“Waiting’s tough,” he said. I understood without anything more being said that the man knew whereof he spoke.
Back in Beverly’s room I castigated myself for not stopping by Belltown Terrace on the way and picking up Kyle’s picture. Not that it would have made any difference. She was asleep, and I doubted if she would ever waken enough to see the framed photo Kelly had wanted Beverly to have.
My grandmother had been a young bride when she had my mother, and my mother had been a very young not-bride when I was born. And so at a time when other men my age were losing their mothers, my mother, who had died young, was already gone, and I was losing my grandmother instead.
I sat there for the rest of the long afternoon listening to Beverly breathe, thinking about the few short years we’d had together, and regretting the many years we’d spent apart. I was glad for the happy times she and Lars had shared and felt sad when I realized how much it would hurt for him to lose a second well-loved wife.
In his day, Lars had been a serious drinker (that’s why he was my AA sponsor, after all). He had loved his first wife, Hannah, but I knew from things he’d told me over the years that he’d also neglected her-the way alcoholics often do, not out of any particular malice but because nothing’s more important to them than booze. Lars had done much better by Beverly, and losing her would be hard on him. I wondered, in fact, if he’d survive it.
Lars came limping back into the room and resumed his bedside watch about the time the sun went down behind the grain terminal out in Elliott Bay. The sky was layered with banks of clouds that turned pink, purple, and finally gray as the setting sun sank beneath the western horizon. I went down the hall to the nurse’s station and brought back a second chair.
“No matter what,” Lars said quietly, “I wouldn’t have missed this.”
I nodded. That’s always the bottom line where love is concerned. Is loving someone ever worth the ultimate price of losing them?
“And she’s very proud of you, Beau,” Lars added. “Always has been.”
That got me. “I know,” I said, blinking back tears.
Mel turned up about then, bringing with her Kyle’s missing photo. I was grateful she had gone to the trouble in the few spare minutes she had between the end of work and the start of her evening board meeting. After showing Kyle’s photo to Lars, who was suitably unimpressed, I placed the small framed photo on the nightstand next to Beverly’s glass and water pitcher. Mel was smart enough not to ask how I was doing or how long I’d be because I had no idea.
I badgered Lars into going down to the dining room for some dinner just before they closed. He offered to take me along, but I wasn’t hungry. He had barely left the room when Beverly’s eyes popped open. She looked first at the chair Lars had just vacated, then gazed anxiously around the room.
“It’s all right,” I assured her. “He went downstairs for some dinner.”
“Oh,” she said.
Then she mumbled something I couldn’t make out. For a moment I wondered if she even knew who I was. When I asked her to repeat what she’d said, she opened her eyes and looked at me impatiently.
“Where’s Mel?” she demanded.
That was clear enough. It left no doubt about whether she recognized me, and it told me plainly enough that my grandmother was in full possession of her faculties.
“Mel had to go to a meeting,” I said. “She’ll be back later.”
“Lars said you were on a trip,” Beverly mumbled a few seconds later. “Did you marry her?”
So that was it. Beverly had evidently decided that Mel’s and my trip to Ashland had been something it wasn’t.
“No,” I said. “We drove down to Ashland to see Kelly and Jeremy and their new baby…” I reached for the photo to show Beverly her new great-great-grandson. Ignoring Kyle, Beverly stared directly into my face.
“Marry her,” she commanded forcefully. “Mel’s a good girl, and she’s good for you. Don’t let her slip away.”
That single fragment of forceful and lucid conversation seemed to sap all Beverly’s strength and energy. She soon drifted off to sleep once more and was still asleep when Lars returned from the dining room.
“How is she?” he asked.
“Still sleeping,” I said. Somehow I didn’t mention to him what she had said earlier. I didn’t say anything then and I didn’t later as the night wore on and Beverly’s breathing grew more and more shallow. I didn’t want to admit to Lars that she’d roused herself long enough to give me one last set of marching orders. And I didn’t want him to know that, in what might well be her last waking moments, Beverly had been thinking about me rather than him.
By midnight it was over and she was gone. I stayed with Lars long enough to see him settled in the apartment he and Beverly had shared. By the time I left Queen Anne Gardens the clouds had returned and it was raining again. A little past one, I let myself into the condo at Belltown Terrace. Mel, with her feet tucked under her, was curled up in my recliner, sound asleep. I stood there for a long moment or two watching her-stunned by how amazingly beautiful she was and wondering how much time we might have to be together, or if we even should. Finally I reached out and touched her gently on the shoulder. She awakened instantly.
Mel searched my face and read what was written there. “Beverly’s gone, then?” Mel asked.
I nodded.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“So am I,” I agreed. “Sorrier than I would have thought possible. Let’s go to bed.”
CHAPTER 4
When Mel woke me up in the morning it was with a cup of coffee and a good-bye kiss. She was almost dressed and ready to go to work.
“I already called Harry and told him you won’t be in,” she said.
“Thanks,” I said.
“He wanted to know when the services would be.”
“I’m not sure. Lars says that’s all handled, but we didn’t really discuss it last night.”
“There’s handled and then there’s handled,” Mel declared. “And I’m sure there will be lots of loose ends that need tying up. And if all the kids are coming home,” she added, “we should probably make some hotel reservations for them. I don’t think having all of us stay here together is a good idea.”
“Yes,” I told her, savoring the coffee and enjoying watching her button her blouse. “Living in sin does have its little complications, especially if you’re blessed with serious-minded young adult children who make no bones about knowing right from wrong now that the shoe is somehow, inexplicably, on the other foot.”
Mel smiled. “You can thank your lucky stars that we have only one set of disapproving young adult children. If I’d had kids, too, it could have been a lot worse.”
There was no point in calling Scott and Kelly, or my good friends Ron and Amy Peters, either. Not right then-not until I had a firmed-up schedule from Lars. I was out of the shower and toweling dry when he called.
“Hate to bother you,” Lars began. “But you said you probably wouldn’t be going in today. If you could take me to the mortuary and to a flower shop…”
“Whatever you need, Lars. All you have to do is ask. I can be there in half an hour.”
“An hour’s fine,” he said. “They don’t open until ten.”
It was sometime during that hour that I realized Beverly had done both Ross Connors and me a huge favor. By dying when she did, she afforded both of us the luxury of cover-time off the clock when I’d be able to pursue the LaShawn Tompkins matter with no one, Mel Soames included, being the wiser.
I used that hour of privacy to cull through Mel’s newspapers, carefully putting them back the way I’d found them when I finished. I didn’t find much. News about LaShawn had been relegated to the second page of the local section, and that was comprised mostly of nothing new to report. In the obituary section there was a brief announcement that gave a quick overview of LaShawn’s short-circuited life. The service for him would be held on Thursday morning at 10 a.m. at the African Bible Baptist Church on Martin Luther King Jr. Way.