Stiltsville: A Novel - By Susanna Daniel Page 0,135

one likes it when you’re mad.”

“Don’t joke.”

His face fell. I saw that he was sorry he’d let me down. I’m sure that was doubly true for letting Dennis down. I remembered them together on the boat when Stuart was still learning, glancing up at Dennis expectantly, absorbing every direction, every mild criticism or bit of praise. “I told them I have some work to finish in Miami first,” he said. “I’m not leaving yet.”

I searched his face. “Margo’s not going with you.”

“I wish she would.”

“Tough.” I started toward the front door, then stopped. I half-turned back to him, but I didn’t meet his eye. I said, “A couple of years ago, I met a man.” I didn’t know what I meant to say, or why I was saying it. “We became close. Nothing happened. In the end it didn’t matter, I guess. There’s a larger picture. You might not know this yet.” It was a betrayal of Margo, I thought, to talk to Stuart this way. “I’m just saying that marriages go through phases,” I said limply.

“I guess they do,” he said. Then, “I’ll be over by noon. Tell Dennis to get his poker face ready.” I left the house without saying anything else, and as I got back into my car and fastened my seat belt, relief flooded through me. This was not entirely rational, but it was very real.

Later that month, we ordered and received a BiPAP machine that Dennis wore during sleep to help him breathe. At first, the low roar it made kept me awake all night but after a week we’d both gotten used to it. One night around this time I woke spontaneously, for no reason I could name, and when I looked out into the room, I saw a figure standing at the French doors that led out to the swimming pool, and a cry caught in my throat. I looked at Dennis’s bed, thinking all at once that I needed him to protect me and I needed to protect him, but his little low cot was empty and his blanket was on the floor. Then I looked back at the dark figure and realized that it was my husband—standing on his own legs, having walked several paces without assistance. I held my breath. Dr. Auerbach had told us that once a patient is bedridden, the time left is measurable in months, not years. Dennis had been bedridden, more or less, for six months. He was still helped out of bed every few days for a roll or a boat ride, but otherwise he had only enough energy to move his arms a little, play a little bit of a game, maybe smile or laugh a bit, or take a few bites of frozen yogurt. Still, here he was, standing at least six feet from his bed, staring out at the canal. I got up quietly and walked until I was next to him. I had to will myself—it took all my strength—not to touch him, not to so much as take his elbow. He looked over at me when he sensed me beside him, and he smiled. Then he looked out through the glass again. Outside, moonlight washed the blue-black lawn and cast a sheen on the water in the canal. The gumbo-limbo tree at the back corner of our property bent in the wind. In the dark, Dennis’s profile was a mask of contentment and peace. I’d loved him for half my life. I’d loved him beyond the limits of how much love I’d thought I could generate. I missed him less in that moment, as we stood side by side watching the backyard in the moonlight, than I had in a year, maybe two. Then I took his hand, and when I did—it hurts me to remember—he lost his footing, and he fell.

Dennis died almost two months later, and we scattered his ashes in the bay and spent a long evening on the boat in the windless night, watching the lights of Miami in the distance. Margo slept over for a week, at which point I convinced her that I could be left alone. When she was gone, I missed her. In the next year, Stuart left Miami for the job in Seattle, then returned after six weeks so that he and Margo could try again to be together. Grady had a mild stroke that left the right side of his face a bit lazy, but he was otherwise his