The phone rang at seven-thirty Thursday morning.
“Chris, this is Virginia.”
“Yes.”
“I think you should come to Greenwillow.”
“I’ll be right there.”
I chucked what was left of my breakfast and ran out to the car. A police car was parked in front of Greenwillow, and I ran to the door, feeling frightened.
Virginia was standing in the reception area, talking to two policemen. When she saw me, she left them.
“Come to my office,” she said, leading the way.
We sat in chairs away from her desk.
“I got a call early this morning from the hospital,” she began. “James died during the night.”
“Oh no.”
“Peacefully,” she added, trying to smile. “I dressed and came here as quickly as I could. I knew Robert would have to be told, and I couldn’t let anyone else do it.” She paused and took a breath. “He died in his sleep.”
“Robert?” I said. “Robert died?”
“Apparently so. We got the rescue squad here—they just left a little while ago—but he’d been dead for a couple of hours.”
I closed my eyes, opened them, and shook my head rapidly, trying to clear it. Parts of a whole. When one died, the other could not survive alone. They had not been looking at each other or in the same room, and they had much more than a wall between them, but it had happened. They were gone.
“Have you called a priest?” I asked, my practical nature taking hold.
“Jonesy called the rectory of St. Mark’s. He’s on his way.”
“I had hoped they would have many years in each other’s company.”
“They had a week. And you gave it to them. Someday you will think of that and it will be a comfort.”
I was unable to answer. Brushing my tears away, I went upstairs to Robert’s room to wait for the priest from St. Mark’s.
I have had my share of delivering bad news. I have had to call parents of a student to say that their daughter was hurt in an automobile accident. I had to call a family to tell them that their beloved aunt, a nun at St. Stephen’s, had passed away. Today I had another terrible call to make. I had to call Magda and tell her about her boys.
“This is Christine,” I said when she answered.
“Christine.” She sounded so happy to hear my voice. “And how are the two old gentlemen?”
Yes, I thought, how kind of her to see that they were boys no more. “I have some terrible news, Magda,” I said, and then I told her.
The funeral was the next day at St. Mark’s. Virginia and I agreed that it was best for the Greenwillow people to bury their dead quickly.
I sat between Gene and Magda, whom I had picked up in Queens. Gene held my hand through most of the mass, or maybe I held his. Maybe on this day I needed more comfort than my cousin did.
The mass in its constancy is a comfort in itself. Whenever I smell the incense I have a sense of the ages, of time, of continuance.
The Talley brothers could not have had a more devoted group of worshipers at their funeral. My retarded cousin Gene and his friends seem to find it easier to love than to feel anything else—hate, dislike, even neutrality. Sitting in that pew, I could feel the love, and I knew that the twins must have felt it in the week they were at Greenwillow.
One week, after forty years.