The Art of Saying Goodbye - Ellyn Bache [102]
The incline grew steeper. I wasn’t really walking anymore—more like crawling. Leaning forward, clutching the grass and anything else that protruded from the ground.
A dizzying movement took over my stomach. My head. My lungs filled with hot metal points of air.
I clung to a rock. Red drops of blood dripped from my nose.
Chest on fire. Head whirling.
Then a wave of weakness. I couldn’t move. My mother said take it easy, but she never said altitude would light candles in my lungs, turn my stomach, force blood from my nose. If she had, would I have believed it?
The rock was cool beneath my cheek. I turned my head to the side and threw up.
In front of me, a dandelion bloomed. Dandelions grow above the tree line, I thought.
I would concentrate on that, on things outside the sickness. I imagined the hiss of air on the plane, hissing from the overhead nozzle, thick and luxurious, whole milk after a diet of skim. I breathed that air.
Squiggling along on my belly, I lifted my gaze just enough to see, above me, snow. Glistening, even in the rain.
Strength trickled back into me. I rose to my knees, my feet. Hard shoes digging into the hillside. I held on as if to the side of a building. A wall.
Up. Inch by inch. Foothold to foothold. Up.
Mason was a speck among the fallen trees below.
I plastered my belly to a raw, wet rock, convinced it wouldn’t let me fall. At the end, I didn’t know it would be so simple. Reaching up, higher than I’d ever been before, I opened my hand to whatever it might grasp, and came away with a tiny sliver of snow.
I wished Mason could see it. He’d be clapping, jubilant, thumbs-up. I would have taken him with me if I could. I loved him. The girls, too. But some climbs you have to make alone.
Chapter 26
Early December
Paisley Lockhart Lamm, 46, wife, mother, and dear friend to all, died peacefully on November 30. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer 47 days earlier, on October 14.
An avid music lover and tennis player, Paisley’s real and abiding passions were her family and friends. Paisley sought to instill in her children a zest for life, a commitment to family and friends, and the power of a smile.
Paisley is survived by her husband of 18 years, Mason Lamm; their daughters, Brynne and Melody; and her mother, Rita Lockhart.
The family asks that you spend time with your children, take a walk in the park with your loved ones, and make a toast to enduring friendship—lifelong and beyond. This is what Paisley would wish for you.
The low moan of grief that spills from Julianne’s lips when she reads the obituary is the polar opposite of the wave of blackness that signaled Paisley’s illness. Through misted eyes, she rereads the words and then sheds the tears that have been building since yesterday when she learned of Paisley’s death.
“Come with me,” she says to Toby, who hovers at the edge of the room, looking worried.
“Where?”
“To take a walk in the park.” She hands him the obituary to read.
“She was always nice to me,” he says, his deep young voice rough.
“She was nice to everyone.”
To honor Paisley’s memory, they do, indeed, take a walk in the cold park, clouds gathering, the trees spookily bare. Julianne brings along a bag of stale bread, which they feed to the ducks in the little lake. The tall, brawny Toby throwing crusts into the water echoes the smaller one, three or four years old, standing here, eyes alight at the sight of the scrambling, quacking creatures waddling up the bank toward him for their treat. She is so lucky. He is so large, so healthy. So kind.
This is what Paisley would wish for you. Yes.
The walk, done at Paisley’s instruction, makes her feel slightly less of a traitor for owning the fingers that discovered Paisley’s illness. But it does nothing to rid her of the sense that it is no favor just to discover someone’s illness if you can do nothing to cure it.
Back at home, she goes on foot to Lindenwood Court, knowing the cul-de-sac will be full of cars. She cuts through the crowd directly to Mason. “It was