Parker MEMORIES

WHEN AMELIA WOKE ME IN the middle of the night, I was sure she was in labor. It was our first night in Dogwood, in our new house, in our new bed. It felt different. And the same. It’s hard to explain. We had renovated the entire house. New plumbing, new electrical, new wood, new paint, refinished floors, and new furniture with the old heirlooms still mixed in. You don’t donate a dining room table with George Washington’s initials carved in it.

I jumped up and started putting on my shoes, which was nonsensical since I wasn’t wearing any pants.

“Park, what are you doing?” I turned back. Amelia was lying on her left side, her head propped on her hand, staring at me.

“Get up! What are you doing? Unless you want to have our babies in the same place your great-grandmother had your grandmother, I suggest you hurry.”

“Sweetie, I’m not in labor,” she said soothingly.

I exhaled, unlaced my shoes, and flopped back into bed. “Do you need ice cream? Pie? Jalapeño pizza?” These were the three most common requests of Amelia’s pregnancy. I did my best to accommodate her because she looked so uncomfortable all the time.

“Parker, I want to get married.”

I looked over at the bedside table. It was four thirty. I switched on the lamp so I could see her face. “Amelia, are you having a dream? We are getting married. In November. Remember? You wanted to get married Thanksgiving weekend so the leaves would be falling?”

She nodded. “Yeah. But I’m just lying here thinking about how we won’t all have the same name when the babies are born, and I’d like to be married when they come.”

I would have done anything in the world for Amelia at that moment—except tell our mothers that we wanted to get married now. They were trying to hide their incessant planning from Amelia so as not to stress her out, but they didn’t mind stressing me out. I knew more than I had ever planned to know about flowers. And we were only inviting, like, forty people. I couldn’t imagine if this were a first wedding.

“Babe, I don’t know if we can pull that off,” I said soothingly.

“We won’t tell anyone!” she snapped. “I just want to go to the courthouse and get married.”

“We do have the license already,” I mused, more to myself than to her.

“Right,” she said. “So, tomorrow, let’s please go get married.”

She seemed almost frantic about it, and I have to admit that it made me worry. Was there something she wasn’t telling me? But then I looked at her, lying there, so uncomfortably pregnant with my babies.

“I can’t wait to marry you.” I kissed her passionately.

“Don’t get any ideas,” she snapped.

I tried to stifle my laugh as I rolled back over.

But as I lay there, I couldn’t sleep. I was back in Cape Carolina. With Amelia. With our soon-to-be children. I had sold the Palm Beach house I had shared with Greer. I had done it in baby steps. One day, I donated files of her work to libraries. The next, her friends came and sat on the floor of her huge closet, helping me choose what to donate and what was too precious to let go of. They each walked away with dozens of mementos of the friend they had loved until her last day.

Greer’s sister, much to my surprise, had flown down to help me pack boxes and instruct the movers. I didn’t know which pieces were family heirlooms. We donated a few things; some went back to various family members. But, yes, I still have a storage rental in Palm Beach filled with remnants of our life that I couldn’t say goodbye to. It was too hard, too permanent. I may never go back there, but it soothed me to know that I could.

Greer’s jewelry was the one thing I wasn’t sure what to do with. She was buried in her diamond wedding band, and her engagement ring was in the lockbox. I hoped that I would have a daughter to give it to one day or maybe a son who could pass it on to his wife. The emerald ring she had loved so much that belonged to her grandmother, I gave to her sister. It was right that she have it. Everything else I saved so that our future children could have a piece of their biological mother.

The most curious part of my unearthing process was an envelope inside the felt-lined drawer where Greer kept all her jewelry. On the front, it said, in Greer’s handwriting: Please give to Amelia Saxton. I was extremely confused. There was no note, no indication of why on earth my wife, who hadn’t dictated who a single other item should go to, would have wanted to give a piece of her jewelry to a woman she barely knew. I pulled out a bracelet. It was a thick but plain gold chain and from it hung a gold typewriter with ruby keys and pearl turning knobs. I took it with me, but I never gave it to Amelia. I wasn’t sure if she would want it or if it would be a setback.

The house sold, over asking price, in ninety minutes. I sat on the floor in the empty place for hours, looking out at the water. I thought about how Greer’s face lit up when we first toured it, how exhausted we had been after move-in day. I remembered carrying her over the threshold. And, yes, I remembered her dying in my arms. I felt numb but proud. Letting go of this house had felt impossible, but I had done it.

The one thing I hadn’t let go of was Greer’s journals.

I got out of bed and walked to the end of the hall, to the library, where the journals were all in a row on the bookcase. I had told Amelia about how I read them. It couldn’t have sat well with her, but she must have understood, because when we moved, she pointed to a shelf and said, “I thought Greer’s journals could go here.”

I pulled them out, flipping through them, reading a passage here and there and then, one by one, putting them in a box. I didn’t know what I was looking for. I couldn’t imagine what the “right” entry would be. Maybe a reminder of her true and eternal love for me?

That was what I expected. But, in true Greer fashion, she gave me a goodbye better than my wildest dreams.