For Better, for Worse, Forever (11 page)

But thoughts of eternal peace and perfect happiness brought her little comfort. There were still so many things she wanted on this side of heaven. She had wanted a career and to get married, maybe to have children. Until now, she’d given no thought to growing old, but suddenly it didn’t seem like such a bad thing to do. What would she have looked like? Would her hair color have faded? Would her complexion have wrinkled?

“The trouble,” she told herself one morning as she studied her face in the mirror, “is that you have too much time to think.” She needed to talk to someone, be with someone other than her parents. Kelli wouldn’t be home for another few weeks. April needed someone now. Which was how she ended up calling Mark’s mother and making plans to visit her. Yet as she climbed up the steps of the old brownstone on a hot, muggy morning, she felt it might have been a mistake. The pain of the happy memories she’d shared with Mark at his parents’ home engulfed her. She almost turned and skittered away, but the door was flung open and Mark’s mother, Rosa, threw her arms around April and dragged her into the cool quiet of the foyer.

“Praise be!” Rosa said. “How good to see you, April. When did you get home? How was your trip? You look wonderful! So tan and beautiful.” She held April at arm’s length, stroking her with her gaze.

To April, Rosa was ever pretty, with lively eyes and black hair sprinkled with gray. She looked so much like Mark, it brought a lump to April’s throat. April gave a brief accounting
of her time, leaving out her reason for returning to New York.

Rosa herded her into the kitchen, where a giant pot of simmering soup filled the room with its tomato aroma. Rosa sat April down at the table and proceeded to ladle up a bowl of soup. Never mind that April wasn’t hungry. “Tell me everything,” Rosa insisted, sitting with her at the table. “Did I say that we’ve missed you? Thank you for the postcards … such a beautiful place.”

April talked glowingly about St. Croix, not mentioning Brandon, of course, and finished by asking, “How have you all been?”

“Mark’s father is well. Still working too hard, but such is a detective’s life—there’s so much crime out there. And it’s good for him to have a job he loves. Marnie and Jill still aren’t married, but Mamie’s met a nice Italian boy and we have hopes for her.”

April smiled, recalling Mark’s pretty sisters and their parents’ desire to see them married and settled. It didn’t seem to matter that both were competent, professional women. To Rosa, marriage and children were the only real-life choice for a woman. “You tell them hello for me.”

“Why me? You tell them yourself. Now that you’re back, you and your parents can come for dinner.”

“We can do that.” April felt her mouth getting dry and knew she was having an attack of nerves. There was so much she had to tell Rosa, but how should she begin? “I miss Mark,” she confessed. “In St. Croix, I thought about him every day. He would have really liked it there.”

Rosa’s smile turned wistful. “Not a day goes by that I don’t think of him too. I … we … miss him very much. But I want you to know how much happiness you brought him the last year of his life. I will always love you for that.”

“I still have the wedding dress. It’s packed away in a huge box in the back of my closet.”

“You were beautiful in it. Maybe you can wear it for another.”

April dropped her gaze. “I was wondering if you would do me a favor.”

“Ask me for anything.”

“Come with me to the cemetery. I want to visit Mark’s grave.”

T
he cemetery stretched green and quiet in the hot sun. Manicured lawns were broken by aboveground mausoleums, statues of saints, and carved stonework and bronze markers with vases. April watched sprinklers spew sprays of water over sections of grass as Rosa drove slowly along the internal roadway toward Mark’s grave. The cemetery was more beautiful than April remembered from the day of Mark’s burial, but she’d been so numb at the time she’d hardly noticed anything.

“It’s over there,” Rosa said, stopping the car.

They got out and wound their way through a field of markers until Rosa halted
near a weeping willow tree. April stooped down. A marker held Mark’s name, his birth and death dates, and the inscription B
ELOVED SON
. A
T PEACE FOREVER
. Rising over the marker stood a statue of the Virgin Mary, her arms open. A bronze vase held fresh flowers. “I wanted him to always have flowers,” Rosa explained. “The groundskeepers put them out once a week for him.”

“Do you come often?”

“Maybe once a month. It hasn’t been that long, you know.”

He had died in the fall. April stared down at the marker, imagining her name etched in the metal. She took a quivering breath. “I’m dying, Rosa.” It was the first time she’d ever called Mark’s mother by her first name. Always before, she’d addressed her as Mrs. Gianni.

“What?” The woman stepped backward as if she’d been struck.

“The tumor’s growing again. There’s nothing the doctors can do.”

“Oh, April, no. It can’t be true.”

April looked at her, saw tears swimming in her eyes, and swallowed against the lump of
emotion wedged in her own throat. “It’s one of the reasons we came home from St. Croix. I started having problems again. We had to get them checked out.”

“This isn’t right. You don’t deserve this.”

Mark’s family had always known about her brain tumor, but Mark’s problems were so overwhelming, Apirl’s had taken a backseat. “Mark didn’t deserve CF either. We knew that this was a possibility when he and I first met. For a long time, it scared me so much I didn’t even want to date him. But he was a hard one to say no to.” April smiled, remembering his long pursuit of her and the way he had worn down her resistance. “We loved each other, but sometimes I forgot about the illnesses. I didn’t believe either of us would actually … you know … really die.”

“There must be something the doctors can do for you.”

“They introduced us to the people at hospice. I don’t want to die in the hospital.” The memory of Mark’s last days haunted her. There had been nothing friendly, nothing comforting about the cool technology of the hospital’s machines and antiseptic smells. She
wanted her departure from the planet to be different.

Rosa crossed herself. “You mustn’t give up.”

“I’m not giving up. I’m being realistic. It’s better to face the truth than to pretend it isn’t happening.”

“Is there anything you want me to do for you? Just ask.”

“My parents … it’s hard on them. If you could be here for them … you know … afterward.”

“Absolutely. If they ever want to talk, tell them to call.”

Mark’s parents knew what it was to lose a child. Funny, April hadn’t thought of herself as a child in many years, but she felt like one now. She felt small and frightened. She wanted the bad things to go away. She didn’t want to go through what lay ahead.

“And I was thinking … do you think I could be buried here? By Mark?” She wasn’t Catholic, but all at once it was important to her to think about having a place to belong to, a place for her parents to come and visit.

“I’ll talk to my priest. You were planning
on marrying in the church. What can it matter if you want to rest beside your fiancé forever?”

April knelt and ran the palm of her hand across Mark’s name. The bronze felt smooth and warm from the sun. Shadows from the willow tree danced across the grass beside her. She too would soon become a shadow, shifting in and out of the sunlight. Her body might be placed below the ground, but her spirit—“You believe Mark’s in heaven, don’t you?”

“Yes. I believe Mark’s with God. The only thing that makes losing him easier is knowing that, and that he isn’t in any more pain. The pain he suffered was always the hardest part for me … although he rarely complained.” She sighed. “Long ago, I resigned myself to knowing that I would never hold a grandchild of his.”

Because boys with cystic fibrosis are sterile
, April reminded herself. She remembered the night he’d told her he’d never be able to father children. He’d been so afraid she’d leave him. As it was turning out, she’d never give her parents a grandchild either. Her parents’ genes, her family tree, ended with her. “Do
you think God will tell me why, if I ask him?”

“Why?”

“Why Mark and I had to die. Why we were ever born in the first place.”

“I certainly plan to ask him,” Rosa said with a shrug. “My priest says God has a reason for everything, but that he doesn’t owe us any explanations.”

April wondered if once she was dead, she’d understand God’s purposes. The meaning of life and God’s purposes were too vast a subject to think about now.

She said, “I’m ready to leave now.”

“Of course.” Rosa began walking to the car.

April followed. In the distance a sprinkler sent water skyward, and in a quirk of the light, a rainbow formed. She watched it shimmer and thought of childhood stories of pots of gold at the rainbow’s end. Somehow it seemed fitting, and also a kind of foreshadowing. At the end of the rainbow of her life, the ground would swallow her. And she would lie beside Mark in death, as she had been unable to lie beside him in life.

After hugs and promises to keep in touch, April returned home. Her father insisted on taking April and her mother to a restaurant overlooking Long Island Sound for dinner. They sat in a quiet corner booth with lit candles, watching the sky turn from orange to red to purple with the waning light of the sun.

April stared out at the water, a deep navy blue, so different in color from the intense turquoise of the Caribbean. Lately all things seemed different to her. Music sounded more beautiful, colors appeared more vibrant. Did knowing that she would soon have to leave this world make her time in it more precious? She wasn’t sure. She only knew that she felt balanced on the brink between dread and expectation. “I visited Mark’s grave today,” she told her parents.

They looked startled. “Was that wise?” her father asked.

“I miss him. I wanted to be near him again.”

Her mother’s lips pressed together. April could tell she didn’t approve. “I hope you aren’t dwelling on dark thoughts. You should be putting your energy into positive ones.
Doctors don’t know everything. Miracles happen.”

“Is that what you think will happen for me? A miracle?”

Her mother’s face flushed. “I just don’t think it’s smart to abandon hope.”

“I’m not. But I have to know what to hope for. A cure doesn’t seem likely. So I have to hope for other things.”

“Such as?”

She shrugged. “Courage. The next few months aren’t going to be easy. Not for any of us.” Her parents said nothing. “Mark’s mother said that you should call her. That she knows what you’re going through and that she’ll be there for you.”

April’s mother turned her head and jabbed furiously at the napkin in her lap. “I know she means well, but she can’t possibly know what I’m feeling. She can’t begin to understand how angry I am.” Her voice cracked. “You are my only child. Rosa has others.”

April blinked, incredulous. Would knowing you had other children make it easier to lose one? “That doesn’t make sense.”