The Lavender Hour (23 page)

I needed sleep, but I put off returning to the empty cottage. It took all my resolve not to go to Luke's, regardless of what Nona had said. Even watching him sleep would bring me a measure of comfort. On the way back down Main Street, I pulled over in front of the Squire. The first of the college crowd had arrived for the summer, and the bar side of the restaurant was jammed. I found an empty stool and ordered a beer.

“Pretty busy,” I said to the bartender.

“It will only get worse,” he said, and told me a local band was going to be playing later. I was aware of appraising glances coming my way, and, too exhausted to fend off anyone, I kept my eyes focused on my beer.

The bartender slid a bowl of pretzels in front of me. “Want to order anything from the menu?”

“Not right now, thanks,” I said, although I hadn't eaten since noon.

“Let me know when you're ready,”he said, and drew a round of drafts for a group at the other end of the bar. He was back in minutes and set a bottle in front of me.

I raised an eyebrow. “I didn't order this,” I said.

“Compliments of the gentleman,” he said, indicating someone standing off to my right.

I turned and saw Rich. He took that as an invitation and edged his way through the crowd.

“Nice surprise seeing you here,” he said.

I used the noise of the crowd to avoid replying.

“Good band tonight,” he said. “The Total Strangers. You know them?”

I pantomimed difficulty in hearing him through the noise of the bar crowd.

He picked up my beer and, before I could react or resist, led me to a table. I stumbled once, and he caught me. “This is better, yes?” he said when we were seated.

“I really can't stay,” I said. “I just stopped in for a quick beer.”

He ignored this. “Luke tells me you're from Virginia.”

“Yes.”

“I was stationed there,” he said. “When I was in the navy. Norfolk.”

I pictured the map at Lily's party. The big yellow arrow that pointed to Norfolk, the matching one aimed at the Azores.

“So where exactly in Virginia are you from?”

“Richmond,” I said.

“You still have family there?”

“My mama and a sister.” I hated this kind of bar talk. “How's Rocker doing?”

“Great. I take him to work with me. Now he thinks he owns the truck.”

“I bet he misses Luke,” I said.

“I don't know. He seems to be adjusting.”

“How long have you known him for?”

“Rocker?”

“Luke.”

“About twenty years.” He signaled for another round.

“Not for me,” I said, but when the waiter came over, he brought two beers. I looked down, amazed to see I'd nearly finished the one
in front of me. Aware I had a slight buzz on—exhaustion and no dinner—I resolved to nurse this one. The band came in, and we watched them set up. I wanted to ask Rich a million questions about Luke, and at the same time, I didn't want to talk about him at all. I stood up.

“You're not going?” Rich said.

“Ladies' room,” I said. I stumbled again when I took a step, and he cupped his palm on the small of my back. Instantly I flashed on the image of Jan helping Lily at the party in exactly that way. I tightened my fingers on his arm, steadied myself. “Sorry,” I said. “Too many beers on an empty stomach.”

“No such thing as too many beers.”

His arm was hard, muscular beneath my hand. He was not tall, probably five seven to my five three. We would be what Ashley and I used to call pelvic matchups. My face warmed at the thought. Definitely too much to drink. I pulled my hand away. Inside the restroom, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. No makeup. Hair a mess. Looking as tired as I felt. I was not up to a night of fending off passes and decided to slip away through an exit on the restaurant side, but when I came out, Rich was waiting.

“Hey,” he said. He narrowed the space between us until I was backed against the wall. His eyes were slightly bloodshot, and he was edging one gear past third on the drink scale. I wasn't far behind. In the background, the Total Strangers began to play, guitar leading the way. He reached over and brushed my hair away from my forehead, then stroked my cheek. Wait a minute, my brain said, protesting. His thumb touched the pulse point in the hollow at my throat. His slightly calloused fingers stroked my collarbone. It had been a long time, and my body responded immediately.

“This is a mistake,” I said. Mistake, mistake, mistake, my brain echoed.

“Is it?” he said, his mouth slightly curved.

I was aware of music, the buzz of conversation, the clink of glasses, a waitress calling “Coming through,” and tried to nod. He
held my gaze. I gave myself over to the hard comfort of male arms. It felt so good to be held. Looking back now, I can see that, in that moment, I was lost, confusing grief with desire. I closed my eyes. My lips, traitorous and independent, opened beneath his.

When I opened my eyes, I saw Paige. She was watching us, her mouth curled in a triumphant smile. Like a cat with a mouthful of cream, Grandma Ruth would say.

“Shit,”I said, then, “Paige,”but the girl turned and walked away.

“Hey,” Rich said. “No harm. No foul.” He reached for me again.

I
SLEPT BADLY,
my night punctuated with anxiety dreams. I woke with a headache and a mouth made dry by the haunting remnant of a dream, one so vivid that, propelled by an irrational sense of foreboding, I got up and crossed the hall to the workroom. I had not drawn the shades—I seldom did—and the floorboards were awash with morning light. Through the window, I could see people down on the beach, walking the shore.

The envelope containing Luke's hair was there in the desk drawer where I had placed it. Touching it, I was taken with an absurd sense of relief. In the dream, a woman's hands—not mine— had braided the lock of Luke's hair into the shape of a noose. Black and glossy and strong. And clearly meant for me. I laughed at my foolishness—that I'd had to actually check on his hair—and returned the envelope to the drawer. Months later, I would recall this morning and wonder at the wisdom of my subconscious. It had sent me the only prescient dream I had ever had.

In the bathroom, I urinated for what felt like five minutes—all that beer—and, remembering the details of the evening at the Squire, grew nearly giddy with relief that I had escaped the close call of Rich. What had I been thinking, letting him kiss me, kissing him back? For I had, I most definitely had. Well, at least I'd disentangled myself after that one kiss, escaped. But not before Paige had seen us. And had Paige not been there, watching us with her lips curved in that strangely triumphant expression, where might the night have headed? Where indeed? Would drunken lust—even in the morning I could recall my body's response to him—have led
me to stagger into one more ill-fated romance only to have to flee from it days or weeks or months later? Well, I refused to think about it. I had not gone to bed with Rich. I chose to see this as a victory over past history. I showered, dressed, drank about a gallon of water, and swallowed two aspirin, then headed over to Luke's.

N
ONA LOOKED
exhausted, absolutely shrunken with fatigue. When I hugged her, her breath was a long sigh against my neck before she drew back.

“Well, enough of that,” she said.

I knew not to offer sympathy. “Is Helen coming to pick you up?”

“Not today. I'm not going out today. I was up most of the night. With Luke.”

My breath caught in my throat. “He didn't sleep?”

“On and off. Mostly off.” I read in her eyes the knowledge that this was the beginning of the really bad nights. “The doctor was by earlier. He changed Luke's medication. Put him on liquid morphine. He said that should help, but…” She shrugged. Beneath her exhaustion, there was fear.

I closed my mind against the contagion of it. “What can I do? Can I pick up anything at the store? Run errands?”

“Can you just stay here awhile? With Luke?”

“As long as you need.”

“I'm going to go up and lie down. See if I can get a nap.”

“You go ahead,” I said. “I can stay all day if you need.”

“I doubt I'll be able to go off.”

“Even if you can only get a rest,” I said.

“Yes,”Nona said. Then, “You go on in. He'll be glad to see you.”

T
HE ROOM
was absolutely still. “Hi,” I whispered.

He didn't answer, and I thought he was asleep. Then he opened his eyes and stared straight at me.

About the same, Nona had said during our call on Saturday night when I'd asked how he was, but I saw at once this was not true. He
had failed in the last three days, more than I would have thought possible. He had shed more weight and was sculpted down to the beauty of bone, the starkness of a Byzantine saint. His hands, when I took them into mine, were icy. He pulled them away. There was an IV tube running into his arm. I noticed a box of Depends in the corner. Digestive is the first to go. Then bowels and bladder.

“Can I get you anything? Would you like to play backgammon?” I thought suddenly of those long-ago August evenings when Lily and my daddy played dominoes, a memory I could almost reach out and touch.

He didn't answer.

It was the first real day of summer, already in the high seventies, and the window was open a few inches. I could hear the birds singing in the backyard. “Nona's gone up to try and take a nap,” I told him.

He still wouldn't speak.

“What's wrong?”

He sighed. “So I'm being an ass,” he said. His voice was weak.

“What?”

“It's just…”

“What is it? What do you want? What can I do?” Was he in pain? Did he need more morphine?

“It's funny.”

“What?”

“I'm dying. I'm dying, and I still have room for jealousy.”

I understood then that Paige had told him about seeing me with Rich, understood the meaning of the smile the girl gave me at the bar. She hadn't wasted a minute. She must have come by earlier that morning or on her way home last night.

“Listen,” I said, needing to explain. He lifted his hand and pressed his fingers against my lips.

“Nothing happened,” I said.

“I know.”

“Really. Nothing.”

He nodded. “I know.”

Overhead, the floorboards in Nona's room creaked, then fell silent.

Luke laid his hand on the side of the bed. “Lie here with me?”

“Are you sure?”

“I'm cold.”

“Shall I close the window?”

“No. I need to hear the birds. Just lie with me.”

I stretched out at his side, curled my body to his, smelled the faint odor of urine on his skin. I laid my head on his chest.

“Is this too heavy for you?”

“No.”

I stroked his chest and listened to his heartbeat, followed his breathing, patterning mine to his. I thought about the middle ground Uncle Brent had spoken of. The territory between hope and hopelessness that just two days before I'd rejected as not enough. I would take that now. Would take weeks. Days. Anything. I no longer believed that if you loved a person enough, you could save his life, but I needed to believe you could extend it.

“Nona called my father last night,” he said.

“In Santa Fe?”

“She thought he should know. In case he wanted to see me.”

My chest ached. “And he's coming?”

“No.”

“He isn't?”

“I didn't expect him to. We haven't spoken in two years. And before that, we did nothing but fight.”

“But still.” I couldn't imagine being so angry with Lily or Ashley that I would refuse to see them if they were dying.

He laughed, a sort of hiccup that turned into a cough. “You've got to admire a man who sticks to his principles.”

I had no answer to that. There is a lot I can forgive in this world, but not a father refusing to see his dying son. I must have fallen asleep then, for I was awakened by a change in his breathing. A
luminosity of sweat coated his skin. I wiped his face with a corner of the sheet.

“Are you in pain?” I asked. I checked the IV bag to see if it was empty.

“Jess?”

“What?”

“The painting.” He nodded toward the oil I had admired the first time I saw it. “I want you to have it.”

I tried to refuse. I don't want the damn painting, I wanted to scream, but when he insisted, I agreed, although I could not be gracious about it. And even then, he wasn't satisfied until I actually took the painting off the wall and carried it out to my car.

“It's time,” he said, when I returned.

“For what?”

“I need to go.”

I assumed he needed help getting into the bathroom, but then I saw his face, filled with hard determination and surrender. In that moment, I had a glimpse of a future I was unwilling to see. My heart turned frantic, a small animal. “No.”

“Last night, I shit the bed, Jess. Paige had to clean it up.” His face twisted at the memory. “That's what I have ahead. Shitting the bed and watching while my daughter or my mom cleans up.”

“You can't give up yet,” I said, negotiating. I was prepared to bargain—to fight—for each day, for more time in the middle ground. “Aren't there things you want?”

He smiled. “It's liberating not to care. Not to want.”

“Surely there's something you want. I was thinking tomorrow I'd get the inspection sticker on your truck. Maybe we could take a ride.” I looked out at the familiar sights of his backyard—the bird feeders, the woodpile, the lilac bush—now blurred. I don't want to lose you. Looking back later, I would see that he had already gone.

“Two things I'd like,” he said.

“What?” Anything. I tried to convince myself he would get through this despair.

“I want another cigarette.” He reached for the pack; I struck the match, my hands shaking. Neither of us spoke while he smoked. He finished the cigarette, down to the filter, coughing twice, long, hacking coughs. Then he turned to me. “The second thing,”he said. “Will you let me kiss you once more?”

I thought about refusing, as if, by denying him this, I could keep him. That middle ground. Ridiculous, of course.

I tasted first the chemical taint of medicine and the stale after-smoke of cigarettes, and then beneath those—as if uncovering the complicated layering of a rare perfume—the faint essential taste of him. No, I thought. I couldn't bear it. To have found him only to lose him. The bitterness of it weighted my heart, my bones, my being.