Chapter 9: The Time That Was Left
The months that followed were not easy.
There were bad days — days when Thomas barely left his room, when the tiredness pressed down on him in a way no amount of rest seemed to lift.
Days when Diane sat outside his door reading, not going in, just being close.
Days when I brought tea and he drank half of it and we sat without talking and that was the right thing.
There were good days too.
He taught Carol the names of every dahlia in the garden, standing at the fence with one hand on the post for balance, pointing and naming with the patience of a man who has decided to give away everything he knows.
She wrote them down in a small notebook she bought at the shop on the corner.
He pretended not to notice how carefully she was writing.
One afternoon in October, he asked me to walk with him.
We went slowly — down the street, around the block, not far.
He had a cane now, a plain wooden one he'd chosen himself, and he used it without embarrassment.
"I want to tell you something," he said, when we were halfway around.
"All right."
"I've been thinking about the letter," he said.
"About what I wrote.
*You should live, Eleanor.
Fully.
Without looking back.*" He paused.
"Did you?"
I thought about it honestly.
"Mostly," I said.
"I had a good marriage.
A good life.
Carol.
Friends I loved.
Work I was proud of." I paused.
"There was a corner of it I kept for wondering.
But only a corner."
"That's more than I managed," he said.
"You had Ruth," I said.
"You had Diane."
"Yes," he said.
"I did.
And I was grateful for both." He looked ahead.
"But there was more than a corner."
We walked in silence for a moment.
"I don't want you to feel guilty about that," I said.
"I know," he said.
"I'm not telling you so you'll forgive me.
I think you already have." He glanced at me.
"I'm telling you because I want you to know that it mattered.
That you mattered.
Not just in some abstract way.
Specifically.
Continuously." He paused.
"For fifty years."
I looked at the street ahead of us.
"I know," I said.
"The letter told me."
"The letter was written by a 34-year-old man who thought he was being noble," he said.
"I wanted you to hear it from an 84-year-old man who has had time to understand what he was actually saying."
I stopped walking.
He stopped beside me.
"Thomas," I said.
"Yes."
"I know," I said again.
"I've known since the garden.
Since you took my hand."
He looked at me.
"I just wanted to say it properly," he said.
"Once.
Out loud."
"You just did," I said.
He nodded.
Once, slowly.
We finished the walk.
Carol came to stay again in November, and again in December.
She and Diane had developed the easy shorthand of people who have been through something together — finishing each other's sentences about grocery runs and medication schedules and which of Thomas's stories they had already heard.
On a Thursday in late December, Thomas had a harder day than usual.
By evening he was in bed, and Diane sat with him while Carol and I made dinner in the kitchen.
Carol was chopping onions — or pretending the onions were the reason her eyes were wet.
"Mom," she said.
"I know," I said.
"Is he — "
"I don't know," I said.
"Diane will tell us if we need to know something."
Carol set down the knife.
"I'm glad I came out.
I'm glad I got to know him."
"So am I," I said.
She picked the knife back up.
We finished dinner.
Diane came out an hour later and said he was sleeping, and that he'd asked her to tell us the soup smelled good.
May you like
We all laughed — the sudden, helpless kind.
It was the best dinner I'd had in years.
