Have you ever thought about

What protects our hearts

Just a cage of rib bone and some other various parts.

So it's fairly simple to cut right through the mess

And to stop the muscle that makes us confess.

We are so fragile

And our cracking bones make noise

And we are just breakable, breakable, breakable

Girls and boys

You fasten my seatbelt because it is the law.

In your two ton death trap I finally saw

A piece of love in your face that bathed me in regret.

Then you drove me to places I'll never forget.

We are so fragile

And our cracking bones make noise

And we are just breakable, breakable, breakable

Girls and boys

We are so fragile

And our cracking bones make noise

And we are just breakable, breakable, breakable girls...

Breakable, breakable, breakable girls...

Breakable, breakable, breakable girls and boys...

She'd fallen asleep sometime around 3a.m. It had been that dead kind of sleep...I'd had to shift around in order to keep my extremities from numbing out and falling off.

Even though we'd both gone to bed extremely late, she still woke up with the sun. I gave fleeting thought to the day when she'd walk into her apartment and crash for 12 hours. I hoped that day came sooner rather than later, but for now I woke up with the sun as well and followed her into the guest shower.

In an effort to remove the astronomically large knots in her shoulders, I gave her a massage as the water rained down on us. After the massage I did some other things to help her release some of her tension. It sounds crazy, but in that moment it was less about the pleasure of the actions and more about making my self feel useful.

Afterward when she'd melted boneless against me in the shower, I knew that for at least a few minutes of her day...I had helped.

We made it downstairs in time to find Frankie staring up at the ceiling in the kitchen while he hovered over a skillet full of bacon.

"Toast should pop up any minute," he said jutting his chin towards the toaster.

I felt Pam tense up as she looked around. It was more and more obvious by the second that no one had come downstairs yet. Frankie being the sole member of the family awake wasn't a good sign.

"Where's mom?"

"Upstairs with dad. He doesn't feel like coming down today."

"Oh," she said glancing upstairs. "Ok...Can I help?"

"No," Frankie said shaking his head. He glanced at me, and then back to Pam. "Why don't you get out of here for awhile?...I think he's asleep anyway."

"But mom -

"Hey! You're not the only one around here who can make a meal or hold a hand, ok? Would you just.....I mean it's not frittata but it's something...Dad likes bacon."

Pam smiled softly. "Dad really likes bacon."

"Yeah...so...these six strips are for him...they'll be ready when he wakes up."

Pam walked around the island in the middle of the kitchen and very deliberately closed the distance between her and her brother, kissing him on the cheek.

"You wanna go for a walk?" She asked turning towards me.

I felt myself smile. Seriously? "Absolutely."

I grabbed her coat off of the rack by the door and helped her into it, turning slightly to mouth the words ‘thank you' to Frankie, over my shoulder. Of course, in true Frankie fashion, he only shrugged. No big deal, of course.

As Pam and I walked outside into the nippy November morning, she leaned into me and slipped both of her hands into mine. The gesture was so...young and free that it took me completely by surprise. I gazed down at her...

Wow. I wasn't completely sure what had happened...but whatever it was, I wanted to hold onto it for at least another 60 years.

Suddenly she was pointing to a very large oak tree a few yards away. "When I was in the fourth grade, I climbed that tree right up there...I fell out and had to get 17 stitches right above this elbow."

I glanced at her covered arm and remembered having noticed a miniscule scar there once, but at the time I'd been too distracted by all of her various parts to ask about it. "It's healed very nicely."

She smiled. "I had a good doctor."

"I am thankful for your doctor, Pam."

She grinned back at me. "I'm thankful for you."

Silence fell between us for a few moments and it was the absolute best silence I could remember having experienced in days. I kicked at a bunch of colored fall leaves and she did the same.

"I used to collect these with my best friend Mary Jane in the third grade...she lived right there," she said pointing across the street. "Her dad was in the military though and they moved by the time we were in the 5th."

"Aw..."

"I know...we exchanged our favorite leaves with each other though and promised we'd keep in touch...we didn't."

I slipped my arm around her shoulders and turned to kiss her forehead. "Fickle, fickle leaf friends."

"Fickle, fickle, foliage friends...alliteration."

"How do you do that?"

"I don't know," she said grinning.

Wow...seriously? I couldn't get over all the smiles. The situation was just the same as it had been the day before. Her father was still dying...it seemed unreal. I had to do my best to keep this sudden mood shift going...If I could.

"So guess what..." I said, licking my lips.

"What?"

"During my walk last night...on my way back, I saw something that I'm pretty sure is what you wanted me to see last time we visited, but then we got really busy..."

Her brows furrowed. "What?"

I pointed in the distance. "Down the street....second house on the left...from the end...Terrace?" I asked, squinting a bit. "That's the one, right?"

Pam stopped in her tracks. "How did you know?"

She. Was. Beautiful in the fall.. Her hair the color of fallen leaves as it blew away from her face in the breeze. She was just as beautiful in the summer...the winter...the spring...

"You told me....Remember? The story..."

"No, I know I told you about the story...

"And then you told me they were starting to build a few houses in the newer part of the neighborhood...like the one you read about......and that one," I looked at it again. "That one feels like you."

"What about it feels like me?"

I shrugged, "Something about the ironwork...I don't know." I knew exactly, but to tell her would be the cheesiest thing I'd ever said to her. Iron was strong, but all the curly cues worked into it...it'd been made to look fragile...delicate. "I just see you there...I see you painting, having a cup of tea, holding a baby, planting flowers..."

"What?"

"Planting flowers."

"No...the thing before..."

"Cup of tea?" I said feigning innocence.

"No...the thing in the middle..."

"Oh holding a baby? That?...Yeah a baby duckling."

She smiled up at me with tears in her eyes. "You wanna have a baby with me, Jim?"

"No."

"Oh good," she said, putting her forehead against my chest. When she looked up at me, I brushed her hair out of her eyes and leaned down to kiss her.

"Glad we're on the same page about that Beesly."

~~~~~~~

When we came back to the house, it was absolutely still. No Frankie in the kitchen...no one downstairs at all. My heart beat like a drum inside my chest as I followed Pam up the stairs. She let go of my hand at one point, and I took it back. Not sure if the gesture was more for her comfort or my own.

She knocked lightly and we both exhaled when it was her father's voice that said ‘come in.'

He lay in bed, with Allison perched beside him and Frankie in the wing chair by the window, staring out of it. Bacon left uneaten on the night stand next to him.

"Hey, Daddy," Pam said walking swiftly over to the bed. I found a wall to blend into. "Feeling tired today?"

"Yeah, sweetheart," Frank said, fingering the very ends of Pam's hair when she leaned over to kiss his forehead. "Pamela...Would you please tell your mother to go and eat something? She's not listening to me."

Allison's eyes were red, clearly she'd been crying. "Oh for the love of God. Frankie pass me the damn toast and bacon. I'll eat the entire plate!" She said forcing her hand out towards Frankie.

"That's my bacon...I said go eat something, I didn't say to eat my bacon."

I chuckled from my place against the wall and the family turned in my direction all at once. I swallowed.

"See...Jim thinks I'm funny. Thank God somebody around here still has a sense of humor....Pamela, I want you to take your mother and brother downstairs...I'm sure she's missing General Hospital or something."

"I swear..." Allison muttered something unintelligible under her breath.

"Come on everybody," Pam said reluctantly. "Daddy wants some space..."

"I didn't say everybody...Jim can stay."

Pam turned to me. A slow smile spread across her lips. "Ok...everybody else."

I watched in horror as everyone filtered out the room, my heart once again hammering away in my chest. I'd been both dying for and dreading this moment. A moment when Pam's father and I finally got some time to talk without Roy around. I half expected Roy to pop out of the closet or something. I think I actually glanced behind me just to check...

"You want to talk to me, sir?"

"Really? Come on...you haven't called me sir...ever. Why start now? Respect for the dead?"

I grinned and sat in the chair Frankie had just vacated, "What the hell do you want Frank?"

"Oh that's good," Frank said grinning. "Tell me how you are, Jim."

I licked my lips. "I'm good...I'm good."

"Good," he said and then proceeded to fix his eyes on the ceiling, as if searching for something he wanted to say. His breathing became shallow and I started to sweat in places I didn't realize I could sweat.

Please don't...not with just me...here.

When he spoke again, he was quieter. "You know Jim, my daughter is doing a lot more painting lately."

"I know."

"She went a few years without showing me anything new. Anything... It was crazy. I couldn't understand it at all...I mean...I understood where it was coming from - I did. But the thing I couldn't understand was how somebody who loved something so much could just...let it go.......But anyway...now she's painting again - I'm very happy about that."

"Me too."

"I know you are............You know, my son thinks her mother and I don't know about all the problems with Roy. He thinks we were always blind to it....Not that I have to justify myself, but I want you to know that we weren't Jim. We had our concerns, but Pamela...it's hard to see her unhappy - even when you know what she's doing ultimately won't make her happy...I don't know - it doesn't make any sense. It won't make any sense until you have your own kids."

I didn't say it out loud, but it already made sense.

Instead I just nodded. "That...that's actually funny you say that because...um...Frank there's something I wanted to ask you..."

He turned to me expectantly, and my voice lodged somewhere deep inside my throat. I cleared it and continued. "D - do you already know what I'm gonna ask?"

"Of course I already know what you're gonna ask...Jim I was hearing about you, before I was ‘hearing' about you, if you know what I mean...ask your question - I've been waiting for this conversation."

Really? Ok...um - wow. I grinned. "Well, sir - it feels like there should be a sir here..."

"Yeah, you're right...it's got a nice ring to it in this kind of a conversation, doesn't it?"

"Yes.....Well, sir...I was wondering - I was hoping that I could have your permission...your blessing to have your daughter's hand in marriage."

Frank looked up at the ceiling and started to laugh...loudly.

"Ok..." I said, shaking my head. "Really? That's your reaction?...It's not...it's not that funny."

"It is when somebody says ‘hand in marriage...'....God, even I didn't phrase it that way, and I'm old."

"Wow."

"No, no...I'm sorry," Frank said near tears he'd been laughing so hard.

He gasped for breath...and for a few short moments I felt bad that I'd made him laugh, it was so hard for him to get his breathing back under control. When Frank spoke again, his voice was weak.

"I'm sorry...listen, you remind me so much of myself when I was your age...."

"Yeah?"

"Absolutely...I guess it's true what they say about girls marrying guys like their fathers."

I made a disbelieving sound. "Well then there's Roy...and I don't think he and I are anything alike..."

"I said it's true what they say about girls marrying guys like their fathers."

I was silenced. He smiled, pleased with himself for getting me to shut up.

"Also...I'm not naive enough to think that there's nothing going on...but I do appreciate you not shacking up with her first."

I laughed out loud...my first real out and out laughter in days.

We might as well have been ‘shacking up' for all the time we spent at each other's residences, but it was true we weren't officially living together. And a dying man's gratefulness would make sure we never would...the guy was a genius.

"Roy was a shacker....Don't get me wrong. I love the kid. Always have...he's not perfect. Not at all...and he wasn't right for my daughter. But you're..." His eyes found mine. "She paints more now."

"She does....and she will."

"I'm countin' on that."

I only nodded.

"You have a ring picked out?"

"Picked out and bought...in the sock drawer."

"How long you had it?"

"Too long to admit to without becoming extremely embarrassed."

Frank grinned. "You're in....permission granted."

"Thank you."

~~~~~~~

Years from now when I looked back on this day, I knew I'd remember it as one of the most emotionally taxing of my life. I'd gotten permission to marry the girl I loved from a man who would die only eight hours later.

Frank Beesly died in his own home, with his family surrounding his bed, each of them getting a few last moments with him and then time with him as a family. Even I had gotten those few perfect minutes with him, when I finally knew that he not only liked me, but thought I was good for his daughter. He knew that I loved her.

There wasn't anymore I could have asked for.

I'd gone in and out of the room the entire day and into the evening, bringing random things that they'd asked for and things they hadn't: coffee, tea, a cordless phone, tissue, throw blankets, pillows, left over turkey sandwiches, photo albums...anything I could think of to give Pam as many minutes in that room as possible.

There'd been a moment, just a couple of hours before Frank's death, that I'd emerged from the bathroom to find Allison sitting on the stairs, getting herself together before returning to the bedroom.

She'd looked me in the eye and without any tears, had point blank said, "It's gonna be your job to help me, Jim. With Pam...with my Frankie. It's gonna be your job."

I found myself nodding, looking her in the eye, as if, it was a given that I would do so. God, I wasn't even sure what she meant...but whatever it was - the answer was yes. Whatever it was, it meant being a part of this family...and that's who I was.

She only nodded back at me (a silent agreement) before lifting herself up from the bottom of those stairs and taking herself back into that bedroom.

Later that evening, as Pam sat curled up in my lap watching the sunset from her father's bedroom window, Frank went quietly away. Without any fanfare or drama, Frank moved peacefully into the next phase of his life.

And without fanfare...and just a little drama, I moved into the next phase of mine.