The Matchmaker (29 page)

After the festival, Clen, Dabney, and Agnes drove out to the airport to pick up Riley. He was staying for two nights to enjoy Nantucket in the fall; he had wanted to come earlier but he’d had a practical exam that morning.

Agnes was buzzing with excitement. When Clen pulled up in front of the airport, she jumped out of the backseat and said, “I’ll run in and get him.”

Dabney watched her as she hurried for the entrance.

“She’s rosy,” Dabney said. “Rosy like I’ve never seen.”

That night, Dabney cooked the four of them dinner in the gourmet kitchen of the Joneses’ big house. Clen lit logs in the enormous stone fireplace and they all hunkered down on the deep, soft sofa and chairs while Dabney ferried in platter after platter of delicacies—dates stuffed with blue cheese wrapped in bacon, Nantucket bay scallop ceviche, rosemary cashews. It was a feast already, and those were just the appetizers. Riley acted as bartender, pouring champagne for Agnes, filling Clen’s scotch, and making himself a series of increasingly stronger Dark and Stormys, which they all sampled, even Dabney. Riley talked about the rigors of dental school and Agnes told stories about the kids in her after-school program and Dabney checked to make sure everyone was eating and that everything was delicious.

She stopped on her way back into the kitchen and kissed Clen.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered.

There wasn’t enough time.

Dabney decided it was so nice by the fire that they should simply eat dinner there, like a picnic, rather than at the table. Dinner was beef Wellington with homemade mushroom duxelles, real foie gras, and homemade pastry, and a cheesy potato gratin and pan-roasted asparagus with toasted pine nuts and mustard-cream drizzle, and a salad with pears and dried cranberries and pumpernickel croutons.

“Mommy,” Agnes said. It was always “Mommy” now, Clen noticed, or maybe it had always been that way. What did Clen know? “You’ve outdone yourself.”

“I can barely move,” Riley said. He fell back into the cushions of the armchair. His plate was clean; he had gone back for seconds of everything, which had made Dabney fuss over him more, if that was even possible. “It was so delicious, boss.”

“I first made beef Wellington back in the spring of 1982,” Dabney said. “Before Clen and I went to the junior prom.”

“This one was even better,” Clen said.

Dabney tucked herself under Clen’s right arm, and he felt her smile against his chest. She had eaten next to nothing, but neither Clen nor Agnes had nudged her about it because it did no good. Dabney ate when she was hungry, which was about once every three days. That she had outdone herself was right. Clen knew that this was the last meal she would ever cook.

There was, no doubt, an elaborate and scrumptious dessert waiting somewhere within the confines of the Joneses’ enormous SubZero refrigerator, but none of them would partake in it tonight. Dabney fell fast asleep against Clen’s chest. Agnes and Riley rose to silently do the dishes while Clen sat and enjoyed the dying embers of the fire before carrying the ninety-six pounds of Dabney Kimball back to his cottage to bed.

Stop time,
he prayed.
Now. Stop it now.

T
here was something she wanted, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask for it.

B
y the end of October, her mother was in a wheelchair. She slept all the time now, and, at her request, she was staying at Clen’s cottage. Dabney weighed almost nothing. She was so thin, it was as though a part of her had been erased.

Agnes didn’t know what to do. She talked to Riley every night on the phone. Her mother was going to die. Christmas Stroll didn’t seem like a realistic goal. Agnes was going to have to call hospice, and soon.

N
ovember 6 was Dabney’s birthday. She was forty-nine.

He asked her what she wanted to do to celebrate, and she said that she wanted to order Cuban sandwiches from Foods for Here and There, and she wanted to watch
Love Story
with Clen and Agnes.

“No cake?” he said. Dabney liked proper pomp and circumstance when it came to birthdays: cake, candles, cards, and presents. That had been true when she was a teenager, and he’d assumed it still was.

Dabney shook her head. Just the sandwiches and the movie, she said.

He said, “Don’t you think
Love Story
might be too…maudlin?”

“It’s my favorite movie,” she said. “I’d like to see it one more time.”

Agnes arrived at his cottage, looking very, very sad. She and Clen had decided that afternoon to call hospice. They would let Dabney enjoy her birthday, and then hospice would come every day for as long as they were needed.

Dabney would not live to see fifty.

Before the sandwiches and the movie, Clen decided to give Dabney her surprise. She held it in her lap and turned it over, admiring the plaid wrapping paper in navy blue, Nantucket red, and Kelly green.

“I love this wrapping paper,” she said. “I wish every present I’d ever gotten had been wrapped in this paper.”

A good start,
he thought. Agnes had picked out the paper.

Dabney touched the present some more, fingering its edges. Taking her time with the last present she would likely ever open.

“I think it’s a book!” she said.

“Open it, Mommy,” Agnes said.

Dabney opened it. The cover of the book was pink, a dusty-rose blush. And in black letters on the front it said,
THE MATCHMAKER: DABNEY KIMBALL BEECH
.

“Oh,” Dabney said.

She turned to the first page. Couple #1: Ginger (née O’Brien) and Phil Bruschelli, Married twenty-nine years. Ginger:
It would have been presumptuous of me to call myself Dabney’s best friend, because even in 1981, freshman year, Dabney was the most popular girl in the school.

And so on and so on—through Tammy Block and Flynn Sheehan, and Dr. Donegal, and the Levinsons, and Genevieve and Brian Lefebvre, and the failed story of Nina Mobley. Clen had managed to collect nineteen of the forty-two stories. He had done the interviews, and had edited each story to make it readable.

Dabney paged through the book, laughing and cooing, and saying,
Yes, yes, I remember that!
When she looked up at Clen, her eyes were shining with tears.

“I can’t believe you did this,” she said. “This is the most wonderful thing anyone has ever given me.”

“You have brought so much love into the world, Mommy,” Agnes said.

Clen said, “I thought it was important. Agnes will keep it. Her children will read it. And their children. They will know you through those stories.”

Dabney blinked. Tears dropped onto the pages. “Thank you,” she whispered.

T
here was something she wanted. She was afraid to ask for it.
Forbearance,
she thought. She was running out of time.

It was the middle of the night, three or four in the morning, her birthday officially over. The present of the book had overwhelmed her. It was a living history, her life story really, that her grandchildren and great-grandchildren would read. They might think of her the way she thought about Dabney Margaret Wright and Winford Dabney Wright and all the other women who had preceded her. She was merely taking her place in line.

The Cuban sandwich had been delicious, and
Love Story
had been okay until the scene where Oliver tells his father that Jenny has died.

“Turn it off,” Dabney had said.

“Are you sure?” Clen said.

“Yes.” Dabney knew what was coming, and she couldn’t handle the sight of Oliver sitting alone in the snow.

Dying wasn’t sad, she thought. Leaving people behind was sad.

There was something she wanted. It was exactly 3:44 in the morning. Dabney slept much of the day away, but in the very late hours, so late they were early, sleep often eluded her.
Forbearance.
Her great-grandmother, Winford Dabney Wright, had stood on the corner of Main and Federal Streets eight hours a day for six weeks petitioning for a woman’s right to vote, talking and arguing with anyone who would listen. Dabney’s beloved grandmother, Agnes Bernadette, had changed sheets and scrubbed toilets six and a half days a week her first five years on the island. She had taken off Sunday mornings to attend Mass.

Dabney poked Clen in the ribs until he stirred.

“What?” he said. He always snapped out of sleeping sounding cogent, but Dabney knew he might not remember this conversation in the morning. She had to make sure he was really awake. She sat up and turned on the light. This took effort. Her insides were now jelly.

Clen sat up beside her, blinking. He checked the clock, and drank from his glass of water. “Dabney?” he said. “Do you need a pill?”

“No,” she said.

“Do you want to talk?” he asked. “Are you afraid?”

She shook her head. They had had some frankly terrifying conversations about what came next. What would happen when Dabney died? What would it be like? Dabney appreciated Clen’s candidness—
We don’t know, Cupe. Nobody knows.
And so, Dabney had decided to focus only on her time alive for right now. The death door was closed.

Her time alive.

She said, “I want to see Box.”

Clen was silent, as she figured he might be. She reached out and touched the stump of his left arm.

“I want you to call him and tell him to come.”

“Me?” Clen said. “Why me? You should call him. Or Agnes.”

“No,” Dabney said. “I’ve given it a lot of thought. I want you to call.” Dabney reached for her ice water; her hand was barely strong enough to lift the glass. She took a pill. Clen would be the easiest person for Box to say no to, and so if he came, Dabney would know it was because he really wanted to. “I’d like you to call in the morning.”

Clen sighed, as she figured he might. But she had also thought he might refuse.

“All right,” he said.

T
here wasn’t a free minute in any of his days. The semester was in full swing and he was teaching three classes—two seminars and the Macro class. Normally he let Miranda or one of the department TAs handle the bulk of the Macro class, but this year he did it himself. Busy, busy, busy. The braver or more compassionate of his colleagues sometimes asked how he was “doing.” They knew Miranda had migrated, and they had heard Dabney was sick, perhaps, but they didn’t know the rest, or at least he hoped they didn’t.

He didn’t teach on Fridays, so that was the day he hopped the Delta shuttle to Washington.

He was in the West Wing when the phone call came. His cell phone was silenced, but he felt incessant vibrations and checked once discreetly—an unfamiliar number. He would deal with it later.

But less than an hour later, an aide entered the room with a message slip for Box.

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s urgent, apparently.”

Box saw the name
Clendenin Hughes
and bile rose in his throat—not only because he despised the man but because he assumed the call could mean only one thing.

Dead?
Box thought. The day before had been Dabney’s birthday, and he had sent a dozen long-stemmed roses to the house. Pink roses, whereas usually on her birthday and their anniversary and Valentine’s Day, he sent red. But he couldn’t do red roses, the
I love you
rose, although he did, of course, love her; he loved her enough to move mountains. He ordered pink to make a small point. Things had changed. Dabney would notice. She was all about details.

He had texted Agnes to see if the roses had arrived and she’d responded that yes, they had, and although Dabney wasn’t home just then, she would tell Dabney the roses had come.

Agnes’s final text on the topic said,
You are such a good man, Daddy.

Box was stuck back on
wasn’t home just then.
Not home to receive the roses and notice the change in color, making him wish he hadn’t sent the roses at all!

He had assumed Dabney was spending her birthday with the philistine boor—but now, as he eyed the message, he worried that what Agnes wasn’t telling him was that Dabney was in the hospital.

He nearly knocked his chair over as he stood up, thinking,
She’s dead. My wife is
dead.
The Treasury secretary and his deputies snapped to attention.

“Professor?” the secretary said. “Is something wrong?”

Box said, “Please excuse me.”

An aide found him a quiet, empty cube of an office from which to make the call. Hughes picked up on the first ring.

He said, “She’s still alive. She insisted I call you. She wants to see you.”

Box was consumed with something beyond anger, beyond fury. But, also, relief. She was alive.
Breathe, breathe.
She was alive.

“How is she?” Box said. “Tell me the truth. How much time does she have?”

“Nobody knows for sure,” Hughes said. “Weeks, maybe a month? Maybe longer, maybe not. Agnes called hospice. They’re coming on Monday. We want to make sure she’s comfortable.”

“We,” Box said, involuntarily.

Hughes cleared his throat. “She wants to see you. She’s asking for you.”

“Yes,” Box said. “I hear you saying that.”

“She insisted I call you,” Hughes said. “Believe me, I didn’t dream this up.”

“No,” Box said. “I imagine not.”

She wanted to see him. Fury trumped relief, and hurt appeared out of nowhere. She wanted to see him
now,
after she had lied to him,
cheated
on him, such an awful word, such an incomprehensible concept. Dabney Kimball, a liar and a cheat. What had he done to deserve such ruthless public humiliation? She had lied to him again and again and again and again! She wanted to see him
now,
but there had been any number of times when she had wanted to see only Hughes.

He knew she hadn’t been to the salon! And yet it had been beneath him to question her.

She had made a fool of him! She had made a laughingstock of John Boxmiller Beech.

And why did she have Hughes call? Why not call herself? Why make Hughes do it? Agnes could have called. Why Hughes?

Box wasn’t good with interpersonal drama or motivations of the heart; he despised murky emotion, most of all in himself. He preferred to keep above it. But even so, a part of him understood what Dabney was doing. She was trying to bring him and Hughes together. It was matchmaking of the most twisted kind. This time, she would not have her way.

Box decided: he would not go to her.

Hospice, weeks, months, a lifetime going forward without Dabney. The bite of strawberry pie, the icy cold root beer, she wanted to want him but her heart was elsewhere, he had seen it even at their wedding reception in the backyard of her grandmother’s house on North Liberty Street, but he had ignored the shadow in her eyes because he was just so happy that she was Mrs. Dabney Kimball Beech.

It would be better if she never saw him again. She could remember him as he had been: dignified to the end, at least he could say that. If there were to be another meeting of the two of them, who knew what he would say or do. How could he hide his pain, his sorrow, his incredulity, and this other emotion, the one beyond anger and fury. He would never be able to hide his broken heart from her, that was certain, and he didn’t want her to die holding herself responsible for it.

He would not go.