More Stories from the Twilight Zone (16 page)

“Oh, I hope so, honey. I surely do hope so, but he's not so good.”

“I'll be there.”

Irma replaced the telephone and listened to the resulting silence, absolute at first and then, slowly, giving way to house sounds—boards settling, the wind outside, the occasional clank of the heating system. It was all familiar and yet, with the absence of her husband's movements around the place, it was completely alien.

She went back down the hallway and gently eased open the door to the bedroom she had shared with Boz these past thirty-six years or so. He was still there—
where would he have gone for goodness' sakes?
—but only just, a mere shape beneath the bedclothes, made eerie by the dim nightlight on the bedside table, his chest rising and falling very slowly and with apparent difficulty. She moved silently across the room and sat down on the bed beside him, took one of Boz's thin hands between hers, and watched his face.

“Irma?” he croaked without opening his eyes.

“I'm here, honey. I'm right here.”

“Irma . . . I feel pretty rough.”

“I know, honey. You must rest, save your energy.”

Boz opened his eyes and looked straight ahead, past Irma, at the covered shelving and rails that contained all their sweaters and coats, pants and shirts, a lifetime of clothing and shoes.
Half of that will have to go,
Irma thought, following Boz's line of vision.
Oh, dear Lord, give me the stren—

He turned toward her and, when she saw his milky, watery eyes, Irma let out a small gasp.

“Irma . . .”

“I'm here, dear,” she said.

“Irma, you have . . . you have to be strong.”

“I know, honey. I will be. You be strong, too.”

Was that a laugh he gave or just a cough? Irma couldn't tell anymore.

“Irma, I'm going to be going soon and—”

“Hush, please hush, saying those—”

Boz shook his head. “Shhh. Let me finish. I always wanted to go traveling,” he said, his voice soft like unfurling parchment, “and now I'm going to get the chance. After all these years . . .” He coughed again and Irma wiped his mouth with a paper tissue.

“After all these years I'm going to visit all those places we wanted to visit together. Think of me there,” he said.

“I will,” Irma promised. “I'll think of you.”

“Just pret—” He closed his eyes and gave another little shake of his head. “Just
think,
” he continued, “that I'm away from home, seeing wonderful sights and . . . and missing you.” He turned to her. “I
will
miss you, sweetie,” he said.

“And I'll miss you, too,” she said.

He nodded and closed his eyes. After one long, wheezy breath, Boz's chest was still.

“Honey?” Irma said, even though she knew, deep down, that her husband was now too far away to hear her. Even so, she said it again. And then once more. After a while, she just sat with him, holding his hand, reminding him of all their times together and telling him how much she loved him.

 

The funeral was held on a rainy Wednesday in November.

James held tightly onto his mother's arm all through the service, with Nicola standing on her other side, watching Irma carefully throughout the hymns and the sermon. At the end, to the strains of a Glenn Miller tune, they trooped out into the graveyard for the internment.

Irma hadn't realized how well-thought-of her husband truly was. They had kept themselves pretty much to themselves all through their married life and yet here were lots of people—people Irma wasn't entirely sure she had ever met—standing out in the driving drizzle to celebrate her husband's life and to mourn, with her, his passing.

“Who
are
all these folks, Mom?” Nicola whispered.

Irma shook her head, her eyes locked onto just one figure standing almost directly across from her, above the open grave beneath Boz's coffin: Phil Defantino. She had not mentioned Phil's stream of visits to either of the children and now, seeing him acknowledge her with the faintest nod of his head, she wondered why.

James's hand grasped her arm and she turned her head just as the coffin began lowering.

On the way back to the car, Irma stopped and talked to many of the mourners. Everyone said pretty much the same thing, which wasn't much at all. But what could you say? He was gone and that was it. Phil Defantino was different, though. Phil took Irma in his arms and hugged her close to him. “Anything you ever want, Irma, no matter what it is, you only have to call me. Okay?”

She nodded. “Thanks, Phil.” They stood looking at each other for a few seconds before James helped his mother into the waiting car. She kept her eyes closed all the way home, praying to her heart to stop beating. But it didn't. Nothing was that easy.

Having made arrangements for Angie and Jim to look after their respective children, James and Nicola had decided to stay on at the house, though the first day after the funeral, Thanksgiving, was a baptism of fire. “If I can make it through today,” Irma said when Nicola brought her a cup of Earl Gray tea in bed, her voice tired and her eyes bagged from crying all night, “then I can make it through any day.”

Nicola made a wonderful turkey dinner with all the trimmings
and the three of them spent the day looking through old photo albums, listening to music, and crying like babies. When Irma finally made it into bed, she was so completely exhausted that she even refused one of the sleeping tablets prescribed by Jack Fredricks.

As soon as she closed her eyes, she dreamed of Boz, and when she woke up the following morning, with shafts of watery sunlight angling through the gap between the curtains, it was like losing him all over again.

“Okay,” James announced as he plopped onto the side of his mother's bed, “we need to have a plan.”

“James
always
had to plan things, Mom,” Nicola observed from where she was standing, leaning against the door frame. “He won't be happy unless he has a list so you might just as well let him get on with it.”

Irma forced a brave smile and nodded.

“So, first, Dad's clothes,” James said, writing
clothes
in his notebook.

“I don't think I can—” Irma began before being startled by a thud out in the hallway. She looked up and, just for a moment, there was a girlish excitement in her eyes. But the excitement evaporated just as quickly as it had appeared when she realized it was the mailman.

“I'll get it,” Nicola said, and she backed out of the room.

“Okay, Mom, I know how you must feel, but—”

“James, you truly have absolutely no idea at all how I feel. Those are your father's clothes . . . his shirts, his pants, his favorite shoes, his—”

She stopped when Nicola reappeared at the door clutching a bundle of envelopes. Her eyes were wide and her mouth seemed to have been chiselled into an O shape.

“Nick? What is it?”

Irma frowned at her daughter. “Nicola?”

Nicola walked across the room and lifted one of the letters from the small bundle, handed it across. Irma accepted it and saw that it was not a letter at all: It was a postcard. From Venice. The picture showed the Bridge of Sighs and a gondolier guiding his craft between high stone buildings, backdropped by a sun that appeared to be sinking into the canal behind him.

Her heart beating, Irma turned the card over and gasped: The message was written by Boz—she knew his handwriting anywhere.

 

Dearest Irma,

 

it began.

“Mom?” James said, hardly daring to move.

 

Well, here I am in Venice. The trip was less traumatic than I expected. I wish you could see this place—I'll have to bring you when we meet up again. The sound of the gondoliers calling to each other—and singing! My, but they have wonderful voices. The smell is a little strong—kind of fishy—in places but the canals and the buildings—such wonderful buildings—more than make up for it. Anyway, must go. We're on a tight schedule. I'll write again soon.

All my love as always,
Boz

 

“Mom, you okay? What is it?”

“It's a postcard,” Irma said, her voice reverently hushed.

“A postcard?” Nicola moved over alongside Irma, but only managed, “Who's it—” before she saw the handwriting. “That's from Dad!”

“A postcard from Dad?” James was half tempted to add something along the lines of it must have needed one hell of a stamp, but decided against it.

“From Venice,” Irma added, checking the front of the card again before turning it over and re-reading the words.

“I don't understand,” Nicola said.

“It's some kind of sick joke,” James said as he reached for the card.

Irma shook her head. “No, it's not a joke. It's a very clever ruse on your dad's part to make me feel better. ”

And she went on to tell Nicola and James about the daily visits from Phil Defantino, mentioning the mystical briefcase, the secluded sessions in Boz's den, the fact that Phil had spent his entire life traveling to distant countries so he must have built up quite a database of contacts . . . people who, as a favor to Phil—and for such a good reason—would probably not be averse to sending a prewritten card from their home city to Irma here in the United States.

After studying it for a while, Irma said, “I'll bet this is the way it works:

“Phil organizes the card from Venice, gets it across here and brings it around for your dad to write. Then Phil takes it away and sends it back to Venice, and that same person then sticks a stamp on it and pops it into a box.”

“But the timing is so perfect,” Nicola said.

“Well, maybe Phil held onto the card until—” She paused and shrugged. “Then he sends the card and tells whoever that it's fine to send it right back.”

“ ‘I'll write again soon'? What's that mean?”

“Exactly what it says, I guess, James,” Irma said.

“You mean . . . you mean there'll be other cards?”

Irma smiled at Nicola and nodded. “I guess so. I don't know just how many, but . . . they were in there a long time every time Phil came around. And Phil came around pretty much every day until your dad got too weak.”

James watched his mother turn back to the card and read it again. “How do you feel about it, Mom?”

“I think it's pretty weird,” said Nicola, and she gave a little shudder. “It's like Dad speaking from beyond the grave.”

“That's exactly what it is,” ventured Irma, “but it certainly doesn't bother me. After all, that's what a will is, isn't it? The deceased speaking to his loved ones from beyond the grave . . . with all the statements and clauses in that will written when the deceased was still alive. This is really no different than that and, of course, it's a delightful idea.”

“Still pretty weird, if you ask me,” Nicola concluded.

But Irma was smiling. “I think it's sweet. And I think I'm ready for a cup of coffee.” She went into the TV room and placed the card on top of the television, standing it up against a bowl containing nuts and dates.

“Pride of place, huh?” James said.

Irma nodded without taking her eyes from the card. “Pride of place.”

 

When Phil Defantino called around, James answered the door.

“Hey, James,” he said, nodding awkwardly. It had started to snow outside—just a fine powder now but everyone knew that as soon as it warmed up a degree or so, they'd get it knee deep—and Phil was wearing a peaked cap like hunters wore, complete with earmuffs, a thick scarf, and mittens that made him look like he was hiding freak hands of enormous size. He was a shopping mall dummy on which some overzealous window dresser had decided to drop every piece of winter clothing in the store. James had to smile. Phil frowned at the smile and then said, “I thought I'd call around to see how your mom's doing.”

“Oh, she's fine. Thanks to that—”

“Hello, Phil,” Irma said. She moved quickly along the hallway and reached around her son to pull Phil into the house.

“I was just going to say to Mr. Defant—”

“Hey, James . . . it's Phil. You're not a kid anymore.”

James laughed. “Okay, yeah, Phil.” He turned to Irma. “I was just going to say how well—”

Irma flashed a wide-eyed stare at him and gave a single slight shake of her head. “Why don't you go make us some coffee, honey?” Then, to Phil, “You going to stay for a few minutes, yes?”

Phil nodded enthusiastically and started to pull clothing off, depositing it in a heap on the floor just inside the door.

Phil and Irma sat in the TV room for almost an hour, drinking coffee and eating cookies and generally just shooting the breeze. Phil checked to see if Irma was okay and made sure that she didn't need any money or anything and Irma said she was fine on both counts, with Irma telling him that one of his magical lost billfolds was not required. She had forgotten all about the postcard and she saw Phil notice it there on the television, but he didn't say anything so she didn't say anything either. When the snow started to fall heavily outside the window, Phil decided it was time for him to hit the homeward trail. He gave Irma a kiss on the cheek and a big bear hug—God, how she missed her man's strong arms around her!—and then, once more suitably attired, he ventured out into the elements. Irma watched him trudging along the path to his 4×4, watched the lights come on as Phil got in, and then watched the car move off. She waved energetically at the little toot on Phil's horn and closed the door. When she turned around, James was leaning against the stair banister, watching her.

“Why didn't you want me to say anything? About the card, I mean.”

“Wasn't anything to do with him.”

Irma walked past James, heading for the kitchen.