Two by Two(98)

When I mouthed the question, Do you want me to stay? Marge shook her head.

"I'm going to visit with Nana for a little while, okay, London? Will you keep an eye on Auntie Marge for us?"

"Okay," she said, and I left them alone in the living room. My mom and I  sat on the back porch off the kitchen, not saying much of anything.

A short while later, when I saw London enter the kitchen, I went back inside and held her as she cried.

"Why doesn't God make Auntie Marge better?" she choked out.

I swallowed through the lump in my throat, squeezing her small body to  mine. "I don't know, sweetie," I said. "I really don't know."





Vivian texted that she planned to go straight to Marge's after her  flight landed, and as a result, she didn't arrive at the house until  half past six.

As soon as I saw the limo out front, I thought of the letter from her  attorney. I left the front door open but retreated to the kitchen,  feeling a wave of disgust toward her wash over me. Even though she'd  just spent more than an hour with my sister, I still had no desire to  speak to her.

I heard Vivian enter the house, and then London's tremulous voice,  asking Vivian if she really had to go to Atlanta. Despite Vivian's  promise that they were going to have a terrific time, London began to  cry. Footsteps pounded as she ran to the kitchen and threw herself into  my arms.

"I don't want to go, Daddy," she sobbed. "I want to stay here. I want to see Auntie Marge."

I scooped her up and held her as Vivian entered the kitchen. Her expression was unreadable.

"You need to spend time with your mom," I said. "She misses you all the time. And she loves you very much."

London continued to whimper.

"Will you take care of Auntie Marge while I'm gone?"

"Of course I will," I said. "We all will."





With London in Atlanta, I passed most of the weekend at Marge's, just as  I'd promised my daughter. My parents were there too, alongside Liz.

We spent long hours at the kitchen table telling stories about Marge, as  if our vivid memories and outrageous accounts of Marge's exploits would  help keep her alive longer. I finally told my parents and Liz about the  night I rescued Marge from the water tower; Liz re-created the romantic  scavenger hunt. We laughed about Marge's roller skating and horror  movie obsessions, and reminisced about the idyllic day that Marge and  Liz had spent with Emily and me at the Biltmore Estate. We marveled at  Marge's wit, and the fact that she still viewed me as a little brother  desperately in need of her superior guidance.         

     



 

I wished Marge had been there to hear all the stories, but she was with  us for only a few of them. The rest of the time, she was sleeping.

On Sunday evening, London returned from Atlanta. Vivian said goodbye to our daughter near the limo and didn't come inside.

It was the last day of January. Marge and I were both born in the month  of March; she on the fourth, and I on the twelfth. We were both Pisces,  and in the world of the Zodiac, people born under that sign are said to  be compassionate and devoted. I'd always believed that to be truer of  Marge than me.

Her birthday, I realized, was less than five weeks away, and I knew she wouldn't be around to celebrate it.

Like Marge, I just knew.





CHAPTER 26





Saying Goodbye


My parents didn't have the most active social lives when Marge and I  were young. While my dad might grab a beer every now and then with  friends, it was relatively rare, and my mom hardly went out at all.  Between work, cooking, cleaning, visiting her family, and raising kids,  she didn't have a lot of extra free time. Nor did my parents dine out as  a couple very often; dining out was considered an extravagance,  something I can remember them doing perhaps half a dozen times. When you  consider birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, and  Father's Day, six dinner dates in eighteen years isn't much.

That meant that when they did go out, Marge and I would be giddy at the  thought of having the house to ourselves. As soon as their car pulled  out of the driveway, we'd make popcorn or S'mores-or both-and start  watching movies with the volume turned up way too loud, until,  inevitably, one of Marge's friends would call. Once she got on the  phone, I would suddenly be forgotten …  but I was usually okay with that,  since it meant even more S'mores for me.

Once when she was thirteen or so, she convinced me that we should build a  fort in the living room. We found a coil of clothesline in the storage  shed and ran it from the curtain rod to the grandfather clock to an air  vent and back again to the curtain rod. We pulled towels and sheets from  the linen closet, fastening them to the line with clothespins. Another  sheet went over the top, and we furnished the fort with pillows pulled  from the couch. Marge hauled in a propane-fueled camping lantern from  the garage. We somehow got that lit without burning down the house-my  dad would have been furious had he known-and Marge turned out all the  lights before we crawled inside.

Setting the whole thing up had taken more than an hour, and it would  take almost as long to take it all down and clean up, which meant we  were only able to spend fifteen or twenty minutes in the fort before my  parents got home. Even when they did go out, they never stayed out late.

I still recall that night as a near-magical experience. At eight years  old, it was adventurous and new, and the fact that it was also against  the rules made me feel older than I was, more like Marge's peer than a  little kid, for the very first time. And as I looked at my sister in the  eerie glow of the lantern in our makeshift fort, I can distinctly  remember thinking that Marge was not only my sister, but my best friend  as well. I knew even then that nothing would ever change that.





On February 1, the high temperature hit seventy-one degrees; five days  later, the high was only fifty degrees and the low dipped to  twenty-four. The wild temperature swings that first week of February  seemed to weaken Marge even further. With every passing day, Marge grew  worse.

Her sixteen hours of sleep a day lengthened to nineteen hours, and every  breath was a struggle. The paralysis on her right side grew even more  pronounced, and we rented a wheelchair to move her around the house more  easily. Her words started to slur and she had hardly any appetite, but  those things were nothing compared to the pain she was experiencing. My  sister was taking so many painkillers that I suspected that her liver  was turning to mush, but the only time she seemed to feel any real  relief was when she slept.

Not that Marge ever mentioned the pain. Not to my parents or Liz, and  not to me. As always, she was more worried about others than herself,  but her suffering was evident in the way she winced, and the way her  eyes would unexpectedly blur with tears. Witnessing her agony was  torture for us all.

Often, I would sit with her in the living room as she slept on the  couch; other times, I sat in the rocking chair in the bedroom. As I  stared at her sleeping form, memories would roll back through the years,  like a movie playing in reverse-a movie in which Marge was the star  with the most memorable lines of all. She was forever vivid, forever  alive, and I wondered whether my memories would remain that way, or  whether they would slowly fade with the passage of time. I struggled  mightily to see past her illness, telling myself that I owed it to her  to remember everything about the way she was before she got sick.         

     



 

On the day that the temperature plunged to twenty-four degrees, I  remembered something that my father had told me about wood frogs, which  can be found in North Carolina to as far north as the Arctic circle. As  cold-blooded creatures, wood frogs were susceptible to frigid  temperatures and could freeze completely solid, to the point that their  hearts stopped completely. And yet, the frog has evolved in such a way  that glycogen continues to break down into glucose, which acts a bit  like nature's antifreeze. They can remain frozen and immobilized for  weeks, but when the weather finally begins to warm, the wood frog blinks  and its heart starts back up; there's a quick breath, and the frog hops  away in search of its mate, as if God had merely hit the pause button.

Watching my sister sleep, I found myself wishing for a miracle of nature just like that.





Strangely, the rest of my life continued to move forward apace.

Work remained a sometimes welcome distraction, and my clients'  enthusiasm for my work product was a rare bright spot during that time. I  met with my Realtor and signed on the dotted line; the couple from  Louisville asked for a long escrow, because they wanted their kids to  finish out the school year there, so the closing was set for May. And  over lunch one day, Emily casually asked me for the name of my Realtor,  revealing that she was thinking of selling her house, too.

"I think I need a fresh start," she said, "in a place where I didn't live with David."