By The Sea, Gently

And the thing of it is -- it was. After almost a half year together I loved her more than I could have possibly ever imagined.

Christmas Eve the three of us had dinner together, and once Ben was upstairs and tuck safely away into dreams of sugarplum fairies we sat together in that living room with the trees just outside the window and we looked at the lights on the Christmas tree and all those honey-toned memories we carry along through our lives. Somewhere in the firelight I pulled a little box from my coat pocket, a light blue box from Tiffany & Co with a very smart ring inside, and I held it up to the light in her eyes and asked her to marry me.

I don't know what I expected, but what she gave me will last all the rest of the days of my life as the brightest of life's best, most memorable moments. She held me, kissed me, let me slip the ring on her finger and when I told her I would love her until the end of time she seemed to weigh those words against the chalice of memory, then she took hold of them and held my words as her own. We were married on my birthday a few months later.

Ben was my Best Man, by the way, and he smiled and smiled when, standing by my side, he saw his mother walking down the aisle.

+++++

She wanted me to adopt her boy, so he could share our name. Not be so -- apart -- I think she said. He didn't seem to mind and so, after lawyers and courts finished their part of the bargain, all of a sudden I had a son. And without the thrills and frills associated with pregnancy...all so neat and clean.

And the next summer, before we'd known each other quite a year, we went to Switzerland together. A working vacation of sorts, as Liz attended some medical conference for a few days while Ben and I rode the rails to Interlaken, and then through the Bernese Oberland. She studied at night, took a few exams then she was free and we drove to a little airport outside of Zurich and flew to the town of Samedan, deep in a remote corner of southeast Switzerland. We were met by a guide, then driven a few miles north to an even smaller village -- La Punt Chamues -- where we stayed overnight at a small inn. With backpacks and tents, we took off with our guide -- on foot -- the next morning and walked up into the Engadin, beyond the Haus Serla on our first day, then up the Val Prüna the second. Liz wanted to move on, to climb around the Languard to Georgy's Hütte but both our guide -- and the weather -- proved uncooperative. "Your son is too young for such a climb," the old man said, "and besides, there will be snow up there the next few days." He took us higher, however, to a series of small alpine lakes well above timberline, and that night he caught a few trout and grilled them under the stars. The walk down proved more difficult than the climb up, yet I noticed a few things about Ben those few days that impressed me.

Most kids his age I knew would have freaked out making such an arduous walk, yet he never griped, and never seemed to tire. He stopped all the time, however, and would bend over and look at some microscopic flower here, some weird lichen there, and each time our guide would come over and answer questions, enjoying the kid's academic enthusiasms, and one evening, right after we made camp, Ben took off in search of some furry animals he'd seen and was soon scaling a really significant rock wall. The guide looked terrified, yet Liz never seemed to break a sweat over it.

"What gives," I asked as I watched her -- and her boy.

"His father was a real alpinist, a serious climber. I suppose it comes naturally, yet the last thing I want to do is hover over him, put a damper on his curiosity and inclinations. He needs the space to grow."

"You don't worry he'll fall?"

"No, not really," she said as she looked at me. "It's not in his nature to fall."

"Ah."

+++++

"I've been thinking about my father's boat," she announced one day later that first summer. "We either need to use it or sell it."

"Boat?" I asked. "What boat?"

"Oh, it's a sailboat, he kept it up in Acadia, in Southwest Harbor, actually. Do you know how to sail?"

"Yup."

"No, I mean it...do you know how to sail. I mean, really sail."

"Really sail? How's that different from regular sailing?"

She walked to her desk and pulled a small length of rope from a drawer and tossed it to me. "Can you tie a bowline?"

I tied the knot and looked at her. "Next?"

"What's the longest trip you've made on a sailboat?"

"Los Angeles to Honolulu."

"Shit. Okay, you can sail."

I grinned. "What kind of boat are you talking about?"

"A Hinckley Sou'wester 52, about fifteen years old."

"That's a handful. Do you know how to sail? I mean, really know how to sail?"

Liz could toss off a mean scowl when the mood struck.

We drove up 95 a week later, then up the coast through Rockland and Camden before finally entering Acadia National Park. The boat was a navy hulled beast named Antares, tied up at the Hinckley yard and she had of course been fully commissioned. We stepped aboard and she started the engine while Ben and I cast off her lines, then Liz motored into town and tied off at a lobster pound on the north side of the harbor.

"Ever been here," Liz asked while we made fast her lines.

"Nope. Where's here, by the way?"

"Beal's Lobster Pound."

"What? Does animal control drop them off here?"

She sighed, shook her head. "I hope you like bugs."

"Bugs?"

"Homaridae," Ben said.

"Gesundheit," I said.

"Jesus H Christ!" Liz added before jumping down to the dock and walking over to an inclined ramp that led up to the pound -- otherwise known as a restaurant in less deranged parts of the world. "You're in a mood, aren't you?" she said as she disappeared into this other world.

The place had 'bugs' alright. Lobster right off the boats in steel tanks, salt water flowing through at a prodigious rate. "Pick the one you want," the girl behind the counter said, "and we'll call you when it's ready."

"Ready?"

Kind of an odd way of being a carnivore, I think I recall telling someone, anyone who might listen. Pick your animal, look him in the eye before sending the poor creature to his death, and it was all little more personal than, say, eating a hamburger at a drive-through, but damn...it turned out I was sure was in the mood for a little mass murder that day. A two pounder just wasn't enough, and then Ben and I got into a little contest...who could eat one the fastest...and things went downhill pretty fast from there. They served little hunks of corn-on-the-cob with their bugs, everything swimming in steamed butter, and when Ben and I started in on the corn, mowing down rows like a couple of old typewriters, Liz looked at us and shook her head.

Liz had been, I think I should tell you, born in that house on the square. Born with, well, not a silver spoon in her mouth but more a gold plated shovel. The best analogy I can come up with is British royalty. Grandfathers on both sides had been more like patricians in ancient Athens, scions of political dynasties with residences in DC, farms in upstate New York, yachts in Maine or Florida, summer cabins in Colorado -- and endless money. The people I met, people in her 'circle of friends' more often than not, looked and even smelled rich. There was something in these peoples' eyes, too: the easy-going care-free existence that came from having 'arrived' left a directness of gaze that was at times unsettling. You were 'sized-up' in an instant, like her friends shared some kind of DNA that allowed them to instantly recognize one another.

What all this means is she had certain expectations about how one should behave when out and about. If you recall the old Cary Grant-Katherine Hepburn version of The Philadelphia Story you have some idea what I mean. Kind of a stuffy, overbearing 'adultness' that was a little too much for me at times.

I grew up on a ranch with four brothers and so many sisters I lost count. The dinner table was a scene of barely restrained anarchy -- the strongest got the most while the meek were lucky to get enough food to survive. Very natural, in other words, and something my parents did absolutely nothing to curtail. It was, I think, a valuable part of our education too. You hesitate, you defer, you go hungry, and as long as you didn't rest your elbows on the table my folks just watched quietly, kind of a wry, knowing smile on their faces.

Liz grew up an only child, with servants serving her day and night. Literally. They came to the table and held platters of food out, let her take as much or as little as she wanted, and I think in an odd way the experience came to define her expectations a little too much. People didn't 'horse around' at the dinner table, they didn't race through cobs of corn or tails of lobster. No, they 'held' polite, quiet conversations. Laughter might be heard when an insider's trading tip was tossed around knowingly before dinner was served, or perhaps when someone made the unpardonable sin of wearing brown socks with their black wingtips, but never while engaged in the more serious business of dining. Around the table was where you demonstrated your bona fides, your upbringing, your standing in the club.

And yet I think it was that part of me that had become the most important thing to her. She loved my sudden spontaneity, the way I broke down all the conventions of her life -- the way I was bringing all these attributes to her son, as well. All that spilled over into the way she sailed versus the way I did. She was a Point A to Point B sailor, no deviations allowed, while I was more a 'lets go over there and check out that little cove for a picnic' kind of sailor. She had been fired like a heat-seeking missile all her life...Miss Porter's School and Radcliffe, then Harvard Medical School and Mass Gen. I had gone off to study business and ag sciences at a state college, and been roped into Navy ROTC after a kind of a spur-of-the-moment decision. Point A to Point B for Liz, and endless side-trips down the road less traveled for me. So while I wasn't the technocratic pilot she might have first envisioned, she didn't run when she realized I was half circus clown.

And while one way of life is not necessarily better than the other, I think Liz realized, after she finally found out all my dirty little secrets, she was seeking balance in her life, and Ben's too. Like she knew she'd missed out on a lot of fun by being less spontaneous, so maybe it was worth a few extra bits of flying corn or an errant spray of butter to bring a little balance back to their lives. Of course that's it!

Or, well, just maybe, I'm really full of shit.

+++++

The best part of us was, in the end, us. The time we spent together -- us, the two of us. All her native spontaneity resided behind closed doors, under --or on top of the sheets. She seemed to crave the physical side of us, and I mean crave as a literal addiction to pleasure -- physical pleasure. Near the end I felt this as an overwhelming need on her part, and oddly so. I recall one time, while making love at a hotel in New York City, she was between my legs -- the cheetah devouring her prey -- when I came. She had been using her hand and her mouth, her hand furiously as I grew close, and when I popped-off she started licking at everything as it flew through the air, then she grabbed my cock and wiped it all over her face, still licking away feverishly as she smeared cum all over her face. It was a most appreciated, if slightly whorish display -- coming from her, anyway -- and one that really shocked me with it's feral intensity. It was, I have to add, very unlike her.

And looking back now that craving was like a sign.

On some level, in some way she knew something was wrong.

And I heard her one day on the phone in her little book-lined study off the living room. I heard words like 'remission' and 'over' and 'there's just no point, is there?' -- then I walked into the little room and sat across from her, while, mind you, she continued talking on the phone.

She looked at me as I sat and continued talking, then said her goodbyes and rang off.

"Remission?" I asked as she looked me in the eye.

And she nodded her head a little, then looked away. "Yes. Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma."

"Before we met?"

Again, she nodded her head just a little, a very slight acknowledgement of the lie she had been living with all the time we had been together.

I stood, went over to a window and looked out at the trees and the grassy square across the cobblestone street. "Wow," I think I said, though it was probably more a whisper. "Why?"

And I felt her behind me then, her arms coming around and I took her hands in mine and held them tightly.

"I was afraid...am afraid...for Ben. More than anything, for him. I knew I'd be going soon, relatively soon, and he doesn't have anyone else. I wanted him to have a father, someone who'll be there for him...when I'm not..."

I think the feeling was a little like when you pop the valve on a beach ball and squeeze so very hard all the air rushes out in one frenzied burst.

"I'm just curious, but did you ever really love me?"

She wheeled me around with such intensity I nearly fell, and she held my face in her hands and kissed me so hard I recall the impact drew blood.

After an eternity she pulled back and I didn't have a single doubt left in my mind what her feelings were, but, with my face still in her hands she spoke. "Pat, there hasn't been one moment since we met I haven't been out of mind in love with you."

I nodded my head. "Ditto," I added. "What about Ben? What does he know?"

"Nothing. And I want to keep it that way for as long as I can."

"Got it. What are we talking about here? Prognosis, time-frame, that kinda stuff?"

"I'll start chemo soon, but statistically that's a wash. Odds are it won't work again, odds are a year, maybe a little more. It's kind of hard to say right now."

Well, it turned out she was dead right concerning the first point -- chemo didn't work -- and she was dead wrong about the time she had left. She overshot that runway by about six months.

+++++

There's no need, I assume, to replay the whole Ryan O'Neal -- Ali MacGraw deathbed scene from Love Story, is there? No "Love means never having to say you're sorry" tossed back and forth between star crossed lovers and estranged fathers like the Mad Hatter and Alice playing tennis at a tea party?

When the contours of her fight became clear I called corporate and took a leave of absence, and I stayed with her through the first abortive round of chemo until she gave up. After CHOP treatments began to show the first overt signs, beginning the second week of treatment, she told Ben about her history with the disease. He was predictably upset but dealt with it as best he could -- by reading all there was to know about the disease...in three days, I think, then school began and I drove him up to Concorde.

Odd too, the whole high school thing. He'd been ready for college by the time he was twelve but Liz insisted he stick to the established age-progression and he motored along, bored to tears, that autumn. His heart wasn't in it, however, and by October he came home and his teachers sent material along for him to keep up with things. As he was certifiably smarter that all his teachers combined it wasn't really an issue, however.

Liz rallied in November, then crashed -- for good -- right after Thanksgiving, and she passed on Christmas Eve, at home, as she wanted.

Yes, I was a wreck, and so was Ben.

Here's the thing, though.

I'd called my folks before Thanksgiving, told them what the score was and they called all my brothers and sisters. Two days before Thanksgiving it was like the Normandy invasion all over again, with Louisburg Square the scene of this latest family beachhead. The house absorbed all of us with room to spare and my mom and half a dozen spare sisters got to work the night before and made her grandmother's dressing and the always dreaded green bean casserole, and with all hands on board three birds were needed and all the woman cooked through the night -- Liz included -- and I'd not seen her so happy in months.

Thanksgiving itself was, by my family's standards, at least, a typical affair. Too much food and way too much horse play.

My oldest brother was, as always, the instigator: he took a green bean and licked it clean then (you can't make this stuff up, really) slipped it halfway up a nostril (hang in there...it gets worse), then he blocked off the other nostril with a finger, tilted his head back and blew through his nose: he launched the bean halfway across the dining room and my mother looked completely aghast, my father red-faced and livid.

And I turned to Liz, expecting the worst.

She had already licked a bean clean and was tilting her head back by then, but her first try came up a little short. Her effort arced through the air and landed on my plate, and even Dad was laughing his ass off by that point.

+++++

My folks stayed in Boston after Thanksgiving, Mom helping the housekeeper, and then the hospice nurse with all their daily chores, leaving Dad to while away the hours teaching Ben all there was to know about cattle ranching in Montana -- which of course devolved into endless speculations about grizzly bears -- and how it was better to kill them before they ate you.

Most of the clan returned, ostensibly for Christmas but we all knew it unlikely Liz would last that long. Still, all those coming arrived by the 22^nd and so were all around for Liz's passing. They were around, in other words, for me -- and for Ben.

And because it turned out he had a family after all, he was alright.

+++++

Almost a week later we carried two urns seaside, down to a rocky point near Plymouth, Massachusetts, and we stood there by the sea, gently, as we waited. Liz had wanted to be cremated because, I suspect, her first husband had been, and she wanted to join him on an outgoing tide. Near the place she married the first love of her life, as she put it.

"When it's your turn," she told me, "I want you to join me there. I'll be waiting for you."

"Yippee-skippy...an eternal threesome," I muttered -- and she laughed.

"He never held a candle compared to you, Pat. Not in that department."

"Oh? So, what? You want me to give him lessons?"

She laughed a little and we talked a lot, and I held her as she passed later that Holy Night.

Ben stood by me while I thumbed through tide tables, and when the time was right he tossed a leaf out on the water and we watched it drift away, then we held their urns and let them slip away from us, too.

+++++

So, here's the scene, two summers later. In Concorde, New Hampshire on a bright, sunny day.

I'm standing beside Ben while he walks around the flight school's red and white Cessna 150, looking over his shoulder while he does his pre-flight walk-around, then as he belts himself in and pulls out his checklist.

"You got it from here?" I asked him, looking nervously as he walked through the routines I'd taught him for months now.

"Yeah, Dad. Don't worry, I think I have it now."

Dad? Did he call me Dad? And did he just tell me not to worry?

I nodded my head and closed the door between us, moved away from the flight line as he called out: "CLEAR!"

The prop turned, the engine caught, and I saw him talking on the radio, then I watched with my heart in my throat as he taxied away from the ramp for the active. Flaps coming down now, I see him work the controls and zero out the tabs, then I listen to his run-up -- first one magneto, then the second, then both -- and as he turns onto the active I wish I had a scanner so I could listen to him in this moment of glory.

The Cessna runs down the runway and at about the right time I see the nose lift and he begins a gentle climb away from the earth -- from me -- for the first. He flies a simple right hand pattern but draws out his final approach -- just like I told him -- and he flares over the numbers and exits the runway at the first turn out -- and then I realize I've been holding my breath all the while.