Chapter Eighty-nine

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Maggie

No one tells you how horrible—and yet oddly mundane—it is to wait for someone to die.

It’s been nine days since we moved Cash from the hospital to the swamp house. Nine days of him never regaining consciousness. Nine days of him lying in that big, brass bed slowly slipping away. Of hospice caretakers going in and out. Of sleeping with Luc in a tent on the front porch so Jasmine, the night nurse, can have the couch. Of breakfasts and lunches and dinners. Of laundry, work, errands, and all the details of life that must go on despite the looming specter of death.

Talk to him, one of the nurses told us on the first day. Hearing is the last sense to go. Talk to him about anything and nothing at all.

That’s what we’ve done. We’ve said all the things, all of them, until we’ve run out of words. We’ve reminisced about the good times and absolved each other for the bad. Luc has played his guitar, all of Cash’s favorite songs. And I’ve read aloud each of the letters I wrote to him and those I wrote to Luc too.

For the first few days, I could feel him in the room with us. Even though he never opened his eyes. Even though he never smiled or spoke. His life force was there. Big and powerful. A presence.

But as the days have worn on, all the big and small things that made him him, that made him special and wonderful and unlike any other, have slowly drifted away until all that remains is the husk of his body and a yawning Cash-shaped chasm in the center of my heart.

I’ve watched Luc hold his hand for hours. Sitting there, keeping vigil, as if he doesn’t care if he ever does anything else. Giving all of himself. Nothing held back. And my love for him has grown in direct proportion with my sadness.

You really get to see a person in times like these, past all the hooey and hogwash to the heart of them. Even though I’ve always known Luc’s heart is a wonder, I didn’t realize what a miracle it truly is until these past nine days.

Then there’s Cash’s heart…

“It’s strong,” Jasmine told us only yesterday evening after listening to it through her stethoscope. “It hasn’t skipped a beat.”

“I’m not surprised.” Luc sighed heavily. “It’s always been his best quality. Now maybe it’s his curse. It’s keeping him hanging on even after the rest of him has given up.”

“Do not go gentle into that good night, but rage, rage against the dying of the light,” Jasmine quoted Dylan Thomas, having picked up on Luc’s love for poetry. “I didn’t know Cash in life. But in death, he’s a rager.”

That made Luc smile. If nothing else, even if she hadn’t been so kind to us and so gentle and attentive to Cash, I would have loved her for that.

“He was a rager in life too,” Luc assured her.

This morning, I woke up before Luc—a rarity—and pushed up on my elbow to watch him sleep. The interior of the tent was cold, but I was warm, thanks to his immense body heat. He’s pretty much the equivalent of a living, breathing, human blast furnace.

Seeing him so relaxed, his heartbreak and worries momentarily wiped from his brow—Luc doesn’t grow more boyish in sleep, he looks even more manly, more solid, if that’s possible—I felt a tug under my left breast. Like a string had attached my ribs to my heart, and every breath, every beat was connected. One to the other. Like Luc’s connected to me. Like I’m connected to him.

Grief is a bastard. It truly is. But it’s nothing compared to love. And in that moment, looking at Luc, feeling that tug under my breast, I admitted he isn’t only my best friend or my boyfriend or the guy I’m sleeping with.

He’s my everything.

His breathing never changed. His eyelids never fluttered. So the sudden sound of his voice in the confines of the tent startled me. “I can’t tell if you’re thinking ’bout kissing me or strangling me in my sleep.”

When his eyes opened, I wanted to fall into their dark depths and stay there.

“I’m always thinking about kissing you.” Then, when I added, “Happy Mardi Gras,” I wished I’d stopped while I was ahead.

His expression hardened. A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Is it Mardi Gras already? I reckon we don’t have much to celebrate this year.”

“No.” I shook my head. “We don’t. But this morning, I woke up and saw you lying here beside me, my knight in shining armor, and I realized something.”

“I’m no knight in shining armor,” he demured.

“You’re right,” I agreed. “You’re my knight in bent and rusty armor. You’ve been to war, you’ve slayed the dragon, you’ve fought the big fights.”

“Which ones were those again?”

“You fought for me when I was fourteen, keeping me from doing something horrible. You’ve fought for me since you came back, never giving up on me even though I gave you plenty of reasons to do exactly that. And you’re fighting for Cash now. Fighting to make this as comfortable and peaceful and easy for him as it can be.”

“Neither of you has ever needed me to fight for you. You’ve both always had all the strength you’ll ever need to win your own battles.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe we’ve been strong because you’re strong.”

“What did you realize?” he asked, changing the subject. He’s never been one to bask in compliments. He’s too humble for that.

“I realized I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Luc.” I watched his chest still as he held his breath. “I realized you’re it for me. Full stop. End of story.”

“What are you saying, Maggie May?”

“I’m saying I want to marry you,” I admitted tremulously. “I want to have your babies. I want all of you, today, tomorrow, and always. I know this is probably too fast. We’ve only been dating for—”

“It’s not too fast,” he quietly interrupted. “It’s been twelve years in the making.”

And he was right. Twelve long years where I needed to grow. Grow out. Grow up. Grow into a woman who might deserve him.

My heart was wild in my chest. “Is that a yes?”

“Of course it’s a yes, Maggie May,” he said without hesitation. “Doncha know? You’re all I’ve ever wanted.”

In that moment, and just that easily, Lucien Dubois went from being my boyfriend to being my fiancé.

Taking my face in his hands, he kissed me. Kissed me and kissed me and kissed me some more. Until my arms and legs were heavy with desire, my belly soft and quivering.

“Is it wrong to be thinking of our future when Cash doesn’t have one?” I asked quietly after he let me catch my breath. “To imagine us being happy without him?”

“We won’t be without him. He’s part of us. He’ll live on in us. Our happiness is his happiness.”

I traced the arch of his eyebrow and smiled. “You always know what to say to make me feel better.”

Then he kissed me again. Kissed me, and rolled on top of me and we made love for the first time in nine days. It was slow love. Quiet love. True love. And after we finished, I clung to him and cried.

I cried for Cash. For the loss of his beautiful life. I cried for myself. For the loss of my beautiful friend. And I cried for the love that Luc and I share. For the simplicity of it, the strength of it. I cried in gratitude for all that we have, at the same time that I cried in sorrow for all that we never will.

Afterward, we got dressed and went into the house. The sight of Cash, so pale and thin, tapped a wellspring of grief deep in the heart of Luc, and something gave way. Finally. Like a levee breaking, his misery rushed over him as surely as Katrina rushed over New Orleans all those years ago.

Through the veil of my own tears, I was glad to see his. Not glad glad. More like relieved.

He’d been trying to stay so strong, so tough, but I knew from my parents’ deaths that the only way to truly deal with grief is to give in to it. Surrender to it. Let it pull you under and tumble you around and finally spit you out.

You’re bruised and cracked and changed once you’re on the other side. But you’re still whole. And in that wholeness, a healing can begin.

Now the two of us are sitting beside Cash’s bed, listening to his labored breathing.

“The coldness is moving up his arms,” I say to the hospice nurse on duty. This one’s name is Pam.

The chill was only in Cash’s hands and feet this morning, but it’s spreading and making the skin of his arms and legs look blotchy and mottled.

“It’s normal,” Pam assures me, gently checking Cash’s IV before rubbing some ointment on his chapped lips. “This is simply part of the process.”

You never think of dying as a process. Mostly you think of life as a light switch. One minute, it’s on. The next, it’s off. But it doesn’t work that way for everyone. For some, it’s more like a campfire that slowly extinguishes itself. A little more of the light and the heat slipping away every day, every hour, every minute.

“Should we get some gloves to put on his hands?” I ask. “Maybe add another pair of socks?”

“No.” Pam shakes her head. “He’s not feeling the cold, or else he’d be shivering. This is just his body shutting down, inch by inch.”

“How much longer d’ya think?” Luc asks, both of his hands wrapped around one of Cash’s.

Compared to the sickly pallor of Cash’s skin, Luc’s glows with a healthy tan. Where once they were of a kind, both brawny and strong, now Luc seems a mammoth of a man, dwarfing Cash.

“Not much longer now.” Pam’s expression is kind. “I doubt he’ll last the day.”

Luc closes his eyes, and the pain in his face matches the pain in my chest. Oh, Cash… My beautiful, brave boy. My first love. My friend…

Laying my head on the bed, I place my hand over Cash’s heart. That strong, courageous heart that lived a life without excuses. That big, bold heart that taught me how to stand up and be brave, how to take risks, give my all and screw the fear.

It’s amazing how much can change in the span of a few weeks. A month ago, Cash was sick but not dying. Luc was my friend but not my lover. And I didn’t know my own mind, much less my heart.

I think of that as I listen to Cash breathe. Of how life seems to come in fits and starts. For years, it can go on much the same, and then something happens and everything changes. You change.

Hours slip by like minutes as I try to will the breath into Cash’s lungs. As I try to will the blood to pump through his veins. But by the time the sun sinks low, shining its dappled light through the cypress trees outside, his breathing has gone from labored but steady to noisy and irregular. The strong beat of his heart beneath my palm has turned thready and light. And then, silence…

I lift my head, staring at his sunken cheeks and bruised eyes, trying to see the life in him. When I’m about to admit the unimaginable, that Cassius Armstrong has actually died, his chest muscles expand, and he takes a huge, rattling breath.

“It’s called Cheyne-Stokes breathing,” Pam explains gently. “It means he’s nearing the end. Help me prop him up on some pillows. It can make things easier for him.”

Luc and I both rush to do as she instructs, and once Cash is situated, she pulls a syringe from her bag. “I’m going to give him a small dose of morphine,” she tells us.

My heart feels like it’s caught in a merciless iron fist. I’m not surprised my voice comes out as a bare whisper. “Is he in pain?”

“I doubt it. The morphine is to help make his breathing easier.”

“Do it,” Luc says, and we watch her administer the medication.

After she’s finished, she softly touches Cash’s cheek and whispers soothing words to him. “Talk to him,” she tells us. “Touch him. Help him along.”

Luc holds his hand, while I squeeze his shoulder and smooth his hair back from his face. We speak words of love and laughter and life, and listen in agony as his breathing stops and starts like a rusty motor winding down.

“Where are you going?” I ask Luc when he gets up.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he reassures me, pulling down the copy of Leaves of Grass that I gave him for Christmas. Taking a seat, he opens the book and quietly begins to recite “I Sing the Body Electric.”

The melodious sound of his voice is a counterpoint to Cash’s struggle, and the times when Cash stops breathing entirely become more and more frequent. But Luc doesn’t miss a beat. He keeps reading. Keeps reciting those soft, velvety words.

It’s his version of a benediction, I realize. A closing prayer.

I don’t know I’m crying until I feel a teardrop land on my forearm at the precise moment Cash drags in another rattling breath. He’s done this all afternoon, but somehow this feels different.

Luc can sense it too. He closes the book, lifts Cash’s hand, and presses the back of it to his cheek. Squeezing his eyes shut, he doesn’t try to hide the tears that streak down his face.

Pam stands from the chair on the other side of the bed and gently presses her stethoscope to Cash’s chest. She smoothes a hand over his brow and listens for his heartbeat. Then, with a serene nod, she hooks the stethoscope around her neck and turns to us.

“He’s gone,” she says quietly. Simply.

A sob lodges in my throat as I think how appropriate it is that the last lines of the poem Luc read were…

In this head, the all-baffling brain

In it and below it the makings of heroes.

Cash was a hero. Our hero.

Luc grabs my hand, his gaze searing into my own. But he doesn’t say anything.

Some heartache transcends language.