Like a Love Story(90)

“Hey, where’s that bottle of wine?” he asks, his voice clearer and stronger than it’s been in days. In the hospital, with those tubes pulled in and out of his throat, he could barely speak. Now, his body is weak, but he can get a sentence out without gasping or clearing his throat.

My mom is roasting a chicken, hoping she can get him to eat some simple food. And I’m her sous chef, learning so much from her. How to give, how to care, how to be patient.

“Stephen,” she says, “I’ll pour you some more Gatorade.”

“Give me the wine,” he demands. “I’m done with fluorescent liquids.”

My mom stops cold. She turns to me, her eyes welling, and asks, “Judy, can you get the wine?”

I don’t understand her reaction, but I go ahead and search the kitchen for that special bottle of wine that Art’s parents gave my parents, a bottle that my mom once said probably cost more than all the wine she’s had in her life. It’s a red bottle from France, and it’s older than Stephen. I stare at the date on the bottle and I resent it. Why does this wine get to stick around longer than he does? I find a wine opener, and I realize I have no idea how to use it. I fumble with it for a few moments, frustrated. My mom approaches with a tender hand on my shoulder. She doesn’t take the bottle from me, though. Instead, she guides me. And then she pours three glasses, though mine is more like a quarter glass.

We sit by his side and raise our glasses. “To my girls,” Stephen says, and we all take a sip. The wine tastes rich and deep, almost like you can feel how old it is.

“To you, Stephen,” my mom says, with so much love in her voice, “who always lived with so much courage.”

“I had no choice,” Stephen says.

“Of course you did.” My mom runs a hand through his hair, matted and clumpy from the sweating. “You could have hidden in the shadows.”

“Maybe I’d still be alive if I hid,” he says.

I feel split open. I don’t even want to think that he could have been rewarded for living a lie. That’s not how the world is supposed to work. He’s the most honest, kind, and courageous man I know, and soon he’ll be dead because of those very qualities. Dead because he dreamed himself into existence. Because he lived in truth.

“Uncle Stephen,” I say, “don’t say that. You’re still alive. You’re still here.”

“I know,” he says. “I know, Judy, my love. But I can’t hold on any longer. And I don’t want to put you through any more of my deterioration.”

I put the wine down and hold on to his hand. “You’re not putting me through anything. I want to be here. Just hold on. Tomorrow is another day.”

“Are you quoting Gone with the Wind?” he asks, smiling weakly.

“Just trying to speak your language,” I say. I’ll quote old movies for the rest of my life if it will keep him alive.

“I always thought that movie was a little overrated,” he says. “Though I do have a soft spot for Vivien Leigh. Poor thing would’ve been so much happier with Prozac. Medicine failed us both.” Then, turning to my mom, he says, “Bonnie, can you pass me the pot of jelly beans?”

Suddenly it dawns on me. “No, Mom, don’t give those to him!” She looks over at me, confused. “They’re, like, some representation of everyone who’s gone, and when he eats them, it’s over.”

“I don’t understand,” my mom says. “These jelly beans are . . .”

Stephen pushes himself up and grabs the pot of jelly beans. “I have found my own ways to cope,” he explains to my mom. “A jelly bean for each soul I lost to AIDS. Maybe it’s crazy, but sanity is boring.” He puts a pink jelly bean in his mouth and chews. Then washes it down with another sip of wine. Then another jelly bean. And another. “Judy, will you call Jimmy, and Art and Reza? Tell them to come if they can.”

“No!” I scream. “I won’t do it. I can’t do it, Uncle Stephen. You don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s not time!” I’m sobbing now.

Stephen reaches over to the drawer of the end table by the couch. Inside are all his bottles of pills. Medication for the disease, and all the opportunistic infections, and then medication for all the side effects from the different medications. And morphine for the pain.

“You know I love you,” Stephen says forcefully. “You know that, right?”

“Of course we do,” my mom says.

“Bonnie, it’s time,” he says quietly. “Let me go.”

My mom looks inside the drawer, and she sucks in a breath. I rush to her side, and then I see. The morphine bottle is empty.

“Uncle Stephen! No!” I’m sobbing now.

He doesn’t say anything.

“Mom, we have to take him to the hospital!”

But my mom doesn’t move. It’s like she’s frozen. She just looks at him with, I don’t know, resolve. “Judy,” she says quietly, “call Art and Reza. And Jimmy. And your dad.”

“Please no,” I choke out. “Please!”

“Sweetie, do what he says,” my mom tells me gently. “The doctor said it’s a matter of days.”

“Judy,” Stephen says. “Darling, I want to go surrounded by the people I love. Let me choose this. It’s all I have left.”