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It was the place we went 46 years ago
when she found out she was pregnant with Seamus.
She ordered the roasted chicken with
new potatoes that night and the chef came out and shook my hand.
We went there when he graduated from
college, too. He poured us each a glass of wine, stood, and thanked
us. The whole dining room applauded when he was finished his speech.
The two of us were ebullient then, full of love and pride.
When we found out Linda's sister Carol
had been diagnosed with breast cancer we took her out to Javier's,
too. The night before she started chemotherapy. The four of us, me,
Linda, Carol, and Carol's husband Marty.
In the low-light, after a few glasses
of wine it was easy to look into each other's eyes. It was easier to
say, “Everything will be okay,” and believe it. Linda just had a
salad that night. Carol had the prime rib cooked rare. She was
eating like it was the last day of her life.
Six years later, we went back to
Javier's for a luncheon after Carol's funeral. That time Linda
didn't eat anything. She stood near the entrance greeting people as
they came in. At one point I looked over and it seemed one of the
waiters was holding her up. She had her head on his shoulder. I
could see the tension in his body, he was trying to inch away. She
had forgotten he had another job to do. I went over to her then and
took his place.
Last night we visited Linda's doctor
again for the 25th time in the last 12 months. He asked
to speak to me privately and finally said what I had been waiting to
hear. “Take her home,” he said, “keep giving her her
medication, but I need to tell you this: She is in decline. It
won't get any better than this. I need to be honest with you now,
David, because I think you deserve honesty. You need to be prepared
for what's ahead of you.”
I met Linda in the waiting room and she
smiled her vacant smile. “Everything, okay, darling?” she asked
me. She rarely called me David now because my name usually slipped
her mind.
“Yes,” I told her, “how would you
like to go to Javier's for dinner now?”
She just beamed. It was one of the
only places she still remembered.
We got to the restaurant and they sat
us at our usual table. It was a Thursday night, so there was live
music. A singer and a guitarist. When I got Linda into her chair I
walked over to the singer and slipped her a twenty.
“Do you know 'Someone to Watch Over
Me'?”
“Of course,” she said.
“Play it for us,” I told her, “It
was our wedding song. It's our anniversary tonight. I gave you
twenty bucks so you'd play it four times. Five bucks a play is fair,
right?”
The singer smiled. “You got it, sir,”
she said, “Congratulations.”
It wasn't our anniversary, of course.
But I was still celebrating. I would be celebrating every day that I
still had her.
Linda ordered the lamb chop. It seemed
the food made her lucid. She grinned and grinned throughout the
whole meal.
I noticed that she had some gravy on
her chin and then I heard the first few chords of our song.
I got up from my seat and crossed over
to Linda's side of the table. Holding her face in one hand I wiped
her chin with my napkin and kissed her.
She looked at me, there in the
low-light, after a couple of glasses of wine, it was easy. She
looked at me and she understood.
I saw tears in her eyes and she
whispered, “Thank you, David, thank you, I love you.”
They played the song three more times
and each time I got up and crossed over to Linda.
Each time I took her face in my hands
and each time she recognized me.
Each time we kissed it was the first
time and the last time.
Our tears fell clear through dessert,
but we laughed at them and at each other.
On my second to last cup of coffee I
caught the singer looking at us. She was crying too.
Here was the answer to all the times in
the past year I had asked myself where she had gone. She was still
here, in our favorite spot, at our usual table, after a couple of
glasses of wine, listening to our song. She was with me still. Each
time I got up and crossed over to her, she came back to me fully.
She knew who I was, who I had been. She saw it all, and it was
enough.
Our life together had been a series of
perfect moments. Without the various contexts of our experiences, it
could be like a montage in a film. Linda in her favorite blue dress.
Linda fixing my tie. The two of us sharing the drive up to Maine
in the summers. Me young and slim in my swim trunks. Linda ordering
an appetizer, having another glass of wine, thanking the waiter as he
fills her water glass. Me getting out my seat several times during
dinner to kiss my lovely wife. We had lived so beautifully, had been
so generous with one another. It would go on. It would keep going
on until the end.
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