Eat Your Heart Out (13 page)

She closed her eyes. In that moment, she felt again like the girl she used to be. But the moments where the past feels like the present are never long enough.

After only a few seconds, Joe's breathing became laboured. Meryl quickly raised herself up against his chest.

“What's wrong?”

She saw wetness in Joe's eyes. His face had changed and she knew he did not remember asking her to kiss him.

He let out a low moan.

“What's wrong, Joe? Why are you crying?”

“It hurts.”

“What hurts? Where hurts?”

But there was no answer. The noises he made just got louder.

A week later that good-for-nothing doctor told her that it wasn't the medication.

The cancer was in his brain.

When they were
young, the space between them was so charged that it took every part of Meryl to fight what her insides wanted. His power over her was his skin. He marked her bones.

“Take off your dress.”

“No, Joe. I can't. Not here.”

“Yes, you can.”

Meryl looked up at him. Looking at him made her drunk. She was not used to feeling so out of control. When his body was pressed against hers, she felt both empty and full.

“I want you.”

She felt him pressed up against her harder.

“I love you, Meryl.”

When he moved in her, everything around her moved too. Images danced across the ceiling, shadows mixed slowly, choreographed.

When they finished, he lay on top of her. He held her so close, the heat between them radiated, and Meryl felt as if she was on fire.

“I should go, my darling.”

He kissed her goodbye and touched her face more delicately than he ever had before.

Why was he touching her differently now? Had she done something wrong?

“I could get carried away with you,” he whispered in her ear.

She looked up at him hovering over her. She wanted him against her again. She didn't like the space.

“Meryl, why do you look so sad?”

“I'm just tired.”

He climbed out her window, his silhouette outlined by the dawn.

She cried after he was gone, for a long time, for no reason. She felt cold and then feverish.

She lay in her bed that whole day. She was alone but surrounded by the smell of him, haunted by his touch. When her father asked her if she wanted any food, she said she wasn't hungry. She didn't eat at all. And even though she was exhausted, she didn't sleep.

She was so scared, now that she couldn't be without him.

“What was he
like?”

Meryl sat in St. Mary's atrium with Joe's nurse, Lori.

Lori was young and pretty. She had come from the Philippines three years ago and hadn't seen her children since she left. She told Meryl that one evening in passing, as if it wasn't unusual or heartbreaking. She showed Meryl pictures of her three children that night. They looked so young.

Meryl had always liked Lori, who let her stay late, past visiting hours, to sit with Joe. Meryl figured it was because Lori knew what it was like to sleep alone.

“Joe?”

“Yes, Joe, before he was here. What was he like?”

Meryl was at a loss.

“Wonderful.”

“Was he funny? He seems funny.”

That afternoon, in the hot atrium, as her sweater clung to her breast, Meryl remembered that, yes, Joe was funny.

“What did he do?”

“He was a teacher, actually.”

“Did he like it?”

“Yes, he did. He was very patient. I think he missed it when he retired.”

“What did he do when he wasn't working?”

“Are you always so curious about your patients, Lori?”

“No, just the ones I spend a lot of time with. Sorry. I'll stop.”

“No, no, it's all right.” The questions bothered Meryl.

She knew what Lori was doing. She had done it many times herself. She was trying to help Meryl grieve.

As sweat crept down the nape of her neck soon to curve down her spine, Meryl promised herself something. As soon as she got home, she was going to write a list of all the things that made Joe Joe. She was going to put the list in a bag. Then she would put it away in a drawer.

She wanted to write down the way he held his mystery books in bed every night, so close to his face, with a half-crooked smile. And how quickly he turned the pages, and how disappointed he was when they ended. The expression on his face when he'd roll his eyes at Meryl over some boring stranger's shoulder. Then how she would burst out laughing, and he would look back at her, pleased to have made her happy, grateful that she was stranded too. Or the way he fell asleep every night, on his side. How he couldn't settle until he put his hand on her hip.

“So?” asked Lori. “What did he do when he wasn't working?”

“Well, regular things. He liked watching baseball. His favourite team was our team, the Orioles. And it never bothered him that they always lost. Every spring he would watch the games and still believe that they could win.”

Meryl had to write down everything she could. That way she could answer properly the next time someone asked her what her husband was like.

When he was gone.

My darling Meryl,

It is late now, and you are sleeping in the next room. You went to bed angry at me, for some reason that I couldn't understand, but that I knew was right. When you were yelling at me, all I wanted was to write you this. I am cautious now.

I have this vision of you in my head, the night I met you across that bar, laughing so loudly. Your laughter was so bold, and you were so striking. I was taken with you immediately. I knew then that nothing would be the same.

Time passes swiftly, and here we are, a few years in. You get angry at me for holding back, for not being honest, for not saying what you deserve to hear. You are right to be angry with me. I scare you with my silence. But I don't mean to.

Some days, I look at you, and I am overwhelmed by all that I feel. I find a catch in my throat. You don't know.

I need you to know that I can't lose you. Please know that when you think you have lost me, I am not gone, only waiting to be found.

I love you.

Marry me.

Joe.

Meryl had always
struggled with insomnia, but since Joe's diagnosis she found herself awake more than ever. Every night she would lie in her bed in the darkness, her eyes closed, not sleeping.

It wasn't dreams that woke her. It wasn't restlessness. It was questions, twisting and turning around in her head.

What appointments did Joe have tomorrow? What did Mrs. Anderson say about her sister's husband who had the same cancer? Would Joe be well enough to go to the dinner they said yes to months ago?

Why did this happen?

She had watched this same situation play out hundreds of times. Throughout her career, Meryl silently thought that families were lucky if they could see it coming. But it looked so different projected against those long, aching nights.

Not half past three, she'd think.

“It can't be quarter after four,” she'd tell herself.

“Oh no. Five to two,” she'd whisper.

Ever since she was a small sleepless girl, Meryl hated knowing what time it was if she woke up in the middle of the night. She could never fall back asleep if she knew how long she had before she needed to be awake. Instead, Meryl would stay awake and count the seconds until the sun rose.

“Well, curiosity kills the cat,” she'd say.

Then one night, at around ten after four, after weeks of thinking in the black, she knew the answer.

She would rather have Joe snatched from her than pulled away slowly.

There was no luxury in being able to say goodbye.

“Do you need
to call anyone?” Lori asked Meryl at 7:05, ten minutes after Joe died.

Meryl knew she had to call someone. She didn't know who.

“Do you want a tissue, Meryl?” asked Lori.

She turned and stared at Lori. She didn't know how long she looked at Lori before she answered that, yes, she wanted a tissue.

“Compose yourself, Meryl. You need to make a call, you just need to make it through this call,” she told herself.

She picked up the telephone and dialled her closest friend Evelyn's number. As the phone rang, Meryl decided what she would say when Evelyn picked up.

“Hello?”

Meryl forgot what she had planned to say. What should she say?

“Hello?”

She had no idea what she should say.

“Hello? Hello?”

Say something. Say anything.

“Evelyn, it's Meryl. He's gone.”

As the words came out of Meryl's mouth, she wished she had said them differently.

“Do you need anything?” asked Evelyn.

“No.” She wanted to get off the phone immediately.

“Do you want me to pick you up?”

“Not . . . no. I have the car.”

“You shouldn't be alone.”

“I'm all right.”

Evelyn held the phone tight and didn't know what to say next.

“Well, you have other people to call, I'm sure, I don't want to keep you.”

“Yes.”

“Should I come? Come now?”

“No. It's fine.”

“You know you can always . . .”

Before Evelyn could say more, Meryl had hung up.

Meryl walked into the small bathroom near the back of the room.

She sat on the tiled floor and wrapped her arms around herself. She turned her head toward the dirty ceiling, waiting for some answer, some feeling of reassurance. But there was none.

She lay down on the floor and pressed her face against the cool tile.

Then silence came.

It struck Meryl that she would never have to sit in that hospital bathroom ever again. She had no reason to go to the hospital anymore. Tomorrow she would wake up and have nowhere she had to go.

For the smallest moment, she felt liberated.

It was terrifying.

“You always make
me talk about myself, Meryl. You're very good at that.”

“I do? I'm sorry, I didn't even notice.”

Meryl was lying. She did notice. She did that on purpose.

“Yes, you do. I'm not talking anymore. You talk.”

“What do you want to know?” It was their third date.

“Everything.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“I don't know what you want me to say. What should I say?”

“Whatever you want to.”

Meryl laughed and then turned her head toward the window in the restaurant.

Was it a restaurant? She had remembered the conversation so vividly for all of these years but couldn't place where it had happened. She just remembered the look on his face.

She closed her eyes and cradled her head in her hands. She tried to find her way into that restaurant. She could only see his face.

“I'm not joking, Meryl.”

“You're sweet, Joe.”

“I really want to know.”

She laughed again, but Joe didn't laugh; he just stared at her. She turned her head and looked back at him once more. The smile fell off her face.

“I never think there is anything to say.”

“And you just leave it at that?”

“I just can't imagine anyone really being that, I don't know, interested. So it's better that, it's better I just listen. People will be let down.”

“How do you know that?”

Joe didn't laugh. He just looked at her like he understood. He reached across the table to take her hand. She could still feel the warmth of him.

“I just do.”

“No.”

“How do you know people won't be let down?”

And then his face turned away from her, as if he was really considering what he asked.

“I just do.”

Meryl had always believed that falling in love took time, and that people grew on you, that things built slowly, and one day
a decision was made to love. But real love is not made of logic or reason, and like most things of consequence, it can happen in seconds.

The day after
Joe died, on the Monday, Meryl had an appointment with the funeral home director.

Five minutes late, Meryl sat down in an uncomfortable chair across from Mr. Leavitt. He was middle-aged and ruddy-faced. He was so short that she didn't trust him. He looked like a drinker, which made Meryl feel even more ill at ease.

She wanted to leave.

Mr. Leavitt adjusted himself in his chair. He cleared his throat for the tenth time.

“So we just have the final details to go over here.”

“Right.”

“You brought the obituary with you?”

“Yes, here.”

Meryl went into her purse and brought out the obituary that Joe had written before he died.

“Okay, great. Well, it looks like everything was pre-planned here.”

“Yes. I think it was.”

“Did you bring what you want him to be buried in?”

“Excuse me?”

“A suit or something?”

“Oh, no. No. I completely . . . I forgot.”

“That's all right. Maybe you could have someone bring it over.”

“No, I'll bring it . . . this afternoon.”

Mr. Leavitt nodded and looked at her without any pity. Everything was so unsentimental in his office. Maybe she liked him more than she originally thought.

“Okay. So music is picked, the time is set . . . yes. Everything here should be in order. Do you have any children that might want to look over these details?”

“We didn't have children.”

“Oh, all right.” Mr. Leavitt pushed himself back in his chair. In his drawer he found the bent brochure he was looking for and handed it to Meryl.

“Oftentimes people in your position find this helpful.”

Meryl looked down at the brochure entitled “You Are Here: Living with Grief.”

She placed the brochure on Mr. Leavitt's desk and slid it back toward him, across the shiny wooden surface.