9
Susan was extremely glad when Bob called her. “Oh Bobby, I was worried that Pam told you—and she did!—and I’m just so sorry about the whole thing. But, Bobby—”
“How did Jim sound when he spoke to you about it?”
“He sounded like Jim, frankly. I mean, he sounded slightly pissed-off, which I guess is normal enough. But, Bobby, she’s dying, and he just sounded…oh, I don’t know. He’s very upset, clearly. But he’s not quite right. Well, who would be quite right.”
Bob was sitting in his car with his cellphone to his ear; he was in the parking lot of Walmart, where he had come to get some kind of thing to fix the chimney with. It took him a moment to realize what Susan had just said to him. “What do you mean, not quite right?”
“I don’t know, Bob. I really don’t. I wish he had called you. I didn’t like having the pressure of this news. But I mean, honestly, Bob, he sounded like—sorry—an asshole.”
“You mean he sounded like himself.”
“That’s what I just told you.”
“Okay, I hear what you’re saying. I’ll give him another week and then I’m going to call him. Take care of yourself, Susie.”
—
But Jim called him that night. He called Bob around ten o’clock, just as Bob was getting ready for bed, and Bob took his phone and went downstairs with it because Margaret was already asleep.
“Did Susan tell you?” was the first thing Jim asked.
And Bob said, No, but Pam told him, because Pam had gone to visit Susan.
Jim’s voice was very low, quiet. “It’s happening, Bobby.”
Bob shut his eyes. “I know.”
“She’s doing it really well. She got all the kids around her, and she told them very calmly—I mean, she wept, but Jesus Christ, Bob, I keep thinking, When is this going to hit her? But I think it has. And she told me she wants to do it well, and she is.”
“Tell her that,” Bob said, and Jim said, “Oh, I have.”
And then Jim said he was going off his antidepressants.
Bob said, “Jim, seriously? Jesus, are you sure you want to do that right now?” And Jim said, Yes, he wanted to be able to feel it, he said ever since he went on the antidepressants a few years ago he hadn’t been able to really feel anything deeply. “And I need to feel this,” he said.
“Okay, just go off them really slow. Oy, Jimmy.”
“I know. I am. I’m not being stupid about it. I’ll probably just finally be off them by the time—by the time she’s gone.”
“Where are you right now?” Bob asked, and Jim said he was in the bedroom, that they had just had a hospital bed brought into the living room for Helen. “She’s going quickly,” Jim said. And Bob asked about nurses, and they had them, and Bob asked about the kids, and Jim told him. “Larry seems to be having the most trouble.”
Then Jim said, “I don’t think she wants to see you. She loves you, she really does love you, but she doesn’t want to see you. She hasn’t even seen her friends, says she doesn’t want to, but she’ll speak to you on the phone sometime soon.” He added, “It’s only the kids she wants to see.”
“And you,” Bob said, and Jim said, “I guess so.” And that’s when Bob heard Jim’s voice start to break.
A number of years before, Helen had almost thrown Jim out of the house because Jim had had a couple of stupid affairs. Later, it was Helen who insisted Jim go on the antidepressants; she said they made him easier to be around. Helen, to Bob’s knowledge, had always been kind to Jim, except of course when he’d had his affairs, although even then she—it had seemed to Bob—handled it with some dignity. But this is what had worried Bob: if she would be kind to Jim during her dying. He did not ask Jim directly.
Bob said, “Jim. Listen to me. Are you listening?”
“Yeah.”
But it turned out that Bob could not say what he had been going to say—which is that Jim had been a good husband to Helen for years before his screwing up. Bob stopped himself because he did not know if in fact Jim had been a good husband to Helen for years. Even before the affairs. How could Bob know what their marriage had been like? And why had Helen insisted on Jim going on antidepressants for the last few years to make him easier to live with?
So Bob said, “Jimmy, you must be feeling so alone right now. But you’re not alone. The kids are being nice to you, right?”
“Oh yeah, the girls have been great.” Jim paused and added, “I don’t think Larry can stand me, though, who knows, I’m not sure he’s ever been able to stand me.”
“You guys will work that out,” Bob said, but he thought: I am lying to Jim. I have no idea if he will work it out with Larry. And I have no idea if he feels alone.
After another moment of silence had passed, Jim said, “Don’t worry about finding the right thing to say. I really mean that, Bobby. Honestly. There is no right thing to say. It’s just good to hear your voice. Shit, I’ve missed you. I don’t know why I didn’t let you know. I really don’t know why. I guess because it would make it feel real to me, but it’s real, all right.”
“Jim, you can do this however you want to.”
“Thanks, Bobby. Just trying to say I’m sorry.” He paused and added, “But I’ve missed you. Big-time.”
“I’m right here. Anytime you need me, call and I’ll be there,” Bob said.
Jim said, “Thanks. I’m going to hang up now, but thank you.”
—
Bob could not remember Jim’s ever speaking to him so kindly. He sat down on the couch and put his elbows into his stomach, leaning forward. When he went upstairs to bed, he did not fall asleep for hours. It was not until the next day that he remembered Jim saying that to have told Bob would have made it feel real to him, and that Lucy had said that same thing to Bob.
10
And so time passed by as it does—often strangely: so slowly and then a chunk is gone. March had arrived and there was mud everywhere, it seemed. Certainly in the fields outside of Crosby and in the park in the middle of town and alongside the roads: mud everywhere. Bob Burgess moved unhurriedly as he took his boots off in the foyer, trying to scrape the mud from them. He felt this about himself: that even when he got up in the morning and went down the stairs, he moved down them more deliberately than he used to.
