The Day He Asked For Divorce Was The Day I Was Dying Chapter 7
Margaret handled the funeral.
Not many people came to the memorial service.
Margaret. A few of my coworkers. Betty, the woman who owned the flower shop. And one woman Sam had never seen before.
She introduced herself as Carla Higgins. She had been my hospice aide.
She brought a pot of white camellias and placed it in front of my photo.
“Grace couldn’t sleep most nights,” Carla said. Her voice was matter-of-fact, like she was telling a simple story. “She talked to me. Mostly about her husband.”
“She said he was a very steady surgeon, and that when they were young, he used to ride a bike with
her to watch the sunrise.”
“One time they got a flat tire and pushed the bike for over two miles. She said that was the best road
she ever walked.”
Sam stood in the corner, not coming closer.
Carla looked at him and went on. “Her last night, the pain was very bad. I asked if she wanted me to
call the nurse for something stronger, but she shook her head.”
“She said she was afraid if she was too sedated, she wouldn’t wake up when he came. She wanted to
see him one more time.”
Margaret covered her mouth.
Sam’s eyes went to my photograph.
It had been taken three years ago. I was wearing that cream-colored cashmere sweater, standing in front of the rose bush by the fence.
The sun was on my shoulders, and my eyes were softly curved in a smile.
After the service, one of my former coworkers walked up to Sam.
“Dr. Bennett, Grace asked us to give you something before she left.”
It was a manila envelope.
“When she came in to resign last month, she also asked us to take care of renewing your mother’s prescription coverage. And inside here…”
The woman pulled out a stack of forms.
“She filled out a patient assistance application for a woman named Juliette Moreau Grace said My
Moreau had financial difficulties and qualified for the program.”
Sam took the forms.
In the applicant box, I had written my own name. In the “patient to be assisted” box, I had written Juliette Moreau.
The submission date was five weeks ago. The day after I was diagnosed.
He didn’t know what I had been thinking when I signed my name to that form.
Maybe my hand had trembled. Maybe it hadn’t. I had always been too good at hiding things.
It was late when he got home.
Sam didn’t turn on the lights. He walked through the dark to the kitchen.
In the refrigerator, there were the last vegetables I had bought. The potatoes had gone soft. The ginger was dried out at the edges of its container.
He took everything out and followed my recipe, step by step, to make the beef stew.
Cold water in the pot.
He stood at the stove and waited for it to boil, then caught something faint, a scent like broth and herbs, drifting from somewhere.
He turned and looked at the dining table.
I used to sit in the chair by the window. I would drink my soup and wait for him to come home. I always left the biggest piece of potato in his bowl.
The water in the pot began to bubble, a low, steady boil.
Sam turned off the stove. He couldn’t finish.
It wasn’t that he didn’t know how. It was that every step reminded him. For ten years, only one
person had done these things.
And he had never once asked why the soup was always hot. Why the house was always clean. Why
his clothes were always folded and waiting for him by the bed.
He had thought it was just how things were.
He didn’t realize until it was gone that it wasn’t “how things were.”
it was one person holding everything together with everything she had