The Opposite of Never Read online

  Georgia stroked her daughter’s hair and held her gently, just as she’d done when Margot was a child.

  Christopher was now squatting next to Sebastian. “It’s going to be all right, buddy. Don’t be embarrassed. Lots of people faint when they’re in shock.”

  The doctor spoke firmly to Sebastian. “You stay where you are until your heart rate steadies out. Just try to breathe normally and relax. Does your head hurt? Do you think you hit it?”

  “I’m fine. I’m fine. I don’t know what happened. One minute I was standing by Dad, and the next I woke up down here. Please let me get up. Can I at least sit in the chair?”

  The doctor nodded to Christopher, and they cautiously helped him up into the green vinyl recliner.

  Looking at the anguished face of Sebastian, who was not long ago her sweet baby boy, Georgia felt an oven-like roiling twisting her insides. “Oh no!” she exclaimed to no one in particular. Four seconds later, she was gasping for fresh air as beads of perspiration dripped down between her breasts and her shirt stuck to her skin. She battled the urge to tear her clothing off.

  Frantically, Margot pulled away from her embrace. “Eww, Mom, gross.”

  Months earlier, Georgia had told her own doctor that she thought she was pretty much done with menopausal symptoms. “I’m looking forward to the next phase of my life. Do you remember the anthropologist Margaret Mead? She said, ‘There is no greater power in the world than the zest of a postmenopausal woman.’ I’m ready for some zest.”

  Georgia was thrilled to be past the arduous seven years during which she had endured the explosive sweats she nicknamed her supernovas. The least amount of stress would trigger one.

  When her school district, Lincoln West Supervisory Union, had approved her request to attend a symposium on writing standards that could be used across all subject areas, she was honored. It was a full week of study at a center in New Orleans, and it required them to hire a substitute for five days to cover her classes. In return, they asked Georgia to present her findings to the entire staff upon her return. She was happy to do it, although she knew she would be nervous speaking in front of her colleagues. Just as she was beginning her presentation, a hot flash hit her hard. Two drops of perspiration rolled off her nose before she acknowledged to the audience there was a problem. Luckily, the large room had a kitchenette in the front corner. Georgia strode over to it, ripped off a paper towel, and wet it in the sink. She placed the cool towel across her eyes, the top of her face, and her temples.

  “Don’t be alarmed folks,” she nearly shouted, “It’s only a power surge. Totally normal for us older gals.”

  Her audience laughed, and one of her friends called out, “Take a minute, Georgia. We can wait.”

  She went ahead and finished the lecture, although her sodden sweater and trousers seemed to weigh a hundred pounds. Hot flashes were a constant source of embarrassment, and she was gratefully relieved when they finally sputtered to a stop.

  Jack’s sudden death had sent her back into a dripping spiral, a relapse of sorts. The night after he died, she passed out from exhaustion for about two hours, only to be jerked awake by the instability of her body’s temperature extremes. She hoped it was caused by the jolt of her jarring morning. When the same thing happened the following night, she was perturbed. After two weeks of the same late-night routine, Georgia was despondent. The new grief-induced menopause only caused night sweats, while her first menopause had her flashing every few hours throughout the day. Though they were milder by comparison, Georgia was still weary, irritable, and depressed.

  Each morning, she considered calling her primary care physician and asking for some sleeping pills. She resisted the impulse because she had used them for a few years during her first round with the change of life. They had been shockingly hard to stop taking. After many failed endeavors, she had waited until school was out for the summer and made a plan. On her pre-scheduled week, she cut the pills into smaller and smaller pieces over a five-day period. On the sixth day, she didn’t take anything at all.

  That was the night Jack had told her to stop thrashing around so many times that she finally got up and went into her son’s old room. She hadn’t confided in Jack about what she was trying to accomplish, as she never wanted to provide him with ammunition he could use against her in an argument. When he was angry, he was more than capable of stooping quite low.

  The day that followed her abstinence, Georgia had stomach cramps and walked around in a very unpleasant haze. She did not sleep at all for the next three nights. It took another full week for her body to regulate itself. She was unwilling to go through it again.

  Georgia staggered into the kitchen, hoping against hope she had remembered to set the timer on the coffee machine the previous night. The rich aroma rising from the appliance, along with the sound of sputtering steam, made her feel profoundly comforted. As she poured herself a cup, she noticed her dog, Dolly Parton, who was confined at night in the mud-room by a baby gate that fit snugly into the doorframe. Dolly, a mini Australian Shepherd, stuck her nose through the bars and stared at Georgia with vibrating anticipation. Dolly had tricolor markings, with a mostly blue coat, a white chest, and tan legs and points. She had one pale blue eye and one amber. Georgia thought she was the prettiest dog she had ever seen and deserving of the name of a famous beauty. At this moment, her blue eye shot Georgia a penetrating stare. “Don’t give me that look. I have to have some coffee before I take you out. It’s not optional this morning.”

  Each day, Georgia rediscovered that once she got going and started moving around, her languor was manageable. By noon, she always made the conscious decision not to ask for any drugs to help her sleep. Instead, she started calling her friends to plan a long hike. Surely, exercise will tire me out enough that I will sleep tonight.

  And, of course, Dolly Parton loved the woods. Aussies need a lot of exercise.

  Three

  “Just remember, we’re all in this alone.”

  —Lily Tomlin

  Yvonne was huffing and puffing as she walked up the steep dirt path. “This is what having a second home does to you. Florida is flat as a pancake. I walked every day during the winter months; I promise you I did. It hardly did me any good at all. Don’t let me hold you two back. If you want to go ahead, my feelings won’t be hurt.” She stopped to catch her breath. Her two friends, Georgia and Linda, stood on either side of her. Linda rubbed her back for a few minutes while they rested. Eventually, Yvonne was able to say something. “This view never gets old. What a gorgeous day.”

  It was late March and technically still “mud season” in Vermont. As they walked the byway, the women were forced to skirt around wet areas they referred to as “quicksand,” because, if you stepped into it, the muck could suck the boot right off your foot. The road was lined with deciduous trees, but it was too early for the leaves to burst out of their red bud casings. Patches where the snow cover had melted through to grass provided some muted straw-yellow color, and occasional stands of coniferous trees were a deep forest green. The sun shone brightly, and a fenced pasture in the immediate distance gave way to open fields. Beyond were layers of ridges that rolled in changing hues, more smokelike and lighter farther away. Finally, the entire landscape flowed out to the Green Mountains. The effect was uplifting, and they were overjoyed that after a long, frigid winter, it was now a balmy forty degrees.

  Georgia reminded Yvonne, “Walking slower gives me more of a chance to talk to you two. You know I always say, ‘No matter what problems I have when we start our loop, you girls have ironed out the wrinkles by the time we finish.’ Thank God, spring is here. Yvonne, you know I have a twenty-degree rule about hiking. I don’t go out when it’s colder than twenty degrees.”

  Linda concurred. “I look at the thermometer before I even bother to pick up the phone to call her. For years, I tried to convince Georgia that if it were sunny enough, she could still enjoy herself despite the freezing weather. Then she complained the e
ntire five and a half miles. I finally gave up. Happy spring, everybody! We can all get in shape again.”

  “Yvonne, it was the coldest winter I can remember. You didn’t miss a thing,” Georgia told her.

  “My calves are still sore from the hike on Saturday. Going slower will give them time to warm up.” Linda generously tagged on to the round of reassurances. The three women climbed deliberately and silently up the trail. They could hear Dolly Parton as she ran a parallel, but not always straight, course deeper in the woods.

  It was Linda who broke the silence. She had once been a natural blonde, though the bangs that peeked out of her knit cap and framed her Viking-blue eyes were now dyed a golden color. Linda was short, about five foot three, and weighed twenty pounds more than she would have liked. It was a never-ending source of frustration for her, because she exercised every day and carefully made all her meals from scratch.

  “Georgia, fair warning. Barb’s planning a dinner party. She thinks five months is long enough for you to grieve, and it’s time for you to start dating. She’s going to invite you and try to set you up with a younger man that she knows.”

  “No thanks,” Georgia said before she even thought about what was coming out of her mouth.

  “She says he won’t mind if you’re ten years older.”

  “Oh, that’s so nice of him. What if I mind? Does anybody consider what the woman wants? If I wanted to be with a man—and you both know I do not—I would want somebody my own age. You have more in common that way. Besides, I was clear about it when Jack passed on, that part of my life is over. I’m too old and beat up to want to shed my clothes and be naked with any other man. Never again.”

  After a few beats in time, she continued, “Plus men are so much work. I know young people are different now, but I’m hardwired to cook and clean. My mother raised me to be a good wife and mother—it was her primary goal for me. If I had a boyfriend, I would be stuck doing his laundry in five minutes. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.”

  “Well, be prepared for the invitation. You can always turn her down.”

  They plodded along quietly for a while until Yvonne had a question. “Can you just go for dinner and have a night out without feeling like they are inflicting the guy on you? Maybe he’d turn out to be a good friend, someone to go to the movies with. Wouldn’t it be fun to buy season tickets to the concert series in Shelburne this summer and have a friend to go with? Or maybe you’d wind up having similar interests and decide to travel together. Is sex really that important at our age? Do you have to worry about that?”

  “Platonic friendship would be far more likely if he were in his sixties, instead of forty-eight. I don’t know about the rest of you, but all that really slowed down when my husband was in his late fifties,” Linda stated adamantly.

  “I bet you can’t even count on that anymore,” Georgia speculated. “With all these penis pills on the market, even the old guys are probably demanding entire nights of repeat sex.” Her eyes bugged out because she had a sudden brainstorm. “I want to know why they have figured out a way to give an old man an erection for two days, but not how to stabilize a hot flash.”

  She was furious at the thought of it.

  “Another bad night?” Linda asked.

  “The house was so quiet it was hard to fall asleep. I heard every creak and groan of the building. I never even noticed such tiny noises before Jack died. Then I woke up for the usual sweaty reason at three. On a hot flash intensity scale of one to ten, I would give it an eight. That’s unheard of at my age.”

  “What does Dr. Gluck say about you suddenly having hot flashes again?” Yvonne asked as she tugged her jacket down over her trim behind. She took her hat off and stuck it between her knees as she cinched her dark, shoulder-length hair into a ponytail.

  “He says he has seen it happen before. He thinks it’s the stress from the shock of the day . . . and grief, of course. I live that morning over and over in my head. The slightest thing can trigger intrusive thoughts.”

  It actually surprised Georgia that she was so consistently distraught over her husband’s death. She and Jack had been together for over thirty years, but long ago, they had reached an emotional plateau that stretched before them into the foreseeable future. It sometimes felt like a death march. There were many days they’d had very little to say to each other, and it annoyed her to go to the trouble of making a home-cooked meal when her husband barely bothered with table conversation.

  Eventually, she would have to threaten him. “I’m not going to cook anymore if I have to sit here in silence and listen to you chew.”

  “I work hard. I’m tired at the end of the day.”

  Jack would make an effort for a few weeks, she had to give him that, but he would eventually fall into his old habits. In the candlelit quiet, the only sounds were soft music she had carefully chosen and his knife and fork scraping against their good china. At times, Georgia thought dark things like, I should take this bowl of garlic-mashed potatoes and dump it over his big bald head. That would get his attention. After dinner, he would take the dog outside and throw a ball for her while Georgia cleaned up the kitchen. When he was done, he’d popped in to say hello before he retired to his rec room turned cigar-and-sports cave to watch the game. Any game. Georgia was left to select one of the several books she was reading or watch a movie. When it was late enough, she was finally freed from her boredom by sleep.

  It wasn’t a bad life. They didn’t argue much, and they enjoyed all the traditions they had made together with their children. Christmas was nearly a week of get-togethers. The holiday was officially launched when all of the families—hers, Linda’s, and Yvonne’s—went out to a farm owned by other friends and cut down the trees they had all preselected and marked in August.

  The night of the cutting, Georgia laid out hot appetizers wrapped in layers of flaky dough, nuts, olives, cheeses, and cured meats as Jack opened a beautiful bottle of rosé. Their three children joined them for the party. They reminisced over their collection of ornaments as they hung them up, and a fire roared.

  That same week, there was the community sing-along night, and Jack always bought an entire table of tickets for the Rotary Club’s holiday fundraiser. They hosted an annual dinner party on December 23, and Yvonne and her husband Rolland’s open house was on Christmas Eve, after which the kids came home and slept in their old rooms. Georgia’s immediate family opened gifts in the morning after coffee, and by the time they had a standing rib roast mid-afternoon, they were all satisfied.

  The rest of the year wasn’t as intense, but it was full. There were New Year’s Eve and Day holidays, the birthdays of five family members and their friends, sugar on snow in March, Easter, Memorial Day, a long weekend for the Fourth of July, the Labor Day barbeque, Thanksgiving, outings for Christmas shopping, and then it started all over again. It seemed there was always an event on their social calendar, and both Jack and Georgia looked forward to the children getting married, and to being grandparents.

  However, so much was left unspoken between them that Georgia felt lonely much of the time. This nearly came to a crisis when the children grew up and left home. She didn’t know anyone who had suffered as much as she had with the empty nest. Her children shared her sense of humor, and constantly joked around in their own special code.

  One day, when they were young, the kids were all having breakfast at the table by the large-paned glass window in her kitchen. A robin with an enormous puffed up chest flew to the birdfeeder on the other side. Georgia, referring to their school principal, said, “Oh, look, children. Mr. Martin has come to call on us.”

  All three of them guffawed. They recognized instantly the red chest as a metaphor for Mr. Martin’s extreme demeanor of self-importance.

  Margot seamlessly added, “Well, hello, Mr. Martin. Yes, we know you are a very busy man. Yes, we do feel honored you are here.”

  “Yes, sir, and we all know you are also on the board of selectmen,” Christopher
said as he rolled his eyes.

  Sebastian wasn’t at the elementary school yet, as he was only five, but he joined in saying, “Meesta Mawwtin.”

  That sent Georgia and her children into waves of giggling hilarity. Georgia was actually crying with laughter, and all day long, she would crack up thinking about it.

  Many years later, after the children were grown and on their own, Jack was sitting at the head of the table with a magazine next to his plate. On the cover was a politician who looked a bit like their family dentist. She and the children had remarked to each other on the resemblance before. Georgia was standing next to his chair placing serving bowls of food in front of him.

  “Look!” she said with a laugh. “Dr. Morris’s brother is running for governor again.”

  Jack met her eyes with a scowl and uttered a taciturn upbraid. “I don’t understand what you are trying to tell me.”

  Georgia felt certain he had understood her wisecrack. She felt breathless, as if she had been cut off at the knees. “The man on the cover looks like our dentist.”

  “I always hated when you and the kids played games like that.”

  I guess he told me, Georgia thought. She was wounded but wouldn’t let him see her break down.

  Georgia walked out of the room, went out to the back porch, and sat down. She had a glass of wine with her that she sipped slowly. When she had finished it, she went into the dining room and cleared the table. She ate her own dinner out of the serving bowls as she cleaned up the kitchen. Georgia felt misunderstood and unappreciated. She was tired of her husband’s hostility.

  It was only after Jack died that she concluded he had shown his love for her with his actions. He tried to tell her many times, “Talk is cheap. I like it when people do.” She remembered how he used to stop by a specialty bakery on his days off and bring her home a cheddar popover. He often mentioned how long he waited to make sure the one he brought to her was piping hot and fresh from the oven. She ran out of gas three times after he was gone because Jack had always maintained the car she drove and kept her tank filled. When the first snowfall came, she realized she had not lifted a shovel in thirty-two years. Yet, he’d always cleared a path from her front door to car door so thoroughly that she had barely gotten her shoes wet.