The first time my wife asked whether I would forgive her, I assumed she was frightened of dying. I had no idea she was asking forgiveness for something that had already shaped nearly every year of my adult life.<\/p>\n
Carol lay propped against two hospital pillows, so diminished beneath the blankets that I kept noticing the empty space around her. An oxygen tube curved beneath her nose. The monitor beside the bed marked each heartbeat with a soft electronic pulse, and a pump clicked whenever another measured dose of medication entered the line in her arm.<\/p>\n
Outside the window, rain had begun gathering against the glass. I watched two drops join and slide downward because looking at the weather was easier than looking at the woman I had loved for thirty-six years and admitting that the doctors had run out of things to try.<\/p>\n
Carol noticed anyway. She always noticed when I was hiding inside some ordinary detail. \u201cWalter.\u201d<\/p>\n
I turned immediately. \u201cRight here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve been staring at that window for ten minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFive, maybe.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTen.\u201d Her voice was thin, but the old certainty was still there. \u201cYou were never any good at pretending not to worry.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat makes two of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
One corner of her mouth lifted. Even that small movement cost her something. She closed her eyes until the pain passed, and I tightened my fingers around her hand without meaning to. Her skin felt papery and warm. The wedding band on her finger had become loose enough to turn freely.<\/p>\n
Two days earlier, Dr. Patel had asked me to step into the hallway. He had used gentle words because doctors learn to put cushions around terrible facts. The cancer had spread beyond anything treatment could meaningfully control. Further intervention would exhaust Carol without buying her useful time. His recommendation was comfort.<\/p>\n
I had nodded as though we were discussing a plumbing repair. Then I had walked to the family restroom at the end of the corridor, locked the door, gripped the sink, and stared at my own face until I could trust myself to return to her room.<\/p>\n
Carol had known before I told her.<\/p>\n
She had spent thirty-six years reading my silences.<\/p>\n
Now she looked past me toward the chair where I had draped my jacket. \u201cYou should go home tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWalter.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou haven\u2019t slept properly in three days.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had worse weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen?\u201d<\/p>\n
I thought about it. \u201cThe year Rebecca learned to drive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carol gave a breathless laugh. \u201cYou followed her in your truck.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was sixteen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was going six blocks.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe ran a stop sign on the third block.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe rolled through it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRevisionist history.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her smile lingered, and for half a minute the hospital room seemed less cruel. We were back in our kitchen on Maple Street, arguing about something harmless while Rebecca complained from the next room that we were embarrassing her.<\/p>\n
Our daughter was forty now, living in Columbus with a kitchen larger than the entire first floor of the house where we had raised her. She had offered repeatedly to come back to Millfield and stay at the hospital, but Carol had refused until that morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe has her own family,\u201d Carol had said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe has you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019ll come when it matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
I hadn\u2019t understood why those words bothered me.<\/p>\n
Now Carol stared at our joined hands. \u201cDo you remember Sunday mornings when Rebecca was little?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich Sunday?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pancake years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was about eight years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou made coffee strong enough to dissolve a spoon.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou put cinnamon in everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRebecca liked cinnamon.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRebecca liked pouring syrup until her plate looked flooded.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carol\u2019s expression softened. \u201cShe used to sit on the counter.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd drop eggshells into the batter.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou always fished them out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI usually found most of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou never complained.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI complained constantly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot to her.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was true. Rebecca had been the center of our life from the moment we brought her home. Carol had told me early in our relationship that she couldn\u2019t have children. I had already imagined one future collapsing by then, so I accepted the news more easily than she expected.<\/p>\n
A year later, she brought up adoption.<\/p>\n
I could still remember her standing at our kitchen sink, sleeves rolled above her elbows, telling me there was a little girl who needed parents more urgently than we needed biology.<\/p>\n
Rebecca entered our lives soon afterward.<\/p>\n
Marriage followed.<\/p>\n
Everything had seemed, at the time, almost providential.<\/p>\n
Carol looked toward the window. \u201cPeople always said she looked like me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey did.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were being kind.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought so.\u201d<\/p>\n
She glanced at me.<\/p>\n
I smiled. \u201cYou want me to lie now?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. Not now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Something in her tone changed the air between us.<\/p>\n
I waited.<\/p>\n
She looked down at her hands again. \u201cShe did have my smile, though.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe learned that from watching you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd my stubbornness.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was definitely yours.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did she get from you?\u201d<\/p>\n
I thought of Rebecca\u2019s patience, her habit of rubbing the bridge of her nose when angry, her ability to repair almost anything once she understood how it worked.<\/p>\n
\u201cBad knees,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
Carol didn\u2019t laugh.<\/p>\n
I continued, trying to pull her back toward familiar ground. \u201cAnd maybe her green eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her fingers stiffened inside mine.<\/p>\n
It was slight, but I felt it.<\/p>\n
Rebecca\u2019s eyes had always been unusual in our family: clear green with a narrow amber ring around the pupils. People noticed them. My own eyes were hazel, though they had been greener when I was younger.<\/p>\n
Carol turned her head toward the window.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose eyes,\u201d she murmured. \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before I could ask what she meant, she said, \u201cYour mother would have loved seeing her now.\u201d<\/p>\n
That surprised me more.<\/p>\n
My mother, Ruth, had been dead for ten years. In Millfield, people still spoke of her with the respectful affection reserved for women who had baked for every church fundraiser, sat with dying neighbors, organized school clothing drives, and somehow remembered every child\u2019s birthday.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019d have bragged about Rebecca to strangers,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
Carol swallowed.<\/p>\n
I felt her grip tighten.<\/p>\n
\u201cWalt?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWas I a good wife?\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared at her.<\/p>\n
Of all the questions I expected from a woman approaching the end of her life, that was nowhere on the list.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat kind of question is that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnswer it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou gave me thirty-six years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat isn\u2019t an answer.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou gave me a family. You stayed when I was impossible to live with. You made every house we lived in feel like ours. You raised Rebecca with more patience than I knew a person could have.\u201d My throat tightened, but I forced the words through. \u201cYes, Carol. You were a good wife.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her eyes filled.<\/p>\n
I leaned closer. \u201cWhy are you asking me this?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause I need something from you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cName it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. Promise first.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCarol\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was urgency in her face now. Not confusion. Not medication. She was completely lucid.<\/p>\n
I rubbed my thumb over her knuckles. \u201cAll right.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPromise me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI promise.\u201d<\/p>\n
She closed her eyes.<\/p>\n
For several seconds, the only sounds were the rain and the small mechanical noises around her bed.<\/p>\n
Then she opened them again.<\/p>\n
\u201cFind Anna.\u201d<\/p>\n
I thought I had misunderstood her.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnna.\u201d<\/p>\n
The room seemed to contract around the name.<\/p>\n
I had not spoken it aloud in years.<\/p>\n
Maybe decades.<\/p>\n
Carol watched recognition arrive on my face.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know who I mean.\u201d<\/p>\n
I released her hand without intending to.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are you talking about Anna?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFind her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCarol, I haven\u2019t seen Anna since 1985.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know?\u201d<\/p>\n
Her eyes closed again.<\/p>\n
The sensation that passed through me was not jealousy, exactly. It was stranger than that. Carol had never been threatened by the existence of a woman I had loved before her. She had known there had been someone. She knew Anna had broken my heart. But Anna had belonged to a life I almost never discussed.<\/p>\n
I leaned toward the bed. \u201cWhy her?\u201d<\/p>\n
Carol\u2019s lips trembled.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll understand when you find her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUnderstand what?\u201d<\/p>\n
She turned her face away.<\/p>\n
\u201cCarol.\u201d<\/p>\n
No response.<\/p>\n
I stood. \u201cLook at me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her eyes opened reluctantly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat am I supposed to understand?\u201d<\/p>\n
Tears slipped into the creases beside her nose.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething I should have told you years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
My pulse began striking hard in my neck.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just told me to go find a woman I haven\u2019t seen in forty years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen tell me why.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I say it, I\u2019ll say it wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat could possibly be wrong enough that you need Anna to explain it?\u201d<\/p>\n
Carol lifted her hand toward me. I took it automatically.<\/p>\n
She whispered, \u201cPlease forgive me in advance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The nurse entered a moment later to check Carol\u2019s medication, and I moved aside because I no longer trusted my face.<\/p>\n
From the doorway, I watched my wife close her eyes.<\/p>\n
The woman I had trusted more completely than anyone alive had just opened a door onto forty years of my past and refused to tell me what stood behind it.<\/p>\n
And for the first time since the doctors told me Carol was dying, grief was no longer the only thing I felt.<\/p>\n
The first time my wife asked whether I would forgive her, I assumed she was frightened of dying. I had no idea she was asking forgiveness for something that had … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21961"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22004,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21961\/revisions\/22004"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}