The Fall of Never(85)

“Hello,” Marie said. Her own voice shook.

“How beautiful,” Nellie said. She slowly brought a hand up to Marie’s belly and paused just before touching, allowing her hand to hover only an inch away from Marie’s swollen abdomen. Marie flinched subtly, then looked embarrassed by her reaction. “Such a gift,” the old woman said.

“Here.” Josh came up behind her with a chair from the kitchen. “Sit.”

“No, I…” She looked toward her husband. Her eyes were suddenly pleading—he knew it would come to this—and he took her hand, squeezed.

“Sit,” he told her.

“We should leave this woman alone,” Marie insisted.

“Please,” Nellie said. Her good hand trembled and she replaced it atop the bedclothes.

With hesitance, Marie sat in the chair. Carlos placed a hand on her shoulder.

“This is a beautiful thing,” Marie said to the old woman. “To bless our child—really, it means a lot to me. To the both of us. But it is not necessary to do this now when we can come back at some other time—”

“Things need to be done,” Nellie whispered.

Josh brought around a second chair and set it on the opposite side of Nellie’s bed, where he sat and did not say a word.

“The baby,” Nellie said. “How far along are you, dear?”

“Almost six months.”

“Boy or girl? Do you know?”

A smile passed along Marie’s face. “We don’t know for sure,” she said, “but Carlito thinks it’s going to be a boy.” She looked at him. “So do I.”

“God bless,” Nellie said. “Such a wonderful thing.”

“He’ll be our first.”

“Of many?”

“Oh, we’d like many.”

“Not too many,” Carlos interjected, grinning.

Marie winked at the old woman. “Many,” she said.

Nellie smiled. “You will name him—”

“Julian, after my father,” Marie said.

“Julian.” The word was difficult for Nellie to say. “How beautiful. So much greatness.” She extended her hand and Marie took it, gently. “You are a religious woman?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Very spiritual. You believe God to be good?”

“Of course.”

“And maybe sometimes frightening, too?”

Marie considered. “I suppose.”

“You are so confident,” said Nellie, “and that is such a blessed thing. Sometimes people don’t believe as strongly, and I then feel the need to reinforce God to them. He’s there; He exists.”

“Yes,” Marie said, “I know.”

“All right,” Nellie said, and her grip on Marie’s hand suddenly tightened. “Now close your eyes.”

Marie did.

Nellie shut hers as well. For what seemed like an eternity to Carlos, silence hung in the air like a physical creature, hovering above all their heads and examining their minds, their thoughts. On the opposite side of the bed, Josh sat in nervous concentration, bent forward in his chair with his fingers steepled beneath his nose.

“Think of the most beautiful memory from your childhood,” Nellie said. “Think it as clear as you can. Search for it if you have to.”

“Yes…”

“Can you find it?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“You are young, still just a little girl…”

Marie’s voice had dropped to a mere whisper: “So beautiful.”

“It’s your family…”

“My father and my mother,” Marie said. “Both of them together. And me. We’re at the park. My father looks so young.”

Carlos heard his wife’s voice break. He squeezed her shoulder for support…but had the strange feeling that his wife could no longer feel him. Marie was now gone, lost in some remote part of her own mind, just as he had been that day Nellie forced him back onto that city bus. Marie was no longer in this bedroom.

“It is such a wonderful day,” Nellie whispered.

“Yes. It’s a picnic. My father would take us to the country for picnics when the days were pretty. He loved my mother very much. I can tell, just looking at him now. God…”

“Very handsome,” Nellie said.

“This is our last picnic. We never got to go on another one. He died the next week in an automobile accident. When we were told—my mother and I—I didn’t even know what an automobile was, that it was a car. Sometimes I wish I’d known that would be our last picnic. If I’d known, I think I would have done things differently.”

“We can’t know those sorts of things,” Nellie said.

“I would have hugged him and kissed his cheek and told him that I loved him, even though he knew. He knew we both loved him. Do you think he thought of that while he was dying? Do you think he was comforted by that?”

“I do.”

“It was such a beautiful picnic. I wish I could have told him I loved him.”

“So tell him,” Nellie said. “You’re here now.”

There was another long pause. Marie’s face was still and expressionless. Her eyes shut, her lashes moist, large tears spilled down her face. Her lower lip quivered. Carlos thought she even looked like a child then—perhaps like that little girl at the picnic that very day, so many years ago. That girl who didn’t know what an automobile was when she was told her father had been killed in one.