No Time For Goodbye

Cynthia to her were shrouded in mystery, and undoubtedly tragic.

Tess was in her late sixties now, retired, getting by on Social Security and her county pension. She gardened and puttered about, took the occasional bus trip like the one she took last fall up through Vermont and New Hampshire to look at the changing leaves-“Jesus, a bus full of old people, I thought I’d kill myself”-but she didn’t have much of a social life. Not a joiner, not inclined to attend AARP meetings. But she kept up with the news, maintained her subscriptions to Harper’s and The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly and was not bashful about offering her left-of-center political opinions. “That president,” she said to me on the phone one day, “he makes a bag of hammers look like a Nobel Prize winner.” Spending most of her teenage years with Tess had helped shape Cynthia’s attitude and perspective as well, and no doubt contributed to her decision to pursue, in the early years of our marriage, a career in social work.

And how Tess did love to see us. Especially Grace.

“I was going through some boxes of old books in the basement,” Tess said, flopping into her La-Z-Boy after we’d done the hug thing, “and look what I came across.”

She leaned forward in her chair, moved aside a copy of The New Yorker that had been hiding something else, and handed Grace an oversized hardcover book, Cosmo s, by Carl Sagan. Grace’s eyes went wide, looking at the kaleidoscope of stars on the cover.

“It’s a pretty old book,” Tess said, as if apologizing for her thoughtfulness. “Nearly thirty years, and the guy who wrote it, he’s dead now, and there’s lots better stuff now on the Internet, but there might be something in there to catch your interest.”

“Thank you!” Grace said, taking the book in her hands and nearly dropping it, not expecting it to be quite so heavy. “Is there anything in here on asteroids?”

“Probably,” Tess said.

Grace ran down to the basement, where I knew she’d cuddle up on the couch in front of the TV, maybe wrap a blanket around herself while she leafed through the pages of the book.

“That was sweet,” Cynthia said, leaning over and giving Tess probably her fourth kiss since we’d arrived.

“Didn’t make any sense to throw the damn thing out,” Tess said. “I could have donated it to the library, but you think they want thirty-year-old books? How are you, sweetheart?” she asked Cynthia. “You look tired.”

“Oh, I’m fine,” Cynthia said. “You? You look kind of beat today.”

“Oh, I’m okay I guess,” Tess said, peering at us over her reading glasses.

I held up a loaded shopping bag with twine handles. “We have some things.”

“Oh, you shouldn’t have,” Tess said. “Hand me my loot.”

We called Grace back up so she could see Tess receive some new gardening gloves, a red and green silk scarf, a package of fancy cookies. Tess oohed and aahed over each thing as it came out of the bag. “The cookies are from me,” Grace announced. “Aunt Tess?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Why do you have so much toilet paper?”

“Grace!” Cynthia scolded.

“That,” I said to Grace, “is a fox pass.”

Tess waved dismissively, suggesting it would take more than that to embarrass her. Like a lot of older people, Tess tended to stockpile certain staples. Her basement storage cupboards were loaded with two-ply. “When it’s on sale,” Tess said, “I pick up extra.”

As Grace retreated again to the basement, Tess quipped, “When the apocalypse comes, I’ll be the only one left who can wipe her ass.” The gift presentations seemed to have exhausted her, and she leaned back into her chair with a deep sigh.

“You all right?” Cynthia asked.

“I’m peachy,” she said, then, as if she’d just remembered something, “Oh, I can’t believe it. I meant to buy some ice cream for Grace.”

“That’s okay,” Cynthia said. “We thought we’d take you out for dinner, anyway. How about Knickerbocker’s? You love the potato skins.”

“I don’t know,” Tess said. “I suppose I am a bit off today, tired. Why don’t we have dinner here? I have some things. But I really wanted some ice cream.”

“I can go,” I said. Tess lived closer to Derby than Milford, and I could drive up there and find a grocery store or a 7-Eleven.

“I could use a couple of other things,” Tess said. “Cynthia, maybe you should go, you know if we send him he’ll just get it all wrong.”

“I suppose,” Cynthia said.

“And there’s some things I’d like Terry to carry down to the basement from the garage while he’s here, if you don’t mind, Terry.”

I said sure. Tess made up a short list, handed it to Cynthia, who said she probably wouldn’t be gone more than thirty minutes. I wandered into the kitchen as Cynthia went out the door, glanced at the bulletin board next to the wall-mounted phone where Tess had pinned a picture of Grace taken at Disney World. I opened the freezer compartment of the refrigerator, looking for some ice to put in a glass of water.

In the front of the freezer was a container of chocolate ice cream. I took it out, pried off the lid. It had one scoop out of it. Getting a bit absentminded in her old age, I figured.

“Hey, Tess,” I said, “you’ve already got ice cream here.”

“Is that a fact,” she said from the living room.

I put the ice cream back, closed the freezer, and took a seat on the couch by Tess. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“I’ve been to the doctor,” Tess said.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“I’m dying, Terry.”

“What do you mean? What’s wrong?”

“Don’t worry, it’s not going to happen overnight. I might have six months, I might have a year. You never really know. Some people, they can hang on quite a while, but I’m not looking forward to some long, drawn-out kind of thing. That’s no way to go. Tell you the truth, I’d like to go fast, just like that, you know? Lot simpler that way.”

“Tess, tell me what’s wrong.”

She shrugged. “Doesn’t really matter. They’ve done some tests, they’ve got a couple more they have to do to be sure, but they’ll probably just tell me the same thing. The upshot is, I can see the finish line. And I wanted to tell you first, because Cynthia, she’s been going through a lot lately. Twenty-five years, the TV show.”

“There was an anonymous call the other day,” I said. “That shook her up pretty bad.”

Tess closed her eyes briefly and shook her head. “Nuts. They see something on TV, they get out the phone book.”

“That’s the way I figure it.”

“But Cynthia’s going to have to know eventually, that I’m not well. I guess it’s a matter of finding the right time.”

We heard noises on the stairs. Grace emerged from the basement, lugging her new book with both hands. “Did you know,” she said, “that even though the moon looks like it’s been hit with way more asteroids than the Earth, the Earth has probably been hit with just as many, but because the Earth has atmosphere, the atmosphere smoothes the land so you don’t see all the craters, but there’s not any air or anything on the moon, so when it gets hit by an asteroid, it just looks that way forever?”

“Good book, huh?” said Tess.

Grace nodded. “I’m hungry,” she said.

“Your mother has gone to pick up a few things,” I said.

“She’s not here?”

I shook my head. “She’ll be back soon. But there’s some ice cream in the freezer. Chocolate.”

“Why don’t you take the whole container downstairs,” Tess said. “And a spoon.”

“For real?” Grace asked. This violated every rule of etiquette she knew.