Not alone
Title: Not alone Author: givemetehlove Timeline: About 20 years post 513 Word count: 920 A/N: Contains character death
I’m alone, I think for the first time. I’m alone.
I’ve never felt like this before. Not when we were separated, not after we moved to Canada and I was working all hours and never saw her. I always knew that, eventually, we would be together. Us and our children against the world.
Now, I’m alone. My wife taken from me by Cancer. Our final weeks together a haze of machines and drugs.
JR comes into the room and wraps her arms around me. Gus follows not long behind. We sit like this for what feels like hours, but is probably only five minutes.
Eventually, “Momma? We need to get ready now.”
I nod my head, but don’t say anything. I don’t trust myself.
As my (our) children peel away I raise myself slowly from the chair.
I turn and look at them. JR, my baby, so grown-up, Michael’s eyes. Gus by her side, looking the spit of his Father at that age, but I’ve long since reconciled myself to that. He is a fine young man.
JR beckons “Come, Momma, it’s time.” We file out of the house and into the waiting car. Before I get in I take a look around. The car behind holds Brian, Justin and Michael. I’m surprised that Michael isn’t with Ben and Hunter, but of course Brian needs his best friend by his side.
There are Ben and Hunter in the car behind, along with Hunter’s wife Sarah and their daughter Deborah. Behind them Emmett and Ted with their husbands. Who would have thought that I would be the one who ended up alone?
Deb has long since gone, Carl too. I’ve been told that Jennifer is too sick to make it, but we’ve had flowers. The friends we have made in Canada are all here, and many other people that I don’t recognize. Family, I suppose, though we never had much contact with them after the move.
I climb into the car next to JR and Gus, and we are on the way to the cemetery. As the car slides almost silently down the street, JR clutching my hand, Gus resting his head on my shoulder, I think again “I’m alone.”
The burial passes me by. I can hear people speaking, saying words about her that, to me, are meaningless. “A loving friend, a devoted Mother.” What about what she was to me? The talk goes on, eulogies of her mentorship of the talent of “famous artist Justin Taylor.” I look around and see Justin clinging to Brian, tears rolling down his face. Brian looks like how I feel, empty and numb.
At some point everything goes quiet. I look up and see them all looking at me expectantly. Gus guides me gently toward the graveside and I look down. Then it dawns on me - that thing there, that isn’t her. I begin to speak:
“My wife was a woman of many talents. Artist, teacher, mentor, homemaker. But her biggest talent of all was her ability to love, warts and all. To love all of those around her.”
I look at Brian, seeing the beginnings of a familiar smirk on his lips. “I know this sounds like sentimental bullshit,” a gasp from some in the crowd, but the smirk on Brian’s face grows bigger, “but she did love all of us in one way or another.” I pause before going on.
“Justin, you weren’t just some hotshot young talent that she knew would make it big, you were her friend. Michael, you are the Father of our precious daughter, and she knew that you would be there for her always.”
“Hunter, she was so proud of what you have achieved. Ted and Em, you brought so much joy and laughter into her life.”
“All of you,” I sweep my arm around “were touched and loved by her in some way.”
“Brian,” turning I can now see the smirk is gone, tears forming in the corners of his eyes. I don’t think I had ever seen him cry before, and I sure as hell don’t want to see it now.
“Brian, I don’t think Lindsay loved anyone as much as she loved you. Not even me. I used to resent that. I was jealous of that for years. But I realize now that I needn’t have been. She had enough love in her heart for both of us, and after all I was the one with the right equipment. I was the one who she curled up in bed with at the end of the day.”
I look up, the corners of his lips have turned upwards again.
Facing the grave again I begin my final goodbye:
“Lindsay Peterson, I will miss you like crazy. I will miss waking up to your beautiful face, miss going to bed with you every night. But now, just now, I know that I am not alone. You will always be here all around me. Our children and our friends will remind me of you every single day. You were taken from me too soon, but I will never be alone.”
As we walk away from the graveside and the celebrant begins the final speech, I move toward Brian. He puts his arms around me and whispers in my ear “You know what this means, don’t you?” I smile as I remember what she said to me on her deathbed. I rest my head on his shoulder and whisper back, “Wendy grows up to be a Jewish lesbian, who would have thought it Peter.”