The cemetery was nearly empty on Tuesday morning.
A groundskeeper worked beside the far fence.
I brought fresh flowers in a jar from the pantry.
Dwight's name was etched into gray stone.
I cleaned leaves from its edge.
He had been gone long enough that I no longer expected him to answer.
Still, I told him about Wendell.
I told him about the ramp and the yellow kitchen.
“You'd have liked his work,” I said.
“Although you'd have criticized those joints.”
I sat on the bench for a while.
Dwight had loved Zach fiercely.
They had argued about the shop and made up over burgers.
He had loved Megan too, though she needed less rescuing and therefore sometimes got less attention.
I had spent my career meeting patients who wanted a single clear answer.
Sometimes there wasn't one.
Love could be real and still contain mistakes.
I had been too quick to lean on Zach after the funeral.
He had been too quick to turn my need into a permanent job.
And now everybody was acting as if I had to choose between a grown son and a man who brought me coffee.
I had no intention of making that choice.
At home, I called Megan.
The first time I went to the cemetery alone, I stayed in the car for twenty minutes.
It was a bright day.
A groundskeeper was repairing a sprinkler beside the road.
People walked between headstones carrying flowers and paper cups of coffee.
Nothing about the place looked frightening.
Still, I couldn't open the car door.
Dwight had been part of every important decision I made as an adult.
When the children were small, we disagreed over bedtime and television.
When money was tight, we planned purchases on yellow legal pads.
When my hospital changed shift schedules, he made supper on the nights I got home late.
Now I was trying to make a decision about a man I had met in a grief group.
The absurdity of that would have amused Dwight.
I could almost hear him asking whether the fellow knew how to replace a washer in a leaky faucet.
It was the sort of test he considered meaningful.
I walked to his headstone and pulled weeds from the edge.
“I don't know what I'm doing,” I said softly.
I had talked to patients after loss for decades.
I told them there was no single right way to grieve.
But private grief was harder to describe.
Some mornings I missed Dwight so fiercely that I could barely straighten his pillow.
On other mornings I wanted to go somewhere with Wendell and laugh without measuring how long it had been since the funeral.
Both feelings were true.
I sat on the low stone bench nearby.
The ground was damp from rain.
I remembered the year we bought our house.
We could afford only one major repair.
The roof leaked and the kitchen cabinets were falling apart.
We chose the roof.
For six months our dishes lived on open shelves made from scrap wood.
Dwight said we were living like people in a magazine.
I said our magazine would be called Homes in Trouble.
He laughed so hard he dropped a plate.
That story belonged to us.
Wendell would never have shared it.
I was beginning to understand that love did not have to replace one life with another.
It could become part of the life I still had.
I left flowers, brushed dirt from the name, and went back to my car.
On the drive home I stopped at the hardware store.
I needed a new rubber tip for my walking stick.
The clerk asked whether I'd like someone to put it on for me.
I said yes.
It took thirty seconds.
I stood by the counter feeling faintly ridiculous for having struggled with it at home.
A small problem had an ordinary solution.
I thought about that when I reached my driveway.
Zach's earlier warnings had made every future difficulty sound like a catastrophe.
But difficulty did not automatically mean surrender.
I could ask a professional for advice.
I could hire help with a repair.
I could accept a ride while keeping my own keys.
I could choose love without signing over the right to disagree.
That evening I found the folder from my latest bank appointment beside the phone.
I moved it into the desk drawer.
I wanted papers where I could find them, not scattered in reaction to every argument.
Then I wrote Wendell a note.
I had been irritated with his secrecy.
I still was.
But I also wanted to know whether he understood the difference between building a ramp and deciding how I should live.
I told him I would like to discuss it before the next Sunday dinner.
He called after reading the message.
“I'm sorry I put you in the position of finding out that way,” he said.
“You made me feel like a project.”
“I know.”
“I was a nurse for thirty-four years. I saw people lose independence because everyone around them got impatient.”
“I don't want that for you.”
“Then ask me before you plan my future.”
“I will.”
There was a pause.
“Will you still come see the kitchen?”
I looked toward Dwight's chair.
“Yes. I want to know whether you chose the right yellow.”
Wendell laughed.
For the rest of the evening, I felt less like a woman caught between two men and more like myself.
She answered from her car outside a grocery store.
I asked her to listen before speaking.
Then I told her I had visited Wendell's house.
I described the ramp.
She went quiet.
“That sounds kind,” she finally said.
“It is kind. And also a little foolish. He should have talked to me.”
“You're not moving there?”
“No.”
“Are you giving him money?”
“No.”
“Then why is Zach so upset?”
“You should ask Zach.”
She sighed.
“He's been saying the insurance money is all you'll have if something goes wrong.”
“He isn't wrong about needing savings.”
“But?”
“But I get to decide what makes my life worth living.”
Megan started crying.
She said she had been frightened after Dwight died.
She lived in Longview, far from the daily work.
Zach had sounded certain.
It was easier to believe the sibling who was nearby.
I understood that.
I also told her that calling me lonely as if it meant incapable had hurt.
“I didn't mean it that way.”
“I know you didn't. It hurt anyway.”
We agreed to talk more often without Zach acting as the messenger.
I asked about her job and the houseplants she kept killing.
For a few minutes she sounded like my daughter again.
Before hanging up, she asked whether she could visit for a weekend.
I said yes.
“Can I meet Wendell properly?”
“I'd like that.”
After the call, I made a list of things I wanted for the next year.
Visit Megan.
Get my knees evaluated instead of joking about them.
Take the painting class Carla mentioned.
Learn to use my phone without handing it to Zach.
The last item made me laugh.
Then I added another.
Keep Sunday's supper, but don't let the guest list decide my happiness.
I taped the paper inside a kitchen cabinet where I would see it when I reached for coffee.
That evening Wendell rang.
“Would you come choose the paint color before I put on another coat?”
I smiled.
“Yes. But this time I'm bringing my own opinion.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: The Yellow Kitchen Was Not Mine Yet, and That Made Our First Honest Visit Better
The Man Who Would Not Show Me His House and the Ramp I Found Inside His Garage
Part 6 of 10
