Doris Fell - Long-Awaited Wedding

“Don’t, Allen,” Adrian had said, reaching across the chair and clutching his arm. “I’ll be all right You’ll see. We’ll fight this together.”

But it was a crushing, one-sided battle. Five months later, he sat by her hospital bedside, barely touching her bruised hand, not holding her the way he wanted to do because her pain was too severe. She was shockingly thin. Dark half-moons clung beneath her sunken eyes. She had fought a good fight—but she was losing. For days she slipped in and out of consciousness. On that last day, she came out of the murky depths of a coma and cried, “Allen, take me home.”

His grip tightened on the mantel as he remembered the lie fitly spoken. “I will, honey, as soon as you’re better.”

You knew I was lying, he recalled. But I wanted to take you home again.

A tiny smile had touched her cracked lips. “What’s happening to me? Where do I go after this?”

“Honey, I don’t understand. What are you asking me?”

“I’m dying. You know that, don’t you, Allen?”

He nodded, not wanting to lie to her anymore.

Her chest heaved. “But what happens to me when I die?”

He’d spent hours thinking about that—a mahogany casket with a white-satin lining. A cemetery plot, six feet deep. A miserable memorial with useless platitudes. He didn’t need anyone to remind him how lovely she was, how much he loved her. But Adrian hadn’t wanted to hear about a casket or cemetery plot any more than he did. She’s talking about herself, he thought. About what happens to her when she dies.

He had struggled to his feet, leaned down and kissed her lips gently, the weight and pressure of his chest forcing the oxygen tube to hiss. “Honey, I’ll get the chaplain for you.”

“No, don’t leave me…I’m afraid. You tell me.”

How could he? He didn’t know. She winced as he took her hands. “You’ll go to heaven.”

“What’s heaven like, Allen?” She closed her eyes, her breathing raspy. Then she was back again, fighting to stay alive long enough to find her answers.

He groped for lessons from his childhood: the memory of his grandmother talking about heaven. “It’s a pretty place,” he said. “I know that. Streets of gold. A river of life.”

It kept coming back, thoughts he had ignored for years, and doubted for some of them. He saw desperation in her eyes and longed to comfort her. “There’s no pain there, Adrian. No tears.”

“How do you know?” Her words were barely a whisper.

“My grandmother. She believed all of that”

“No tears?” With great effort she lifted her hand and touched his bristled chin. “Won’t I cry for you, Allen?”

He held her hand against his lips. “Not half as much as I will cry for you.”

As he stood in his living room, his hand shook visibly as he put the tumbler down again. He gripped the shelf as he thought of Adrian asking, “Will those I love be there?”

“My grandmother is there.”

“No one else?”

He nodded, tears coursing down his cheeks. “God,” he had said. “God will be there. And his Son.” His grandmother had said the Son would be on the right hand of the Father—that He would be there to greet His children.

The oxygen had bubbled as Adrian gasped for air, her breathing so labored that Allen held his own breath. “Don’t leave me,” he begged. “I love you.”

Slowly she focused on him, her eyes more glazed now. “How do I get to heaven, Allen?” she whispered.

On the wings of angels, his grandmother had said. But he wasn’t certain. He didn’t know where truth ended and his grandmother had improvised on her picture of eternity. But he did remember Grams declaring, “The way to heaven is through Jesus.”

He leaned down, his face on the pillow beside Adrian. “Jesus is the way. You won’t go alone. Jesus is here to go with you.” He was quoting his grandmother again, and saw a flicker of hope in Adrian’s glazed eyes. “Jesus,” he repeated.

“Jesus,” she said. She pushed the oxygen prongs aside. “Hold me, Allen,” she had cried.

And he did, tenderly, lovingly, gently caressing her, his cheek pressed against her own. Ten minutes later the nurse gripped Allen’s shoulder. “It’s over, Mr. Kladis. Your wife is gone.”

He stared now at Adrian’s photo on the mantel. “She’s gone, Mr. Kladis,” he repeated solemnly.

To heaven? Yes, he was certain Adrian had been borne on the wings of angels—surely his grandmother had told the truth—and that she was safely there now. Pain free. With not even a tear for him. But in the eleven months since her death, he had shed enough tears for both of them, buckets of them in the shower, more as he lay in the empty bed alone, crushing her pillow against his chest

After her death, work became his salvation. He poured himself into the planned merger between Larhaven and Fabian. During Adrian’s illness, the merger had been tabled. Now, with the threat of a third party bidding for Fabian, Allen had attacked the project with renewed energy.

He ran his hand over his bare chest, willing the tightness to go away. Unraveling to his height of six-foot-two, he secured the strings on his jogging pants and walked back through the house. He stopped to fill his tumbler with an iced soft drink before reaching the bedroom. The king-size bed remained unmade, the spread sprawled on the floor, his pillow pounded to shreds. He had turned out to be a poor housekeeper these last eleven months, depending instead on the woman who came in three days a week.

He grabbed the merger file from the dresser, opened the sliding glass door, and stepped out onto his veranda that overlooked Lake Washington. Sinking into the chaise lounge, he stretched out his lanky legs and propped his feet on the iron railing. Business magazines were strewn on the porch. He felt useless, weary at thirty-nine, empty inside. With a sigh, he carelessly dropped the merger file on the floor.

Even from where he sat, an eddy—a violent little whirlpool—swirled, spinning out of sync with the rest of the lake. It was headed nowhere, with nothing but dark churning depths beneath it. His life had been on replay all day, one scene after the other, hitting him full force and then dropping into the bitter pools of memory. It hadn’t been this intense lately, but he guessed the upcoming anniversary of Adrian’s death had much to do with his mood.

He heard his brother’s footsteps coming through the veranda door. “Figured you’d be here. I just let myself in,” Nick said.

Nick slid a porch chair over beside Allen and dropped into it. “Thought you had company, big brother. Guess you were just talking to yourself.”

“When did you get back, Niko?”

“On the morning flight. Nonstop straight from L.A.—haven’t even checked in with the wife and kids yet.”

“You never make them top priority. You did travel alone?”

“Scout’s honor. Strictly business.”

“Did Fabian give an excuse for the misfired missile?” Allen saw his brother’s crafty eyes shift. “You didn’t step out of line, did you, Nick? The agreement with Fabian was to wait.”

“What’s done is done. McCormick blamed it on one of his vice-presidents. And Davenport swears the air force blew it.” He met Allen’s gaze for a second. “Allen, one of the first things you better do when the merger goes through is get rid of Davenport.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“What’s wrong is he’s a woman. Powerful, from what I gather. Her job should go, once we merge. Mark my words.”

“That’s my decision. McCormick we keep for a time. The next five names on their management team go. Straight off the top. That saves millions right off.”