God, I miss him. I sigh, shake my head.
“I’m sorry,” Alice says. “I shouldn’t have brought him up. I knew it as soon as I said it. But it was too late, then. I hate when I do that.”
“It’s all right.”
Alice looks over at the kids, then back at me. “Let’s talk about my misery, so you’ll feel better. Do you think I should divorce Ed?”
It surprises me, that she would say this. I feel kind of punched. But then I think of all the times I felt so odd around Ed. The way I couldn’t quite ever connect with him. I would get the feeling, when he was looking right at me and talking, that he still wasn’t looking at me. That he wasn’t quite present. Maybe Alice feels like that.
I remember a time Ed was out playing football with the kids. They were having a great time, and I was smiling, watching from the window, thinking, Why am I so nasty about him? He’s a nice guy. He’s just shy or something. He stopped playing, told the kids he needed to rest, and went to sit on the porch steps. I almost went out with him. I was thinking I’d sit down, maybe offer him a beer. I was thinking if only I’d try harder, I’d get to know him, and then I’d like him. But before I could go out with him, Alice did. She sat beside him and he moved just the slightest bit away. It was tiny—he didn’t move anything but his shoulder, so that it wouldn’t be resting against hers. I thought it was so awful. I thought, what is this? And I thought if I had to put a name on that kind of behavior I would say it was withholding. And I would say that it is one of the worst kinds of poisons that exist in human relationships.
When Ed pulled away from Alice, a thin blade of sunlight pushed its way between them. I had to look away. It was hurting my eyes.
I am tempted to say to Alice, “You know, the truth is I never liked Ed. Never trusted him. You can do much better.” But that is so dangerous. And so I only say, “Well, I don’t know if you should think about divorce already. I mean, have you even talked about it?”
“No.”
“Not any of the times that it happened?”
“No. But I … It didn’t happen before.”
“I thought you told me it had!”
“I did say that. I thought it would make it easier to deal with, to say it had happened before. That it was just an arrangement, something I was used to. I thought maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much then. But this is the first time, at least as far as I know. And it’s so weird. It’s so weird. One minute I want to do anything to keep him. The next I want to leave. Just leave. Or tell him to.”
“Do you know who it is? The woman?”
She shakes her head. “No. Someone he works with, I’m sure. I can see her getting ready for work, fixing her hair, checking her teeth, thinking, I wonder when he’ll be in today. I wonder if we’ll have time to do it. I wonder when he’ll get rid of his dippy wife. Whenever he sees her, she’s all put together. Pretty gold earrings on clean ears, perfume behind them. Her underwear matches. She’s not in her bathrobe, lying around with menstrual cramps, farting.”
“I have to tell you something, Alice.”
“What?”
“You look fabulous in your bathrobe.”
She looks at me.
“I mean it.”
“Right. See, I know you mean it. I know you do. But Ed’s not the kind to think like that. He likes … Huh. You know what? I don’t know. I don’t know what he likes. I mean, he’s eating dinner and he says he likes the chicken and I think, Do you really? Or is this bullshit too? We watch a movie, and I think, Are you really watching this? Or are you thinking about her? I hate him, is the thing. Which is very inconvenient, because I love him.”
“Alice, you’ve got to talk about it.”
“I don’t want to. I just don’t. I’ve been waiting for this. Now it’s happened. What’s to talk about?”
Everything, it seems to me. But it’s not my job to drive Alice’s car. It’s my job to verify the scenery.
“Well, should we feed the kids?” she asks.
“Are you hungry?”
“Sure.”
No, she isn’t. But we call the kids over to us. When they sit on the blanket, I see grass stains on their knees, wildflowers tucked behind their ears. I’m so glad we came. Alice and I will handle the trouble off to the side. Let their brains be taken up with spring.
Pat Swanson meets us when we come in the door to the nursing home that evening. “Could I see you for just a minute?” she asks.
I tell the kids to go ahead, and follow Pat into her tiny office. She’s got a yellowing philodendron in a basket on her windowsill, stacks of papers that nearly obscure a dusty photograph on her desk, a gigantic schedule taped to the wall. She points to a chair beside her desk, then sits in her own. “So. How are you doing?”
“I’m fine. I’m surprised to see you here.”
“Oh, I work an odd shift every now and then. Check up on how things go during the off hours. I even come in and do a night sometimes.”
“Oh. That’s good.” I notice that her mascara is blue. Midnight blue, I think they call it. I never understood blue mascara.
“The reason I wanted to speak to you is … well, I just wanted to give you a kind of progress report. You must be wondering how your husband’s doing.”
“I do visit him every day. I see how he’s doing.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I know he’s not in, you know, great shape or anything. But he’s holding his own.”
“Yes. He’s holding his own. I guess you could say that.”
“Right.”
“Look, I have to tell you, Mrs. Berman, the doctors don’t have much hope that your husband will wake up.”
I swallow. Jerks, standing in front of their too-expensive bathroom mirrors each morning, shaving their uplifted chins.
“One thing we needed to know is whether or not you wanted what we call heroic measures. That’s when—”
“I know exactly what heroic measures are,” I say. “And yes, I want them. In fact, you can station the crash cart—that’s what you call it, isn’t it? The crash cart?—you can station that right outside his room. You can draw up every medication in it, just in case.” Lainey, Jay would say quietly, when I would get going this way. He doesn’t get nasty like I do. He’s kinder.
Pat nods, slowly. “All right. I guess I understand what your wishes are.”
I stand. “I intend to bring him home. Recovered.”
Nothing. Polite vacancy.
“If you don’t think that’s possible, I’d like you to stay out of his room.”
“I’m the head nurse here, Mrs. Berman. I go into every patient’s room, every day.”
“Well, don’t talk to him,” I say. “Don’t touch him.” I leave her office, walk down the hall rapidly, then slowly. I shouldn’t have done that. She has too much power. I need her on my side. Later, I’ll apologize. Maybe.
The kids have put flowers from the farm on Jay’s windowsill. Beside the vase is a pile of stones. “Where’d you get the rocks?” I ask.
“They were here,” Amy says.
Sarah reaches for one, brings it over to me. “This one has a picture on it. See?”
What she hands me is a fetish stone, which I know is believed to hold a spirit. There’s a bird etched into it, a long-beaked creature, his eyes directed fearlessly forward, tail feathers streaming straight out behind him. I don’t know who brought it. I only know it’s here. And I accept it with profound ignorance and thanks, which is what we do with all miracles.
I can feel you. Listen. I can feel you all. Come closer. It’s so warm. Oh, here, the little weight of my daughter next to me, the feel of her hand on my forehead. Skin to skin, can you hear me, Amy? A pulling up, a rising in my chest, a flutter. And now I feel … Look. Is my finger alive, moving? I can’t open my eyes, what is so heavy on them? A serpentine tunnel. This convoluted blackness.
“His eyeballs are moving,” Sarah says. “It’s gross.” She is leaning against the wall by the window, her hands tucked
behind her. Amy, who’d been sitting on the bed beside Jay, stroking his face, pulls her hand away.
I cross in front of Sarah, give her a severe look, sit down on the other side of Jay. I pick up one of his hands, wrap my own around it. Someone cut his nails today. “Hi, honey,” I say. “We’re here. Just relax. We’re here. We went to the country today, to Alice’s farm. It was so beautiful.”
He stops his small movements, quiets. There! Don’t they see things like that? Pat Swanson, hasn’t she seen this? He’s listening! Isn’t he?
“We saw a fox,” Amy tells him.
“Did not,” Sarah says.
“Did so!”
“Girls,” I say.
“It wasn’t a fox,” Sarah says. “It was a dog.”
“No way, I saw it and it had a bushy tail. And so did Timothy, he said it was a fox, too. And he knows every animal.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Sarah,” I say. “Stop.”
“I don’t care,” she says. “I don’t even want to be here.”
I stand up, take her arm and pull her out of the room. Down the hall a little ways I ask, “What is the matter with you? Do you think he needs to hear that?” I am speaking between clenched teeth, in a low voice I barely recognize as my own. I am full of the dangerous kind of fury that comes from pain.
Sarah says nothing. The line of her mouth has thinned, hardened. She is full of the same kind of fury.
“I asked you a question!” I say.
“What?”
“I asked you, do you think he needs to hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Sarah, don’t you do this. Do not do this. You know exactly what I’m talking about. I want you to behave in front of Dad. I don’t want him to hear you two fighting.”
“He can’t hear us anyway.”
“Why do you say that!”
“He never does anything back. Not one thing. He just lies there. I don’t see why you think he can hear you. And I don’t see why we have to come. It’s creepy. And it doesn’t do any good. It doesn’t do anything!”
Down the hall, one of the patients wheels toward us, an old man wearing a stained white T-shirt and brown trousers. He wheels slowly, his head hanging down, his half-full urinal stuck between his knees. I take Sarah by the hand, lead her into the nearby kitchen. “Sarah, I don’t expect you to understand all this. I don’t understand all this. But I believe it’s important to talk to Dad, to let him know we love him and that we expect him to get better. I really, really believe he will get better.”
Sarah opens one of the metal drawers of the tiny cabinet, closes it.
“Can you just … I want you to try too, Sarah. This is our family. We work together. We need to work together.”
She looks up into my face and her eyes fill. “He’s so skinny, now.”
“Yes. I know. He looks different.”
And now, sobbing, she says, “I can’t help it. He’s so weird. He’s not even like my dad.”
I hold her against me. I have such a strong longing to cry with her, but somebody has to be the mother. I take in a deep breath, talk in a calm voice to the top of her head. “Well, he’s not like he used to be. That’s true. He’s sick now. You know, you can look really bad when you’re sick. We just need to help him get better. And then he’ll come home and help take care of you when you get sick.”
She pulls away from me. “I won’t ever be sick like that!”
“No. No, you won’t, Sarah.”
“Will I?”
“No! It’s not contagious, it was an accident. It was ice! Remember?”
Silence. And then, “Yes. I remember.”
“It was so rare, Sarah. An accident, what they call a freak accident. I don’t believe it will ever happen again. Okay?”
She nods.
“All right. So listen. You just need to try to remember that it’s Dad in there. No matter how he looks, it’s Dad.”
“Okay.” She closes her eyes tightly, then opens them and looks up at me. “I think we should put a picture of him in his room. On the windowsill. Of how he used to be.”
“I think that’s a terrific idea.” It is. Let everyone see him with his sweatshirt and jeans on, holding a basketball at his side, his hair sexily messy, his teeth white and strong, his watch ticking on his wrist. Let Pat Swanson see. Let the doctors who want to let him go see. And let Sarah see. Let her have something in his room to look at to remind her of why she is here. Because it’s easy to forget. Even for me. Sometimes, sitting beside him and blathering on and on, I get the feeling that my real self has picked up my purse and left.
After the kids are asleep, I come down into the kitchen for a piece of chocolate cake, left over from our picnic. The light is so dim. I’ve got to replace that bulb. I start to think about asking Ed to help me, then remember. I’ll figure it out myself. I’ll ask at the hardware store.
“Coffee in the batter gives chocolate cake a very nice taste,” Evie says. “ ’Course, it has to be strong. And buttermilk, that’s good in there, too.”
I stare at my plate, continue eating. I know where she is. Opposite me. Sitting.
“You had quite a day today. It can be very difficult with children. You never feel as much love toward anyone else. Or as much anger. Not much of a chance for you to talk about it, either. It’s harder for you women today. I feel sorry for you. We had each other around. The kids were right outside, playing, going in and out of one another’s houses like they lived in every one of them, and we women, we were there, too. Sometimes a couple of us would be out on the sidewalk just talking and then pretty soon, why, there’d be a regular crowd out there. There were plenty of times we sat on someone’s front steps, giving advice, getting it. Oh, we solved some problems, I’ll tell you! Used to wonder why the White House didn’t call us, we’d tell them what to do, all right.”
I think about whether or not I want another piece of cake. No. Yes. I get up to get another slice, sit down again and start eating it.
“Every night, we waited for the men to come home,” Evie says. “We’d take off our aprons, run a comb through our hair, put on a little lipstick, watch at the window. That’s the way we did it, we were told to make a man feel welcome when he came home. We were told, ‘Clear away the clutter, minimize the noise, let him relax after his hard day. Don’t tell him any problems.’ Well, I never did go along with that one. My problems were his problems. That’s the way I looked at it. And vice versa, of course. It was a partnership. I didn’t mind getting a little gussied up for dinner, though. I think I did it for myself as much as him. I didn’t mind a little rouge and lipstick making me look better. I liked it.
“And the men, they had their routines for coming home, too. I believe they might have tidied up a bit themselves. My husband, he always tooted the horn when he pulled into the driveway. Then the kids knew it was time to wash up for dinner.
“It was a community, don’t you see, all of us doing more or less the same thing, all of us full of a kind of hope you don’t have now. The isolation you people live with, it kind of infects everyone, makes you sick. Don’t you see that you need each other? I wonder sometimes, do you even know what you’re after?”
I put my fork down, rest my forehead in my hand. I recall once having a dream where I was on an airplane and I stood up from my seat, turned around to look at all that was around me. The sun was coming in the windows of the plane, illuminating the passengers. Some were really old, and some were children, and everyone was asleep, bathed in this golden light. I found it so moving, seeing all these people hurtling through the air in a long silver tube, sleeping, their hands in their laps. And I heard a voice say, “You see? They’re all fetuses.” I told Jay the dream the next morning, when the sun coming through the kitchen window was bathing him, in his work suit. And he said it was a very tender dream and did I know what it meant and I said no. But I did know. I just couldn’t say it in words.
Then, as though it is related, I recall
something else. I once sat behind two women at a movie. They looked to be in their late forties and they were talking about how self-sufficient their children were, now that they were teenagers. “So what do you think comes next?” one of them said. “I mean, now that we’re not needed anymore? Do we just get decrepit? Do we work even longer hours just to fill the void?” The other one ate a handful of popcorn and then said, “I don’t know.”
I pick up my saucer to lick off the plate. Crumbs fall onto my lap and I brush them onto the floor.
“Better sweep those crumbs up pretty quick,” the ghost woman says. “Ants will be here before you know it. I had good luck keeping them away with a mix of cloves and red pepper. They don’t care for that. Just sprinkle it along the doorways.”
I look up, slowly, and see her, a dim, vague presence, sitting at the table in a robe with a scarf knotted around her head. She has her hair in pincurls. She sees me looking at them and says, “Coming up, my sisters and I used rags to curl our hair. That worked better. There were six of us, and we slept three in a bed, can you imagine? We’d tell each other stories every night before we went to sleep. At first, it was ghost stories. But then, when we got older, it was on to our fellows.”
I sit immobile, aware of a spreading pain in my chest.
She speaks softly. “You just don’t know, do you? You think he might die, and what will you do if he dies? It’s always a shock, I’ll tell you, no matter how it happens. I remember the night Walter died. December fourteenth, about seven in the evening. He was two weeks past being sixty-eight years old. He was sitting in the armchair watching television and he had a real quiet heart attack. I came in to tell him to get washed up, dinner was almost ready, and he didn’t move. I knew right away. He was just gone. It was a shell sitting there. I stood across the room from him for a little while. I remember I was wiping my hands dry on my apron the whole time, just staring at him. Finally, I called the doctor, and then I tried to get him to lie down, I thought if he was dead he should be lying down. I got him onto the floor, and I was talking to him the whole time, saying ‘Now Walter, you’re going to have to cooperate with me.’ Just like that. Well, you don’t want to let go at first, you see. You just can’t. I covered him with the afghan I’d just finished making the week before, he’d picked some of the colors. And then I sat down next to him and I just waited. I’ll tell you, my nerves were jumping, but I sat so very still. I was thinking I was so glad I’d been fixing him a dinner he liked—his favorite, in fact. He liked pot roast, overdone so the meat would be sticking to the pan something awful, he liked that. I never did eat any of that dinner. I saved it in the refrigerator for close to a month, and then I threw it away. In that cupboard right there. Same place as you keep your garbage. Threw the whole pan out.”