Libby in Four Seasons
Woman’s Way (Ireland), October 2020
Winter
I shave Jim’s face slowly each morning, savoring every second. I smooth the Barbasol onto his stubbly beard, grateful for the new growth, even though his body is slowly giving in. The stabs of manliness are miraculously still there, still sharp as I move the razor across his slack jaw. I revel in the rejuvenation of his skin, the smoothness he shouldn’t have, considering his condition, but still does. Harold climbs up on the bed, licks Jim’s fresh face. I lean down to sniff my husband and whisper our secret words (bear, pebble, cheesecake), kiss the last dollop of cream off his right ear.
Today, as I stare out of my house on the lake, I watch the snow falling down, breaking the grey screen of sky into swirling white specks. I am aware of the shift in the weather, and know my husband, my oldest friend, my first love, my second chance, will be gone by nightfall; his spirit sliding out, trading places with the whiteness, becoming part of its beauty, its resolve. It’s okay. We have had so much.
Spring
I don’t bake at Christmas like everyone else. I bake in the spring. April is technically spring but in these parts it feels like February. In April, I make my special cinnamon roll that looks like a lady’s long braid bent into a circle. I make eight total, one for Harold and me and one for each of the seven houses around the lake.
At each house people are surprised, stare at my frail stoop, my gnarled hand grasping a floral cane. They look a little scared, or maybe guilty. They ask me if I’m warm enough, if I want to sit, need a coffee, tea. They don’t want my cinnamon roll, but pretend they are delighted, touched. No one mentions Jim. I don’t mind, but I notice. Between Jones and Egans my foot goes into an unexpected hole and I lose my balance and fall, cutting my finger somehow on the way. It’s not a big spill, although Harold is beside himself, shaking in distress. He’s no spring chicken either. A slight, dull pain tiptoes down my spine. Is this how I will die? For so many of us old people, death begins with a fall.
“Oh for pity’s sake,” I protest as Harold barks and Jean Egan fusses.
“We really could pick up the danish, Libby, really.” It’s not a danish. I listen to her talking, but I really am just waiting, waiting to leave, to move on. Younger people often think they know everything, can fix everything.
Summer
Of course, August will always be for Craig. We are 25, newlyweds. We love the dry, hot air of Central New York summers, the cold nights, wrapping ourselves in blankets after night swimming. Unlike my serious young husband, I have no intention of working across the summer, and plan on dragging my paint into school in September and figuring everything out then. This house I grew up in and will spend my life needs work. The buttery walls beg for clean corners, throw pillows, painted tables. I work hard moving, sorting, scraping, painting, sweeping, piling up.
I start to feel hot and dirty and go upstairs to put on my purple swimsuit. I think better of it and peel off my sweaty clothes, pull on my robe, and run down the path. Shooting for the end of the dock, I let the robe fall to the wooden slats and without thought or hesitation, dive hard and fast into the green blackness. The smell of sulphury water is like entering the center of the Earth, and the sky seen from floating on my back feels like power and its opposite, smallness, loss. I shiver and flip.
At the house, police lights, alive with bad news, twirl and swirl in our driveway, but my eyes are busy staring down through the murkiness, observing the darkness and light.
Fall
Everything is quieter after a gunshot blast, even one I really never heard, experienced only in my imagination. Often, after Craig, I sit and listen in the silence.
I expect him. It is the year we turn 30 and Jim comes through the silence and knocks on my door. A funny look on his face and a daisy in his lapel, he trudges slowly on account of his health (He has already had one small heart “event”) up the path that leads to the house. I stare at him through the fantastic golds and oranges of autumn.
“What?” I feign annoyance, glance down at my long men’s shirt, one of Craig’s, green paint smeared on my cheek.
“Libby,” he says, huffing a bit. His dog, Patrick, paces behind him, his squishy brown nose sniffing the dirt, following my trail of memories, history, searching.
