25 Months Hardcover - 2004

Excerpt

Four windows form the headboard of our bed. A straggle of trees, the marsh, and then the river. Milky moonlight floods our pillows. Behind me his knees fit perfectly into the soft caps of my bent legs. His chin rests easily on the top of my head. His arm crosses my body in that little valley just below my ribs. The soles of my feet lie flat against his shins. Am I awake or asleep? Maybe both. His thumb explores the back of my hand, pauses on my fourth finger, and idly turns the gold band there. Time and the cool of the night have deepened the groove and the ring turns easily. Above me his breath is warm in my ear.

“Marry me,” he murmurs.

Dream or joke? His words, my torpor, merge to pursue me through the shallows of sleep. But already I’m far ahead, sinking into the deep. In the morning the moon and his words have vanished . . . forgotten. It seems.

Media reviews

Publishers Weekly 2004

June 21, 2004
25 MONTHS
Linda McK. Stewart. Other Press, $22 (288p) ISBN 1-59051-130-1

Stewart's second husband, Jack, worked for 34 years as a New York Times editor, launched a respected African news journal and pleasantly retired into a late career as a part-time literary agent. One autumn afternoon, with barely any warning, he began to exhibit undeniable symptoms of Alzheimer's, which changed everything for him and his wife. Stewart's straightforward, deeply felt memoir of the ensuing 25 months couldn't have been an easy story to tell, much less write and rewrite into this solid and often poignant book, but it's a strong narrative testimonial to her husband and his last months. Stewart leaves no doubt of her affection for Jack; her characterization of him nears hagiography. Yet this was a second marriage for both, and there's scant information as to why the first ones failed. Stewart also has considerable experience as a freelance travel writer and draws on that expertise in the book's heart, when her husband's memory has become irrevocably fragmented. For example, some random comment of Jack's connects with Stewart's memories of their travels to the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania to visit Louis and Mary Leakey. This mixing of Jack's present-day deterioration with Stewart's precise memories begins to promise something more, but the book soon returns to the conventional, month-by-month story of Jack's worsening condition, and the sad, simple story of a solid marriage coming to an end.