Page 81 of Upstate

“Here we are,” I said, triumphant. You were sitting at the table, head swaying to the music. I filled our glasses until bubbles reached their rims, then raised mine in a toast. “To us, baby.”

You looked at me and blinked. “Miles Davis was arrested after this record came out.”

My smile froze on my face. “He was?”

“I was in the city to meet my editor. I read about it in the papers. I bought the record and brought it home.” You tapped your fingers on the tabletop along to the beat. “You never liked jazz, did you?”

“Baby.” I put a glass of champagne in your hand. “We can play jazz at our wedding if you want to.”

“Wedding?” Your eyes roamed the room like you were searching for a cue card. “I remember now. Billy’s daughter, Patience, is getting married. We saw the announcement in the newspaper. Are we going to the wedding?”

A fist closed around my heart. I put my glass down unsteadily. It toppled over, champagne spilling across the table.

“Oh, the prints!” you cried, sweeping the pretty pictures out of the way of the spreading wet.

I ran out to the bookshop so you wouldn’t be upset by my crying. Alone in that great big barn, surrounded by the thousands of books we’d acquired over a lifetime together, I stomped and screamed and cursed the heavens, grieving for the loss of my heart’s companion.

For months, I’ve been pretending it wasn’t so bad. The way you recalled details from years ago when loyal customers stopped by the bookshop put the lie to Dr. Singh’s dire predictions—until you came to the end of an amusing anecdote and started the same story all over again. You’re still impressive at finding books in the barn, but you’ve become stumped by the inventory system Wren designed for you. Last month, after rifling through the colorful index cards in baffled frustration, you threw them all on the trash fire before I could stop you. For a while, the notes you taped all over the place helped you manage your spotty memory. But the missing pieces are no longer spots. They’re holes wide enough for a proposal to fall through.

At eleven o’clock on the dot, you appeared in the barn’s wide doorway. “Oh, Hazel, you’re already here. Am I late?”

For a selfish second, I wished you were dead so I could mourn your passing once and for all, instead of watching you slip away bit by bit. The feeling passed with a shiver.

I ran over to squeeze you tight. “No, baby, you’re right on time.”

For better or worse, in sickness or in health—isn’t that what I was so excited for us to say to each other? Your mind isn’t clear enough now to declare those binding vows. The court’s decision may have come too late for us, but no proclamation can change the fact that I am your wife in every way that matters.

Dr. Singh underestimates me when she says I can’t take care of you by myself. You’ve always been the strong one, Evelyn, but I’ve got grit, too. Let’s make this our vow: to get through one more summer at Red Barn Books, together. What comes next, I have no idea. Today, though, we’ve got a bookshop to open.

With all my love, forever and ever, Hazel

Chapter 41

I requested the police report about my mother’s death two years ago. Instead of sparking the dispassionate curiosity of a writer, its arrival triggered the panic of a traumatized ten-year-old. Just holding the envelope made me want to draw the sharp edge of a blade across my skin. David offered to open it for me, to screen for upsetting content or graphic crime scene photographs. I didn’t let him, though. It would have been an abdication of my filial responsibility, I felt, to allow a stranger access to my mother’s story. I forgot, at the time, David was no stranger. He was my family, too.

I burrow in bed beneath a blanket, the glass of wine on my nightstand. Reaching into the envelope, I pull out a sheaf of paper. There are no pictures, thank God, only streaky photocopies of twenty-five-year-old typed reports. I swig more wine and begin to read.

Officers were dispatched to investigate a complaint called in by a Boy Scout troop leader who discovered a body in the Kenosha sand dunes. Writer responded with Officer Sparks in squad #117, with Officers DeBord and Swanson also responding. Officers met the troop leader, Paul Hooper, age nineteen, at the sand dunes trailhead at 85th Street and 3rd Avenue, at which time Mr. Hooper escorted us on foot to the area where a swarm of flies had attracted his attention.

The deceased was found lying in a prone position on her back, facing in a slightly southeast direction amongst some shrubs in an overgrown area located approximately ten yards off the trail. Writer immediately observed that the party appeared to be an adult female and was in an advanced state of decomposition. Due to the amount of debris on and around the body, writer felt that the body had been at that location for at least several months. Writer also observed a clear glass liquor bottle resting on the body, between the thighs of the individual, with the mouth of the bottle pointed toward the head. Beside the body was an empty prescription bottle in the name of Gloria Beacon for 30 capsules of Placidyl 500 mg dispensed to her by Bernacchi’s Drug Store on 75th Street in Kenosha. The date on the prescription bottle is 03/06/96. Another prescription bottle for Temazepam 30 mg capsules with a 30 count was found to the northeast of the body and as was the case with the first bottle, it was empty. The glass bottle labeled Smirnoff Vodka was devoid of contents, except for what appeared to be rainwater and insect life.

Officer Chaussee, Kenosha Police Department

Death Investigation, May 25, 1996

My mind’s eye recoils from the image of my dead mother’s decomposed body. Instead, I picture her crawling under the cover of those shrubs with her prescriptions and bottle of Smirnoff, the gold crown on its label mirroring my claddagh ring. How long until she succumbed to the dark welcome of sleep? Did she feel, in the end, the falling flakes of that spring snowstorm on her face? Or was the sky still clear when she rolled onto her back, her dying eyes open to all that blue?

I wait for my tears to slow before rereading this page of the report. I register, now, the way Office Chaussee names himself “writer.” That’s me, I think, standing alongside him, sharing his point of view. I remember my wonder when that bartender handed me a glass of Writers’ Tears. How did you know? I asked him. Office Chaussee is a good writer, I think. His words have given me all I need while sparing me the horror of a photograph. I set down my half-empty wineglass and turn to a new page.

Writer and Officer Sparks remained at the scene while Officers DeBord and Swanson returned to the station to collect evidence packages. Upon their return and after the coroner had authorized removal of the individual, soil samples were taken from under the body and also two control samples. Item #1 would be dirt from under the victim’s abdomen; item #2 would be dirt from under the victim’s feet; item #3 would be dirt from under the victim’s head; item #4 would be dirt control sample from east of the victim; item #5 would be dirt control sample from west of the victim.

Officer Chaussee, Kenosha Police Department

Death Investigation, May 25, 1996

Objectively, this page of the report is a ghastly description of uniformed men scooping up what bits of my mother may have soaked into the soil. To me, though, it sounds strangely like a prayer: Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We are all made of the same stuff, aren’t we? Me and the sheep, the ornery ram and the playful goats, every shedding snake and croaking frog and trilling bird—the list is as long as life itself.

I find City of the Bees among the books stacked on my nightstand and open to a passage describing a worker bee’s existence as so fleeting “she would never see a world beyond the summer solstice.” At best, human life is confined to as many decades as we can count on our ten fingers. The certainty that the bodies we inhabit will fail us in the end is supposed to make us appreciate our days on earth, isn’t that what the Buddhists say? For my mother, those days must have been a torment for her to skip ahead to the last chapter of her story.