The thought depressed me, and after dropping London off at school, I arranged to meet Emily for coffee. In jeans and a thick turtleneck sweater, she looked as fresh-faced and youthful as a college student.
“You look tired,” she observed. “Are you holding up okay?”
“I’m surviving,” I answered, pushing a weary hand through my hair. “I’m sorry for not calling the last couple of days.”
She raised her hands immediately. “Don’t be. I can’t imagine what you’re going through. I’ve been worried about you.”
For whatever reason, her words were a comfort. “Thanks, Em,” I said. “That means a lot to me.”
“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” she said, touching my arm.
For the next hour I rambled on, my cup of coffee gradually cooling to room temperature. Listening to myself, I realized that since Emily had come back into my life, I’d been careening from one emotional catastrophe to the next. Even as she held me later, I found myself marveling that she was still willing to put up with me.
For dinner that night, Liz went out of her way to cook something she knew London would enjoy-Shake’N Bake chicken, seasoned potatoes, and a fruit salad.
My mom was just leaving as we arrived, and I walked her out to her car. Before she got in, she paused.
“Marge is refusing to let me give up any of my clubs,” my mom said. “In fact, she insisted that I stick to the very same schedule, but Russ…” She frowned in concern. “She doesn’t how bad it’s going to get. She’s going to need help. It’s like she’s in denial.”
I nodded, signaling that I’d been thinking the same thing.
“Do you know what she said to me just now? She wants Dad to come by to fix a few of the railings on the porch because they’ve got some dry rot. And some of the windows are sticking. And there’s a leaking sink in the bathroom. She was so insistent about getting these things fixed. As if that even matters right now.” She gave me a baffled look. “Why would she be making such a fuss about a few porch railings? Or the windows?”
Though I didn’t respond, it finally dawned on me, what Marge was doing. I suddenly knew why she wanted me to only come by in the evenings; why she was having Liz and my mom split time with her. I knew why she wanted my dad to come over and make repairs on the house, and why she was insisting on taking London roller skating.
Marge, more than anyone, knew that each of us not only wanted private time with her, but were going to need it, before the end.
With the side effects of the initial chemotherapy treatment diminishing over the course of the week, Marge grew steadily stronger. And all of us wanted to believe her treatment was working, because we so desperately craved even a few more months with her.
I know now that only Marge understood on some intuitive level what was really going on inside her body. She bowed to treatment in the first place simply because it was what all of us wanted her to do. In hindsight, I realize that she understood, even as she’d said yes, that it wouldn’t slow the progress of the disease at all.
To this day, I still wonder how she knew.
Liz and my mom organized a schedule, such that one of them would always be at the house during the day, once Marge and Liz returned from New York.
The Friday following my dinner at Marge’s, my dad took a morning off work and showed up at Marge’s with his tool chest and a pile of precut railings in his trunk. He began the slow process of repair and took a break at lunch; Marge and my dad had sandwiches and sweet tea on the back porch, admiring my dad’s handiwork to that point and discussing the Braves’ prospects for the following year’s season.
On Saturday, Marge arrived at my house after art class-the very same art class where unbeknownst to my sister, London had fashioned her Christmas gift-to take London roller skating. Liz and I tagged along with them, watching from the gallery as Marge helped London inch around the rink. London, like most kids, kept trying to walk in the skates rather than glide, and it took a good half an hour before London began to master the motion. Had it not been for Marge holding both of London’s hands-Marge was skating backward-my little girl would have wiped out at least twenty times.
However, by the end of the session they were able to skate side by side, albeit slowly, and London was visibly proud as she finally untied the laces with Liz’s help and turned in her skates. I took a seat next to Marge while she bent over and removed her own skates.
“Your arms and back are going to be sore tomorrow,” I predicted. To my eyes, she looked tired, but I couldn’t tell whether it was because she was sick, or because catching London over and over before she fell was understandably exhausting.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “London’s not very heavy. But she is a chatty little thing. She talked and talked the whole time. She even grilled me on what my favorite color of fish was. I had no idea what to tell her.”
I smiled. “New York will probably seem restful by comparison. You’re leaving tomorrow?”
“Yeah-I can’t wait,” she said, perking up. “I’ve told Liz that our first stop is the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. I want to get in the spirit of the holidays.”
“Text me some pictures,” I said.
“I will,” she promised. “By the way, I know what I want for Christmas,” she said pointedly. “From you.”
“Do tell.”
“I’ll tell you when I get back. But here’s a little hint: I want to go somewhere with you.”
“Like a trip, you mean?”
“No,” she said. “Not a trip.”
“Then where?”
“If I told you, you wouldn’t be surprised.”
“If you don’t tell me, then how can I do it?”
“How about you let me figure that part out, okay?”
With her skates off and her shoes back on, I saw her cast a last, wistful look toward the rink. It was getting crowded now, filling with children, groups of raucous teenagers, and a few nostalgic adults. By Marge’s expression, I knew she was thinking to herself that she was never going to have the chance to skate again.
Today, I realized, hadn’t simply been about teaching London to roller skate, or making a memory that London might hold on to forever; Marge had begun the process of saying goodbye to the things she loved, too.
Marge and Liz were gone for six days. While they were away, I worked long hours, wanting to get as much done on the new ad campaigns as possible, but mostly trying to keep myself from dwelling on my sister. As promised, she’d texted me photos of the Rockefeller Christmas tree: one of her and Liz together, and another shot of her by herself.
I had the pictures Photoshopped, printed, and then framed, with the intention of giving one set to Marge and Liz as a Christmas gift, and keeping another set for myself.
Meanwhile, I was contacted by two more law firms, including a small firm in Atlanta that had stumbled across my recent work on YouTube. As I started to put together the requisite presentations, I found myself reviewing the past six months.
When I’d started my agency, it seemed as though all my worries were business- or money-related, and at the time, I’d found the stress overwhelming. Things, I’d thought, couldn’t get much worse, yet I could distinctly remember Marge reassuring me that everything would turn out fine in the end.
She was right, of course.
On the other hand, she couldn’t have been more wrong.
The holidays continued to approach.
“What are your plans for Christmas? With London?” Marge asked me. It was Sunday afternoon and she’d just woken from a nap, but still looked tired. We were on her couch, where she’d wrapped herself in a blanket, even though the house felt warm to me. She and Liz had returned from New York the day before, and I wanted to see her before London returned from Atlanta. “Have you and Vivian discussed that yet? Christmas is only two weeks away, you know.”