Free If You Lived Here by Dana Sachs Page B

chair a bit closer to his, then motions for me to sit back down. I sit, but on the edge of the chair, folding the pink message slips between my fingers.
    Mr. Sloane leans back and repositions his leg, a dusty Nike resting on his knee. There’s a stain of sweat around his white undershirt. I think he may have jogged here.
    “Do you have kids, Mrs. Marino?” “Well, no.”
    His eyes narrow. “That’s funny. I thought you had kids. My youngest son went to school with a Marino.”
    “Martin has two boys from a previous marriage. Abe and Theo.” Mr. Sloane nods. “That’s right. Theo Marino.”
    “Right,” I say.
    He rubs the tips of his fingers against his stubble-shadowed face. “The thing is, Mrs. Marino, we had three kids. You’ll meet them this evening. And you know what was the hardest thing about pregnancy for Sylvia? Sleeping on her side. She simply couldn’t do it. I don’t know how she made it through those last months, tossing and turning like she did. Miserable. Once the babies were born, she didn’t care how much sleep she got, as long as she could sleep on her stomach. I felt so guilty each time I got her pregnant, putting her through that. Poor thing. Can you believe it?”
    I shake my head.
    Mr. Sloane sets his feet on the ground, leans back in his chair, stares out the window. “Then she got cancer last year. She was a saint. With bone cancer, they say it’s like experiencing the agony of childbirth, but for months and months. The doctors gave her painkillers, but she refused them, said they knocked her out.” He stops and stares at me. “That’s heroic, don’t you think?”
    “Absolutely.”
    He nods. “Sylvia didn’t complain about anything,” he continues, then turns to me and raises a finger. “Except one thing. Guess what?”
    “Sleeping?”
    He smiles. “Right. In the hospital they made her sleep on her back. Last week, she finally agreed to the painkillers. She knew it was the end. She said, ‘Richard, I’m ready.’ That was how she said good-bye: ‘I’m ready.’ ” He leans over again, looking down at the floor. His voice grows softer. “She kept talking, though. That was the surprise. She said, ‘My stomach. My stomach.’ And she moved around this way and that.” He shakes his shoulders, a patient imprisoned in bed.
    “She didn’t want to be on her back,” I say.
    He nods. “Even when she didn’t know anything else, she knew that.”
    Mr. Sloane turns to me, his eyes expectant.
    “Then we’ll have to bury her on her stomach,” I tell him.
    He smiles, his face flushes, then he drops his head and his hands go up to his face. I reach over to the table between us and slide the box of Kleenex closer to him. I don’t like to leave a person crying, so I just sit there, gazing at Mr. Sloane’s profile. I’m thinking that I have to tell Bennet to turn the body over. I’m thinking about how much this man loved his wife. And I’m thinking about what I’d do, if I had the choice to have children but die at sixty, or to live a long and healthy life, but never have a child. It’s silly to even think this way. Martin would say I’m crazy. But I know what I’d choose.

    After Mr. Sloane leaves, I run up the stairs to my office. The computer still hums, but the screen’s gone blank and a loose ring of cream has settled on the surface of my coffee. On my desk sit two binders, one from York that I use to order register books, urns, and prayer cards. The other gives details on a line of metal caskets we’re considering from Messenger. The cremation business has taken off and I’m behind on my urn inventory. The vendors have been e-mailing daily for a decision, so I open the York binder and begin to consider it. I need two new mod-els of urns for pets, an urn for veterans, one for children, and a couple embossed with sprays of flowers, which widowers invariably choose for their wives.
    I can’t seem to focus on any of it, so I’m relieved by the distraction of Rita