The Milestone Tapes (5 page)

Alone in her office she allowed her to think about the decision she had made and what the ricochet effect of that would be. Gabe would left alone when it was all said and done, for the first time in nearly twenty-two years, he’d be on his own. But not alone or carefree or able to move on, he’d be solely responsible for the nurturing of a child. He would have to have all the answers and make all the choices, which would either lead or deter Mia. She tried to comprehend the weight of that and what it must feel like for him to know all the was coming, hanging over his head like a sharp guillotine ready to sever him free from the comfortable rhythm of their life, and there was absolutely nothing he could do to change things. She couldn’t picture it, simply could not understand how that would feel. If the situations were reversed, and this was Gabe making the choice to take himself away from her and Mia, she would have mourned and been devastated under the weight of that. Jenna knew that, but that’s all she knew. She didn’t know how she’d cope or rebound or carry on. She understood the unfairness of the situation. Nothing was fair anymore. Someone had to say ‘enough,’ the fact that it had to be Jenna was just another ounce of inequality heaped onto the pile.

For so many years she and Gabe had been a unit, a tied pair, twined together through marriage and choice. They had deferred to each other, finished the other’s sentences and presented, always, a united front. That would all vanish when she did.

Jenna sunk to the floor and hefted her knees to her chest, crying heavy, thick, silent sobs into her robe.

Determined, she had been so determined. Mia, Mia, Mia. Her only concern, her only reason. Gabe, somewhere along the way, got lost. Not a literal sense, but in the ever after that was coming, he had managed to become lost.

His loss failed to resonate with her like Mia’s loss did. He’d be a widower at forty-six. Alone with his young daughter. He’d bear the teenage years without a comrade in arms, someone to understand and lessen the load. He’d host the sleepovers, correct the papers, mull over the impending decisions of which college or car or fair curfew. The passage of time would come to mean different and new things in the challenges and triumphs he’d embrace and endure all alone. Or maybe not alone, but with someone new, someone who was not her.

As Jenna pealed back the layers of her choice and the end and the grief, life shifted beneath her with a gravitational pull all its own.

Once, right after Jenna had first been diagnosed, she had attended the local support group. It was held in the basement of the old Methodist Church in the heart of town, open to everyone twice a month. It hadn’t been her thing, to sit in a circle discussing the weight of breast cancer and the fall out. She still believed she didn’t belong there. These ghostly women, with their terry cloth turbans and oversized T-
shirts scared her, specters of the future and the less fortunate. She had sat quietly respectful, listening and watching, without ever saying a single word.

There was a woman. Jenna had watched her climb from the passenger seat of an ancient car when she was walking up the steps of the old building; she had wanted to turn around and offer her a hand, but the woman’s husband rushed around from the driver’s seat and carefully escorted her up the stairs, where she stood patiently, holding herself up against the chipped handrail, waiting for him to park and help her the rest of the way. Now, she sat there with everyone else, small and sick, her bald head swaddled in a turban, a sweater hung loose from her fading shape; her bones looked sharp and knobby under the tattered material, a faded and cracked leather pocketbook clutched between two frail, translucent hands resting on her lap. Her skin was a pallid yellow, visible blue veins ran circuits under her skin, and her eyes were watery pools of grey, pale and glassy. Her breath came in low pulls, gargled and congested, and a faint continuous thrum came from somewhere deep in her chest.

It was her turn to speak that evening, the kindred greetings that bounced off the cinderblock walls of the basement hushed as she pulled herself towards the speaker chair. Her voice had been thready and thin, but commanding. She was eloquent and educated, and the words she chose were brave. Her message haunted Jenna then, and maybe that was why she had never gone back; in her mind, she wasn’t a peer, but now, it was in that memory that Jenna found comfort, she wasn’t alone.

The woman, she explained, had been a teacher. She had taught high school level English at a Reservation school for years, although she made no mention of which one. She had five children, all boys, all under the age of ten, handsome young men, she had said. She was only thirty-five. Her husband was a logger who made daily trips to the West End, and now that she wasn’t able to work, their money was stretched tight, they couldn’t afford much, and his insurance hardly covered her treatments. They struggled to support the family; it was a place she never dreamed they’d be, like so many of the other obstacles they faced now, it was never something she planned on. She’d gone to college, fallen in love, put in her years teaching others to appreciate the English language and the nuances of it. She had only just begun to raise her children, her boys, to be kind, respectful, and fair. She loved her husband and had since they were little kids growing up in the same small town. But she was dying now, and everything they’d had the potential to become together was dashed. She didn’t talk about her treatments, or the heinous side effects or how cheated she felt; she wasn’t a cautionary tale, she said. She was there to tell a story. Her name was Susan Taft.

Her boys, she had said, were young men. They had dreams, goals, and plans for the future. Two wanted to be loggers, to follow their father into the woods and do ‘man’s work;’ the others longed for something different, they wanted to learn about science and medicine, art and history. They were all different, but they were all hers.

She began to speak about responsibility, which was her message for the night. The insight of which was something she credited her years in education for. She realized now that a parent’s work was never really done. No matter how big, smart, or steady the child—they always would need their parent. Her death, she reasoned, didn’t change that or negate that, but only stood to make it more important.

She had begun recording tapes for her sons. Five tapes for each of her boys. She called them their milestone tapes. Her sons could listen to them during the times they would want their mother’s guidance. She would offer advice, share stories, impart her wisdom. It wasn’t easy, she said, going to that place where she had to admit she wouldn’t be around for them, but it was the truth. She wasn’t going to see them graduate high school, or go off to college; she’d never bounce a grandchild on her knee or meet their future wives. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t be useful. Being a mother, she said, meant figuring out how to best fit into your child’s life and be what they needed—a friend, an authority, a confidante, and a touchstone.

Jenna remembered walking out of the meeting that night feeling, for the first time since her diagnosis, as though this was the worst possible thing in the world. She was angry, furious. Not for herself that night, but for Susan Taft, her husband and her boys. Jenna drove away as quickly as possible, back to her comfortable house, stripped off her jeans, sweater and boots, turned the shower on as hot as it would go and stood under the water until her skin was red and tender and sore. Jenna had cried for the woman, for her sons, her husband and their countless struggles. She prayed that night, as always, but not for herself.

Later, Jenna learned, that Susan had taught at Sequim High. A quick note had been published in the local paper, along with a picture taken on the first day of school years prior. Susan smiled up from the paper in black and white scale. Her hair had been long, pretty waves cascading down her back, her arm casually draped over a smiling student in a classroom that looked inviting and tended. She had been plump, motherly, and womanly with wide hips contained in an ankle length skirt. The article mentioned the strides she’d made as a teacher, encouraging a love of literature with books and poetry and field trips, someone who believed learning shouldn’t be confined only to the classics or the classroom.

Jenna was struck by how much she liked Susan Taft, the teacher and the woman, and wondered if they had met at the grocery store or carpool line, if perhaps they wouldn’t have grown to be good friends. A scholarship fund had been established her name to promote the things she loved and championed during her short life.

When she died, the students came out in force to mourn her, a testimony to how many lives she touched and futures she effected. She had left more than tapes behind, she had left a legacy, and Jenna had fiercely hoped her boys knew that. The students asked for donations so they could plant lavender bushes around the property of the school in her memory. Jenna had asked Ginny to drop off a check with a note, thanking the students for their effort.

This must have been how Susan felt, Jenna considered, sitting on the floor of her office now. The hopeless realization that life will go on without her. She dabbed her eyes with the sleeve of her robe and climbed to her feet. Life going on, moving forward, those would be good things, the way it should be. Gabe should know that was what she wanted for him. Jenna wondered idly if Mr. Taft had ever remarried, if he’d ever met someone and fallen in love again. If he’d loved that new someone enough to bring her into his family, to help him raise the sons he’d had with Susan, maybe even have a few more children. She wondered if he was happy again, a different type of happy, changed, but still happy nonetheless.

Could she be strong enough to want that for Gabe? Her Gabe. The man she married on a sweet balm day in the middle of summer at a small Justice of the Peace off the 101. The man she’d taken inside herself, loved for the good and the bad. Her husband.

The idea of that stung, and she doubled over under the pressure of the pain. It felt like the worst sort of infidelity; they loved each other so much, they had made promises and they had plans. She should always be his, he should always be hers, they’d sworn it. Never in their marriage had he looked at another woman; even when Jenna closed herself off to him and grew inwards, he still told her she was beautiful, smart, funny and brilliant. He still reached for her and was everything she needed him to be. He loved her, she was sure of that. Thinking of him feeling that way about someone else stole her breath. She couldn’t breathe, it hurt too much. But, would it hurt her more to know that, in time, he would grow lonely. That’d he’d never have someone worry about his day, or fix his meal, or celebrate the holidays with him?

Mia would grow up, she’d get on with her life and leave. Maybe those things would take her across the country or across the world. Maybe she’d only be able to call every so often, but not nearly enough. She’d do the right thing—the normal thing: she’d start her own family, and gather all the distractions that came along with that. And then there’d be Gabe, alone. Eating his meals, watching his shows, washing his dishes.

He was still young. So full of life and charming, charismatic and warm. She didn’t want him to spend the rest of his years by himself. Picturing that hurt her more than imagining him with someone new. She loved him enough to want a secure and happy future for him, no matter what that meant. She balled her hands into tight knots for fury, pressing them into her legs, soundless sobs found no purchase, she gasped for air between the wracking. It was guttural. Her marriage was ending, and not because they didn’t love each other—they loved each other—
but because she was dying.

~ * * * ~

“Gabe, honey, can we talk for a few minutes?” Jenna peeked her head into Gabe’s office, the bright drafting light bounced off the white blueprints he was hunched over.

“Sure, hon, what’s up?” Gabe took off his glasses, rubbing his eyes and pushing away from the desk.

Jenna slipped into his office and pulled the chair out across from his desk. Mia was playing in the family room, so Jenna had popped in a tape, and put a bowl of popcorn in front of her.

“I just want to talk to you about a few things. Seems like we hardly have the time lately.” Jenna glanced over her shoulder to the open door, the soundtrack of Sleeping Beauty lulled in the background.

“We could ask Ginny to come back, just to help?” Gabe offered, trying to read her.

“No, it’s not that. I like this, just us.” Ginny wagged her finger between herself and the open door before continuing. “But, I was just thinking about a few things—one thing actually—and I wanted to discuss it with you.”

“Okay ... ” Gabe hesitated.

“I wanted to talk about life after ... after I’m gone,” Jenna began, worrying a loose thread on the hem of her shirt, keeping her eyes lowered.

“Jenna—” Gabe folded his thick arms across his chest and narrowed his eyes at her.

“Gabe, listen, please ... This is hard for me, and it’s important. I can’t put everything off until there is no time and then I’m worried because I didn’t say what I had to ... ” Jenna sighed, climbing from her chair and wandered over to the thick bookshelves in his room. They were a mirror image of her own, only his held multiple models of buildings he’d crafted.

“Okay, I’m listening,” Gabe sighed.

“So, here’s the deal.” Jenna didn’t turn around; she felt the prick of tears threaten behind her eyes. “I want you to be happy again ... after I’m gone.”

“Jen.” Gabe’s voice seeped heavy with compassion. “I’m not thinking about ... I’m not going there in my mind. You’re here, and that’s all I’m focused on. You, right now—that’s it.”