Fire & Water: A Suspense-filled Story of Art, Love, Passion, and Madness by Betsy Graziani Fasbinder

Author:Betsy Graziani Fasbinder [Fasbinder, Betsy Graziani]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 2013-02-14T05:00:00+00:00

Perfectly Lovely Funeral

After Ryan was born, Jake devoted himself to proving that he could and would be the loving father and husband he had promised to be. At first, I thought this would last just a few weeks, until the next flight of fancy distracted him. But the weeks turned into months and the months rolled smoothly into years. I completed my five-year surgical residency and was offered a pediatric surgery fellowship at UCSF. In so many ways, our life together was idyllic.

One day, after a long day in the OR, my whole body felt like one big bruise. The metallic odor of anesthesia still lingered in my nostrils, and the muscles in my shoulders were ropy braids. I came home and opened my front door to find Ryan standing at attention, waiting in the entryway. She gripped the thick stalk of a yellow dinner-plate dahlia while the thumb of her other hand rested against her moist lips. Chestnut curls escaped her barrettes. The mere sight of her made every ache disappear.

“Hi, Noodle, is that beautiful flower for me?” I asked, holding the door with my foot while I balanced packages.

She put a hand on her hip, a gesture that made her look more like a teenager than a five-year-old. “Mommy, did you forget about Nana Alice’s birthday party?”

“I absolutely did not,” I said, nodding my head toward a pink bakery box cradled in my arms. “Saint Honoré cake, just as you requested.”

The scents of garlic and rosemary mixed with burning mesquite wood wafted through the house from the patio outside the kitchen. Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop” blared from the stereo. From the patio, Jake’s whistling accompaniment trilled high above the melody.

The dahlia tottered above Ryan’s head like an umbrella in a wind, each sway sending another trickle of yellow petals fluttering to the floor beside her feet. “Wow,” I said. “That one’s as big as a pizza.”

“Mommy, you told me not to ’zaggerate.”

“Right you are. But it is pretty big. It does seem to be raining petals, though.”

The garden was one among many of Ryan and Jake’s collaborations. The hillside was lusher than ever, each tier its own world. In every nook, simple sculptures awaited discovery. The hillside that had once been a scene of such destruction now boasted figs, tomatoes, melons, and even olives—all of which nurserymen had said had little hope of success in the foggiest, most coastal climate in San Francisco. Jake disregarded the rules of growing climates in the same way he ignored people who told him that he wouldn’t be able to execute a design.

From the day of her birth, Jake became the gardener that tended the budding blossom of Ryan; nurtured her with affection; stimulated her growth with constant exposure to ideas and experiences; cultivated her imagination by asking her opinions and welcoming her choices. For the first year after she was born, I was fiendishly protective—fearful that Jake’s mania might flower again. I monitored his mood, his medication, his appointments with Dr. Gupta.

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