WINTER
Marie worries about the richness of the food, but Richard always goes to the boardwalk for lunch. He's eighty-two, and still in reasonably good health despite Marie's fears, and will eat lunch wherever he damn well pleases. Babette's is long gone, but the Ritz is still there, so he usually eats in the café downstairs where there's a good view of the ocean.
The view is impeded today, however, by a young man in a miserable mock-up of Twenties fashion, who practically trips over himself when he recognizes Richard.
"Oh my god, you're Richard Harrow. The Tin Man?" He laughs a short, gruff laugh.
"That's me." The young man sits down across from him, all elbows and too-tight sleeves.
"So pleased to meet you, sir. I'm doing my dissertation on organized crime during Prohibition, and I'd love to interview you. You were right there in the middle of it, working with Jimmy Darmody, Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky, Al Capone…" Richard holds up a hand, cutting the young man off.
"I'm…sure you would. But I don't talk about…that time."
"But…" Richard shakes his head. It's been a sticking point with him all his life; except for one time he's never talked about his work, and never intends to. Not with civilians.
He can speak about the men, though; they deserve to be remembered, not as gangsters or murderers, but as human beings.
He talks about Jimmy's vision, his resolve, the confidence with which he moved. The caring underneath the stoic exterior, how he saw Richard when nobody else did. He tells of Capone's brashness and brutality, the balancing act of Lucky Luciano's hot temper and Meyer Lansky's measured, rational restraint. Nucky's charm and Rothstein's cold class. They are all of them dead now except for Lansky, who's on the run in Israel.
When the young man has had his fill Richard stands and leaves, moving out into the February chill. The boardwalk has changed, but a few essential things have stayed the same: the sound of the waves, the creak of the boards, the benches facing the sea. He sits at one of them, settling into it with the familiarity most men save for their armchairs at home.
A voice suddenly speaks behind him. It is brittle with age, but the Louisiana cadence is still the same, and it is just as sweet as the day he first heard it in that overheated room in Babette's.
"Excuse me, is anyone sitting here?" He looks up to find her standing next to him, her black hair now completely, shockingly white. He can't help but smile as she sits down.
She goes first, which he considers a blessing. He'd always been afraid of leaving her on her own.
It happens on September the first, 1978, at about six o'clock the afternoon. The doctors tell him it's a combination of old age and sickness; she'd had some sort of virus for a while, and simply couldn't hold it off any longer. So he goes to the hospital and holds her hand until her body finally gives out and the monitors quit beeping, and then he stays until the doctors tell him to go home.
He's not sure what to do with himself when he gets there. He doesn't want to eat; she's gone to the trouble of preparing a few days' worth of meals for him before going to the hospital, because his hands are too arthritic to hold a pan and she doesn't believe in microwave food, and he can't touch the plates wrapped in tinfoil just yet. He tries to sleep, but the scent of her clings to the bed and he keeps waking up to find himself reaching toward empty space, the way he did during that time in 1922 when she nearly abandoned him, having found out the exact nature of his job. He finds himself strangely nostalgic for that week; at least then he knew there was a chance she would come back home.
He sits and watches television and lets Genevieve handle the funeral arrangements, and he waits.
The funeral itself, like their wedding, is simple and uncomplicated. A few brief words are said by a pastor, and then a few friends and their daughter, and then a cellist is brought in to play her favorite song, Air on the G String. He's the first person to throw a handful of earth into the grave, and he stays until she's completely swallowed by the ground.
When the undertakers have gone he remains, staring down at the stone that marks what's left of his wife. He pulls off his mask for the first time that day; they're finally alone. A soft breeze blows past, carrying the scent of the ocean with it, and he's reminded of the boardwalk, and the sun in her hair.
It's only then that he allows himself to cry.
His tombstone reads:
Richard Joseph Harrow
Beloved Husband and Father
Loyal Soldier
January 3 1894-October 9 1978