Hana is in good spirits as I push her wheelchair down the path toward the carousel, one of her favorite places in the world when she was a little girl. I'm afraid I've been acting like an overprotective mother, bundling her child in too many clothes so that she resembles an Indian papoose. I'd carry her on my back if I could.
But I worry, knowing how susceptible she is to every bug. With her compromised immune system, a simple cold could easily lead to pneumonia. Complications could arise from the smallest thing, a tiny cut or a wayward germ.
I lean over and say, "If you're too hot, we can unzip your jacket."
Hana smiles. "I have enough clothes on for Antarctica!"
I laugh, help her off with her down jacket as we look down the slope at the carousel, the tinny sound of the mechanical music floating up toward us. It's amazing to think that it's played that same song for over thirty years. From the distance, it sounds hollow and strained, while the turning carousel is a blur of colors in motion.
"Remember when you used to saddle up?" I ask.
Hana pulls her baseball cap low. "I'm afraid my riding days are over," she says.
When Hana was small, she liked to ride the white horse with the red and gold saddle. She named him Trigger. If someone else was riding him, she'd wait and wait to take her turn. No amount of coaxing could get her to ride any other horse. As soon as Trigger was free, she ran to him, and Max or I helped her up. She'd lean over to stroke the wooden mane and whisper something sweet into his ear. Her feet never reached the stirrups. When the carousel jerked back and started up again, I couldn't help but laugh at how the music always wheezed and took a moment to catch up. Hana would grab on to the silver pole and ride off across the purple sage, never once turning back.
I push Hana's wheelchair down to level ground. There's only a handful of small children riding the carousel now, all preschool age, their mothers holding on to them and talking to each other as they circle around.
"I wonder what happened to Trigger?" Hana suddenly asks.
"Retired him to breed?" I answer, though I find myself also searching for him among the freshly painted palominos and pintos as the carousel turns round and round. But I can't see him, and imagine they must have retired him after so many years of service.
"Guess even Trigger had to kick the bucket," Hana says.
We keep watching, hypnotized by the rushing horses, the shrieks of laughter from the children riding them. After what seems like ten minutes, the carousel slows, and
comes to a full stop. I push Hana around, glancing at each stationary horse, but it's plain to see that Trigger is nowhere in sight.
HANA
Trigger
Trigger is dead. The idea surprises me. I thought he'd last forever, like the tin can music. My mother won't give up at first, creating a carousel effect of her own as we circle around and around the standing horses. She scrutinizes each one, then sighs and gives up, bringing the wheelchair to an abrupt stop.
"He's not here," she says, defeated. "No," I say. "He's in horse heaven." Her fingers graze the side of my cheek, and I reach up and grasp her hand. A bell rings, loud and grating, as the music winds up and the carousel begins to turn again, slowly at first, before picking up speed.
"Let's get something to eat," my mother says.
I look up at her astonished. We almost never eat outside food anymore. She takes great pains to prepare only low-fat, high-fiber meals. Dr. Truman has commended her more than once on how well she keeps to the regimen. "You're really amazing," he said a few days ago, when he came by to see whether the swelling in my ankles had gone down. They were standing in the kitchen, where my mother poured him a cup of coffee. He didn't realize I'd overheard, and I saw him touch the small of her back.
"Like what?" I ask.
"Popcorn. Popcorn is healthy," she says, like a child.
"Just what I've been craving," I say. "I'll stay right here and watch the herd. You get the popcorn."
My mother hesitates for a moment, then sees that there's no danger in sitting amidst mothers and children and wooden horses. The concession stand is no more than thirty feet away.
"I'll be right back," she says, backing away.
"I'll yell and scream if anyone tries anything," I tease.
She smiles. "You better."
Mothers and their children are in a category all their own. There's no bond so strong in the entire world. No love so instantaneous and forgiving. I watch these mothers and know they would give their lives for their rosy-cheeked babes, much as my mother has done for me. But these babies will one day leave their comfortable nests, fly away and seek their own lives, whereas I have stayed home to roost.
A little boy begins to cry, no longer wanting to be strapped to a horse going around in circles. "It's all right," his mother coos as the carousel turns out of my sight. When they come around again, she has unstrapped him from the horse and is holding him, bouncing him up and down, lifting his hand and waving it to whomever will pay attention. When they come to me, I lift my hand and wave back.
"Say hi to the nice lady," I hear her tell him. But he's like a puppet in her hands, doing what she tells him without any concept or understanding. When they are out of sight again, I lower my arm, wishing my mother would hurry back.
Which she does, carrying two red-and-white-striped boxes of popcorn. She takes long, fluid strides, and in that moment watching her, I have yet another revelation. Another detail I want taken care of.
"Do you want to stay here?" she asks.
I shake my head. "I've heard this tune once too often."
"I'm with you," she says.
Cate guides my wheelchair away from the carousel, down a path to a small meadow. Tall grass and eucalyptus trees surround us, and it seems a perfect place to talk about my latest notion. She sits down on the grass in front of me. Between us, there's the crunching of popcorn, which tastes even better than I remembered. A soft breeze is blowing, and it feels so good, as if the day was created for us.
I gaze out at the trees for a long time. "Do you think you'll ever marry again?" I suddenly ask. My mother has too much life left in her to be alone.
She turns to me in surprise, still holding a piece of popcorn between her fingers. "No," she answers, even before she's had a chance to digest the question. I can see by the surprise on her face that the thought has never entered her mind. Her response comes without hesitation, with perhaps a slight edge of irritation in her voice. But I don't care. I haven't time to beat around the bush.
My mother takes another moment and then adds, "I really can't imagine being married to anyone other than your father."
I raise my hand against the sun, as if I'm saluting someone. "Why not?" I ask.
"Because I can't," she says, her words quick and terse.
I pause for just a moment, then say quietly, "You should think about it. I don't want you to be alone." I reach down and squeeze her arm, and I see her watching me as my hand trembles just the slightest bit. "Dad would understand."
An overwhelming sadness crosses her face. She shakes her head and whispers back as if telling a secret. "I'm not alone."
"But you will be, one day."
The look on her face keeps me from adding the word soon, but I think it, and suspect she does, too.
My mother forces a small laugh and dodges the topic. "One step at a time," she says. "We're at the park today. I'll think about dating some other time."
"You're right." I smile. "No hurry, we can start looking tomorrow."
She looks at me, and I can see the seriousness of the moment has left her face. "Popcorn made me thirsty," she says, standing up and brushing off her slacks. Again she hesitates, then says, "I'm going to get us some water."
I watch her walk away and suddenly feel frightened. "Mom?" I say.
"I'll be right back." She smiles. "Promise?" I ask. A word saved since childhood.
She blows me a kiss. "Promise."
JOSEPHINE
Driving
/> In the end. Mom's rights the drive north to Daring is beautiful. Once we leave the city and cross the famous Golden Gate Bridge, we both seem to relax and enjoy the ride. To each side of the freeway are rolling green hills that eventually give way to large, towering trees. Not a sight we often see in Manhattan. I leave my earphones on but turn down the music so that I can hear Mom softly humming with the classical piece on the radio. I glance over at her now and then, but she keeps her eyes focused on the road, especially now that the fog seems to be drifting in fast, leaving everything slightly out of focus. Mom looks different since Dad left — thinner and older around the eyes. I turn back to see that Camille is still asleep, and I think it's a wonderful time to tell my mom something nice after all she's been through.
But when I look back at her again, I can see that her thoughts are elsewhere. She looks as if she's listening to something serious, as if she's deep in conversation and doesn't like what she hears. Maybe she's thinking of all that she's left behind in New York. Like Dad. In a fight I once heard them having, he said she didn't really care about anything but her work. There was a moment of silence when I thought she wasn't going to say anything back. But then in her cool, lawyer's voice, she said to him, "I love my daughters more than life. Can you say the same?" And then it was silent.
I decide it's not the time to disturb her after all. Instead, I turn up the volume to the music of Vertical Horizon and look out the window as the trees slowly disappear into the milky whiteness.
CATE
Losing Control
Even from this distance I can tell something is wrong by the way Hana is sitting. Call it a mother's intuition, living with a child day in and day out. If you really pay attention, everything is right there, in a look, a gesture, or the sound of the voice. From this angle, Hana appears to be slumped over the side of her chair. Dear God, I think to myself, let her be all right. I run across the meadow as fast as I can, dropping the bottles of water along the way. I was only gone for ten minutes, at the most. But then that's all it would take, if her heart stopped beating, if an aneurysm burst, or if some organ failed. My own heart is beating so hard I feel as if it might jump out of my chest. By the time I reach her, I'm panting, fear catching my last breath.
"Hana?" I gasp, relieved when she turns my way. She watches me and doesn't reply. Her wide-eyed look shows me she's distressed, but she doesn't seem to be in pain.
"What is it? What's wrong?" I lean over, wanting to embrace her, but she puts her arms out to stop me.
I step back, giving her room. "What's up, kiddo? I bought us some water," I say, realizing that I dropped both bottles somewhere out there in the meadow. Feeling foolish, I point to where I see the plastic glimmering in the sunlight.
Hana is quiet, her face flushed. "I've had an accident," she mumbles.
I quickly reach for her again, wondering if she really is in some kind of pain and trying to keep it from me.
"I'm all right," she says, as she lifts the jacket that's lying across her lap, and I see the dark, wet stain that has spread across the crotch of her pants and down her thighs.
Another lifetime ago, Hana was a brilliant student. She spent a year at Brandon before she and Laura were both accepted at Berkeley. I knew it was a dream come true for her. She loved history but decided to major in English. She read day and night, wrote long, complicated essays on the Romantic movement and Virginia Woolf, flourished in the world of academia. Her phone calls home were filled with excitement and future aspirations. "I may be able to be Professor Heiden's teaching assistant for a semester after graduation," she said. "I've been thinking that teaching is the direction I want to go." Max and I couldn't have been happier for her.
She and Laura lived on the third floor of a six-story stucco buildings each apartment with a small balcony that also seemed to double as a closet. Each time we drove down to visit as the school year progressed, we'd look up to see more bikes, clothes, and boxes piled up outside. Hana and Laura's two-bedroom apartment overlooked a small, unattended yard, with a couple of old chairs that sat in the middle of a patch of dying grass. The apartment was decorated in an Asian, Middle Eastern, hippie motif— lots of big red and purple pillows on the floor, beads hanging from doorways, and tie-dyed curtains. We were deliriously happy for her, never daring to think too far into the future. But for that short time, I tried to believe that my prayers had been answered, and that Hana would have the chance to achieve some of her goals.
So Max and I were more than surprised when she came home from Berkeley unexpectedly one April weekend. We were just sitting down to dinner when we heard the front door open and her "Hello?" The sound of her voice, weak and strained, told us something was wrong. Hana rarely came home except for holidays. When we drove down to visit her, we always felt like intruders. Now Max and I hurried to the living room to see Hana standing there between two suitcases.
"Hana," Max said, a smile in his voice. "We didn't expect to see you for another month."
I stepped toward her. "What a nice surprise." She looked tired and thin. Her eyes avoided mine.
Hana tried to smile, then looked quickly to Max. "Can you please pay the taxi driver? He's bringing in one more box for me."
Max gave Hana a quick hug first, then went out to take care of the cab fare. I hesitated for a moment, then wrapped my arms around her. I smelled the sweat of travel on her pale skin, her hair slightly oily and in need of washing, but she felt small and warm in my arms, and her body relaxed the longer I held her.
"What's wrong?" I whispered.
Another long pause. "I'm having trouble with my eyes," she finally answered. "It's Werner," she said softly.
"Werner," I said to myself. The word lay thick and heavy on my tongue. After all these years waiting, I was still surprised. "The cataracts aren't supposed to develop so soon," I muttered. I pulled away and looked at her, lifting her chin so I could see the dark eyes I knew so well. And, for the first time, I saw the hazy film covering her lenses, the cloudy edges that reminded me of a moon just before rain. Miles had told us that cataracts would be an early symptom of Werner, but part of me kept hoping it would never happen. Hana had just turned twenty-three. She was at the height of her beauty, with straight, long black hair and dark, piercing eyes.
"For how long?" I asked.
Hana looked away. "For the past six months, but it's only gotten really bad in the past month. I was hoping to finish the semester."
"What did the doctors in San Francisco say?"
"That I should have surgery to remove them within the next few months."
I swallowed. I didn't like the word surgery, no matter how simple a procedure it was. I knew this meant that Werner would begin making his presence known in a more aggressive way. "What about school?" I managed to ask.
Hana stepped away from me now. "I think I'll be able to graduate anyway. I have enough credits."
"If not, you can always finish next semester," I said, knowing that by then Laura and all her friends would have graduated without her.
"It's okay," she reassured. "I talked to my professors."
"You should have called," I said. "We would have driven down to get you."
"I said it's okay!" Hana said sharply. She looked at me and then sighed. "I didn't want it to be a big deal, so I took the bus. Laura wanted to drive me, but she has a paper due."
I nodded. It was a big deal. I felt the tears welling up and looked away when Max came back in.
"All taken care of," he said, glancing my way, then taking Hana's hand in his. He didn't ask her any questions. "Let's get you something to eat. You hungry?"
Max didn't wait for an answer, but led her to the kitchen with the same matter-of-fact manner he'd used in teaching her to swim and ride a bike.
During the months leading up to her cataract surgery, I read to Hana every night. She
never mentioned the teaching assistant position again. Every time I saw the cloudy veil over her beautiful eyes I bit my lip and blinked back te
ars.
"So, what book do you want to hear tonight?" I asked.
"Anything," she said. "I just like to hear the words read aloud."
She closed her eyes as my voice filled the room with Willa Cather's My Antonia. I knew she was following along, just like when she was a little girl, seeing the characters in faraway places with her mind's eye, reaching back and trying to understand how her life had come to this.
Now I can't help but blame myself for Hana's accident. As her mother, I should have known better. As her caregiver, I should be aware of these things. At home I'm constantly asking if she needs to use the bathroom, wants a glass of water, or if she's hungry. It's part of a routine that shouldn't be broken, even if it does get on her nerves sometimes. "I'm fine" is her standard answer, two words that can be said a multitude of ways to convey her mood, depending on her tone and which word is accentuated. When Hana was a little girl, she could go for hours without having to use the bathroom.
She'd sit quietly through a movie or an afternoon of shopping without a complaint. Only when I suggested we make a stop before going on would she nod her head in agreement.
Hana's only other "accident" was more than a week ago, when she awoke in the morning to find she'd wet her bed, lying atop the moist, warm stain that looked like a spreading bruise.
"I'm sorry, I must be losing control," she'd said to me, in a voice that was more accepting than upset.
"It's just one little accident," I'd answered. But inside, I was the one who was upset. I knew that every small mishap meant some part of my daughter's body was weakening, shutting down.
Now, it's two little accidents.