The Land of Mango Sunsets (30 page)

“Now why didn’t I think of that?”

I spent my days seeing to Mother’s comfort and adjusting myself, or so I thought, to how life would be without her. I asked her every day how it was going for her. Was she afraid? No, she said she was not afraid. Afraid of terrible pain, perhaps, but she was not afraid to die. I spoke to her doctor and he said that whenever she felt she needed serious pain management, we only had to call and he would be there.

Kevin called almost every day to check on Mother and then one day he said, “Listen, I’m a little worried about Harry.”

“Why?”

“I went downstairs to check on him yesterday and he’s losing feathers.” Kevin said he had asked the vet and his reply was that Harry missed me. “So I’m thinking I might put the old boy in his cage, rent a van, and drive him down to you. What do you think?”

“He’s not happy with Charlie and Priscilla?”

“Of course he is but he’s
attached
to you! That’s how these birds are!”

“Then bring him on down.”

Kevin arrived with Harry on Saturday and unfortunately had to leave the next morning.

“Duty calls, Petal. How are you holding up?”

“Okay. I mean, I’m incredibly grateful to have this time with her, but it’s so sad to see Mother, you know, just fading away. Harry? What’s up?” Harry looked like he’d been plucked.

“Pretty Miriam,” he said, and I knew he was happy to see me.

“Everything’s okay, baby.” I let him crawl out of his cage and onto my fingers and nuzzled him.

“It’s worse than having kids,” Kevin said.

“Close. At least kids become independent or useful at some point.”

“True.”

Harrison came to sit with Mother, and Kevin and I went over to the Water’s Edge on Shem Creek for dinner.

“So what’s up with you and Harrison?”

“Zero. Look, romance is the last thing on my mind right now.”

“Understood. But do you think that at some point there might be something?”

“Who knows? I think he’s got commitment issues. And to be honest, I don’t know how I feel. I mean, he might be the most wonderful man I’ve ever met—besides you, of course—but I wouldn’t trust my judgment about that kind of thing at this point.”

“So, tell me how it’s going with Miss Josie.”

I told him that Mother and I would walk a little each day for the first few weeks but then it was less and less until now it was all I could do to get her to bathe and dress. She was drinking small amounts of my vegetable juices and chicken broth and occasionally she would ask for ice cream or some chocolate. On a rare day I would manage to get her to eat the yogurt she had taught me to make or a soft-boiled egg from one of the chickens.

“Loss of appetite is a bad sign.”

“I know that. She doesn’t even want her marijuana anymore. She says the pain lets her know she’s still alive and she wants clarity so she can tell me things. She’s told me stories about her parents that I had never known and things about my father that I had forgotten. She showed me her fa
vorite book of poetry and read her favorite lines to me. I mean, Kevin, it’s like trying to stop the tide. It’s going to come and go just like we are. What can I do?”

“She’s so sweet, Mellie. She really is. Just do what you’re doing. And you should probably call hospice.”

“I agree. I think it’s time.”

Harrison was always nearby if I needed him and I did. All the time. I was in this weird place where all I wanted to do was talk to my mother and then I wanted to run to him to repeat what she had said and to cry that I had not known this or that.

Finally, when we had hospice nurses and volunteers coming and going and Mother had agreed to take morphine injections, things fell into an organized routine.

But soon it seemed to me that Mother was sleeping almost all the time and refusing all food. She drank water but that was all. Basically, she was starving to death while she slept and I couldn’t stand it. I felt wretched and horrible guilt about it, but I couldn’t stand to see her this way and I wanted it over. At night when I would pray I would ask God to be merciful and to let her suffering end. And mine. Then I would beg forgiveness for my selfishness and cry myself to sleep.

One evening around seven I was on the porch reading the newspaper and the hospice nurse came to me.

“Your mother is out of the bed and asking for you,” she said.

“What? How could that be?”

I raced upstairs to find her on the balcony, staring at the sunset, the time of day she loved most.

“I wanted you to watch this with me,” she said as though she were perfectly fine.

I put my arm around her waist and she leaned into me for support. We stood there for the fifteen minutes or so it took the sun to go from glaring, screaming white to that fabulous red orange that was so sensual and undulating.

“I love you, Miss Josie. You know that, don’t you?”

“And I love you, my precious girl. Don’t ever doubt that for a moment. And I am so proud of the woman you have become.”

“Mother. You’re the one who saved me. How will I get along without you?”

“You’ll be fine, sweetheart. Every time you see the sunset like this, you think of me and I’ll be thinking of you.”

“Okay. That’s a deal.”

When the sun was all gone I put Mother back in her bed with help from the woman from hospice and she drifted off to sleep. I sat alone in the room with her, next to her bed for a long time. Around nine or ten the nurse came in to say that Mr. Ford was there. I went downstairs, looked at Harrison, and knew that Mother had died the second I walked out of the room. I could feel it in every cell of my body. Then a tail of light raced right through the living room, in the space between where we stood facing each other. We both watched it go through the open sliding-glass door, out and up into the sky.

“Mrs. Swanson?” the nurse called out to me.

Harrison put his arms around me and I began to sob. No one had to tell us what we had just seen and what we already knew.

It seemed that my world came to an end the day we buried my mother, and part of it did. But now it had been almost a year. For the first six months I missed her with a ferociousness that would have me convulsing in tears in an instant. All I had to do was look at a picture of her or hear a certain song. Or write a thank-you note for yet another donation that someone made to fight breast cancer or colon cancer. Mother had more friends who honored her life than I ever knew.

But as my mourning subsided I would smile instead of cry on her birthday or Mother’s Day or when someone, an old friend visiting the island from Charlotte or someplace else, stopped by unannounced and told me a wonderful story about her. I would invite them to have a cup of green tea spiced with orange that I had come to love. You see, I never left the island after Mother died, except for very short trips. As long as I stayed, people she knew might continue to drop by the house, and in my mind that kept Miss Josie alive.

Nan had delivered an eight-pound baby girl whom they named Josephine, and it thrilled me no end to hold that child in my arms when I went to the christening. After great discussions with Charlie and Dan, I made some powerful decisions. Charlie and Priscilla would continue to live in the town house. Rental income combined with their own earnings
gave them more than enough money to maintain it. On my death, they would have it appraised and either buy Dan’s share or sell it and split the money. Priscilla was happy beyond words. So was Charlie. Priscilla and Charlie would have no trouble renting Liz’s apartment, as they knew many residents and doctors who would love to live in that house.

It should come as no surprise that Liz moved home to Birmingham and didn’t sell the farm. She was hoping something permanent would develop with James. And Kevin? Well, since I abandoned him, he teasingly said, he finally decided to take a job in Paris to style a chain of fifty department stores. He had been offered the job over and over.

“It’s not the same without you, Petal. I mean, I adore Priscilla and Charlie, but it’s not the same.”

“Go for it, Kevin, but you had better swear to visit me once a year!”

“Or you come to Paris…when you get rid of that goat?”

“Watch it or I’ll bring Cecelia with me!”

I would miss him like crazy but he was going off to have an adventure. It was time for him to have a change of venue.

When Charles got wind of Mother’s death and that I was staying permanently on the island, he tried to buy the town house from me for such a paltry sum that I laughed in his face.

“What’s so funny?” he said. “I think that’s a very fair offer.”

“Charles? In real life or on the screen or in any book I have ever read,
never
have I encountered someone like you.”

“So I’ll take that to mean you don’t want to sell it to me?”

“Yes, because it’s worth almost three times as much as you’re offering and we both know it. And Charlie and Priscilla are living there. Charles? Did you send flowers when Mother died?”

“Um, I heard about it too late.”

“Okay. Did you send a card to me or the children? Call them? Say you were sorry for their loss? Did you make a donation to any of Mother’s favorite charities?”

“All right, all right. That’s enough. I was uncomfortable with it, okay? Death makes me very squeamish.”

We wouldn’t want Charles to feel squeamish or uncomfortable, would we?

In a very calm voice I said, “Well, what do dial tones do for you?” And I closed my phone.

Harrison had witnessed this and he high-fived me with a burst of laughter and pride.

“Take-no-bull Mellie is on the job!” he said, and laughed.

Yes, Harrison and I had finally found our way to each other’s heart but not to the altar. I was in no rush, and besides it was more fun to make him worry and wonder about the depth of my commitment to him. Recently, he gave me a toe ring that absolutely symbolized nothing more than my transformation to a woman who would wear one. Or maybe it didn’t.

“What’s this supposed to mean?” I said, recognizing it wasn’t for my finger. “I mean, if I wear it on my left foot, does it mean we’re serious?”

“Why don’t we call it a starter ring and see where things go?”

“You mean, like, you’re working your way up from my feet to my hands?”

“Come on, Mellie. You know me.”

Harrison’s issues with commitment were his problem, not mine. He would either overcome them or he wouldn’t. But honestly, I was satisfied with my toe ring and the relationship we had. We saw each other every day and night and were all but inseparable. Like Kevin had always been, he was my best friend except there were other meaningful benefits.

All right, I know nobody’s going to be happy until they get the scoop on our sex life. Here’s the deal. We have one. It’s gorgeous and tender and delicious and he sends me right through the Milky Way. Satisfied? No? You want a full report? Well, I think it’s in pretty bad taste to kiss and tell, but just this once, I will.

Here’s how it started. One morning, I was in the kitchen washing the breakfast dishes and he showed up with an enormous bouquet of flowers, wrapped in cellophane and dripping with ribbons. This was an unprecedented event. He was just standing there on the other side of the glass sliding door instead of just walking right in, like he usually did.

So, recognizing his behavior as slightly strange, I opened the door and said, “Hey! What’s up?”

“Today Miss Josie’s been gone for six months and I thought maybe some flowers might, you know, cheer you up. You know, girls like flowers.”

“So do women,” I said, teasing him a little. “Thanks! They’re gorgeous.”

“Well, actually that’s what I wanted to discuss with you.”

“What?”

“The fact that you’re a gorgeous woman…”

“And that you’re a gorgeous man? I’ve noticed that, actually.”

“Well, and there’s something else.”

He put the bouquet on the counter and gave me the come-hither hook with his finger. I followed him outside to the bottom of the steps, where a leafy sapling stood in a two-foot-tall plastic planter.

“It’s a mango tree,” he said. “They’re not supposed to grow here but I thought maybe Miss Josie’s oversight from wherever she is and ours, of course, might make the impossible happen.”

That was when I thought my heart would burst. I threw my arms around him and hugged him with all of my might.

“You wonderful man!”

He hesitated for a moment and then he put one arm around my waist and ran his other hand down the back of my head, his fingers pulling through my hair. He put his mouth next to my neck and said, “I’m in love with you, Mellie, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

“Just love me, Harrison. I’ve been in love with you from the moment I saw you.” Here came the tears, but this time they were different. I was
finally safe and there was no doubt that Harrison was the man with whom I was going to spend the rest of my life.

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“Because I thought you were my mother’s boyfriend? Weren’t you?”

Harrison stepped back from me and started laughing, the deep kind of laugh that comes from the bottom of your throat in a burst and continues until there are tears and you have to rush to blow your nose or else you will never be received in polite company again.

“Tissue?” I reached in my pocket and handed him one.

“No, you silly goose! Don’t you know that your mother had chosen me for
you
? Why do you think I was here every time you came to visit?”

“Oh, come on. You don’t think she was just a little sweet on you?”

“Sure, maybe I do. But, Mellie, by the time I met her, she was sick as a dog. I took care of her because I liked her. It was the most natural and comfortable friendship with a woman I had ever known. Better than my own mother—what I can remember of her and certainly more than I’ve ever had with my daughter. And, I
never
in a million years expected to feel this way about you or about
anybody
for the rest of my life.”

“Well, here we are. Now what? Plant the tree?”

“I think we’re supposed to kiss now and plant the tree later. I thought six months was a respectable amount of time to wait to give you this news. About the way I feel, that is.”

“Yeah, six months was good. I’m ready. I mean, I think I can handle this now.”

So, right there, at the bottom of the steps on the pathway to my driveway, we kissed. At first it was tentative and then it became clear to both of us that we were five minutes away from scandalizing the neighbors. It was, after all, not even ten o’clock in the morning.

By the time we got inside, the mood was broken a little because the impulse to launch ourselves into a full-blown sexual encounter right then and there suddenly seemed capricious.

“Do you think maybe a little more cat and mouse is in order?” he said.

“Yes, I hate it, but I do.”

The rest of this may seem a little stupid to some, but you have to understand that we were both nervous. It’s one thing to have a, pardon me,
screw
with a dope like Manny Sinkler. I mean, sure it was immoral, but it wasn’t going anywhere.
This,
however, was the
big one
. What if we were horribly incompatible?

It was best to learn these things after dark.

For the rest of the day we puttered around talking about things like finding someone to take Cecelia and the chickens off my hands for good. I wanted to plant lots of flowers and a vegetable garden just for my grandchildren, who would be four in number very soon, as Charlie and Priscilla were also expecting a blessed event. Harrison said he thought we should just deliver them to Manny Sinkler’s house and let him deal with it. I said it wasn’t worth the effort because who cared about him?

We found a corner of the yard with the best possible sunlight, wind protection, and drainage for the mango tree. We planted it together and sneaked another kiss in the process. Finally, the day was winding down to a close.

“So what do you want to do for dinner?” he said.

Screw, I thought. But I said, “Why don’t we cook at your house tonight?”

We grilled some tuna steaks and nothing happened except some heavy necking until Harrison changed his mind, that is. I was loading the dishwasher and he had the brilliant idea to scoop me up off my feet and carry me to his bed. Now this would be very romantic except that he tripped and dropped me, falling himself and throwing out his back in the process. I put his bruised ego on his couch with an ice pack, kissed him on the head, and said I would call him in the morning.

I drove his car home, poured myself a nightcap, and said to Harry,
who had grown back his feathers, “No sex. I thought it was gonna happen and then he dropped me on the floor. So, no sex tonight.”

Harry looked at me this way and that and then he said, “No sex tonight!”

Great, I thought. Hopefully, he’d forget it by tomorrow.

Well, he didn’t.

Harrison, who felt much better the next morning, arrived that night for dinner with a bottle of scuppernong wine, which I was actually becoming accustomed to drinking and enjoying. I had made some thick crab cakes and a salad.

Harry made his announcement after dinner that the dessert wasn’t me, and Harrison said, “The hell you say, bubba.”

I looked at Harrison and didn’t know what to say.

“Come on, Mellie. We’re going upstairs. You talk to that bird way too much.”

“Yeah, and he’s not discreet.”

We went to bed like a married couple of twenty years and I assumed he was planning to stay the night. He was. When the lights were out, he found me in the darkness and pulled me to him. All I’ve got to say about what happened next was it was how it’s supposed to be when the man’s a real man who loves women and who has a healthy appetite for them. Every time we have been together since that first night, it’s been fabulous. And over the next six months, which brings us up to now, there wasn’t a hair on his body I didn’t know and adore. I was pretty sure he felt the same way. And there were tiny mangoes, too many to count, dangling from the branches of our tree.

We were standing on the driveway watching Priscilla push a stroller toward us with my lovely infant granddaughter named—can you believe it?—Miriam Elizabeth, and next to her was Nan with her three in a wagon. They were coming back from the beach for tomato sandwiches and naps for the children. No doubt they had built sand castles and jumped the waves.

“We can’t keep playing house like this, Mellie. It’s a bad example for the grandchildren.”

I put my arm around his waist and squeezed him. That may or may not have been a marriage proposal.

“Whatever you say, baby. The children are still young.”

You see? Everything happens for a reason. My father’s death brought my mother back to Sullivans Island. Charles’s stupidities sprung me from a terrible marriage and have given me Kevin, one of my greatest friends, and Liz, who had given me all the subtle clues on how to love my daughters-in-law. My mother’s love for me had brought me to Harrison. And the island. It was all about the island. The tempo of the life, the sweet salty air, had even healed Harrison of his fear of love. And me of mine.

If you had told me five years ago that this was the life I would be living, I would have said you were insane. I was the city slicker with cynical opinions for every occasion. But now there I was in the evenings, all my rocking chairs except one filled with loved ones of every age, watching the sun go down. The empty one, her favorite, I reserved for the spirit of Miss Josie.

Sometimes Harrison and I would dramatically tango the length of the porch to make the children laugh. Penn and Mary would swing in the hammock and I would tell them stories, the same ones of my childhood.

“This is truly a special place, Mom,” Priscilla said, and Nan agreed.

“It’s unbelievable! Moving here and bringing us together was such a wonderful idea,” Nan said.

We all agreed wholeheartedly to spend Easter, Thanksgiving, and a week together during the summer on Sullivans Island every year. At Christmas I would alternate between New York and California. Harrison was invited to everything.