Practical Jean by Trevor Cole

kitchen.
    â€œWhy don’t you pour Louise another one of those,” said Jean, nodding toward the empty tumbler at Louise’s feet.
    â€œOh, sure,” Louise giggled. “Thanks.”
    â€œAnd I’ll have one too,” Jean said. “Just to see what the attraction is.” She held out her wineglass and waited for Milt to take it.
    â€œYou know what I think would be nice?” said Louise.
    Milt hesitated in the midst of retrieving glasses, sort of crouching on the carpet like prey hiding in the tall grass.
    â€œI’d like to die with someone reading poetry to me,” she said. “Maybe something by Elizabeth Bishop. Or that translation she did of that Manuel Bandeira poem.”
    Everyone waited, except for Milt, who resumed his flight to the kitchen.
    â€œDo you know it?” said Dorothy.
    â€œWell, the one I’m thinking of, it’s called ‘My Last Poem,’” said Louise. “It’s about a poet who wishes his last poem could be as beautiful as a scentless flower, as ardent as a tearless sob, and have the passion . . . What was it? . . . The passion of a suicide who kills himself without any explanation.”
    For a moment the only sound in the living room was that of Milt stirring Mojitos in the kitchen, his spoon knocking ice against glass.
    Jean, sitting in her chair by the window, wiped her eyes with the crumpled, snotty tissue she gripped hard in her hand. “Everyone should have a last poem,” she said. She said it more to herself than to anyone else. But then she looked to see if the others understood. “I mean, as a metaphor, not literally. I mean, everyone should have a last moment of beauty in their life. Because life can be so hard and dismal, why can’t we end with something absolutely pure and sweet? Something wonderful? We earn that, don’t we? I mean, that should be our right, as human beings.” All her friends nodded, watching her. “My mother deserved a last poem,” she said.
    â€œSure she did,” said Natalie.
    Jean’s hand felt stiff, rusty; her muscles seized as she wiped her nose again with the old, balled-up tissue. She was alone now. She hardly noticed Milt setting a tall green glass on the little table beside her; he was merely a shape in the shadows. Sitting by the window, she was all alone when her mind filled with an image, sudden and unstoppable, like gas being pumped into a chamber. She could tell this was what she’d been waiting for, since the day of the funeral. This was how the best plans and most intricate designs came to her; they rushed in at her, fully formed. She’d been waiting for just such a revelation. She knew to let it come.
    She saw her mother lying in bed, head wrenched back, neck roped with pain, and the vision caught her breath in her throat. But then . . . then . . . as she watched her dying mother, she imagined something quite fantastic. Oh, it was quite wonderful, and terribly sad, too, as a truly artistic vision can often be. She imagined offering her mother a last . . . sweet . . . moment of beauty, a last poem, in exchange for the pain she’d been given. Who could resist such a trade? Oh, it was so tragic, Jean thought, to know it had been within her power to grant her mother that gift, if she’d only thought of it in time. Because she knew how it could be done now. She looked at her friends gathered about her in the room, her friends and their shadows, and she could picture it clearly. And how tragic it would be for her mother—though her mother was dead and beyond knowing—to see her daughter giving that gift to someone else. Someone else and not her. Yes, that would be tragic, in its way. But now that she knew, Jean thought, what kind of monster would she be, what kind of friend, to deny that gift to these people she loved?
    Death didn’t have to be slow and agonizing and bleak. Suffering was not a given. A person could have a last