The Pages We Forget (23 page)

“What's that?” Lucy Kaye asked when Kathryn took the article out of the box.

Kathryn grabbed her pocketbook off a hook in the closet and rushed by Lucy Kaye.

“I'm going with you!” Lucy Kaye yelled and hurried down the stairs behind Kathryn.

An hour and twenty-seven minutes was all it took for Kathryn to drive the 112 miles to Gainesville. Along the way, she explained to Lucy Kaye how she had seen the article in the newspaper one morning about thirteen years ago, then after reading only the first paragraph she deemed it worth keeping.

It was a little past noon when Kathryn weaved the silver Cadillac
through the congested traffic and to the valet parking area. A handful of reporters and photographers were already planted across the street from the hospital's entrance. Pictures of June at the airport in Atlanta were all over the internet and in newspapers across the country, and her sickly appearance in the photos following her sudden retirement led to much speculations. Earlier that morning, Keith rushed into the emergency room, grabbed a wheelchair, and ran back to get June. Three hours later, as June was being transferred to the Cancer Center, calls from the media began flooding the hospital's phone system.

“Mrs. Thomas!” one of the reporters yelled when Kathryn got out of the car. “What can you tell us about your daughter's condition?”

Kathryn ignored the question, grabbed Lucy Kaye by the hand, and rushed inside.

“Room 509,” Kathryn repeated as they hurried down the hallway.

“Can I help you?” a nurse asked Kathryn and Lucy Kaye.

“I'm looking for room 509,” Kathryn responded.

“May I ask who you are?” the nurse questioned.

“I'm her mother.”

The nurse looked suspiciously at Kathryn and Lucy Kaye.

“She's telling the truth,” Lucy Kaye interjected. “She's Junie's mother and I'm her neighbor.”

“Follow me.” The nurse got up from her station. “She's right this way.”

Kathryn and Lucy Kaye followed the nurse down the hallway.

“Excuse me, but I didn't get your name,” Lucy Kaye commented to the nurse as they followed her down the hallway.

“Beverly,” the nurse replied. “Beverly Flanders.”

“Beverly's a pretty name.” Lucy Kaye smiled. “My name's Lucy Kaye Adams. I'm Kathryn's—”

“Lucy, please!” Kathryn cut her off. “Not now.”

Lucy Kaye apologized, even though the small talk with Beverly allowed her to distance herself from the anxiety and uncertainty Kathryn felt as they approached June's hospital room. She'd been down this road before. She was unwilling to believe that the article clutched between Kathryn's trembling fingers was going to make everything all right. Her friend's iteration of Psalm 23 as they walked toward the room was as futile an effort as the article.

As much as she wanted to shield her friend, Lucy Kaye could only help Kathryn understand the sobering truth that she was subjected to: that a mother's love, no matter how unconditional and strong, can't cure all their children's ailments. She understood that truth. Her son, who she had not seen in over seven years, walked out of her life without ever saying why. And all her love, all her prayers, could not bring him back.

When Keith returned home for his father's funeral, Kathryn's advice to Lucy Kaye was to demand that he stay home. “You're his mother,” Kathryn told her. “Don't let him go back. Make him stay.” But she couldn't. She saw the same hurt in his eyes that she had seen the morning he ran away.

At first she prayed for his return and she believed her prayers were heard by someone other than her. But after ten years of praying for his return, her prayers were more out of routine than actual appeals to God. Even still, when she turned the corner and saw Keith walk out of June's room, she stopped in her tracks, thanked God, and burst into tears.

Keith saw his mother about the same time she saw him. Unable to will his feet to move, he stared mutely at Lucy Kaye until her empty arms reached out for him.

“Keith,” she called to him, waving her arms slightly, willing him to her. “Baby.”

Until a few hours ago, he was content with the life he'd resigned himself to. He was despondent when he walked away from his mother, father, June, and everyone else who loved him because he could no longer live with the fear that they might find out the horrible secret he was living with.

So he ran. And ran.

“Please,” Lucy Kaye begged.

“Ma.” He rushed into her arms, the tears coming with the ferocity of a monsoon. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I had to go. I had to, Ma.”

“It doesn't matter.” She pulled him closer. “You're here and nothing else matters.”

Kathryn put her arms around Lucy Kaye and Keith, whispering in Lucy Kaye's ear, “Hold on to him, Lucy. This time, hold on and don't let go. Never let go of him.”

Kathryn kissed Keith on the forehead then went to June's room.

Alex was sitting in a chair at the foot of June's bed when Kathryn eased the door open. She stopped in the doorway and stared disbelievingly at her daughter who was still asleep. Kathryn didn't notice Alex when he stood and walked over to her. She didn't feel him when he put his arms around her and waited for her to embrace him in the secure and maternal way she always did.

“I didn't know,” he told her.

Kathryn didn't speak, but Alex took comfort in her recognition of his presence as she put her arms around him, held him for a brief moment, and patted him on the back.

“I have to check on Trevor.” Alex broke from their embrace. “I asked a nurse to sit with him in the waiting room while I spoke with the doctors.”

“And?”

“They're still running tests,” Alex answered. “But it's not looking too good.”

Kathryn felt lightheaded and her knees buckled, but Alex was there to keep her from falling.

“Are you okay?” Alex asked and helped her to a chair.

“I'm fine,” Kathryn answered. “Now, go check on my grandson.”

Alex turned and walked out of the room. He stared back at June as the door closed behind him. He didn't want to leave her, but he knew Kathryn needed this time with her daughter.

A few minutes passed before Kathryn moved toward June's bed. She stood there gazing at her peaked daughter, wondering how she could have been so blind. Although she felt something was wrong in June's life when she saw her two days ago, she didn't figure it was anything like this.

Kathryn took a step toward the bed and hesitated before going any closer. She was convinced that she held the answer to June's problems in her hand. Still, she could not force herself to go any closer because it was like reliving the morning her husband died.

“Go outside with Junie,” she remembered him telling her that morning. “Go outside and watch the sunrise with our girl.”

“No,” she responded. “I'm not leaving you alone. I'm staying right here.”

“Please,” he begged.

“I said no.”

He could barely lift his hand so he turned his hand palm-side-up and she placed her hand in his. It was in that moment that she told the only man she'd ever loved that it was okay for him to close his eyes and let go. Her heart broke but she had to release him. No matter how much he suffered he would not leave until she let him go.

“If it's time to go, then go.” She kissed his forehead. “Please don't stay here suffering for us. We'll be all right.”

She felt his body tremble and then their teary eyes met. Kathryn
realized it would be the last time she lost herself in his now listless eyes. “I love you, Henry,” she avowed. “I've always loved you and I always will.”

He closed his eyes and passed away quietly, listening to the joyful laughter of his six-year-old daughter as she welcomed the sunrise underneath the tree canopy covering Bacon Street.

Now, twenty-three years later, Kathryn recalled details about that morning that she hadn't thought about since then. She remembered waking up and listening to her husband and daughter talking. She was surprised because June wasn't an early riser. But that morning, she was wide awake.

“I couldn't sleep last night, Daddy.” June bent down and whispered to her dad as he lay in bed staring out the open window. “An angel kept talking to me in my sleep.”

Henry tried to smile. “What did the angel say?”

“She said it was time for you to come home,” June answered. “I told her you were already home.”

Henry motioned for June to be quiet when Kathryn, pretending to be asleep, rolled over, continuing her pretense.

“Junie,” Henry said softly. “Do you know where God lives?”

“In Heaven,” she answered.

“Do you know who else lives there?”

“The angels.”

“And who are the angels?” he asked.

“Good people who died,” she replied.

“That's right, baby. When good people die, they go to Heaven to live with God and become angels.” He finally managed a smile. “I'm going to let you in on a secret. The best time to talk to God or simply to hear Him and the angels speak is in the morning right as the sun begins to rise.”

“Really?”

“If you go outside and listen real close, you'll hear Him. It might not be words you hear, but if you listen closely, Junie, you'll hear Him and the angels.”

“Can I see Him, Daddy?”

“You might not see Him, but you'll feel His presence,” Henry answered. “Why don't you go outside and see?”

June turned and ran toward the bedroom door.

“Junie,” Henry called. “Daddy loves you and I always will. Don't you forget that.”

“I won't,” she said and started out the room. She turned around suddenly, walked back to the bed, then leaned over and kissed him. “I love you, too.”

“You better hurry,” he said, trying his best to hold back the tears. “Sounds like I hear Him.”

“Don't go to sleep, Daddy.” June turned and blew a kiss. “I'm coming right back.”

“I won't,” he answered.

When Kathryn heard the front door close behind June, she turned to Henry, who stared out the window. “Henry, what was Junie talking about?”

“She had been dreaming,” he answered.

“About what?”

“Angels.” He recalled the recent conversation with a smile. “An angel told her it was time for me to come home.”

Kathryn was silent. Even though she'd heard the entire conversation between Henry and June, Henry had never said anything to her that might suggest he knew he was dying. When Lucy Kaye's husband, Reverend Adams, came by to pray for him, he gratefully declined. Whenever the doctors' prognosis wasn't what he wanted to hear, he cordially thanked them for their professional opinion.
He even refused hospitalization, saying he was needed at home. After months of silent denial, he had finally spoken about going home.

Kathryn walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

“Kat,” Henry called for her.

Kathryn opened the bathroom door and stared at her dying husband.

“Kat, why don't you go outside with Junie? I'll be here when you get back. I promise you. I'm not going anywhere.”

“Is it time, Henry?”

“No,” he answered. He tried to hide the hesitation in his tone, giving a weak smile as proof of his conviction. “I'm not leaving my girls.”

Kathryn sat down beside him. She'd watched him suffer over the past eight months, and as much as the thought of living without him terrified her, she wanted him to know that it was okay for him to go on home. He was ready to go, but he didn't think she was ready. Giving up wasn't part of her nature. She was a woman who held on. Her faith never wavered, until the morning she whispered to her husband, “If it's time to go, then go.”

Kathryn's life went on, but everyone around her knew she lost more than her husband that morning.

Kathryn stared at June as she began to stir. She hadn't considered what she was going to say when June woke up. One thing was certain: She wasn't going to tell June it was okay to let go like she had told Henry. She was going to fight harder this time. Even if June didn't have the strength or will to fight, Kathryn had enough fight in her for both of them. There was no way she was going to let her daughter die.

June knew someone was standing near the bed. She couldn't see
who it was, but she could feel the person staring at her. Her vision was blurred, so she squinted to get a better view of the person. “Ma?”

“It's me, Junie,” Kathryn said.

June had hidden her illness from everyone except Leatrice. She realized that telling Alex would be hard and telling Trevor would be even harder. But having to tell her mother she had cancer was next to impossible. She was only a child when her father died, but more than anyone else, she was aware how much her mother lost when he died.

“Ma, is that you?”

“Yes, baby.” Kathryn wiped away the tears she had fought desperately to hold back. “I'm right here and everything's going to be all right.”

“But, Ma…” June tried to talk, ready to confess everything she'd been hiding. “I'm sick.”

“Yes,” Kathryn agreed. “But I promise you that you will be okay. You're going to get better.”

June became her mother's reason for living when Kathryn's life ended with her husband's twenty-three years ago. Now, June was lying in a hospital bed facing her own mortality. But this time, Kathryn wasn't giving up. And she wasn't going to let her daughter give up, at least not without a fight.

(lyrics and arrangement by June)

There was a time,

when you were mine.

And we had the world

in our hands.

Now, you've gone away,

and left me blue.