Meet Me There

By J.L. Rodze

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 25, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465343345

J.L. Rodze

My name is Jorge Rodriguez, born in Havana, Cuba. I left Cuba on December 1961. I ioined the U.S. Army in 1962, discharged and then moved to Boston in 1964. Attended Northeaster University, graduated in 1985. I attended night school. Married to Gloria Alvarez. Had two children and as of this writing, I enjoy five the presence of my five grandchildren. I hope my first book is welcome by the public. My nom de plume is J.L. Rodze.

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Copyright © 2011 by J.L. Rodze.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011913317

ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4653-4333-8

ISBN: Softcover 978-1-4653-4332-1

ISBN: Ebook 978-1-4653-4334-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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CONTENTS

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

PART 1

Lisa sat by the door [of the room] where Edith had been [placed]. A nurse came out, leaning over asked her whether Mrs. Holden’s husband was available. It’s getting closer, she wants to see him; she knows. Lisa felt a cold shiver run down her spine. She asked the nurse, her voice trembling as eyes began to fill with tears. How is she? The nurse leaned forward and held her hand. She is calm; she is a very brave woman. Looking intently into Lisa’s eyes she whispered She’s going home, she told me. Someone call her from the desk. She straightened herself up, turned briefly to the caller and signaled she would be there soon. Lisa’s eyes were flowing with tears. The nurse had seen that face a million times before, and knew it always hurt. She felt compassionate, it’s never easy she thought. Before moving away she said, She needs you all to be as brave as she is. Lisa nodded, she could not articulate a single word. She managed a coy smile, as tears rolled down her rosy cheeks. The nurse pointed to the desk where she would be stationed. Anything you need just call, we won’t be far. She turned and hurried back to the nurses station half way down the hall.

It was eight forty when Nathe walked into the ward, Lisa had gone into the room. She was sitting by the bed staring at her friend when Nathan came into the room. He looked haggard. The last few weeks had been an ordeal taking Edith in and out of the hospital for blood transfusions that were not helping. He had hardly slept in the last four days. His eyes were sunk and bloodshot. Lisa worried about him. She didn’t know how long he would be able to keep up with this nightmarish situation.

Edith had kept it a secret for such a long time. She wanted to make sure it was leukemia before Nathan were to know. Maybe it’s just some strange bug; why worry him for nothing. She had told Nathan she had contracted some type of mononucleosis You know one of those things that haunt us girls And she made sure Lisa would not say a word to anyone. When it finally came to be the dreaded disease, she found ways to postpone telling Nathe. She had made all the arrangements concerning her funeral, her burial including the stone, and even her epitaph. Incredibly, fourteen months had gone by and very few people knew Edith Nolsen had terminal cancer.

She never talked or complained about it. When the pain became unbearable, she would excuse herself saying she had a bug. It’ll go away in a few days. She always tried to look the best she could. She had had her ups and downs but things had taken a bad turn the past three months. The blood transfusions were not helping at all. Edith knew the end was coming. She had lost so much weight, she looked frail.

He was standing next to the door, his eyes fixed on the inert figure on the bed. Lisa came to him and closed the door behind Nathan. She kissed him and gently pulled him towards the bed. She’s been asking for you I’m so glad you’re here. He tried to say something but Lisa pressed her fingers against his lips. Before he could react Lisa’s voice took hold of him The doctor says it won’t be long now. Her eyes once again began to fill up with tears, the words crowded in her throat. She managed to tell him she was going to get the Chaplain.

Nathan look distraught, nothing was making sense. Lisa saw the consternation in Nathan’s face She got baptized this morning, she asked for it. I’ll be right back.

Lisa moved away from Nathan, when she got to the door she turned and looked at her friend. Growing up Nathan had been the brother she never had. Later in her life, she dreamt, for a long while, he would fall in love with her. Secretly, she had been madly in love with him. It had been her who had introduced him to Edith. As time passed, after Edith and Nathe had fallen in love with each other, Lisa learned to let the flames of her amorous feelings subside. She let those emotions remain dormant beneath the ashes. She loved them both very much, they had become an intrinsic part of her life.

She could not conceive life away from them. Lisa stepped out closing the door softly behind her.

Nathan remained by the bed looking at his emaciated Edith. Baptized! He had never been a religious person. Yes, he had been baptized as an infant, but he had never practiced Catholicism. Nathan had remained, like many others, nominal at best. However, given his nature, he didn’t harbored any enmity against any religion. If Edith wished to be baptized it was OK by him. It was the immediacy of the events. He felt as if his heart was sinking into quicksand.

Lisa’s word when he had entered the room had shaken him out of the twilight zone where denial is possible. He had convinced himself this devil could be defeated. Science had come along way. Besides, these things happened to other people, they took place somewhere else. But now he was confronted with something he had no control over, something that didn’t make any sense. He covered his face with his hands.

A strange coldness had enveloped his legs. He wanted to rush to her, yet fear kept him fixed in place. Suddenly, she opened her eyes. Those beautiful blue eyes were looking at him once again. She smiled and called him to her side. The sound of her voice, though weak, was warm enough to melt the shackles that had rendered him immobile. Nathan took her hand and sat next to her, his eyes fixed on her face, he looked like a sick puppy, a lost child.

She smiled, she tried to consoled him. My sweet, her voice was weak but serene. Nathan leaned forward, his mind was a whirlwind of meaningless thoughts and images. He was desperately trying to sort it all into something rational and sensible, but nothing made much sense. She saw the fear in his eyes, she tried to calmed him down. The loneliness that choked him hurt her more than the cancer eating her life away. It was not her personal death that caused her soul to pine, but the havoc it had began to make in her man’s life.

But she must not be weak; she must not allow self-centeredness rob her chance to reach him before leaving this life. She would not allow fear create a gulf between her and her Nathan. She must make him realize she won’t be far, no matter how crazy it may sound. He must not give into despair. She prayed he would not give up on life. He must not give into self-pity. She prayed Oh my sweet Lord please guide him. Her last desire was for him to be victorious.

Nathan noticed her concernment. Suddenly he realized how weak she was. Every word was said with great effort. She kept smiling, her breath was short. "Nathan, please love, don’t be angry". Nathan hushed her, tears clouding his eyes. "Please Edith honey try to rest, I’m not angry, I swear . . ." He forced a smile, his eyes were saying more that his words. She could see how he loved her and it hurt to say goodbye to the love of her life.

Dying alone would have been easier. But here and now she was to surrender a very special part of her. If she loved him, and God knew how she loved him, she would not allow anything to suffocate the life of her soul mate. Doing that would be her real death.

She heard him repeat. "Rest Edith my love, don’t force yourself, please rest. You’ll see everything is going to be OK, you’ll see". She felt very tired, slowly Edith turned her head from Nathan. Light did not enter her eyes any longer, she could not see the face she had kissed and loved so much. She felt a force pulling her gently into another reality. The serene smile remained on her face. her stared was fixed on the ceiling. "Nathe, thank you for having loved me, please don’t be angry" Her voice became weaker still. With an effort beyond comprehension she whispered her farewell, it was more a promise than a goodbye. "If God let’s me, I’ll be your guardian ange . . . .".

He felt something going through him, he panicked. Oh God what was happening? Then in a panic, Nathan knew she was slipping like water through his fingers and there was no way he could stop it. A thick wall, indifferent, foreboding of dark tidings, had descended cutting him off from the being that had animated his life. A million questions that never entered his mind before now rushed in like apocalyptic demons to tear his soul apart. He tried to speak but the lump in his throat choked the words. His mouth was rendered mute.

There was dead silence in the room. Nathan lifted his head, his tear-filled eyes looked at his inert wife’s face. Edith had slipped away, her beautiful blue eyes had turned glassy, the pupils dilated. The smile had remained stamped on her semblance. Nathan began to sob like a child.

When Lisa returned with the Nurse, the Chaplain, a Catholic priest not far behind, they had to remove him with some effort. They found him over Edith’s motionless body, holding her tight to his chest. "Please don’t leave me, please come back, I’m not angry, I swear". Lisa held him and tried to soothe him but she knew at this moment that the schism could not be bridged. He would hurt for some time to come.

She too hurt. The loss of her friend was immense. No longer would she have the comfort of someone like Edith to help her keep her sanity and navigate the trouble waters of a relationship gone sour. Her friend had listened to her complaints, her disappointments. Edith had cried with her and had help her make one of the most important decisions of her life. She had helped her see she did not need to stay with a man that had never cared to be a father and who did not cared to salvage their marriage. But now her confidant, the school days friend was gone, and somehow she had to help this man who had been left adrift. She had to summon all the strength she could muster and help Nathan over the hump. Something made her keep silent, she fought to pull out from a morass of disconnected emotions.

Lisa began to pull him gently outside. One of the doctors who had rushed into the room quickly checked Edith’s pulse, the other was looking at the flat line showing on the monitor. A notation was taken as to the date and time of the patient’s death and they were entered into a log. The doctor who had examined Edith, gently closed her eyes. He was about to cover her face with the sheet but the presence of the distraught Nathan and Lisa took the thought away.

Nathan remained by the window looking out into nothingness. Lisa came and gently nudged him on his side. "Nathan, here, it’s fresh. Have some". She handed him a cup of coffee she had bought downstairs in the cafeteria. Like a robot, Nathan sipped the coffee. They remained in silence for a while. Lisa turned to Nathan. Before her eyes was a man stunned by the ordeal of his wife’s death. Someone from the office came with questions concerning the disposition of the body, funeral arrangements and other pertinent questions.

Lisa handled most of this rather unsavory business, Nathan did not seem to grasp what the whole thing was about. "Can I get back to you in an hour or so? I have to make some phone calls . . ." He sounded lethargic, disconnected. It was uncle Willie who came to the rescue, in the nick of time, to provide all the details concerning those last things.

After he had returned from the office of Human Affairs, uncle Willie explained to Nathan, as Lisa listed with moisten eyes how Edith had asked, a few weeks before to make arrangements with a funeral home in Wellesley and to finalize the purchase of a lot on a knoll overlooking the Charles River in the South Natick cemetery. Even the grave stone with its epitaph. "Forgive me son, she wanted to spear you any unpleasantness". The old man’s chin shivered as his eyes filled with tears. "Forgive us son".

Gently, Nathan embraced the old man, he struggled to regain some composure. He made an effort to clear his throat till finally was able to speak. "I know uncle Willie, I know, believe me I know. Please don’t worry". Nathan knew, he could feel the pain that weighted down on this incredible human being, instrumental in the molding of the character of the woman who filled his life for seventeen years. He had suffered loss too. First his family including his twin brother back in Treblinka, then his wife Abby had passed away not that long ago, and now the niece he had raised as his own daughter. The last traces of a family that once upon a time had dreamed, laughed, cried and waited for the next generation to come to fill the spot they had prepared. He held the frail body of the man he had come to love as a father. He had learned much from this man of gentle yet assertive ways of thinking.

Lisa again getting misty-eyed turned to the window to hide her tears. Outside the dampen streets—clouds were crying over Boston that night—gleamed under the beams of streetlights and headlamps from vehicles of different size and shapes. On one of the entries to the subway on the Boston Commons, on the outside wall, a graffiti hollered at indifferent passersby. Is there life before death?

It was close to ten p.m. when they left the hospital. Nathan agreed Lisa would drive back to Natick. Nathan sat in front with her while uncle Willie sank in the back seat, pensive. She drove to her house. She looked tired and worn out. The front light came on. Lisa’s mother, Mrs. Costello came out to the porch and waited for them to reach the house. She didn’t say much.

The lady greeted Lisa with a kiss. She squeezed Nathan’s hand, letting him know, in that tacit way her empathy. Nathan thanked her. Lisa turned to Nathan and pleaded "Nathe please try to rest, you need some sleep. Wish you stayed here with us tonight". Nathan thanked her again, and assured her he would be fine, besides there was uncle Willie. "I’ll call you in the morning, I promise" She smiled agreement, her mother interrupted "Yes Nathan you go now try to rest", with a discrete gesture, she pointed out to the car. UNCLE Willie should not be left waiting any longer. "I’ll have breakfast ready". Before Nathan could answer Mrs. Costello added "Is no bother, don’t leave me waiting. I’ll be most disappointed". Turning she went back into the house. "Good night son". Lisa said good night "See you in the morning Nathe". Nathan went back to the car. Uncle Willie had moved up to the front seat, he was puffing on his pipe, the aromatic tobacco permeated the car. Lisa saw the car pull out and went into the house, her mother was in the kitchen getting a cup of herbal tea ready. "Here child, drink it, and try to get some sleep, tomorrow will be a long day".

She went to her room. Lisa remained in the kitchen trying to reconcile herself to the fact that Edith was gone. Life had made an incredible turn, it would not be the same any more. Things were about to change drastically. What was going to happen with Nathan? What would he do? A chill ran down her spine. Lisa shook her head trying to clear her thoughts. She was feeling ashamed.

For a moment the old flickering dream crossed her mind. Oh God help me In disgust she got up and moved to the counter, leaving the empty mug in the sink. Quickly she walked back to the wall and turned off the lights in the kitchen. After checking on Erika she went to her room. Lisa fell asleep praying for the soul of her friend, and for Nathan, as tears rolled down her cheeks. Her last conscious thought that night was the atavistic question Why did you have to go.

When Nathan pulled in to the driveway uncle Willie gave a sigh, he knew this was going to be a tough one. The first time back in the home that had witnessed so many joyful moments, now would be filled with that oppressive emptiness, and silence would be screaming Cowper’s Sapphic

Man disavows, and Deity disowns me:

Hell might afford my miseries a shelter;

Therefore hell keeps her ever-hungry mouths

all Bolted against me.

He prayed Nathan could survive the trial. Life had decided to put him to the test again. Yes these were trying times, uncle Willie knew it in his own flesh. The test could last a long time. The car stopped and both men stepped out of it slowly. The house looked somber, so empty, neither said a word, but both felt the same chilled to the core of their being. Nathan opened the door and waited for uncle Willie who had stopped to look up into the sky.

The old man seemed lost in thought. Nathan was to distraught to wander why the good man was staring up. He called him gently Uncle Willie, you OK?. William Koffman heard his name, and smiling said Mir geht es gut. Nathan couldn’t make out what uncle Willie had said. After turning the foyer light on, Nathan went back to the porch, the old man had gone around the car and was now halfway to the porch. What was that you said Will?. Wilhem Koffman felt embarrassed, his mind had slipped, if only for an moment, to another time and a different place. I said, I’m OK son. I was . . . well, just looking at the stars. He reached out and patted Nathan a few times on the shoulder. I’m going to make me some green tea would you like some?. Nathan smiled and thanked him. He almost said no but somehow felt he should accept the offer. Sure thing Will. I’ll be right back. Nathan went to the half-batch next to the kitchen while uncle Willie filled up the teakettle with water and placed it on the stove after getting a burner going.

Nathan and uncle Willie sat at the kitchen table. The professor packed his pipe and lit it. The [Barkum Reaf] blend filled the kitchen with a pleasant aroma. He was desperately searched for something to say, he needed to make conversation, but maybe the best thing was to say nothing.

Lord what a terrible quandary when people were befallen into such a state of uncertainty, when the most significant point of reference is erased from their lives. Uncle Willie’s eyes were fixed on the ceiling. Hesitantly he said, Soon Nathe, you and I need to go for a walk by the Charles. Do you agree son?.

Nathan knew what uncle Willie meant, and he knew it could not be avoided. He nodded agreement. You let me know when Will. we’ll do it. Whilhem Koffman sipped on his tea. After putting the mug on the table he drew on his pipe. The tobacco glowed like embers in a furnace consuming the substance, modifying its essence. The old man’s eyes followed the bluish spiral rising slowly. His eyes fixed on the ethereal figure dissipating into nothingness. Nathan said good night. Uncle Willie put his pipe away, Good night Nathe.

Nathan closed the door, slowly walked up to the bed. He felt his being shaking. After taking his coat off he sat on the bed, sinking his face in his hands he sobbed. Uncle Willie heard the cry, it pierced his heart like a dagger. In the other room was a soul crying. He had come to love Nathan like the son he never had. He could read no more, Spinoza went back on the shelf. The old man’s eyes filled up as he muttered the old prayer. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be . . . His lips trembled. Outside the night sky remained resplendent with stars, indifferent, silent and distant from any human experience.

The procession of cars was short, few friend, fewer relatives. The weather was raw, it had rained all night. The morning dawned a typical Fall day with overcast skies and a pervasive drizzle. The funeral had been scheduled for early morning. It was ten o’clock when the small group gathered to pay their last respect to Edith K. Holden. After a brief moment, the small crowd—the cold drizzle dashing against their faces mingling with their tears—snuggled together around the casket under a small canopy.

The priest placed himself at one end