Two by Two

CHAPTER 26: Saying Goodbye

My parents didn’t have the most active social lives when Marge and I were young. While my dad might grab a beer every now and then with friends, it was relatively rare, and my mom hardly went out at all. Between work, cooking, cleaning, visiting her family, and raising kids, she didn’t have a lot of extra free time. Nor did my parents dine out as a couple very often; dining out was considered an extravagance, something I can remember them doing perhaps half a dozen times. When you consider birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day, six dinner dates in eighteen years isn’t much.

That meant that when they did go out, Marge and I would be giddy at the thought of having the house to ourselves. As soon as their car pulled out of the driveway, we’d make popcorn or S’mores-or both-and start watching movies with the volume turned up way too loud, until, inevitably, one of Marge’s friends would call. Once she got on the phone, I would suddenly be forgotten… but I was usually okay with that, since it meant even more S’mores for me.

Once when she was thirteen or so, she convinced me that we should build a fort in the living room. We found a coil of clothesline in the storage shed and ran it from the curtain rod to the grandfather clock to an air vent and back again to the curtain rod. We pulled towels and sheets from the linen closet, fastening them to the line with clothespins. Another sheet went over the top, and we furnished the fort with pillows pulled from the couch. Marge hauled in a propane-fueled camping lantern from the garage. We somehow got that lit without burning down the house-my dad would have been furious had he known-and Marge turned out all the lights before we crawled inside.

Setting the whole thing up had taken more than an hour, and it would take almost as long to take it all down and clean up, which meant we were only able to spend fifteen or twenty minutes in the fort before my parents got home. Even when they did go out, they never stayed out late.

I still recall that night as a near-magical experience. At eight years old, it was adventurous and new, and the fact that it was also against the rules made me feel older than I was, more like Marge’s peer than a little kid, for the very first time. And as I looked at my sister in the eerie glow of the lantern in our makeshift fort, I can distinctly remember thinking that Marge was not only my sister, but my best friend as well. I knew even then that nothing would ever change that.

On February 1, the high temperature hit seventy-one degrees; five days later, the high was only fifty degrees and the low dipped to twenty-four. The wild temperature swings that first week of February seemed to weaken Marge even further. With every passing day, Marge grew worse.

Her sixteen hours of sleep a day lengthened to nineteen hours, and every breath was a struggle. The paralysis on her right side grew even more pronounced, and we rented a wheelchair to move her around the house more easily. Her words started to slur and she had hardly any appetite, but those things were nothing compared to the pain she was experiencing. My sister was taking so many painkillers that I suspected that her liver was turning to mush, but the only time she seemed to feel any real relief was when she slept.

Not that Marge ever mentioned the pain. Not to my parents or Liz, and not to me. As always, she was more worried about others than herself, but her suffering was evident in the way she winced, and the way her eyes would unexpectedly blur with tears. Witnessing her agony was torture for us all.

Often, I would sit with her in the living room as she slept on the couch; other times, I sat in the rocking chair in the bedroom. As I stared at her sleeping form, memories would roll back through the years, like a movie playing in reverse-a movie in which Marge was the star with the most memorable lines of all. She was forever vivid, forever alive, and I wondered whether my memories would remain that way, or whether they would slowly fade with the passage of time. I struggled mightily to see past her illness, telling myself that I owed it to her to remember everything about the way she was before she got sick.

On the day that the temperature plunged to twenty-four degrees, I remembered something that my father had told me about wood frogs, which can be found in North Carolina to as far north as the Arctic circle. As cold-blooded creatures, wood frogs were susceptible to frigid temperatures and could freeze completely solid, to the point that their hearts stopped completely. And yet, the frog has evolved in such a way that glycogen continues to break down into glucose, which acts a bit like nature’s antifreeze. They can remain frozen and immobilized for weeks, but when the weather finally begins to warm, the wood frog blinks and its heart starts back up; there’s a quick breath, and the frog hops away in search of its mate, as if God had merely hit the pause button.

Watching my sister sleep, I found myself wishing for a miracle of nature just like that.

Strangely, the rest of my life continued to move forward apace.

Work remained a sometimes welcome distraction, and my clients’ enthusiasm for my work product was a rare bright spot during that time. I met with my Realtor and signed on the dotted line; the couple from Louisville asked for a long escrow, because they wanted their kids to finish out the school year there, so the closing was set for May. And over lunch one day, Emily casually asked me for the name of my Realtor, revealing that she was thinking of selling her house, too.

“I think I need a fresh start,” she said, “in a place where I didn’t live with David.”

At the time, I suspected she was just trying to show moral support for my own decision to sell, a decision she knew I still harbored ambivalence about. But a few days later, she texted me a photo of the new for sale sign in her front yard.

Nothing remains the same for long; her life, like mine, was moving forward. I just wished I knew where mine was heading.

My dad continued to show up at Marge’s house with his toolbox nearly every afternoon. What began as “necessary repairs” on the house gradually turned into extensive remodeling. He had torn out the entirety of the guest bathroom on the day Liz and Marge attended my open house, intent on upgrading it to the kind of bathroom he thought his only daughter deserved.

My dad was a dinosaur when it came to technology. To that point in his life, he’d seen no reason to purchase a cell phone. His boss always knew the location of the job site and everyone else on the crew had one, so he could always be contacted. Who else would call him anyway, he wondered? Why be bothered?

Yet my dad came to me right after the new year, and asked me to help him buy a phone. Since he didn’t know anything about “those cellular gadgets,” he asked me to select one for him. “Just make sure it does all that fancy stuff,” he said, “but isn’t too expensive.”

Though my Dad hadn’t mentioned it, I chose a phone that I felt would be simple for him to use as well. I set him up on my plan, and then spent some time with him showing him how to make and receive calls, as well as text. To his contacts, I added the information for Marge, Liz, my mom, and me. I couldn’t think of anyone else to add.

“Can it take pictures?” he asked. “I’ve seen phones that can do that now.”

Pretty much all phones have done that for years, I thought to myself, but I said only, “Yes, it does.”

I showed him that function and watched as he practiced taking pictures and then examining them. I also showed him how to delete the ones he didn’t want. Though I had the sense that much of the information was overwhelming, I watched him carefully tuck the phone into his pocket and head out to his car.

I saw him again at Marge’s house the following day. She’d risen from her nap and our mom had chicken soup waiting. Marge ate half the bowl-less than we’d hoped-and when the tray was taken away, our dad took a seat beside her. He looked almost shy as he began to show her photos of various faucets, sinks and towel rods as well as options for floor and wall tile. Obviously, he’d been at the home improvement store, and this was the only way he could make sure that Marge was part of the design process.

Marge knew that our dad had never been a man of words, nor had he ever been openly affectionate. But through his labors, she could see that in his own way he was shouting his love for her at the top of his lungs, hoping that she could somehow hear what he’d always found so difficult to say.

Dad took notes as she made her selections, and when they were finished, Marge leaned closer to him, giving him no choice but to hug her. “Love you, Daddy,” she whispered. Then, rising from the couch, he lumbered out of the house. Everyone knew he was off to purchase her selections, but after a few minutes, I realized that I hadn’t heard him start his car.

When I got up to peek through the curtains at the driveway, I saw my dad, the strongest man I’d ever known, sitting in the front seat of his car with his head bowed and shoulders heaving.

Wonderful aromas always floated from Marge’s kitchen these days, as my mom tried desperately to make food that would tempt Marge into eating more. There were soups and stews and sauces and pasta; banana cream and lemon meringue pies and homemade vanilla ice cream. The refrigerator and freezer were stuffed, and every time I came by, she handed me food for my refrigerator, which had gradually filled as well.

Whenever Marge was awake, my mom would set a tray in front of her; by the second week of February, my mom had begun to feed her because her left side was growing weaker as well. She would carefully raise the spoon to her lips, wiping her mouth between bites, and then offer my sister a sip of something to drink through a straw.

While Marge ate, my mom would talk. She would talk about Dad and the way the young new owner of the plumbing business was giving Dad a hard time for missing so much work. By that time, my dad had probably accrued years of vacation time, but the owner was the kind of guy who was never happy, a man who demanded more from the employees while demanding less of himself.

She described the tulips she’d planted for my dad and the lecture she’d attended with her Red Hat Society friends; she also regaled Marge with things that London had told her, no matter how inconsequential. More than once, I heard my mom pretend to be upset that no one had notified her in advance about Marge’s and London’s roller-skating adventure.

“I picked you up and dropped you off so many times at that rink that my tires made tire grooves in the parking lot asphalt-and you forgot to mention when my granddaughter was trying it for the very first time?”

I knew that she was only half-teasing, that she would have loved to have been there, and I silently berated myself for it. My mom, after all, not only wanted to see London on skates that day; she’d wanted to see her own daughter, skating with abandon and joy on her face-one last time.

As the second week of February rolled around, I had the sensation that time was simultaneously speeding up and slowing down There was a slow-motion quality to the hours I spent at Marge’s every day, marked by long stretches of silence and sleep; on the other hand, each time I showed up, it seemed that Marge’s deterioration was accelerating. One afternoon before pickup, I stopped by and found her awake in the living room. She and Liz were speaking in low voices, so I offered to leave, but Liz shook her head.

“Stay,” Liz said. “I was about to touch base with one of my clients anyway. It’s an emergency. You two talk for a bit. I’m hoping this won’t take long.”

I took a seat by my sister. I didn’t ask her how she was feeling, because I knew it was a question she hated. Instead, as always, she asked about Emily and work, London and Vivian, her voice slurred and tinny. Because she tired so easily, I did most of the talking. Toward the end, though, I asked if I could ask her a question.

“Of course,” she said, her syllables running together.

“I wrote you a letter for Christmas, but I never heard what you thought about it.”

She smiled her half smile, the one I’d grown used to. “I haven’t read it yet.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” she said, “I’m not ready to say goodbye to you just yet.”

I confess that I sometimes wondered if she’d ever have a chance to read it. Over the next three days, whenever I went to the house, Marge was always asleep, usually in her bedroom.

I would stay for an hour or two, visiting with Liz or my mom, whoever happened to be around. I would admire the latest repairs or renovations that my dad had undertaken, and more often than not eat a large plate of food that my mom would put down in front of me.

We almost always stayed in the kitchen. I thought at first it was because no one wanted to disturb Marge while she was sleeping, but I discounted that when I realized if that my dad’s hammering wasn’t enough to wake her, our low voices wouldn’t either.

I finally figured it out one afternoon, when Liz stepped outside to sweep the porch. At loose ends, I wandered to the living room and took a seat in the spot where Marge and I usually sat.

My dad was working away quietly in the bathroom, but I realized I could hear a strange, rhythmic sound, like a malfunctioning fan or vent. Unable to pinpoint its origin, I moved first to the kitchen and then to the bathroom, where I spotted my dad lying on his back with his head beneath the new sink, in the final stages of hooking it up. But the sound was fainter in both those places; it grew in volume only as I began to make my way down the hallway, and it was then that I knew what was making that horrible noise.

It was my sister.

Despite the closed door, across the far reaches of the house, what I’d been hearing was the sound of my sister breathing.

Valentine’s Day fell on a Sunday that year. Marge had planned a special gathering at her house, even inviting Emily and Bodhi, and I brought London over as soon as she got back from Atlanta.

For the first time in two weeks, London and I arrived to find Marge sitting upright on the couch. Someone-maybe my mom, maybe Liz-had helped her apply a little makeup. Instead of the baseball cap, Marge wore a gorgeous silk scarf, and a thick turtleneck sweater helped disguise the weight she’d lost. Despite the tumor ravaging her brain, she was able to follow the conversation, and I even heard her laugh once or twice. There were moments when it almost felt like one of our usual Saturday or Sunday afternoons at our parents’.

Almost.

The house itself had never looked better. My dad had finished the guest bathroom and the new tiles and sink gleamed, reflecting state-of-the-art fixtures. He’d also spent the last week repainting all of the interior trim in the house. My mom had laid out a veritable banquet on every surface of the kitchen, and as soon as Emily arrived, my mom made her promise to take a mountain of leftovers home with her, including whatever was left of the pies.

We rehashed a lot of family stories, but the highlight of the evening was when Liz presented her Valentine’s Day gift to Marge. She’d made a photo album of the two of them that opened with photos of each of them as infants, and progressed through their entire lives. On the left-hand pages were photos of Liz; on the right, Marge. I knew that my mom must have helped Liz compile the photos and as Marge slowly turned the pages, I watched my sister and Liz grow up in tandem before my eyes.

Eventually the album began to feature photos of the two of them together, some taken on exotic trips while others were merely candid shots taken around the house. No matter how formal or casual, however, each photo seemed chosen to tell a story about a particularly meaningful moment in their lives together. The entire album was a testament to their love, and I found myself close to tears.

It was the final two pages of the album that broke me.

On the left was the photo of Marge and Liz beneath the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree in New York, the last trip they would ever take together; on the right was a photo that looked to have been taken only a couple of hours earlier, with Marge looking exactly as she did right then.

Liz explained that my dad had taken it, and that unbeknownst to her had left to get it developed at a nearby drugstore. Upon his return, he asked Liz to add it to the last page of the album.

All eyes turned toward him.

“I’ve always been so proud of you,” my dad choked out as he looked at Marge, “and I want you to know that I love you, too.”

The day after Valentine’s Day, the waiting began.

I now believe that on Valentine’s Day, Marge used much of her last remaining reserves of energy. She slept almost the entire day Monday and ate no solid food from that point on, sipping only tepid chicken broth through a straw.

While my mom and dad were a constant presence at Marge’s house, I drifted in and out, mainly because of London. She had been unusually volatile since learning the truth about Marge, occasionally throwing a tantrum or bursting into tears over trivial things. She would get particularly emotional when I refused her requests to visit Marge, but it was difficult to explain to London that her aunt was almost always sleeping now.

However, a few days following the Valentine’s Day celebration, Liz called me at home in the evening.

“Can you bring London by?” she said urgently. “Marge wants to see her.”

I called up to London, who was already upstairs in her pajamas, her hair still wet from her bath. She raced down the stairs and would have rushed straight to the car, but I managed to block the door in order to get her to put on a jacket. When I pointed out that she wasn’t wearing shoes, she randomly grabbed a pair of rubber boots from the closet and slipped those on, despite the fact that it wasn’t raining.

I saw she was holding a Barbie, refusing to put it down even while donning her coat.

When we arrived at Marge’s house, Liz gave London a hug and kiss and immediately pointed her in the direction of the master bedroom.

Despite her fevered rush to the car, London hesitated for a moment before starting slowly down the hall. I trailed a few steps behind. Again, I could hear my sister, the sound of life leaving her with every breath she took. Inside her room, the bed-stand lamp spilled a warm pool of light onto the hardwood floor.

London paused just inside the doorway.

“Hi… honey,” Marge said to her, the words slurred, but understandable.

London cautiously approached the bed, moving quietly so as not to disturb her sick aunt. I leaned against the doorjamb, watching as London reached Marge’s side.

“What… do you… have there?” Marge asked.

“I brought you a present,” London responded, handing over the doll she’d been clutching all along. “It’s my favorite Barbie because I’ve had her since I was little. She’s my first Barbie, and I want you to have it.”

When London realized that Marge didn’t have the strength to take it, she set it beside Marge, propping it against my sister as she lay beneath the covers.

“Thank you. She’s pretty… but you’re… prettier.”

London bowed her head and raised it again. “I love you, Auntie Marge. I love you so much. I don’t want you to die.”

“I know… and… I love you… too. But I… have something… for you. Auntie Liz put it… on the dresser. One day… when you’re old enough… maybe you can… watch it with your dad… okay? And maybe… when you do… you’ll think about me. Can you… promise me… you’ll do that?”

“I promise.”

My eyes flashed to the dresser. I saw the DVD that Marge had given my daughter and I blinked back sudden tears as I saw the title.

Pretty Woman.

“Marge thinks I should still have a baby,” Liz told me over coffee in the kitchen, a few days later. Her expression was a mixture of fatigue and bewilderment.

“When did she tell you this?”

“Well, she first brought it up when we went to New York,” she said. “She keeps pointing out that I’m healthy enough to do it, but…” She trailed off.

I waited for her to go on, but she seemed lost. “Do you want to do that?” I asked in a tentative voice.

“I don’t know, Russ-it’s all just so hard to contemplate right now. I can’t imagine doing it on my own, but she brought it up again yesterday.” For a moment she picked at the grain of the kitchen table, making a small groove in the wood. “She told me that she’d already made financial arrangements, in case I felt differently down the road. That I’d be able to afford IVF, a nanny if I wanted, schooling, even.”

When I tilted my head, trying to figure how and when Marge had made these arrangements, Liz ran a hand over her hair, trying to corral loose strands into her messy ponytail.

“Apparently right after she’d passed the CPA and became an accountant, she bought a bunch of life insurance. Two different policies, in fact. She added to them over the years, and it’s quite a lot of money. The larger policy lists me as the beneficiary, and it’s more than I’ll ever need, even if I did decide to have a child on my own. She recently changed the beneficiary on the other policy, to your parents. So your dad can retire. I asked about you…”

I raised my hand, interrupting. “I’m glad it’s going to you and my parents,” I said. She looked confused, as if none of the information she’d recited really made sense to her.

“What I kept wondering when she told me about all this,” Liz continued, “is how did she know? I asked her, and she said that because of her family history, and even though she wasn’t sure who the beneficiaries would eventually be-early on, I think she listed you and your parents-she wanted to make sure she had it just in case she ever needed it.”

“She never told me.”

“She never told me, either,” Liz admitted. “When we were discussing having a baby before she got sick, I guess I never really focused on the cost. We do okay and we’ve saved a bit, but mostly I guess I always trusted that if Marge thought we could afford it, we could…” For a moment, her expression verged on desperation. “I can barely hold myself together. I told her that I didn’t think I was capable of raising a child without her. She was always the more maternal one. And do you know what she said to that?”

I looked at her, waiting.

“She said that I was her inspiration and that any child that I raised would make the world a better place. And that if there’s a heaven, she promised that she would watch over our child forever.”

The following day, it was my turn to say goodbye.

When I arrived at the house, Marge was sleeping as usual. I stayed for a while, keeping an eye on the clock so as not to be late to pick up London from school, but before long the baby monitor in the kitchen crackled and both my mom and Liz hustled back to the bedroom. A few minutes later, my mom returned to the kitchen.

“Marge wants to see you,” she said.

“How is she?”

“She seems pretty coherent, but you should probably head back now. Sometimes she starts to get confused, and doesn’t stay awake long.”

Observing my mom’s steady demeanor, I could see that she was every bit as strong as my father, for she was bearing the unbearable, each and every day.

I held my mom for a moment, then walked down the hall to the bedroom. As on Valentine’s Day, Marge was wearing a pretty scarf, and I guessed that she had asked Liz to put it on her before I came in.

I pulled a chair from the corner of the room and scooted it toward the bed. Liz backed out of the room as I reached for my sister’s hand. It felt warm but lifeless in mine. Unmoving. I didn’t know whether she could even feel it, but I squeezed it anyway.

“Hi, Sis,” I said to her softly.

At my voice, she blinked, then struggled to clear her throat.

“Read,” she said, the word coming out garbled.

It took a moment for me to understand what she meant, but then I spotted the envelope that Liz had placed on the bed stand, and I reached for it. Opening it, I pulled out the single sheet of paper, took a deep breath and began to read.

Marge,

It’s late at night, and I am struggling to find the words that I wish would come more easily. In truth, I’m not sure it’s even possible to convey in words how much you’ve always meant to me. I could tell you that I love you, and that you’re the greatest sister a guy could ever have; I could admit that I’ve always looked up to you. And yet, because I’ve said those things to you before, it feels painfully inadequate. How can I say goodbye to the best person I’ve ever known, in a way she truly deserves?

And then it occurred to me that all of what I need to say can be summed up in just two words.

Thank you.

Thank you for looking out for me all my life, for trying to protect me from my own mistakes, for being a living example of the courage I so desperately wish I owned. But most of all, thank you for showing me what it means to truly love, and be loved, in return.

You know me: the maestro of grand romantic gestures, of candlelit dinners and flowers on date night. But what I didn’t understand until recently was that those tender, orchestrated moments mean nothing unless they occur with someone who loves you just the way you are.

For too long, I was in a relationship in which love always felt conditional-I was forever trying, and failing, to become someone worthy of true love. But in thinking about you and Liz and the way you are with each other, it eventually dawned on me that acceptance is the heart of true love, not judgment. To be fully accepted by another, even in your weakest moment, is to finally feel at rest.

You and Liz are my heroes and my muses, because your love for each other has always made room for your differences and celebrated everything you had in common. And in these darkest hours, your example has been a light that helped me find my way back to the things that matter most. I only pray that someday I, too, will know the kind of love that you two share.

I love you, my sweet sister-

Russ

My hands shook as I refolded the letter and placed it back in the envelope. I didn’t trust myself to speak, but Marge’s wise gaze told me I didn’t need to.

“Emily,” she wheezed. “You… have… that… with… her.”

“I love her,” I agreed.

“Don’t… let… her… go…”

“I won’t.”

“And… don’t… cheat on… her… again…” and here she managed the ghost of a wicked smile, “or… at least… don’t tell… her…”

I couldn’t help but laugh. My sister, even at death’s doorstep, hadn’t changed a bit. “I won’t.”

It took her a little bit to catch her breath. “Mom and… Dad… need to… see London… Be part… of her life.”

“They always will be. Just like Liz.”

“Worried… for… them.”

I thought of my mom and all the loved ones she’d lost; I thought of my dad, weeping in the car.

“Do… it.”

“I will. I promise.”

“Love… you.”

I squeezed my sister’s hand then leaned down and kissed her on the cheek.

“I love you more than you will ever know,” I said. After offering a tender smile, she closed her eyes.

It was the last time I ever spoke to her.

My dad packed up his tool chest that night, and all of us kissed Liz goodbye. Now it was time for the two of them to be alone.

I don’t know what, if anything, they said to each other over the next couple of days-Liz never told us, other than to say that Marge enjoyed a day of surprising lucidity before she finally slipped into a coma. I am glad that Liz was there for that, and I pray that they both had a chance to say most of what was left to be said.

A day later, my sister died.

The funeral, at the gravesite, was a short affair. Marge had apparently given strict instructions to that effect, but the brief ceremony attracted dozens of mourners, all of them bundled up under the cold and gloomy sky.

I gave an abbreviated eulogy, of which I have little memory, other than that I spotted Vivian standing at the edge of the crowd, far from my family, Liz and Emily.

Prior to the funeral, London had asked if she could dance for her Auntie one last time. So after the mourners had dispersed, streaming away to their cars, I helped London attach her gauzy wings. With no music, and only me as an audience, London fluttered gracefully around the freshly turned earth, like a butterfly flitting in and out of the shadows.

This much I know: Marge would have loved it.