The Art of Saying Goodbye - Ellyn Bache [96]
Ginger’s house holds last night’s cold, but outside it’s unseasonably warm again as she heads across the cul-de-sac. It’s unsettling. Not good for Christmas sales. Heading toward Paisley’s, she holds the cake in front of her like a shield.
There is a certain point—she has known this since her father-in-law’s long battle with heart disease—when a person begins to die in earnest. There is a hollowness about them. They begin to retreat. She has seen this, and she knows. When she walks into the den where the CD player sends the strains of “Unchained Melody” floating around the room like a cloud, Paisley sits up in a rented hospital bed, regarding her with that detached look that makes her seem as if she’s already left, but making a great effort to smile. Ginger thinks, This will be over soon.
“I guess you aren’t in the cake-eating mood,” she says as she holds out her offering. It doesn’t look like Paisley has eaten for weeks. So when Paisley speaks, Ginger is startled to find her still so present, so there.
“I’m not up for cake right now, but I’m sure the kids are. And Mason. He has an awful sweet tooth.” With her right arm, the arm not encumbered by the needle for the morphine drip, Paisley gestures toward the folding chairs set around the room in a neat rectangle that reminds Ginger of funeral parlors. “Sit down for a minute.” Then, exhausted by the effort, she lets her impossibly thin arm drop onto her covers.
“I wish I could do more for you,” Ginger says. “When I made the cake . . . I know it’s Thanksgiving weekend and everybody is up to their ears in food. I thought maybe you could freeze it. I just didn’t know what else to do.”
“You’ve done more than you know.”
What, exactly? Ginger wonders. It seems an odd time for flattery. “And I want to ask you one other thing,” Paisley says.
“Sure,” Ginger says. “What?”
Without lifting her tired arm from the bed, she beckons Ginger closer and whispers in her ear.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
It seems an odd request, but Ginger nods, because what else can she do? Discreetly, Paisley pushes the pump on her morphine drip, to give herself a little more painkiller. Her eyes drift shut, then open halfway. “Thanks.” She gives Ginger a lazy smile. Ginger feels she’s been rewarded.
She’s glad that, although Paisley has become a shadow, dusky yellow and thin, the transformation hasn’t made her skeletal, like most people at the end of their lives, but simply more ethereal—the blue eyes swimmy rather than snappy, enormous above the hollowed cheeks, the hair a dark cushion against the too-golden skin. Paisley will be beautiful even on the last day of her life. Her beauty will be a gift, a kind of blessing, for everyone around her.
Paisley has almost drifted off again, when suddenly she shifts positions and winces.
“Anything I can do?” Ginger asks and feels truly bereft when Paisley shakes her head no.
“I’m just creaky,” Paisley says. “Everything’s creaky.” She stops to gather energy, stops for a quite a long time, and when she speaks again, Ginger realizes she was trying to call up her old sense of humor. “You know what I could use right now?” she quips. “I could use a dip in that hot tub we had in the other house.”
“Done,” Ginger says, pretending to joke back. But adrenaline is already coursing through her in a joyful jab that catapults her out of her chair. Setting down the cake that will probably go into the trash, she begins making calculations.
How long will it take to get a spa over here and install it in the yard? Where should it go? What about the power line?
Here, finally, is something she can do.
She finds Mason on the screened porch, going through the Sunday paper. “Circulation’s down,” he says. “Circulation goes down, advertising goes down. It’s a vicious circle. Daily newspapers are dropping like flies.” He folds the paper and sets it on the table. A muscle works in his jaw. “What’s up, Ginger?” he whispers hoarsely.
“She said she wishes she could sit in a hot tub like the one you used to have at the house down on Dogwood