A Little Hope(17)

“Do you have money?” Kay asks, and Alex holds a ten-dollar bill in his hand and makes it dance for her.

“Silly.” She stands in front of the candles. Her face is still young in the glow, and he cannot believe they have been together for fifty years. They met in college. He remembers asking her to lunch that day, how she turned her head to the side. “Lunch?”

“Yeah, in case you don’t like me,” he said. “Soup and a grilled cheese at the diner, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

“I love diners,” she said.

He remembers the jukebox playing “Tracks of My Tears,” the way he felt grown-up all of a sudden when the waitress offered him coffee and he accepted, and then Kay accepted, and he whispered to her, “I hate coffee, by the way,” and she giggled and said, “Me, too,” and he knew, he knew he loved her. Right away. This girlish woman with her high ponytail and white blouse. The light pink polish on her bitten fingernails. The woman his friend Lawrence said looked like she could be Audrey Hepburn’s little sister the first time he saw her at the college library.

Now Alex looks at Kay, her hands resting on the shelf in front of the candles, and he wishes she would put her hair up in a ponytail again. She doesn’t look much different from that day at the diner—even with all that has happened. Lucky her. But he feels a hundred years older, even though he is healthy. Once in a while, he still thinks he gets a glance here and there from a hostess at the country club or one of the middle-aged females in his office. He tries to keep his weight down. He still does the treadmill four times a week, and golfing keeps color on his face.

He notices the three rows of flickering candles. Only about half are lit. He doesn’t remember the price per candle—how petty, he thinks, but shakes his head—maybe he will put in a twenty just to be safe. He has never minded giving the church a bit extra.

“How many are you doing?” Kay asks. She presses one button, and whispers something he can’t hear as the square flame snaps on. He wishes there were still the stick matches in their small glass jar. He loved holding the match briefly, watching the vigil candles come to life as he and Kay tried in their own tiny way to change things over the years.

“Four.” He knows she can only mentally account for three of these, and that’s why she gives him the sideways confused glance as she lights her own. He doesn’t offer any clues about his mystery candle. He wants to tell her about Iris. His stomach flips and he gets that crackling feeling in his neck.

The first he lights is for Lawrence, his good friend, the best man at their wedding. Alex can still see him in his tailcoat dancing with that bridesmaid, champagne in one hand, a cigarette in the other hand. Lawrence. Killed after only a week in Vietnam. Always with me, pal, he thinks. Kay will be lighting ones for their four dead parents, for her aunt Ginny who is ninety and in hospice now, and probably for their neighbor who just found out she has breast cancer. And then she will spend the most time on her last one.

He is surprised Kay hasn’t bent down to take out her rosary. She believes so much in these candles, in her beads, in her words whispered to the stained glass above them. She has so much reason not to believe, but she still believes.

He’d like to think that Lawrence is smiling down on him, that both their parents are nodding solemnly somewhere as they wait to greet him and Kay, that they’ll get to see who they want to see most when they die (What would that reunion look like? Is it really, really you? they’d say), but lately he wonders. He wonders about the reality of life and death. What if this is all there is?

He looks over at Kay. Behind her is the scene of Mary holding the dead body of Jesus. Kay has been just as brave and noble, hasn’t she? The dark red carpet below their feet is so thick that it hushes his thoughts, and in the pews, he sees an old woman sit by herself and blot her face with a handkerchief. He wishes he could go to this woman, put his coat on her shoulders as some type of comfort, even though he’s sure she has her own coat, but he has to stop this business of wanting to save everyone. He smiles meekly at his wife.

If he tells her right this moment about Iris, what will she do? Will she stare at him with that pitiful, crumbled face she can get and grab her purse and limp away from him? Will she wait by the car outside in the chilly November air and not talk to him? He breathes slowly and lights a candle for Greg Tyler, whom he can’t stop thinking about. Be good to this one, he thinks—if there’s someone who can hear him. He needs you.

His heart stings for Greg. The last of the good boys. Okay with only four hours of sleep. Never, ever said no. Greg the American Dream. Greg whom he could send anywhere: Mexico, China, the Middle East. A younger, better version of himself. That sweet wife. That outspoken little girl Kay buys Christmas gifts for. The Tylers have had them over for dinner a few times, and their home was one of those places you don’t want to leave: the sun setting, golden on their hardwood floors, the cat in its bed, the old dog by the fireplace. “You did pretty well for yourself,” Alex said, squeezing the back of Greg’s neck. He had never done this to anyone, felt this fatherly to one of the company guys. Fatherly. That word makes him ache.

“Will you say something for Gregory?” he whispers to Kay, and she nods. He always feels Kay has a better line to the holy network.

Can Greg beat this? Of course he can, can’t he? The guy can run a six-minute mile. People aren’t dying the way they used to, but Alex knows better than anyone about tragedy. We are guaranteed nothing. Lawrence’s words in the only letter he would write home.