Donna’s POV
I’m worried, but not too much. Josh was quiet and withdrawn the entire
flight to New York. He talked if I asked him a direct question, but he
made the answers as short as possible. And if it looked like he’d have
to commit his mental resources to having a full-blown conversation, he’d
ask if we could talk about it, whatever the topic was, later. Then he’d
resume brooding. I thought I’d seen him in brood mode before with the
Joanie thing, but that had nothing on this.
Our flight dropped us at JFK International where we rented a car for the
drive up to Westport. It was overcast when we landed and when we left
JFK to hit I-95 headed north; we did so in the middle of a steady rain.
Thinking back on my own scattered memories of funerals and mourning,
while I was growing up, it always seemed like rain or cloudy skies were
involved one way or another. If I were the cynical type I’d say it was
fate taking one last shot at the bereaved, but I’m not that lacking in
faith. I prefer to see it as nature mourning your loss with you. Having
someone by your side can make all the difference….even if it’s an
imaginary someone. But real is better. That’s why I came. Taking my eyes
off the road for a moment I glance over at Josh in the passenger seat.
He hasn’t spoken since we left New York, and the silence is beginning to
wear.
“Josh, do you mind if I turn on the radio?”
The response was a noncommittal grunt, but as my hand reached for the
knob, he finally stirred.
“Can we listen to NPR? I want to see what the talking heads are saying
about the Governor.”
“No.”
Josh turned his head to glare at me. “What?”
Well, I *did* want him to talk. “That’s not what you need right now,” I
answered.
His glare amped up a notch. “What makes *you* such an expert on my
needs, or gives you the right to determine what they should be?”
Okay, that hurt. I know what he’s doing there, but it still hurt. I
pulled my hand back from the radio and resumed driving as silence
settled again in the car. It’s worth noting that Josh didn’t reach for
the radio either.
The quiet only lasts a few minutes before I hear Josh clear his throat
and say, “I’m sorry.”
I took a deep breath and let it out, expelling the tension of a few
moments past. “It’s okay Josh, you’re facing a lot of stress at the moment.”
He shook his head. “That’s no excuse for talking to you like that.” He
looked away out the window at the falling rain. “If my dad heard me…..”
I sighed. I understood . Josh loved his father. He’d rather die than
disappoint him, especially now.
He drew a shaky breath and added, “I’d love some music if you can find
something quiet and soothing.”
I punched the power button and the muted strains of Country and Western
music filled the car. I hit scan and it began to run through the dial.
Nothing sounded appealing until we got to the lower end of the dial, in
Public Radio territory. The gentle sound of classical chamber music came
and Josh sat up abruptly.
“That, that right there,” he said. “Please.”
The search had already moved on before I could pause it, but I tuned
backwards quickly and found the station. Pachebel’s Canon crooned over
the airwaves. Josh sighed and settled back to listen and resumed his
vigil, brooding at the rain. Everything was fine for a while until some
Vivaldi wound down and the open notes of what I recognized as Schubert
began.
I heard Josh draw a ragged breath and vent something that sounded like a
sob. Concerned I reached for the mute button, but Josh’s hand
intercepted mine.
“No, leave it. Please.”
He didn’t relinquish my hand, but held on tightly as our hands settled
on the seat between us, while the soaring descant of “Ave Maria” played
out.
We didn’t speak again, all the way to Westport. But it didn’t matter,
because Josh didn’t let go of my hand either. We may not have been
talking, but we were absolutely communicating on a far more fundamental
level than mere words. He was saying “I need you”, and I was
acknowledging his need. He was saying “Thank you” and I was saying
“You’re welcome”.
This is why I came.
Elise Lyman’s POV
I hadn’t expected anyone to come home with Josh. Both Leo and Samuel are
busy trying to put a good man in the White House. Truth be told, as
sudden as Noah’s death was, I’d had months to steel myself to the
possibility of it. If I hadn’t, then Josh could probably have walked in
the door with Carmen Miranda on his arm and I wouldn’t have noticed.
Donna’s presence was a bright spot in a sea of endless gloom. Both Noah
and I had spoken to her on the phone and he’d remarked more than once on
his son’s firecracker of an assistant. At first we called her as our
conduit to Josh, but eventually we would call her for her own sake,
simply to talk. Noah had even gone so far as to demand that Joshua email
him a picture of her. Trust my son to pick an unflattering moment to
snap a picture, when the poor girl was fast asleep on some anonymous
couch at a nameless campaign stop. All the same, that picture and a few
other shots from the campaign were on my husband’s desk right up to the
day that he died. It was his way of being a part of his son’s life.
However I think that he had other reasons as well. When Josh told us
that Donna had left the campaign, Noah was quite surly for days. When
she returned, his mood brightened. I suspect that he suspected the same
thing that I suspected…and still do suspect. But that’s a subject for
another time. Now is the time to say good-bye to my Noah.
Relatives gather form all four points of the compass, and when it
started to become too much Donna stood in for me as hostess with
remarkable grace. She answered the phone, organized the kitchen for the
food that kept arriving, dealt with incoming relatives, and kept an eye
on my son without noticeable strain. All the while, being there for both
Josh and I when we needed her compassion.
The funeral was over quickly, as Jewish funerals should be, followed by
shiva, which was more heavily attended. I never would have made it
through either one without Donna. In retrospect its funny how many
people mistook her for Josh’s girl friend, and at least one distaff aunt
was cross with me for not letting the family know when Josh had gotten
married. I never disabused anyone of those notions, because I found them
in line with my own hopes for a future without my husband.
Their first night home, Donna had mentioned some foolishness about
finding a hotel room. I put a stop to that quickly by putting her in the
bedroom across the hall from Josh’s old room. Even though my Joanie had
never lived in this house, some part of my heart thought of that room as
“Joanie’s”. It was decorated in her favorite colors, and many of the
things in it were hers. It was, in all respects my daughter’s room Which
made it feel like the right place for Donna.
As the week wore on I was beginning to function again, which was good
because my suspicions matured into certainty when I went to check on
Josh during the fourth night…
Donna’s POV
I love Elise Lyman and I would do anything for her. I couldn’t thank her
enough for the room. A hotel room in Westport for a week would have
bankrupted me, and I couldn’t possibly have asked Josh to help pay for
one either. As I had unpacked my bag and hung our garment carrier to the
closet that first night, I was not only increasingly glad that I’d
packed for both Josh and I; and that I’d packed heavier for myself than
for him. It was going to be a long week.
During the day everything went pretty smoothly as I helped Elise cope
through those first days, all the while keeping an eye on my somber and
taciturn boss and friend. But the nights were another matter.
It wasn’t until the second night there that I became aware of just how
good Josh was at hiding things. I’d awakened at 2:00 in the morning for
no reason that I could recall. After I lay there for a moment trying to
figure out why I was awake, I wrote it off to sleeping in a strange
place and rolled over to try and recapture my slumber. The attempt was
short lived when I heard Josh’s voice across the hall, rising and
falling as if he were talking to someone.
I got out of bed and slipped into the hall to listen. Yes, he was
definitely talking to someone. Then his words changed to groans, only to
end abruptly with a muffled shout.
I knocked softly on the door. Josh? Joshua? Are you okay.”
There was a brief pause then I heard him speak.
“Come on in.”
When I got into the room I looked around and discovered that we were
quiet alone.
“I’m sorry to bother you Josh, but I heard you talking to someone.”
He used the heel of his hand to scrub at his tired eyes. “I was”, he
responded. It was just a nightmare though.
“About what?” I asked. That hollow haunted look on his face caused me to
wonder just how much sleep he was getting
He shook his head. “It’s doesn’t matter, it’s over now. I’m sorry if I
woke you Donna. Go on back to bed. You need your sleep as much as, or
more than, as I do.” He dropped sleepily back onto his pillow as his
need for sleep reclaimed him.
“Good night Josh.”
“Dnigh…” was all the response that I got. Standing there looking at him
I was struck by how sweet and untroubled he looked asleep, which
amounted to an almost 180 degrees in opposition from his usual bombast
and cocky self-assurance when he was awake. I stared a moment longer,
and then returned to my room where I started to settle back into bed. I
didn’t even have time to stretch-out and relax before the sound of
Josh’s voice came again….
I got out of bed hastily and slipped back into his room where my heart
abruptly broke as I listened to the one-sided narrative of Josh’s dream.
He was begging. Pleading with Joanie and his father. He was begging them
not to leave. His voice sounded younger and so very lost that tears
began to prick my eyes. He began to moan again which I took to mean that
things were getting bad for him. Impulsively I reached out to him. To
this day I can’t say whether I meant to wake him, or just to touch him
to reassure him. Ii doesn’t matter. The moment that my hand met his, he
flinched in his sleep. At first I thought that he’d woken, but his eyes
remained closed. I held his hand, stroking the back gently with my thumb
as my feelings for him welled up and I used my other hand to gently
stroke his hair. That seemed to quiet him further. After a few moments
he was deeply asleep and untroubled, so I thought that it was time to
get back to my own bed.
Things didn’t quite work out that way, because as soon as I released his
hand he began to shift restlessly. As if he was searching for something.
I knew what he was searching for. He was searching for me and his
restlessness was increasing by the moment.. This couldn’t go on, or by
the end of the week Josh would be a wreck. For more reasons than one I
couldn’t let that happen, but I couldn’t sit here with him all night either.
Making a snap decision, I rounded the bed and lifted the covers,
slipping under them. Moving closer to Josh I reached out to stroke his
shoulder gently as I spooned up behind him, wrapping him in my arms. He
quieted at once.
“Sleep tight, Joshua.” I whispered to him as I placed a single chaste
kiss on his shoulder and settled down to sleep myself.
Thank God I’ve always had a built in alarm clock in my head. If I decide
to wake up at a certain time and set my mind to it before sleeping, I’ll
be up on time the next morning, plus or minus a few minutes…and I had to
be in my own bed before Josh and his mother woke up. They didn’t need
this sort of complication right now. And by this sort of complication I
don’t necessarily mean being in Josh’s bed. I mean where being in Josh’s
bed could take us.
Josh slept well the rest of the night and, come to that, so did I. My
internal alarm worked like a charm and I was back in my own bed by
sunrise. That became our routine, I’d wait for him to fall asleep then I
go to him. By mid-week Josh’s haggard look began to lift. He was still
grieving, but he was no longer grieving on the ragged edge of collapse.
Elise looked better too. At least she started to smile a bit whenever I
talked to her. She even managed a full-blown smirk on our last night
there when Josh asked what fabric-softener she was using, because his
bed smelled wonderful. Thank God for my acting classes during my brief
college career or my blush would have given the show away. Note to self.
The man has an acute sense of smell. So shower off any scent *before*
going to bed.
It turned out that that was a uniquely useless piece of self-advice.
That night Josh slept without my help. He seemed to do okay, but dear
god help me I did miss the solid feel of him when I went to bed. But it
frightened me as well, because I didn’t think I could hide my feelings
from him for much longer.
When the day came for us to leave and rejoin the campaign I don’t think
that either of us were very crazy about the idea, but duty called and we
had a job to. The bags were in the car and Josh was giving his mother
one last hug and kiss. I don’t think that he would have left at all if
one of his mother’s cousins hadn’t agreed to move in for a month or so
to keep his mom from getting lonely. Josh stepped back and Elise
beckoned me into her embrace. We hugged each other tightly. I felt like
I was leaving home all over again. I sniffled, then she sniffled, then
we both sniffled, and the next thing you know we were both crying. Being
unable to handle crying women, Josh retreated to the car. After a good
therapeutic cry Elise and I blew our noses and hugged one more time.
Then she lowered the boom.
“Donna dear, there is one question that I need to ask you.”
“What is it Elise?”
“What perfume do you wear?”
I must have looked puzzled because her smirk was fully in evidence.
“I need to try and find a fabric softener to match it. It might just
lure him home more often. Either that or you’ll need to share his bed
whenever he’s here; which, come to think of it, might lure him home even
more often, provided you only do that when he’s here.”
I know damn well that I must have looked mortified as I tried to
explain, but she shushed me.
“Oh Donna, I started this week unable to see my future. I didn’t feel
like I had a life left worth living. I knew in my head that that was
nonsense, but my heart didn’t agree. Then the fourth night that you were
here I was restless and I went to check on him. And I found you there
guarding his sleep. Suddenly the future wasn’t quite so bleak. Thank you
for being here for us both.”
She kissed me on the cheek then she hugged me one more time and
whispered.
“And I want you to know that whatever happens, or doesn’t happen, you’ll
always be welcome here.”
Then she let me go.
When Josh and I drove away she was still standing there waving good-bye
and I felt better than I had since I’d left home the first time.
I glanced at Josh and smiled furtively. Suddenly the future didn’t look
so bleak to me either.