“Still,” Eddie said, “you can see it from Candy’s perspective.”
The way the fur was painted was extraordinary, brown and gray and white, every single hair defined. The hair of the hare. I wanted to touch my fingers to its flank every time I put in a load of wash.
“That’s why I keep it up,” Jonathan said.
There were eight pieces in all, and the last one on the tour was in our bedroom, which made me grateful that we were people who always made the bed. “This is my favorite,” Jonathan said.
By the standards of the others, the rabbit in our bedroom was more abstract: white and leaping, the grass beneath it tipped in blue. It hung on the wall by Jonathan’s closet.
Eddie nodded. “I agree with you,” he said. “This is my favorite.”
“Candy liked to paint,” he said, nodding. “But she never thought anything she did was good enough. She never would have let me put this up when she was alive.”
“Did she paint other rabbits?” Eddie asked.
“Well, sure, some. Candy painted everything.”
Then Eddie went over and sat down on my side of the bed.“I’m sorry,” he said. “I need to sit here for one minute.”
“No,” I said, “it’s perfectly fine. Are you okay? Can I get you anything?”
He shook his head, then changed his mind. “If I could have a glass of water.”
Jonathan was gone in an instant. He was a great believer in the power of a glass of water.
“Stay,” I said quietly, not wanting to sound like Polly.
Eddie closed his eyes. “One minute. I’ll be fine.”
“Does this happen to you?”
“Do I get tired after listening to Polly and Skip talk over one another and two Bloody Marys in the middle of the day along with too much to eat and then going for a boat ride? Yes, I suppose every time I do that, I feel tired.”
Jonathan reappeared with the water. He sat down beside Eddie on the bed. “Here,” he said.
Eddie drank, then opened his eyes. “That fixed it,” he said, but he didn’t stand up.
I was thinking that I didn’t know what to do when Jonathan said, “This is what we’re going to do: We’re going to walk down the hall to the guest room and you’re going to take your shoes off and lie down. And if you want to leave in an hour, that’s fine. And if you want to leave tomorrow, that’s fine.”
He drank some more water. “This is quite a detour to make on the way to the train station.”
“Do you want to stand up?” Jonathan asked.
“I do,” Eddie said. “I will in one more minute.”
“Take your time,” Jonathan said.
Eddie finished the water and handed me the glass. “Okay,” hesaid. “I’m going to listen to your husband. That’s what I’m going to do.” He looked like he was about to stand when he saw the little horse on the nightstand and changed his mind. “Look at that,” he said, reaching over to pick it up. “Whistler.”
4
It didn’t happen right away. Eddie’s white count held for another ten months before it started creeping up. Those ten months were good. I would go over to his apartment when school let out. Sometimes I would bring him dinner. He was trying without success to teach me how to play bridge. He brought me advance reader’s copies of the books he knew I would like. “You and Skip,” he said. “No one else.”
Later things began to tilt. Often when I came by, he was sleeping, or when we walked, I could hear his shortness of breath. He took my arm. One day over lunch, he told me that he had retired.
“You’re going to retire?”
He shook his head. “I did it. Needless to say, they pretty much ran me to the door as soon as I mentioned it. ‘Goodbye, Mr. Triplett! Good luck, Mr. Triplett!’ They’ve been waiting for me to give it up for years now.”
