“She’s just pissed, Lainey. Let her be pissed. Of course there’s fallout. This didn’t just happen to Jay. It happened to all of you.”
“Yeah. I guess you’re right.” I look up into the cloudless blue sky, wrestle with an impulse to stand up and scream. If I did it, the sound would reach far. Coast to coast.
“Maybe I’ll come along and see Jay today,” Alice says. “I haven’t visited him since he moved.”
“That would be good. I’m trying to … kind of … approximate his normal life. It would be good for him to hear your voice.”
“What do you mean, ‘approximate’ his life?”
“Well, just … you know, to put as much around him that’s as familiar as possible. Smells. Fabrics. Sounds. I just thought … I don’t know. Never mind.”
“No, I think it’s a good idea,” Alice says. “It is.” She crosses her arms, leans back against the bench, squints at our kids on the swing set. “Timothy?” she calls, and when he looks over at her, she says, “Why don’t you play?”
“What?” he yells.
“Go run around,” Alice says. “Go down the slide or something.”
“I’m doing something,” he says.
Alice watches him for a while, then looks away. “I don’t know why I bother him. He’s fine. I don’t know why I think he needs to run around.” She looks back at him. “But he does need to run around! He thinks too much. He needs to kick some rocks. He needs to beg me to play football.”
“He’s only seven, Alice.”
“Yes, but he’s too serious.”
“Maybe he’ll be the next Einstein. Let him be. If I have to leave Sarah alone, you have to leave Timothy alone.”
“I can’t. I’m his mother. I have to drive him crazy. Somebody’s got to give him material for his therapist later on. I don’t want him to feel deprived.”
From under the bench, Maggie rushes out to bark at a new arrival. Twin girls, one on each side of a harried-looking father. He is of the new breed, fathers trying to take equal responsibility and do the right thing, while in a secret corner of their hearts they wonder if their fathers didn’t get a better deal. The twins are perhaps two, cautious-stepped and wide-eyed at the sight of a playground that is the equivalent of Disneyland for them. They choose the sandbox, begin digging distractedly.
Alice grabs Maggie, who is growling now, and pulls her up onto her lap. “Quiet!” she says. “You’re so bad. Someone who looks like you ought to at least have a decent personality.” Something about this notion sticks in my brain. “Wait a minute,” I want to say to Alice. “Maggie doesn’t owe anything to anybody because of the way she looks. You do know that, right?” But I don’t say anything. Alice’s looks are like a body of water only she knows about and we walk along the edge. Someday we’ll get wet together, and she’ll show me the depth of that place. But not yet.
Maggie turns around to lick Alice’s face. “Ugh,” Alice says. “Your breath!” Maggie licks her again, more enthusiastically. “We should bring her to see Jay,” Alice says. “That smell ought to get to him.”
“We should,” I say, smiling, and then, “We should! Jay loves her! We should put her on his bed a little bit, let him feel her fur.”
“We can’t bring a dog into a nursing home.”
“Why not? They have those programs where they bring puppies and kittens into nursing homes. It’s good for people. It makes them happy. It lowers their blood pressure.”
Alice puts Maggie back down, holds her finger up to tell her to stay. “Yeah, but those are planned. You can’t just walk in with pets. People might be allergic.”
“We can hide her in a basket, like Toto. Jay’s got a private room, nobody will see.”
“What if she barks?”
“She won’t.”
“How do you know? She probably will.”
“Well, that would be good, for him to hear a dog bark. It’s been a long time. It would be good.”
“Oh, all right, we’ll bring her,” Alice says, and then, looking at Timothy, sighs. He has abandoned all efforts at swinging. He sits motionless, staring into space, oblivious to Amy who is squatting in the dirt beside her ponytail art, saying, “Look, Timothy, what my hair did. Look at this! Timothy!” Her voice is a high, sweet sound, carried on spring air. I hope she keeps trying to get through to him. I hope she doesn’t give up.
Alice follows me into the nursing home, Maggie wrapped in a tablecloth in a picnic basket. The kids stay close by. They’ve been instructed to make noise if Maggie starts to bark, and they are taking their job seriously, even Sarah, who is walking straight ahead but keeping her eyes sideways, on the basket. Maggie is quiet until we get to Jay’s room. Then, as soon as we open the lid to take her out, she starts barking. Amid the “Shhhhh!”s, we fail to hear the door open behind us. Then there is Gloria’s voice saying, “Y’all brought a dog in here?”
I turn around quickly. “Oh. Hello, Gloria. Yes. Yes, we did. Please don’t—”
“I don’t care,” she says. “But you’d best not let Patty see.”
“Is she working today?”
“Sure is. Bad mood, too.”
“Well … can you let me know if she comes?”
“I ain’t got eyes in the back of my head. And I got work to do.”
We stand staring at her, all of us, until, sighing, she turns the television on. Loudly. “There,” she says. “That’s the best I can do. But try to keep that thing quiet. What is it, anyway? Don’t look like no dog I ever seen.”
“She’s a very rare breed,” I say. “First of her kind.” The kids have moved to Jay’s bedside, and are trying to get Maggie to lie down beside him. She is more interested in walking around, sniffing. The bed rail holds particular allure.
“It’s okay,” Alice tells them. “Let her be. She’ll settle down in a minute.” Then, to Gloria, with her hand extended, “I’m Alice.”
“Nice to meet you. You a friend or a relative?”
“A friend. A very good one.”
Gloria gestures with her head to the night table. “You see what I brung him?”
In a white plastic cup, there is a piece of geranium, a bright red blossom opening on top. “That’s from a plant been in our family for years. It’s the good-luck geranium, no fooling, it’s brung good luck to everybody’s who’s gotten it.”
I walk over, pick up the cup, then turn around to thank her. This is such a good thing for her to do. Last time I visited, Gloria didn’t hear me come in, and she was talking to Jay, telling him about her son Lamont, the basketball player. She was embarrassed when she saw me. I wanted to say, yes, that’s it, just talk to him, but I was afraid if I said it she’d never do it again. We stood looking at each other for a moment, exchanging something, and then she continued with his range of motion. “You should be doing this for him too,” she told me gruffly and I said yes I knew that, that I did it regularly.
Now she says about the geranium, “You plant that, when it gets its roots. And when it’s big enough, you give a piece to someone else.”
“I will.”
“Okay.” She goes to the door. “He’s all washed. I just turned him and rubbed him down. Don’t be putting him back over. Leave him on his side.”
“Yes, all right.”
“I’m going to close the door. If Patty comes, I didn’t see a thing.”
“Right.”
“Gloria?” Amy asks. “Is Flozell here today?”
What is it, I wonder, her fascination with him? I suppose he’s the most interesting thing around here. Diversion.
“He’s here every day. Drive you crazy. He’s not mine, Wanda got him today.”
“Oh.”
She narrows her eyes at Amy, leans forward. “You like him, huh?”
Amy smiles, shrugs.
“You think he’s funny, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I tell you what. You take care of him, how’s that? Go in there and wash him up, make his bed.”
/> “No thank you.”
“Yeah, that’s right. You right.”
Maggie settles down into the small of Jay’s back, stretches out along the pillow that supports him, closes her eyes.
“Snore, Maggie,” Alice says. “Remind him.”
Timothy scratches the top of Maggie’s head. “First she has to go to sleep,” he says. “This ought to do it.”
Maggie’s eyes close, then reopen.
“Well,” he says. “Wait a minute.” He resumes scratching, the rest of us watching as though Timothy were dressed in God white, tools for miracles sticking out of his pockets.
Just before it’s time to go, I take Amy and Sarah to the break room, give them each a handful of quarters. “Get whatever you want,” I tell them. “I’ll come get you in just a few minutes.” They deserve a treat. They’ve stayed here with me long after Timothy and Alice left, without complaint.
Back in Jay’s room, I lower the rail and sit beside him on the bed. “I couldn’t believe how pissed Patty got, could you? Big deal, a dog.” He breathes in, breathes out. “Remember when we tried to free the dogs from the pound, you and me and Paul and Annie? We almost got arrested, all of us. You had a ponytail then. You looked good in a ponytail. Maybe when you come home you should grow another one. They’re back in style. Everybody will think you make movies.” I sit for a while, swing my leg. “Dolly called me the other day, from work? She’s dating someone! I can’t believe she’s giving up on Frank. Well, not giving up. I mean, you know …” I hear Flozell yelling, stop talking to listen. “Don’t you call me by my first name!” he is saying. “You don’t even know me. Until you know me, you call me Mr. Smith!”
“It’s Flozell,” I tell Jay. “He yells a lot, doesn’t he? Do you hear him all the time?”
“Okay,” I say. “I’d better go. I’ll come tomorrow around noon. I’ll bring your navy blue T-shirt. It’s warm in here lately. You don’t need long sleeves. You know, that blue one you wear all the time in the summer.”
I turn to go, and am almost out the door when I hear something. I believe it is my name. I stand still, then walk on stiff legs back to the bedside. “Jay? Did you call me?”
Nothing.
“Jay?”
I wait a long time, then go to get the kids.
Lainey?
As we are on our way out the door, Flozell wheels up to us. “Well, well, well,” he says. “It’s Shirley and Hannah. And their lovely mother, Peaches.”
Sarah pointedly ignores him; Amy smiles shyly, moves in closer to me.
“Hello, Flozell,” I say.
“You bring me something today?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I got something for you.”
“Is that right?”
“That’s right. I got some peach pie make you jump for joy. Johnny brought it. I’ll give you a taste. She puts cream cheese on the bottom.”
“No, thank you. That’s nice of you. But we’re on our way out.”
“How’s your husband?”
I smile, nod.
He looks at Amy. “You come to see your daddy?”
I am getting very nervous. I look at my watch, take Amy’s hand.
“I seen lots of guys like him walk right on out of here,” Flozell says. “You got to be patient.”
“We have to go,” I say, and head out the door. I don’t know what to think about what he said. Neither do the girls. All the way back, nobody says a word, and when we get home we all go quietly to our rooms, close the doors without a sound. We remind me of nuns, minus the consolation of unswerving belief. Because despite my attempt at constant assurances to myself and others, I am well aware of the fact that there’s a door number three. And I am aware of what’s behind it. And what is not.
Eight o’clock in the morning. I’ve just gotten up, made coffee, and am now sitting staring, bleary-eyed, at the Sunday paper. I won’t read a word of it. I don’t know why I don’t just cancel it. And yet it is comforting to come out in the morning and see two papers lying there, waiting. I put Alice and Ed’s by their door, just as they do for me if they get up first. I haven’t seen Ed since Alice told me. I don’t know how I’ll behave. Things will not be the same. How can they be? It will be like he’s been painted orange, and I’m not supposed to notice. If he smiles at me, it will piss me off. If he says he’s going to the grocery store, do I need anything, I’ll think, Oh, yeah? The grocery store, huh? Yeah, I’ll bet.
I hear a soft knock on the door, and Alice appears in her robe. It’s a faded blue quilted thing, about four hundred years old, rhinestone buttons, and she wears it with high-heeled slippers with pom-poms, given to her as a joke, but which she wears anyway. She thinks they’re fun, and they don’t make her feet hot as other slippers do. Among the things I like best about a good friendship are these kinds of revelations, these unveilings of selves we would never show to the world at large, though perhaps we should. Perhaps business meetings should start with people saying what they wore to bed last night. Jay used to go out for the paper in his T-shirt and boxer shorts. I always liked that, that selective boldness. He would never raise his hand in a crowd to ask a question, but he would go outside in his underwear. “What if someone comes by and sees you?” I asked him once. And he said, after thinking for a minute, “You know, it’s never happened. But I guess I’d wave.”
Alice goes over to the coffeemaker and pours two cups, sets one down in front of me. Here is another thing I like about a good friendship, the go-aheadness of it all. You don’t have to knock to come in the door. You don’t have to ask to look in a refrigerator. You want coffee? Pour some. These friendships, formed by time, are getting so rare. I worry about that.
“How are you?” Alice asks, after we both take a sip of coffee.
“I don’t know. Discouraged. Tired.”
“I’ll bet.”
“I thought he said my name the other day.”
“You’re kidding!”
“No. I was on my way out when I thought I heard it. And I went over to him, but nothing happened. I waited, seemed like an hour, but nothing happened.”
Alice looks down into her cup, then up at me. “Listen, I’m taking Timothy out to the farm today. You want to come? Why don’t you come?”
Alice had a grandfather she adored who lived about thirty miles out of town on a farm. Most of the land was sold off after he died, but the family kept the house and they share it, use it for weekend retreats, hold family reunions there. I’ve never been there, but she and Ed go at least once a month.
“I don’t think so,” I say.
“Ed’s not coming.”
I look at her.
“No big deal, he just needs to get caught up on work.”
“Oh.”
“It’s not what you think,” she says, a little impatiently.
“How do you know what I think?”
“Please.” She drains her cup. “Come on, come with me. You can go see Jay, then come with me. We’ll be back in time for you to visit him tonight again. You need to get out of here.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I want to be so far away. There’s not even a phone out there, is there?”
“No.”
“Well, I don’t think so, then, Alice.”
“Lainey. What are the chances that something will happen?”
I get up, move to the bread drawer. “You want toast?”
She shakes her head no. I don’t either, but I slide two pieces into the toaster oven.
“Come on,” she says. “You’d be gone maybe five hours. It would be good for you and the kids. It’s like paradise there. There’s a brook. A tire swing. The people next door have horses, and a fat white pony who’ll stand and eat grass out of your hands all day. Come with me. It’s so peaceful, Lainey.”
I watch the toast browning. Who invented this appliance? It’s wonderful, really, although I once had a friend from the South and she made her toast in the oven and that tasted better. Of course, sh
e also melted butter in a frying pan, lathered it on the toast with a basting brush. That’s probably why it was so good.
“Lainey?” Alice says.
“Yeah, all right,” I say. “After I see Jay.” I turn off the toaster. I’ll give the bread to the birds later. I like watching them eat, their weighty little hops, their heads cocked left, then right, then left again. I’ve been doing this lately, making things and then not eating them. The other day I made a cheese sandwich, put lettuce and tomatoes on it, mayonnaise, put it on a plate, cut it in half, then threw it in the garbage.
“Are the kids coming this morning?”
“No. I’ll bring them tonight. Twice a day is too much for them.” Last time we went, the kids got tired of being with Jay and asked to go to the day room. When I came to pick them up, they were together on a sofa watching an old, tremulous woman sitting beside them in her nightgown and attempting to nurse a rag doll. Close by, a glassy-eyed woman sat in a wheelchair while her husband stood behind her, brushing her thin white hair. “Yes, darling, it’s all right,” he was saying. His glasses had gotten too big for his face, and he had to push them up over and over again. When I softly called the kids and they came running to me, he looked over at us and what I saw in his face was bewilderment. That’s probably what he saw in mine, too.
“Go,” Alice says. “I’ll stay here till the girls wake up. I’ll read the paper. They won’t sleep much longer.”
True. Amy’s probably up already, lying in bed doing something. She likes to play for a while in her bed before she gets up. Dress her paper dolls; string some beads; look at a book, yawning. Once she made Play-Doh pancakes, stacked them on one of her little china plates from her tea set, then brought them downstairs into the kitchen as a model for what she wanted for breakfast.
I’m like that. I like to do things in bed. I fold the laundry on the bed. Food tastes better to me when I’m under the covers. Bed is the only place to read, the best place to talk on the phone. Jay hates being in bed unless he’s asleep. Or … you know. He would lift my hair, kiss the back of my neck, breathe out my name. I would feel the warm air travel down my back and it would chill me. That’s how we almost always started. I see these videos advertised, ways to change your old routine. I never wanted to. What could be better than feeling that chill, then turning around into arms you’d memorized years ago?