CHAPTER 39
It was late afternoon and the sky was steadily darkening. The three women were gathered in the living room, Gincy and Tamsin on the couch and Ellen in what had always been “her chair,” a high-backed armchair bought on sale at one of those big-box furniture stores a good twenty-five years earlier.
“The tree looks very nice, Virginia,” Ellen said.
Gincy, who was checking her office e-mail, looked up from her laptop and smiled. While it certainly couldn’t compare to her neighbors’ potted trees with their theme decorations, the old Gannon family tree did have a sort of charm, even if it was indefinable.
“We need some Christmas music,” Tamsin announced, and she got up from the couch.
Gincy and Rick had given her parents a CD player years earlier; Ellen had been suspicious—“The radio has always been fine for me”—but Ed had taken to it and over time had amassed a decent collection of music, including some popular jazz, big band favorites, and the much loved Christmas standards.
“This one’s got a cute cover,” Tamsin said, loading a CD. “Bing Crosby, whoever he is.”
After a few fairly secular ballads, the opening bars of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” sounded through the living room. When the chorus came along, Gincy found herself quietly singing along with Bing’s famous bass baritone.
“Oh, tidings of comfort and joy . . .”
Ellen sighed.
Gincy looked up from her laptop. Her mother’s expression was wistful. “What’s wrong, Mom?” she asked.
Ellen put her hand briefly to her heart. “Nothing,” she said. “It’s just that this was your father’s favorite Christmas carol.”
“That’s right, Mom. I remember him singing it. He had such a good voice when he was younger. So clear. A lovely tenor.”
“I remember Grandpa singing, too,” Tamsin said. “All sorts of songs. What was that goofy, really ancient song—something about a cement mixer and putty? It used to make me laugh so hard.”
“That’s why he sang it,” Gincy said. “He loved to hear you laugh. Other people being happy made him happy.”
“That’s probably why he gave me a teddy bear every time he saw me,” Tamsin said. “He knew how much I love teddy bears. Now I feel like I’m going to cry.”
Gincy put her arm around her daughter’s shoulder. “We all miss him,” she said. “Right, Mom?”
But Ellen didn’t answer. Instead she rose from her chair and went off in the direction of the kitchen. For a moment Gincy thought that maybe she shouldn’t have tried to include her mother in the conversation. Then again, Ellen had been the one to mention the carol being Ed’s favorite. Her mother was probably fine, just a bit melancholy. Even for the happiest, most content of people, Christmas could bring moments of poignant sadness as well as moments of great joy.
A few minutes later, Gincy and Tamsin heard a cry come from the kitchen.
“Grandma!” Tamsin shouted
“Stay here unless I call for you,” Gincy told her daughter, literally tossing her laptop aside as she leapt up from the couch. As she hurried toward the kitchen she pulled her phone from her pocket, prepared to call 911.
“My, God, Mom,” she cried, “what’s happened?”
Her mother stood slumped against the counter, weeping and whimpering. On the cutting board behind her were two peeled potatoes, one of which had been sliced in half. And one of her mother’s dull knives sat next to it, a tiny spot of blood on the blade.
In two strides Gincy was at her mother’s side, lifting her hand. A quick glance at the wound assured Gincy that it was minor, and therefore completely out of proportion to the reaction it had elicited. She led her mother to the sink, where she ran the damaged fingertip under warm water and then, with a clean paper towel, dried it. Her own hands were shaking slightly, not from the sight of blood. No. Her hands were shaking because never, not in the fifty years she had known her mother, had she ever seen her cry. She was shocked. She was frightened.
“Here, Mom,” she said, “let’s sit down.” She led her mother to the table and helped her to sit in her usual place. Tears were still streaming down Ellen’s face, and little whimpering sounds were still coming from her throat. There was no box of tissues at hand, so Gincy grabbed a few paper napkins from the plastic holder that lived on the table and pressed them into her mother’s hand.
“I’ll get a Band-Aid,” she said. She knew there was a box in one of the drawers she had cleaned and organized just the other day. A moment later, the small wound safely covered, Gincy leaned down and put her arms around her mother’s hunched shoulders.
“Don’t leave me, Virginia,” Ellen sobbed. “Not yet. Please.”
Gincy was stunned. How had her mother known she was planning to go back to Boston on Christmas Day? But maybe that wasn’t what her mother had meant at all. “I’m right here, Mom,” she said, gently smoothing her mother’s thin hair. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You’re all I have left, Virginia. Now that your father is gone.”
Gincy swallowed hard. She could choose to take this the wrong way. She could choose to believe that what her mother really meant was not “I love you and I need you” but “You’re my last choice but you’re better than nothing.”
She chose to believe the first. Above all, she thought, be kind.
And she remembered what she had been thinking the other day at dinner. She had been thinking that maybe her mother had been holding her grief so tightly to herself because she was afraid of its power if unleashed. Well, something seemed to have unleashed it.
“Sometimes,” her mother said through her tears, “I feel that I can’t go on without him. . . .”
Gincy became aware that Tamsin was standing in the doorway, her face drawn with concern. She shook her head and managed a small smile. Tamsin turned away.
“When I found him that morning,” Ellen went on, “I felt as if my life were over. I had made his breakfast, like I always did. I just wanted to see why he hadn’t come into the kitchen yet, so I went back to the bedroom. He was alive when I got up. I know he was. I heard him breathing. I saw him. I saw his eyelids flutter. But when I went back, only half an hour later . . .”
Gincy felt her legs begin to go out from under her, and she grabbed the back of the closest chair and sank into it. Her head began to spin and she thought she might be sick. She had never asked about the details of that awful morning. Her father had died in his sleep; of course her mother had been the one to find him! She had known that, of course she had, but somehow she had managed to block the horrible image from her mind, the image of her mother standing by the side of the bed she had shared with her beloved husband for over fifty years, alone and helpless with his body. The shame pressed down on Gincy, a terrible weight. She reached over and took her mother’s hand. She found that she couldn’t speak.
“I loved him from the first day we met,” Ellen went on, her voice trembling. “And there he was, just gone from me. I wanted to lie down next to him and just . . . just slip away. There are days still when all I want to do is die so that we can be together again.” Ellen looked up, her eyes searching her daughter’s face. “But here I am, still alive. I don’t understand. Why? Why am I still here?”
Gincy tightened her grip on her mother’s hand and looked her squarely in the eye. “Because we need you here, Mom,” she said, her voice trembling. “Me and Tommy and Justin and Tamsin. We need you.”
Ellen wiped her eyes with the soggy napkins. “Your father always told me that I could rely on you when he was gone. He said I could ask you for help if he died before me. But I didn’t want to ask you for help. I didn’t want to ask anyone, especially not you. I didn’t want you to think I was weak. I didn’t want you to think badly of me, you Virginia, of all people.”
Gincy shook her head as tears cascaded down her cheeks. “Mom, you stubborn old thing. We’re so much alike, you and I. Asking for help when you really need it is the smart thing to do. It’s the courageous thing to do. We’ve both had to learn that the hard way. Dad would be so glad that we’re here, together, finally.”
And then, Gincy thought of the life-changing moment twenty years before when she told Rick that, yes, she would move in with him and Justin. It was not what she had planned to say. She had gone to Rick’s apartment to break up with him because she was so afraid of taking the emotional chance, so afraid of the risk involved with committing herself to another person. So afraid of love. But then, standing before the man she loved and admired, she had found the courage to accept his offer. She remembered thinking, “The necessary leap of faith. Someone had to take it.” Rick had taken the leap, and she had followed.
Now Ellen Gannon was the one who had found the courage to take the leap of faith and share her grief with her daughter. And I’ll follow, Gincy thought. She would accept her mother’s gift and try to make up for not having been brave enough to establish a better relationship with her before now.
“I’m so sorry, Mom,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “I’m so sorry for not really listening, for not really seeing. I’m sorry for everything. I want to make it up to you. I will make it up to you.”
Ellen coughed and blew her nose. “Let me get you some water, Mom.” Gincy let go of her mother’s hand and went to the sink. And she remembered with shame that she used to consider her mother a failure. That was the word she had used over and over, a failure. And now, now she was mortified that she could have been so immature and blind to her mother’s achievements. What were those achievements? To truly love and care for her husband. To be the best mother she knew how to be.
What higher achievement was there, really, than to love another person with all of your heart and soul?
“Why don’t you sit with Tamsin while I finish getting dinner ready,” she said, handing her mother the glass of water. “Do you think you’ll be able to eat something?”
Ellen took a long drink and then sniffed loudly. “Yes, Virginia,” she said. “I think I can manage something.”