the college tour with Peter. But in spite of that, Bill was calling every day, and even called her at the hotel in Los Angeles where they were staying. It was a surprise to hear from him, but she was smiling when she hung up, and this time Peter didn’t comment. He didn’t want to say anything to upset the delicate balance of their romance, mostly because he liked him, and wanted it to work out between them. And he knew from little things she said how ambivalent his mother was feeling.
When they got back, she waited a few days before she saw Bill, and then only for a quick hamburger in the cafeteria on a night he was on duty at the hospital, but Bill had been anxious to see her. The nurses all recognized her, and some came over to say hello, as did the chief resident, and everyone said to say hello to Peter.
“Everybody loves you, Liz.” She had made a big impression on everyone with her devotion to Peter. Not all parents were as attentive as she was, in fact few were. And she was attentive to Bill too, always asking him questions about his work, and concerned about him, and the challenges and stresses he faced daily. When he was with her, he was always aware of how much she cared about him, sometimes more than she was. She had a hard time admitting that to herself. It still had too many implications.
It wasn’t a coincidence when, the following week, early on a Saturday morning, after they came back from L.A., she stood quietly on Jack’s side of their closet, looking at the jackets that still hung there. They looked lifeless now, and sad, and it depressed her to see them. She didn’t hold them close to her anymore, or stroke them as she once had, or try to imagine him as she clung to them. It had been several months since she held his lapels to her face and smelled them, and as she looked at them now, she knew what she had to do, for her own sake. It had nothing to do with Bill, she told herself. It had been ten months since Jack died, and she was ready. And one by one she took the jackets off the hangers, and folded them in a neat pile. She would have offered them to Peter, but he was too tall and too young to wear them, and it was easier to dispose of them than to see someone else wear them.
It had taken her two hours to empty the drawers and the hanging part of the closet, when Megan walked into her room and saw what she was doing. Megan started to cry, and for an instant Liz felt as though she had killed him. Megan stood there staring at the neat piles of his clothes on the floor and sobbed, and as Liz looked at her she started crying, for her children, for him, for herself. But no matter what she hung on to now, they had lost him. He wasn’t coming back, and he didn’t need the clothes anymore. It was better to give his things away, she told herself, but as she saw Megan’s distress over it, she wondered.
“Why are you doing that now? It’s because of him, isn’t it?” They both knew she meant Bill, and Liz shook her head, as they both stood in the walk-in closet crying.
“It’s time, Meg … I had to … It hurts me too much to see them,” Liz said, as she cried and reached out to her daughter, but Megan pulled away, ran to her room, and slammed the door, and a few minutes later, Liz followed. But Megan didn’t want to talk to her, and Liz went back to her own room, to put Jack’s clothes in boxes. Peter walked by her room and saw what she was doing, stopped and looked at her, and then quietly offered to help her.
“I’ll do it for you, Mom. You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to,” she said sadly. It was the last remnant of him that he had left behind, other than his trophies, and his photographs, and a few mementos, and of course their children.
Peter helped her take it all out to the car, and as though sensing that a turning point had come, one by one the children came and watched her. There was a look of loss evident in their eyes, and at the very last, Megan came out of her room and looked at her mother. It was obvious that it wasn’t easy for Liz either, and then, as a silent move of support for her, each of the children picked something up, a box, a bag, a coat, and carried it to the car. It was a last gesture of good-bye to their father. And at the very end, Megan came, carrying the last armload.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” she whispered through her tears, and Liz turned and clung to her, grateful for the bond between them.
“I love you, Meg.” Mother and daughter cried as they held each other, and the others were crying too by the time the car was full.
“I love you too, Mom,” Megan said softly, and the others came to hug her.
She was taking the clothes to a local charity drop, and Peter offered to drive her.
“I’m okay. I can do it alone,” she reassured him. He was wearing a smaller neck brace by then, and had just begun to drive again, and he insisted on driving her. She was too upset to drive the car and she knew it. And together, they drove slowly out of the driveway, with the car piled high with his father’s things, as the others watched.
They were back half an hour later, and Liz looked ravaged, and when she walked back into her closet that afternoon and saw the empty space, her heart gave a little tug, remembering what had been there, but she felt freer. It had taken her a long time, but she knew she had been right to wait until she was ready, despite the endless advice she’d been given about when to put away Jack’s clothes.
She sat in her room for a long time, staring out the window, and thinking of him, and when Bill called late that afternoon, he could hear in her voice that something had happened.
“Are you okay?” He sounded worried.
“More or less.” She told him what she had done that day, and how hard it had been, and his heart ached as he listened. In the past two months, he had come to care about her deeply.
“I’m sorry, Liz.” He knew it was a sign of some kind, a symbol of the fact that she was slowly letting go of the past, and saying a last good-bye to her husband. He would always be a part of her, and their children were his legacy, but she was loosing her grip on his reality and daily presence. “Can I do anything?”
“No,” she said sadly, they both knew it was a private agony, and a solitary moment.
“I was going to ask you if you wanted to go out tonight, but maybe that’s not such a great idea.” She agreed with him, and he said he’d call her in the morning. In the end, he called her again later that night, just to see how she was. She still sounded sad, but a little better, and she’d spent a quiet evening with the children. They had all calmed down after the sorrow of the morning. And only Liz was left with her memories, and her sense of loss. The others seemed to have come to terms with it long before she had.
The next day when he called, she sounded more herself again, and he was pleased when she agreed to see him that evening. She seemed quieter than usual, and more subdued, but after they talked for a while, she was laughing again, and seemed in better spirits.
They went for a long, quiet walk, and held hands, and when he kissed her this time, they both knew it was different. She was ready to face the future, to let go of the past, and move forward.
