Souvenir (37 page)

Sixty-three

F
ROM HER NOTE ON THE KITCHEN TABLE
, C
ARSON KNEW THAT WHEREVER
he found Meg, it would be long past too late to call 911. He did call, though, after Shep led him out to the lake and he saw her there. He called them first, then swam out to find her cool and lifeless, but open-eyed and with a soft smile on her face. “God, Meg,” he whispered. His body shook as if a fault line had collapsed inside him.

He pulled her to shore. He should have suspected she would do something like this. In her entire life, had she ever inconvenienced anyone on her own behalf?
She
was the caregiver; she was the one making sure things got done right. What she had done here was fitting—heroic, really. Like her note said, this way her wishes could not be mistaken or ignored. Even by him. Because God knew—and so did Meg—that if he’d been given a choice, he would not have been able to let her go. Not yet.

He dropped to his knees and held her there, sobbing, inconsolable, until the paramedics arrived.

“There now,” a uniformed young woman said soothingly, unclasping Carson’s arms. “There, let us give you a hand.” A quick confirmation of what he’d said—that it was surely too late to save her—and a few questions followed; then they laid Meg on a stretcher as carefully as if she could break and carried her solemnly toward the house.

An hour or so later, after the EMS and police confirmed Meg’s “accidental” drowning, he watched in silence while a pair of kind men from the funeral home took her away. The morning—was it only eight fifteen?—was blindingly empty as he went back to the shed to make the other calls.

She’d left careful instructions for him, including the details she thought might go into her obit, and an essay she’d written a month earlier on the fundamental human right to control one’s own death—and a physician’s obligation to enable that right. Her letter said she thought the local paper might want to run it, but he would do better, get it into the national media if he could.

Along with all of that, bound by a rubber band beneath which she’d tucked the photos they’d taken at the concert, was the journal she was making for Savannah. He studied the photos, then turned them over.
For Carson,
she’d written.
To remember.

With trembling hands he dialed Spencer, then Kara, who Meg had specified as second on the list. He hardly knew what he said to them, working on autopilot, guided by Meg’s instructions. As predicted, Kara tearfully volunteered to call Brian, Julianne, Beth—and Savannah—and so now he sat, face in his hands, the envelope from the lab sitting in his lap.

His trepidation in opening it was at least as great as Meg’s must have been. Was Savannah his daughter? What a terrifying, amazing possibility. He’d wondered about it sixteen years back, when his mother told him she’d seen the birth announcement in the paper. Wondered—and wished—only for a few days, deciding that Meg had done exactly the opposite of what she did: he figured she had made sure
not
to get pregnant by him, so that she would have a child who was unequivocally Hamilton’s heir. She had fooled him, had been as careful not to reveal her plan that day as she’d been this week. Fooled him for his own good. Protected him—protected
all
of them, more like. In the end, though, she had made sure he could know the whole truth, both times. In the end, she’d done it all for love.

He set the letter aside and spent the day on the chaise, ice tea at hand, reading the journal. Meg’s letter gave him permission to read it if he liked, asking only that he make sure it got to Savannah directly, not through Brian or even Beth. That she’d thought of all these details, that she’d trusted him so well, made him cry, made him ache with longing to have her back. To say,
You amaze me.
To say,
Thank you.

H
ER LAST ENTRY TO
S
AVANNAH, WHICH HE CAME TO LATE IN THE AFTERNOON
, was difficult to read. The writing was pinched and wobbly; it had obviously cost both heart and hand a lot of effort. It read:

Dearest daughter,

This will be my good-bye.

I suppose this entire journal sounds like a commencement speech combined with a wedding toast—I’m sorry about that. That’s my job, though, to impart the wisdom of my years to you as you move, now, into this next major phase of your life: the time after Mom. God willing, it will be a long and wonder-filled time for you.

When you were very small, you used to ask me questions about everything that caught your attention. Why are toads bumpy? What makes flamingos’ knees bend backward? Why don’t my shoes grow when I water them? Always you wanted the answers, and I tried to give them. The best part of my day was my time with you, even if that time was a few minutes of sleepy questions before you fell asleep.

Once, you asked why, if scientists could tell from ninety-three million miles away what the sun was made of and how hot it burned, they couldn’t figure out for sure what happens after we die. I didn’t have a good answer for that. Death seems so simple, doesn’t it? It is, after all, tied with birth for the most regularly occurring experience we living things have. I quoted Peter Pan to you: “To die would be my greatest adventure.” You said that maybe scientists actually had figured it out—but hadn’t figured out, yet, how to come back and tell everybody what they learned.

You’ll ask, now, why I didn’t stick around as long as my disease would allow; I’m a doctor, after all, sworn to uphold life—my own included, you might argue. Already you’ve read in here my views about becoming a prisoner of my disease, and how I couldn’t stand to put you through the torture of watching me decline. Though my choice to stop here might feel premature to you, I absolutely believe it’s the most merciful option. I can’t imagine anything worse than the shared helplessness we all would feel as I died a slow death before your eyes.

This is a terrible thing that has happened to us, no question. When my disease was diagnosed, I thought of how awful my options were. How should I choose to die? It reminded me of those unfortunate people stranded in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, making the choice whether to die by fire or by fall. Terrible situations, horrifying choices—and yet there is a strange sort of freedom, a strange sort of honor, in choosing.

Last point: for most of my life, I kept my best memories, my truest feelings, locked up so they couldn’t knock down the façade I’d built. A very pretty façade, a respectable one, but a façade just the same. Almost too late I learned that happiness exists only in what’s real and true. I recovered those parts of my life these past months, and have been happier than ever before. So now it’s time to go.

Go forward, and keep my words close to your heart, for no matter where I am when you read this you will always be close to mine.

All my love,
Mom

Carson closed the journal and took off his glasses, fresh tears blurring his vision. The grove ahead of him was a wash of green spotted with orange, but he stood, put the letter from the lab in his back pocket, and walked to the lake once again.

He saw Meg everywhere: last night, limping along the path in the dark; at age six, hanging like a monkey from a tree branch; at fourteen, running ahead of him to the lake, barefoot and laughing, winning the race before he was halfway across. He would bring Savannah out here—no matter what the letter said—
if
he read it—and fill in the parts of the past Meg hadn’t had time to tell.

With his heart in his throat, he stood at the lake’s edge and carefully slit the end of the envelope with his buck knife. It wasn’t too late, he thought as he drew out two pages, to drop them into the water, and no one, including him, the wiser. That would be the easiest thing, guaranteeing him a future with the fewest complications, expectations, obligations.

“—ations,” he said, hearing a thread of melody beginning to form in his head.

The paper seemed imbued with a power all its own, willing him to read. He took his reading glasses from his pocket and put them on. His hands trembled as he unfolded the report and scanned its businesslike introductory paragraphs. Technical speak, explaining statistical probability, acceptable ranges. What did it add up to, though?

Shep came by and nosed him. Carson patted him distractedly, forehead furrowed—and then, he smiled.

Epilogue

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:

Out of a misty dream

Our path emerges for awhile, then closes

Within a dream.

—E
RNEST
D
OWSON

New Year’s Eve, 2006

J
OHNNY
S
IMMONS STOOD ONSTAGE, HIS ARM AROUND
C
ARSON’S SHOULDERS
, a capacity crowd of nearly a thousand eager fans watching them. Savannah stood just offstage, braiding and unbraiding a length of hair. It was hard for her to breathe.

“…liked it so well here, he thought he’d stick around and hassle us on a regular basis,” Johnny was saying. “Think we can stand to have him here a few times a year?”

The crowd roared their approval.

“Have it your way,” Johnny said, then he backed out of the spotlight and joined Savannah in the wings.

Carson, casual as always in blue jeans, had added a black vest over a T-shirt for the occasion. He took the microphone from the stand and said, “Thanks for being here to usher in the New Year with us! You know, I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate either!”

Whistles and cheers.

“I managed to convince the band that central Florida’s not such an awful place to winter, so we’ve been soaking up some rays and working on some new stuff for you all. Even Gene, our manager, hasn’t heard it yet,” he said, shading his eyes so he could look down into the front row. Gene gave him a thumbs-up.

Johnny put his arm around Savannah. “Ready?” he said in her ear.

She didn’t trust her voice, so she just nodded.

“You’ll be great, no sweat!” he said.

Carson was going on, introducing each of the band members. She was at the end of his list; her stomach tightened, and she was glad she hadn’t been able to eat earlier.

“…a very special welcome to a guest of ours tonight, Miss Savannah Rae!”

She froze in place, and Johnny gave her a little push. There was no choice, the spotlight had her in its beam, and so she went to center stage, to Carson’s welcoming hug. She kept her eyes on Rachel and Jonathan and her Aunt Beth, who shared Gene’s table. Her practiced smile felt glued on her face. She
looked
good, at least, wearing jeans like Carson, and a lime green shirt that had a smiley face done in silver glitter.

When the crowd quieted again, Carson said, “Tonight’s Savannah’s first public performance, but she’s been playing guitar and writing songs for a good while now. The first number we’re gonna do for you is a song she and I wrote together in honor of her mom, a very close friend of mine who we lost back in June.”

He looked at her and nodded. “All set?” he whispered.

“No,” she squeaked, but she smiled and went to take her spot to the left of the piano while he settled onto the bench. She slung her guitar strap over her shoulder, waited for Carson to cue the band, and then listened to the soft piano intro, her hands poised to join.

Carson told the audience, “There’s something about the New Year that both brings back the past and sets us on a forward path, don’t you think? This song,” he said, “is called ‘Salutation.’”

The distraction that planning for this concert had brought Savannah, these past six months, was sometimes all that seemed to be tethering her to the planet. She hadn’t been ready to lose her mom, and she was angry for weeks—until Carson finally persuaded her to read the journal. He said, “I know you didn’t want this to happen, but let her explain, Savannah.” He’d been so patient with her, biding his time while she hid out at Beth’s because her dad was gone to Atlanta and London and D.C. and Boston.

And so she read the journal, read it three times over, and found her heart opening up again, like a morning glory in the rising sun. Being angry seemed selfish, when she put herself in her mom’s shoes. Some people might think
suicide
was selfish—and sometimes it was, if you were ending a life that could be healed, could be fixed. If not—well, she could see how a person could at least keep their dignity by choosing their terms.

She was proud of her mom and forgave her for not saying a final good-bye in person; that good-bye would’ve been purely impossible.

There was Savannah’s cue: she joined Carson for the next stanza, just the two of them playing and singing this part together.

Take just what you need, nothing more;

The road is long, and your shoulders are only so wide.

Take just what you need and close the door;

Every day you’ll find fresh roses and wine.

The song was their way of passing on her mom’s wisdom. When they were working on the lyrics, Carson said, “It’s like she gave us this song, don’t you think? She wrote about how, if you lock away the past, you’re denying or losing things that are worth keeping. But if you drag
too much
of your past with you, it just weighs you down.” Savannah couldn’t see it so easily at first, but after a while, things began to make sense. Even though she’d forgiven her mom, she still needed to make peace with her loss, not dwell on the past and let it sink her. She had to take charge of her own life again—she had to
live
it.

Carson had been so easy to work with—who understood her loss better than he did? And last month, when he came to see her at Aunt Beth’s—where she had her own room done in the pale colors of the seaside—and sat her down and held her hands and told her what her mom had really been up to that day he saw them outside the lab, she was almost ready for his news.

“You know what a love triangle is, right?” he’d asked.

“Are you talking about you and Mom and Dad?”

He nodded. “Only in our case, what we really have going on is a love
square
.”

“I don’t follow,” she said. Did he mean including Val, whom he said had been hurt but gracious about their breakup?

“It’s your mom, your dad, me—and you.” He showed her a letter from the lab, and what her mom had written on the envelope.

“A love square,” she echoed, taking it all in. She liked the image, all sides even.

Her dad—Brian—he was always going to be her dad; there was no changing her history—took the announcement pretty well, in public anyway. He didn’t seem to be all that surprised. She was still figuring out how to rearrange her own thinking, how to fit Carson in alongside her dad. She found herself staring at Carson all the time, looking for herself in his features and the ways he did things. It helped a lot that she
liked
him. He was a great person—moody sometimes, but then so was she. There, that was another thing they had in common.

They came to the chorus again, and she looked out past the stage lights to the adoring faces of Carson’s fans. She felt a lump in her throat, like pride; they liked her, they liked the song—she knew Carson wouldn’t let her go astray, but still, the crowd’s reception was reassuring. They were hearing the music and the words she’d helped to write,
hearing
it, responding, understanding.

The song was coming to a close, moving from its powerful middle strains to a duet of their voices and instruments once more. She leaned into the microphone, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes as she watched Carson, whose eyes looked bright with tears too, and thought of her mom. As she and Carson sang the last refrain, as she moved her fingers to the final notes of the song, she closed her eyes. The crowd erupted into cheers and applause, and she was sure that she felt her mom’s warm hands on her shoulders.

“For you,” she whispered.