A/N: I've been thinking a lot about grief lately and ended up with this. Fair warning, grab your tissues.
"I want to stop treatment." He finally gains the courage to tell her. They're lying in bed together on what he knows is going to be one of his last good nights. He made love to her for as long as his sick and dying body would let him and held her close. And then he told her. He prepared himself for her anger. For her eyes to burn with fury at his decision to stop chemo. But that's not what he gets. He gets a look of understanding and small nod.
"I'm going to be so lonely without you." She whispers. She doesn't say anything else. She knew this was coming, his death. They got five different opinions, five oncologists all saying they can buy him time, but his untimely death is a guarantee. So this does not surprise her. She has come terms with the fact that she will have to spend the time she left on this earth without him. So she sticks to the simple truth, she's going to be lonely.
"You know I'll always love you." He smiles and kisses her forehead. His lips are dry and cracked from the drugs that are poisoning his body to keep him alive.
"Do you promise to find me? Wherever it is we go next, you'll find me there?" She asks him. He nods.
"I promise," he says. He pulls her closer to him. They hold each other. He can tell she wants to cry, but she's holding back.
"You can cry, babe."
"Not while you're still here." She tells him. He smiles sadly at him and he nods.
"You have made me so happy Elizabeth." He figures now's the time to voice the things he's never voiced. "The life we have built together has been breathtakingly beautiful. Every second of it. I am so proud to call you my wife and I love you more than words can describe."
He feels her tears hit his skin and she tries to push herself even closer to him. He holds her tight. The moonlight shines through the window and illuminates their bodies perfectly. He looks up at the ceiling, letting his mind wonder.
"I'm so sorry this is happening." He kisses the top of her head. "I wish I didn't have to leave you to be lonely." He thinks about her statement, about how he would feel if it were reversed. If she were the one who was dying. The word lonely is so fitting. An oppressively heavy word, which carries the weight their marriage has, their friendship has.
"You know what's really fucked up?" She asks him, smiling through her tears.
"What babe?"
"I'm going to have to go looking for quotes now." He knows she's trying to lighten the mood, trying not grieve him while he's still alive. Still able to hold her. Still able to make love to her. Still able to be with her.
"I'll write as many as I can down for you." He promises.
"And now old churches will make me sad." She smiles bigger. He kisses her head again.
"And God Henry, I can't cook. What am I supposed to do about that?" She's laughing now and so is he.
"Maybe you can take a class, Ya'know Eat, Pray, Love through your Greif." He smiles. But he thinks about her Greif, all of the feelings she has for him, the ones she won't be able to channel anywhere, because he won't be here to receive them. Because he's going to die soon.
"Fuck you." She jokes and laughs, she raises her head to look at him. Their eyes meet. The laughing dies, as they stare at one another. "You're really dying." She whispers like it's the first time she's processed it, though it isn't. But it is the first time she's said it out loud.
"Yes." He nods. He reaches down and rubs his hand over her stomach where their children grew. He runs his fingers over her skin. "But you're gonna be okay. I need to know that you're gonna be okay. Because the kids will need their mom." He swallows. The thought that will not see his kids grow up is one he refuses to reckon with. He's already had to accept the fact that he's going to die before seeing his youngest graduate from high school. He will never walk his daughters down the aisle. He will never see his grandchildren. He will be a ghost, haunting those moments for them, making them remember what it's like to be sad. He knows that, because he watched Elizabeth live it. Every happy moment had a contrasting sadness at the absence of her parents. Henry will haunt his own family's memories, he will be an echo in the future. A specter lingering around his children, haunting their lives, rippling sadness in his wake.
"This is so unfair." He whispers, as his own buried emotions come to the surface.
"It's not fair." She agrees. "I'm sorry Henry" For the first time in the last nine months, her husband cries in her arms. He didn't cry at the diagnosis, or the prognosis. He remained stoic through the Chemo and its side effects. But now he cries. He cries as he comes to terms with his own death. He cries as he thinks about how he wishes he never had a family. That he wasn't going to leave behind all of these people who will be in pain. People who will grieve him. And he cries at the guilt that thought stirs in him.
She resigns two weeks after their conversation. It wasn't supposed to go that way. She was going to take a leave of absence not that is really an option when you're a senate confirmed Cabinet Secretary. And the course of the conversation reminded her of that.
"I'm sorry Bess. This is a fucked up situation." Is how Russell starts, she agrees it's fucked up. Her husband of twenty-seven years is going to die. His own body the thing that produced the cells in it that are killing him. Killing him painfully. "We can't guarantee we won't need you."
"Then I have to quit, effective immediately. I'm not leaving him alone through this. Not ever." She says with quiet dignity and firm resolve. "You should appoint Susan Thompson next. She'll be good. I'd pass right over Cushing."
She leaves the White House, the world heavy on her shoulders. At Foggy Bottom Blake and Nadine help her pack her office. She profusely thanks and then apologizes to her staff. They understand that her husband is dying at home. He is soon to have hospice care in their living room. Her resignation is announced on Social Media before she ever makes it home.
When she gets there he's already in bed. The pain meds make him groggy but he's still lucid enough to hear her walk into the room.
"You didn't have to quit." He knows he's saying it in vain, she was always going to quit. But he's always been one for sentimentality.
"I know." Her reply is the simple truth. She is so tired. So exhausted she doesn't even want to cry. But she does, silently as if no one hears. He holds her, neither of them realizing it'll be the last night he's able to.
He dies on a Saturday. No rules Saturday. His favorite day of the week. The day that had a morning reserved for his wife and an afternoon reserved for his children. A day where he always cooked a big dinner, and sipped beer as they played monopoly. Elizabeth thinks it's fitting for him to go on Saturday. It was his day. She was with him, laying in the hospital bed that took up space in their TV room. The kids were around them. They played him songs, she sang along to Baby, I Love Your Way. Despite her pain, she knows it was a good way to die, it's how she would've wanted it if it were her. His last words weren't momentous or grand. Just a simple I love this song. She finds that fascinating, for a man of so many words to be reduced to so few.
She lays with his body for fifteen after he takes his last breath. She promised him that she wouldn't for any longer than that. It won't be me babe, he had told her. Henry's confidence in his faith had brought her comfort, the feeling that there is a part of him, somewhere, waiting for her. So she gets up, and the hospice nurse starts to care for his body. And Stevie takes the initiative to call the funeral home. She makes the call to his siblings, Maureen, then Shane, and finally Erin. She calls Russell and Conrad and then Blake.
People start showing up at her house two hours after. They bring food and condolences. They bring stories and unexpected laughter. They bring hugs and friendship. Blake and Conrad and Will are the three people that stay with her late into the night. Conrad pours her a drink and Blake cleans up after the guests and Will, he just sits with her. And he sleeps on her couch when she goes to bed.
Sunday is harder. She wakes up and remembers. And she sobs. She cries in a way that makes her middle daughter come into her room and crawl into bed with her. She holds her little noodle tight, and cries at the memory of Henry bestowing the nickname Allison will never live down. But eventually she runs out of tears and she gets out of bed. Because she promised him that she would.
She gathers her children at the kitchen table. Her brother makes them breakfast while they plan a funeral, because none of it has been done. It's the one thing she refused to talk about while he was still alive. They had planned everything else, the finances, the life insurance, he wrote letters to his children and she put them away for him. But this is not something she wanted to do with him. Funerals are for the living, and Henry is not among them. Her kids don't bicker with one another about it, all them stoic and gracious. It takes her back to when her parents died, when her and Will went from constantly fighting to inseparable best friends in the course of a single tragic afternoon. But they decide fairly easily on everything. Yes, a wake. Yes, a mass. Readings and Hymns are chosen. Conrad will deliver the eulogy. Paul bearers: Jason (Elizabeth almost objected to that one), Will, Shane, Russell, Jeff, Jose, and Tom. Maureen asked to do the readings. One of Henry's Jesuit friends from Georgetown will say the mass. He will have a full honors burial at Arlington with taps and a twenty gun salute. There are more details but it's all decided quickly.
Henrys siblings show up at the house all together in the afternoon. Elizabeth tries to ignore the tension and the comments, but with the buffer between them and her gone it wears on her quicker. Her fists clench when Maureen goes too far and she bites her tongue. She will not fight with her sister-in-law today.
"My dad is dead." Jason is the one who finally shuts her down. "My dad and her husband." He points at Elizabeth. "He is not here to remind you that she is his wife, Aunt Maureen so I will. That is my mom, and my dad loved her. So you will not talk to her like that in his house." Elizabeth is startled by her son's words, by how much he sounds like his father in this moment. And when she hugs her son before bed she tells him so.
In the Irish tradition of quick funerals the wake is on the Wednesday following his death. The embalmer did a good job. She hates it, but that is the first thought that runs through her mind when she sees his body. But he looks better in death than he looked for the last three months of his life. The pain that had seemed to permanently mar his features was gone, and replaced with peace. He's in his dress blues, his left hand placed on top of his right, his gold band out for the world to see. It causes her to twist her own, her heart breaking at his recent absence.
She stands by his casket and greets mourners for hours. The curse of being a public figure, every diplomat in DC American and Foreign here to express their sorrow for a man they do not know, just because he was the Secretary of State's husband. She doesn't take a break. She doesn't make her kids stand with her. She remembers her parents showing, don't call it a wake Lizzie, being scolded by her aunt Joan for wanting to take a break, for wanting to leave her parents caskets and quit talking to people who have nothing to say but I'm sorry. She refuses to subject her own kids to that. So she'll shoulder this alone. But her kids must've thought about it too, because she doesn't go a single minute without one of them by her side, they take turns. Blake stays nearby too, always ready with a tissue or a comment designed to not make her laugh but provide her with a brief moment of levity, whether he's making fun of someone's shoes, or their bag. She wonders if Henry told him to do that, she wouldn't put it past him.
The Funeral mass and burial are on Thursday. She stops in her tracks as she looks at the dress she was planning to wear, I know which one makes this heartless autocrat of a husband glad he's not dead. And suddenly, the thought of putting it on makes her sick. She goes with a paint suit, a black one he never complimented, one that doesn't assault her memory with images of the way he always looked at her. The way he loved her. The way she loves him.
Conrad's eulogy is smart, and funny. Loving emotional. He talks about Henry in total. As a scholar, a marine, a teacher, a public servant, a friend, a father, and finally a husband. People laugh and they cry. Elizabeth knows Henry would've been embarrassed to hear so many nice words said about himself, but she loves it anyway, especially the ending. "There's a joke that Henry loved, in fact he always said it was the joke that changed his world," Conrad pauses and pulls a box of matches out of his pocket and people groan, but Elizabeth and his kids, smile. He takes one of the matches out of the box, "So, How do you get all the rabbits in the world in this room using these two items?" He places the matches partway into the box, "Calling all rabbits, calling all rabbits." Elizabeth's eyes fill with tears but they do not spill over, that joked changed her world too. It was the first time she heard that voice from Henry. And now he won't be able to tell her jokes again. He won't be able to tell her anything again.
She doesn't know how, but she makes it through the rest of the mass without crying, at least until she sees her fifteen year old son take his place by the American flag covered casket.
"I love you, Dad." He says quietly.
Then she can't stop. Her throat constricts up, like she swallowed a burning coal. She feels hot tears roll down her cheeks. Her baby, their baby carrying his father's casket is too much for her. Stevie grabs her hand, and she wraps her arm around Allison, and she wonders how the tradition started of the people who are most devastated by a death have to bear their grief to the world. Why do they have to be the first out the church, behind the casket for everyone to gawk at? Why does the person who just lost their other half, have to carry the weight of everyone else's sadness on their shoulders?
"It's okay, Mommy, it's okay." Stevie wipes away her tears and then puts his arm around her shoulder, once they're in the car. She gathers herself on the way to Arlington.
The burial is smaller, her and the kids, Henry's siblings, their nieces and nephews, Will and his family, and a few friends. Henry is marched on a caisson to his final resting place. The marine Chaplin, does a great job, and even has a personal story to share. Leave it to Henry to have mentored him at the War College. She cries at taps, and flinches at the rifle shots. The flag is removed and folded, and handed to Conrad. A fellow Marine and the commander in chief. He walks it to her, "On behalf of myself, the United States Marine Corp, and a grateful nation, please accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation for your husband's honorable and faithful service."
And, when everyone leaves, she stays. Even though her kids are waiting for her, she refuses to leave the cemetery. She sits there alone with her memories and her pain.
"Lizzy, It's time to go." Will finally lays his hand on her shoulder. When he notices the sun starting to set.
"I don't want to leave him alone." Tears stream down her face.
"I know. But it's time." He rubs her arm. "Come on." He helps her stand up. She follows him back to the car. She sits next to her children, holding them tight.
One week after she doesn't bother getting out of their bed. She clutches his pillow, which is starting to lose his scent. She sleeps on top of the sheets, so that she can breathe in his smell. His clothes are still in the laundry basket. She hasn't done any of the things she usually does to help her settle into a new normal. A normal without Henry. She's not ready for one. Not when his glasses are still on his nightstand, not when the book that's laying there still has the book mark inbetween pages, though its reader will never pick it back up. She doesn't put his shoes away, or wash his clothes. She barely even eats. She makes sure the kids eat. She makes sure they grieve. She takes care of them, but not herself. Elizabeth is a zombie. No matter how hard she tries to stay strong, she keeps breaking apart piece by piece. Her rock is gone, and she's left floating without direction. She's having crazy dreams, dreams of walking into their house. And telling her it was just nightmare; that he didn't die. He's alive, and everything will be alright. And then she wakes up in cold sweat, crying because it wasn't real, he isn't coming back.
Will is still staying at her house. He can't leave his sister alone. When their parents died, she took care of him, and he doesn't mind taking care of her now. He knows it won't last long. His sister is strong. Soon enough, she'll pull herself together, gather her strength, and keep moving forward.
Two weeks later, people stop visiting, the kids go back to work and school. And the loneliness sets in. She lays in bed at night in silence missing him. Her nights were never quiet, they were sacred. They were filled with daily debriefs, sometimes laughs, sometimes tears, and sometimes sex.
Now, there's nothing. Her nights are lonely, empty, and painful. She's trying to find something to fill them, anything to get through the night. Sometimes she pulls out his clothes and touches them, feeling the fabric against her skin. Other nights, she stares out the window, pretending she can still feel him behind her. Other times, she goes outside. To the fire pit he built. It's still new, and never used. She feels like she should use it. Like maybe if she uses it, she can pretend he's going to come home again, and sit on the bench with her. Sometimes, she picks up one of his books, not one he owned, one he wrote. And she reads his words. It's the closest she can get to him now. But none of the things she tries to fill her night with come remotely close to filling the empty spot in her life where Henry used to be.
Three months later she cleans out his closet. It starts as a fit of anger. She just wanted to get in the shower, but she caught a glimpse of his side of their closet. Of the clothes he will never wear again. The shoes he will never fill. As soon as she saw them, she lost all control. She went into a rage, throwing everything in the closet onto the floor. She grabs his dress shirts, his pants, his socks, his ties, and throws them on the bed. She tells the kids to come get what they want, because she's donating the rest. She can't have them in her house anymore. They're too much reminders of what she lost.
They do what she says, each one grabbing a few articles of clothing. She chooses to keep two, a Steelers hoodie, and a Marine Corp t-shirt. She gingerly folds the rest, and carefully packs it up. She places the bag on the back seat of her car, and locks the doors. Then, she lets herself cry. She cries until she can't cry anymore, and she drives to the thrift store and drops off the bags.
A year to the day after he died, she finds the strength to clean his things out of the office. To claim the room as her own. She sits at his desk and gingerly flips through the pages of his last book. His unfinished magnum opus about the bastardization of Christianity and American Evangelicalism, I mean it's a real problem, babe. And not just for religion but human rights in this country. She laughs at the memory of the forty-five minute rant that followed his thought which quickly turned into an outline of this book. Perfectly imagined by her history buff religious scholar husband. She saves the pages in a binder, not knowing what to do with them. It's not done enough to publish, but she can't get rid of them. She labels the binder and puts it on the book shelf. She adds his favorite pen to her own pen cup and tosses the rest. She keeps all of his books on his side of the shelves though, she won't ever part with them. But she takes apart the desk and moves it to the basement. She moves her own desk to the middle of the room. Their office is officially just her office. She sits down at her desk and she finds a notebook, inside all of the quotes he could think of that she might need, scribbled in his messy handwriting, like he promised. She breaks down. She hasn't in a few months, she's still getting teary eyed more days than she's not but she hasn't sobbed like this in a while. The weight of missing him is crushing her in this moment she falls to the floor letting herself feel it.
Two years after is when her daughters try to set her up for the first time. She didn't realize that's what they were doing at first.
"It's been two years, mom. Dad wouldn't want you to be alone forever." She doesn't say anything, because Stevie's right. In fact, Henry made her promise to not spend the rest of her life alone. But the thought of moving on, seems like a betrayal of some kind. She's married. Her husband is dead, yes, but she's still married to Henry at least she feels like she is.
"I'm not ready." Stevie's looks to the floor suddenly guilt ridden at the sound of her mother's voice. The absolute heartbreak that's still so clearly present makes her stop asking. She decides to let her mother grieve for as long as she needs to, whether she's soon to be an empty nester or not.
Three years after. She meets Jack. A divorced FBI agent, with kind eyes, a friendly smile, and a cute butt. He makes her laugh. It doesn't start as dating, actually the farthest thing from it. He is someone who lifts the loneliness just enough to make her feel freer. He is someone she can talk to, someone who isn't her kid or her brother. But one night, they're together throwing darts at a dive bar he tells a joke, that almost makes her bend over in laughter and she realizes that maybe she is ready to date. That she can be open to being happy again. She lets him kiss her, she kisses him too. She wants to take it slow, he agrees. They've slept together twice now, and she doesn't feel like its cheating. It's new and exciting and comfortable. Jack doesn't bat an eye at the photos of her and Henry that still adorn her house.
"Tell me about him."
"He was my favorite person on the planet." She's honest with Jack. She will never lie about her and Henry's love story. She'll tell anyone who asks. She tells Jack about the man that she loved, and how they met, and how they grew, and how they changed. She tells him about how great of a father he was, and how he died. She talks about the love they had, and how it felt like her soul had finally found its mate.
"He sounds wonderful." Jack means it when he says it.
"He was."
They go back to her place and sleep together again. There aren't any fireworks, no big moments. It's just a different kind of fire between them, something they both recognize immediately. She knows she could fall for him, the thought doesn't scare her, or make her feel like she's replacing Henry. No one could ever replace Henry. But she could love Jack and Jack could love her.
She lets him stay the night. She wakes up early to make them breakfast. He cooks eggs and sausage on the grill, and she makes coffee. They eat together, and she feels the loneliness lift from her shoulders. ***
Five years later, Jack asks her to marry him. They are lying in bed, in the home they bought together. She smiles at him, and says yes to a mon asking for her hand for the second time in her life. It took a while for all of her kids to warm up to Jack, but he did. He was clear that he never wished to replace Henry, he knows that Henry is irreplaceable. Pictures of the man, grace walls in his house that he shares with Elizabeth. The love the two shared is unmistakable. He doesn't try to compete; he just loves her. And Elizabeth loves him. It's not what she had with Henry, but it's not worse either. It's purely different. She remembers the day she fell for Henry. She remembers the day she realized she loved him. She has those memories with Jack too. They are different, but they feel the same. Jack brought her back to herself.
Six years later, and she's a wife, once again. An identity she's comfortable with. It was a small ceremony, with only family. Her son walked her down the aisle, which she wasn't going to do, until Jason asked if he could. She was nervous that morning, a sudden wave of grief coming over her. But then she found a letter Henry had written for her. When you meet someone else.
Elizabeth,
The day has come. You've met someone. And you like him. I only have one thing to say. I'm glad. You deserve to be happy. I've been thinking a lot about how you said you were going to be lonely without me. Babe, that is the last thing I want, for you to spend the rest of your life being lonely. I don't want you to forget me, and I know you won't. But you need to live. But I also will keep my promise, I will find you again someday, and I will have no problem sharing you with the other guy. Because I am proud that you are finding happiness. I love you more than I can ever express in my own words so I'll leave you with one last quote, "To love is to will the good of the other." That one is Aquinas. I want nothing but good of you. And I'm happy that whoever he is, makes you happy.
All my love,
Henry
His letter helped her get through the wedding. And once again, she felt like she was standing on solid ground. She knew that she loved Jack, and he loved her. She loves Henry, she always will. But she is happy. She is truly happy.
"I love you." Elizabeth whispers it to Jack as they dance to their song, Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton. A song the she now loves in the same way she love's Frampton's Baby, I Love Your Way.
Jack nods and kisses her. "And I love you."