It takes me probably twice as long as it would Sara or Sam because I have to look for where things belong. By the time it’s done, however, and the dirty breakfast dishes are loaded into it, I’m as familiar with the set up of the Forrester kitchen as they are.
For the next hour and a half, I dry and wash and fold clothes, stacking the clean clothes on the counter. I’m in the middle of loading an armful of towels into the wash machine when I hear a mechanical clank followed by a whir. The garage door. Surely Anna Sturgill doesn’t use the garage entrance, which would mean that Sam is home.
I exhale in relief, my muscles melting around my bones like warm wax. For a few seconds, my legs even feel rubbery. I didn’t realize how tense I was.
I’m still in the laundry room when the garage door swings open and Sam appears. He looks haggard and pale. Like he’s tired. Exhausted even, which I’m sure he is. Both physically and emotionally.
“Hi,” is the only thing I can think to say.
A part of me, the part that’s still seventeen and in love, wants to pull him into my arms and make his troubles go away, but that wouldn’t be right.
Not here.
Not now.
Even if that’s what Sara thinks she wants. Even if it’s what I might want, in a really sick and twisted way. I just can’t do that.
Not like this.
Not this way.
“Hi,” he replies hoarsely, reaching up to loosen his tie. Before he says anything else, his silvery eyes scan the small utility room. “You’ve been busy.”
I shrug. “Just helping where I can.”
He nods his thanks. “Noelle?”
“She wanted to stay upstairs with Sara. I didn’t know what to do, whether to try and make her come down or wait for her to come down on her own, so I…I just left her.”
“That’s fine.”
I raise my hands, palm up, and shake my head. “I just didn’t know what to do. I…I’m sure Sara wants to spend time with Noelle, and I know Noelle needs it, too. But Sara does need her rest and I…I…”
Sam reaches out to touch my arm, stopping my weird ramble. “Abi, seriously. It’s fine. I don’t know what the right thing is half the time either. I’d have left her if I were here. Seriously.”
I let my head drop. Why am I making such a big deal of this? Why does it feel so important that I do all the right things?
Maybe it’s because I know that, at this point, every moment is a part of goodbye. Sara’s goodbye. And goodbyes are important. I’ve lost so much, yet I’ve never had the luxury of a goodbye. Those I’ve lost were ripped from me like flesh from bone, leaving deep wounds that haven’t healed properly. Maybe that’s why I want to make this time as easy and as full and as right as I can make it for this family. Maybe this is what I can do to help them. Maybe this is what I can offer.
Maybe this is all I can offer.
For the second time in as many days, I feel Sam’s arms come around me. For the second time, I feel his comfort extending to me as if I’m the one who needs it rather than him. And for the second time, I let him.
I let him draw me close.
I let him stroke my hair.
I let him comfort me the way he used to so many years ago.
Of all the things that have changed, this hasn’t. Sam brings me comfort—his voice, his touch, his presence. He always has. I wonder if he always will. I wonder if it’s something peculiar to first loves. Or if it’s peculiar to only loves. That would be the case for me. Not for Sam, though. He found Sara. He’s had more than one love. But for me? Sam was my first, my one, and my only.
And I know he will be my last.
He whispers against my temple. “We’ll get through this.”
I lean back and look up into his face. “Sam, I should be comforting you. I should be telling you you’ll get through this.”
He smiles a sad smile. “This is new to you. You’re just now seeing it. I’ve been watching her die for two years. I’ve had time to cope with it, to come to terms with it. To accept it. You’re just now meeting her, seeing how great she is, seeing how much she means to her daughter. For you, it’s new. And it’s hard. And I’m so sorry it’s hurting you. Because I know it is.”
I can’t deny it. It does hurt, which makes about as much sense as rain and sunshine pouring through the clouds at the same time. I shouldn’t like the woman who married the man I loved. I shouldn’t help the woman who has made such a wonderful life with the guy who should’ve been mine. I shouldn’t mourn the woman who will leave scars on Sam that I will never be able to heal.
Yet I do.
I do like her.
I do want to help her.
And I will mourn her.
As crazy as it sounds, I know it’s true. I like Sara. Admire her. She is a caliber of woman I could never be. She is selfless enough to hand over her husband to the love of someone else simply because she cares so much for him and their daughter. If Sam were mine, I would never want anyone else to have him.
But Sara is better than that.
Better than me.
I muster a smile. “Why don’t you go check on them? If they’re ready to get up, y’all can enjoy some time together. I’ll take care of dinner tonight. I bought a roast I was debating what to do with. I’ll fix that with some sides and bring it over later.”
“You don’t have to do that, Abi.”
“I know I don’t. I want to. I promise.” I add a smile to the last to be more convincing, because I really do. I really do want to help as much as I can. As long as I can.
“If you’re sure…”
“I am. Go.” I step out of his way and nudge his arm. “Go love them.”
Sam stops in the hall and turns back to me. “Will you stay and eat with us?”
“Let’s see how Sara is feeling.”
“She’d want you to stay, regardless.”
I nod my head slightly. “If she wants me to stay, I’ll stay.”
Sam doesn’t respond verbally, but he doesn’t need to. Before he disappears around the corner, I see the relief on his face. It makes me feel good to have put it there.
CHAPTER 21
ABI
Getting To Know You
As the weeks pass, I’m constantly measuring each one against Sara’s comment. I expect to be seeing a lot of you for the next few weeks.
The next few weeks.
Weeks.
I see them go by and I weigh every one against the expected length of her life, and I wonder how many more there will be, how much longer she has. It’s like waiting with every breath for the other shoe to drop.
Since the night I took them a pot roast with carrots and onions and mashed potatoes, I’ve seen them every day. Some days, I go over early to keep Noelle while Sam is at work and Sara rests. Some days, I sneak in and clean when Sara has a good day and they go to the park or to a movie. Some days, I bring Noelle to my house when Sara is having a particularly bad day and the adults need space. And some days, like today, it seems that I’m as much a part of their family as each of them are. It’s bizarre and unconventional and unexpected, but it works. Somehow, it works.
Somehow, somewhere along the way, I’ve adopted them all as my own.
I’ve been here since before breakfast. Sara woke up early and she sat at the island and chatted with me as I made French toast. We ate together, all of us, like a family, and made plans for the day. Sam had to interview another physician’s assistant so he can take a little more time off without putting the clinic in jeopardy. Sara wanted to sit in the sun and watch Noelle play. She wanted me to stay, so I did. I went out with them, and Sara and I sat in chairs on the lawn, and talked like old college buddies.
For a while, it was like she wasn’t dying. We chatted about gardening and how she has the worst black thumb. We discussed about how thankful we are that the world isn’t dependent on either of our ability to grow food to survive. We talked about wrinkly cucumbers left on the vine too long, and green tomatoes the
size and consistency of little marbles, and we talked about zucchini the length and diameter of a tire pressure gauge and how bitter they are when they’re small like that. And we laughed. In fact, more than once, we laughed until my side hurt.
And then the light switch flipped and Sara faded, right before my eyes. Like she often does, she was bright one second and utterly exhausted the next. It’s as though her gas tank just runs out all of a sudden, no warning whatsoever.
I helped her to her room and got her sleepy daughter situated beside her. It was as I closed the door that I realized how much shorter Sara’s energetic spurts were becoming, if one could even call them energetic to begin with. Since recognizing that, I’ve worried.
I’m making dinner while she rests, thinking about how much I wish I could’ve known her when she was healthier. More and more, I can see why Sam fell for her. She’s amazing. And talented, too. She can draw. Like, really draw.
One especially hot day, as we sat in the shade, Sara sketched Noelle as she napped on a blanket in the grass beside us. The amount of detail she captured with a piece of charcoal and a sheet of paper is mind-boggling. Even now, I can picture Noelle’s hand curled next to her face as she slept. With some rapid flicks of her fingers, Sara crafted and shaded each finger, crease by crease, until it looked as though I could reach out and hold the black and white hand. It’s an incredible piece.
The picture hung on the fridge for a few days, right up until I snatched it. I keep hoping no one will notice. I took it down to a framing shop in town to have it matted and framed. It will be priceless to Sam and Noelle one day. It would be to me.
I catch myself smiling wistfully. It fades as I consider the way I’m thinking.
One day.
I think about Sam and Noelle’s future. I think about it and plan for it, taking into consideration the things they’ll one day treasure after Sara is gone. Why? Because I’ve fallen in love with this family. All of them.
I didn’t want to. God, how I didn’t want to. But I did. I have. And I’m not sure there was ever a time when I really, really thought I wouldn’t. They’re all too amazing not to love.
My chin begins to tremble, but I check my emotions when I hear the garage door. I pour the contents of the bowl—a chicken, broccoli and cheese casserole—into a baking dish and I’m sliding it into the oven and setting the timer when Sam walks in.
I’m always struck by his handsomeness when he walks into the room. Always. If I were to live another fifty years, I don’t think I’d ever get used to the way he takes my breath away.
Or the guilt that comes rushing in when he does.
He uses his crooked forefinger to loosen his tie, a lazy, cockeyed grin on his face. “Where’s the apron, Suzy Homemaker?”
I roll my eyes, but feel an answering grin tugging at my lips. “Shut up. I made sure to pick a recipe that wasn’t messy.”
Everyone in the house knows I’m not the best cook. We’ve gotten to the point now where it’s become a bit of a joke. We laugh about my domesticity, or really my lack thereof. There was an incident a couple of weeks ago that involved me heating a bottle of barbecue sauce in the microwave with the lid on. It didn’t occur to me that it would pressurize the contents and it would more or less explode when I uncapped it.
Yet that’s what it did.
There was barbecue sauce everywhere. On the stove, on the counter, even on the ceiling. Everywhere except my clothes. I’d decided to wear an apron that day because I had on a white shirt. I had the presence of mind to think, “White shirt plus barbecue sauce equals stain disaster.” I didn’t think I’d need to protect the entire kitchen.
Sam’s only comment when he saw the mess was, “Next time, I’ll provide a drop cloth. Or six.”
Sara laughed until water spewed out of her nose.
Noelle laughed because there was sauce in my hair that no one told me about until after dinner, and she got to be complicit in the joke.
It warms my heart, shamefully so, to think back on that night. Actually, it warms my heart to think back on many of the days and nights I’ve spent here.
All because a wonderful woman is dying.
It’s so tragically unfair it defies description.
Sam rolls up his sleeves as he approaches me at the sink where I’m running water into the dirty bowl. “Anything else need to be done?”
“Nope. It’ll be ready in forty-five minutes.” I slap the bowl in the dishwasher and dry my hands on a towel.
“Good. The girls?”
“Napping.”
“Good day?”
“Mostly. She just let herself get too tired, I think. I probably shouldn’t have let Noelle stay up there with her.”
“It’s fine.”
“She has a harder time resting when she gets too tired. I should’ve made—”
“Abi, stop it. I thought you were past this.”
I sigh. “I thought I was, too.”
“You’re doing everything right.”
I look up into Sam’s face. “I just want to be sure. I want to do it right for Sara.”
He smiles a sad smile. “I know you do. Because you care.” When I say nothing, Sam slides his hand down my arm and laces the fingers of one hand with mine. “Come on. Let’s go check on them.”
He tugs me out of the laundry room and through the kitchen, toward the steps. We climb them together, me trailing behind him, our fingers still entwined. It’s only when we get to the bedroom door that he lets go. The simple gesture speaks volumes. Sam cares for me. There is an intimacy between us, an ember that two decades hasn’t smothered. Yet his ingrained sense of propriety keeps him from displaying it in front of his wife. Even though she’s given him permission to pursue me, to love me, to move on with me, he has enough respect for her not to let her see it.
I think I might love him even more for that, for taking such care with her feelings, for taking such pains to make sure that her last days are as happy and comfortable as he can possibly make them. While she thinks this is what she wants—us together—seeing it, witnessing it, might be too much, and Sam doesn’t want to risk hurting her.
Neither do I, of course. It would kill me to think I’d brought her more pain in her last days.
Even though his release of my hand was a fraction of a second in time, when Sam glances back at me, something shifts. It’s as though, in this moment, we both agree that we have feelings for each other, and that it’s okay, because for now, we will think of Sara first. We are giving her what she wants, but taking care not to wound her with it. Something about it feels good. Better than it has since I agreed to this madness. It’s as though we’ve somehow brought Sara right into the middle of the mix, where she should be.
Sam opens the door slowly, the hinges whispering their protest. He pokes his head in and then swings the door wider to step inside. When he moves, I get a view into the room. My eyes go immediately to the bed, to the two sleeping forms. Sara is sleeping on her back and Noelle is crashed at her side, perpendicular to her mother, her head on Sara’s abdomen. The only sound in the room is the deep even huff of breathing. Who it’s coming from I can’t be sure. I get a whiff of something odd, but it’s light and I can’t put my finger on it.
As Sam walks silently toward the bed, Sara’s eyes open. They’re clear, making me think she’s been awake for some amount of time. She croaks hoarsely, “Can one of you take her downstairs please? I need to get up and use the bathroom. I’ve had…I’ve had an accident.”
Her voice breaks on the last.
My heart breaks right along with it.
Even though she’s pale, I can see Sara’s cheeks taint with the pink of humiliation. She’s experiencing something that no woman ever wants to suffer in the presence of her husband.
I’m humiliated for her. I’m wrecked for her.
Before I can offer to help her rather than letting Sam do it, he turns to me and asks me to get Noelle. “Would you please take her downstairs? She probably won’t sl
eep much longer.”
I nod and, without a word, I cross the room and scoop her up into my arms. I cradle the small bundle against my chest, glancing briefly at Sara, whose face is averted.
I notice that odor again and it recedes as I walk away from the bed. It isn’t an awful smell, but it isn’t pleasant either. A word flits through my mind, but I mentally swat it away.
Death.
It smells like death in here. Like death is drawing ever nearer.
I know that’s because it is.
I carry Noelle from the room, but my mind is on what’s happening behind me. For a few moments, I’m consumed with the couple in the other room.
Until I reach the stairs. Sam and Sara fade as several other things intrude upon my thoughts.
The weight in my arms.
The warmth on my skin.
The decline of the steps.
They’re a ton of bricks falling onto my head. A sumo wrestler slamming into my ribs. A freight train running over my soul.
I stumble backward, gripping Noelle tightly as I teeter toward the wall. Sweat pops out on my forehead and the floor swims in front of me.
I hear a gasp. A voice.
I feel movement. A struggle.
Then I hear crying.
It’s the crying that brings me back to the moment, to this moment, just in time to see Sam hurtle down the hall toward me. His face is full of fear and confusion.
He kneels in front of me and takes the pressure from my chest, from my arms. I see him lift Noelle and press her head to his shoulder, rubbing soothing circles on her back with his big hand.
His voice is tight with alarm. “Are you okay? What happened?”
I look around in bewilderment, the seconds ticking by like hours. I’m stuck. Trapped between two worlds, two homes, two lives. Two places in time. And I’m struggling to separate them, to let go of one and embrace the other. Instinctively, I know that if I can’t, I will simply lose myself. Again.
“Abi, talk to me,” Sam pleads, his brow ribbed with concern, his eyes dark with it. Now, Noelle is looking down at me from her place on his hip, her face dry of tears, her eyes wide and curious.