The Saving Graces (32 page)

   April- - Kirby and I don't have sex anymore; it's simply not possible. But we make love. There's an Indian healing ceremony that involves foot-washing and the application to the body of scented oils. He does that for me, chanting the low, slow meditation that goes with it. He makes me feel as if my weakening, withering body is a shrine.
At night we lie together and talk about what our lives have been. We used to plan trips, but not anymore - just lately we've given up that fantasy. That conceit. I'm not greedy the way I once was, I don't ask God to let me live for five more years, or three, or two. My ambitions have dwindled. I don't want to die in winter, and not in a hospital-that's all. How diffident. God, do you see how modest I am?
I think about writing down a word, an allusion to something we've shared-I don't know what it is yet- and Kirby opening it after I'm gone, and remembering. It would be a little way of staying alive.
A surprise-there is something left when there's no more hope. Something you make up. Acceptance- believe me-has a kind of joy in it. Yes, and from there, it's not that far to celebration. I'm longing to be with my dearest friends. I'm having a very good day today- maybe tomorrow will be the same. I want to call Lee and Emma and Rudy and tell them to have the women's group meeting here tomorrow night. It's been so long. And I have a lot to say. Ha. The hardest word is goodbye, and yet I almost think I could say it. I believe I could.
What is the best I can say for myself? That I loved, and I was loved. All the rest drops away at the end. I'm content.

   28.

   Emma.

   Isabel died in her sleep sometime after midnight on the tenth of April. She had an embolus-a blood clot; it blocked an artery to her lung and killed her instantly. I hope. Kirby wasn't with her, he was sleeping - on the sofa in the living room because she'd been restless earlier and he thought she might fall asleep more easily alone.
He found her in the morning, lying on her side with her eyes closed. I like that-I think it proves she was sleeping when she passed away. He said the covers were neat and tidy, not thrown off. She looked peaceful, he said. I believe she was dreaming. A sweet dream, with all of her friends in it, all of us who loved her. And then I believe she just drifted away.
She didn't want a funeral, she didn't want to be buried. She specified in her will that after her body was cremated she wanted her son, Terry, to have the ashes, to dispose of as he saw fit.
Nobody liked this plan, especially Terry, who had no idea what was best to do with his mother's remains. We particularly hated it that there was no wake, no ceremony, no nothing. And so about three weeks after she died, I invited as many of Isabel's friends, family, and acquaintances as I could track down, and we had a memorial service for her at my house.
The place was packed. Standing room only. People spilled out into the dining room and the hall, the foyer, they sat behind the banister rails halfway up the stairs. We didn't have a minister-Isabel had belonged to most of the major religions and all the minor ones; how could we have chosen?-but we did have Kirby, and that was even better. There's something so gloomy and clerical about him, a priestlike quality that served him well as the master of ceremonies, so to speak, at Isabel's last service. I always thought there was something mysterious about Kirby, too, especially in the beginning, before I knew him. But the mystery turned out to be nothing more than that he loved Isabel with his whole heart, and that's no mystery at all.
I wish now I'd tried harder to know him while she was alive. I wish I'd been nicer to him. Not that I was ever mean, but-oh, I guess I was jealous of him. He was a stranger, an interloper. A man, We Graces don't always cotton to newcomers. But Isabel loved him very much, and I know, I really do know that that took nothing away from the love she had for the rest of us. For me. Isabel had enough love for everybody.
She had so many friends, a lot of them had to sit on the living room floor because there weren't enough chairs. I'd made coffee and put out sweet things, cookies and brownies,- a bakery cake. When the crowd thinned, I planned to break out the booze and get into more of a wake mode for the closest mourners. I thought Isabel would appreciate that.
Kirby had brought some of her favorite CDs, and when people weren't eulogizing her we listened to New Age pinging and ponging, Mozart, and Emmylou Harris. New people kept arriving and departing, as if it were an open house, which I guess it was-people from her old neighborhood, classmates and professors from school, women from her old bridge club, cancer support group people, healing circle people, meditation group friends, miscellaneous Adams-Morgan neighbors. It astonished me how many of them stood up, cleared their throats, and spoke movingly and unselfconsciously about what Isabel had meant to them.
I had a small heart stoppage when Mick walked in.
Without Sally. He maneuvered through the crowd to where I was standing, in the archway between the living and dining rooms, and he hesitated for what seemed like an hour but was really a split second before he leaned down and kissed me on the cheek. He was approximately the fiftieth person to murmur to me, "I'm so sorry," but his words I heard, his sympathy I took to my heart. I parroted, "Thank you so much for coming," and then he left me and found a place to sit on the floor across the room.
By chance, I caught Rudy's eye. She lifted one eyebrow a millimeter. It said everything.
Then she went back to listening to Mrs. Skazafava tell about Isabel's amazing green thumb, and how her little garden plot behind the building put everybody else's to shame. Grace, Isabel's dog, lay at Rudy's feet, her white muzzle draped over her instep. She's Rudy's dog now. She was supposed to be Lee's, but her arrival sent the overly refined Lettice into a decline. Meanwhile Rudy moved out of her house (I know, after all -that) and into an apartment that allowed pets, so the solution was obvious. It's a good fit, too, Rudy and Grace. For now, each gives the other exactly what she needs.
Lee cried through the whole service, beginning to end. Henry held her hand, gave her his big red handkerchief, put his arms around her, and let her sob on his shoulder. - Someone read a poem. A woman from the healing circle stood up and sang a song she'd written especially for Isabel. A cappella. And she made everybody join-in and sing it with her after teaching us the treacly chorus. I accidentally made eye contact with Rudy again. Big mistake. I had to turn my back to the room and bury my face in my hands, as if overcome with emotion. My good laugh dissolved into a good cry, and then I blew my nose and pulled myself together. - Terry had flown down from Montreal the day after Isabel died, and he hadn't gone back yet. His girlfriend, a beautiful black woman named Susan, had joined him a few days ago, and he'd brought her with him to the memorial service. I thought he might stand up and say something about his mother, but he didn't. I think he was afraid he would cry. (That's why I wasn't talking.) He'd brought an oblong mother-of-pearl box with Isabel's ashes in it, and set it on my mantel. Which sounds like it might be weird, but it wasn't. Not in the least. I'd put some lilies around the pretty box, made a little arrangement. Everybody's eyes went to it, over and over, and it looked dignified and peaceful and sweet. Like Isabel.
Gary didn't come. He sent flowers, though, and wrote a short and very nice note, which Kirby read out loud. I had no desire to see or speak to Gary ever again, but I did wonder how he was feeling about losing Isabel. I hoped he hurt. A lot. I hoped he hurt one-tenth as much as I did.
The impromptu speeches began to wind down. Kirby stood up. I'd never seen him in a suit before; he had on a dark gray one with a vest, a white shirt, no tie, and he looked good. Wasted, but good. Isabel's beauty, her facial purity, if you will, had grown more pronounced the sicker she got-and in a strange way, the same thing had happened to Kirby. Isabel's illness seared away everything in their faces except the character.
"I don't have much more to say," he said, hands behind his back in an at-ease military posture. "Isabel never despaired, even though I think she knew everything that was going to happen, right from the beginning. There was a Walt Whitman poem she liked, especially the part that went-'All goes onward and outward/Nothing collapses/And to die is different from/What anyone supposes/And luckier.' She tried to believe that, and it gave her some comfort, I know. She was very brave. Always. She hid her anguish and sadness, although I know she felt them. Because she wasn't losing only one person she loved-as we have. She was losing all of them." Kirby got his handkerchief out of his pocket and unashamedly blew his nose.
"Isabel believed death is a process, not an end. She said it was her job to hold on to life for as long and as well as she could - her karmic duty, she called it. But she also had faith that something comes after, something better. Not that she was anxious to get there," he said with a grim attempt at a smile. "She talked very openly about her fears, her grief. But her absolute faith that death isn't the end always kept her from despair. She just wished-she just wished she didn't have to go alone." He looked helpless, gazing around the room at us with watery eyes, as if he wished he hadn't ended on that note.
"Well, I want to thank you all for coming. Isabel would've been moved by all your kind wishes and your-your eloquent words. Thank you. Thank you all very much." Nobody from the Saving Graces had talked. Kirby was calling an end to the formal part of the service, and none of us had said anything about Isabel.
Lee had her mouth covered with Henry's kerchief, her head slumped on his chest. She was a hopeless mess. I sent Rudy an urgent look-Get up! Get up and say something. But she only smiled tragically and shook her head. I wanted to kill her.
"I would like to say something." My voice came out embarrassingly nasal, as if I had the world's worst cold. People who had started to get up sat back down. All the austere, expectant faces staring at me started my heart pounding.
"I just want to say-thank you, also, for coming, and thanks to Kirby for everything. And I also want to say. . How much I'll miss my friend, how much I love her, what she meant to me. How to start? My mind kept skipping back, back, looking for the beginning of what I should tell them about her.
"I should thank Lee, too-Lee Patterson-because about eleven years ago she had the idea for our women's group. The Saving Graces." On the floor at Rudy's feet, Grace heard her name and lifted her head to look at me. "That's how I first met Isabel. In fact, we had our first meeting at her house. I met you that night, too, Terry. Do you remember?" He smiled and shook his head. "You were sixteen and very surly." Laughter.
"There were five of us in the group then, but over the years we've boiled down to four. Basically. Isabel and Lee, Rudy Lloyd-Rudy Surratt now, sorry-and me. I-if I could-for me-" I stumbled again. "Ill tried to tell you what the Saving Graces have meant to me, we'd be here all day and I still wouldn't get it right. Isabel was older than the rest of us, and she was different. I don't mean because she was older, but just because she was- unique. I always felt we didn't deserve her. Me, anyway. She was the gentlest person I ever knew. Very quiet. She was a wonderful listener. She watched people, but not to judge them. She never judged anyone. I always knew she loved me. Very much." Oh, shit. I was going to screw this up by bawling.
"I think," I soldiered on, "our friendships teach us a lot, make us grow and change. The Graces taught each other so many things, like how to tolerate our differcnces. How a good marriage works. How to understand another person's spiritual. . . longings. A sillier sense of humor, maybe a-sharper sense of irony. Hugging. A hundred other things. And Isabel, she wasn't our leader exactly, but I think she was our spirit. She was behind everything good or unselfish we did. I don't know how to explain this very well, but in the very best way, Isabel -was our mother. And-I'm lost without her. I feel like an orphan." I kept talking, not looking at Lee or Rudy. I knew if I did, we'd all break down.
"I just can't believe she's gone. A thousand times since she died, I've wanted to call her up and tell her something, something only she would get, or care about, or react to just right. I've even picked up the phone and started to dial. Then I remember. Lee does it, too-she's told me. We've lost the dearest friend, the most loving, unselfish friend. 1 try to think of something good, anything to make this bearable, but I can't. She died before she was in excruciating pain-that's all I can think of. Well, okay. Thank God for that.
"Toward the end it was hard to come and visit her. I never knew what to say. Good-bye was impossible.
Because-then there's no more hope. Before you say good-bye, you can always say more, you can still fix things. Get it right. One more try. I think we live our lives like that-putting off getting it right, saying to ourselves, Maybe next time. And then, when there isn't -going to be a next time, we can't bear it.
"So I couldn't tell Isabel good-bye. I don't know if she wanted me to or not. She was so kind-she took her cues from us. I think she was dying the way she thought would be easiest for the people who loved her. That was so typical of her.
"And-she was so easy to please. At the last, after I finally accepted the fact that there was nothing I could do to change things, nothing I could do to heal her or make it go away or get better or disappear- after I really knew I was going to lose her-everything got much, much simpler. Since there was no future, everything had to be in the moment. So I could make her face light up when she first saw me. I could make her laugh at a joke. I could say, 'I love you, Isabel,' and she would smile. That's all I could do, but it seemed like enough. And really, it's all we can ever do for each other, but we live with the illusion that time is infinite, that we're all immortal and there's no need to get anything exactly right, not now, not yet. Isabel taught me a lot of lessons, but I think that one was the most important.
"Well-I'm sorry, I didn't mean this to be so therapeutic. I wanted to talk about her, not myself. But I think she's smiling right now. She's thinking, Jeez, she's not even drinking. She used to say I talked a lot when I had more than one glass of wine. Which is true. So I'll stop. And just say-I love you, Isabel, and I'll miss you so much. Rudy's taking good care of your dog, and we're all going to watch out for Terry. And Kirby-we'll take care of him, too, because he'll be lonely. And we hope you're in some wonderful place now, someplace that deserves you. And that you're at peace. And-we'll never forget you," I hung my head and whispered, "Bye, Isabel." And because that was unbearable, I added to myself, "Talk to you later." Rudy and Lee got up and hugged me. We made a sniffling, swaying tripod in the middle of the living room, and I guess that was the signal people were waiting for that the service was over.
Many of them left, but a lot stayed to eat and drink and party. That always gets me, how we can do that at wakes and such. I do it, too-I'm not saying it's wrong, just amazing. I've gone to funeral homes where the dead person is lying there in his or her coffin, and except for the immediate family-but sometimes them, too- everybody's carrying on like it's a class reunion. Well, it's just what we do, I suppose. Our primitive, cowardly way of dealing with too much grief or too close a call with death. If anybody would understand that and forgive it, it would be Isabel.
So I turned into a hostess, making drinks and passing food, thanking and thanking and thanking all the people who said it was brave of me to speak, it was good of me to host this service, it was just what Isabel would have liked. Meanwhile, I was constantly aware of Mick.
He talked to Lee and Rudy, then to Henry for a long time. Whenever I let myself look at him, he was already looking at me. It was four months since the night we broke up in my bedroom, and I hadn't seen him since, not once. Lee didn't hang out with Sally much anymore, so that source of intelligence had dried up. He looked the same. Which is to say, beautiful. Healthier than he had last winter, not so white. The godawful haircut had grown out, and it had more silver in it than before. Very attractive. I could look at him and feel weak in the knees. So-had nothing changed? Maybe it was -habit. Pavlovian mouth-watering based on nothing but conditioning. What a stupid affair we'd had anyway, pathetic, hopeless from the beginning. Quit looking at me with your brown eyes, damn you.