34 In Your Heart

34

in your heart

Danielle

He’s walking down the hall toward the stairs. It’s 4:32 in the morning. I know without looking at the clock. The springtime light isn’t yet piercing the horizon. There are no cars on the road; his will be the first. It’s quiet out and peaceful in my heart and in my mind. I can’t walk or talk but I can still think, and I can still feel.

Alex is shifting his 170 pounds from one foot to the other, down the stairs…loudly. I can hear him from my bed, downstairs, next to the window where I look out at the peach tree, where my girls are, whom I’ll be with soon.

I can hear all the sounds he’s making. The coffee beans grinding, his feet shuffling across the travertine, the clearing of his throat—it all sounds like beautiful music to me now.

He’s getting ready to say goodbye to the caretaker for the day. He’ll come back into this room and continue reading the memories of my life from the record sleeves. He’ll play the songs. He’ll laugh and cry. The boys will pop in and out throughout the day. Noah is almost ready for his driver’s permit. They’re changing a lot and all in good ways. The one thing I have been feeling blessed about lately is that they’ve accepted my choice to die naturally, to stop all the medical interventions.

When I think about the last year of my life, I remember thinking about the brevity of Ben’s life. If he had grown up too fast. If there was a predetermined time line for him. However the universe is at work right now, I know that I got to tell my dad I loved him and that I forgave him. I repaired my marriage by getting a divorce. I taught the boys the only thing I know for sure, to love their people well. I wrote my own show, got an Emmy, gave Beth Zinn a nice little present that I don’t regret…I’m far from perfect. I told Lars, Alicia, and Alex’s family how important they were in my life. Louie Louie got a permanent spot at the foot of my medical bed in the living room and I love it. I love that Alex and I realized we could be our own people and still be in love and it was better that way. That we could have autonomy and many loves in many different ways. We were not just a husband and wife, a mother and father, we were Dani and Alex. And Dani and Alex love each other.

The peach tree is flowering right now. It’s reminding me of my little girls and it’s making me smile, which is difficult to do these days. Believe it or not, I’m smiling inside. We all need something to hope for, especially when you’re this close. I’m going to see the girls, and Ben in all his nineteen-year-old beauty, and my mother, lucid and kind, and eventually everyone else I love.

In a minute, Alex will come in here and start on the next section of records. He’ll play one, then read me the memory I wrote on it and say, “Blink once if you want this to go to Noah or twice for Ethan.” We’re almost to the last section, about thirty more albums. I have to make it until we finish. I have to.

Alex drives my Jeep now, which I think is great. Out of character, but great. He also planted a huge jacaranda tree, already fully grown, on the other side of the yard. I asked him why the Jeep and the tree and he just said, “The Jeep has a million memories. I have to be the keeper of the memories now, along with the boys. And the jacaranda tree, well, that memory is for me.” I didn’t press.

—

Today, we listened to the last album. The last memory. It was Patsy Cline’s Showcase, which featured “I Fall to Pieces.” Before Alex even read it, I remembered what was written because I had added to it when we were newly divorced.

“I love Patsy Cline,” Alex says. “Oh, you and your dad wrote on this one.”

I want to tell Alex the story about how my dad pursued my mom for so long before she agreed to go out with him, but I think Alex will put it together.

“Your dad’s writing says:

‘Irene, you know how much I fall to pieces when you’re around. Just say yes. Tell me you feel the same way.’

“Wow, Dani, after reading all these it’s so obvious how much your dad loved your mom and you guys. It’s sad he could never pull himself back together.” Alex looks at me. “I won’t let that happen. Oh, here your writing says :

‘I’m sitting in the apartment. I’ve just left the house where Alex is with the boys. I don’t think I will ever not fall to pieces when I see him. I don’t think I will ever really get over him.’?”

Alex looks up at me, his eyes misty. “No, we would have never gotten over each other, there was no point in trying,” he says with a laugh.