Watercolors Ch. 02

"Joe," she addressed him just before getting into her van. "You can wash your socks and underwear. Take your shirts to the laundry. I don't want to have to come home to a pile of ironing." When she got back to Santa Cruz, she put her clothes in the walk-in closet in Ralph's room.

The first weekend in March, she returned to Sacramento and cooked and cleaned for several days. Joe picked a fight every day. He made cutting remarks about her cooking, her cleaning, and her weight. She left Monday afternoon.

When she got back to Santa Cruz, Ralph held her while she cried through the story of her weekend.

"You need to leave him. He wasn't violent this time. In January he was. How can you know what's going to happen. If you divorce him, I'll marry you the next day. I'll make it formal." He dropped to one knee. "Jan, will you marry me?"

She cried even harder. "Ralph, I love you. You're only the second man I've ever loved. But thirty-four years ago I promised 'to love, honor, and obey, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, 'till death do us part' I haven't kept all the vows I made that day, but I can't say 'You're sick and my life's worse. Goodbye.' That's not fair to the man who lived with me for all those years. You're not Catholic. You don't understand all my feelings."

They talked some more and Ralph tried to get her to agree to leave Joe, but he could tell that he had lost the argument. "Jan, I love you. If you ever change your mind, I'll marry you in a heartbeat. But I respect your decision. Right now I'm just lucky to have you in my life."

She started attending Mass at St. Ann's. She went to Confession, but she never confessed to adultery. She remembered her Catechism classes all those years ago. Confession and Absolution only work if the Penitent is sorry and intends not to sin again. She wasn't sorry and she certainly intended to sin again.

In April, she made another trip to Sacramento.

****

In May she broke up the trip to Sacramento by going over to visit Katy and the grandchildren for a day.

After lunch, they were watching the kids play outside. "Mom, are you leaving Dad?"

"Why are you asking?"

"I've seen how he treats you sometimes, and now you're staying down in Santa Cruz all the time. You just come back about once a month."

"Well, you know most of my paintings are of the beach. Being down there inspires me."

"I'm guessing you've found someone there that you're living with. You're not renting your own place or we'd have somewhere to call you."

"Katy, this is really between your father and me."

"Mom, I'm an adult. I know how things work in the real world. You don't have to treat me like I was still ten years old. Like I said, I've seen how Dad treats you. I wouldn't blame you if you moved out."

"Katy, it's not that simple. We've been married almost thirty-four years. If he didn't have me around to take care of him, I don't know if he could get by."

"You've found someone in Santa Cruz who makes you happy. I can tell. I'm not blaming you. You've done enough. You deserve any happiness you can get."

"Katy, I took a vow before God. I can't walk away so easily." Before she left, she gave Katy Ralph's number in case she needed her.

****

Her movements became routine. The first weekend of the month she would go to her house in Sacramento. There she would clean, wash clothes, grocery shop and cook. Tuesday or Wednesday she would drive back to Ralph's house and stay until next month. In between trips to Sacramento, she would call Joe two or three times. She also called Katy weekly.

On a Tuesday morning in August she was packing up in Sacramento to go back. Santa Cruz now felt like home. The house she had lived in for over twenty-five years was an away place.

Joe wandered in. "Getting ready to go back to your boyfriend?"

Fortunately her back was to him. She didn't know why she was so surprised. Everybody else had guessed. Why wouldn't he? She looked over her shoulder. "I don't know what you're talking about. Unless you think I've turned lesbian."

"As much time as you spend with your girlfriends, that thought had crossed my mind also."

"We've been married going on thirty-five years and I've never had anybody else during that time."

"So you say. It's unnatural for a faithful wife to spend so much time away from her husband."

"Well, maybe if I didn't know that you had an affair with Millie and god knows who else, I'd like staying around you more."

"That was ten years ago and I told you about it. I didn't have any other affairs. Can't you just forget it?"

"You didn't confess ten years ago. You just confessed two years ago. You think I can just forget something I learned recently?"

"Still, you should spend more time here."

"If you treated me better, like you were sorry, which you've never said, maybe I would." She had been going to wait to leave until after lunch. Now she took her bag to her van and drove away. She didn't kiss him. She didn't even say goodbye.

She kept traveling to Sacramento.

****

On a Wednesday in October Katy called. "Mom, Dad's in the hospital."

"What happened?"

"He had a car accident yesterday. Drove off the road and hit a telephone pole. I just got called around noon today. I got to the hospital as soon as I could. They thought he had a concussion at first, but when they ran tests at the hospital, they discovered that he's got a brain tumor."

"I'll come up immediately. I'll get in late so I'll go to the hospital first thing in the morning."

The next morning she walked into his room just as the nurse was taking away his breakfast dishes. She immediately fell across his chest and hugged him.

"With all the advances in medicine, you would think that they'd have better food, too." He smiled at her.

"What does the doctor say?"

"Why don't you ask her yourself?"

She turned around to see a young girl in a lab coat. "I'm Jan Williams, Joe's wife. I've been away for a few days and just got here."

The doctor named the tumor Joe had. She explained that it was advanced and had metastasized to other areas of the body. She laid out the options for treatment and the prognosis. Without treatment Joe might live a month, probably less. With treatment he might live a year, most probably less.

Katy had arrived during the discussion. The doctor repeated some things for her benefit. "So what do you want to do?" The doctor looked at them expectantly.

"Dad will start treatment today."

"Katy, let's talk a bit. Doctor, would you come back in about an hour?" This was the first time Joe had spoken.

After the doctor left, Joe started again. "I watched Bill Turner die of pancreatic cancer. It wasn't pretty, and the treatments just prolonged the agony. It's trite, but accurate to say I've had a good life. Given a choice between one month of pain and twelve months of pain, I choose one."

"Dad, you know people that have beaten incurable cancer. Shirley, a woman I work with, was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer last year. She's still alive and kicking."

"Katy, if I were your age, even fifteen years younger than I am, I'd be grabbing any cure that I could. At my age, even without this, I probably have only ten years on average to live. It's not worth it. Jan, you haven't said anything."

"I've loved you over thirty-six years. They've been wonderful years. I want you to be happy."

When the doctor returned, Joe told her his decision. The doctor would run some more tests. They made arrangements for him to move to a hospice next week where he could have twenty-four-hour care and pain medication as needed.

She and Katy stayed with Joe until mid-afternoon. "Katy," Joe started. "I love to see you every chance I get, but Tony and the kids need you at home. I would like to see everybody one more time. The doctor said it would get bad at the end. Call your brothers and ask them to visit as soon as they can, with wives and children if possible."

"I'll do it as soon as I get home."

"Your mother will be able to take care of me for the rest of the day. Just call me tomorrow. We'll let you know if anything comes up."

"Alright, Dad." Katy took the hint. She kissed his cheek and left.

"The last couple of years haven't been the best of our marriage, have they?" He looked at her.

"No, they probably haven't." She replied. Was he going to kick her out?

"Father Mulroney was by yesterday."

"I haven't seen him in ages, except at Mass." She stopped suddenly knowing why she had missed the priest-in-charge at St Bernadette's.

"I talked to him, no, confessed to him for almost two hours. I had never asked forgiveness for my, ahh, indiscretion. NO, DAMMIT. I was unfaithful to you. Even if you didn't know it at the time, it hurt you. It hurt our marriage. When and how I told you, hurt you even more."

"Joe, you aren't the only one who – "

"Don't say another word. About half the time now I'm lucid enough to realize what this tumor has done to me, and what I've done to us. You tried to get me to go to a doctor, but I was too stubborn. I treated you badly, not only in regards to my affair, but just in general. I've asked God to forgive me. I hope you can, too."

She broke down crying. "Of course I forgive you. You're my love. You're my husband, the father of my children."

They talked until he became too tired. When she got back to her house, she called Ralph. "I'll be here for a month, maybe more." She told him about the tumor and Joe's decision. "I can't leave him to face this alone. No matter what has happened over the last few years, the first thirty-two were good."

"I understand. I'll understand if you say no, but I'd like to attend the funeral. Not as a member of the family. I'll sit in the back. I want to be there for you. In a way I owe him for you. I don't mean that in a bad way, but he and I love the same woman. And she loves us. He must be a good guy."

She spent the next day with Joe. They talked mostly about their early times together, the children, what they hoped for in the grandchildren. She was in bed reading that evening when the phone rang.

"Mrs. Williams, Mr. Williams has had a change for the worse. Can you come over?"

She was met at the door to his room by a nurse who led her to the on-call Resident. "I'm afraid the tumor has cut off the blood flow of a cranial artery. In other words, he's had a stroke. Because of his condition, prognosis, and directives I don't think he'll make it through the night.

She slept in the chair by his bed. It was almost dawn when the alarm on the monitor went off. The nurses hustled her out of the room and down to the waiting area. In less than ten minutes the doctor came down to her.

"I'm sorry. He's gone."

"It was what he wanted." She looked out the window. The shadows were gray and indistinct as the world got lighter.