The Last Time

Over the course of three weeks Marion's life had exploded.

Her partner had left her, her mother had died unexpectedly and she'd had to plan a funeral, all within a week.

Now, two weeks after that, she was in her mother’s home, trying to decide whether to cry or call a friend. The smell of her mother’s perfume still lingered in the bathroom, and she was strongly leaning towards cry. She’d been going through the kitchen and found a box her father had made years ago that contained her mother’s recipe cards. Everything from almond cookies to birthday cake was contained within and she couldn’t bring herself to throw them out.

She didn’t need them, she told herself. She didn’t bake and she didn’t have a family.

Not anymore.

When Alex had walked out, Marion had wondered whether the problem was her and decided it was. At thirty she was meant to be alone. Alex had taken the last of her will to try anything more than the single life. She just thought she’d have her mother to lean on until she figured things out.

Marion took a deep breath and put the small box in the keep pile. This was a decision she could make later. She moved on to the spare bedroom, the kitchen was done anyhow.

In the back of the closet Marion found a box that looked like it had been there for a while. She wiped the dust off the top of the box and read the label. All it said was "Books". It was very heavy.

She opened the box and found books of all sizes and colors. On the top was a selection of 1950s pulp science fiction novels, under that a set of Agatha Christie hardcovers. At the very bottom, Marion found a small, cardboard-bound volume. On the front of the book was a title in her mother’s handwriting.

"Lasts"

An uneasy feeling went through Marion as she opened the book. It read like a diary but was simply a list of entries with dates.

The first few entries were sweet and ordinary:

"Last time I carried M. up the stairs. She was 5. I didn’t know."

"Last time M. called me Mommy instead of Mom."

It continued throughout her childhood…

"Last time M. told me everything. She was 14."

Marion felt grief tearing through her chest; a hard knot of guilt forming beneath her breastbone and tears starting painfully in her eyes.

Marion continued reading, each page stranger than the last. Later entries got more specific about things her mother couldn't possibly have known.

"Last time M. told the truth when someone asked if she was okay. She was 16."

It had been her mother asking, the day after her father had died. She had not been okay and she had told her mother so. The tears rolling down her mother's face broke something inside of her. Marion realized with a shock that her stock answer going forward had been 'I'm fine', and it had never been the truth again.

"Last time M. said ‘I love you’ first."

Marion recalled this moment with embarrassing clarity. She and Alex had been lying in bed and she had been overcome with affection. She'd murmured it into his ear and tried to kiss him. He hadn't returned the sentiment, only giving her a squeeze and then going to sleep, saying nothing. She should have broken it off then.

The entries continued in her mother's tidy handwriting right up until the day of her death. After that the ink on the page changed, becoming glossy and looking somehow fresher.

"Last time M. was called Mia." That one was dated the day of the funeral and was the final entry on the page. Marion remembered her aunt Ruth using the old affectionate name as they stood at the reception. It hadn't seemed like much in the moment, just a brief hug that smelled vaguely of lavender and a whispered condolence.

The ink smudged when she ran her thumb across it.

Marion went to the bathroom to dry her eyes. She looked at herself in the mirror and saw a tired woman who seemed older than her thirty years, hair disheveled and eyes sunken. The past few weeks had taken their toll and she was exhausted mentally and physically. Marion shook her head and commanded herself to pull it together. There was a lot of house to sort that she really should get back to.

Instead she went back to the book.

Marion flipped through pages until she chose one at random.

"Last time M. swam in a lake."

Marion thought about this for a second and looked at the date. She would have been 12 which meant the cabin at the lake. They hadn't visited after that year and it had been a cherished trip. After that, vacations had always been camping or road trips. She wondered why they never visited again.

A couple of pages later she saw:

"Last time M. heard her father laugh in person."

This one hit hard, it was her 16th birthday and just a few months before he had died. She'd told some sort of silly joke and he'd laughed so hard he forgot to breathe. The cancer diagnosis had come days later. They'd had no reason to laugh after that.

"Last time M. ran for fun and not because she was late."

She'd stopped running when her father died. He'd been the biggest supporter of her track career as well as her running coach. She'd truly enjoyed it but, like so many things, it lay forgotten in her past. These days she found herself running from office to office putting out fires.

Every single one of the entries was right, but none of them felt important at the time.

Marion thought about the fact that nobody ever tells you when something is the last. A last time looks exactly like any other time. She supposed that was the natural order of things, like parents dying before children or the last leaf falling while no one is watching.

She turned the page, afraid of what came next.

The next few pages were blank with an ominous promise. After that the entries changed, the dates were gone and the entries became a jumble of possibilities.

“Last time M. speaks to Dana.”

Marion stared at the page. She took out her phone and looked at it, unlocking it. She moved to the second page of icons where she kept her phone and text apps and chose Messages. The last text was from Dana six years ago and Marion had never responded. All through college they had been inseparable, even dating brothers once. There had been no fight, no falling out, just a fading out - mostly on Marion's part. They were both busy, Dana with her family and Marion with her career. Dana had been the one friend she could call and now she wondered if she even had that.

“Last time M. sees the ocean.”

“Last time M. reads a story.”

Marion realized that she couldn't tell if these things had happened or might happen in the future. There was no indication, except for the blank pages between the dated entries and these.

“Last time M. is hugged by someone who has known her since childhood.”

The words stopped her and she went still. Could that be her Aunt Ruth? Ruth was the only person left from her childhood that might fulfill that line. Her parents were gone, she had no siblings... She remembered the brief hug at the reception and the scent of lavender. Was that the last?

Marion suddenly felt very alone.

Marion took out her phone and looked again at the text from Dana.

She dialed the number and was filled with relief when Dana answered.

"Marion?" Dana sounded worried, as if she was expecting bad news.

"Hi Dana, I just wanted to call and say hi and catch up a bit. Is this a bad time?"

"No, of course not, Marion! How are you?"

"I'm ok." Marion heard the lie come out of her own mouth, silently condemning herself but realizing there was nothing else she could say. "It's just... I'm... my mother died."

"Oh honey! I'm so sorry! Why didn't you call me earlier??"

Dana was as understanding as she always was, her focus on her friend and nothing else. They talked about her mother, about their jobs, about Dana's family. All of a sudden it was like old times, they reminisced about college and joked about people they used to know. They agreed to meet up sometime soon and hung up.

Marion checked the book and found the entry unchanged. That somehow made her feel better, as if it was proof that she was in control of something.

Marion gathered her bag and her keys and locked up. She unlocked her car and drove, too fast perhaps, across town.

Aunt Ruth was surprised to see her but gathered her into a big hug as soon as she saw her face. Marion held the hug a touch longer than necessary but she needed it. Marion wished she would call her Mia just one more time but was afraid of what might happen.

She sat with Ruth in her lavender-scented front room for a time and they talked about her mother. Ruth was her mother's older sister and looked out for the pair of them after Marion's father had died. For a while Marion felt like herself again, outside of the pain and loss she'd been feeling. She hugged Ruth one more time, hoping, again, that it wasn't the last time.

She returned to her car and drove home.

After feeding the cat and giving him some time and love, she sat down at her computer. Instead of logging into her online banking she found herself on a travel site.

She felt a maddening urge to visit the ocean just to prove she could.

She booked the flight.

Back at her mother's house, Marion went directly to the book and flipped to the page that had mentioned the hug.

No change.

She was at the kitchen table, staring at the book.

She turned to the end of the book. There Marion just found the words "I didn't know" written in her mother's hand, over and over.

She sat with the realization that her mother had lived with this knowledge.

She pictured her mother, late at night, flipping through these same pages. She had known that Marion would do all of these things one final time but never knew when until they happened. She had known all of this and she had still loved and lived as if the list didn't exist.

Marion closed the notebook and looked up. She gazed around the kitchen of the house she grew up in. There was the telephone on the wall no one had used in a decade. The recipe box that held the cards that had fed her everything from turkey dinners to birthday cake. Her time here, in this house, was almost done. This was one last she could predict.

Some last times are true for almost everyone.

Someone set you down for the last time when you were small, and neither of you knew.

There’s a nickname no one calls you anymore.

There’s a friend you’ve already spoken to for the last time.

Some of your lasts happened this year. One probably happened today.

This is not the last story you’ll read. But you don’t know that.