Tribute

right down to the crab dip.”
    “I don’t even like crab dip. Why do people eat stuff like that?” He gave her a tug, pulling her onto the bed. And rolled on top of her. “People are always making dips out of odd things. Spinach dip, artichoke dip. Have you ever asked yourself why?”
    “I can’t say I have.”
    “Why can’t they be satisfied with some Cheez Whiz on a cracker? It’s simple. It’s classic.”
    "You can’t distract me with Cheez Whiz.” She shoved him off. "I’m going down.” She tugged her shirt back into place. “I’m ready.”
    IT WASN’T ALTOGETHER horrible or intimidating, Cilla discovered. Not with a partner. Especially when the partner was as clueless as she. It was almost fun. She thought, with some repetition, and a bit more skill, boiling pasta or mincing garlic might slip past the almost and become actual fun.
    “I had a Janet dream last night,” she told him.
    “How can the simple tomato come in so many sizes?” He held up a beefsteak and a handful of grape tomatoes. “Is it science? Is it nature? I’ll have to do a study on it. What was the dream about?”
    “I guess it was about love, at least on one level. And my subconscious poking around about what it means. Or what it meant to her. We were in the living room of the farm. The walls were my walls—I mean the space was mine, the color of the paint, but she was on that bright pink couch. And I had photographs spread on this glossy white coffee table. Photos I’ve managed to get my hands on, the photos your grandfather took, photos I think I might have just seen in books. Hundreds of them. She was drinking vodka in a short glass. She said it had been a year since Johnnie died, and how she hoped this baby was a boy. She said it was her last chance. Her last love, her last chance.
    “It’s so odd. She knew she was going to die soon. Because I knew. I asked her why, why did she do it? Why did she turn away from that last chance and end it all?”
    “What did she say?”
    “That if I could do anything for her, it would be to find that answer. That I had it all in front of me, but I wasn’t paying attention. So I woke up frustrated because, as she said, it’s my dream. If I know something, why don’t I know it?”
    Ford took up his assignment of slicing the beefsteak. “Is it too much to accept she might’ve been too sad, too deep in the dark, and saw it as the only way to end the pain?”
    “No. But I can’t quite make myself believe it. I never fully could, or never fully wanted to. And since I came here, started on the house, I believe it less—and want to believe it less,” Cilla admitted. “She found something here. Look at all she took and let go of again. Men, marriages, houses, possessions. She was famous for acquiring and disposing of. But she kept this place, and more, made arrangements so it would remain in the family long after she died. She found something she needed here, something that contented her.”
    She looked out the window and watched Spock on his morning rounds. “She kept the dog,” Cilla murmured. “And an old jeep. A stove and refrigerator that were out of date. I think, in a way, this place was real to her. The rest, it’s not. For the smart ones, it’s a job. It’s good work. Fame can be a by-product, but it’s fleeting and fickle and so much of it’s an illusion. She didn’t need the illusion here.”
    “And falling in love here made it more real?”
    She looked over, grateful he followed the thread of her thoughts. “It follows, doesn’t it? The worst thing in her life happened here when Johnnie was killed. An inescapable reality. But she kept coming back, facing it. She didn’t close the place up, or sell it. He called her Trudy, and that’s who she wanted to believe he loved. I think she wanted that last chance, desperately. I think she wanted the baby, Ford. She’d lost one child. How could she, why would she kill herself and end the chance for another?”
    “And if she realized it wasn’t Trudy this guy loved, that that was another illusion?”
    “Men come and go. They always did for her. And I guess I remembered that, resolved that through the dream last night. Her one true love was Johnnie. Her work, too. She passionately loved the work. But Johnnie was hers. My mother always knew that, always knew she didn’t quite hit the same spot. The last love, the last chance? I think it was the child for her. I can’t believe, just can’t, that she’d have