The Window Seat Ray Saved for Me

On March 3rd, he went out to the garage after supper to finish a carburetor for the Hendersons’ lawn tractor. He had a stent put in the autumn before and the doctors had said he was doing fine. I found him at the bench with the little screwdriver still in his hand.

I will not describe the rest. It was fast, and he was doing what he loved. I have also never been so alone in my life as I was in that kitchen with the Hendersons’ tractor still in the driveway.

My children did what children do in the first weeks. They came. They organized the funeral with the pastor, and I let them, because I did not have a self to organize it with.

Kevin is forty-eight and sells insurance in Springfield, the oldest, the one who takes charge. Dana is forty-five, a nurse manager in Bloomington, the one who cries first and fastest. Tim is forty-one and drives the fuel truck for the co-op here in town. Tim sat on the back porch with me the first night and did not say anything at all, and I have loved him more for it ever since.

In April, Kevin took over the paperwork.

“Mom, let me handle the tickets,” he said at my kitchen table. “I’ll cancel it. You don’t need to think about that.”

“There’s a refund?” I asked.

“There might be. I’ll sort it out. Dad would not want you stressing.”

Dana put her hand over mine. “It would be so sad, Mom. Going up there. Without him.”

“I haven’t decided anything,” I said.

“Of course you haven’t,” Kevin said gently, and he patted the folder he was carrying and took it home to Springfield.

That is all. That is the entire conspiracy. It was done with soft voices at my own table over my own coffee, and I thanked him for it.

That night, Tuesday, at 11:40, my phone buzzed on the nightstand.

It was a photograph. A big timber lobby. Pillars made of whole trees. Kevin and Dana in front of them with their arms around each other and enormous smiles.

Made it, Mom!! it said. Dad would have loved this place.

I looked at that photograph for a long time. I had stood in that lobby when I was twenty-two. I knew the grain of those pillars.

I typed with one finger. Did you tell Rhoda I asked you to go?

The phone rang within ten seconds.

“Mom.” Kevin’s voice was tight and bright, like a man holding a door shut. “Look. Okay. I was going to tell you. When we got back.”

“You told Rhoda I asked you to.”

“It was paid for, Mom. It was going to be thrown away. Nine thousand dollars of tickets, are you kidding me? Dad would have wanted somebody to use it.”

“Somebody,” I said.

“And honestly.” He took a breath. I heard Dana in the background saying Kev, don’t. “Honestly, Mom, you wouldn’t have enjoyed it alone anyway. You hate flying. You’d have sat in that room and cried the whole time. We were trying to save you from that. We’re out here doing something for Dad.”

I held the phone against my ear and I looked at the dark square of the bedroom window.

“Enjoy the mountains, Kevin,” I said.

And I hung up. Not hard. I laid the phone face down on the quilt as if it were asleep.

I did not plot that night. I did not cry, either. I put on Ray’s flannel robe and made a cup of tea and sat at the table where the folder had been.