One Last Thing

I wasn’t going to come, you know. I wouldn’t have, but our sweet girl called. She told me you couldn’t talk anymore; she said you asked for me. She mentioned you were using a whiteboard to communicate. That was a surprise, I see you have it handy. Don’t worry, I don’t want to converse.

I’ve known you were ill, of course. She called me after the first tumor. Nasty stuff you’ve got, festering and growing unnoticed. It sounds awful. After they found the second tumor, she called again. Inoperable, she said. She was so stoïc on the phone. A matter of days, she repeated crisply; that’s what the doctors say. She must have your unwavering faith in medical opinions. Not a miracle-seeker, our girl. Almost a young woman, really. As usual, with her I didn’t know what to say.

She also said you wanted me to bring pictures of our first trips as a family. She knew you meant the ones she’d never seen, the ones that she was not in. She didn’t say that, of course, and I didn’t ask, she’s such a shy little turtle with me. She did say I should do this one last thing for you.

I wanted to ask, which trips? We took so many pictures back then. Your need to document everything, long before it became a cultural norm, means that I do still have pictures of those first trips with the boys, from the time before our sweet girl was born. Finding a printer who could read a CD-ROM was a challenge, obviously. That was before camera-phones, you know. Of course you know, I’m sorry. I forget you can’t speak.

Before Thailand, of course, before It, I knew that’s what you meant. I guess, on some subliminal level, I’d been waiting for this, for you to ask for me. If I knew I was going to meet them again, like you, I’d want to see their pictures too. I was surprised that you knew I still had any pictures left. It’s been so long, more than twenty years. I brought as many as I could.

Our first road-trip: They wouldn’t give you a visa to get into the US, do you remember? So we decided to go to Mexico instead, with a one year old; what were we thinking? The gorgeous over-the-top four day wedding in Guadalajara we were invited to, rose petal empanadas, mariachis and fireworks at the all-day “rehearsal dinner.” Here’s a picture of the tiny rental car we drove along the Pacific, from Acapulco to Oaxaca. We slept in trucker motels and put the baby in a Pack N Play. We even ate beans in someone’s kitchen on the side of the highway. Remember that? A man at a gas station told us it was a restaurant, but I don’t think she had running water. Nothing happened, of course, nothing bad ever happened to us back then.

Look, these are from when we turned off the paved road onto that white sandy track. We finally reached the ocean, here’s the bright blue church. It wasn’t even a town, just a splattering of houses right next to the beach. There was sand everywhere, no pavement at all, so we left our shoes next to the car. A woman appeared and told us that we shouldn’t be there. Gringos are not welcome. We laughed and answered in our Argentine Spanish that we are not gringos. She pointed at our hair and at the soft caramel-colored down on the baby’s head; she insisted we should leave; it wasn’t safe. Yours was long and blond then, everyone said you looked like Axl Rose. Mine was short, wavey, a light reddish brown. OK, so we stood out a little but we didn’t understand. Who kidnaps backpackers with a baby, that’s what we said to ourselves, remember? We must have been too young to care or to be afraid. I don’t think you can roadtrip along the southwest coast of Mexico these days. Isn’t that a shame? I guess we were lucky. Here’s one of that beach. The surf was turquoise, too rough to get in and the sand near the water’s edge was covered in seaweed. Here we are, in the shady spot where our second son was conceived while the first napped on a woven blanket we bought at the market in Oaxaca.

These are from Cannes, remember how I dragged the whole family to Midem and told you it would be fun, like the film festival but with music? You spent the days riding the Cannes-Monte Carlo train with the boys looking for something to do while I networked, smoked and tried to inspire confidence in an unknown record-label from a market no one gave a shit about. They were five and three then, so blond, so alike in their little navy striped shirts and yellow rain boots from Monoprix. Sticky Oranginas, too many pain au chocolats, cola flavored lollipops and the big-top circus in Monaco; you told me they loved the acrobats and the lions. Look, there’s the crappy umbrella stroller we bought for 20 euros at Monoprix too, you couldn’t believe how cheap it was. I’m pretty sure you were the one who forgot the good stroller at home. Who forgets a stroller? You ran after them in the Botanical Garden in Monte Carlo, trying to keep them away from the needles of a thousand towering cacti while I ate oysters and drank vodka tonics on the Croisette with the label execs, trying to sign deals.

I’d come back late, tipsy and wired from networking all day to find the three of you sprawled-out on the white massive couch in our room at the Martinez, fast asleep amidst packets of Mikados, tangerine peels, crumpled gold foil from the hotel chocolates on the coffee-table. The two king beds, turned-down and empty, Shrek credits rolling in a never-ending loop on the big screen TV, connected to the boys’ portable DVD player. We complemented each other so well then, didn’t we? We thought we’d hit the jackpot. They were so easy, great travelers too, well behaved in restaurants, all the things we’d said we hoped they’d be, remember? God, the hubris.

I think these are my favorites, they’re from Botswana. It was the last trip before the last trip. I wonder if that’s why the pictures came out so bright, so crisp. See, aren’t they vivid? Maybe it was that fabulous Nikon, the one you had to have for a photo safari, that only you knew how to use, with that ridiculous telescopic lense. You know, the massive thing that had its own case and made you look like an ass. The tour company had said the boys were too young for a safari, but you swore they’d behave; that we would be responsible. We were responsible. I loved the dry-sweet smell of sage as we bounced through the park at 6 am, on the lookout for lions. You were determined to see the Big Five, even though the smiling patient guide said it was unlikely.

Here we are at our 5 am breakfast; it was so cold and they were so mad we woke them up in the dark, do you remember? We drove for fifteen minutes in silence in that weird pink purple glow before dawn to where the lions slept. The boys got antsy at the end and started poking each other. Right when the sun rose, the lions finally stood and stretched under the acacia, mostly hidden by the dewy bush grass. The boys whined; they couldn’t see. What began in whispers grew loud, as children often do. As their volume increased, the guide got nervous and put his right fingers on the ignition key he had switched off and his left hand on the stun gun he carried in a holster on his left hip. As one lion licked its paw and another walked in our direction, you put your camera down and pinched them both, hard. I could tell. You told them to be quiet or they would get eaten. They believed you, you know. I guess they were too young. The little one’s face glistened, he cried at everything, then. He was seven on that trip. I wanted to throw you to the lions. My anger was bright and fierce, I wanted to protect him from you, from the lion, from everyone. Only two years apart but I always thought of them as little and big, isn’t that funny? We had sundowners that evening, the boys had Shirley Temples, the lions reappeared; this time their behaviour was impeccable, still as statues. The boys, of course, not the lions. Remember that? I do.

How about this one? It’s always been my favorite. Oh don’t look so shocked, yes, it’s the one from your office, from the wall above your desk, I know you recognize the frame. Your secretary gave it to me when you asked her to get rid of it. She understood, a lot more than you did, clearly. Look, there they are: alive, still, two perfect breathing silhouettes etched against a flaming savannah sunset, seated on the hood of the safari truck. If only we could have paused the tape right here.

Here, it’s as if we’d never gone to Thailand. Or if we had, as if I’d made them stay with me, in the suite on the 12th floor of that stupid hotel. Or if I’d made them stay at the kid’s club at the pool, remember? Some of those people were found. Or if we’d gone to Ireland, like I suggested, instead of sweaty Southeast Asia. That would have worked, too. Instead, I had calls to make and you’d gone to the gym. It was already 11pm back home the day before so I let them go to the beach with the nanny from the hotel. Oh don’t look so pained; I know you remember that. I can’t undo it. You can’t, either, you couldn’t, no matter how hard you tried.

That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? Don’t reach for your board, there’s no need. I’m not going to read it. I’m just happy I said it. Out loud, to you and to your sad pale dying face. You and I know this is the germ of the seed that poisoned our marriage. That moment, the moment I said ‘sure, guys, off you go’ that is when you began to despise me, though we wouldn’t know that until months later, now would we? I didn’t need you to make me feel I should have died in their place. I was more than capable of doing that. You pretended not to hate me and I pretended not to hate myself and grasping at straws and the shreds of what we were before, we soldiered on. Horrid verb, “to soldier,” isn’t it?

We worked, you cooked, I travelled, you ran, I stretched, we floated by one another like two ships in the night. One time, we fucked to try to feel something, I suppose, and surprise! She came along and it was like the sun came out, briefly. But as she started to talk and to become yet another full perfect tiny human and I began to see them everywhere. In the curl of her lip and the angle of her invisible eyebrows when she frowned. None of our children had any eyebrows to speak of, really. And as their effervescent ghostlike selves giggled, spilled, fought, swooped and hugged me, I found myself caring for three children. Yet there was only one there.

At first, the doctor said it was a delayed response to the trauma, remember that? I do. I lost my grip; started slipping, sliding. You were tired of me, of caring for me while hating me, of watching me smother myself with the weight of my grief. I get it now. I’ve done a lot of work to get here, you know.

Not even she could hold us together, no matter how much she tiptoed, twirled and twinkled. Our sweet golden girl; destined to fill the two voids we didn’t have the guts to even name in her presence. Moving halfway around the world to London, a new city with new jobs. None of that put enough distance between us and their loss, did it?

You know where these pictures are from, don’t you? I kept them, when you told me to take them down. We were left with the blank rectangular impressions on the wall, where the bright white paint underneath had not yellowed with time like the rest, which just made it worse. That was around my first dip, my first real slip, shall we say? My first bout, the doctor called it. The first time you let them take me away, let’s be honest. She was three and a half. I remember that because I missed her fourth birthday. You, or maybe it was your secretary, sent me a picture of her blowing out five candles; four plus one for luck, just like we always did with them.

When I came back, when you signed the papers to let me come back to my own house, the picture wall had been spackled and repainted. You decreed the best thing to do was to not talk about them, to not pollute our golden girl with my grief or my madness. The doctors said you were right, removing references would support closure.

Closure? Closure would have been to bury our sons in coffins, but we didn’t get to do that, did we? I feel pretty positive about this visit though, and seeing you here like this, I have to say. Just you and me here, talking honestly about this together, what do you think the doctor meant? By closure, I mean.

Is this your morphine drip? Just kidding, of course it is. You learn a lot about pharmaceuticals when you are a patient, at least I did. I’m an old hat in here. Here, let me twist this knob just a bit and get this flowing for you. The button? Is that what you’re gesturing for? The nurse’s call button? How did I guess that’s what you wanted? I remember all of your gestures, your looks, how could I forget after those twelve years of marriage? No matter how much you’ve tried to erase them. Oh don’t worry, the nurse will be by in a bit. You look nervous, you should relax, the nurse’s button is over here; see, I’ve got it. No, you don’t need it. You’ll be fine in just a sec, see how the drops in the bag here have gotten larger, fatter really. Isn’t that nice? They’re like big round teardrops now, aren’t they or drops of warm spring rain pattering? You should be asleep soon. Would you like to count backwards from ten? They always made me do that when I was being put under. Isn’t that a funny expression, ‘put under.’ No? Oh, that’s right, you can’t count, of course you can’t. That’s fine, not to worry. When you see the boys, tell them I love them. Tell them that I am glad you are together now and that I think of them, every single day. Oh this? This is a little something extra I brought with me, see I’ll just pop this needle in the bag and add it to that lovely line you’ve got going there. Oh, don’t worry, you won’t feel a thing, it’ll just be like slipping under, under a big wave, really, when you think about it.

I’ll take care of our sweet girl, don’t worry. We might even be able to build a relationship now that you won’t be here to tell her how broken I am. She doesn’t blame me, you know, she’s never blamed me. Shh, don’t cry. I want to do this one last thing for you. You’ll see them soon enough. Isn’t this why you asked me to come? That’s right, just close your eyes.