Bodark Creek - 46. Chapter 46

But other than my new grandsons, it was just a bad time. A year after Eddie died, Dock told me that Rosalind was dying of lung cancer. “She doesn’t know it,” he went on. “The doctor said there’s nothing he can do. And that all we can do is keep her comfortable. So I figured it’s best not to tell her.”

“That’s not fair,” I told Dock. “If it was me, I’d want to know.”

“Well, you’re not your sister. And I think I know her a little better.”

He probably did. And I wasn’t going to go against what he said. But I didn’t like it at all.

“What do you think?” I asked Martin.

“I don’t think it’s any of our business.”

“Rosalind’s my sister. My only one left.”

“But if things were turned around, would you want Dock interfering with us?”

“No,” I admitted

“And there you have it.”

“What do you think?” I quickly asked Pat.

“I think it’s terrible,” she told me. “If I was sick, I’d want to know. There are so many things I’d want to do.”

“Aunt Rosalind knows she’s sick,” Joann pointed out. “She just doesn’t know how ill. Though I think it’s unfair that Uncle Dock’s keeping it from her.”

“He’s always had his ways,” Martin reminded us.

“And my brothers never liked them,” I said.

“But they still never went against them,” he insisted. And he was right.

“Are you sure there’s no treatment?” I asked Dock the next time I saw him.

“Not from what the doctor says.” And in those days, we never thought of going to another doctor. We believed the one we had.

“I can’t understand it,” I told Dock. “No one in our family’s ever had cancer.”

That wasn’t entirely true. There was Aunt Evie. But that was some kind of female cancer I never understood. There was nothing wrong with her lungs.

“We have bad hearts,” I told Dock. “That’s our family problem.”

“Well, sometimes other things happen,” he said. “No one knows why.”

“I know what Dougie would say,” I told Martin. “He’d say Rosalind got cancer from forty years of living with Dock.”

Martin laughed. But even he didn’t have to tell me I wasn’t being nice.

“How long does she have?” I asked Dock.

“The doctor can’t predict.”

“So we have to keep on pretending that nothing’s wrong? For he doesn’t know how long?”

“Unfortunately. He’s given us some medicine to control the pain. And Rosalind thinks she just has a bad infection.”

“Bronchitis?”

“Something like that. It doesn’t need to have a name. Rosalind believes the doctor.”

“I can’t take this,” I told Martin. “And the worst thing is I’m afraid of talking with Rosalind. I’m afraid I’ll tell her the truth.”

“You won’t, Addy. You’ve always been good at keeping secrets.”

For some reason, I didn’t know what he meant. I didn’t keep secrets. I never hid anything from anyone.

“I meant ‘surprises,’” he explained. “You’re good at hiding them. I just used the wrong word.”

Maybe. Or maybe I was more upset than I thought. I couldn’t imagine losing Rosalind. And I couldn’t imagine her going without my saying goodbye.

“You’ve got to be honest with her,” I told Dock.

“She wouldn’t want to know,” he insisted. “We’ve talked about it.”

I didn’t believe that, but I tried to remember. Rosalind and I had hardly talked about death. Even with our brothers going and Eddie’s accident, we only just went to the funerals and were sad. We barely talked about how we felt.

“Part of the problem is my brothers just died,” I told Martin. “Without warning. So we didn’t have to prepare for it.”

“But we know people who’ve died from church. And some of them took a long time. And some of them didn’t know. Dock didn’t make this up. He’s only trying to make it easier.”

“Promise me you won’t do this.”

Martin laughed. “You’re thirteen years younger than I am. You’re not going first.”

“Well, what do you want me to tell you?”

“Oh, I’ll know. I’m sure everyone really does.”

I needed to think about that.

“Do you think Rosalind knows?” I asked him a few days later. “Do you think she’s only hiding it to make things easier on Dock?”

Martin laughed at that, too. “Wouldn’t that be just like your sister? She’s probably the kindest person I’ve ever met.”

And it turned out that’s just what was happening. One Sunday, when Rosalind and I were alone in Del and Susan’s kitchen, she told me, “You know, I don’t think this medicine’s going to help. I think I’m a lot sicker than the doctor wants to say. He doesn’t like giving anyone bad news. And I don’t know what I’m going to tell Dock.”

I thought for a moment. “Don’t you go worrying about Dock,” I assured her. “He’s always has good sense.”

“I know. But he depends on me so much.”

That was something else I didn’t understand. I was better than my brothers at figuring out why Rosalind loved Dock. But I didn’t know it all.

“Rosalind knows how sick she is,” I told Martin. “She let me know.”

He said nothing.

“But she never actually used the word ‘dying,’” I went on. “So don’t you go mentioning it.”

“I wouldn’t,” he promised. “You know that.”

I did. I completely trusted my husband. Still, that’s the way we lived for the next couple of months. I tried to set everything else aside and spend as much time with my sister as possible. And there was no use pretending it was just happening. I’d go over to her house for lunch. And we’d work in her garden and then fix supper. When Albie came home from work, I’d go back to Martin. But Dock was always around. He wasn’t exactly listening to our conversations. But he knew what was being said.

“You haven’t told her?” he repeated.

“No,” I swore.

Towards the end, Rosalind went to the emergency room a couple of times. There was talk of her going into the hospital for longer, but she said, “No, not as long as the doctor keeps giving me these pills. That way I don’t feel too awful.”

She looked terrible. She’d lost a lot of weight. And she’d always kept herself looking nice before. But now her hair was scraggly. And she didn’t worry about her clothes. And she didn’t even bother with lipstick. She was only seventy but looked much older.

When the phone call finally came from Dock, we’d been ready for weeks. “She’s about gone,” he said. “The doctor’s here. And Albie’s a mess.”

“How are you?” I asked.

“Not too good,” he admitted.

Albie was crying when Martin and I got there. “Daddy’s with Mama,” he said. And I went to their bedroom.

Dock was lying beside her. Like my mama, my sister died in her husband’s arms. Dock wasn’t crying. But he looked gone.

I insisted that he and Albie come home with us. “Just for a couple of days. Let us take care of everything.”

For once, Dock agreed. At the funeral, he wore one of Neal’s suits. We got Albie new pants and a jacket.

“I can’t thank you enough,” Dock said at the cemetery. “But I think it’s right that Albie and I go home now. It’s time.”

“You’re welcome to stay as long as you’d like,” Martin told them. “But you choose what’s best.”

I made sure I stopped to see them every couple of days. Though I was more worried about Dock. Albie had his job. After a week, he’d gone back to work. He was out of the house. Dock mostly sat around, reading or listening to the radio. He didn’t like the TV.

“We keep it for Albie,” he said. “And Rosalind always liked her morning stories. But I could put the damned thing out on the porch and let the birds live in it.”

I didn’t ask how he was doing. I guessed he wouldn’t tell me. But he always was a thin and active man. I figured he’d bury us all.

Together, we sorted out some of Rosalind’s things. I gave some of her clothes to the church, and Dock gave others to charity. And I took some of the kitchen things I knew only Rosalind would use. Some of them had been in the house since it was Mama’s.

“You’re sure you don’t need these?” I asked Dock.

“I know how to bake,” he replied. “But I’m not likely to do it again. And Albie can’t cook.”

“Not at all?”

“He’s barely learned. He’s been taken care of all his life.”

“Dock made it sound like something he’d failed at,” I told Martin. “Like he didn’t do a good enough job.”

“He’s done more with that boy than probably anyone ever could,” Martin admitted. “Most of the time, you hardly know anything’s wrong.”

Dock also did a good job at being a husband. When we were sorting through Rosalind’s things, I came across a stack of letters he’d written.

“Those need to be burned,” he said.

I did what he asked. But as I watched them in the fire, I could read some of the writing. There were birthday letters. And anniversary letters. It seemed Dock gave them to Rosalind instead of cards. And I knew Martin loved me. There was never any question about that. But he never put it into words.