Falling for June: A Novel (25 page)

“Yeah, I’ll say not. What was that you said to me the other day? That my generation is loose with the truth. Look who was a pot calling the kettle black. You’re a liar, Mr. Hadley. A damn liar.”

“Elliot, that’s not fair.”

I knew he was right, but I didn’t care. “How could you, Mr.
Hadley? How could you draw me in with your story? How could you make me like you? How could you make me fall for June? How could you do it only to tell me she’s dead and you’re dying? It’s not fair!”

I was nearly in tears by then, and he rose from the daybed and came over and put a hand on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Elliot. I needed help and I didn’t have anyone. If you hadn’t taken up my cause, it’s likely that I would never have been able to be buried next to June. I couldn’t risk that. And you have to realize that I hadn’t yet gotten to know you. I was expecting a greedy hustler to show up. Some fast-talking foreclosure rep from the bank that was threatening to throw me out. I was writing to a Ralph Spitzer, if you remember.”

I looked at June’s empty wheelchair sitting beside us. I had never even met her and yet I loved her in a way. Maybe I loved Mr. Hadley too. I never would have believed it had someone told me this, so I don’t expect you to believe me now, but it’s possible to miss someone you’ve never met. And it’s possible to miss someone who isn’t even gone yet too. That’s how I felt about Mr. Hadley and June. I missed them both.

“Are you really even struggling to pay your bills?” I asked. “Or was that just part of the ploy to force the bank’s hand?”

“I’m not that conniving,” he said. “My being broke is for real. My social security hardly covers the bills. I’ve been selling off my stamp collection to keep myself in MoonPies.”

“What about the twenty-five thousand you offered me?”

“That was real too. And I’d still like to pay it to you. I just didn’t mention that it’s coming from a life insurance policy.”

“But they don’t pay on suicide . . .”

Just saying the word made my stomach turn.

“That’s a myth,” he said. “It’s a term policy I’ve had for a long time and it’s way beyond the two-year exclusion period.”

“Well, I still don’t want it,” I said. “Give it up to charity or
something. Use it to pay someone to bury you or manage the cemetery or something.”

“Actually, that’s another reason I wanted to talk to you.”

He had a serious look in his eye, and the tone of his voice made me listen up.

“Talk to me about what?”

“I have another favor to ask.”

33

C
AN YOU BELIEVE
he asked that of me?”

It was late. Two empty cocoa mugs stood between us on the Dilettante table.

“Well, you said he doesn’t have any children, right? Maybe you two were brought together for a reason.”

“For me to be the executor of his estate?”

“Well, what did you tell him?”

“I said I’d think it over.”

“You should do it, Elliot. He wouldn’t have asked unless he thought you were the right person.”

“But I buried my father already, Estrella. By myself. At nineteen. This isn’t something I needed dropped on my plate right now.”

“You sound upset.”

“I am upset.”

She sighed, reaching for her empty mug and gripping it in both hands as if it still might provide some warmth. “It sounds to me like you’re going to miss him.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t need to.”

“Well, of course I’ll miss him. And I don’t understand why he thinks he needs to take this pill. It’s suicide.”

“What if he’s in a lot of pain?”

“I know he’s terminal. I made him show me the forms he filled out for the Death with Dignity Act. It was so surreal. You know what the form’s title was? ‘Request for Medication to End My Life in a Humane and Dignified Manner.’ Can you imagine signing your name to that?”

Estrella looked down at the table and shook her head.

“You know what worries me the most, though? I feel like maybe he’s scheduling his own death just so he can be buried next to his wife before the bank throws him out. I believe he’s dying, but can’t he do it naturally?”

“Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe he’s so alone or in so much pain that another month or two isn’t appealing to him.”

“I intend to try and get him more time so he doesn’t need to take those stupid pills. There has to be a way. They can’t possibly hold him to the agreement and make him move if he’s dying. No one’s that heartless.”

“Maybe he needs support, not saving.”

“There have to be laws against throwing a dying man out.”

“You can’t fix everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not our job to save the people we love, Elliot. It’s our job to love them through whatever it is they’re going through. Maybe he just needs someone to be with him while he makes this final transition. It can’t be easy alone.”

“Maybe you’re right. But I didn’t say I loved him.”

“You didn’t have to say that either. It’s obvious that you do. And who could blame you? I haven’t even met him and I already love this guy.”

“Would you like to?”

“Like to what?”

“Meet him.”

She looked down into her empty mug. “Would you like me to meet him?”

“I told him I’d come out this weekend, but to tell you the truth, I’d rather not go alone.”

She looked back up at me and smiled. “Then I’d love to meet him.”

The drive seemed longer than usual, even though I’d done it now several times. Estrella sat beside me, watching the trees get lashed by high winds that sent the last of their golden leaves whirling across the highway in gusty dervishes that seemed to dance all the faster as we blew past.

I cracked the window and lit a cigarette.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” Estrella said.

I blew a lungful at the cracked window and watched it get sucked out into the gray morning. “I don’t.”

“I don’t either,” she said. “Can I have one?”

I handed her the pack.

She lit a cigarette and inhaled, immediately coughing out the smoke and waving her hand in front of her face to fan it away. She tossed the cigarette out the window.

“Guess you weren’t kidding,” I said.

“I haven’t smoked since trying it in high school. It’s just as bad as I remember. And you shouldn’t smoke either.”

She reached and snatched the cigarette from my mouth midpuff and tossed it out her window too. Then she crossed her arms and looked at me to see if I’d protest. I wanted to appear upset, but I couldn’t help but smile.

“I’m not really a smoker either,” I confessed. “I only bought them the other day. I’m not sure why. I was walking past the 7-Eleven and saw a group of friends smoking together. They looked like they were having fun.”

“It’s 2014,” she said, “people should know better.”

“It’s been a rough week for me at the office.”

“Why’s that?” she asked.

“I don’t know. My head just isn’t in it. I went on just three sits and I left every one of them without a deal. Two I told to apply for mortgage modifications, the other I told to sell their house themselves since they seemed to have equity.”

She looked at me, confused. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing,” I answered, “as long as you don’t mind going without a paycheck. You may not know this, but I’m very good at my job. Or at least I used to be.”

“Did you ever think maybe you’re just worried about all this stuff with Mr. Hadley?”

I was beginning to notice that she had a way of always cutting right through the crap. I liked that. For a guy like me it was important. I could bullshit myself for days before I’d stand up and face something.

“I feel like I’m going to a funeral,” I finally said.

“Me too,” she answered. “But let’s make the best of it. I’m looking forward to meeting him.”

He opened the door to greet us even before we got out of the car. He was wearing his corduroy pants and knitted sweater, the same ones he’d had on the first day I’d arrived.

“He doesn’t look too bad,” Estrella said, eyeing him out her window before opening her car door.

“He puts on a good show,” I said.

And I was right too. His cane was nowhere to be seen as he welcomed us in like old friends. He hugged Estrella, winking at me over her shoulder to let me know that he approved.

“Elliot told me you were as smart as paint, but he said nothing about you being as gorgeous as a spring day too.”

I closed the door behind myself. “That’s because I’m an enlightened twenty-first-century man who doesn’t objectify women, Mr. Hadley. So enlightened in fact that I would never use a saying like ‘smart as paint.’ ”

He laughed. “If it was good enough for old Captain Silver, it’s good enough for me.”

Estrella smiled at his literary reference. “Never mind Elliot, Mr. Hadley,” she said, “I rather like being complimented by men. Although let’s hope your stories and motives are truer than the old one-legged sea captain’s were.”

“Ah,” he said, “I see you’ve read Stevenson.”

“Of course. He’s one of my favorites.”

Then Mr. Hadley reached out his arm in a theatrical pose and recited a line of poetry:
“Under the wide and starry sky, / Dig the grave and let me lie: / Glad did I live and gladly die, / And I laid me down with a will.”

Not to be outdone, Estrella finished it:
“This be the verse you ’grave for me: / Here he lies where he long’d to be; / Home is the sailor, home from sea, / And the hunter home from the hill.
”

And just like that, they had hit it off. So much so I could hardly pry them apart for the next two hours.

Mr. Hadley gave her the tour, showing her the carousel rooster in the living room, the paintings in the kitchen, June’s studio with its view of the creek. He even made sure to show her the bathroom, pointing out his pink-padded toilet seat. She commented on his sweater and he blushed, telling her that June had knitted it for him. Then Estrella told him about her mother’s quilting and about her fond memories of knitted scarves for Christmas.

“Oh, June loved Christmas too,” Mr. Hadley said.

“Show her the wedding picture,” I suggested.

So he did, along with the matador costume in the closet.
Estrella wanted to see more pictures of June, so the three of us sat down together on the couch and looked through his photo albums. It was like picking up where Mr. Hadley had left the story off and getting current with the rest of their lives together at Echo Glen.

There were lots of photos of June, mostly around the farm with her animals, and in each one her spirit leaped off the page as if she were there in the room with us, not only alive, but more so than any of us three would ever be. And as her physical condition deteriorated in the pictures over the years, this look of wonder never left her eyes. There was a great image of her and David dressed up in 1920s formalwear while floating down the river on inner tubes. David held an umbrella over them to shade them from the sun while June dangled her feet into the water and sipped a can of old Rainier Beer. Her timeless smile haunts me still. Later, there were photos of June in her wheelchair, painting.

Estrella asked about a photo of June reading to a child in a hospital bed. Mr. Hadley told us that as her condition worsened it was harder for her to spend as much time caring for animals—being largely confined to the wheelchair—so as they wound the animal shelter down, she took up visiting the Everett hospital and reading to children in the cancer ward. She always read them the same book, he informed us:
Peter Pan.
He suspected this was both because she loved the story so much and because it was the one book she had completely memorized and could recite word for word even as her ability to read was slowly stripped away by the advance of her disease. He would later read it to her himself, he told us, after her voice had finally gone, leaving behind only the smile that never seemed to fully disappear from her eyes. In fact, the last image in the album was a photo taken by someone else of her lying on
the daybed in her studio, looking longingly out the window at the path that led to Echo Glen. David slept in the chair beside her with a copy of
Peter Pan
on his lap.

He lingered on this photo before closing the album, his fingers gently resting on the page as if he might be able to reach into the past and touch her once again. I saw tears well up in his eyes, but I couldn’t tell if he or Estrella saw mine.

“She was a magical woman,” he said, almost to himself. “A magical woman indeed.” He closed the album and looked up at us. “She loved this life right up to the very end, but she had no fear about leaving it behind. She thought it all one big adventure. I buried her with that book so she’d have Peter and Wendy to keep her company until I could join her. You know, Elliot, I ended the story where I did because I wanted my life here with June to remain private. But the truth is she was such a mighty spirit no one person could ever hope to keep her to himself. And it would be a crime to try anyway.

“I’ll never forget the afternoon I came home early from an accounting job I’d taken in Marysville—finally deciding Seattle was just too far to drive—only to find her in the stables frozen in a corner. She couldn’t move a muscle and had been there most of the day. I knew she had been downplaying her symptoms to spare me worry, but I had no idea how much. I carried her to our bed, crying the whole time. ‘Why her?’ I asked, begging God to answer me. ‘Of everyone in the world, why her, why her, why her?’ You know what she told me later that night when she finally came around? She looked at me and smiled, asking, ‘Why not me?’ That was my June.”

When Mr. Hadley finally closed the album, there wasn’t a dry eye between us. But we were all smiling despite our tears. Then
he took up a binder that he had brought out with the albums from his room. At first, I thought it was another photo album, but it wasn’t.