The One That Got Away (20 page)

My life in Austin is so distant, in space and in time, from my life in Virginia that it feels like it exists independent of everything that came before—except for the one time a year when I come back for the Christmas concert. John is the last real link left to those first twenty-three years. I can't process the idea that he's dying; he's been the most constant presence throughout my life, aging slowly, almost imperceptibly, solid and immutable as Stonehenge. I cannot bear to imagine what my life would—will—feel like with him gone.

What if I don't get there in time to say goodbye? The doctor said he had a few days, but what if he gets suddenly worse? At one point my mother's doctor thought she'd have six months left; she was gone in less than three. I clutch my armrests and breathe in and out, willing myself to stay calm.

Just before I switch my phone off for the flight, I get a text from Eamon.
Don't worry: he'll wait for you
. I concentrate hard on that thought, willing it to be true, as the ground drops and the plane soars into the air.

When I arrive in Roanoke, the airport is still and empty, the only signs of life a janitor vacuuming the carpet and the groggy-eyed attendant who gives me my rental car. As I pull onto the highway I crack the window so the rush of cold night air will keep me awake, then I call Eamon, as I promised I would. I don't even have the heart to return the contrite, frantic message Noah left me while I was on the plane; it's Eamon's voice I want to hear.

He answers right away. “Hey. Are you there?”

“Yeah. I'm here.”

“Any update?”

“When I talked to my stepsister at the layover, she said he was about the same; he's been sleeping a lot but he's had moments of being awake and fairly lucid. So that's good. I'm going to crash in Salem where the V.A. hospital is, and head there first thing tomorrow. They wouldn't let me in to see him tonight.”

“Well, it sounds like it's good news overall, though. I'm glad.”

“Yeah, me too.” I'm quiet for a moment. “Eamon…” Between the late hour and the memory of his kindness, my voice sounds like a caress, even to my own ears.

“Yeah?” I can tell he hears it too.

“Thank you for today.”

“You're welcome.” There's a long pause. “I wish I could be there with you.”

I didn't realize how much I was wishing the same thing until he says it. I open my mouth to tell him so, but just exhale a sigh. Whatever this is between us, it frightens me. I feel like a skittish cat, inching closer to some unknown shadow and then timidly shying away.

“Thanks,” I say finally, and then say good night.

Later, in the hotel bed, I lie stiffly on my back, desperately pushing back sleep. I have the impulse to pray, but knowing John's opinion of those who only bother to talk to God in moments of direst need, I don't. Instead I just listen to the bluegrass music he loves so much, humming along with the melodies as if hearing my own voice in the darkness will make me feel less alone. As if the presence of the music in my ears will somehow, somehow buoy him up from a few miles away. I fall asleep with mandolin and steel guitar notes coursing through my veins.

There's a relentless noise drilling into my sleep, buzzing again and again and again. My phone alarm. I swat it without opening my eyes, but after a minute, it rings again. Then my heart crashes against my ribs and my eyes snap open. It's still black inside the hotel room; this is not my alarm. It's a call.

And I know what it means.

When I pick up, Janet is sobbing so hard that she can't speak.

Without a word, I hang up the phone. I drag on my jeans and the thick wool jacket I only ever need in Virginia, and white-knuckle my way to the hospital. The vapor of my breath catches the streetlights as I hurry inside from the parking lot. The woman at the front desk does not want to let me in, as it is still only 6:08 A.M., and visiting hours must be maintained at all costs.

“Please,” I say to her. “I won't disturb anyone. Please let me see him.”

She heaves a sigh and jerks her head to the left. “Room 216.”

Navigating the tunnel-like fluorescent corridors with their linoleum flooring and vague medicinal smell prompts long-buried memories of my mother's illness, but I choke them down and focus on finding John's room. When I walk in, Janet is slumped like a sandbag in a chair next to his bed, holding his hand between hers. Her face is raw and swollen with tears.

My eyes scrape over to him, large and unmoving in the hospital bed. I know, I know, and yet, I can't help looking for the rise and fall of his chest. But the sheets are still.

“What happened?” My voice is an ugly croak in the silence. “I thought you said he was doing a little better.”

“He was,” she says.

“Then what happened?” I ask.

She gives a defeated little flutter of her hand. “He was just asleep…and then he was gone. The doctor said something about the bleeding, and brain function, and…I don't know. I don't know,” she repeats. “They were sure he would last another couple of days.”

“When?” I whisper.

“Just an hour ago. Maybe less. I didn't even know what time it was until I went to call you.”

“Did he wake up at all?” I ask, and she shakes her head.

“But yesterday, every time he woke up, I told him you loved him, and you were on your way. He knew you were coming as fast as you could. I guess he just couldn't”—she struggles past tears—“he couldn't hold on.”

I want to ask her something. I don't know what I want the answer to be, but I have to ask her anyway. “Did he…did he mention my mother at all?”

She gnaws at the side of her lower lip, not taking her eyes off
her lap. “Well…no. But you have to understand, Sarina,” she continues in a rush, “it was so hard for him to speak at all.”

I swallow. Death is not the way they show it in the movies, with the dying person holding on just long enough for one last embrace, some final words of love or absolution.

“So, uh…the nurse told me they need to have the room back,” she says. “Would you like me to leave you alone with him for a little while?”

I nod dumbly. I still can't believe this is a question she is asking, that I have to answer. I do not understand how this room, this night, this emptiness, has become a part of my life.

She leans over, presses a kiss to his hand, and wobbles to her feet. She looks at him again, face crumpling, then wipes her hand across her eyes. “Okay,” she whispers. “I'll be down in the cafeteria. Come find me when you're ready.”

I've never been any good at clearing my mind, the way you're supposed to do for meditation. During my short-lived experiment with yoga (Noah's idea), I would lie on the mat at the end of the class, when you're supposed to be feeling all serene and purified, and my mind would still be racing a million miles an hour, thinking about work, my friends, a student loan bill I had forgotten to mail. But sitting there with John, in that dim, airless room, my brain quiets down until all I am thinking about is what I want to say to him. I don't actually say it, because I don't want to hear the sound of my voice wavering in the empty air; I just close my eyes and, holding his hand, I think it.

I tell him what a wonderful parent he was, and how badly I'm going to miss him. I thank him for giving me my craft, my sense of humor, my love of music, my stubbornness. I thank him for coming into my mother's and my life, giving us love that we didn't
even know we needed—in particular, her. Sweet, free-spirited Leigh, who gave her heart to the wrong person at twenty-two, and never expected to find love after that, especially with a young kid in the picture. I thank him for giving her twelve years of happiness, for taking care of her all through her illness, for loving her like gold. For loving me like sunlight. I tell him I love him, again and again, and again.

And then I say it out loud, after all. Wherever my silent thought might be going isn't enough; I need more. With my voice, I tell John I love him, and I imagine the sound waves blossoming out from my throat, shivering through the air, bouncing against the walls and the window, and beyond. Clear and strong, vibrating out to wherever he is. As if maybe he hasn't gone too far yet, and maybe, just maybe, I can still catch him.

There's a tentative knock at the door. A young orderly with bushy red hair pokes his head into the room.

“Miss? I'm so sorry to disturb you, but we're going to need to get the room ready for another patient. We have a lounge down the hallway, if you'd like…”

I shake my head. I fight against gravity to stand, pushing my feet down onto the floor. I kiss John's raspy cheek, feeling his whiskers scratch my lips. For the last time.

On a chair in the corner of the room are John's things—personal effects, I believe they call them in situations such as these. The paint-stained jeans he always referred to as dungarees, and one of his favorite wool plaid work shirts. They are folded into a perfectly symmetrical square: Janet must have been desperate to impose order on the one thing in the room she could control.

I gather the shirt in my hands and press it to my face. His scent envelops me: sawdust, gasoline, cinnamon. I try to summon the embrace of his arms around me, but there's only the stagnant
air and a brief stutter from the gray overhead light. “I love you with all my heart,” I whisper. Then, without looking back at him, I scoop up my jacket and walk out of the room.

Janet is waiting for me in the cafeteria so we can discuss “the arrangements.” Even though she's only twelve years older than I am, for some reason it strikes me how much she embodies the Everymom—the kind creases at the corners of her eyes, the soft padding of never-lost-the-baby-weight around her midsection. There is even something vaguely reassuring about her optimistically hair-sprayed bangs and limp spiral perm.

She steps toward me uncertainly. She is comfortable to hug.

I hear her sniff once, deeply. “Okay, let's get this over with,” she says, and leads the way to a small table by the window.

She draws a large, rumpled manila envelope from her mom handbag and sets it on the Formica tabletop between us. The word “Dad” is written on the upper right corner in her round cursive. From it she pulls a page titled “In case of death,” which I find bleakly amusing—it sounds as if death is something that may possibly, but only under certain circumstances, come to pass. The necessities are quickly dispensed with: not being a spiritual man, John had explicitly requested a cremation without a funeral or service. Janet and I agree to organize a wake for him at the Country Store, where his bluegrass band performed every Friday night. I offer to call the Pickers to come and play, and she smiles.

“Yeah, I know he'd like that.”

She clears her throat before reaching again into her manila envelope. “Um, he's made the will pretty straightforward.” She worries her lip briefly before continuing. “He's just split his savings and investments between the two of us. He named me executor—
I'm sure because it will be easier for me to do from a couple of hours away, as opposed to you—so I'll take care of getting all of that sorted out. I'll send you copies of everything.”

I wave my hand dismissively. I may not be close to Janet, but she is honest to the bone; even without seeing any paperwork I know she will give me my share down to the penny.

She digs at the kinks at the base of her neck with one hand and continues without taking her eyes off her papers. “Also, he's left you pretty much everything
in
the house, it looks like. I mean, it was your house.
Is
your house.” She is clearly desperate for me to understand that she doesn't resent this, but she would have no reason to; nothing in that house is valuable, and almost all of it dates from his life with my mother, by which time Janet was already living out on her own. The only things I imagine she'd want would be his photo albums, keepsakes, sketchbooks. I'll set aside half of all of those things to give to her.

“Well, let's divvy up his things between us. And let me know if you see any other stuff that you want. I don't know what the hell I'm going to do with it all,” I say. “Donate it, I guess.”

“He wasn't much of a pack rat,” she says. Visibly adjusting to speaking of him as part of the past. Something that was, but isn't anymore.

“No, but my mother was, and he never threw out a single thing of hers.” They are both in the past now.

She looks up at me. “Would you like a hand? With all the sorting and packing?”

I open my mouth to say no—a lifelong habit of trying not to be a bother—but instead I say yes. I would love that. And thank you.

She squeezes my forearm. “I thought maybe you would.”

“But don't you have to get home to the boys?”

“Hal is with them. I'll have to get back to work after a few days, but I can stay for a while and make some headway on it.”

I am unprepared for her kindness. “Thank you, Janet. I really appreciate that. And please, keep anything you want to. Truly.”

“Well, let's figure out what else there is to do, and get the heck out of here.” Her smile transforms her face into something beautiful and familiar. She is
John's daughter
. From now on, that is always going to matter more than it ever has before.

For the rest of the morning, we do easy things that make sense. While Janet drives to Walmart to pick up moving boxes and packing materials, I call the Country Store to arrange for the wake in four days' time. I call the real estate agent that Janet recommended, to find out what I need to do to list the house, which has technically belonged to me since my mother died. Then I call John's friends. As I explain, over and over, what has happened, I can hear my Appalachian accent, which has faded somewhat with time and distance, slipping back into my voice like dye into water. For the next few days, I'm no longer an architect from Austin, I'm just John Kurzweil's stepdaughter. Leigh Mahler's girl. At some point, Noah calls. Then Eamon, half an hour later. I send both of them to voice mail.

Eventually, I can't put it off any longer—I have to go to the house. Janet has been there since noon, setting up zones for all the stuff: my keepers, her keepers, donations, and garbage. As soon as I leave behind the strip malls and stoplights of Roanoke for the winding road down to Floyd, the sight of those sweeping green hillsides is like a fist inside my chest, tugging at the sinews holding my heart and lungs in place. John had asked me to come back here and visit him, so many times. And for every single one of them I had an excuse. I know he understood that it hurt me to be here, but I could have done it, for his sake. I should have done it.
The knowledge that I didn't burns through me like battery acid. I can't imagine a time when I will ever forgive myself for that.