Page 96 of Someone to Watch Over Me

“We talked about it, and he seriously considered it. However… After years of baffling symptoms, his major decline happened somewhat quickly. Even in the states that allow it, he had to be able to administer the medications himself, which ruled it out for him long before we were prepared to make that kind of decision.”

“We always think we have more time.”

“Isn’t that the truth? Jim said if he’d known he was going to die young, he would’ve skipped college and gotten out there and lived the second he turned eighteen. So much time wasted on classes he’d never need or use. He really struggled with all the time he felt he’d wasted.”

“Hindsight can be awful that way.”

“But he always added that if he hadn’t gone to college, he never would’ve met me, so it was worth it for that alone.”

“Are you kids ready for dessert?” Mom asks.

We release each other as if we’ve been caught doing something forbidden. Teenage habits die hard.

“Didn’t mean to interrupt anything,” Mom says with a laugh. “Whenever you’re ready, I’ve got frozen yogurt. I thought that would be healthy, right?”

“That’s perfect, Mom. Thank you.”

“Yes, thank you,” Tom adds. “I appreciate it.”

“We need to keep you around for a good long time, young man. We can see how happy you make our Lexi.”

She’s gone before her words register. “Ugh. No pressure much.”

“It’s fine. She’s lovely, and of course she wants you to be happy. As do I.”

“Thank you for listening just now. It helps to be able to talk about it with you, to feel as if Jim is safe with you.”

“You both are. Always.”

On Wednesday,I head to my Wild Widows meeting with the brownies I baked earlier to share. I also made a veggie stir-fry for Tom to have when he gets home from spending two hours at his office after cardiac rehab. He swore to me that he’s not overdoing it and that he’ll nap when he gets home.

I can’t help worrying about him, but I learned in the early days of Jim’s illness that it was important for me to follow his lead and for him to feel like he still had agency over his situation. The last thing he wanted was for his wife to become his mother. Tom doesn’t need that either, so I’m careful to keep some of my thoughts to myself so he won’t feel like I’m hovering.

The caretaker mindset is hard to shake, especially when you spent years in the trenches.

Tom doesn’t need a caretaker. He wants a partner to share his life, not to fret over his every move.

I’m working on that, but it takes real effort to bite my tongue when I want to tell him to sit on his ass andrest.

Iris is telling us about our two new members tonight before we meet them on Saturday. As much as I look forward to our Wednesday meetings, I adore the times we get together with the full crew, including all the kids I’ve come to love like the nieces and nephews I’ll never have as an only child. Jim has brothers who haven’t married, so maybe I’ll get a few from them someday. His family continues to include me in every event, but there’s some distance there now that he’s no longer part of us.

His parents check in frequently, and I have lunch or brunch with them at least once a month, but my relationship with them was strained by the demands of caregiving and a few decisions I made on his behalf that they didn’t agree with. They didn’t like ceding their next-of-kin role to me, his chosen partner. Everything I did was with his best interests at heart, but at the time, you couldn’t convince them of that.

They added stress to an already horrific situation, and while I’ve forgiven them for that, I’ll never forget that they made things harder on me than necessary. And they know I won’t forget it. We pussyfoot around each other, wanting to maintain the contact, but aware of the underlying tension that’ll always be part of our relationship now.

Everything is weird in the after. Every. Single. Thing. I always had a great relationship with them until they started to question me at the worst possible time. I deeply resented the intrusion, even from the people who’d given him life. One of the last things Jim said to me when he could still speak was to always do what I thought was right and to not worry about what anyone else had to say about it. That gave me tremendous freedom from feeling guilty for doing what I felt was best for both of us, even if it angered his parents.

Jeez, I haven’t thought about that stuff in an age. It feels like part of a distant past that belongs to someone else’s life. I try to stay focused on the good with his family, the way his parents and brothers came running to help any time I asked for it, how their visits brought him joy and how deeply they grieved his death.

I’m the first to arrive at Iris’s. It’s a treat to have her all to myself for a minute, as Gage is upstairs showering, and her kids are with her mom for the night.

“What’s new and exciting?” She pours me a glass of wine and gives me a careful once-over. “You’re glowing.”

I place my hands on my face. “I am?”

“You are. Is that thanks to our friend Tom Terrific?”

That nickname still makes me chuckle. “In part. Things with him are great and getting greater all the time.”

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