Survived By

It was in late December, just before Christmas. New York City was lit up for the holiday. Merriment was everywhere, but it was somber times for Jean and Parker. Lenore had been sharing a room with Ann Cummings, a book editor whose family consisted of a brown dog named Teddy. Parker came to the hospital that morning to find that Ann and Lenore had been moved into private rooms. He had been around the hospital long enough to know that this was not a good sign. Both women were losing their struggle against the disease.

Jean was in even worse shape than Parker that night at dinner.

"We had a fight," she said. "It wasn't good news today, and I guess Frank had no more convenient punching bag to hit."

"It's difficult," Parker consoled. "The pain is bad, but the fear is worse. Lenore's in a private room now."

"It may not mean what you think," Jean said, extending her hands to cover his.

"I'm not alone in the thought. They moved her suite mate, Ann, as well, and she asked me to take her dog when she is gone. They move you to a single room when they think the end is close. Ann knows, and so does Lenore."

Jean looked away, struck hard by the grief of the man on the other side of the table.

Noticing the waiter visibly hovering, Jean said, "Oh, we should go."

It was nearing eleven. The hotel staff was waiting to close the restaurant. They walked together to Jean's room. Normally, he would leave her at the door and go to his, but that night, she asked him in.

It had been five years with little sex for Jean Stevenson. In better times, it was Frank pressing her for sex. Like most women, even after marriage, she had had a hard time getting in touch with her own sexuality. But as sexual intimacy had slowly faded and then disappeared with the progression of the disease, Jean had experienced a profound sense of loss. She longed for the intimacy that came with sexual intercourse.

Parker had been celibate for nearly two years. He occasionally self-satisfied his needs, but mostly he cried—not visibly, but in his soul. Lenore was usually timid in bed, but she always lost her shyness in the thrill of their mutual pleasure. Lenore was an artist, and Parker a practical, earth-bound man. However, in bed with Lenore, he had learned to be an artist playing with all the colors of her sexual desires. He had developed a palette from which to paint the portrait of their marital love.

In Jean's hotel room, the two involuntary celibates fumbled toward each other—two desperate people in need of a physical connection.

"Would you like a drink?" Jean asked.

"I wouldn't mind. It's been a rough day."

The kiss came after the drink and had a far more stimulating effect.

"We shouldn't do this," Jean said as their lips parted.

"You're right," Parker replied as she kissed him again.

The very thought of bedding a man other than her husband was at once unthinkable to Jean and thereby immensely exciting. As with most women, the exciting thing about sex within a marriage of several years was the thought of sex with a man other than her husband. It is not that wives are inherently unfaithful, but no woman's romantic dreams involve fidelity.

Jean surrendered herself to the moment of escape from the painful reality of her life. She seized upon the man who was also drowning and together they made for a lifeboat of oblivion on their sea of despair.

In the morning, Jean woke to find Parker already awake and sitting up. He was sitting quite still looking out the window. The view was across a drab city street to a sterile office building.

"Feeling guilty?" Jean asked.

"Of course," he said. "You?"

"The same," she said, sitting up and moving to slip her naked body next to his.

"But—I'm not sorry," Parker said and turned to kiss her.

"Me neither," she said, as their lips met.

So, it began it was meant to be a one-time thing. Jean visited a pharmacy for a morning-after pill. Just a precaution, but one she had considered a week in advance of her slip. She soon had more consistent birth control, just another precaution, but one that proved necessary.

As the harsh New York winter passed into a wet spring, they abandoned all pretense and dropped two rooms in favor of one. Parker never shed his guild, but he didn't consider stopping the affair. He had divided his existence into two spheres. By doing so, he could stay sane as he watched the cancer take everything that had meaning in his life.

He assumed it was similar for Jean, but they never spoke of it. Now it had become a forbidden topic in the bubble world they occupied when they were together. Each morning he left Jean to take his place at the bedside of Lenore. Each night he returned a man ravaged by emotional pain to the woman who was equally suffering. They wrapped themselves around each other, brushing away the tears, and pretended this world was the true one.

In June, it all changed. It was just a week before summer, but hot and humid. It was as completely uncomfortable as New York can get. He made the walk to the hospital from his hotel in the muggy morning heat. On arriving, he could tell. The nurses didn't say it, but their faces said the end was near.

Lerone spent that day more clear of mind than she had been in several weeks. They talked about little things, memories of their years together. How Dan was at age two, and how different Derick was as a toddler. She slept a while and woke in the afternoon.

"I'm so sorry, Ed," she said out of the blue.

He was sitting by her bedside, half asleep, watching the litany of depressing news emanating from the cable TV in the room.

It took him a moment to respond, "Sorry—For what, My Love."

"For this! For all of it. For putting you through this."

He took her hand, "Hey! Not your fault. Things happen. We'll get through this together. You'll see."

He took her hand and gave what he hoped was an encouraging smile.

"No. I can't do it anymore. It's coming to an end. I'm sorry," she said as the tears ran down her face.

He was crying too. They sat there. She reminisced some more on their life together. She made him promise to go on.

"You find someone else," she said. "Don't force her to make the first move like I had to."

He stayed there at her bedside the balance of the day. At five o'clock, she closed her eyes. Slipped into a coma. Just after midnight, the monitors sounded the alarm, not a scream. It was a quiet plaintiff plea. The nurse came in. The don't resuscitate order had been signed the day before. Lenore, wife mother, lover, slipped away.

____________________________________________

When Parker returned to his hotel early in the morning, he expected to find Jean, but her things were gone. There was no note. She left no goodbye message. He later discovered her husband had been discharged. It was a full remission, one of the new treatment's success stories.

He visited Ann at the hospital to say goodbye. He found her in a bad way.

"Sorry about Lenore," she began. "Not supposed to know, but you hear the whispers."

"She just kind of gave up," Parker said.

"NO!" Ann said, grabbing his hand with all the strength she had left. "She accepted the inevitable. That's all she did. Now it's my turn."

"Don't say that."

"Why, because it's not true? No. I have only one regret. Poor Teddy is all alone in a dark apartment. Liz, my neighbor, has been walking and feeding him. She can't take him because of her cat. He's fine with felines, but the cat's not good with him. Poor Teddy is waiting for my return, but I think he knows that is a lost hope.

"I think he knew I was ill before the doctors did. They tell me that dogs can smell the cancer. Spaniels are the best. They can distinguish between very faint scents—my poor boy. He needs someone, and I think you need him. Please take him."

Parker took Teddy. They made the long trip upstate. The dog and the man both grieving. They came to the empty house. Teddy roamed the floors. All but the fourth. Lenore's old studio sat at the top of the house. That floor was off-limits. Parker didn't go there—didn't confront the ultimate face of his grief. Like Teddy, he lived with a hope that was impossible.

_______________________________

Thanksgiving dinner at the younger Parker's home was an odd affair. There were perhaps twenty people, a few family members, but also social and professional acquaintances of the newly married couple. It was catered in, and no one could object to the quality or quantity of the food. Still, the elder Parker ate very little and shared most of his meal with Teddy, who was confined to the back room for the duration of the feast.

After dinner, Parker escaped the socializing by walking out with Teddy. When they had gone but a short way, Jean caught up with them. They stopped at a solitary bench set a bit back from the roadway by what appeared to be a bus stop—a deserted place in a neighborhood of single-family homes with two-car garages.

"Can we talk?" she asked.

"Sure," he said, sitting down. Teddy took up residence at his feet.

"I'm sorry I didn't say goodbye," she began.

"No need," he said. "We weren't in an actual relationship. We just shared a bed of convenience."

She gave a little sob at his words and said, "I deserve that, I suppose, but we both know we had something much more."

She paused. They were both silent, and then she said the words, "I love you. I know that wasn't supposed to happen. Certainly, I didn't intend it. But it happened, and then Frank got better. I didn't know how to tell you. I couldn't find the words to say goodbye."

Parker turned to her. She was crying. "Please don't," he said. "I understand he's your husband, and he needs you. We let it go too far. It's no one's fault."

"Forgive me?" she begged.

"Nothing to forgive."

"But you're alone."

In response, he jiggled Teddy's leash and the dog looked up at them. "You're forgetting Teddy," he said.

Jean bent forward and petted Teddy's head. He licked her hand, and she smiled in return. "He's a good companion, but still."

"We two have a bond that is growing. He has a depth of pain that I can't understand yet, and he's trying to understand me. It's a work in progress. We're the survivors. They published Lenore's and Ann's obituaries on the same day. That's what they said. 'Survived by.'

"They laid out all their achievements, but both obituaries ended the same, survived by. Now it's up to us. We need to find our way. We're working on it, aren't we, boy."

Teddy's look was sad even for a spaniel, and Jean wondered how much the dog could understand. Did he really feel the profound grief of the man sitting next to her?

"I must go back," she said.

"I know. We'll be along in a bit."

Jean dried her tears and fixed her makeup on the way back. She had made the only choice she could, but she regretted it.

_______________________________

Early the next morning, before his daughter-in-law was up, Parker made ready to leave. Before he could slip out, his son Dan stopped him for a hug and a request.

"I heard from the Chicago Art Institute again. They still want to do that exhibition of Mom's work. They have most of her pictures that are in public hands, and many from private collections. But they want her recent work, and you still have that," Dan said.

"I know," Parker said. "I hear from them all the time."

"What's the problem, Dad?"

"It's just—" he began. "It's hard to explain."

"You've not been able to let her go," Dan prodded.

"In a way, I guess. There is a part of me that thinks like Ted here," Parker said, petting the dog. "He still hopes his mistress will come to get him and take him home. He must know it won't happen, but he hasn't given up hoping."

As they parted, Dan hugged his father hard to him and said, "We need you, Dad. Please come back soon."

Parker promised to return when he could. Driving home, Parker placed Teddy in the front passenger side of the car.

"Now be good, Ted. Stay down on the floor and behave."

Teddy settled in, and on the way home, when he could, Parker would lean over and pet Teddy's head. The dog seemed much happier with this arrangement. Parker realized they were finally getting to know each other.

When they arrived home, they had a late lunch of Teddy's favorite, chicken and rice. After lunch, they took a long walk. Finally, they climbed the stairs all the way to the top of the building for the first time together. There, Teddy caught his first glimpse of Lenore's studio. It smelled of paint and turpentine, with the musty scent of a long-unused place. Along two walls, canvases were stacked. One wall for new work and supplies, and the second crowded with finished work.

Parker settled into a chair set in the middle of the room. Teddy sat square on his feet, head resting in Parker's lap. An easel with an unfinished painting, Len Campbell's last work, stood nearby, waiting for the woman who would not return. It was a portrait of her husband. Parker's half-finished image only vaguely resembled him. It was the picture of a much younger man, a happy man, a man deeply in love. It was the picture of the quiet fellow who trailed along after the pretty blonde tour guide in the arts museum. It was the picture of the new father and loving husband who settled for work he could get for their sake. It was not the picture of the survivor. It was the unfinished portrait of the unfinished life.

The light streamed down through a skylight. Parker pulled a crumpled news clipping from his pocket.

"It occurs to me that I never read you Ann's obituary."

Teddy didn't stir as Parker read the death notice of Ann Cummings, prominent book editor. Reaching the end, he said, "And here's the part about you. Survived by her beloved and faithful canine, Theodore Bear Cummings, Teddy."

Parker paused and a tear slipped down his cheek. Then he rose. "It's time we cleared this room, Teddy. Get these paintings over to the Art Institute. It's just the two of us, but it's time we moved on."

Teddy stretched, scratched his ear, and followed Parker, but he knew the man was wrong. They would not be alone much longer. The woman called Jean would be coming. He had caught the scent on her husband. It was faint, but growing. The dog's nose could not be fooled. Frank Stevenson's cancer was back. Soon there would three survivors, bound by a common pain and destined to reach for life after tragedy.