In my lifetime

They were there at the foot of the bed, standing. Carol, with her Marlo Thomas bob and the trim 40-ish figure she maintained even into her late 60s, managed to look sad and stiff-upper-lippish, even this of all possible evenings. Hank, a little stooped over, but ever resilient, stood at Carol’s side, holding her hand, his jaw tight but his eyes soft. On the other side of the bed sat George and Emil in two chairs, conversing with Duke, who stood next to them, something about New York in August and the theatre. Who cared at this point?

I looked beyond them all to John, whose white shadow stood by the window, beckoning to me. Tonight was the first cool night of the summer in the Hamptons. At long last the heat had broken. But did it have to wait for this of all nights? Couldn’t it have cooled off two weeks, even two days, ago? I heard John speaking to me. Come, Mark, please come to me. I’ve missed you these four years. I’m lost without you.

Well, I’d be coming to John in just a few short hours, and I’d be leaving Carol, Hank, George, Emil, and Duke to fend for themselves. And Jim, too – I’d miss him. He told me he’d be flying up to the Hamptons, but not until tomorrow. He’s the one I’m sorry I didn’t see one last time. I want him to know how much he meant to me these past four years, what he’d given me in John’s absence. I hope he knows what he’d done for me.