Chapter 2: Once Upon That Dream Came An End
Monica Geller-Bing was actually grateful for the overcast clouds the following morning. To have sunshine on this day would have been a mockery, even a disgrace, despite how others would have no doubt said it was a sign or a comfort or something.
Black umbrellas were ubiquitous, as everyone sat here in folding chairs by the dug-up plot in the cemetery. Monica wore a veil of morning, attempting to maintain the picture of dignity and grace in her role as the grieving widow. It didn't really work, and trying to maintain that image was annoying. In fact, she resented it.
She didn't want to project dignity. She didn't want to show grace. All she wanted to do was what she had been doing for the last four or five days since her world had come apart: seclude herself in her suburban home while wearing sweatpants and never getting out of bed. There were stages of grief, and Monica knew she was still stuck in the first one – she would not be pushed along in the process any faster or slower than she wanted to. She would navigate to the next stage when she was good and ready.
A hush now fell over the congregation as Rachel rose to take the lectern, and deliver the eulogy for Chandler in Monica's stead. On her sister-in-law's behalf. It felt weird to hear such words of devotion and undying love about Chandler coming out of Rachel's mouth, but everyone else seemed to understand. If only they didn't spend the entire time either stealing glances at Monica in the front row or even outright staring at her. Monica focused on her sister-in-law giving her speech – the one she, Monica, had written. Ignoring the looks, she let her mind wander.
FLASHBACK
The cancer was getting worse. Monica could tell from the body language of the doctors that they knew it, even if they never said so. Busying herself over Chandler's vital stats and MRI readouts, Monica scoffed as she wished that once, just once, a nurse or attending physician would cut the clinical bullshit and give it to her straight.
From the little that she was being told, the prognosis didn't look good. At the moment, her husband was 'chemo-resistant,' the doctors were saying, but that could change if he and Monica were willing to try a higher dosage.
Lifting her face out of the files on which she had been scribbling copious notes, Monica felt her expression soften with strong, automatic love as she reached to take her husband's IV-pierced hand.
He was still so handsome, even when lying flat on his back in a hospital bed. Even in defiance of how he looked so emaciated and so painfully thin. At the moment, Chandler was hooked up to what the doctors called an E.C.M.O machine. Chandler had been hooked up to it immediately upon arrival in the ER the day before yesterday, after he had woken his wife up in their bed in the middle of the night while writhing and screaming in pain. So back into the hospital he had went.
Feeling her touch, Chandler turned his head weakly. His lashes fluttered, revealing irises of brilliant blue, and Monica smiled.
"Hey, you…." she cooed.
Chandler coughed and squirmed in an attempt to sit up against the pillows, ignoring his wife's soft shushings. "Chandler, sweetie, just rest…. Rest, my love…."
"They'll be plenty of time for that yet!" he dismissed her, slightly cantankerous.
Something about the way he said this made Monica's heart drop into the pit of her stomach. A wave of fear washed over her. "Chandler? Babe? What is it? You're scaring me…."
Chandler just smirked at her – that smirk that still sent butterflies through Monica's stomach – but there was a melancholy to those lips now. A strange, almost…. acceptance there, too.
"I'm dying, Mon."
She instantly shook her head. "Don't talk like that. You'll be all right; everything's going to be fine, you'll see…."
Monica wriggled closer to the side of the bed, her tears threatening to spill. Chandler just smiled resignedly and reached up a hand to caress her cheek, tucking the tresses of her dark hair back out of her face. Monica turned her lips into his palm and pressed a fierce kiss there.
He was shaking his head now. "Monica…"
"No!" And now the tears spilled over, even as Monica almost glowered at her husband, hissing at him in a fierce whisper. "You're not dying!"
Chandler actually smirked and gestured to the E.C.M.O. machine with his head. "Honey: they've got me hooked up to what they call a Hail Mary machine – I heard the Doc mentioning it to a colleague. This is what is known as life support without actually saying the word." Monica let out a whimper at the phrase. Her hands were shaking, even as they were digging around with purpose through her purse, searching for her phone. Noticing her, Chandler nodded.
"Yeah. I'd start making some calls…."
Monica sniffled, finding her phone and starting to dial their son's number. "This is just a precaution. We'll…. We'll let everyone see your progress, and then we'll…."
"Monica," she stilled and sucked in a breath when Chandler took her hand. "They need to be prepared to say goodbye."
Monica moaned quietly and shook her head.
"You're….. you're not even 60!" she raved at the unfairness of it all, her nerves grating further when Chandler just smirked and shrugged.
"Them's the brakes, babe."
"It's not funny!" she hissed at him, in a fierce whisper. She dared to climb onto the bed and lie down next to her husband, resting her head on his chest as she tried to pretend they were back in their bed, at home in Westchester County.
A long pause, and then:
"Chandler? ….. Are you scared?"
He nodded. "I'm terrified. I'm terrified of not being with you."
Monica sniffled and nuzzled her face into his chest.
"Mon?"
"Y-yes…..?" she wept.
"…. I love you."
She whimpered again. "Oh, honey…. God, I love you, too…."
"….. And I love Jack and Erica. I want you to promise me that you'll take care of our kids and have a good life." Monica lifted her head to gape at him. Her husband, the man she loved, was staring at her intently. "For me to be at peace, I need for you to be happy. Whatever decisions you make in your life, I will support and respect any decision that you make."
… He was giving her the permission structure to find someone else, if that's what it took for her to someday move on. Monica was already shaking her head.
"There won't be anyone else like you, honey…." And she kissed him desperately. "I will never love again….."
END OF FLASHBACK
"…. I will never love again…." Monica repeated the vow to herself in a listless murmur, back in the present, shaken out of her memories by the congregation bursting into applause at the conclusion of Rachel's eulogy. She turned in a kind of daze when she felt the hands of people nearby reaching for her, clasping her shoulder, some moving to give her a side embrace, as if they were congratulating her for delivering the eulogy herself. She nodded in acknowledgement of these condolences absently.
She watched with dead eyes as Ross, Joey, Jack, Ben and Mike Hannigan, as the pallbearers, helped the hoist Chandler's casket and lower it into the ground. The priest performed a blessing and after delivering the benediction, the service began to break up. Monica – with Phoebe and Rachel propping her up - drifted over to hole in the ground, at the edge of which already sat her husband's engraved tombstone. She couldn't bring herself to look at Chandler's dates.
The stanzas of a poem she'd once read popped into her head:
I read of a man who stood to speak…. at the funeral of a friend. He referred to the dates on the tombstone from the beginning… to the end.
He noted that first came the date of birth and spoke of the following date with tears, but he said what mattered most of all was the dash between those years.
For that dash represents all the time that they spent here on earth and now only those who loved them know what that little line is worth…..
"Monica?"
Monica tearfully turned her head, saw no one there, then glanced down. She almost gasped when she did.
Richard Burke, her old flame, hadn't aged at all well. He now had a double chin that was worse than her brother's, and set age lines in his face. His hairline was receding, what tufts that were left having gone sufficiently grey. The man couldn't be much younger than the incumbent President, yet here Richard sat, in a wheelchair. The woman pushing his chair behind him was young and pretty, and Monica was embarrassed to realize that she wasn't sure whether this woman was the man's grown daughter, Michelle, or another girlfriend.
"Richard…. As I live and breathe…." She ignored how, behind her, Rachel and Phoebe were staring.
Richard just grinned tiredly. "It's been a while…."
Monica nodded. "It sure has. Last time I saw you, Clinton was President."
Richard chuckled good-naturedly at the quip. "Chandler sure rubbed off on you, huh?" He noticed how she flinched and ducked his head, reaching out an arthritic hand to clasp hers. "Oh, Monica…. I'm so sorry…."
Monica was struck by how there wasn't anything amorous or lustful in his tone - just the platonic condolences from an old friend. She was equally struck now by how, when she looked at Richard, she felt nothing romantic for the man she had once dated, back when she was a young woman who still had fantasies about how she envisioned her dream man.
She squeezed his hand, smiling gratefully. "Thank you…."
Richard could have left it at that, but he continued, "I'm so glad you had the happiness that you did, with him." He nodded off into the near distance. "I just spoke to your boy. He's nice. Looks just like his dad, too."
Monica beamed wetly. "What if I told you Jack was adopted?"
"No….!" Richard's eyes popped, and he looked tickled. "Is he really?"
Monica smirked. She and Chandler had often laughed at this before, how most people had no idea Jack and Erica were adopted unless they told them. It had always felt like quite a compliment. "His sister, too. Twins."
Richard bobbed his head. "Well…. they do you both credit." Still holding her hand, he brought her knuckles to his lips. "Take care of yourself."
"You too." Monica watched Richard being wheeled to his car with a fond, though by no means wistful, expression.
"…. OK, I'm sorry, but he's still really hot," Phoebe finally declared to no one in particular, breaking the silence.
"Phoebe!" Rachel and Monica both squawked.
