The Virtues of Oxygen (27 page)

CHAPTER 32

H
olly put on the only dress she owned with flowers on it. Even though it was February, Vivian had decreed in her will that everyone should be asked to wear spring colors and “cheerful” clothing to her memoria
l service.

She had also specified that she didn’t want a funeral with a traditiona
l casket.

“I’ve been laid out in front of this whole town for decades,” she said in her instructions to Holly, whom she had named as executor and to whom she had left her house, free and clear. The savings she had went to establish a new computer lab at the library. “I want my memorial service to be the opposite of a funeral. I want people to move, since I nev
er could.”

Holly had hired the DJ Vivian requested, and he was setting up in the high school gym, the only place in town large enough to hold the crowds expected. As per Vivian’s instructions, people were asked to donate balloons instead o
f flowers.

“How’s it going, boys?” Holly called to Connor and Marshall, who came into her room in their stiff new blue blazers and khakis. Since Vivian had not dictated what the boys should wear, Holly had decided they needed to look pr
esentable.

They were ready long before they needed to be, so all three went into the living room to wait for Racine. The room looked empty without Vivian’s gurney and iron lung taking up most of the space. Holly hadn’t had time to think about buying any furniture, with the newspaper establishing its online operation. But she would eventually. She would make their new home warm and inviting, a place the boys would be proud to bring their friends. And being there would keep them close to Vivian. They would never forget how she had cushioned th
eir fall.

Connor sat down on the small couch that used to be pushed up against the wall for Vivian’s visitors.
He sighed.

“What’s wrong, honey?” Holly said, coming over to feel his forehead. “F
eel okay?”

“Everyone’s going to look at me funny,” he said. “She could still be alive if it wasn’t for me. I still don’t understand why she asked me to unplug the
machine.”

Holly sat down on the couch and put an arm around Connor, who looked like he might cry. Marshall, to whom Vivian had left her state-of-the-art computer, parked himself at the small desk in the corner to continue saving her podcasts and files to an external hard drive so he could free up so
me memory.

“You’re wrong, sweetheart,” she said. “You were her salvation. Remember what I told you? She still had time when I came inside, but she asked me not to plug the generator back in. She thanked me, Connor. Those were her la
st words.”

Holly placed her chin on top of his head, pulling him toward her so that they fit like puzzle pieces. She felt him relax against her but realized she would have to reassure him for a whil
e longer.

The doorbell rang. It was Racine, who was dressed in a slim-cut tan suit with a pink-and-white-striped shirt underneath. Holly marveled at the fact of him standing there. The fact of them,
a couple.

“I’m early,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do with myself this
morning.”

“I know what you mean,” Holly replied. “I guess we could head over early. Are you ready,
Marshall?”

“Wait a second,” Marshall said. “She left something for y
ou, Mom.”

They all gathered around the computer screen as Marshall pointed to some files. “These are all podcasts that she made in the last few months,” he said. “But none of them have aired. And the file names all say ‘Fo
r Holly.’”

“Click on one,” Ra
cine said.

Marshall opened the first one, and they all listened, wide-eyed, as Vivian’s voice emerged from the speakers and spoke of the day she came down with polio. Holly drew in a breath so loudly that everyone turne
d to her.

“It’s her story,” she said. “What’s the date on them,
Marshall?”

“Looks like she started them in September of l
ast year.”

“That was right after the storm knocked out the power to her generator,” Holly said, remembering how terrified she was that day. She wondered, now, if Vivian had been planning her exit e
ver since.

Holly drove slowly, with Connor solemnly holding the balloons through an open window, since they wouldn’t fit inside her Subaru with everyone in the car. On the way to the high school, they drove past the gold store, which had closed, and the Dunkin’ Donuts, which was thriving, since Racine had convinced the town to allow him to put tables with umbrellas on the sidewalk. As they approached the gym, they could see dozens of cars with balloon bouquets being held outside of windows, and dozens more with so many balloons inside the car that the occupants couldn’t be seen. The gym itself looked like a carnival, full of balloons and bright colors. Bluegrass music—Vivian’s favorite—blared from the sou
nd system.

“Holly!”

She looked around and saw Henderson moving through the balloons, dressed in a dark blue suit and red tie, looking like the successful businessman he used to be. Phoebe trailed behind him, carrying a giant Mylar balloon in the shape of the letter
V
. She was wearing a white sundress with flowers on it and n
o glasses.

“Phoebe,” Holly said, putting an arm around her. “You look spe
ctacular.”

“Contacts,” Phoebe said. “They have changed
my life.”

Holly smiled at Henderson, who tugged at the cuffs of his shirt, each one in turn. He had taken a job with his ex-father-in-law, who was looking to expand his business overseas. Henderson had told Holly that he hoped to be running the show in another year, since his ex-father-in-law was being robbed blind by his staff. She had always been sure that Henderson would land on his feet, but she had been slightly surprised to see him bury his pride and join up with his ex-wife’s family. Then she saw Henderson glance tenderly at Phoebe, who was talking to her cousins and waving up at the balloon-plastered ceiling.
This
, she thought,
is why we do what we ha
ve to do
.

Desdemona, whose angular features and thin frame seemed at odds with all the balloons in the room, slipped through the crowd toward them in a floor-length, hot pink dress. Holly feared that Desdemona’s elbows might pop some of the
balloons.

“What a scene,” she said as a man came up behind her and put his arms around her t
iny waist.

Holly looked at the man behind Desdemona, wondering where she had found him. Her rap on the men in New York was that they always wanted the women they coul
dn’t have.

“Holly, Hen, this is Jerome,” Desdemona said. “He’s my podiatrist . . . or was my podiatrist. I hope you don’t mind that he came along. I was telling him about Vivian, and he wanted to pay his
respects.”

“An amazing woman,” Jerome said. “I read her obituary in the
New Yo
rk Times
.”

Holly shook Jerome’s hand and wondered how long he’d be around, since Desdemona tended to fall in and out of love like a teenager. Still, she was glad to see Desdemona at least momentarily happy and Henderson back on his throne of privilege, where he
belonged.

Holly spied Marveen arranging chairs on the platform that had been constructed to form a stage and excused herself to join her. The Sister Sisters, who were wearing their traditional black robes with Hawaiian leis, waved to her as she
walked by.

“Holly, thank God you’re here,” Marveen said. “The DJ says he doesn’t have ‘All Shook Up.’ Do you think Vivian would be upset if he played ‘Jailhouse Rock’
instead?”

“I can pretty much assure you that Vivian would not mind,” H
olly said.

Marveen began to walk away, then turned back around. “Everyone understands, you know,” she said, looking Holly directly i
n the eye.

“Do they?” She found it hard to believe. It was human nature to want to blame someone for a death that might have been
prevented.

“I told them,” she said, “that Vivian asked me to unplug the generator before I left, but I refused. She knew the storm would get worse. She knew she might have a chance to get out. She was counting on the fact that you loved her enough to let her go. That’s what I t
old them.”

Holly smiled at Marveen, who was a better friend than she sometimes gave her credit for. She unfolded the notebook paper she had in her pocket. She hated public speaking, but Vivian had asked in her extremely detailed will that Holly give h
er eulogy.

When the service began, Holly looked out over the crowd. The
Chronicle
staff was there taking photos and video. Her boys were sitting with their friends from school, and Racine was standing in the back with Darla, who gave Holly an enthusiastic thumbs-up as she caught
her eye.

After the pep band played the Notre Dame fight song, “Victory March,” which Vivian had loved ironically, Holly stepped to the podium. Her hands were damp and her stomach unsettled, but she was determined not to show her nerves. She smoothed out the paper and looked up at the expectant faces of Bertra
m Corners.

“Thank you, everyone,” she said. “We are all here today to honor a remarkable woman, Vivian Eunice
Markham.”

A murmur rippled through the crowd. She heard a few “Here, here’s” and an “Amen” from a member of
the choir.

“Truth be told, Vivian didn’t want the kind of recognition she has in her passing. She would have preferred to have led an unremarkable life like the ones that most of us have, lives in which we walk and breathe and eat and hold our children without even pausing to consider our good fortune. But Vivian was tapped by the hand of a higher power—or maybe just fate—to live a very public life, one in which she inspired all of us with her perseverance, her sense of humor, and her honesty. I’m sure many of you remember what she used to say: ‘If you can’t say something nice about someone, come here and sit nex
t to me.’”

Holly could hear Darla’s laugh above
the rest.

“For fifty-seven of her sixty-three years, Vivian survived only because a machine kept her alive. It was a machine that she both loved and despised. It was both an amazing feat of human ingenuity and an outdated piece of technology, but we all loved it, didn’t we? If it hadn’t been for Vivian’s iron lung, none of us would have had the privilege of getting to know her, of hearing her wisdom, or of seeing the cold night sky pierced with stars as we left her house after a volunte
er shift.

“Vivian changed us. Bertram Corners has its problems—empty storefronts, a depressed housing market, unemployment, no good sushi—but we came together around Vivian. We embraced her. According to her, we kept her alive, both physically and sp
iritually.

“This wasn’t a selfless act. We did it”—and Holly paused to take a long breath to stop her voice from breaking—“because we l
oved her.”

The crowd in the gym
applauded.

“According to Vivian’s wishes,” she continued, “this memorial service is a celebration without mourning. Vivian wanted whatever comes next or doesn’t come next, and she wanted us to liberate her both literally and figuratively. With that in mind, we have paper balloons outside that each contain some of Vivian’s ashes. Before the dance party in the gym, we ask everyone to file outside, where you will be split into small groups to launch the
balloons.”

Holly was one of the last to emerge into the weak February light. She found Connor, Marshall, and Racine, who were about to light the base of one of the devices, which worked like miniature hot-air balloons. All around them, one by one the balloons went aloft, floating into the morning sky. Some were red, some were pink, and some were white. Each one wobbled at first, then found its way upward, onward, drifting off into the distance until it was a speck on th
e horizon.

Holly watched as Connor steadied their balloon and waited for it to fill with warm air before letting it go. Before letting
her
go. Holly watched the sea of rising balloons, now absolutely certain that this was what Vivian had pictured and wanted for so long. Instead of grief, she felt gratitude. The hollow places in her soul felt less hollow because she had been useful to a remarkable spirit whose every breath—as forced as it was—
mattered.

ACKNO
WLEDGMENTS

I
n 2009 I read a remarkable obituary in the
New York Times
about Martha Mason, a North Carolina woman who had contracted polio at eleven and lived the rest of her life in an iron lung, dying at age seventy-one. The poignant story, written by Margalit Fox, mentioned that Martha Mason had written an autobiography. I ordered it immediately, read it over a few days, and grew even more fascinated. Martha somehow lived a long and useful life from within the confines of an eight-hundred-poun
d machine.

The Virtues of Oxygen
and the character of Vivian emerged from that true story. Though she is gone, I’d like to thank Martha Mason for her inspiration, courage, and character. My story would not exist if she had not tol
d her own.

Thanks to my editor, Lindsay Guzzardo, who also edited my first novel,
A Watershed Year
. Lindsay has the ability to coax emotion out of my writing and to identify where I’ve glossed things over or taken the easy way out. My gratitude goes out to my agent, Jessica Regel, who sold this book to Lake Union and who has been with me from the beginning. She’s a professional with a heart, and I owe
her much.

Thanks as well to agent Laura Biagi, the team at Amazon Publishing, and copy editor Marc
us Trower.

Friends and family continue to support me, and I appreciate each and every person who has listened to me talk ad nauseam about the intricacies of the publishing business. Among them are Karen O’Brien, Theresa Sullivan Barger, Adele Angle, and Marge Ruschau, who read early versions of t
his novel.

I owe a big debt of gratitude to my friend Adam Sapiro, who let me hijack one of his jokes and bend it for the purposes of my story. I’d also like to thank my former colleagues at Patch.com, who influenced how I viewed the job of covering local news. It is a noble and sometimes thankles
s calling.

Finally, I’d like to thank my family. My children—Andrew, Jenna, and Claire—have been incredibly supportive of my writing. They inspire me with their own creative endeavors. My husband, Kevin, to whom this book is dedicated, is my rock and my partner. He gives me the space to go off into my own world whenever necessary, and I love h
im for it.