It was an unexpected friendship, considering the women’s history. Both were grandmothers of a granddaughter they never saw, both had lives which had been trampled by Will. Matt was frankly shocked at how much his mother looked forward to Elinor’s visits. He thought it might be the roses Elinor brought, or the stories, or perhaps it was their shared regret. He guessed the women spent their time together discussing Will and his many failures, or were they reminiscing about the Unity they had known growing up, a smaller, slower town than the one they lived in now? Then, one day, Matt peered into the living room during one of Elinor’s visits, now a daily occurrence, the primary event of Catherine’s day, and he saw they weren’t discussing anything at all. Elinor was holding Catherine Avery’s hand, seeing her through her agony.
I’m here with you, he heard Elinor whisper to his mother. You don’t have to hide your pain from me.
Ever since, Matt charged Elinor half what he should when he collected fallen wood from her acreage, which he chopped into neat fireplace-sized logs. Not that Elinor Sparrow would ever notice this courtesy or ever think to thank him. Still, Catherine had shown Elinor something she couldn’t reveal to her own son: how hard it was for her to die, how much she wanted, even on the worst of days, to hold on to a world where there were roses, and neighbors, and a boy who had grown up to be a man like Matt Avery, someone who knew when to back away and when to step forward. Someone she could depend on.
Will returned to town a few times that year, quick visits that clearly took a great deal out of him. Jenny never accompanied him; when asked, he told people Jenny stayed in Boston because Stella, then two, needed her at home. But the truth was, he never bothered to tell Jenny about these trips to Unity until they were over. She would have been one more burden, one more person whose feelings he had to consider, one more pile of stones, dragging him down.
It came as no surprise that Will wasn’t comfortable with illness. The sojourns to see his mother were predictably brief. He had always run from any problem, and that behavior didn’t stop now. He was so unused to giving of himself, so unable to place another’s needs before his own, that he broke out in hives whenever he approached the town line. This was what he didn’t want Jenny to see: the red welts on his skin. The panic he held close. The way he’d break into a sweat when he drove down Main Street, so that all the damned bees in town would gravitate toward him and he’d have to keep all the car windows closed, or risk being stung, which, because of his allergy, would surely put him in shock.
How do you do it? he’d said to Matt when he came to visit their dying mother. How do you sit here and watch her die without going crazy?
Several times, Will had stopped at Hull’s Tea House, where he fortified himself with caffeine and sugar and a few kind words from that good-natured Liza Hull, who always gave him a slice of apple pie, made from a secret family recipe that had won a prize at the county fair on two separate occasions. But in the last month of Catherine’s life, Will didn’t even bother to stop at the tea house. He didn’t come to town at all. He missed every visit he vowed he would make. The last time that he phoned with his regrets, he’d given Matt such a flimsy excuse—some nonsense about music exams and a flurry of snow that had been predicted—that Matt had let his brother have it. Had he not a shred of mercy for their mother? Not an instant of kindness? He called Will every name he could think of and then he just stopped. He had no more curses left inside, and no understanding of Will. Matt had every reason to be angry, left to be the one to tell his disappointed mother Will wouldn’t be coming by, yet again, when there might not be a next time. Every day was measured into hours, then minutes, then seconds ticking by. But Matt had actually stopped raging because he’d taken pity on his brother. No one would want to be that selfish, not if they could prevent it, not if they had a choice in the matter.
In the end, Matt had told Will, It’s all right if you don’t drive out. She understands.
And perhaps she did. Kindness had come easily to Catherine, after all. And kindness, Matt grew to understand during the course of his mother’s illness, came in many forms. The neighbors, for instance, many of whose names he couldn’t recall, who brought over so many casseroles that the food lasted for months, long after the funeral. The single women in town still laughed about how full the freezer at the Avery house was; each and every one of them had thought they might have a chance with Matt once he was left on his own. Matt had dated a girl from Monroe for a while, and he had a girlfriend in New York that he visited on weekends, but that all stopped when his mother fell ill. Even when she had passed on, Matt was distracted; not that he was heartless, but his heart was taken up with something and had no more room for anyone else. He was big, and handsome, and half a dozen women in town would have taken him home, even if it was just for the night, but there was no way to win over a man like Matt Avery. Not with love that lasted a few hours, not with home-cooked meals; he liked things simple, a can of soup, some beans and toast, a bowl of noodles, lukewarm and covered with cheese. He preferred staying away from whatever could hurt him most. He’d become a bachelor, set in his ways, interested in his studies. If he wasn’t pleased with his solitude, he was comfortable with it all the same. If he hadn’t settled for his lot, then he’d come to accept a life that was nothing like the one he once wished to have.