THIRTY-EIGHT
the beauty of the silence
ansley
For one of the first times in months, I was blessedly, silently all alone. Emerson had gone out with Mark, Caroline and Sloane were next door moving Jack’s furniture, and he had gone over to see if he could help. I sat down in one of the Louis ghost chairs around the antique wood dining room table in front of the “orchard,” as we had affectionately nicknamed the spot where all our Macs generally ended up every day.
I sat down to check my email, and Biscuit jumped in my lap. “Hi there, little girl,” I said, scratching behind her ears. “I think we made it. I think we’re all going to be OK.”
I’m not sure if dogs can smile, but I’m pretty sure she did.
I clicked on my in-box, absentmindedly deleting emails from Moda Operandi, Vogue.com, Jetsetter. How did I get signed up for all these email lists? I paused my cursor over one labeled “test results.” I almost deleted it, assuming it was spam. But I clicked instead.
Dear Emerson:
I have received your test results, and I’d like to set up a phone call to discuss. If you would prefer, I can see you in the office, but I believe you were flying back to Georgia when I saw you last. Please call the office to schedule.
My best,
Dr. Douglas Thomas
Park Avenue Hematology & Oncology
I WAS PARALYZED BY panic. This was not, in fact, my MacBook Pro. It was Emerson’s. And something was seriously wrong with my child. Oncology? Dear Lord, did she have cancer?
I was about to begin a full spiral when I realized I could just ask her, which was what I was about to do when I heard Emerson calling Sloane and Caroline. And then I heard her calling me. I stormed outside, about to give her a piece of my mind, but when I opened the door, Biscuit under my arm, I sensed this wasn’t the right moment. Emerson was standing to the right of the doorway, Mark’s arm around her. They were both grinning like they used to when they found out they were getting a hurricane day off from school. Caroline and Sloane were across from me, close enough to the steps that I wanted to pull them back so they didn’t fall. Emerson squealed, “We’re engaged!” holding her hand out to me, before I could launch into my interrogation.
My eyes widened. I knew she liked Mark, but engaged? Now I had an entirely new set of questions. I grabbed her hand, and said, “Oh my gosh, Emerson.”
Caroline was jumping up and down, hugging Mark, and Sloane was smiling at me, her face mirroring the shock I felt. But, I reasoned, Mark and Emerson had known each other their entire lives. If they wanted to marry each other, then nothing could thrill me more. A tingle of glee that maybe Emerson would move to Peachtree Bluff with Mark started in the tips of my toes.
Jack walked out his front door, and I smiled, realizing that I might get to have this moment with him. I smiled because I could finally admit I might like to have this moment with him.
There were so many questions, but I couldn’t ask them. I gazed at Emerson’s jubilant face; she didn’t look sick. She couldn’t be sick. There had to be a simple explanation for her doctor visit. I had struggled with low iron in my twenties. It was probably nothing more than that.
I looked out at Starlite Island, as if I could will my late parents to help me and give us all a moment of calm.
As the water rushed by, making its way to another part of the world, I suddenly realized what a tiny part I was in the grand scheme of a greater whole. And I had a thought that soothed me: we are all destined to be forgotten. Maybe not the one percent of the one percent who do something earth-shaking like discovering electricity or becoming queen. But the rest of us will be gone and, by the time our children are gone and most certainly our grandchildren, no one will remember we even existed.
I looked over at Starlite Island again, and I didn’t feel that pang in my gut, that devastation around my heart, with the remembrance that my parents were gone. Instead, I looked across into the dusky night, where the moon was beginning to rise on my favorite fragment of the world. And, despite the turmoil swirling in my mind, I felt at peace.
The girls, who were chattering and squealing, ran inside as Jack walked out the front door and, wordlessly, squeezed my shoulders. He pulled me closer to him, protectively. I was grateful for a man who understood my quiet, who knew when all I needed was his presence beside me.
As I watched the wild horses graze, I realized maybe it didn’t matter that we were all destined to be forgotten. Maybe all that mattered was what we did while we were here, how well we lived, how much we loved, how hard we tried with all our might to care for the ones around us. I turned to kiss Jack. Instead of living for tomorrow and worrying what the future would hold, I had to live for today.
I would never discover the telephone, create a masterpiece that would change the world, or write a piece of legislation that would be remembered for years to come. But I would love my family and fight for them until the day I died. I may not be put in some hall of great women, but that was my purpose in life. And tonight, with the man I had loved for a lifetime beside me and the breeze in my favorite place in the world rustling in the trees, that was good enough for me.
As he held me close, my heart beating in time to his, I knew that whenever we decided to tell the girls Jack was their father, they might not understand. It would probably take time for them to adjust to this new reality. I wasn’t even sure what I would say. But sometimes the words don’t matter, I realized as I stood with Jack, as he stood with me, saying nothing but telling me everything I would ever need to know.
I thought of my parents again, finally resting across the water from me, of the seeds on Kimmy’s farm sprouting in the darkness, of my grandchildren sleeping upstairs.
And I knew for sure that, sometimes, the truest things in life, the ones that mean the most, can’t be explained in words.
It reassured me to remember that, oh so often, the truth is found in the beauty of the silence.