The Saving Graces (31 page)

The doorbell rang.
It kept ringing, din g-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, whoever it was was leaning on the button. The knot in the middle of the kitchen began to loosen. Curtis started for the door, but Lee made a quick move and beat him to it. I remembered-she'd called Henry.
Emma gave me a searching look as we moved into the living room-You okay? I was shaking all over, my whole body, uncontrollable. But the longer this went on, the better I felt. Curtis shoving me-it was like a jolt of amphetamine. I felt almost giddy from it. An unnatural high, but who cared, the danger excited me.
It wasn't Henry at the door, it was his mother.
I'd never seen Jenny in her work clothes. Lee's descriptions didn't do her justice. She had on denim overalls and a red flannel shirt. A leather tool belt around her hips, and muddy black rubber boots to the knees. A billed cap over her pompadour that said PATTERSON & SON and across the breast of her coveralls, Jenny in bright yellow script.
She broke off a low-voiced conversation with Lee when she saw us. "Hear y'all havin' some trouble out chere tonight," she said in her slow-as-syrup Carolina drawl.
"Ha ha ha ha," Curtis tried to laugh, but the sound was so phony I felt sorry for him. "This is great! Now the circus begins! Now we get dykes to the rescue." "Watch your mouth, pretty boy," Jenny warned with a flash of good, clean temper. She was like fresh air in a sickroom.
Curtis felt it, too. Under a thinning, cracking veneer of contempt, he looked hounded. I knew what he was going to do the second before he did it.
"Don't!" I had time to say, and then he grabbed two sides of the tall, heavy, bronze-and-glass étagère beside the window. "Curtis, don't!" He couldn't lift it, so he shoved it.-Smash-six feet of glass shelves and ceramics - shattered on the parquet. All my pots, my pretty vases and jugs, my bowls, all broken, nothing but clay rubble and shards- in a sparkling snow of slivered glass. Gone.
Nobody moved. Curtis breathed hard through his mouth, winded, watching us, daring somebody to react. Emma made a strangled, furious sound. Isabel, I saw from the corner of my eye, had her by the arm and was trying to hold her back.
That sound and Emma's rage-they energized me. I left the protective circle of the Graces and moved toward Curtis, into his space, closer and closer until we were nose to nose. I wasn't afraid at all, and I was glad he'd broken my pots. Like the shove, it had cleared my head.
Still, my voice didn't sound like me in the least; it came out breathy and high, each word standing alone. "Get. Out. Or I'll call the police." He laughed.
"And. I'll tell Teeter. Tell him what you did." He froze. Paled. At last, at last I'd found it-the stake through his heart.
"If you ever try to hurt me. You won't get elected. To anything. Dogcatcher." He shook his head, couldn't believe his ears.
To make it clearer, I enunciated. "Ratcatcher." Somebody laughed. Jenny, I think.
Curtis whirled. We five closed ranks. I think he still might have done something, committed some violence on us, or me, the house, but we cowed him with our numbers. Also, one of us had a cane and one of us had a twenty-inch Stillson wrench.
"Go," I said.
He went.
* **

   Jenny built a fire in the fireplace. Lee poured the coffee Curtis had started. Emma kept saying, "Could I please get some credit for not saying anything?" I had stopped shaking enough to call Eric, but he still wasn't home. I left an incoherent message that ended, "I'm glad you're gone, I am, because this way you couldn't help me, I had to do it myself." Which wasn't true-I couldn't have done it without the women.
"Here's one that's not broken." Is-abel held up a small, purple-glazed vase, eggplant-shaped. An early effort and not very good, but I'd always liked it; it must've survived because it was so heavy. "And I think one or two can be glued, Rudy, I really do." "You watch out for that glass," Lee warned her from the sofa. "Come over here by the fire, Isabel." "I knew if I said one -word, I'd set him off, so I just kept my mouth shut." "Emma," Lee said dutifully, "you were wonderful." "No, but, it wasn't like when you guys rescued Grace and I didn't do anything. This time I didn't do anything on purpose. Honestly, it was a real act of will." I hugged her, and she finally grinned and looked mollified. "You were great. You were. And I knew what you were doing." "No, you were the one," she said. "Oh, Rudy, what a moment. You were awesome." "Ratcatcher," Lee recalled. "I loved that." "How'd you get mixed up with a crazy ol' boy like that anyway?" Jenny wondered, leaning back on the ottoman. She'd taken off her boots and her tool belt, pushed her cap around backward. She looked like that woman in the old Ma and Pa Kettle movies-Marjorie Main?
"I keep thinking of his face when we all went in the bedroom," Lee said, rubbing her hands together. "Was that priceless?" "You were great, too," Emma told her. "I think you're despicable," she said in Lee's voice.
"I do. And he couldn't say anything, he had absolutely no excuse. Rudy, don't you feel good? You shouldn't have any guilt at all, you should just be proud of yourself." "I do, I am." But once in a while my teeth chattered and I had a fit of shuddering. The fire, the coffee, the blanket Emma had tucked around me, nothing seemed to be able to touch the cold, shaky center of me. Maybe a drink?
"He won't do anything now," Emma said. "I mean, he'll never stalk you or anything. You really got him where he lives with the dogcatcher thing." "Yeah," Lee agreed, "threatening to tell his partners, that was brilliant. You can call the shots now, get anything you want out of him." "I don't want anything." "You say that now." "No, I really don't. Enough to get by till I figure out what I'm doing." I hugged myself under the blanket, shivering again.
"Rudy, if you don't take that son of a bitch to the cleaners, I'm never speaking to you again," Emma said, and she was only half joking.
They started to talk about changing the locks and calling the banks, - the insurance companies, getting names of good lawyers. Lee was full of advice; you'd have thought she'd been divorced six times. But that's Lee, she always knows everything. Slowly, slowly, I began to unwind, untangle inside. Could this really work? It was looking as if it might. But even that scared me, just the prospect of success. Early days yet, I consoled myself; still a million chances for everything to blow up in my face. And I had the strangest, strongest urge to call my mother. Where did that come from? I got up to call Eric again.
"I have to go," Lee said, forestalling me. "Who's driving us back-Emma? Jenny, it's too far out of your way." Henry had called from his car an hour ago, heard we didn't need him, and gone home. "Isabel, are you ready?" No answer.
"She's asleep," Emma said. "She fell asleep on the floor." Lee moved quietly to where Isabel lay on her side, half on the rug, half on the hardwood floor. "Is, are you awake? We're getting ready to leave." She knelt down. "Isabel?" Emma and I froze. We went closer, drawn by something in Lee's tone. Then Isabel opened her eyes and smiled-and I let go of a dark fear that had gripped me so fast, I didn't have time to name it.
"Get up, sleepyhead," Lee murmured.
Isabel put her thin - white hand on Lee's knee. "Don't think I can." "Why? Are you sick? What's wrong?" She craned her neck around. "Rudy, call an ambulance!" "No, no." Isabel wet her lips. "Call Kirby," she said slowly and carefully. "Lee? Just call Kirby."

   Isable.

   February- Going through some old letters and papers, I found my last address book, the one I used for about fifteen years before the current update. I -read the names I'd written in so carefully, some with reminders to myself of the spouse's first name, the children's birth dates. I don't know what to make of the fact that a fair number of these people, closer to a third than a quarter, didn't even make it into the new book. Natural attrition? Cold words for one of life's little tragedies. People move away, drift away, drop by the way. When Gary and I separated, a lot of acquaintances simply disappeared into the blue. But the loss of others is more mysterious.
This woman-Fay Kemper-lived on Thornapple Street; we met at the dog park, the same place where I met Lee. We both loved gardening; we went on a house tour together; she had a daughter Terry's age, we talked on the telephone for hours about our children. And yet, she slipped away. Didn't make the cut. Our husbands never quite got along, that was one obstacle, but it doesn't explain everything. I was fond of Fay, but I didn't fight to keep her. She didn't fight for me. We simply let each other go. There are a dozen more like her, and I know these near-friends come and go in everyone's life, it's a ruthless necessity occasioned by circumstance, taste, chance, apathy-and yet it makes me sad.
All my life I've wanted to tell people I loved them. Fear usually held me back, that they wouldn't care, or they wouldn't hear, or they would take too much from me once they knew.
It's - different now. The years pile up like snow against the windowsill. I don't have a moment to lose.

   This time of the day frightens me. I don't want to die in winter. Don't want my last glimpse to be of that blighted sunset through the bedroom window, the sway of bare branches against the twilight sky. The wind is so cold and heartless; I imagine it calling me under its harsh breath.
I -want to go when it's warm and the air is blue. I'd like to hear a fly buzzing against the screen, an airplane droning in the cloudless sky. A conversation in another room. Laughter. Smell of grass.
I can't forgive my body for betraying me. I am my best friend, and I've let me down. Who's left to trust? That's silly, I know. But the myth of my immortality is still with me, although necessarily fraying at the edges. It gives way to attacks of panic. I'm dying, I'll suddenly recall after a period of inexplicable forgetfulness, and my veins light up like Christmas tree lights in terror. My stomach contracts. I cry quick, hurtful tears. Then the deep breaths, the squaring of the shoulders. The weighty, unshareable sadness. For myself, for everyone in the world. What a burden we carry under the shadow of dying. The dark bird's wing.
Why is death such a mystery? It's taboo, like sex to a virgin, a secret locked carefully away. I lived my whole life believing everyone would die but me.
It's the only way we can live, I suppose. It comes from believing we are - our bodies. It's not natural to regard flesh, blood, and bone as temporary housing from which we'll soon be evicted. But lately I'm moving closer to learning the secret, I think, the lesson: that death isn't a bizarre, detestable, unspeakable catastrophe. Life's a circle, not a straight line, the longer the better. The circle never ends, it only widens.

   March- Emma comes to see me nearly every day. She always makes me laugh. "Oh, God," are a Christian's last words, she tells me; an atheist's: "Oh, shit!" She has never mentioned Mick Draco's name. So the last time she visited, I brought him up myself. (Waiting for "the right time" is a luxury I don't indulge anymore.) She looked impressed and relieved, but not particularly surprised that I knew who he was. "I thought you might've guessed," she said. "So many times I've wanted to tell you." "But you thought I'd disapprove. Because he has a wife." "No, I don't think you would disapprove of anything, Isabel. That I did, I mean. Or anyone else you love." "Not be pleased, then." "Okay. Not be pleased." "It's true," I said, "that adultery in the abstract is something I dislike. Abhor, even." "Well, that makes two of us." "But in the particular, it's a bit more complex, isn't it?" "But we still didn't do anything, Mick and 1." "And now it's over?" "Yeah. I broke it off. He asked me to wait for him. He's trying to get out Of his marriage without hurting his wife." She made her dry, sardonic face. "Which doesn't seem too likely to me. Especially since Lee says they've been in couples therapy for the last five years. Put it this way-I'm not sitting around waiting for a breakthrough." "And are you happy now?" "No. I'm miserable." "Maybe you should've told him you'd wait." I have no trouble at all offering advice these days. I'm a -fountain of it.
"But waiting is suffering, Isabel. I don't have room for any more." She meant me-she's suffering because of me. I find myself comforting the people I love more than I grieve for myself. I'm constantly consoling. It's exhausting. But a good thing, too. Because in the process of convincing them what's happening to me is not a tragedy, I almost convince myself.
Lee is not easy to console, and impossible to convince. She's so very unhappy. The solution to one of her problems seems simple to me, but even I, in extremis, don't quite have the presumption to solve it for her.
She took me out for a ride in her car. I hadn't been out of the apartment in weeks except to see the doctor, the acupuncturist, or the massage therapist. To them I take taxis; Kirby goes with me. But I was feeling unusually strong, and this was a pleasure trip for Lee and me. Pure pleasure. We took Grace with us. Winter is finally over-I thanked all my gods for that: one nuisance worry about dying out of the way. It felt wonderful to speed along with the windows down, the wind in our faces. We drove out to Virginia, those pretty little roads around Purcellville and Philomont. Grace put her gray muzzle out and let her ears blow back-she looked like a flying dog.
"Will you take her for me?" Lee pretended not to hear me.
"Kirby would take her if I asked him. But I'd rather it was you." I thought she would let it go, just not answer. But a little time passed, and she said, "Yes, I'll take her." Then we both pretended it was the wind making our eyes water.
Sweet old Grace. These days grace means something else to me, too. I've been given a grace to see- well, our connectedness. It's almost primitive, it's so easy. Literally, we're all in this together, and my anger has almost completely dissipated into a feeling of oneness with everything. Everyone.
A gift.

   Still. How much easier it would be if we could go with somebody. A partner, a companion. Oh, if only we could take a friend with us. How much less lonely it would be.

   I have help two days a week now. A lady from social services came and interviewed me, and then a nurse began to visit on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Roxanne Kilmer is her name; she's young, only twenty-seven, and I worry she's gotten into the wrong line of work, or gotten into it too early. A woman should have -more experience, more of life before she has to see the things Roxanne sees.
I like her, though, and I'm selfish enough to want to keep her. She helps me bathe, changes the bed, plans my meals, manages my medications. I like her competence and briskness, the way she's kind to me but not sorry for me. I'm so lucky-I have Roxanne, I have Mrs. Skazafava who happily walks the dog every day at four o'clock, I have the Saving Graces. One of the hardest things to bear by people in my situation-the worry that when the bad time comes there won't be enough care-givers-has been mooted. It's simply not on my list of anxieties anymore.
Then there's Kirby. The social services woman wrote down that he's my "primary caregiver," an obvious, self-evident fact that for some reason I hadn't quite realized or accepted. Because of his capacity for selfeffacement, I suppose. And because he slipped into my life so quietly. Like a fast-growing sapling you plant one spring, and seemingly the next it's a strapping maple tree, perfect in its setting, you can't remember that spot in the yard without it. I only worry that he's taking too much time from his job to be with me, but he won't discuss that or let me nag him about it. It's off limits.
These days it tires me to talk for too long anyway, so the balance between us has had to shift: for once, Kirby talks more than I do. He was rusty at it at first, and even now he's not exactly voluble. But he perseveres, because he knows I love to listen. He tells me about his father, one of the highest ranking army officers to die in the Vietnam War, and about his mother, who once danced in musical comedies on the New York stage. I can see both of these contradictory influences on the son, who camouflages his creative, unconventional side with a deceptively quiet, gray-looking conformity.
I've asked him why he stays with me. "Because I love you," he said gravely. "It's simple." But is it? Does it matter? Should I, should anyone, be concerned if he stays with me because it's a way to say good-bye? A proper, humane, dignified way he couldn't have with his wife and his babies because it was stolen from him? Either way, the motive is love. So what does it matter?
He's helping me write a letter to the Graces. I dictate and he types on his laptop computer. In the evenings he reads to me. I lie on the sofa under the afghan with Grace on the floor at my side, and Kirby sits under the lamp in the easy chair, long legs crossed, head tilted back so he can peer down through his half-glasses. His theatrical voice is wonderfully expressive; I can listen to it for hours. He reads classic plays to me, Shakespeare's comedies and Ibsen, Moliere, Oscar Wilde. And novels I -loved as a child that he finds for me in the library- Girl of the Limberlost, The Secret Garden, Little Women. And the Bible, the Koran. Poetry. They're a great comfort to me, these other voices, these other people's worlds. I'm thankful for how completely they take me out of mine.
He helps me with my mail, too. So many get-well cards, so many kind, nervous, graceful, inept, tactless, elegant notes, some from people I haven't communicated with or even thought of in years. Just as interesting to me is the number of people who don't write, don't call, don't acknowledge my illness in any way. I forgive them absolutely, and lately I've been scrawling little messages to them to say so - not in those words. I understand that, for some, what's happening to me is unspeakable, literally. They can't help it. I don't take it personally. I did once, but no more. No time.
Gary is one of those who can't speak. I called him on the telephone, hoping for something, closure, acknowledgment, maybe my own forgiveness. It was awkward. No, it was impossible. So: Gary and I are going to die separately and far from each other. I know that for certain now, and it makes me sad. To think that, after all, our vows came to nothing.