“We’ll leave.” Dick shrugged, as if it were simple. She supposed it was.
They ate quietly for a while, but Polly could only tolerate silence for a short time.
“I had a call from Theo today. He said Philadelphia has emptied for August, and that he can park anywhere in Center City. I don’t like the term Center City, do you?” She ate a forkful of chicken salad.
Dick banged his fist. “Archie is the one who should be in prison!”
“Oh, dear, I know, but don’t upset yourself now.”
“Archie is the thief! Seela is the thief! How dare they come to the party!”
Dick’s eyes widened alarmingly and he gripped the arms of his chair. A sudden pungent stench bloomed from behind his back. Polly flinched at the same time as instinctively she began to stand up, to both go to him and back away, but Dick jerked sideways, tipping the table, and Polly’s plate slid slowly over the edge and sailed to the ground. Her hand flashed to a sting in her calf and she pulled out a shard of her shattered plate—it must have smashed when she leaped from her chair—and blood ran into her shoe. Dick jerked violently. She went around behind him planning to hold him still, but he crumpled over heavily. She spread her legs wider and squatted and tried to heave him upright, her hands in his armpits, but when she moved his torso, his legs turned sideways.
“Help!” she called out. “Help, someone!”
He fell all the way down to the ground and convulsed, kicking the table leg rhythmically, clang, clang, clang, clang. She heaved back upward, call 911, call 911. But—leave him? Have to, have to. “Come fast! He’s turning gray,” which she hadn’t grasped until she said so to the operator. “Fellowship Point, the fourth big house down, white clapboard, he’s out back on the terrace. No, yes, no. Only me. All right, I understand.” Run back out. Push on his chest. Nothing. Keep pushing, more nothing. She raised her hands over her head and brought them down hard on his sternum and he folded up for a second and then went limp. His skin, dark gray and purple, darker and darker. Dick! Don’t! Please please please please please.
Soon the moment arrived when she knew there would be no result. Then she kneeled down beside him and wrapped her arms around him as well as she could. He was a dark gray-blue, including his lips, but she kissed them anyway, over and over. The ambulance men came tearing around the house but slowed when they saw him. Though everyone present knew it was useless, they worked to revive him, and she watched patiently as they pushed on his empty chest, not trying to stop them. After great pain a formal feeling comes. She was aware, even in the thick of it, of having a formal feeling. It gave her the equanimity to understand that everyone had a role and it was best to go through the motions, even if they were futile. Finally the men stood up with their heads bent, and she wondered which one would turn to her and tell her that Richard Wister, her husband of sixty years, was dead.
Nevernevernever. An impotent spell, after all.
The oldest man stepped forward.
“Thank you for telling me,” she said. “I am glad we are in Maine because in Philadelphia he would be taken to the hospital and everyone would pretend there was hope.” Had she said this aloud? She wasn’t sure.
They asked if she wanted to keep him for a while and call the funeral home to pick him up later, but what would that do for her, to sit with his dead body? He would still be dead. She had liked him alive. So she had them take him.
“Anyone you can call?” they asked. “You shouldn’t be alone.”
Polly looked across the field. Agnes was on her way, trotting along the desire line. “My friend,” she said, pointing.
From the time they’d sat down with their lunch to his body being loaded into the truck was under an hour.
She and Agnes looked at each other with a mutual resignation. It was a moment they’d been waiting for. Someone eventually had to die.
“Come on,” Agnes said. “Let’s go inside. Where’s your address book?”
“Wait a sec.” Polly watched the car until she couldn’t see it anymore. “Kitchen drawer,” she said.
Agnes linked arms with Polly and together they went inside and Agnes sat Polly in the living room, the phone between them. Agnes got one boy after the other on the line and told them what had happened, then handed the phone to Polly. The conversations were brief, and Agnes made notes about when each one planned to arrive or when he’d call back after he made plans. She went out to the terrace and cleaned up the lunch and the broken plate. Polly stayed inside. Her mind couldn’t think. The beautiful afternoon light came in the window and waved across the carpet.
For decades she’d feared this day, so she had prepared by picturing being alone in the living room, alone in the bed. Now she saw that her imaginary preparations were useless.
“I’m staying over,” Agnes said.
Polly nodded. She had been wiped clean of all opinions, manners, will. She napped for a while, and then she and Agnes walked out to the graveyard and had their Meeting for Worship, as always.
“Where will he go?” Polly asked, looking around.
“Right here. Next to Lydia. You’re on her other side.”
“Yes, yes. That’s good.”
Sylvie walked by on Point Path carrying a basket—dinner—and Agnes waved at her. She and Polly went back in and ate supper, or Agnes did, and sat up, answering phone calls, until nine o’clock. Then Agnes guided Polly upstairs. “Get undressed, wash your face, brush your teeth.”
Polly did as told. Agnes took her to her bedroom, but she balked at the door. “No! No! Close it up!”
Agnes took her to Theo’s old room. She opened the covers and guided Polly in.
“Is Dick dead?” she asked.
“Yes,” Agnes said.
“Maybe he’s just napping.”
“No.”
“He tried to go see Robert today. He sat in the car but he never left the driveway.” Polly could still see him in the front seat—only his arm and then his face turned up to her.
“He was loyal to Robert.”
“I feel so sorry for Robert,” Polly said.
“Can you sleep, do you think?” Agnes lay her hand on Polly’s forehead.
“I don’t know.”
“I’d get in bed with you but Sylvie says I snore. Call me if you need me. I’ll sleep next door.”
He is napping and still alive.
Both of us are alive and always will be.
I, too, am dead.
PART THREE 2001
Moved to Speak
CHAPTER 11 Polly, Meadowlea, May 2001
AT THE POST OFFICE POLLY asked for her winter mail and went through it in the lobby, throwing the coupons and recycling into the bins along the wall. Circulars, catalogues, nothing important; or so it seemed, so she expected, until she came across a packet of letters that bore a return address of Thomaston, Maine, and a PO box. From Robert Circumstance, addressed to Dick. Jarring to see them. Nothing had come for Dick to Haverford in a few months. He’d want these immediately, she’d better go—skip her other errands. Then she remembered and went through a now well-honed routine of reminding herself that he was dead but she was alive and had to go on. This happened less often than it had, but still—at least four times a day.