The Kindness of Strangers by Andy Weinberger

Author:Andy Weinberger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company

CHAPTER 17

Mara and Violet and I spend several sessions that weekend with Gus, who has slowed down considerably. Mara brings him more flowers and an armful of magazines he used to read in the olden days. She plumps up his pillows, adjusts the angle of the bed, and jokes about how he’s smitten with Bettina, the voluptuous new nurse on the floor.

Violet isn’t nearly so involved, but then she’s just a kid, and it’s true: she has barely known her grandfather when he wasn’t ill. Mostly she sits in dutiful silence or communes with the screen on her iPhone. But then, Sunday afternoon, when it’s time to leave, she finally screws up her courage. She takes hold of his bony, blue-veined hand, smiles, and launches into a French folk song she recently learned at school. “Au Bois de mon Coeur.” In the Woods of My Heart. She has a high, thin voice; it’s like a breeze blowing through a clutch of reeds in a pond, and Mara and I applaud afterwards. Who can gauge what’s going on in Gus’s mind? He might be listening; he might know more than all of us put together. He has some lingering drool on his chin that Mara wipes away, and his eyes scan from side to side in bewilderment. Or is that joy?

Around midnight, on Sunday, the phone rings. Violet is back at Foxboro and both of us are fast asleep. Mara takes the phone, listens for a while, blinks, nods, says yes, yes, she understands, yes, of course, thanks for letting us know, tomorrow, yes, that’s good, I appreciate it, and hangs up.

“What?” I ask.

“Gus died,” she whispers. “They tucked him in for the night. The orderly said he looked all right. And then, ten minutes later Bettina came by to check. That’s how fast it happened. They wanted me to know.” She lies back in the bed.

“Shall we get dressed and go down there?”

“No,” she says. “There’s no point.”

We lay there for a while, and I think I can hear her weeping. “Mara, honey, are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she says. “Really. He had a great life. We had a great life together. At least until the last few years. And he didn’t suffer much at the end. No pain. He even got to hear Violet sing. You can’t ask for more than that.”

She pushes closer to me in bed. I can smell her perfume and feel the steady warmth coming off her body. Ordinarily I might reach for her, but not tonight. Instead, I stroke her hair, which always seems to soothe her.

“I have something to tell you, Amos,” she says all at once.

“Now? Isn’t it a little late to start a discussion?”

“Just shut up and listen to me, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I don’t want there to be any secrets between us. It wouldn’t be right. And now that Gus is gone, well, there’s no reason.” She rolls over, faces me in the dark. “You know how suspicious you are of Amory Blevins

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