This Is Not How It Ends(79)

I collapsed in the hammock beside Ben, and we swayed lazily in the breeze. His body was a warm comfort, and mine was starving for affection. Sunny found us there; his cold nose poked through the ropes.

“I’m going to stay here when Jimmy leaves for Orlando.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“I want to be here,” he said. “For him.”

Ben was as much Philip’s family as I was. He’d held Philip’s head when he vomited into the porcelain bowl, he’d cleaned him after he had an accident in the bed. He ran to the store for diapers and puppy pads that we slid under Philip when he was asleep and less likely to bark at one of us. There weren’t many men I knew who would’ve devoted themselves so entirely to someone. “He’d want you here. He loves you.”

His body softened. “There’s something you need to know, Charlotte.”

No, came to mind. Don’t. We didn’t talk about it anymore, our mishap—what I liked to call it—was long behind us. And when Ben’s hand covered mine, I wasn’t prepared for what came next. When he finally spoke, it was a whisper. “I’m leaving the Keys.”

I sat up, the hammock swaying. He was staring at the water, unable to meet my eyes.

“Jimmy has his grandparents in New York, and Sari’s sister’s kids are there. The trip to Disney is for them to be together. So when I tell him we’re leaving, he’ll understand.”

A line of birds crossed the sky, and I wondered how it would feel to hitch myself to their wings. I had little fight left. There were too many goodbyes, too many endings.

Ben continued. “If there’s anything I’ve learned from Philip—besides awful jokes and useless facts—it’s that we have to live while we’re alive. Losses hurt—man, they’ve crippled me—but we have to pick ourselves up and find happiness again. Sari taught me that. I believe she wanted that for me. And Philip wants it, too.”

I lay back beside him, deflated, not saying a word. The sky was clear, and I could see for miles, everything except the future.

“Say something.”

My head hurt. Like a metal vise was crushing it in its jaws. “What is there to say?”

Did I have this fantasy tucked deep down in my shameful basket that Philip would leave and Ben and I would find each other again? Maybe. But it was too painful to think about now. It was wrong on so many levels. Ben and I would always have Philip connecting us. A future with him would be marked with betrayal and sadness. A band of deceit.

“A fresh start is good,” I finally said. “For all of us.”

Rivulets of water fell from my eyes. I didn’t wipe them away.

“I’m going to miss you.” My voice cracked. “I’m going to miss you and Philip so much.”

He hugged me, dropping his head in my hair. “I’m going to miss you, too.”





CHAPTER 37

November 2018

Judith, Ben, and I spent Thanksgiving week providing round-the-clock care for Philip. In between sponge baths, dosing pain medications, and reading to him from the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, we reminisced. Ben managed to prepare a turkey, pureeing the meat in a blender so we could spoon-feed Philip soup. In typical Philip style, he refused to eat that week. Ever a rebel, he had to tell the gluttonous holiday who was boss.

That’s when things took a sudden turn. When someone is dying, there is a period of time before the actual death that is met with a surge of energy. This heightened vigor turns the weakest strong, and caregivers falsely believe their loved ones are on the upswing. The irony of the transformation is that the bout of renewed energy usually signifies imminent death.

Philip was eating again, laughing, the surge a nasty trick.

That night, the three of us were certain it was time. Philip’s breathing came in a shallow whistle. He gathered us in the room—more like, “Get in here, blokes.”

He was so thin and ghostly, but there was an awareness to him I hadn’t seen in days. It reminded me of when we first met, and I held on to it, an anxious need to record everything about to be lost. A single tear escaped his eye when he looked at the three of us, but he was quick to wipe it away with his scrawny fingers. “You all look wretched!”

Judith gave it right back: “I don’t see you winning any beauty contests, Thomas.”

Thomas was the name she’d given him after she spotted Tom Hiddleston in her Us Weekly and swore he was Philip’s twin. She was being kind, referring more to the photos that hung from our walls, Philip and I in happier, healthier times.

Ben and I were speechless, a mind-numbing awe that this was our friend, my lover. Remnants of Tom Hiddleston had all but vanished, though the twinkle in his eyes reminded us he was once there.

Philip was as chatty as ever, rambling on about another boat trip and making plans for a new year that would never come. Then he said to Judith, “Don’t they make a lovely couple? No two better people in the world right there.” Judith gave me that look that meant nothing good. I slept beside Philip that night. My hand against his chest told me he was alive. Maybe my love for him would save him, or maybe it would set him free. No one ever talks about the end. How in days leading up to it, you beg a higher power to take your loved one away, to relieve them of their suffering. And then when they pass, you can’t imagine anything more horrible. The finality. The dissolution. It’s the great paradox, the ill-fated hypocrisy: In life we watch them suffer. In death it is we who suffer. There is no in-between.