Page 190 of Jackie

How simple it’s become.

That transcendent mythology that was ours.

—

Who we were, what we wanted, what we dreamed and made, believed, and failed to be.

—

Once, desire clung to us like heat

We were bodies of light falling through time

…

I wake to the world in white and beige, unfamiliar faces. The room comes into focus. A window, a shelf, a chair; Caroline is there, stepping out of the white-beigeness to tell me I collapsed at home. I was brought here. John is coming. He is on his way.

Maurice, I notice then, is here too, behind Caroline, who has sat down on the edge of my bed and is holding my hand.

“Could you call the office, please, Caroline,” I say. “Call Scott and ask him to let Peter Sis know I won’t be able to make our appointment today but that we will reschedule soon.”

—

Sometimes, looking at our daughter’s face, I see through the woman she’s become to the girl with the wind in her eyes. I see through that inimitable strength and penetrating intellect shaped out of a deep and lasting sorrow, honed by what she remembers and what she has endured.

She has your easy grace—that casual ferocity and burning faith. But in her, it’s tempered with restraint, more aware and more humane. From the time she was young, she seemed to understand that the present moment is a thing to take our time with.

…

“When may I go home?” I ask, first a nurse, then the doctor.

“When we’ve figured out your fever.”

“I’m sure I can have a fever at home.”

—

It’s deep in the lungs now, the doctor explains. I sit for a moment in silence when he tells me this.

“No more treatments, please. I want to go home.”

—

I see the children every day for the rest of that spring, as I have since January. Every night after supper, I phone Caroline’s house, good-night hugs and kisses to Tatiana and Rose.

—

No one tells you it happens like this: a funny ripple at the edges of things—a gnawing away—like a new country sliding over the familiar. Stitches coming undone.

—

How would I describe it?

It’s not what you’d expect—

The severing is a thing you can feel.

The day is made of walls, and walls are air.

---