The Beginning of Always (64 page)

I kept repeating, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” But Sandra rocked me in her arms, patting my back. “Shush. It’s okay, sweetie.”

So I cried, just like before, except now in the company of a woman who didn’t deserve to be crippled with my selfish moments of need.

Finally, I had cried myself hoarse. I gently pushed off Sandra, embarrassed to note the expansive wet spot dominating the front of her sweater. Sandra proffered a pack of tissues from her purse and I accepted them gratefully.

I mopped my eyes and blew my nose, finally lifting my swollen gaze to her.

“What are you doing here?” was the only thing I could get out.

But then I noticed the wilted but alive spray of baby’s breath in the flower pot in front of the grave. And that Sandra had a small bouquet of daisies resting on the grass next to us. And I knew.

“I come every week.” Sandra smiled, warm and completely absent of judgment. And I felt crummy despite it all.

I struggled to find words and Sandra didn’t pressure me. She leaned forward, brushing the stray grass clippings off the marble. I watched her silently as she extracted the old flowers and poured some fresh water into the vase with her water bottle. She arranged the new flowers in the vase. The daisies were pink, their leaves a tender green.

“I’m sorry.” I mumbled around the words, completely at a loss.

“Now what are you saying sorry for? It’s wonderful to see you here.” She beamed at me, as if proud.

I was embarrassed, ashamed. I just shook my head. “There’s nothing wonderful about this. I’ve abandoned Emma for so long. I’m terrible.”

Sandra gave me an incredulous look, but didn’t press. So we sat together in silence and I watched her arrange the flowers, fussing with the leaves.

Then, she spoke. “Now, not many people know this, but when Alistair first came into our lives, I left William.”

I jerked back in shock. She dropped this fact as if it were no big deal. When she turned back towards me and noticed my expression, she smiled and patted my cheek reassuringly.

“It’s fine. Obviously, I returned. But I won’t lie. It was difficult. What I saw was unforgivable. William and I had tried for years to get pregnant, yet nothing ever took. I had at least two miscarriages before Alistair showed up. The sight of him was too much. He was the little boy that William always wanted. He was the spitting image of him. And someone else gave that to him.

“I was young. It was too much to take. Too much.” She shook her head, as if chastising her younger self. “I didn’t tell William to give up Alistair. I couldn’t do that. I just said I couldn’t handle it. So I packed up my bags and went to my parents’.” She paused. “I abandoned them.

“I was hardly welcomed back at home.” She chuckled. “My mother let me mope around for a couple days, then sat me down for a good talking-to. And I’ll tell you now what my mother told me—it’s never over with the ones we love. We can try to leave, we can try to run, but it’s never over.

“We’ve all made our fair share of mistakes. Myself. William. Your father, your mother. You. Alistair. That’s the beauty of being human, that we stumble and we struggle and we cry. But we don’t toil because we are weak, we don’t feel pain because we aren’t strong enough. Struggle is beautiful. Struggle brings us together, reaffirms love and bonds between us. Struggle and pain don’t shatter love, they don’t destroy love. They fortify it.”

Sandra leaned back, wiping her wet hands on her sweater. “Something died in all of us that day, Florence. All of us. But you felt it more potently. It was confusing; it was too much for a high school girl to accept. My miscarriages were all in the first trimester, and even then what I felt for the baby growing in me was a mix of emotions. I cannot imagine what it would have been like at eight months.”

Sandra reached over and ran her hands up and down my arms, squeezing me tightly. “So don’t be so hard on yourself, please. Your mother was too hard on herself. She couldn’t accept your father’s love. She couldn’t accept anyone’s love because she spent so much time caught up in her own circle of martyrdom. But you are stronger. You are braver. And you have the love of someone who would give up everything for you.”

I bit down on my bottom lip. And while I thought to myself, struggling with everything I’d known for so long, Sandra rolled back on her heels and, bracing her weight on a knee, she stood up. I followed suit, brushing off the grass embedded into my knees.

“Is Alistair still home?” Maybe I should go talk to him, see him. Maybe we should figure something out, or at least discuss everything that had been stewing in the background for so long.

I was slowing down. I was exhausted from fleeing.

Sandra clapped. “Oh yes, he’s been home for quite some time! He goes on a couple business trips to New York, but he’s always back in a day or two.” She laughed lightheartedly. “I should thank God for all that’s happened recently, because it’s wonderful having the both of you back home!”

I crossed my arms, shaking my head. “Mrs. Blair.”

“Oh, you know, got to crack a few eggs to make an omelet!”

I gave a groan and Sandra giggled.

The wind picked up at this moment, scattering the half-dried baby’s breath that lay by the grave. The two of us watched it tumble away amongst the grass.

Finally I asked, “So you come here every week?”

“Just about. It’s beautiful and peaceful. My granddaughter deserves fresh flowers.”

Perhaps the pain I felt at the sound of her words was visible in my face, because Sandra’s expression went serious and she reached over to hold on to my hand.

“It’s never too late to make amends. It’s never too late to love.” She gave me a comforting squeeze. “You came, that’s all that matters. You came back, no matter how long it took you.”

I nodded, not wholly convinced, worried that perhaps, it was too late.

“Please don’t hate me,” I said softly.

Then her expression went stern. “Don’t be talking nonsense! Everything is going to be okay, I know it.”

Everything could be okay.

“Are you going back to the farm, or going to town?” I asked Sandra as she let go of my palm. She bent down to pick up the discarded baby’s breath, and when she straightened herself out, she stumbled backwards two steps, breathing hard.

“Are you okay?” I asked, my hands reaching out to steady her elbows.

Sandra took a shuddering breath. It was shallow and forced, her eyebrows squeezing together tightly.

“Oh, you kno-k-know.” Sandra fought to laugh, but it just came out as a high-pitched wheeze. “Heartburn. Shouldn’t have had all those tomatoes at lunch, I suppose.” She thumped her chest weakly with a closed fist, as if trying to dislodge the pain.

“Yes!” she said loudly. “Going back to the farm, got to start dinner!” She stumbled backwards again, but I held on to her with my grip on her arm.

“Mrs. Blair, are you okay?”

“Phew, my back is flaring up again!” Sandra groaned loudly. She tried to keep her face light, but the pain was obvious. “I need to sit down!”

“Yes, yes, sit down,” I said quickly. I tightened my hold on her forearms as I gently maneuvered her to the grass.

She wobbled slightly on her feet for a moment, and then collapsed so suddenly that her weight slipped from my fingers. She fell suddenly on her back with a loud thump, the flowers falling from her grip.

“I’m sorry!” I said hastily, crashing onto my knees and trying to support her back.

“My-my-my chest,” she said, her fingers fluttering over her heart.

“What’s wrong?”

“It-it-it, it hurts,” she wheezed, rubbing the heel of her wrist over her chest.

Panic overwhelmed me. “Are you having a heart attack? Sandra! Don’t talk!”

“Numb, chest hurts, numb.” Her voice was labored.

“Oh my God!” I lunged for my bag and fumbled through it. I had to have some aspirin, I had to.

Aspirin, aspirin. My fingers crashed into my makeup bag and I clumsily worked the zippers. Lipstick and hand lotion flew everywhere as I fought the zippers open.

There was a small plastic container with my vitamins and I forced it open and picked through it, fingers shaking uncontrollably as they hunted.

“Mrs. Blair! Stay with me!” I cried out. I finally found the aspirin and fisted it tight, flying to Sandra’s side.

My fingers were clumsy as I forced the small white pill in between her parted lips.

“Swallow, please, swallow this.”

Sandra gasped and made a choking noise. Her jaw seized and the aspirin rolled from her lips onto the grass.

No. No! I needed to call emergency, but I didn’t have my cell phone. It was still stuck at the bottom of my duffel bag, in my selfish denial of reality.

“Mrs. Blair!” I was hysterical now. “Do you have your phone on you?”

She shook her head, then nodded slightly. I went to Sandra’s purse and grabbed her phone, dialing 911.

I pressed my tremulous palms against Sandra’s forehead. Her eyes bulged out at me, confused and disoriented.

I tried hard to stay calm. “It’s okay, it’s going to be okay. I’m calling 911, we’re going to get you to a hospital, it’s okay, it’s okay.”

A curt voice sounded on the other end. “911, what’s your emergency?”

“I’m at the St. Haven City Cemetery! Sandra Blair just had a heart attack!”

“Who is this?”

“This is Florence! Florence Reynolds! Dr. Reynolds’s daughter! Someone call my dad, get an ambulance here!”

I threw the phone away. I pressed my palms against her chest, trying hard to remember what I’d ever learned about heart attacks. CPR, I could perform CPR.

“I’m going to do chest compressions now, okay? I’m sorry if it hurts.”

I was just starting to link my fingers together to press down on her chest, when her hand shot out suddenly and seized my wrist, hard. She fought to pull herself up while yanking me down, needing to say something.

“Te-tell the boys … tell … that I love them.”

“No …” Tears clouded my vision and it became hard to breathe. “Sandra …
no
!”

“I … love … alwa—”

“Sandra!” I screamed. “Stay with me!”

But my cries were in vain. It didn’t matter. Sandra Blair took a singular shaky breath, closed her eyes, and her body went limp. Her hand loosened her grip around my wrist and crashed onto the grass, fingers just grazing a small spray of baby’s breath.

I was numb. The Holland Hospital was sterile and cold, and the lighting just made me feel even more alone. Small and isolated, the room grew in size and I shrunk in significance. My dad ran in with Sandra when they wheeled her from the ambulance and I was left behind in the family waiting room.

“Sandy!” I heard his voice and a crash before I saw them. Bill skidded around the corner and slammed into a cart resting there, then came barreling down towards the waiting room. Alistair was right behind him.

Bill was frantic. He ran up to the nurses’ station, seizing the counter and asking desperately, “Sandra Blair! Sandra Blair! She came here from St. Haven, I’m her husband.”

The nurses said something quietly, something I couldn’t make out from my vantage point. I stood up and Alistair spotted me, taking a step towards me with, “Florence …”

I was a mess. I’d been crying all day and my eyes were red and swollen and my face seemed to be damp to the point of never drying.

Before I could say a word to Alistair, Bill saw me and changed tactics. He rushed to me, seizing me gruffly by the shoulders and exclaiming, “Were you with her? What happened?”

“I-I-I’m sorry!” My words burst out, no filter, no calm. “We were at the cemetery and she was talking and then she couldn’t breathe and she started to clutch her chest and—” I babbled incoherently and the tears started again. They never stopped falling. Alistair pulled me away from Bill and pressed me against his chest. I fisted the fabric of his shirt with my hands. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” I cried.

Bill’s face crashed, his whole body seized in anxiety. “Have you heard anything? How is she doing? Is it serious?” His voice was strained and he was nearly shouting in the waiting room. Other families were noticing, glancing over nervously, the tension building amidst their own worries.

“Mr. Blair.” A nurse slid over from the desk, wanting to diffuse to situation. She placed a gentle hand on his arm. “She’s okay, Mr. Blair,” the nurse said. “Your wife is stable.”

“But, what happened? I want to talk to a doctor! Is she going to be okay? What does stable even mean?”

The double doors swung open and Dad walked out, weary and exhausted. He noticed the four of us—the nurse and Bill, Alistair and me. He gave a curious double glance at Alistair’s arm around me, but walked over and addressed Bill.

“We have got to stop meeting like this, Bill,” Dad said. He gave a wry smile. “Sandra is okay. She just had a little scare, but she’s in the coronary care unit now and they’re running some EKGs and blood tests. You should be able to see her in thirty minutes.”

Bill collapsed against my father in relief, clutching at him and hugging him tightly.

“Thank you, thank you so damn much.”

My dad hugged Bill back and made eye contact with me. He gave me a reassuring smile and I returned him a watery one.

But Bill was not to be appeased. He gripped Dad’s shoulders tight, pulling him back. “What happened? Tell me everything.”

Alistair nudged me.

“Are you okay?” His brow was wrinkled in concern.

I nodded and gave a relieved laugh. “I’m okay. Sandra is okay. God, I’m a total mess.” I rubbed my eyes with the back of my fist.

“Come on, let’s sit down. Get some air.”

“Please. I need to get outside.” I shook my head. “If I never come back to this hospital, it’d be too soon.”

We left Bill and Dad behind in the waiting room, and we walked silently. Alistair still had his arm around me, his grip tight and possessive, and I couldn’t say that I minded it. His body was warm through his loose t-shirt and jacket, and there was something so comforting having him by my side.

I let him lead me outdoors to the parking lot. There was a small bench off the walkway, hidden behind a series of bushes and two short trees. I sat down while Alistair removed his jacket and draped it over my shoulders.