The monitor beside Carol\u2019s hospital bed gave a soft electronic chirp every few seconds, steady enough that I had begun measuring time by it instead of the clock on the wall. Outside the window, rain had turned the parking lot into a blur of silver pavement and red taillights. Inside, my wife watched me with an expression I couldn\u2019t read.<\/p>\n
I had been rubbing lotion into her hands because there was nothing else I could do. The medications dried her skin, and Carol hated the feeling of cracked knuckles. After thirty-six years of marriage, you learn the small discomforts that matter to someone even when the larger suffering is beyond your reach.<\/p>\n
\u201cToo much?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
She shook her head.<\/p>\n
Her fingers were thinner than they had been a month before. Her wedding ring had become loose enough that a nurse suggested taking it home, but Carol refused.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m still married,\u201d she had said.<\/p>\n
I had laughed because she wanted me to.<\/p>\n
Now she looked toward the rain.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou remember the porch swing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe green one?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ugly green one.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou chose the paint.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI chose sage. You bought tractor green.\u201d<\/p>\n
A smile flickered over her face.<\/p>\n
I leaned closer. \u201cRebecca thought it was wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRebecca was four.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe had taste.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe insisted everything should be pink.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a sophisticated artistic period.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carol gave a breath that might have been a laugh, then closed her eyes until the pain passed.<\/p>\n
Two days earlier, her oncologist had asked me to step into the hallway. He had spoken gently and carefully, but gentleness could not improve the meaning of the words.<\/p>\n
The disease had spread.<\/p>\n
The treatment was no longer helping.<\/p>\n
We were measuring time in days rather than months.<\/p>\n
I had gone back into Carol\u2019s room pretending I had not heard a death sentence disguised as medical language. She had looked at me once and known anyway.<\/p>\n
That was Carol.<\/p>\n
She always knew when I was lying badly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWalter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her voice brought me back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCome closer.\u201d<\/p>\n
I shifted my chair until my knee touched the rail of the hospital bed.<\/p>\n
For several seconds, she simply studied me.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m trying to memorize you.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sentence hurt more than anything the doctor had said.<\/p>\n
I looked down at her hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou already know my face.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThirty-six years ought to be enough practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt isn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
I swallowed hard.<\/p>\n
Carol moved her thumb across my knuckle.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a good life, didn\u2019t we?\u201d<\/p>\n
I wanted to say we still had one. I wanted to argue with her tense, as though grammar could change what was coming.<\/p>\n
Instead I said, \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur house.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRebecca.\u201d<\/p>\n
I smiled despite myself.<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially Rebecca.\u201d<\/p>\n
The adoption had been Carol\u2019s idea originally. She had told me early in our relationship that she could not have children. I had already imagined fatherhood differently by then, but life had taught me not to demand that love arrive in the shape I expected.<\/p>\n
Then one evening, Carol had placed a brochure from an adoption agency beside my dinner plate.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you think?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
Months later, a baby girl came into our lives.<\/p>\n
Rebecca had black hair, furious lungs, and startling green eyes.<\/p>\n
The first night she slept in our house, I spent two hours standing beside her crib because I was convinced something terrible would happen if I looked away.<\/p>\n
Carol found me there at three in the morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s breathing,\u201d she whispered.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you know?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause I checked six times before you did.\u201d<\/p>\n
We had laughed quietly together.<\/p>\n
That memory was nearly four decades old now.<\/p>\n
Rebecca had children of her own.<\/p>\n
Carol turned her face toward me again.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose green eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRebecca\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n
I smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cStill the first thing people notice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carol\u2019s expression changed so slightly I might have missed it if I had not spent most of my adult life watching her.<\/p>\n
Something tightened around her mouth.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCarol.\u201d<\/p>\n
She looked away.<\/p>\n
I assumed she was thinking about our daughter growing up without her mother. Rebecca was thirty-eight, but grief makes children of all of us.<\/p>\n
I reached for the cup beside the bed and held the straw to Carol\u2019s lips.<\/p>\n
She took one sip.<\/p>\n
Then she pushed it away.<\/p>\n
\u201cWalter, was I a good wife?\u201d<\/p>\n
The question was so strange that I almost laughed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat kind of question is that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnswer it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know the answer.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease.\u201d<\/p>\n
I studied her.<\/p>\n
Fear had entered her eyes.<\/p>\n
Not fear of dying. We had spoken about that during the long nights when pretending became impossible. This was different.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou were a wonderful wife,\u201d I said. \u201cYou are a wonderful wife.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEven when I was difficult?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou reorganized my toolbox alphabetically.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou labeled the hammers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were different kinds.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou once made me drive back twelve miles because you thought you\u2019d left the coffee machine on.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI had.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was unplugged.\u201d<\/p>\n
She almost smiled again.<\/p>\n
Then tears gathered along her lower lashes.<\/p>\n
My chest tightened.<\/p>\n
\u201cCarol.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI need you to promise me something.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. Don\u2019t say it that easily.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter thirty-six years, you still think I\u2019m going to start negotiating?\u201d<\/p>\n
She closed her eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cPromise first.\u201d<\/p>\n
I tried to make my voice light. \u201cFine. I promise.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her grip tightened around my fingers.<\/p>\n
\u201cFind Anna.\u201d<\/p>\n
Everything inside me went still.<\/p>\n
The rain seemed louder.<\/p>\n
Even the monitor sounded suddenly far away.<\/p>\n
I stared at my wife.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho?\u201d<\/p>\n
Carol\u2019s eyes opened.<\/p>\n
She knew I had understood.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnna.\u201d<\/p>\n
I pulled my hand back without meaning to.<\/p>\n
There are names that remain ordinary because nothing terrible ever happens around them.<\/p>\n
Anna was not one of those names.<\/p>\n
For forty years, I had trained myself not to think about it.<\/p>\n
Anna Mercer had been twenty-two when I loved her.<\/p>\n
I had been twenty-four.<\/p>\n
We had believed we could survive anything because people that age often mistake hope for evidence.<\/p>\n
I had asked her to marry me.<\/p>\n
Then, within weeks, she had disappeared from my life.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy would you ask me that?\u201d<\/p>\n
Carol\u2019s breathing became shallow.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHave you spoken to her?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you know where she is?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen why?\u201d<\/p>\n
She stared at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll understand when you find her.\u201d<\/p>\n
My stomach turned.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat am I supposed to understand?\u201d<\/p>\n
Carol\u2019s lips trembled.<\/p>\n
I leaned closer.<\/p>\n
\u201cTell me.\u201d<\/p>\n
She whispered, \u201cForgive me in advance.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stopped breathing.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor what?\u201d<\/p>\n
She turned her face toward the window.<\/p>\n
\u201cCarol.\u201d<\/p>\n
No answer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did you do?\u201d<\/p>\n
Her eyes squeezed shut.<\/p>\n
A nurse entered a moment later, checked the monitor, then looked apologetically at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe needs to rest.\u201d<\/p>\n
I almost said no.<\/p>\n
Instead I stood beside the bed, furious at myself for feeling anger toward a dying woman.<\/p>\n
Carol reached for me.<\/p>\n
I took her hand again.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou promised,\u201d she murmured.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFind her.\u201d<\/p>\n
I bent down and kissed her forehead.<\/p>\n
It was warmer than I expected.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was the last real conversation I ever had with my wife.<\/p>\n
Three days later, Carol died shortly before sunrise.<\/p>\n
Rebecca was on one side of the bed.<\/p>\n
I was on the other.<\/p>\n
When the monitor changed from rhythm to a continuous tone, Rebecca covered her mouth and folded against me.<\/p>\n
I held our daughter while watching the woman I had shared thirty-six years with become completely still.<\/p>\n
At the funeral, people told me things about Carol I already knew.<\/p>\n
She was generous.<\/p>\n
She remembered birthdays.<\/p>\n
She cooked for neighbors who were sick.<\/p>\n
She volunteered at the church pantry.<\/p>\n
She had a way of noticing lonely people before anyone else did.<\/p>\n
I thanked everyone.<\/p>\n
I shook hands.<\/p>\n
I accepted casseroles I would never eat.<\/p>\n
Through all of it, two sentences kept circling through my mind.<\/p>\n
Find Anna.<\/p>\n
Forgive me in advance.<\/p>\n
For two weeks after the funeral, I did nothing.<\/p>\n
Carol\u2019s slippers remained beside the bed.<\/p>\n
Her coffee mug stayed in the cabinet.<\/p>\n
Her crossword puzzle lay unfinished on the kitchen table, pencil tucked diagonally across the page.<\/p>\n
I could not bring myself to move any of it.<\/p>\n
At night, I slept badly.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I dreamed about Carol.<\/p>\n
Other nights, I dreamed about a woman I had not seen since 1985.<\/p>\n
Anna and I had met during a summer economics course neither of us wanted to take.<\/p>\n
She laughed at my handwriting.<\/p>\n
I told her hers looked like a medical emergency.<\/p>\n
Our first date was coffee.<\/p>\n
Our second became dinner because neither of us wanted to leave.<\/p>\n
By autumn, everyone assumed we would marry.<\/p>\n
I assumed it too.<\/p>\n
Then I received a job offer several states away.<\/p>\n
I asked Anna to come with me.<\/p>\n
She hesitated.<\/p>\n
We argued.<\/p>\n
Two days later, I proposed properly because I thought commitment would solve whatever fear distance had created.<\/p>\n
She cried when I gave her the ring.<\/p>\n
She did not answer immediately.<\/p>\n
A week later, I received her letter.<\/p>\n
She could not go with me.<\/p>\n
She did not want me to wait.<\/p>\n
She asked me not to contact her.<\/p>\n
I had honored that request with the kind of wounded pride only a young man possesses.<\/p>\n
I moved.<\/p>\n
Months later, I met Carol.<\/p>\n
Years passed.<\/p>\n
Anna became a sealed room in my memory.<\/p>\n
Until my dying wife opened the door.<\/p>\n
One evening, I carried my laptop to the dining table.<\/p>\n
I searched Anna\u2019s name.<\/p>\n
Nothing useful.<\/p>\n
I tried her maiden name with our old college.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of results.<\/p>\n
I joined an alumni group and began sending messages to people I barely remembered.<\/p>\n
Most could not help.<\/p>\n
One former classmate answered with a name.<\/p>\n
Diane Holloway.<\/p>\n
Anna\u2019s closest friend.<\/p>\n
I found a phone number.<\/p>\n
My thumb hovered over the call button for nearly a minute.<\/p>\n
Then I pressed it.<\/p>\n
A woman answered on the fourth ring.<\/p>\n
\u201cHello?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDiane?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is Walter Miller.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silence.<\/p>\n
Not confusion.<\/p>\n
Recognition.<\/p>\n
That frightened me more.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if you remember me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her voice had turned cold.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m trying to find Anna.\u201d<\/p>\n
The line remained quiet long enough that I checked the screen to see whether the call had dropped.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy wife died.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore she died, she asked me to find Anna.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another silence.<\/p>\n
Then Diane said, \u201cI have nothing to say to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWait.\u201d<\/p>\n
The call ended.<\/p>\n
I stared at the phone.<\/p>\n
That night, I barely slept.<\/p>\n
Diane\u2019s reaction told me more than an address would have.<\/p>\n
There was a story about Anna and me that I did not know.<\/p>\n
And somewhere inside it stood my dead wife.<\/p>\n
Six days passed.<\/p>\n
On the seventh morning, my phone rang while I was standing in the kitchen.<\/p>\n
Unknown number.<\/p>\n
I answered.<\/p>\n
\u201cWalter?\u201d<\/p>\n
Diane.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI shouldn't be doing this.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDoing what?\u201d<\/p>\n
She exhaled.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnna\u2019s sister married a man from Pittsburgh years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
I gripped the counter.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs Anna there?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you have her sister\u2019s name?\u201d<\/p>\n
Another hesitation.<\/p>\n
Then Diane gave it to me.<\/p>\n
Before hanging up, she said one more thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever happens, Walter, don\u2019t assume Anna was the one who chose how things ended.\u201d<\/p>\n
The call disconnected.<\/p>\n
I remained in the kitchen with the phone pressed against my ear.<\/p>\n
For forty years, I had remembered a letter.<\/p>\n
A rejection.<\/p>\n
A woman who had decided not to build a life with me.<\/p>\n
Now, for the first time, I wondered whether the story I had carried all those years had ever been true.<\/p>\n
The monitor beside Carol\u2019s hospital bed gave a soft electronic chirp every few seconds, steady enough that I had begun measuring time by it instead of the clock on the … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24215,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24216","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\/24216","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=24216"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24251,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24216\/revisions\/24251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}