Chapter 1

“And there on the highest tower, on a clear day, you can see the Taj Mahal and beyond that the beautiful city . . . ”

The final seconds of Auntie Mame skimmed through the DVD player, but the old movie had left more than a few haunting memories with the three people watching, each lost in their own thoughts.

Eric was the first to break the silence, “Wow, that was a long time ago,” he said loudly, slowly, and clearly. “Jeff, do you remember that?”

“Uhhh-huuhhhh,” Jeff slurred. Eric and Eunice could see the ghost of a smile on half of his face, the best he could manage since his stroke almost two years before. The stroke had cost him most of his powers of speech and some of his hearing, but Eric and Eunice – Jeff’s wife – knew that underneath lay the same active mind they’d known for so many years.

“Oh, my, do I remember that,” Eunice said, coming out of a reverie of her own. “It seems like it was yesterday, too. I can’t believe how much time has passed. And to think how much Donna had to twist my arm to go and see it with you in the first place! I think I can look back at that and say that I’m glad I let her do it.”

“Uhhh-huuhhhh,” Jeff mumbled again. Both Eric and Eunice knew that he’d like to say more, as they knew very well that Jeff considered the double date when he and Eunice had first gone out to be a landmark in their lives. They’d talked about it enough in years past, after all. Jeff had never been a scintillating conversationalist; he’d say something if he thought there was something to say, but kept quiet otherwise. The stroke had robbed him of even that; there were perhaps a couple dozen words he could say that Eric and Eunice could recognize, and then it was more code for what he meant than actual words. Eric and Eunice could understand what he meant by those words, and most of the time it was enough.

When those few sounds weren’t enough, Jeff could still communicate, although poorly. The stroke had also taken most of the motor skills on his right side, and he was right-handed, so his handwriting skills were gone. He could arduously type out words with his left hand on a notebook computer, but since he’d never been a great typist it was strictly “hunt and peck.” Fortunately, a few words were often all that was needed. Neither Eric nor Eunice could read Jeff’s mind, but they could usually figure out what he meant pretty quickly. It wasn’t ideal, nothing like before the stroke, but at least it worked, more or less.

“Are you up for another movie?” Eric asked, glancing out the window. He couldn’t see the clock from where he was sitting, but could see there was still some post-sunset light in the western sky behind the trees on the far side of the lake, so it was still pretty early, whatever time it actually was. “We have The Misfits with Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe.”

Knowing that Jeff’s mind was still as active as ever made keeping him from being too bored the biggest challenge for Eric and Eunice. Since everyone, Jeff included, thought television these days consisted of so much crap, they’d turned to movies they could rent on the Internet, and watched lots of them. Mostly they were old classics; they’d seen Lawrence of Arabia earlier in the day, and it had been worth watching again. Jeff read a lot, too; the notebook computer was a big help with that, and he could hit “Page Down” with either a finger or a mouse click. A good book could keep him occupied for hours, and give Eric and Eunice a well-needed respite from having to care for him quite as intensely.

“Ooooooo,” Jeff replied. “Eeeeep.”

“You’re tired, and you want to go to sleep?” Eunice asked, just for confirmation.

“Uhhh-huuhhhh.”

“It’s still pretty early but there’s no point in letting you fall asleep in your chair,” she told him. “Eric, could you help move him into his wheelchair?”

“Sure,” Eric said, getting up from his seat on the sofa. Jeff could usually get around the house using a cane, although he was pretty unstable. It was uncomfortable for Jeff to sit in all day, and the wheelchair was easier for getting him around, even if he had to be in and out of it several times a day. Eunice could help him move if she had to, but Eric usually got the chore since it was easier for him to do it.

“Come on, Buffy,” Eunice said to the old gray cat that had been lying in Jeff’s lap, a familiar perch. Buffy had never been one to seek attention before the stroke, and wouldn’t lie on anyone’s lap without being put there, but after the stroke the cat had somehow sensed that Jeff needed a little extra companionship. Eunice had to pet Buffy for a few strokes, then pick him up, cuddle and thank him a moment, then put him on the floor. The cat turned to see if possibly he could regain his warm, comfortable spot, and apparently decided he wasn’t going to be able to.

Even though all of them were seventy-five years old, Eric was the oldest by a couple of months. Half a century before he had been one of the top big wall climbers in the country, and his lean, wiry frame still retained some of the natural strength that had made it possible for him even though those days were long in the past. Though he could have picked Jeff up and moved him without other assistance, Eric knew to let Jeff do as much as he could for himself, if for no more reason than to retain a little pride. “Jeff, old buddy,” Eric smiled as he settled his friend into the wheelchair, “do you need to use the bathroom before we tuck you in?”

Jeff’s “Ooooooo” was no surprise. Another of the functions the stroke had taken from him was his bladder control, so a Foley catheter had made life much simpler for both Jeff and his two caregivers, although the catheter was frequently uncomfortable for him. But then, so was much else in his life; Eric and Eunice felt they had to do what they could to make things more tolerable for him.

Eric stood aside and let Eunice roll Jeff into his bedroom, which had been the downstairs den before the stroke had changed all their lives. Though it would have been perfectly reasonable for Jeff to sit around in pajamas all day, he insisted on being dressed, if in nothing more formal than sweats. That meant he had to be changed for bed, and in two years Eric and Eunice had gotten the moves down to a science. With just a little help from Eunice, Jeff moved onto his bed, while Eric left the two alone for a moment. In spite of the stroke Jeff was still Eunice’s husband, and had been for over fifty years; he felt they deserved a couple of intimate moments to tell each other goodnight.

While he waited for Eunice to finish with Jeff, Eric took the opportunity to use the bathroom himself, then went to the kitchen and pulled a can of ginger ale out of the refrigerator. He sat down at the kitchen table to open it, had a sip, and then just sat there thinking about nothing in particular, just running through memories.

In a few minutes, Eunice came into the kitchen. She was a small, slender woman who’d mentioned to Eric a while back that she hadn’t gained five pounds since she’d been in college; he’d put on perhaps twenty, a bit at a time over the years. Jeff had been less active even when he’d been healthy, and before the stroke was around fifty pounds over his college weight, but he had lost over seventy mostly due to lack of appetite; he appeared gaunt and drawn to Eric, although it was something he never mentioned to Eunice.

Eunice’s hair was fully gray, not the brown-going-on-black it had been when Eric had first met her at Meriwether College close to sixty years before. His own hair – what he had of it – was gray now, too, although it was hard to tell – he’d always kept it buzz-cut short, even back in the hippie days. Inexplicably, that was one thing that hadn’t changed with Jeff; his hair was the same as it had been back when they’d been college roommates, a brown close to what Eunice’s had once been.

“Is that a straight ginger ale you’re drinking?” Eunice asked as she sat down at the table, keeping her voice low so she wouldn’t disturb her husband.

“Yeah, I’m being square again,” Eric replied, equally quietly.

“I think I could stand a little relaxation. Would you like a bump in that?”

“No, I’ll take it straight. I’m just not in the mood for alcohol tonight.”

“Tonight I think I am,” she said, getting up from the table and going to the refrigerator. She poured a glass of Coke from the two-liter bottle there, then poured a tot of rum into it from a bottle on the shelf. Eric knew that having one or two a day was a habit she’d picked up from Jeff long before. In the many years Eric had known Jeff – longer than he or Jeff had known Eunice, in fact – Jeff had always had two or three a day, and had usually leaned toward rum and Coke. That hadn’t changed; stroke or no stroke, doctors or no doctors, medications or no medications, he still had two or three a day – weak ones, though, since it was either Eric or Eunice doing the mixing, but he still enjoyed them. It was something all of them looked forward to. In spite of Eunice’s and Eric’s efforts, there was little in his life he could actually enjoy anymore, but at least that was one of them.

In his younger years Eric would get skunk-drunk when the occasion seemed to demand it, then go weeks without touching a drop. That too had changed as he’d grown older; he hadn’t been what anyone could call drunk in at least a couple decades, but like Eunice, he’d picked up the habit of having one or two a day, as well. Sometimes it helped, especially on the more trying days with Jeff. Fortunately, this hadn’t been one of them.

“I think he’s down for the night,” Eunice said as she sat down at the table. “It’s a little early but he acted like he was ready for bed. Buffy was already curled up beside him.”

“Yeah, he was yawning a lot there,” Eric agreed. “It strikes me he’s sleeping more these days.”

“Just so long as he doesn’t wake up before dawn tomorrow. When he does that it makes for some awful long days.”

“We’ll make do,” Eric said, stifling a yawn himself. He could remember a time when the parties were just beginning at this hour; when he’d been in the mood, he could go until dawn. No more, and not for a long time at that. “We always do.”

“We do,” she agreed. “And mostly thanks to you. Eric, I’ve known women who have had to take care of their husbands like this with no help from anyone. You remember Agnes Flint, don’t you?”

“Sure, I remember her well. She used to be the office manager at the Amherst office back when I first started working for Jeff. I lost track of her in one of those periods when I was gone sailing or climbing or something.”

“She spent years caring for her husband like we have to do for Jeff. He had Alzheimer’s and it wasn’t easy. It just about killed her in the process, and she didn’t last long after he was gone. I tried to help her out a little, but she was mostly on her own. In some ways he must have been easier to take care of since he was at least mobile through most of it. I don’t know what I would do if it hadn’t been for you, Eric.”

“You’d have managed.”

“Not very well,” she sighed. “This hasn’t been easy but it would have been a lot harder if you hadn’t been around.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Eric replied. They seemed to have this same conversation every few days, but apparently Eunice needed the reaffirmation. “That’s what friends are for. You know me. I don’t like to make promises if I don’t think I can keep them, and after the stroke I promised both you and Jeff that I’d do my best to help take care of him.”

“Yes, but you’ve been such an incredible friend for all these years. Jeff and I owe you in so many ways I can’t even begin to figure them out.”

“So what; it’s not like I don’t owe you a few too,” Eric smiled. “If I recall correctly, we agreed to quit trying to keep track of who owed who what, oh, maybe thirty years ago. How long have I lived out in the guest cottage? How long has my mailing address been ‘c/o Jeff and Eunice Harrington, 1054 Blue Lake Lane, Wychbold, Michigan?’”

“I’m not sure,” she replied. “It’s been a long time.”

“I happened to be thinking about it the other day. It started in the fall of ’61, so it was fifty-two years a few months ago. You’ve put up with a lot from me for the name of friendship, and if I can’t pay my best friends back some of that friendship I’m a hell of a poor friend.”

“It can’t have been that long,” she protested, more from nostalgia than from argument. “You were sometimes gone for years at times.”

“Yes, but I always came back, and you were always my mail drop, no matter where in the world I happened to be. I don’t know if it could even be added up. But I’ll bet I’ve lived out back in the guest cottage for at least half the total time of the last fifty years, at least until you asked me to move into the house so I could be more easily available if you needed help with Jeff.”

“It doesn’t quite seem real, does it?” she shook her head. “But there it is. I know watching Auntie Mame tonight I was thinking back to that night we saw it the first time. In many ways, it was the most important day of my life.”

“Mine, too, at least in some ways,” Eric sighed. “And it was also the beginning of what was probably the biggest mistake of my life, too. I didn’t just boot that once, I booted it a lot of times. If I hadn’t been so damn dumb and so damn headstrong, my life would have been a lot different.”

“You mean Donna, don’t you?”

“Of course,” he said. “I can look back on it and say now that she was probably right and I was almost certainly wrong, but it’s way too late for any do-overs now. Over forty years too late, in fact. I can’t imagine how much different my life would have been if I’d stopped to think about the long run, rather than what adventure I wanted to experience next.”

“That’s twenty-twenty hindsight, Eric. Bad luck got in the way, as well as bad decisions. Jeff and I were just urging you to do what you wanted to do. You haven’t had a bad life, Eric. You’ve done so many things that Jeff and I would never have dreamed of doing that it’s not funny.”

“That works both ways, Eunice,” Eric shook his head. “The two of you did a lot of things I can look back and say I’ve wished I’d done, but like you said, that’s twenty-twenty hindsight.”

“I suppose so,” she smiled. “But seeing Auntie Mame again tonight can’t help but take me back.”

“Me, too,” he replied. “You know, I never thought it was that great a movie and seeing it again tonight just proved it in my mind. We saw a lot better movies on our Friday night double dates back there at Meriwether College, back when we were young and full of shit, back when we had our lives ahead of us.”

“We saw some good ones, that’s for sure. I don’t think we appreciated just how good they were back then. Oh, we saw some real groaners, there’s no doubt about it. Plan 9 From Outer Space? We actually watched that and enjoyed it?”

“We did,” he smiled. “Maybe I ought to put it on the order list so we could watch it again and see just how bad it really was. Maybe sometimes we need a dose of truly bad just to remind us what good really is.”

“Why don’t you go ahead and order it? Just please, not too many ‘B’ movies at once. One every now and then is fine, but I don’t think I’m ready for a steady diet of American International Pictures.”

“I don’t think I am, either,” Eric laughed. “Maybe I’ll have to get one of those beach party movies. Those were really stupid.”

“You mean with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello?” she laughed. “I’m sure Jeff and I never saw one of those. We were a little old for those when they came along, but I remember seeing a few trailers. Back when Ann was a baby, we’d occasionally take the Rambler to a drive-in so we could see the movie and she couldn’t be the trouble she would have been in a regular theater. By the time Mark came along, it was just too much of a hassle.”

“It won’t hurt to see one of them. More than one might be overdoing it. Should I go ahead and send Auntie Mame back?”

“No, let’s hold onto it for a few days,” she replied. “With the significance that movie has for all of us, perhaps we’d like to watch it again.”

“I could stand it,” Eric conceded. “You’re right, it does bring back the memories. Back then, Jeff, what can I say? I can’t remember us using the term ‘nerd’ or ‘geek’ back then, but he was all of that. A nice enough guy, one on one, but maybe you could say ‘socially incomplete’ or something. Very shy, especially around women, but he could be very rough and crude when he was around me. I suppose it was to show he was a regular guy, or something.”

“I wasn’t any less shy around boys,” she shook her head. “Eric, I’d never been on a real date before. Oh, I’d gone out with groups of friends, mostly from our church group, but a one-on-one date with a boy? Or even two-on-two like we did? It was the first time, Eric, and I was so scared and doubtful Donna had to almost drag me out the door. But it worked out for the best, and like I said, I remember it like it was yesterday.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I remember it pretty well, too.”

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