Things I'd Waited to Say
Shellie Richards
CAROLINE
I’ve run out of saffron thread, and so I set my needlepoint aside with only half of a pear completed. I watch the blue, velvet blanket across your chest rise and fall with every breath. The rocker I sit in is comfortable enough, and I push myself every now and then, rocking slowly with the rhythm of your breathing and thinking about the last time we made love—how it would be the last last time. There was no fire or lust, but maybe we’d done it to satisfy something bigger. I’d felt a spiritual tenderness that somehow eclipsed the physical joining of two bodies; all that had passed between us through the years was real in that final moment—like a giant period on the end of the long, choppy sentence we called our life together. It would be our last time together, we both knew it, and you’d whispered goodbye to me. Afterward, we lay in bed, our bodies not touching, and you asked if we could get ice cream. We walked to the corner shop where I got chocolate-mint gelato and you got a scoop of Rocky Road on a sugar cone. Tears slid down my face into the corners of my mouth, settling into milky green drops in my gelato, and I wondered if you would remember the next day. But you didn’t. The morning after, you called me Donna.
“My name is Caroline. We made love last night, remember?”
“Where’s Donna? Isn’t she coming?”
“No,” I replied, not knowing who Donna was. You’d just been with me last night. You looked right into my eyes and you knew who I was and now you were gone again. Damn it, you were gone.
You are lost in your mind now—your mind comes and goes these days like the ocean tides, only less predictable and with less frequency. The onset was slow at first and the questions in my mind never lingered long enough to constitute worry. Your assistant, Patty, drove you to the office several times a week, and it was Patty who ensured you got your daily exercise and to doctors’ appointments and to the bank. And while she had walked with you daily, I’d taken my girls’ trips and enjoyed shopping for antiques in New England. I’d no idea you were slipping away. I wasn’t there to see it. I wasn’t there for the walks in the park or lunch or your trips to the doctor. She was. She’d been the reason fleeting thoughts were nothing more than that. And so, I didn’t wonder. I didn’t worry.
Now, I am the only memory we have. And I remember the day we met. I boarded the train in New Orleans and rode until the tracks ended. Norman, Oklahoma.
The first time I saw you, you were sitting outside the law school surrounded by girls, laughing, and as I walked by, you glanced my way, the red glow of your cigarette like a flare. You smiled at me. I floated all the way back to my dorm. I didn’t even know your name.
On our third date, you said you loved me. I remember thinking, I’ll never forget this moment. Not ever. The October wind had blown oak leaves across the steps outside your campus apartment, and we’d huddled together, dodging the occasional acorn that fell. And then you said it into my mouth. Your words tasted like scotch whiskey and Marlboros. Your friends whooped and hollered while you grabbed me by my ponytail, your feral kiss deep and long.
“Marry me, Caroline. I love you.”
“Yes.”
It was impulsive and stupid and magical. But it was a step I took with my own two feet. I controlled my life now—not my father. Me. I was in control of what I did, with whom and where, and I’d never take the path my mother had; I’d never be beholden to a man. We were equals, you and I. You were so handsome and larger than life. I loved that about you. You were fearless, then. I wonder if you still are. And I wonder just how long you’ve really been gone from me.
The nurse comes in and checks your blood pressure and urine sack. She looks at me, her eyes knowing and pitying.
“You doing okay today?”
“Yes, thank you.” No, I’m not okay. I’m not okay at all. I still have things to say. I never got to tell him I was sorry. Sorry for the affair, sorry for drinking, sorry for the ultimatums and the fucking slamming doors, and now he’s gone. My husband is gone, and I can’t tell him, and even if I said the words, he wouldn’t understand. Would he?
The nurse adjusts the bed slightly to improve your circulation.
“Do you by chance needlepoint?”
“No, ma’am, I’m sorry. I don’t.”
“Oh, okay. Actually, I’d like a cot. I’d like to stay tonight, if that’s okay.”
“Sure.” The nurse glanced back. “Soft or firm pillow?”
“Soft, please. Thank you.”
“Oh, and some ice cream? Rocky Road if you have it …”
“How’s plain chocolate? I think we’ve got chocolate and vanilla cups.”
“Chocolate,” is all the lump in my throat will let me say … Chocolate’s fine. But it isn’t. The girl at the seminar on dementia had said smell and taste can bring a person back sometimes. Or music. That was the other thing she’d mentioned. Music. I have to remember to bring in some Miles Davis. And some BBQ or maybe some banana bread. If I could get you back, even for just five minutes, then I could tell you I’m sorry. Sorry for everything.
The nurse pulls the door shut gently and I think about how I’ve slammed so many over the years. Car doors, bedroom doors, front doors. You stopped caring and so did I. I’d loved you so hard, so much, but I wasn’t enough. Sitting in the rocker, watching you slip away inside yourself, I think about how we’d started out solid, and what seemed so easy one day had become an uphill climb.
All I’d ever wanted was you. But your love and attention for clients came first, and late nights at the firm chipped away at what we built. Like anything that grows freely and fast, it was weak. Women circled you like vultures, waiting for something cold and motionless, picking at the scraps of what remained. The Christmas Eve you spent at the office was the final straw. Damn you. You came home to hot meals and clean sheets and a spotless house. My hair was new. Our sofa was new. My car was new. An Alfa Romeo Spider. Red. You walked past it the same way you’d walked right past me for years, you arrogant son of a bitch.
“What’d you think would happen, Caroline?”
My father knew it. Knew it, he said. Because surgeons know everything. That’s what you get when you finish medical school. A certificate that says, “I know it all.”
“This is what happens when you marry young and outside your socioeconomic circle.”
“He’s an attorney.”
“A junior attorney who drinks too much and fucks around. Aren’t you proud?”
I pretended not to care. We had a house complete with living, breathing evidence that at one time, we’d had something, and a liquor cabinet with enough whiskey to bandage the wounds over and over again. Enough whiskey and my morals went soft as a downy chick. It made loving another easy and hating you easier still. And even now as I watch you sleeping, lost inside yourself, I am filled with anger, thinking about what we did to each other. We gave up. We didn’t even fight for us. We simply stopped. And where now can my anger go? I think about what my sister said.
“Anger is a hot coal in our hand, Caroline. We think we’ll throw it at someone else and hurt them, but hold onto it long enough and we get burned.”
What do I do now, Raymond? What do I do with this hot coal in my hand now? The tears fall now freely, and I sob until my chest aches.
“I would fight, now. I would fight for us if I could do it again. I would.”
But I know you don’t hear me and even if you could, you’d ask for Donna or Susan or whoever. And I wonder who they are, and if they are some lovers you had who are now trapped in the only neurons you have left, and why can’t it be me who is trapped there? I gave birth to our children and cooked for you and picked you up when you were drunk, even after I’d stopped getting drunk. If I could just talk to you now. If only I could throw this hot, burning coal at you and have you understand, but I can’t now. You would get the final say now because you were confused, and it would be something like, “My dad’s coming by later,” even though he’s been dead for years, or “Where’s Debbie?” It would never be “I love you, Caroline. I’ve loved you all my life.” Or “I’m sorry I hurt you like I did. Thank you for standing by me.”
Now there are only pockets of time in 15- or 20-minute spurts where you are lucid, and those precious few are spent talking about insurance or long-term care or the children and grandchildren. Then you’re gone again.
I press my hand to yours. Your fingers are large and pink. I trace the veins to your wrist and back to your hand and wonder why, when your mind is shutting down, your body continues to function, your heart to beat. You still feel warm, but we can’t talk to each other. I think about visiting the chapel, but I don’t. I’m too angry, and I don’t want to have those thoughts in a holy place. I think about having you back for fifteen minutes, saying what needs to be said and then holding the pillow over your face so that when you leave me again, it’s for good.
As if the thought has jolted you out of your sleep, you open your eyes. They’re like blue saucers, and the whites are covered with tiny red veins. I find my reflection in your pupils.
“What kinda place doesn’t have Rocky Road?”
I laugh through my tears.
~ ~ ~
RAYMOND
You’ve gone home to check the mail and get some things. The nurse told me at least three times.
“Your wife will be right back, okay? She’s just gone home.” I watch the nurse as she fumbles around for her stethoscope. Am I supposed to respond to that? Was it a question? I stare at her, and she says it again, only louder this time. She doesn’t know raising her voice doesn’t help me comprehend what she is saying.
“Your wife has gone home for just a few minutes, okay? She’ll be back in a bit.”
I look out my window. In the distance, the trees are beginning to turn. Fall is coming. We met in the fall, I remember. You were so beautiful and full of life. I was sitting on the bench outside the law school, and you walked by. Barbara Reynold’s bulbous hairdo blocked my view, and so I slid over to watch you. Man, what a sight you were. The next time I saw you, I got your number. It was easy enough, but I still felt damn lucky. I fell hard and fast; three dates and I was a lifer. My friends couldn’t believe it.
“Marriage? You barely know the girl. Have you even slept with her? Can she cook? What if she’s batshit crazy and you just haven’t seen it yet?” But I’d always been a risk-taker. That’s what I did. I took risks. My days of flirting with every girl that looked my way were over. Gone were the hours I spent fantasizing about them. There was only you now. You filled my thoughts day and night. Even now, when I’m here, I think of you—of us. When I’m not confused about who I am. God, this is not what I had planned. I wanted to spend our final years together searching for common ground and spending time with family. I wanted to tell you how sorry I was for everything. How I wish I’d stopped drinking sooner. I wanted to ask you why you stayed when I know you wanted to leave. Why? I wanted you to tell me it’s because you loved me, still. I was a damn fool. I wasn’t there for you and, honestly, I wasn’t sure how to be. You were such a mean drunk. Hell, I couldn’t even be in the same room with you. I wasn’t there for you when you stopped hiding in the bottle, but then you just left me in mine. Now, I want to ask you why. Why, Caroline?
I watched you sleeping on the cot last night. A strand of silver hair bobbed against your face and eventually settled into the lines I’d drawn. Some years were particularly hard on you, I know, but the affair was the only way I could keep from hating you—the depth of which, I now realize, was the result of how deeply I’d loved you—how bad it’d hurt. It ripped me wide open, and at the same time, I didn’t give a shit. Truth is, I couldn’t afford to. Moving forward, pieces at a time, was the only way to prevent some emotional bloodletting that would have broken our family apart. We limped along afterward, but we moved in a direction together. We survived what many cannot. We crossed lines and crossed right back over.
If I could do it again, I’d notice more. We can’t go back though. This is what we’ve got now, my brain half gone and you, alone. I wonder, after I go, if you’ll find someone, and if you do, will that fire be there. Will it remind you of us? It sickens me to think of you walking the beach with someone else, taking a drive down the coast, your hair loose and careless and your laughter on the wind, your soft hand in his. I wonder if you have regrets, and if you could, would you turn back the hands of time and say no?
I can’t remember our son’s name now, but I remember the time you left like it was yesterday.
“I’m leaving Raymond. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone or when I’m coming back … if I’m coming back.”
“Where the hell are you going, and what do you mean, if? We’ve got two kids, Caroline, or have you been so busy drinking you’ve forgotten that? What are we supposed to do?”
“I don’t know, Raymond, and I don’t care. Do what you’ve been doing all along. Stay at your office night and day, screwing whatever piece of white trash floats your way.”
“You say that like you’re innocent. Like you’re not drunk outta your mind half the time when you pick up our kids from school and after you spent the morning screwing my partner.”
You never could look me in the eye during a fight.
“There’s leftovers in the fridge. That should get you through Tuesday. Goodbye, Raymond.”
Your flat affect sounded like a door shutting forever. I wished to God you’d thrown something or yelled or shown some kind of emotion. Like the time I called you a bitch. You threw the phone at me and missed and when I smiled, you threw a vintage bottle of Petrus Merlot, busting it against the kitchen door just above my head. My smile faded as I watched the deep purple liquid race down the door, pooling around my feet. A dark ash settled on everything around me. And you just walked out, suitcase in hand, and the same train that had brought my love to me took away the wretched person you’d become.
Now, I want to tell you how much I loved you then and still do. How much having you in my life has meant, but those times when I’m coherent, we talk about other things, like long-term care and living wills. I just want to say these things before I’m gone completely.
You seem angry that I’m going this way, and I wonder what you’d think was a better way. Cancer? ALS? I feel like this dementia is the final tug of the ball and chain, and I’m just pulling you down slowly, and the worse I get, the crazier you get. You can go, you know. You don’t have to stay here day and night. I’ve got nurses and I’m checked out half the time, right? Chances are, I won’t know when you’re not here. If I was hooked up to chemo I might, and maybe I’d care, but not like this. I didn’t choose this, you know? I didn’t sign up for this either. It’s not just happening to you. I admit, I’ve contemplated pretending to be demented a few times…to try and convince you I’m gone in my mind for good. Then maybe you’d cut yourself some slack, go do something you want to do. Have lunch with a friend instead of hanging out here watching me sleep—maybe have some scallops down at the country club. I want you to go now and live, Caroline. I want you to go do all of those things we never did. I want you to grab what’s left of life and swallow it—the sun, the moon and stars.
~ ~ ~
CAROLINE
It’s been weeks now since you said anything that made sense, and when I search your eyes for signs you know me, there’s nothing, and I realize you’ve finally disappeared into the quicksand completely. We’ve said goodbye. We did that before you slipped away, and I suppose I should end this bedside vigil and do something like clean out the freezer or get the oil changed in the car, but I can’t. I’m not angry with you anymore, so I’m not even sure why I’m still here.
“Excuse me, ma’am?”
I turned around and the nurse is standing there with a box in her hands.
“He wanted you to have these. I think now’s a good time.”
She hands me a large shirt box and leaves the room. I open it and inside are all of these handwritten letters, numbered, with my name in various shades of blue and black ink. There’s a note on top:
Dear Caroline,
I decided that during those times you aren’t here at hospice, and my mind is my own, that I’d write down my random thoughts —not really because I think you’d like to capture any moments you
could—and this is certainly one way of doing that. I am writing
these because I want you to know things, and I want you to see
them in my handwriting so they aren’t just thoughts bouncing
around in my head, but something physical you can see. I hope that
seeing them makes the words real for you. Time changes scale, and
what once seemed big now matters very little. Likewise, in the end,
it’s the small things that mean so much. Please accept these letters
as a final small gesture.
I love you. I’ve always loved you.
~Raymond
The box is filled with trifolded pieces of yellow legal pad and on them, words pushed together into sentences that mean something. Everything, really. Among them, this:
I know that you love yellow. That’s right, I know. But for some
reason, I’ve never been able to find anything for you in that color
that seemed pretty enough for you. I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s
because many times it is too bright or too mustard or orange. I
thought many times about a yellow diamond. Now, I wish I’d
gotten one for you. I regret that. I think I thought you liked
amethyst, but I realize now that you didn’t particularly care for it. paid attention. I knew. And I know you hate scallops and that you
ate them because I always wanted to split the seafood dinner
special at the country club. I also know you love the opera and
dinner al fresco in the fall. At times, I was selfish, and I wanted
what I wanted. But please know that I knew your heart like my
own. Always know that.
My hands tremble as I read the letter, and the blue ink runs with my tears, falling off the edges of the pages. He had been here. He had been “on,” as the nurses often said to indicate he was lucid. He had been here--present—while I was off checking the mail. I cursed myself for missing those moments. I could’ve said so many things. I’d wanted to say so much. Now, he’s had the last words, and I feel sad and angry and betrayed. I had things I’d wanted to say, too. Things I’d waited to say.
Shellie Richards
CAROLINE
I’ve run out of saffron thread, and so I set my needlepoint aside with only half of a pear completed. I watch the blue, velvet blanket across your chest rise and fall with every breath. The rocker I sit in is comfortable enough, and I push myself every now and then, rocking slowly with the rhythm of your breathing and thinking about the last time we made love—how it would be the last last time. There was no fire or lust, but maybe we’d done it to satisfy something bigger. I’d felt a spiritual tenderness that somehow eclipsed the physical joining of two bodies; all that had passed between us through the years was real in that final moment—like a giant period on the end of the long, choppy sentence we called our life together. It would be our last time together, we both knew it, and you’d whispered goodbye to me. Afterward, we lay in bed, our bodies not touching, and you asked if we could get ice cream. We walked to the corner shop where I got chocolate-mint gelato and you got a scoop of Rocky Road on a sugar cone. Tears slid down my face into the corners of my mouth, settling into milky green drops in my gelato, and I wondered if you would remember the next day. But you didn’t. The morning after, you called me Donna.
“My name is Caroline. We made love last night, remember?”
“Where’s Donna? Isn’t she coming?”
“No,” I replied, not knowing who Donna was. You’d just been with me last night. You looked right into my eyes and you knew who I was and now you were gone again. Damn it, you were gone.
You are lost in your mind now—your mind comes and goes these days like the ocean tides, only less predictable and with less frequency. The onset was slow at first and the questions in my mind never lingered long enough to constitute worry. Your assistant, Patty, drove you to the office several times a week, and it was Patty who ensured you got your daily exercise and to doctors’ appointments and to the bank. And while she had walked with you daily, I’d taken my girls’ trips and enjoyed shopping for antiques in New England. I’d no idea you were slipping away. I wasn’t there to see it. I wasn’t there for the walks in the park or lunch or your trips to the doctor. She was. She’d been the reason fleeting thoughts were nothing more than that. And so, I didn’t wonder. I didn’t worry.
Now, I am the only memory we have. And I remember the day we met. I boarded the train in New Orleans and rode until the tracks ended. Norman, Oklahoma.
The first time I saw you, you were sitting outside the law school surrounded by girls, laughing, and as I walked by, you glanced my way, the red glow of your cigarette like a flare. You smiled at me. I floated all the way back to my dorm. I didn’t even know your name.
On our third date, you said you loved me. I remember thinking, I’ll never forget this moment. Not ever. The October wind had blown oak leaves across the steps outside your campus apartment, and we’d huddled together, dodging the occasional acorn that fell. And then you said it into my mouth. Your words tasted like scotch whiskey and Marlboros. Your friends whooped and hollered while you grabbed me by my ponytail, your feral kiss deep and long.
“Marry me, Caroline. I love you.”
“Yes.”
It was impulsive and stupid and magical. But it was a step I took with my own two feet. I controlled my life now—not my father. Me. I was in control of what I did, with whom and where, and I’d never take the path my mother had; I’d never be beholden to a man. We were equals, you and I. You were so handsome and larger than life. I loved that about you. You were fearless, then. I wonder if you still are. And I wonder just how long you’ve really been gone from me.
The nurse comes in and checks your blood pressure and urine sack. She looks at me, her eyes knowing and pitying.
“You doing okay today?”
“Yes, thank you.” No, I’m not okay. I’m not okay at all. I still have things to say. I never got to tell him I was sorry. Sorry for the affair, sorry for drinking, sorry for the ultimatums and the fucking slamming doors, and now he’s gone. My husband is gone, and I can’t tell him, and even if I said the words, he wouldn’t understand. Would he?
The nurse adjusts the bed slightly to improve your circulation.
“Do you by chance needlepoint?”
“No, ma’am, I’m sorry. I don’t.”
“Oh, okay. Actually, I’d like a cot. I’d like to stay tonight, if that’s okay.”
“Sure.” The nurse glanced back. “Soft or firm pillow?”
“Soft, please. Thank you.”
“Oh, and some ice cream? Rocky Road if you have it …”
“How’s plain chocolate? I think we’ve got chocolate and vanilla cups.”
“Chocolate,” is all the lump in my throat will let me say … Chocolate’s fine. But it isn’t. The girl at the seminar on dementia had said smell and taste can bring a person back sometimes. Or music. That was the other thing she’d mentioned. Music. I have to remember to bring in some Miles Davis. And some BBQ or maybe some banana bread. If I could get you back, even for just five minutes, then I could tell you I’m sorry. Sorry for everything.
The nurse pulls the door shut gently and I think about how I’ve slammed so many over the years. Car doors, bedroom doors, front doors. You stopped caring and so did I. I’d loved you so hard, so much, but I wasn’t enough. Sitting in the rocker, watching you slip away inside yourself, I think about how we’d started out solid, and what seemed so easy one day had become an uphill climb.
All I’d ever wanted was you. But your love and attention for clients came first, and late nights at the firm chipped away at what we built. Like anything that grows freely and fast, it was weak. Women circled you like vultures, waiting for something cold and motionless, picking at the scraps of what remained. The Christmas Eve you spent at the office was the final straw. Damn you. You came home to hot meals and clean sheets and a spotless house. My hair was new. Our sofa was new. My car was new. An Alfa Romeo Spider. Red. You walked past it the same way you’d walked right past me for years, you arrogant son of a bitch.
“What’d you think would happen, Caroline?”
My father knew it. Knew it, he said. Because surgeons know everything. That’s what you get when you finish medical school. A certificate that says, “I know it all.”
“This is what happens when you marry young and outside your socioeconomic circle.”
“He’s an attorney.”
“A junior attorney who drinks too much and fucks around. Aren’t you proud?”
I pretended not to care. We had a house complete with living, breathing evidence that at one time, we’d had something, and a liquor cabinet with enough whiskey to bandage the wounds over and over again. Enough whiskey and my morals went soft as a downy chick. It made loving another easy and hating you easier still. And even now as I watch you sleeping, lost inside yourself, I am filled with anger, thinking about what we did to each other. We gave up. We didn’t even fight for us. We simply stopped. And where now can my anger go? I think about what my sister said.
“Anger is a hot coal in our hand, Caroline. We think we’ll throw it at someone else and hurt them, but hold onto it long enough and we get burned.”
What do I do now, Raymond? What do I do with this hot coal in my hand now? The tears fall now freely, and I sob until my chest aches.
“I would fight, now. I would fight for us if I could do it again. I would.”
But I know you don’t hear me and even if you could, you’d ask for Donna or Susan or whoever. And I wonder who they are, and if they are some lovers you had who are now trapped in the only neurons you have left, and why can’t it be me who is trapped there? I gave birth to our children and cooked for you and picked you up when you were drunk, even after I’d stopped getting drunk. If I could just talk to you now. If only I could throw this hot, burning coal at you and have you understand, but I can’t now. You would get the final say now because you were confused, and it would be something like, “My dad’s coming by later,” even though he’s been dead for years, or “Where’s Debbie?” It would never be “I love you, Caroline. I’ve loved you all my life.” Or “I’m sorry I hurt you like I did. Thank you for standing by me.”
Now there are only pockets of time in 15- or 20-minute spurts where you are lucid, and those precious few are spent talking about insurance or long-term care or the children and grandchildren. Then you’re gone again.
I press my hand to yours. Your fingers are large and pink. I trace the veins to your wrist and back to your hand and wonder why, when your mind is shutting down, your body continues to function, your heart to beat. You still feel warm, but we can’t talk to each other. I think about visiting the chapel, but I don’t. I’m too angry, and I don’t want to have those thoughts in a holy place. I think about having you back for fifteen minutes, saying what needs to be said and then holding the pillow over your face so that when you leave me again, it’s for good.
As if the thought has jolted you out of your sleep, you open your eyes. They’re like blue saucers, and the whites are covered with tiny red veins. I find my reflection in your pupils.
“What kinda place doesn’t have Rocky Road?”
I laugh through my tears.
~ ~ ~
RAYMOND
You’ve gone home to check the mail and get some things. The nurse told me at least three times.
“Your wife will be right back, okay? She’s just gone home.” I watch the nurse as she fumbles around for her stethoscope. Am I supposed to respond to that? Was it a question? I stare at her, and she says it again, only louder this time. She doesn’t know raising her voice doesn’t help me comprehend what she is saying.
“Your wife has gone home for just a few minutes, okay? She’ll be back in a bit.”
I look out my window. In the distance, the trees are beginning to turn. Fall is coming. We met in the fall, I remember. You were so beautiful and full of life. I was sitting on the bench outside the law school, and you walked by. Barbara Reynold’s bulbous hairdo blocked my view, and so I slid over to watch you. Man, what a sight you were. The next time I saw you, I got your number. It was easy enough, but I still felt damn lucky. I fell hard and fast; three dates and I was a lifer. My friends couldn’t believe it.
“Marriage? You barely know the girl. Have you even slept with her? Can she cook? What if she’s batshit crazy and you just haven’t seen it yet?” But I’d always been a risk-taker. That’s what I did. I took risks. My days of flirting with every girl that looked my way were over. Gone were the hours I spent fantasizing about them. There was only you now. You filled my thoughts day and night. Even now, when I’m here, I think of you—of us. When I’m not confused about who I am. God, this is not what I had planned. I wanted to spend our final years together searching for common ground and spending time with family. I wanted to tell you how sorry I was for everything. How I wish I’d stopped drinking sooner. I wanted to ask you why you stayed when I know you wanted to leave. Why? I wanted you to tell me it’s because you loved me, still. I was a damn fool. I wasn’t there for you and, honestly, I wasn’t sure how to be. You were such a mean drunk. Hell, I couldn’t even be in the same room with you. I wasn’t there for you when you stopped hiding in the bottle, but then you just left me in mine. Now, I want to ask you why. Why, Caroline?
I watched you sleeping on the cot last night. A strand of silver hair bobbed against your face and eventually settled into the lines I’d drawn. Some years were particularly hard on you, I know, but the affair was the only way I could keep from hating you—the depth of which, I now realize, was the result of how deeply I’d loved you—how bad it’d hurt. It ripped me wide open, and at the same time, I didn’t give a shit. Truth is, I couldn’t afford to. Moving forward, pieces at a time, was the only way to prevent some emotional bloodletting that would have broken our family apart. We limped along afterward, but we moved in a direction together. We survived what many cannot. We crossed lines and crossed right back over.
If I could do it again, I’d notice more. We can’t go back though. This is what we’ve got now, my brain half gone and you, alone. I wonder, after I go, if you’ll find someone, and if you do, will that fire be there. Will it remind you of us? It sickens me to think of you walking the beach with someone else, taking a drive down the coast, your hair loose and careless and your laughter on the wind, your soft hand in his. I wonder if you have regrets, and if you could, would you turn back the hands of time and say no?
I can’t remember our son’s name now, but I remember the time you left like it was yesterday.
“I’m leaving Raymond. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone or when I’m coming back … if I’m coming back.”
“Where the hell are you going, and what do you mean, if? We’ve got two kids, Caroline, or have you been so busy drinking you’ve forgotten that? What are we supposed to do?”
“I don’t know, Raymond, and I don’t care. Do what you’ve been doing all along. Stay at your office night and day, screwing whatever piece of white trash floats your way.”
“You say that like you’re innocent. Like you’re not drunk outta your mind half the time when you pick up our kids from school and after you spent the morning screwing my partner.”
You never could look me in the eye during a fight.
“There’s leftovers in the fridge. That should get you through Tuesday. Goodbye, Raymond.”
Your flat affect sounded like a door shutting forever. I wished to God you’d thrown something or yelled or shown some kind of emotion. Like the time I called you a bitch. You threw the phone at me and missed and when I smiled, you threw a vintage bottle of Petrus Merlot, busting it against the kitchen door just above my head. My smile faded as I watched the deep purple liquid race down the door, pooling around my feet. A dark ash settled on everything around me. And you just walked out, suitcase in hand, and the same train that had brought my love to me took away the wretched person you’d become.
Now, I want to tell you how much I loved you then and still do. How much having you in my life has meant, but those times when I’m coherent, we talk about other things, like long-term care and living wills. I just want to say these things before I’m gone completely.
You seem angry that I’m going this way, and I wonder what you’d think was a better way. Cancer? ALS? I feel like this dementia is the final tug of the ball and chain, and I’m just pulling you down slowly, and the worse I get, the crazier you get. You can go, you know. You don’t have to stay here day and night. I’ve got nurses and I’m checked out half the time, right? Chances are, I won’t know when you’re not here. If I was hooked up to chemo I might, and maybe I’d care, but not like this. I didn’t choose this, you know? I didn’t sign up for this either. It’s not just happening to you. I admit, I’ve contemplated pretending to be demented a few times…to try and convince you I’m gone in my mind for good. Then maybe you’d cut yourself some slack, go do something you want to do. Have lunch with a friend instead of hanging out here watching me sleep—maybe have some scallops down at the country club. I want you to go now and live, Caroline. I want you to go do all of those things we never did. I want you to grab what’s left of life and swallow it—the sun, the moon and stars.
~ ~ ~
CAROLINE
It’s been weeks now since you said anything that made sense, and when I search your eyes for signs you know me, there’s nothing, and I realize you’ve finally disappeared into the quicksand completely. We’ve said goodbye. We did that before you slipped away, and I suppose I should end this bedside vigil and do something like clean out the freezer or get the oil changed in the car, but I can’t. I’m not angry with you anymore, so I’m not even sure why I’m still here.
“Excuse me, ma’am?”
I turned around and the nurse is standing there with a box in her hands.
“He wanted you to have these. I think now’s a good time.”
She hands me a large shirt box and leaves the room. I open it and inside are all of these handwritten letters, numbered, with my name in various shades of blue and black ink. There’s a note on top:
Dear Caroline,
I decided that during those times you aren’t here at hospice, and my mind is my own, that I’d write down my random thoughts —not really because I think you’d like to capture any moments you
could—and this is certainly one way of doing that. I am writing
these because I want you to know things, and I want you to see
them in my handwriting so they aren’t just thoughts bouncing
around in my head, but something physical you can see. I hope that
seeing them makes the words real for you. Time changes scale, and
what once seemed big now matters very little. Likewise, in the end,
it’s the small things that mean so much. Please accept these letters
as a final small gesture.
I love you. I’ve always loved you.
~Raymond
The box is filled with trifolded pieces of yellow legal pad and on them, words pushed together into sentences that mean something. Everything, really. Among them, this:
I know that you love yellow. That’s right, I know. But for some
reason, I’ve never been able to find anything for you in that color
that seemed pretty enough for you. I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s
because many times it is too bright or too mustard or orange. I
thought many times about a yellow diamond. Now, I wish I’d
gotten one for you. I regret that. I think I thought you liked
amethyst, but I realize now that you didn’t particularly care for it. paid attention. I knew. And I know you hate scallops and that you
ate them because I always wanted to split the seafood dinner
special at the country club. I also know you love the opera and
dinner al fresco in the fall. At times, I was selfish, and I wanted
what I wanted. But please know that I knew your heart like my
own. Always know that.
My hands tremble as I read the letter, and the blue ink runs with my tears, falling off the edges of the pages. He had been here. He had been “on,” as the nurses often said to indicate he was lucid. He had been here--present—while I was off checking the mail. I cursed myself for missing those moments. I could’ve said so many things. I’d wanted to say so much. Now, he’s had the last words, and I feel sad and angry and betrayed. I had things I’d wanted to say, too. Things I’d waited to say.
