Cody McFadyen: The Face of Death

Last year she was diagnosed with stage-two colon cancer. She'd had surgery to remove the tumor, followed by radiation and chemotherapy. She's doing well, but she's lost the hair that had always been so thick and unstoppable. She wears this indignity the way I've learned to wear my scars: uncovered and on display. Her head is shaved bald and isn't hidden by a hat or bandanna. I wonder if the pain of this loss hits her out of the blue sometimes, the way the absence of Matt and Alexa used to hit me. Probably not. For Elaina, hair-loss would take a backseat to the joy of being alive; that kind of straightforwardness of purpose is a part of her power.

Elaina came to see me after Sands took away my family. She barreled into my hospital room, shoved the nurse aside, and swooped down on me with her arms wide. Those arms captured and enfolded me like an angel's wings. I shattered inside them, weeping rivers against her chest for what seemed like forever. She was my mother in that moment; I will always love her for it.

She squeezes my hand. "The way you feel makes sense, Smoky. The only way you could be free of fear altogether would be to not love Bonnie the way you do, and I think it's too late for that."

My throat tightens up. My eyes burn. Elaina has a way of getting to simple truths, the kind that are helpful and provide freedom, but carry a price: You can't unlearn them. This Truth is ugly and beautiful and inescapable: I'm stuck with my fear because I love Bonnie. All I have to do to be stress-free is un-love her.

Not gonna happen.

"But will it stop being so bad?" I ask. I heave a frustrated sigh. "I don't want to screw her up."

She takes both my hands, gives me that unswerving look. "Did you know I was an orphan, Smoky?"

I stare, surprised.

"No, I didn't."

She nods. "Well, I was. Me and my brother, Manuel. After Mom and Dad died in a car accident, we ended up being raised by my abuela --my grandmother. A great woman. I mean that as in 'greatness.' She never complained. Not once." Her smile is wistful. "And Manuel--oh, he was such a wonderful boy, Smoky. Bighearted. Kind. But he was frail. Nothing specific to point to, but he was always the first to catch anything going around and the last to get over it. One summer day my abuela took us to Santa Monica beach. Manuel got caught by the undertow. He died."

The words are simple, and spoken plainly, but I can feel the pain behind them. Quiet sorrow. She continues.

"I lost my parents for no reason at all. I lost my brother on a beautiful day, and his only sin was that he couldn't kick hard enough to get back to shore." She gives me a shrug. "My point, Smoky, is that I know that fear. The terror of losing someone you love." She pulls her hand away, smiles. "So what do I do? I go and fall in love with a wonderful man who does a dangerous job, and yes, I've lain awake at night, afraid, afraid, afraid. There have been some times that I took it out on Alan. Unjustly."

"Really?" I am having trouble reconciling this with the pedestal I have Elaina perched on; I can't imagine her as less than a perfect person.

"Really. Sometimes years pass without a ripple. I don't even think about losing him, and I sleep fine. But it always comes back. To answer your question: No, for me, it never goes away for good, but yes, I'd still rather love Alan, fear and all."

"Elaina, why didn't you ever tell me any of this? About you being an orphan, about your brother?"

The shrug is perfect, almost profound.

"I don't know. I suppose I spent so much time not letting it define me that I forgot to tell the story when I should have. I did think of it once, when you were in the hospital, but I decided against telling you then."

"Why?"

"You love me, Smoky. It would have added to your pain more than it would have helped."

She's right, I realize.

Elaina smiles, a smile of many colors. The smile of a wife who knows she's lucky to have a husband she actually loves, of a mother who never had a child of her own, of a bald Rapunzel who's happy to be alive.

Callie appears with Bonnie at her side. They're both appraising me. Looking for the cracks, I imagine.

"Are we ready to get this show on the road?" Callie asks. I force a smile. "Ready as I'll ever be."

"Explain what it is we're doing," Elaina says.

I gather myself up into an imaginary fist and will it to hold on to the slippery, quivery parts of me. "It's been a year since Matt and Alexa died. A lot has happened since then." I look at Bonnie, smile. "Not just for me. I still miss them, and I know I always will. But . . ." I use the same phrase I gave to Bonnie earlier today. "They don't live here anymore. I'm not talking about erasing their memories. I'm keeping every picture, every home movie. I'm talking about the practical things that don't have use anymore. Clothes. Aftershave. Golf clubs. The things that would only get used if they were here."

Bonnie gazes at me without hesitation or reserve. I smile at her, and put my hand over hers.

"We're here to help," Elaina says. "Just tell us what to do. Do you want to split up the rooms? Or do you want everyone to go from room to room together?"

"Together, I think."

"Good." She pauses. "Which room should we start in?"

I feel glued to the couch. I think Elaina senses this. So she's prodding. She's making me move, telling me to stand up, to get into motion. I find it irritating and then feel guilty for being irritated, because I've never been irritated with Elaina before and she doesn't deserve it now.

I stand in a single motion. Like jumping off the high board without thinking about it first. "Let's start in my bedroom."

We put a bunch of boxes together, a startling cacophony of ripping tape and scraping cardboard. Now it's silent again. Matt and I each had our own closet in the master bedroom. I'm looking at the door to his closet and the air is getting heavy.

"Oh for God's sake," Callie says. "It is just too damn serious in here."

She stalks over to the windows and yanks open the plantation shutters on one, then another, then the last. Sunlight comes rushing into the room, a flood of gold. She opens the windows in decisive, almost savage, motions. It takes a moment before a cool breeze begins to eddy, followed by the sounds of the out there .

"Wait here," she growls, heading toward the door of the bedroom. Elaina raises an eyebrow at me. I shrug. We hear Callie tromp down the stairs, followed by some sounds from the kitchen, and now she's tromping back up to the bedroom. She enters holding a small boom box and a CD. She plugs in the boom box, puts in the CD, and hits play. A driving drumbeat begins, mixing with an electric guitar riff that is catchy and a little familiar. This is one of those songs: I can't name it, I've heard it a thousand times, it always gets my foot tapping.

" Hits of the Seventies, Eighties, and Nineties ," she says. "It won't deliver on substance, but it'll deliver on fun. "

Callie has transformed the room in the space of three minutes. It has gone from shadowed and somber to bright and frivolous. Just another bedroom on a beautiful day. I think about what she said earlier, about her inability to commit, and realize that avoiding the serious in her personal life has had at least one good side effect: She knows how to have fun at the drop of a hat.

I look down at Bonnie, raise my eyebrows. "Think we can boogie our way through this, babe?" I ask.

She grins at me and nods.

"Yeah," I reply back. I take a breath, walk over to the closet, and open the door.

6

THE MUSIC AND SUNLIGHT WORKED, AT LEAST IN MY BEDROOM.We went through Matt's closet without me feeling too sad. We packed away his shirts and slacks, his sweaters and shoes. The smell of him was everywhere, and the ghost of him. It seemed like I had a memory for every piece of clothing. He'd smiled wearing this tie. He'd cried at his grandfather's funeral in this suit. Alexa had left a jam handprint on this shirt. These memories seemed less painful than I had expected. More rich than depressing.