The Language of Sisters (33 page)

“I can't,” Daisy said, adjusting her Marie Antoinette hat. “I have to make another hat. It's going to be a hat with a whale on it, the one I'm going to wear when I ride with the whales, and hello to you again, Toni, kayak lady. I'll sing to you when you cry in your kayak again.”

I gave Daisy a hug, feeling so emotional. This would not end well for Daisy. She was losing her mind, but not her heart.

“What?” Daisy shouted. “Why are you crying? Cheer her up, Mr. Pistol in His Pants. Take out your pistol and whip it around.”

She turned and left, singing a song unfamiliar to me about pistol-packing, ball-racking barroom-brawling buddies.

“Would you like me to take my pistol out now and whip it around?”

“You bet, Pistol Man.”

* * *

“Did Dmitry talk to you about the locket he saw in his dream?”

My parents, seated across from me at an upstairs table at Svetlana's Kitchen, froze.

“A locket?” My mother swore under her breath in French.

My father put a hand to the bridge of his crooked nose, then sunk back in his seat.

I let them sit in the locket problem for a while, exchanging troubled glances.

Charlie was playing T chaikovsky downstairs, but he had come upstairs to give me a hug. Ralph came over to say hello, then saluted me and went back to his room. I could tell he was upset. Ralph was not having an easy day, my mother told me. He'd heard a car backfire and he'd hidden under a table, after grabbing two waitresses and pulling them down with him. They were truly flattered that he had, in his own mind, risked his life to save theirs. Ralph and Charlie are very endearing people.

“Do you have a gold, heart-shaped locket, Mama?”

“No.” Her hands twisted in her lap. She switched to Russian. “I do not.”

“Dmitry thinks it's from his past.” I switched to Russian, too. “He's going to ask you about it.”

“I never meant harm,” my father whispered, also speaking in Russian.

“I know, my love.” My mother patted his hand. “I know you didn't.”

“He has never rested,” my father said. “Never. Even as a boy. Walking away. Leaving. Searching. Lost.”

“You have to tell Dmitry what you know about his past,” I said. “You must.”

“Dmitry and I, we have always had tension, stress, distrust between us.” My father laced his fingers together, blinking rapidly. “From the time he was a little boy, he has not liked me. I don't blame him. I know why. He remembers more than he knows. He knows who I am. Deep in his soul, he knows what I did.”

What?
What was all this? “Papa, what are you talking about?”

“I am talking about a tragedy. His tragedy. A crime on top of other crimes. Revenge and punishment. Evil.”

“Papa, please, you've lost me.”

“I have lost myself. I love Dmitry. He is my son.” He pounded his chest. “Mine. Ours. I love him. His past will never be erased though, will it, Svetlana? I thought it would, but no, it won't. It will be worse when he knows.”

“Healing will come from this, Alexei.”

“He's blocked it out,” my father continued, lost in the misery of the past. “A wall. But brick by brick, the wall is coming down. Crumble by crumble. The locket now. Already the rocking horse, the blue door, a vegetable garden, a white dog. Soon the wall will open, like his mind, wider and wider still.”

“Then help him, Papa,” I begged. “Tell him what happened. Tell me how you got Dmitry. You said it was an orphanage. I know that's not true.”

He shook his head. “Not an orphanage.”

“Then where, Papa? Where did Dmitry come from?”

“I cannot say. Not yet. I will tell him, you are right, Antonia, he should know. When Dmitry is here, after the wedding, we will tell him his own life story. It will cause him deep pain and anguish. He will wish he could go back to not knowing. He will hate me.”

“He will not hate you,” my mother said.

“He will. He remembers, somewhere. In that head of his, he is brilliant. He was young, but it's there. He talks about a shadow. The shadow comes out and plays with him, teases him mercilessly, then it hides away, waiting. I know who that shadow is.”

My mother reached for my father, both arms around him. “You did what you had to do, Alexei. There was no choice. We had no choice.”

“I chose what I thought was best for him at that time. We didn't have much time, do you remember, Svetlana?”

She shook her head. “No time at all.”

“What Dmitry saw has never left him. It has followed him from Moscow, hanging on to him, haunting him, hurting him. But it is time. Time for the truth. Time to tell my son why he entered this family with blood on him.”

I sat back in my chair, weak.

Charlie had moved on to Mozart. Ralph smiled and went downstairs to clean the kitchen.

* * *

When Marty couldn't work anymore, we settled in at home, and I took a leave away from the paper. We kayaked, so gently, and at the end with friends, because Marty needed help getting in and out of the kayak. On our last kayak trip, he laughed and said to them, all doctors, “Good thing you boys are finally doing something worthwhile” and “I've always wanted you guys to carry me, as if I'm your King. I finally got my wish. If only I had my crown with me.”

His poker group came once a week, not once a month. He spent time with his parents. Both of them looked close to dissolving from pain. He hugged my parents, my sisters and brother, who had flown in several times from around the world to see Marty. He hugged my uncles and aunts and cousins, and they blubbered and cried all over him. We had his best friends over, from high school, college, medical school. Who he wanted, I called, they came. We laughed and sang songs.

He invited the Kozlovsky family, and his parents, over for dinner. My parents brought his favorite Russian dishes. After dinner, Marty said, “I want all of you to know that I love you.”

He was bald and thin, weak, but still smiling, so brave.

“We love you, too, Marty.” Everyone said it, some with ragged voices.

“I would like you all to do one very important thing for me.”

“Anything ... name it, son ... I'll do it ... Yes.”

He put his arm around me. “Take care of Toni.”

I don't think there was anyone in that room who didn't cry.

* * *

And then, at the end, it was only us, and his parents.

Marty and I cried, but he was never angry. Never bitter and furious and scared, like me, as he had warned me not to become, though his life was ending so much sooner than it should have.

One morning, as we watched the sun come up, because Marty told me he wanted to watch sunrises and sunsets as much as possible, he said, “I will miss you, honey. I already do.”

I tried to be brave. I was falling apart. “That's how I feel. I already miss you, Marty. I'm so sorry this happened to you. To us. To your parents ...”

“Me too, but I wouldn't wish it on anyone else in place of me.”

“I love you so much, Marty.”

“And I, you, Toni. You are my life. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

There was no hope then. He had done surgery. Chemo. Radiation. Two failed clinical trials. He was on hospice care.

“Toni, you must kayak again. You love the river, the animals, nature, the wind, the rapids. Do what you love, my love.”

“No. I can't. Not without you.”

“Please, honey. Live when I'm gone. I want to know that you'll be on the river again.”

“ No. ”

The sun came up, the light blues and butter yellows and sweet pinks blurred, that fuzzy light grew to golden light, and we went back to sleep, arms entwined, my head against his bald head.

* * *

Another night, sitting on our deck, the sun sinking, prophetic, an ending, we held hands, a berry pie off to the side that we'd eaten earlier with his parents. Marty pointed out the bright and shining tunnel from the ground through the puffy white clouds to the sun. “It's a stairway into heaven.”

“I hate that stairway.”

He kissed my cheek and I turned, put my hands on his bald head, and kissed him back.

“Thank you for marrying me, Toni. This has been the happiest time of my life.”

“I don't know what to do. I don't,” I said. “I was lost when I met you, Marty, and now I feel lost again, and I don't know how to live without you. I don't know why this is happening. I don't know how I can ever be happy again. I feel like I'm falling down a pit and here I am telling you my problems and it's me who should be listening to you, but I need you. I need you to help me. Marty, please. I don't want you to die, I don't want you to die, I don't want you to die.”

I started getting hysterical, drowning in the type of crying you do when you are all broken up inside and you can't take it anymore and nothing seems right because nothing is right and you are losing a person who is your heart and you will not see them again in this lifetime, you will live on and they will go and the world looks absolutely impossible and bleak and scary to live in and you wish you were going together. Together through that golden staircase into the clouds.

“Honey ...” He held me close, those arms that had been so strong, now weak. That body that had been so healthy, now brittle, but his voice was still there, and his love. “You can do this. It will be hard, but you are a strong, brave woman ... I will always be in your heart and you in mine. I want you to be happy again, honey, I want that for you. Remember I said that. Please.”

“I will not be happy without you, Marty.”

“Try, honey. You must try. Don't give up, don't give in. Don't quit.” His eyes filled. “Toni, honey, there's something else we need to talk about.” His face crumbled, so I cried more.

“What is it?”

“I want you to get married again.”

I moved back as if he'd hit me. “No.”

“I want you to fall in love. But only with a man who will treat you with respect and kindness and love all day long, as you are an incredible and beautiful woman and you deserve it. When you find him, marry him, and know that I'm happy for you, and I want it for you. I don't want you to be alone, Toni. I want love for you.”

“I will never marry again, Marty.” It was ridiculous. It was sheer pain. The thought repelled me. “There isn't going to be anyone else.”

He tipped my head up and kissed me, and our tears mixed. “I want there to be someone else, Toni. There needs to be. I know you want kids. I wish we'd had them. We waited too long, we had so much fun, we thought there was time, but you can correct that. Have a bunch of them.”

“Not without you, not without you, not without you.” That soul-crushing crying was back, and he held me until I could catch my breath again.

“Yes, without me. I will be the angel who looks out for you and your kids.” He kissed my forehead. “But remember how awesome I am in bed.”

“Why do you make me laugh when I'm crying? And I'll never forget how awesome you are in bed.”

“Nothing compared to you, sweet cheeks. You turn me on.” He wriggled his eyebrows at me—or where his eyebrows were as they were now gone. “You have done that for me since the very first time I saw you.”

I was falling apart from the inside. The love of my whole life was pale, gaunt, his eyes shadowed. He was too thin, his chest concave, his cheeks hollow, despite the food that my family kept bringing, all of Marty's favorites.

My mother even learned to cook Chinese and Japanese food for Marty. Ellie was making fruit drinks for him. Valerie was making vegetable smoothies. The vegetable smoothies weren't very tasty.

“You are the best wife a man could have, Toni. The very best.” He turned to me. “But you have set the kitchen on fire twice... .”

“Not bad fires, though.” I sniffled. “Small ones.”

“I think when the fire department came the second time, the captain called you by your first name... .”

We laughed again. Laughter, tears, back around.

The golden staircase waited.

* * *

Two weeks later we sat together in our two-person kayak, in our living room, pretending to be on a river, near sunset. Marty was breathing hard, the effort to get up at that point a strain, but this was what he wanted. We rowed, but I rowed backward so I could see him. We talked about our trips, the rapids, the times we flipped over, the beavers we saw, the wolf, the golden and bald eagles, Montana, Mexico, the Rogue River, Alaska. We talked about the food we ate, the campfires on the side of the river, the people we met, the shooting stars we marveled at, the moon that shone, the sun that warmed our shoulders.

We talked about our lives together, how we dated, our wedding, our love life.

We laughed, we drank wine.

I got him back into bed, and we watched the sun go down together, the golden staircase glowing again, from the hills, through the sky, to the white puffy clouds, up to heaven, an omen, a sign.

“I love you, Toni.”

“I love you, too, Marty. I love you so much.”

I waited until Marty was asleep, then hugged him closer. About two in the morning I finally went to sleep myself, ragged, grieving.

Sometime during the night, his heart stopped. Just like that. A last breath. A whisper of good-bye. A soul leaving.

I hugged him all night long, and when I finally woke up, he was cold.

My own husband was cold.