Our Souls at Night

29

Louis said, It was awful for her that last year. She was just always sick. They tried chemotherapy and radiation and that slowed it for a while but it was still there and it never was out of her system completely. She got worse and she didn’t want to have any more treatments. She was just wasting away.

I remember, Addie said. I wanted to help.

I know. You and all the others brought food. I appreciated that. And the flowers.

But I never saw her in her bedroom.

No. She didn’t want any company upstairs except Holly and me. She didn’t want anybody to see her, how she looked then in the last months. And she didn’t want to talk. She was afraid of death. Nothing I said made any difference.

Aren’t you afraid of death?

Not like I was. I’ve come to believe in some kind of afterlife. A return to our true selves, a spirit self. We’re just in this physical body till we go back to spirit.

I don’t know if I believe that, Addie said. Maybe you’re right. I hope you are.

We’ll see, won’t we. But not yet.

No, not yet, Addie said. I do love this physical world. I love this physical life with you. And the air and the country. The backyard, the gravel in the back alley. The grass. The cool nights. Lying in bed talking with you in the dark.

I love all that too. But Diane was worn out. At the end she was too tired and too weary to pay attention to her fears anymore. She wanted out, relief. An end to her suffering. She suffered terribly in the last months. So much pain. Even with sedatives and morphine. And she was still scared most of the time, underneath. I’d come in, I’d check her in the night and she’d be awake staring at the dark through the window. Can I help you? I’d say. No. Do you want something? No. I just want it to be over. Holly would help bathe her and would try to get her to eat but she wasn’t hungry. She wouldn’t eat anything. I suppose in some way she knew she was starving herself. She was so frail and tiny at the end, her legs and arms likeing it.