo in its mother's womb. She was capable of thought but not of communicating it. She recognized her daughters when they came to visit, but they no longer recognized her.

Had she been able to communicate, she would have told them not to shed any tears for her: Death was a welcome alternative to life without their father. She would have told them, too, not to mourn her after she was gone. She would have reminded them of the oft-told story of the day, before they were born, when she and their father had taken the train to visit a colleague of his, and they'd accidentally been separated. He'd gotten off at one of the stops to make a phone call, an important one having to do with the reason for their trip, which had so preoccupied him that he hadn't noticed the train pulling out of the station. By the time he'd caught up to it, hours later, Elizabeth had been so relieved to see him that she'd taken him in her arms without a word of recrimination. But she'd never forgotten the panic she'd felt as the train left the station and she realized he wasn't on it. She wanted her daughters to see their father's death as if he had just stepped off the train before her. Soon she'd be rejoining him.

Emily was the first to arrive on the morning after she and her sister had finished packing up the house. Sarah showed up a few minutes later. On their way to their mother's room, they stopped briefly to chat with their favorite nurse, a Mexican woman named Marta who was around their age. They often remarked that it would have been nice to have known her in some other capacity—say, through a book club or fund-raising committee. They were grateful that Marta always treated their mother with dignity and spoke to her as though she were capable of comprehending. They appreciated such gestures because they alleviated some of the guilt they felt at not being able to care for Elizabeth themselves.

“She's asleep at the moment,” Marta informed them. Her normally animated face was grave. “I'm glad you're here, though. I think this would be a good time for you to say whatever you need to say to her. I know it seems like she can't hear you, but I have a feeling she does. I'm sure it'd be a comfort to her.” They understood what she was really saying: that it wouldn't be long now.

They could see it for themselves as they stood in the doorway to their mother's room, speaking in hushed voices so as not to wake her.

“Does she look any worse to you?” Emily asked.

Sarah shook her head. “Hard to say.” There was so little left of their mother. She was so frail that it seemed as if any but the gentlest touch would cause her bones to snap. The skin stretched over her shrunken frame was nearly transparent, and her silver hair, once so abundant, was wispy as a toddler's.

Sarah found herself thinking of a former neighbor who'd lost a child. For months afterward the grieving mother had refused to wipe clean the sliding glass doors to her patio, which had borne her little girl's handprints. To Sarah, her mother seemed as insubstantial as those ghostly handprints. Still, the thought of losing even this last vestige was unbearable. The only thing that provided any comfort was the knowledge that Elizabeth would be joining their father. However much Bets might once have loved another, she'd been devoted to her husband to the end.

“You know what I did when I got home last night?” Sarah leaned into the door frame, her eyes on the still, slumbering form on the bed, so corpselike she would have grown alarmed if not for the monitoring devices quietly beeping overhead. “Jeff and I stayed up past midnight looking at baby pictures of our kids.” She turned to give her sister a small, wistful smile. “It goes so quickly, doesn't it? I remember when
we
were little. It seems like just yesterday.”

“I once asked Mom why there were hardly any pictures of Dad in our photo album,” recalled Emily, wiping a tear from her eye. “She reminded me that he'd been the one
taking
the pictures.” She managed a wobbly smile. “They were such a team. It's hard to imagine there was ever a time when they weren't.”

“I think it was the tough times that brought them closer.” Sarah thought of how much closer she and Jeff were as a result of all they'd been through. Even the battles had made their marriage stronger in the end.

“Which reminds me …” Emily withdrew the diary from her purse. “I was looking at it again last night after I got home. I even had a dream about it.” She gazed down at it, rubbing a thumb over its worn maroon cover. “In the dream, Mom was her old self again. She hugged me and told me everything was just as it should be.” Emily swallowed hard, fighting back tears. “Do you think Marta was right, that she understands what's going on? Or is that just wishful thinking?”

“I like to think she understands,” said Sarah, struggling against tears of her own.

As if in answer to their question, their mother's eyes fluttered open. But if the sisters had hoped for a miracle, there was none to be found. Sarah experienced the same shock she always did at the sight of those blank, cloudy eyes staring into nothingness. That was the hardest part for her: seeing the spark in those eyes that had once defined their mother extinguished.

“Still, I wonder if she'd want to be reminded,” Emily said, looking down at the diary in her hands. “Maybe that's why she never told us about AJ.”

“Or maybe it was because she wanted to set a good example,” Sarah speculated. “How would it have looked to us if we'd known our dad wasn't her first choice? What kind of message would it have sent? That you should marry for security instead of love? That fulfilling your duty is more important than following your heart? Where would we be now if we'd been taught that?”

“I might've married someone else,” offered Emily glumly.

“And I might not have married Jeff.” Before Sarah had met her husband, she'd had a boyfriend named Dennis Rowe who, if she'd had a checklist of qualities she was looking for in a mate, would have fulfilled every one. What if she'd married Dennis even though she hadn't been mad for him?

Quietly the sisters entered the room. Emily placed the diary on the bedside table next to the vase of yellow roses Sarah had brought from her garden on her last visit. The roses were nearly spent, and a few of the petals broke off at the brush of her hand, scattering over the diary's frayed cover. Emily started to brush them away but thought better of it. The petals seemed to represent the small death that had taken place in those pages penned in their mother's girlish hand. The death of a love, a life, that might have been had she made the choice to take a different direction.

Recalling Marta's words, she turned her anguished gaze to the shrunken figure on the bed, who bore only a vague resemblance to the once vibrant Elizabeth. She placed a hand on her mother's forehead, gently stroking her hair. “Mom? It's me, Emily. I don't know if you can hear me, but …” She faltered a bit before forging on resolutely, “I … we …” She cast a teary-eyed glance at her sister. “… want you to know that everything really
is
okay. We're doing fine. Not as fine as if you were with us, but we're managing. Just in case you were worrying.”

Sarah sank into the chair beside the bed, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. “What Emily's trying to say, Mom, is that if you need to be with Dad, we understand. You have our blessing.”

Sarah leaned to kiss her mother's cheek, laying a gentle hand over Elizabeth's gnarled ones, folded over each other as if in final repose. Their mother's countenance was peaceful. If the sisters hadn't known better, they might have imagined that the wisp of a smile on her lips was meant for them.

The following evening
brought the news they'd been dreading. Emily, when she got word, immediately drove over to Sarah's house, where the sisters consoled each other while Sarah's husband made pancakes for supper—the only thing he knew how to cook. Sarah's two teenaged boys, seventeen-year-old Curtis and fourteen-year-old Elliot, respectfully refrained from texting their friends or playing computer games. Yet without those distractions, they seemed at a loss, as if not knowing what to do with themselves. They had adored their grandmother, but to them death was an alien concept. This was the second time they had experienced it in their immediate family, and they didn't quite know what was expected of them.

Elizabeth's remains were cremated two days later, and the memorial service took place the Sunday after that. She'd been active in the community, and numerous friends and acquaintances of all ages turned out for the service. Hundreds of people poured into the church, many of whom had an anecdote to share afterward at the reception at Sarah's house.

Elizabeth's hair stylist tearfully told Emily about the time just after he'd found out he was HIV-positive, when many of his regulars had begun defecting to other stylists at the salon. When Elizabeth had learned of it, she'd made a point of coming in more often than usual, scheduling appointments with him for the middle of the day, when the salon was at its busiest. Eventually some of the other ladies, seeing that she wasn't afraid of infection, had come around.

An attractive middle-aged woman from the book club their mother had belonged to told Sarah of how vigorously Elizabeth had campaigned in favor of the classics, titles some of the other women in the club had feared would be too heavy. “I never would have read
Anna Karenina
if it hadn't been for your mother,” she said, dabbing at her eyes. “And to think what I would have missed!”

The elderly owner of a mom-and-pop grocery store in their old neighborhood spoke fondly to the sisters about how their mother would often stop by just to chat in the lonely days after his wife had passed away. Once, he said, she'd brought him a bag of grapefruits from a neighbor's tree. When reminded that he had a plentiful supply of grapefruits in his store, she'd replied, “Yes, but these are sweeter.”

Olive Diefenbaker, a dear old friend of their mother's, told the story of how Elizabeth, when asked each year what she wanted for her birthday, would suggest something outrageously unattainable: an iron that wouldn't leave scorch marks, a dryer that didn't eat socks, cut flowers that wouldn't wilt. Once Elizabeth had confided to Olive that she had always secretly coveted the green dress with a plaid lining that Ann Miller had worn in
On the Town
. After years of this, Olive had finally thrown up her hands, declaring, “You're impossible! If you won't tell me, how am I supposed to know what to give you?” Elizabeth had responded with a smile, “Olive, dear, I thought you already knew. All I want is your friendship, and you've already given me that.”

Sarah's modest frame house was so packed that people were spilling out onto the patio despite the fact that it was a bit chilly outdoors. It was late in the afternoon before the crowd began to disperse. Sarah and Emily were clearing away the dirty plates and platters of leftover food when they came across a last stray mourner. An older gentleman, whom they'd noticed only peripherally before, was now seated on the living room sofa, quietly gazing out the window as if lost in thought. He hadn't offered his condolences at the church, so they'd pegged him as a casual acquaintance who'd merely come to pay his respects.

He rose with some difficulty as they approached. The sisters could see that he must have been quite handsome in his youth. He still was, in a craggy, all-American sort of way, like an older, thinner version of Robert Young in
Marcus Welby, M.D
., with his twinkling blue eyes, full head of silver hair, and broad shoulders from which his conservative black suit hung as if from a sturdy wooden hanger. He moved slowly, as if even the simple act of taking a few steps were an effort, and they noticed he favored his right leg. They also noticed a slight tremor in his hand as he extended it to them.

“Bob Miller,” he introduced himself, engulfing first Sarah's, then Emily's hand in his firm, dry grip. He seemed familiar to them for some reason, though they were certain they'd never met him before. “Pleasure to meet you. I'm an old friend from Emory. I was so sorry to hear about your mother.” In his deep rumble of a voice, they heard genuine sorrow rather than mere sympathy.

“Thank you for coming,” Emily murmured politely. She felt more than a bit numb from the hours of holding it together, from the warm pressure of hands and lips that had been besieging her all day.

“It was a long trip,” he said, “but I wanted to pay my respects.”

“You came all the way from Nebraska?” Sarah struggled to make small talk. She felt as drained as her sister, but years of keeping up with small children, and now teenagers running in and out of the house all day, had left her better prepared to withstand the strain of this day that seemed as if it would never end.

Bob Miller smiled, showing a mouthful of teeth too even and white to be his own. “You bet,” he said, and they heard the unmistakable gee-whiz cadence of the Midwest in his voice. “Believe it or not, I still live in Emory, though it's a lot more built up now. Raised a family there—three boys and a girl. After my wife died, my son Pete—he lives in Kearney—asked me to move in with him, but I told him no. I was born in Emory, and I reckon I'll die there.”

“Funny, I don't recall my mother ever mentioning you.” Emily was frowning slightly, as if trying to place him.

He blinked, seeming a bit taken aback, but was quick to recover. “No, I don't suppose she would have,” he said regretfully. “It was a long time ago, and we didn't exactly part on the best of terms.”