We went to dance class the following evening where at the end of the class Madame Lenore announced that there would be a dance recital and she encouraged everyone to participate. John and I weren't particularly interested as we were simply taking the classes for Elaine, who on the other hand was so excited for the recital. She mentioned briefly that maybe she would dance with a partner, but quickly changed her mind and said she wanted to do a solo piece. Madame Lenore explained that it was mostly for fun and to draw in new members, but also to show the improvement of her students over the last few months. When I heard the date for when the recital would be held, I couldn't help but feel sad. June twelfth, the day of John's premonition.
On Friday after work we decided to head down to the conservation area to have a picnic just the three of us, while John read some of Elaine's favourite poetry out loud for us. We sat in the middle of a field blooming with wild flowers of all variety of colours, listening to the excited bird songs that fluttered all around. The sun was warm on my face as I laid back on the blanket we set out, listening to John recite William Wordsworth while Elaine tried her best to crochet. I say try because her hands were more stiff than usual, but she was determined to finish the place mats she had been working on for the last three months.
The glimmer of Lake Newberry was in the distance, beyond the hill that we were sitting on and past the sea of trees, reminding me that John's premonition wasn't far away either. I tilted my head over to look at John as he read the poem, seeing Elaine beside him as she carefully crocheted while a slight smile was on her face. They both looked so happy, and yet soon neither one of them would be able to sit here again. I wanted to freeze time, to be with them forever in the conservation area if that's what it meant to never lose either one. I would miss them both so much, wishing that death didn't have to be so near to us.
I rolled onto my side and placed my head in John's lap, listening to the rumble of his voice as he spoke each word as clear as the day they had been written. "For oft, when on my couch I lie – in vacant or in pensive mood, they flash upon that inward eye – which is the bliss of solitude; and then my heart with pleasure fills, and dances with the daffodils," John recanted, lowering one of his hands so he could gently stroke my hair while he balanced the book in his other hand.
"How truly mesmerizing," Elaine murmured, her voice soft and airy as she tilted her chin to the sky to let the sun wash over her pale skin. "Dancing with daffodils. I don't suppose he's alluding to the afterlife, do you?"
"Poetry is subjective, so even if that wasn't what he meant by it – maybe it can mean that to you?" I proposed, listening to Elaine hum softly to herself. "I think it means that we're never alone."
"If I can be completely honest, I'm not sure I understand poetry," John said, chuckling to himself as he set the book down. "It sounds nice, that's for sure, but sometimes it sounds like a lot of meaningless pretty words."
"You might be too young to understand poetry yet, my dear," Elaine said, smirking at him. "One day you'll see yourself in the words and wonder how you couldn't before. When you read this poem, what were you thinking?"
John pondered for a moment, shrugging his shoulders as he ran his fingers through my hair and looked out over the valley towards Lake Newberry. "He's saying he's as lonely as a cloud. But clouds aren't alone, they're almost always in clusters. He's looking down at the world and thinking he belongs there, right? What if he's ignoring what's around him and taking it for granted – and even though there are beautiful things all around, he's missing the fact that he's just as beautiful and just as important."
"Sounds to me like you understand poetry a lot more than you let on," Elaine replied, setting down her crocheting needles as she picked up her glass of red wine.
John shrugged his shoulders again, picking up the book where he left off while Elaine continued to sip at her wine while looking out over the beauty of the conservation area. He began to read the words out loud again and I closed my eyes to listen, drifting off into what I thought was a dream at first, but turned out to be too real.
My eyes opened and I was staring at a white ceiling while sunlight washed in all around me, turning my head to the side to see an intravenous line hooked up to the back of my hand and leading up to a bag filled with dark yellow fluids. My lungs felt weak with every breath I took, trying my best to breathe normally but finding myself unable to. There was so much pain in all of my body – there were cold and hot spots littered over every inch of my body, sending shock through my system as I tried to distinguish one pain from the next. I moaned softly, trying to turn over on my side but it hurt to even blink. I could hear the soft beeps of machinery around me, all of which happened to be connected to different spots on my body. I heard footsteps approach the side of my bed, using all of my strength to open my eyes. There was a woman in a pair of brightly coloured scrubs holding a glass of water with a straw in it, asking me if I would like a drink. I tried to say no but my mouth was so dry that I could barely move my tongue, feeling a deep rattle inside of my chest as I tried to inhale. She reached over to the nightstand table to pull out a cotton swab, gently dipping it into the water before placing it inside of my mouth to give me some water, assuring me that it would be better to at least get my mouth wet. Once she had saturated my mouth as much as she could, she pulled out a lip balm and dipped her pinky finger in before gently applying some to my cracked lips. I had seen this sort of treatment before, it was the same way they treated someone who was palliative.
With what little strength I could muster, I whispered to ask if I was going to die today, and the nurse had to look away for a moment as she composed herself. When she turned back to look at me, she had tears in her eyes as she forced a smile out, telling me that if I was ready to go that she would be by my side no matter what. She explained that the doctor said to manage my pain and that if I needed anything at all, she would gladly get something to help me. But my mind kept thinking of one thing and one thing only – the love of my life, Marie. I remember spending every day with her, our friendship was solid like the foundation of a house in hurricane country, willing to be put to every test of the wind. But when she left her husband, Fletcher, she left Harrow Hall behind, including me – Dorothy Bernadine. I never quite understood why she didn't take me with her, especially because she knew I was dying of cancer. The thoughts of her leaving without even saying goodbye never left my mind, haunting me day in and day out. I wanted so badly to have my best friend by my side, especially today as I prepared myself to move on to the next life, but she wasn't going to be here.
When the nurse asked again if I needed anything, I told her no even though that was a lie. I needed Marie, if only for a minute to tell her that I loved her. I knew she loved me, but she was too afraid to tell me and therefore she ran away from what she felt. Was it safer for her to deny her feelings for me rather than to be with me? I would have waited forever for her if that's what it took, I would have done anything – I just needed her to know that I loved her. I couldn't cry despite how hard I tried because I had no fluids left in my body, I was on death's door and soon enough I would pass through.
Just as the nurse turned to leave, I raised a finger at her to get her to stay. She grabbed my hand in hers, holding it so lightly as though she was afraid to break me, asking me what it was that I needed. I asked her to write something down for me, feeling my breath getting harder and harder to catch. The nurse scrambled to get a piece of paper, taking her pen out to write down exactly what I said. After she wrote it down, she began to cry and held the piece of paper up to her chest, as though she was holding it to her heart. I smiled one last time, and then the last bit of light faded out of my eyes forever.
I opened my eyes, feeling a tear roll down the side of my cheek and fall onto the blanket below me. The chirping of the birds were clear as day again, the heat of the sun still bathing us in it's eternal rays, and John's words filling the silence between the three of us. My heart was so warm at the thought of what Dorothy Bernadine had the nurse write down for her, but sadness overtook me as I thought of Dorothy never getting to see Marie Daniels again before she passed. I knew at that moment that I had to make things right between Dorothy and Marie, even though it wasn't my place to interfere. Marie needed to hear what Dorothy said and they needed to be together when Dorothy died. Their story couldn't end so abruptly, especially unfinished. They were two best friends that had fallen in love with each other, needing confirmation that their love was just as important as any other. With this in mind, I listened to John finish the chapter of poems before we packed up to head home.
~~~
Dorothy Bernadine happened to be on my grocery delivery route, and today I was determined to spend time with her in order to hopefully find a way to get Marie Daniels to come visit her. I had just over a week to make things right between the two women before Dorothy's premonition came true. I hadn't realized that her cancer had progressed to such a devastating stage, having thought that she was in remission when in reality she had been given her prognosis a few months prior. I found it strange that her premonition only came to me a week before her actual death, which was unusual. Usually I had a bit more time to work with, wondering why Dorothy was different.
Dorothy had married young due to an unplanned pregnancy, a marriage she was forced into by her parents in order to keep up appearances. Dorothy had never wanted to be with Victor Bernadine, she had slept with him to make sure that her feelings of being attracted to women were true. Unfortunately she managed to get pregnant in the one time she had sex with a man, and now had to pay the consequences for it. Victor was pleasant enough and knew fully well that Dorothy didn't care much for men, but he played along so that her parents would never find out about her true identity. This went on until their son was moving out to go to college, finally deciding that it was time to end the marriage. They managed to live side-by-side for eighteen years, never once breaking character so that their son could grow up with what he thought was a nuclear family. Two loving parents, a dog, a house, and a scholarship to university – nothing was out of the ordinary. But Dorothy took refuge in her friendships, living vicariously through her friends, specifically Marie. At first she wanted to deny how she felt about Marie, because she couldn't allow herself to get romantically attached to someone when she was trying to play the perfect housewife. But the time came when both Dorothy and Marie could no longer deny the love they shared between them, never once being unfaithful to their husbands. Marie had been trapped in a loveless marriage for quite some time, stuck with Fletcher Daniels himself while he battled a very serious gambling addiction. She kept telling herself that Fletcher would get better, that he wouldn't continue to hurt her – but it took one thing to send her over the edge. She contemplated leaving Fletcher for Dorothy, she had even written the note explaining that the two of them were going to be life partners. But she tore up the note and burnt any remainders so that no one would ever know, no one could ever know about her real feelings.
Marie considered herself a heterosexual woman, before Dorothy she had never looked at another woman twice. But there was something about the softness in Dorothy's brown eyes, the way she smiled when she thought no one was looking, and more importantly how Marie felt completely at peace whenever Dorothy was around. If soul-mates were real, Marie knew that Dorothy was hers. But she battled with her own upbringing and how anti-homosexual her family had been, instilling the same thinking into her. She blamed herself constantly and often tried to deny that she loved Dorothy, but there came a time when she could no longer hide it. She thought about buying two plane tickets and leaving behind Harrow Hall, but instead she bought a single ticket and left without a moments notice.
I sat in front of Dorothy as she tried to bring her mouth down to the straw in her lukewarm tea, attempting to get a sip of it but losing her strength halfway. I asked if I could help her, and she gratefully accepted. Once she managed to get a sip of her tea, she leaned back in her bed and sighed. I wasn't afraid to ask her about Marie, because there was no sense in wasting any time. At first she was timid to talk about Marie, but eventually Dorothy told me everything from start to finish. My heart broke for her, wondering how she was able to get by knowing that the love of her life wasn't coming back.
"I still wait for her every morning," Dorothy said in nothing but a whisper, she was too weak to lift her voice, "hoping that maybe she'll come back."
"You don't have any way of getting in contact with her?" I questioned.
"Even if I could, I wouldn't. If I'm not what she wants, I can't force her to love me. It's hard being gay," Dorothy explained. "All you want to do is love with every inch of your heart, to love the way that straight couples do, but you can't do that yet. You just can't. A lot of people want to believe it's just a phase or that we're angry at men, but that's not what its about for me. I'm not angry with anyone but myself for not being more honest with myself from day one."
"Wouldn't it be more honest to tell Marie that you love her?"
"And then what? She made her decision to leave without me, we could have easily gone together, but ultimately it isn't what she wanted. I have to try to be okay with that," Dorothy said, letting out a deep sigh as she tried to catch her breath. "Besides, maybe she will come back for me."
"Does she – know?" I couldn't say the words that you're dying without feeling my heart tear apart.
Dorothy shook her head. "I don't suppose many people do. I like it better this way. One day I'll be here, no one will think a thing of it, and the next I'll be gone."
"What about your son?"
"He knows I'm sick, obviously – but he doesn't know that it's only a matter of time."
"How long did they give you?"
"Less than six months, believe it or not. I'm going to expire faster than a can of soup," She managed to laugh, shrugging it off. "You know you don't need to stop to talk if you don't want to, I won't hold it against you."
"I like talking to you, Dorothy," I said, reaching out to place my hand over hers. "You should know you're important enough for people to say their last goodbyes."
"I prefer see you later," She said, smiling weakly at me.
I nodded. "What if Marie did come back? Would you let her know that you're dying?"
"If Marie came back, I don't think I'd care if I was dying."
"So you wouldn't be upset if she came to see you?"
"I'd be ecstatic," Dorothy said.
I wasn't sure how I was going to do it, but I needed to find out where Marie went so that I could bring her and Dorothy back together again.