Here We Go Again, page 27
Have I told you lately that I love you?
Ease my troubles, that’s what you do.
His pain grimace dissolves into a genuine smile. “Apt,” he says.
“Very apt,” she agrees.
“You had to, Logan,” he says, half-gone. “You had to come on this trip. You see that, right?”
Logan lets herself quietly cry as Joe falls asleep to Van. She watches his chest rise and fall like he’s a newborn baby, counting the distance between each breath.
ROSEMARY
On the drive back to Remy’s, she feels like she’s waking up from two days in bed with a fever. Everything that’s happened since the ambulance feels hazy and unfocused, as if she weren’t fully conscious for any of it. Now, she’s re-emerging, and she’s disoriented by the world outside the car windows.
Has Ocean Springs always been this ugly? Flat and unvaried, chain restaurants and chain stores blending into the cracked concrete and humid, gray sky. A few days ago, Ocean Springs felt like a magical bubble, but now, it will be the place Joe dies. It’s the place where her relationship with Logan dies, too.
When they step inside the house, Odie is right there, curled up in a ball and waiting for Joe. And then Rosemary is on the floor, too, crying for the first time since the hospital. She wraps her arms around Odie and coats his black fur with her tears. She releases all of her emotions, and Odie absorbs them, and Remy just lets her cry in the entryway for as long as she wants.
Eventually, the tears run dry, and both Rosemary and Odie get into the shower. Beneath a stream of scalding hot water, she feels the last two days seep out of her.
The terror and adrenaline of hearing Remy cry out—of bursting into the bedroom to find Joe unconscious, maybe dead.
The instinct to repress all her feelings and worries and fly into problem-solving mode. To have control over the uncontrollable.
Sitting in the ambulance with Joe, holding his hand while the paramedics poked and prodded his body like it was already a lifeless cadaver, telling herself not to think about it, forcing herself not to feel.
The hours of uncertainty in the waiting room and the relief when he was stable. Turning toward Logan because she could finally let herself feel. She wanted to hold Logan and be held as the feeling overtook them both.
And then Logan walked away. Logan left her.
Rosemary cries in the shower as she washes Odie with her expensive vanilla shampoo and tries not to feel the way she did in that moment, watching Logan’s back recede down a long hallway and realizing she was completely alone in her feelings.
She should’ve known Logan would walk away eventually. That’s what Logan does, and even though they had a few magical days in Ocean Springs, it doesn’t mean Rosemary is an exception to Logan’s rules.
Rosemary should’ve expected it and was blindsided all the same. But she packaged it all up, filed it all away, and forced herself to stay in control for every minute she spent beside Joe’s bed.
She cries again when she gets out of the shower and sees her ruined reflection in the steamy mirror. She cries again when she steals one of Logan’s big T-shirts and wears it as pajamas instead of her sleep dress.
And when the last of her tears are purged, she realizes she’s absolutely starving. Rosemary pads out to the kitchen with Odie at her feet and little regard for her pantlessness.
Pants don’t seem so important when your favorite person is dying.
In the kitchen, she finds Remy sitting at the table and staring at the half-finished puzzle. It’s late, and the world outside is dark.
“I’m sorry for interrupting,” she whispers into the quiet.
Remy looks up from the puzzle and manages a small, sad smile. “You’re not interrupting. I’ve been waiting for you.”
He rises slowly from his chair. “I’ve put the kettle on for some tea and made sandwiches.”
There’s suddenly a turkey sandwich in front of her, and she almost starts crying again in joy. They sit across from each other at the table and eat their sandwiches in silence. When that’s done, Remy clears their plates and returns to the table with two mugs of peppermint tea.
Rosemary wraps her hands around the warm mug. “I’m awful. It’s been complete hell for the past two days, and I haven’t even asked how you’re doing.”
He takes a slow, deliberate breath. “You’re not awful, Rosemary. And I’m doing terribly. How else would I be?”
“I’m sorry.”
He takes a small sip of his steaming tea. “I suppose that’s the cost of loving someone…”
She lapses into uncomfortable silence and stares out the kitchen window into the dark backyard, but all she can see is herself reflected back to her. “I’m not sure it’s worth it.”
Remy’s eyes feel heavy on her. “I’ve felt that way, too, at times, especially since y’all showed up here.”
She glances down at the fingers curled around her too-hot mug. “And what did you decide?” Under the table, Odie comes and puts his head in her lap. He always knows when she needs him most. She strokes his ears in that familiar, comforting pattern, trying to self-soothe the chaos inside her.
“I don’t know yet,” he says after another sip of tea. “Ask me again after he’s gone.”
Rosemary strokes Odie’s ear over and over again. “Logan is gone, and I don’t think it was worth it at all,” she says, and she feels an immediate stab of guilt for bringing up Logan when Joe is dying.
“Logan is still here.”
The tea is finally cool enough for Rosemary to take a sip. “She walked away from me at the hospital. When I needed her most, she just walked away.”
She strokes and sips and strokes. “And that’s her whole deal. She runs at the first sign of anything real, and I was so naïve to think she might stick around for me.”
“Was I naïve, for believing Joe would come back to me one day?” Remy asks, and Rosemary has no clue how to respond to that.
Remy clears his throat. “Let me ask you something: What do you gain by being in control all the time?”
She’s startled by the question. “Oh, you know. Safety. Security. A false sense of order in a chaotic world. The reassurance that I won’t end up in rehab again.”
Remy nods and sips. “But what do you lose by being in control all the time?”
She stares down at the fragmented image of the abandoned puzzle and thinks about seeing the Grand Canyon at sunrise and the stars over Mesa Verde. About nude photo shoots and dancing in headlights. A Google Doc with ten thousand words and the boring life waiting for her in Vista Summit. The lonely life, without intimacy or connection, where she comes home to plants and a lamination machine, and only confides in a mother who can never meet her emotional needs.
“Joe will never be able to finish this,” she says as she picks up a single puzzle piece and turns it over in her hands.
“Should we finish it for him, then?” He adjusts his chair so it’s closer to the table, and Rosemary does the same.
“We should.”
She holds the piece beside the completed picture on the box: the gray ocean breaking against jagged rocks. Rosemary’s piece is part of the stormy sky. She slots it into place. One by one, they put the pieces where they belong, until it’s after midnight and the puzzle is finished. Until they’re both crying over all the things Joe will never see come together.
Chapter Thirty-One
ROSEMARY
“I don’t want it!”
“Stop being such a stubborn ass!”
“It’s my ass!” Joe shouts from his hospital bed. “I get to be stubborn about it if I want to!”
“The problem is that other people care about your wrinkly ass, and this is the least you can do for us!” Logan shouts back.
“I’m sorry, Logan, but my death isn’t about you.”
“You made it about me! About us! Will you please talk some sense into him?” Logan wheels around and looks at Rosemary directly for the first time in four days. They’ve been alternating shifts with Joe, passing each other like ships in the night, only existing in the same room whenever it’s time for this fight.
Rosemary massages her temples. The combination of hospital disinfectant, fluorescent lighting, and screaming has her feeling overstimulated and anxious and so very tired. Logan’s hazel eyes aren’t helping, either. “Joe, please. Just get the procedure,” Rosemary begs in her exhaustion.
Joe reaches for the call button and presses it. “Nurses! These cretins are trying to prolong my life against my will!”
Dr. Rutherford, the oncologist, walks over to the call button and turns it off with her usual unflappable calm.
“Can we try discussing this like rational adults?” Remy suggests. “And quiet adults?”
Logan has turned to Dr. Rutherford, her last hope. “Please tell him he has to do it.”
“Unfortunately, I cannot do that….”
“Fine! You gave Hale power of attorney, so she’ll just sign off on the procedure for you!”
Dr. Rutherford clears her throat. “That’s not how power of attorney works.”
“You need to have the liquid removed from your lungs, you fussy little fuck!”
“No, I don’t!”
Rosemary keeps rubbing her temples like they’re Dorothy’s ruby slippers, and eventually, they’ll take her away from all this death and fighting. They’ve been having this argument off and on for the last three days. It’s always the same: Dr. Rutherford tells Joe he needs to have the fluid removed from his lungs using a procedure called thoracentesis. Joe demands to be checked out of the hospital instead. Logan yells at him.
“Joe, please.” Rosemary finally drops her hands away from her face. “Please. Don’t put this on us. If you don’t have the thoracentesis procedure, the end is going to come quick. And it’s going to be painful. Please don’t put us in the position to watch you suffer.”
“I’m not going to suffer. They’ll give me the good end-of-life drugs. I’ll be as high as a fucking kite, just like I planned.”
“And what about Maine?” she asks.
“We’re still going to Maine,” he says confidently.
“I don’t recommend traveling to Maine in your condition, Joseph….”
“I’m sorry, Doc, but I have to,” he says in a barely there whisper. That’s the thing about the yelling. It never lasts for too long. Either the pain gets to be too much, or the meds kick in and he falls asleep, or his oxygen levels drop and they switch into life-saving mode instead.
The end is going to quickly come no matter what they do.
“I’ll have home hospice when I get to Bar Harbor,” Joe barters with the doctor. “Remy has already arranged everything.” He licks his dry lips. On instinct, Logan grabs his water bottle and holds the bendy straw to his mouth. Logan’s screaming never lasts long, either. It always dissolves into this: caring for Joe the best she can. It makes Rosemary’s heart hurt.
“You promised me, girls,” Joe croaks. “You promised me you wouldn’t let me die in beige.”
Rosemary turns to look at Logan, and Logan looks back at her, and Rosemary feels the same rush in her gut. The desire to hold and be held. “Fine,” Logan finally says, her shoulders slumped in defeat. “Fine. No beige, old man. A promise is a promise.”
“I’m not getting the procedure,” Joe says, one last time. “And I want to be discharged.”
Dr. Rutherford clears her throat. “There are just a few things I’d like to go over with you in the hall, then.” The doctor directs this statement to Rosemary, but Logan steps in.
“Let’s step outside,” Logan says, and she looks at Rosemary one last time before they leave. Rosemary is so grateful to be spared another conversation about the logistics of death, she almost weeps.
“I need to call home hospice back,” Remy says, pulling out his phone, and then he’s gone too and it’s just her and Joe.
“You understand, don’t you? Why I don’t want this procedure?”
She sits down on the edge of his bed. “I do.”
“Thank you, Rosie,” Joe croaks. “Thank you.”
She can’t accept his thanks for letting him die, so she just sits there in silence, staring at his beige blanket.
Joe suddenly shifts in bed. “I have something I’ve been meaning to give to you.” He points a finger at a manila envelope sitting on one of the chairs by the window. It wasn’t there before; Remy must have brought it from the house. She climbs off the bed to fetch it. It’s heavy in her hands, nothing but the word “Rosemary” scrawled across the front in Joe’s loopy script.
She returns to the bed. “What is this, Joe?”
He shakes his head. “Just open it.”
So, she does. A huge stack of papers slide out into her hands.
No, not just papers. Her papers. Her writing. Newspaper articles and essays and poems she sent him during undergrad. Short stories and random chapters of almost-books. He kept it all. All of her words gathered together in a neat little stack. It’s like a box where a mother might keep every macaroni necklace and handmade Mother’s Day card. She doesn’t know if she should be flattered or slightly terrified she has a dying stalker.
“Joe…,” she says hesitantly. “What is all this?”
“You think it’s weird I kept it all these years,” he surmises simply by studying her expression, and Rosemary isn’t terrified at all. No one knows her better than Joe. “But I was always so proud of you and your brilliant work, Rosie. You reminded me so much of myself. That love of words. That passion and care. You loved writing, my girl.”
She stares down at the stack. He kept her work because he was proud. Years of considering Joe a replacement father, and she never once wondered if he might see her the same way: as a replacement daughter, a token from the path in life he didn’t choose.
She flips through the pages one at a time, remembering each assignment she finished days early, and the sense of pride she felt at every perfect grade. She remembers the stories she stayed up all night to write. All of her words chosen with love and care and joy.
At the back of the stack is a single sheet of stationery. White with a blue border and the words “From the desk of Joseph Delgado” stamped on the bottom. She gave him that stationery pad as a gift for his sixtieth birthday, only two months before the diagnosis. On that single piece of stationery, is a short note.
I kept it all for when you’re a famous author one day.
“You… you weren’t going to give me this until after you died, were you?” she muses.
“No, but I thought you might need a little… encouragement, these days. Some inspiration to go after the things you love.”
She stares at the years of work she threw away because safety was more important than love.
What do you lose by being in control all the time?
Ocean Springs, Mississippi to Bar Harbor, Maine
Chapter Thirty-Two
ROSEMARY
Eight days after Joe was admitted to the Ocean Springs hospital, they leave for Maine.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” Rosemary asks Remy one last time on his front lawn Sunday morning. It was one of the many surprises of the past few days: Remy isn’t coming with them to Maine. He and Joe decided this was the goodbye they wanted.
“I’m sure.” Remy’s smile is unreadable in the early morning light. “We’ve had our happy ending.”
Logan hangs herself out the passenger-side window. “You had multiple happy endings from what I could hear.” She removes her sunglasses and winks at him.
“Logan Maletis, I will miss you very much.” Remy edges toward the swamp gutter so he can plant a kiss on Logan’s cheek. Rosemary has to turn away from the gesture. Eight days, and she and Logan still haven’t talked about anything but Joe’s medical care and the semantics for getting him to Bar Harbor.
They haven’t talked about what happened at the hospital when Logan walked away; they haven’t talked about what was happening before, when it felt like they were building something new and beautiful between them. They haven’t touched each other in eight days; they’ve barely looked at each other. It’s like it used to be back in Vista Summit: constantly circling each other, colliding but never connecting.
Rosemary’s not sure how she’ll survive losing Joe when she’s already grieving losing Logan.
Remy interrupts her morose thoughts when he hoists a giant red cooler in through the open side door of the van. “I packed y’all a tomato pie for lunch, along with some fried chicken and potato salad for dinner. And a peach cobbler for dessert, of course. There are also meals for you girls to freeze when you get to Bar Harbor. Jambalaya, a batch of biscuits with my homemade gravy, and a week’s worth of okra soup with shrimp.”
“Auto mechanic shrimp?” Logan asks.
“As demanded, yes, I got it from Gladys’s, though I will not be held responsible for the gastrointestinal distress caused by this choice.”
“It will be worth it.” Logan adjusts her sunglasses back over her eyes.
Rosemary reaches up and pulls Remy into a clumsy hug. “Thank you, Remy. I promise we won’t starve.”
He kisses both of her cheeks, and she knows this is his love language: feeding people, even when he’s hurting. She holds on to him longer than she probably should.
“I’ll be seeing you soon,” Remy whispers into her ear before he finally pulls away. “And one last thing.”
He jogs back to the front porch and grabs a package. It’s a flat rectangle wrapped in brown paper, clearly another one of his paintings. “This is for you, mon chéri.”
Remy sets the package on the back seat next to Joe. “Now, don’t you open this until you get to where you’re going. I want you to hang it on the wall in the living room of that old cottage.”
It’s unclear if Joe can hear his old lover. If he can understand. His eyes flutter open and closed, but they’re unfocused. Un-Joe. The hospital gave him one last fentanyl patch for the drive, but even with it, the pain of loading into the van was almost too much.
