FALLING STARS
Chapter Thirty-Three
August 30, 1970
Rose sat in her rocking chair, gazing at the
closed blinds as the sun rose outside the window. She couldn’t remember how
long she had been sitting there, but it been light when she had sat down. She
leaned forward, stiff from sitting there for so long.
It had been three weeks since the funeral,
three of the longest weeks of her life. Family and friends had visited with
her, but she had wanted only to be alone, and they had finally left her to
herself. Those who lived far away had gone home, and she had virtually ignored
the attempts of those living nearby to bring her out of the house, out of
herself.
For the last week, she hadn’t gone out at
all. It had occurred to her that she should, that she needed to go the
supermarket and buy food, that people would be wondering why she didn’t come to
church, why she didn’t go to the meetings of the women’s club she had joined
some ten years earlier, or work in her beautiful garden, or walk around her
neighborhood, stopping to chat with whoever she happened to meet. Paul had
offered to bring her to Pittsburgh for a few days, to get her out of the dark,
silent house, but Rose had refused. She saw no reason to try anything, no
reason to go out and resume her old activities.
What did it really matter? she thought,
sitting back and closing her eyes against the morning light. What reason did
she have to go on, to continue on with life? Jack was gone, and she was alone.
Did it really matter if she kept on living? Maybe it would be better to
continue on as she had this past week, to let things take their course, so that
she would be reunited with Jack soon.
It occurred to her, vaguely, that she was
hungry, and she walked slowly into the kitchen, looking into the almost empty
refrigerator. Libby had bought groceries for her two weeks before, but there
wasn’t much left, and much of what was there was rotten.
Peering into the refrigerator, she picked up
a dish containing the remains of a casserole that one of her neighbors had
brought her three days ago, and ate the food slowly, not really tasting it.
Setting the dish in the sink, she looked around at the kitchen. It was a mess,
she thought, seeing the dishes stacked in the sink, the dust on the table, and
the sticky spot on the floor where her great-granddaughter, Elizabeth--Lizzy,
as she preferred to be called--had spilled Kool-Aid. She really should clean
it, she thought, but made no move to do so. Instead, she walked back into the
living room and sat down in her rocking chair again, the place where she had
spent most of the last three weeks.
Rose rubbed her neck, stiff from sleeping in
the wooden chair. Jack had bought her this chair when Libby was born, and it
had served her well for rocking generations of babies, but it wasn’t made for
sleeping in.
She hadn’t been inside her bedroom since Jack
had died. Every time she started to go inside, a wave of memories would assail
her, and she couldn’t bring herself to walk through the door. She had been
sleeping in one of the extra bedrooms down the hall--when she remembered to go
up to bed at all. Often, she would doze off in her rocking chair, awaking stiff
and sore from sleeping on the hard wood, but she didn’t always feel that it was
worth it to go upstairs, or even move to the couch.
She looked up, startled, as someone rang the
doorbell. Sitting back in her chair, she ignored it. Whoever it was would give
up in a moment and go away. When they began knocking on the door, she sighed,
but still made no move to get up.
Rose’s eyes flew open in alarm as the person
at the door opened it and walked in, not bothering to wait for her permission.
Her eyes narrowed as Cal walked across the room, leaning on his cane. He
settled himself on the couch, lifting his feet up to rest them on the coffee
table.
"You really should keep your door
locked," he told her. "You never know who might walk in."
For the first time in days, Rose’s eyes
showed some animation. "Get out."
He didn’t listen. Instead, he reached into
the candy dish on the table, helping himself to a mint. He chewed it carefully
with his false teeth, eyeing her the whole time.
"I said, get out." Rose glared at
him.
He still ignored her, looking around the
room. "This place is a real mess. How long has it been since you’ve
cleaned?"
"If you want my house cleaned, do it
yourself." Rose considered getting up and physically removing him--she was
stronger and younger than Cal--but decided that it wasn’t worth it. He’d get
bored and leave soon enough.
"You don’t look very good
yourself."
Rose turned her tired eyes to look at him.
"What do you expect? I’m an old woman."
"Most old women that I’ve met are neatly
attired, have their hair fixed, and wear makeup. You don’t look like an old
woman. You look like a hag."
Rose’s eyes flashed. "And just why is my
appearance any of your concern? You’re just an old man who can’t even get
around without a cane."
"At least I don’t sit in a rocking chair
all day with the lights off and the curtains closed. How long have you been
sitting there, anyway? You’re going to put down roots if you’re not
careful."
He paused, taking another piece of candy from
the dish. Rose was sorely tempted to hit him with his cane.
"You know, I don’t think he would have
wanted to you to act like this."
"What do you mean?" Rose glowered
at him.
"Sitting here all the time, letting
yourself wither away. I think he would have wanted you to keep going."
"How dare you presume to tell me what
Jack would have wanted for me?" Rose had had enough. Rising stiffly from
her chair, she walked across the room to confront him. "Get out of my
house before I call the police."
He looked at her with a half-smirk that
reminded her uncannily of the days before Titanic, when they had been young,
engaged, and at odds with each other.
Turning on her heel, Rose headed for the
hallway and the stairs. "Jerk!" she muttered, echoing Lizzy’s
favorite description of males in general.
Slowly, she made her way up the stairs,
clinging to the banister. She hadn’t spent much time walking the past few
weeks, and she hadn’t gotten nearly enough food or sleep. It was beginning to
have a detrimental effect on her, but her heart still beat strongly, and she
still woke up every morning with the sunlight.
She paused at the closed door to her bedroom,
debating whether to go in. Finally, she opened the door for the first time
since she had returned home from the hospital after Jack’s death. Stepping
inside, she closed it behind her.
The room was dusty, but nothing had been
disturbed. None of her visitors had gone inside, and everything was still
exactly as she’d left it. The covers on the bed were tangled where she had
tossed them aside when the paramedics came, and her nightgown lay on the floor
of the bathroom where she’d thrown it when she hurried to get dressed that
night.
Walking over to the mirror, she looked
closely at herself. Cal was right. She did look like a hag. Her gray-brown hair
was matted and greasy from not being washed, and the fine lines that had
developed on her face with the passage of time formed deep furrows of strain
and grief. There was a stained spot on her blouse where she had dropped a
forkful of casserole the previous evening, and her once elegantly manicured
nails were broken and jagged. Her eyes were red from lack of sleep and crying.
Turning from the mirror, she wandered over to
the bed, sitting down on Jack’s side. Picking up one of the pillows, she hugged
it to her chest, rocking gently. It still carried his scent.
Burying her face in the pillow, Rose began to
cry softly, murmuring brokenly to herself.
"Jack, why did you have to leave me? Why
did you have to die? You weren’t so old...only seventy-eight. We should have
had many more years together. Fifty-eight years wasn’t enough."
Reaching into her pocket, she took out the
simple gold wedding band that Jack had worn since they had been married on that
long-ago November afternoon in 1912. It had been returned to her before he was
buried, and she had carried it in the pocket of whatever she had been wearing
ever since. It comforted her a little to be able to hold onto something that
had meant so much to both of them for so long. They could easily have replaced
the simple gold bands with more elaborate rings when their fortune had
improved, but the rings they had exchanged when they had made their vows meant
more to them than any expensive piece of jewelry could. It was a symbol of what
bound them together, and in all their years of marriage, those bonds had never
been broken.
Rose clutched the ring tightly, curling up
against the remaining pillows. She missed Jack desperately, and would have
given everything she owned to have him back, even for a short time. Wiping her
red, swollen eyes, she stretched out, still hugging the pillow to her chest,
paying no attention as the door opened quietly and Cal walked in.
He sat down beside her, not saying a word,
just putting a hand on her shoulder comfortingly. Rose sniffed, swallowing back
a sob, as she sat up, her eyes still streaming tears.
"I’m sorry, Rose," he told her,
helping her sit up. "I shouldn’t have said those things to you."
"You were right," she responded,
wiping tears from her cheeks. "He wouldn’t have wanted me to do this. He
would have wanted me to go on with life. I dreamed the other night that he told
me not to let go, not to give up. I’m strong, and I’m healthy, and...and I have
a big family, and lots of friends. When Lizzy was last here, she told me that I
should get a puppy to keep me company, because it’s hard to be sad when there’s
a dog looking at you adoringly and following you around the house." She
choked on a sob. "Maybe I should take her advice."
"Maybe you should. I know a man who
breeds dogs. I could bring you a puppy, if you like."
Rose nodded her head. "Yes. Thank you,
Cal." She leaned tiredly against him.
There had been a time when she had wished
never to see Cal again, but now she was glad that he was there. They had become
friends over the years since Gregory and Emily were married, and they shared
several grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Cal was the only person who had
known Jack as long as Rose had, and, although they hadn’t gotten along in
earlier years, the three of them had become almost as close as family over the
past few decades.
"Why don’t you get some rest?" Cal
suggested, as Rose’s eyes drooped sleepily. "I’ll have my housekeeper
clean up downstairs for you, and go to the market."
Rose nodded wearily, her shoulders still
shaking with the occasional sob, and set the ring on Jack’s nightstand. Kicking
off her shoes, she crawled under the covers, still clutching the pillow to her
chest. Curling up on Jack’s side of the bed, she rested her head on his
pillows, scarcely noticing when Cal pulled the covers up around her shoulders.
She fell asleep quickly, not noticing when Cal finally left the room and closed
the door quietly behind him.