The Lovely Things that Heaven Holds

                    The Lovely Things that Heaven Holds

I could remember nine times when he said thank-you during our

twenty-year marriage. I counted them the day he left me when I

needed reasons to rejoice instead of despair. The last time he

thanked me was the day I had deep cleaned his study and made a

delicious feast of roast beef, scalloped potatoes and blueberry pie,

his favorite. In his study, I slammed down his books in anger at how he had let it get so bad. Thoughts of his absence and neglect consumed me while I cleaned the big window behind his desk, which looked out into the yard tall with grass and the garden overgrown with weeds, the garden which once was his pride and joy, and  I wondered why I bothered.  When he saw the clean room though, he paused to look around, a look of surprise and almost shock on his face. He thanked me in a quiet way and with a sincerity I couldn’t remember him having since our twins were finally conceived after ten-years of frustrating and humiliating infertility problems, and they were eleven years old.  My heart melted and I thought, “Maybe he’s not so bad, he’s just been working extra hard. He’s distracted and I don’t do enough for him.”  I watched him eat his dinner and thought how tired and worried he looked, his grey hair was thinning, his shoulders seemed a bit more stooped. Days later, though, I found out that as I worked to remove his cobwebs, dust and grime, he’d been proclaiming his love in word and deed to Beatrice and all of my labor couldn’t have fixed a thing.

Beatrice was David’s teaching assistant at the college where he taught Medieval Literature. During his course on Dante, they had laughed at the irony of her name. He began to do more of his work at the school office as their flirtations became more serious and less time in his study. She was twenty- years his junior. The week after he moved out he came back to pack up his study. I arrived  home earlier than expected and saw him smiling and whistling like a man in love as he leafed through the books and  put some in a box to keep and some in a box to donate.  His hair was noticeably darker and his shoulders less stooped but the fine lines around his eyes could not be denied.  

He filed for divorce and agreed, almost too easily- as if the last twenty years meant nothing, as if all he wanted was to be free-to my demands for the house, ample alimony and child support, And soon enough they were married. As I lay in my big bed alone unable to sleep- even after taking double the amount of my prescribed sleeping pills- I imagined their uninterrupted passion and happiness. I imagined David wearing a little apron and helping Bea cook dinner, mop the floors and vacuum, each taking a turn dusting while they teased each other and laughed. I imagined them snuggling on the couch reading old books hand in hand.

  When the girls came home from their visits with them I prodded them for information to confirm or negate my fantasies, but they were daddy’s girls, spoiled since the day they were born way too early, our miracle identical twins who weren’t expected to survive but who had mystified everyone with their strength and here they were, tiny, beautiful, beloved, but for reasons I could never understand, not enough to make him stay.  But all they wanted to talk about were their trips to the amusement parks, museums, swimming, the miniature golf course.

 “How was he with her?” I inquired.

 “She didn’t come with us,” Tara said. “ Dad wants time alone with us. But she had a nice dinner ready when we got home,” Tania added.

“What’s she look like? Is she prettier than me?” I imagined the beautiful Beatrice who stole Dante’s heart.

“She’s pretty.” Tara said.

“You’re the prettiest, mom,” Tania said, though I didn’t believe her for a second.

On the weekends the twins had their trips with their father, I didn’t know what to do with myself. With the alimony I was able to hire a cleaning person and a gardener, something I felt too guilty to do when we were married. I also ordered out more, which gave me free time I had no idea how to fill. David and Beatrice’s house was near the college on the other side of town in a nice suburban neighborhood with tree lined streets. The house was modest, not nearly as big as our house in the country, with the wrap around porch and the study-which I converted to a work out room-the dining room and four bedrooms, which could be reached by one of two staircases, the one from the back of the kitchen and the one from the large foyer in the front of the house. We had had many parties with David’s university friends, whom I wined and dined and played the great hostess but did I ever get a thank-you? As I drove by their house hoping to catch a glimpse of her, I wondered if Beatrice, with ambitions of pursuing her own PHD. ever threw parties?

As the years passed I found new ways to fill my time. I turned to self- improvement projects like weight loss and yoga. I had gained 45 pounds when I was pregnant with the twins at forty-years old, when metabolism starts to slow normally. I lost ten right away after the divorce I lost ten more by working out and adhering, as much as possible anyway, to a low carb diet. I still had twenty-five pounds of baby weight now,  at sixty-years old and the twins were twenty. Other than the weight loss I wasn’t too motivated by my appearance. I stopped dying my hair and wearing make-up.   I consumed myself instead with emotional healing, forgiveness workshops and therapy, all of which seemed to do me little good according to my daughters.

“’It’s time to get over it, mom,” Tara and Tania both said when they came home for summer break to find me laying on the couch in my nightgown in the middle of the day, curtains closed, a bag of Cheetos in one hand and a beer in the other.

It happened suddenly for us. One day the girls  and I were fighting over who they were going to spend Thanksgiving with and the next day Beatrice called them over, “Immediately!” David was in a hospital bed struggling to breathe. David found out he had stage four cancer when the twins were studying in London for the Spring Semester. He had a week with them during the summer, which he didn’t want to ruin with talk of sickness and death. Weeks later he was bed bound, incapacitated by pain.   With Tara, Tania and Beatrice  by his side, he thanked them for all they had done, for all they had meant to them, for the life he had given them. That if he had made them smile just once in his life his life had been worth living.

 Of course, I found out all of this later. Bitterness prohibited me from going to his side and from attending the funeral. I had sat home alone and thought they must be right, that the self-improvement I had consumed myself with for the past ten years had done me little good.

There was still the matter of Thanksgiving. I thought since their dad was gone they would no doubt spend it with me. I always made a feast to be envied. However, they felt sorry for Beatrice, she was a wreck, it was her first Thanksgiving alone and she had no family around.

“No one thought of me the first holiday after he left, “  I said.

“You had your mother then.”

“This year is my turn with you. I’ve been looking forward to it. I can’t spend another Thanksgiving alone, I just can’t.”

“We can invite her here,” Tara said, “It’s about time you two should meet.”

My beloved girls convinced me to invite Beatrice, my ex-husband’s grieving widow to Thanksgiving dinner. Well, they invited her with my blessing, though I didn’t think she’d come, there was a part of me that hoped she wouldn’t come, but also a part of me that truly wanted to meet her. Essentially we were both alone, abandoned, though in different ways, by the same man. She was a part of my children’s life for ten years, their formative years, and they had had nothing bad to say about her, despite my wanting to desperately find something.

The wine was opened early. I washed and dried my hair, applied powder, blush, eye shadow, mascara and lipstick, which left a smudge on the rim of my wine glass after the I sipped. I picked out a nice pant suit, one that de-emphasized my hips and gut, which was a little snug and might prohibit me from eating too much.  Bea arrived at the designated hour. She had on a mid-length black dress with a black poncho over it. Her long, straight, dirty blond hair was slightly greying at the front and tossed carelessly, as if it hadn’t been washed or attended to properly. She wore comfortable, flat boots.  She had dark circles under her eyes and wore no make-up. her face was puffy, lined and red. I thought she must have been beautiful when she was younger, as even in this state her natural beauty was apparent.  

 Tara and Tania gave Bea a tour of the house while I put dinner out. I wanted no delay as I   I didn’t want the evening to draw on too long.

“This is a lovely home and the table is stunning. “

“Please, sit down.”

I poured another glass of wine, and one for each of the twins and offered Bea one, which she declined, “I’ll just have water, thank-you, I have to drive.”

“Everything is delicious. David did tell me you are an excellent cook.”

“Thank-you.”

I poured another glass of wine while the girls and Bea engaged in small talk.  Soon it was time to bring out dessert.

“Blueberry pie,” Bea said, “His favorite. He missed your blueberry pie. I could never get it right.” She paused for a moment and I thought she might start to cry.

“I’m sorry David didn’t tell the girls, and you, sooner, so you could have more time. It was like he was ashamed of it or something, he didn’t want to burden anyone. He was in pain for so long before he went to the doctor, too. Always put it off, always in a book or a project.  I tried to convince him, but he wouldn’t go. It was bad at the end and he didn’t want the girls to see him like that, to remember him that way. He hopes you can forgive him.”

           “Yes, of course we can.” Tara said.

           “I feel bad he was in so much pain, “Tania added, “he was a good father, the best.”

           I was numb from the wine, but I wished I had gone to see him, regretted not going. I wondered what he would have said to me.

           “He loved you so much, he might not have said it often, but he did. And you, Theresa, I know it was wrong, and he felt awful about it. He didn’t mean to hurt you. He was so thankful for all you did for the girls, for not keeping them from him, for the time you had together, the parties. He told me at the end, how much it meant to him.“

           Beatrice took a bite of pie, “No wonder he loves this pie. It is delicious!” Then she put down her fork and got serious again.

           “There’s one other thing you need to know. Of course, the girls will be taken care of, and you, Theresa. It’s in his will.  But we were trying, you know, and I’m pregnant. Tara and Tania will have a half little baby brother or sister. “

           Beatrice looked me in the eye, to judge my reaction, while the girls jumped to hug her and express their glee.

           “I’m going to need your help.” Bea said.

           “Yes, we’ll help.” Tania said.

           ‘Mom, you gonna be okay?” Tara asked.

           I went into the kitchen looking for more wine. I didn’t know how I felt, how to respond. Tears streamed down my face and I walked into what used to be David’s study. Some of his books were still on the shelves, books he never came back for, books I knew he’d not want me to throw away. They were clean, for Gladys dusted them, along with the rest of the house with care and precision. I picked a random book and looked down, The Divine Comedy. Of course, his favorite book and one of many copies he had, for he would have brought one with him to his new life. I turned to the end, to the very last paragraph and read:

           We climbed, he first and I behind, until,

Through a small round opening ahead of us

I saw the lovely things the heavens hold,

And we came out to see once more the stars

So many years I wasted.  I knew I had a lot of work to do till I could see the stars. But I was ready to start the journey. Yes, I would be okay.