Setting the whole thing up had taken more than an hour, and it would take almost as long to take it all down and clean up, which meant we were only able to spend fifteen or twenty minutes in the fort before my parents got home. Even when they did go out, they never stayed out late.
I still recall that night as a near-magical experience. At eight years old, it was adventurous and new, and the fact that it was also against the rules made me feel older than I was, more like Marge’s peer than a little kid, for the very first time. And as I looked at my sister in the eerie glow of the lantern in our makeshift fort, I can distinctly remember thinking that Marge was not only my sister, but my best friend as well. I knew even then that nothing would ever change that.
On February 1, the high temperature hit seventy-one degrees; five days later, the high was only fifty degrees and the low dipped to twenty-four. The wild temperature swings that first week of February seemed to weaken Marge even further. With every passing day, Marge grew worse.
Her sixteen hours of sleep a day lengthened to nineteen hours, and every breath was a struggle. The paralysis on her right side grew even more pronounced, and we rented a wheelchair to move her around the house more easily. Her words started to slur and she had hardly any appetite, but those things were nothing compared to the pain she was experiencing. My sister was taking so many painkillers that I suspected that her liver was turning to mush, but the only time she seemed to feel any real relief was when she slept.
Not that Marge ever mentioned the pain. Not to my parents or Liz, and not to me. As always, she was more worried about others than herself, but her suffering was evident in the way she winced, and the way her eyes would unexpectedly blur with tears. Witnessing her agony was torture for us all.
Often, I would sit with her in the living room as she slept on the couch; other times, I sat in the rocking chair in the bedroom. As I stared at her sleeping form, memories would roll back through the years, like a movie playing in reverse—a movie in which Marge was the star with the most memorable lines of all. She was forever vivid, forever alive, and I wondered whether my memories would remain that way, or whether they would slowly fade with the passage of time. I struggled mightily to see past her illness, telling myself that I owed it to her to remember everything about the way she was before she got sick.
On the day that the temperature plunged to twenty-four degrees, I remembered something that my father had told me about wood frogs, which can be found in North Carolina to as far north as the Arctic circle. As cold-blooded creatures, wood frogs were susceptible to frigid temperatures and could freeze completely solid, to the point that their hearts stopped completely. And yet, the frog has evolved in such a way that glycogen continues to break down into glucose, which acts a bit like nature’s antifreeze. They can remain frozen and immobilized for weeks, but when the weather finally begins to warm, the wood frog blinks and its heart starts back up; there’s a quick breath, and the frog hops away in search of its mate, as if God had merely hit the pause button.
Watching my sister sleep, I found myself wishing for a miracle of nature just like that.
Strangely, the rest of my life continued to move forward apace.
Work remained a sometimes welcome distraction, and my clients’ enthusiasm for my work product was a rare bright spot during that time. I met with my Realtor and signed on the dotted line; the couple from Louisville asked for a long escrow, because they wanted their kids to finish out the school year there, so the closing was set for May. And over lunch one day, Emily casually asked me for the name of my Realtor, revealing that she was thinking of selling her house, too.
“I think I need a fresh start,” she said, “in a place where I didn’t live with David.”
At the time, I suspected she was just trying to show moral support for my own decision to sell, a decision she knew I still harbored ambivalence about. But a few days later, she texted me a photo of the new for sale sign in her front yard.
Nothing remains the same for long; her life, like mine, was moving forward. I just wished I knew where mine was heading.
My dad continued to show up at Marge’s house with his toolbox nearly every afternoon. What began as “necessary repairs” on the house gradually turned into extensive remodeling. He had torn out the entirety of the guest bathroom on the day Liz and Marge attended my open house, intent on upgrading it to the kind of bathroom he thought his only daughter deserved.
My dad was a dinosaur when it came to technology. To that point in his life, he’d seen no reason to purchase a cell phone. His boss always knew the location of the job site and everyone else on the crew had one, so he could always be contacted. Who else would call him anyway, he wondered? Why be bothered?
Yet my dad came to me right after the new year, and asked me to help him buy a phone. Since he didn’t know anything about “those cellular gadgets,” he asked me to select one for him. “Just make sure it does all that fancy stuff,” he said, “but isn’t too expensive.”
Though my Dad hadn’t mentioned it, I chose a phone that I felt would be simple for him to use as well. I set him up on my plan, and then spent some time with him showing him how to make and receive calls, as well as text. To his contacts, I added the information for Marge, Liz, my mom, and me. I couldn’t think of anyone else to add.
“Can it take pictures?” he asked. “I’ve seen phones that can do that now.”
Pretty much all phones have done that for years, I thought to myself, but I said only, “Yes, it does.”
I showed him that function and watched as he practiced taking pictures and then examining them. I also showed him how to delete the ones he didn’t want. Though I had the sense that much of the information was overwhelming, I watched him carefully tuck the phone into his pocket and head out to his car.
I saw him again at Marge’s house the following day. She’d risen from her nap and our mom had chicken soup waiting. Marge ate half the bowl—less than we’d hoped—and when the tray was taken away, our dad took a seat beside her. He looked almost shy as he began to show her photos of various faucets, sinks and towel rods as well as options for floor and wall tile. Obviously, he’d been at the home improvement store, and this was the only way he could make sure that Marge was part of the design process.
Marge knew that our dad had never been a man of words, nor had he ever been openly affectionate. But through his labors, she could see that in his own way he was shouting his love for her at the top of his lungs, hoping that she could somehow hear what he’d always found so difficult to say.
Dad took notes as she made her selections, and when they were finished, Marge leaned closer to him, giving him no choice but to hug her. “Love you, Daddy,” she whispered. Then, rising from the couch, he lumbered out of the house. Everyone knew he was off to purchase her selections, but after a few minutes, I realized that I hadn’t heard him start his car.
When I got up to peek through the curtains at the driveway, I saw my dad, the strongest man I’d ever known, sitting in the front seat of his car with his head bowed and shoulders heaving.
Wonderful aromas always floated from Marge’s kitchen these days, as my mom tried desperately to make food that would tempt Marge into eating more. There were soups and stews and sauces and pasta; banana cream and lemon meringue pies and homemade vanilla ice cream. The refrigerator and freezer were stuffed, and every time I came by, she handed me food for my refrigerator, which had gradually filled as well.