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“No, I’m the one who is sorry. I didn’t mean…”
She rises from the sofa, hurrying to the kitchen where she rips off a sheet from a roll of paper towel and blows her nose. “Sorry, I really didn’t expect to do that,” she says when she has composed herself a bit. Her voice is still clogged, her eyes reddened. “I don’t usually cry anymore, at least not in front of other people.”
That simply spoken statement has tears rising to my eyes. How does she endure it, day after day? How does she go on? “I’m so sorry, Rachel. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t.” She lets out a ragged laugh. “It’s just… what you wrote… it’s the first time some
one has expressed what I’m feeling, exactly. It’s the first time someone has really gotten it. How did you do that? How do you know?”
I am humbled; I am also exposed. I don’t know what to say, so I just look away.
“Sorry,” Rachel says after a moment. She sounds more subdued. “That was actually meant to be a rhetorical question. You don’t have to say anything.”
“Sorry,” I say, although I’m not sure what I’m apologizing for. Not telling her? Making her cry?
She lets out another raggedy laugh. “I didn’t mean to fall to pieces on you. I know that’s awkward.”
“No, no.” I turn back, ashamed that she might think that, when I’m the one who doesn’t know how to respond, how to be. “It’s fine. I mean… I understand why… I would if…” I can’t seem to finish any of those sentences. “Do you want to edit it?”
“Maybe a little.” She blows her nose again and then comes and rejoins me on the sofa. With a questioning lift of her eyebrow she reaches for my laptop, and I nod. She places it on her lap and I watch as she rereads what I’ve written and then makes a few small changes. “Do you think it should really be ‘we’? Isn’t that implying James is on board?”
“Well, ‘we’ could be lots of people. Your parents, for example…” I trail off uncertainly.
“Yes, my mom.” She nods, and then shoots me another searching look. “My dad died a long time ago.”
“I’m sorry.” What else can I say?
She chews her lip, scanning the page, and then she starts typing.
An hour later, we have a few paragraphs about Emily and the proposed treatment, as well as a template for the page that isn’t, according to Rachel, ‘too corny.’ It’s pale yellow, with a light blue ribbon framing it. Rachel tells me that her neighbour is going to make a logo to go with the page, and I assure her I can add it on at any time.
“So is that it?” she asks. “Do we publish it now?”
“It would be good to add a photo of Emily, if you didn’t mind,” I say. “But if you think it’s too invasive…”
“No.” She hesitates though, thinking it over. “That makes sense. Nothing recent, though. Not when she’s been…”
“An older one would be fine, I’m sure.”
Rachel nods and gets her laptop out. Soon she is flicking through a folder of photos; I don’t know whether I should look or not. It feels too personal, too private, to look over her shoulder. Then she angles the laptop so I can have a better view of the screen, and I turn my attention to the photos flickering past.
Here is Emily. I’ve only seen the one photo of her on James’ dresser, in black and white and artfully blurry, but now I see her in full color, at every age. As a baby, cradled in Rachel’s proud arms, or draped over her shoulder, mouth open, a milk bubble frothing at her lips, fast asleep. A chubby six-month-old or so, giving the camera a gummy grin. Around a year, taking her first faltering steps. A lifetime, captured in moments that make me ache.
She’s adorable, with her strawberry blonde curls—a couple of shades lighter than James’ hair—and her round cheeks and button nose. Her eyes are bright blue, brighter than James’ gray-blue eyes and a far cry from Rachel’s hazel ones. I can’t believe she’s lying in a hospital bed, unresponsive, barely breathing. I can’t.
“Which one?” Rachel asks, and her voice is a bit unsteady. I wonder if she doesn’t usually look at these photos. I know if I were her, I wouldn’t. It would hurt too much.
“Maybe something more recent…? Around her third or fourth birthday?” I know from James that she started showing symptoms at three, but it didn’t get truly serious until she was four.
“All right.” Rachel nods. “Her birthday is actually next week, you know.” Her lips tremble and she turns back to the laptop, frowning with concentration.
We flick through more images—Emily splashing in muddy puddles, going down a slide, opening a Christmas present, holding an Easter basket, licking batter off a spoon in the kitchen—and then finally come to one from her fourth birthday, just two years ago and yet a world away.
She is on the beach, the wind blowing her curls into a golden halo, her rosy cheeks speckled with sand. She is staring straight at the camera, her unabashed grin triumphant and full of joy. She is revelling in the moment, in life itself.
Neither of us speak and then finally Rachel says, “That was our last vacation together, the three of us. She loved the beach. She would have made sand castles for twelve hours a day if we’d let her.”
And now, quite suddenly, I am the one overcome with tears, my eyes filling, my throat closing. I force it all back, because this is not my pain. It feels wrong to take it on as my own, even in part, to presume. Really, I have no idea of the depth of what Rachel feels.
