Land of Last Chances

by Joan Cohen

  When she reached his shoulder, he flinched slightly. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but we need to see the vet.” She sat back on her heels, frowning, as he limped over to his window, assessed the required jump, and instead lay down on the carpet.

  Just before noon, Jeanne arrived at Salad City and took a table with a clear view of the door. Since Maggie was late, she alternated between checking email on her iPhone and watching the entrance. Arriving diners were mostly older shoppers with Walmart and Target bags. Four young women commanded everyone’s attention when they made a noisy entrance in tight jeans and strappy high heels. Tell me those shoes don’t belong in bondage porn, Jeanne thought. Either that or I’m getting really old.

  Maggie came in right behind the girls, an incongruous presence beside their stick figures. She was out of breath and impatiently brushed her hair from her eyes. “Jeanne, I’m so sorry. We’re short-staffed today. Would you mind terribly if we got our salads to go and ate at Dawning Day? I know that’s not what you had in mind as a place to talk, but . . .”

  Jeanne glanced around the restaurant, where harsh light from the storefront reflected off metal tables—not an intimate setting either. She threw on her coat. “Your home should be quieter anyway.”

  Three women ahead of them at the counter were debating the merits of wraps versus sandwiches. Maggie turned to Jeanne. “We’re an assisted living facility, not a nursing home, remember? Our residents are wonderful, at least most of them. They’ve led fascinating lives and have tales to tell.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” said Jeanne without conviction. To her, old people were incomprehensible. They obstructed the passing lane on the highway and left their turn signals on for hours. They braked for yellow lights. They left their shopping carts in the middle of supermarket aisles while they scrutinized the per-ounce prices on the shelf labels. Didn’t they get it? Time is money.

  A young girl in a white uniform and a ponytail poking through the back of her baseball cap stood poised behind the counter, plastic bowl in hand, waiting to take their order. They chose ingredients for their custom-made salads, and as they neared the register, Maggie reached for her wallet.

  “Not today.” Jeanne put her hand on Maggie’s arm. “Think of this as your consulting fee.”

  Dawning Day resembled a Victorian castle on the outside, not Jeanne’s idea of homey, although the interior was inviting. The Queen Anne style furniture was upholstered in deep jewel tones. A sweeping staircase led to the second floor, although Jeanne suspected the elevator got more use. Her nose guided her eyes to the left, where the dining room was full of talkative residents eating what smelled like boiled chicken. “We’re going to the Alzheimer’s wing,” Maggie said, pulling Jeanne toward a door off the reception area. She punched a code into a keypad on the wall and recited it for Jeanne to remember. “It’s a locked wing. You’ll need the code to exit.”

  Locked wing? This was going to be depressing. “Maggie, maybe we should have our talk some other time.”

  “Oh, c’mon. They don’t bite. In fact, most of them can’t.” She laughed and tugged on Jeanne’s sleeve. The Alzheimer’s wing consisted of a large country kitchen open to a spacious common area. There were no hallways leading to rooms. Instead, the residents’ doors opened onto the lounge. Music from a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie played softly in the background. Jeanne tried to place it. “A Fine Romance?” She wondered if the residents were trying to place it too.

  “Let’s eat in the office,” Maggie said, leading the way into a staff room with a couple of empty desks. “Everyone’s with the residents right now.” She pulled the swivel chair from one desk over to the other. They opened their salads, and Maggie attacked hers, while Jeanne pushed her greens around in the vinaigrette as though ensuring each lettuce leaf was coated was a task of great significance. She debated how to start.

  Maggie broke the silence. “So, how’d you get pregnant? Not on purpose, I assume.”

  “Hardly.” Jeanne’s smile was halfhearted. She recounted her initial visit to Dr. O’Rourke’s office. “Seriously, I can’t believe I made such a bonehead miscalculation.”

  “You’re entitled to an occasional mistake, although I’ll admit, this was kind of a big one. Have you been in the corporate world so long, you’ve forgotten you’re human? Never mind. I know you have. What are you going to do, or is that my consulting assignment?”

  It wasn’t Maggie’s fault she didn’t understand how simplistic her view of business was. Jeanne looked around the office as though there were guidance to be found on the staffing schedules or emergency procedures tacked to the bulletin boards. Her forte was decisiveness; her competence, crisp articulation. Surely, she could distill her “what now” dilemma for Maggie and avoid melodrama. “At first, I was certain I didn’t want a baby. Never wanted one—still didn’t. Then I wavered. Now I’m wondering whether my original decision was the right one.”

  Maggie waited, fork in the air. “That’s all?”

  “That’s the executive summary.”

  Maggie’s mouth bent into a wry smile. “I think I need to read the whole report.”

  Jeanne wondered how far back she should go. Mother’s admonitions about childrearing were as relentless as rain. She opened her mouth to speak but shook her head instead. “I’ve never been so confused in my life.”

  “Your work life,” Maggie said.

  Jeanne forced a smile. “Is there any other kind?” What was she expecting from Maggie anyway, advice or unleavened sympathy? She didn’t need a lecture about how hard she worked. Jeanne thought for a moment of the old friends she’d lost track of and how she’d neglected those relationships. She didn’t want that to happen with Maggie, but work had to come before everything else. The pressure was inexorable.

  She picked up the plastic cover for her salad. “I shouldn’t be dragging you into this. I have to assess my options on my own, and there’s no reason to take up your time when you’re needed here.”

  “It sounds like you’ve been assessing around in a circle. You can’t do a cost-benefit analysis on whether to have a baby. You don’t need advice from me. You need to consult your feelings.”

  An aide with an African head wrap appeared in the doorway, and Maggie raised her palm. “I’m coming, Amala.” She sighed and covered her salad. “Guess this is going into the refrigerator.” She stood and looked down at Jeanne. “I’m so sorry our conversation is getting short-circuited. I thought we’d have more time. You don’t have to leave, though. Eat your salad.” When she bent down to kiss Jeanne on the cheek, they exchanged awkward hugs.

  “I’m going too,” Jeanne said and tossed the rest of her salad in the trash. She pulled on her jacket and followed Maggie, who was accosted outside the office by two elderly women. One had hanging pillows of loose flesh beneath her arms and breasts that sagged to her waist, while her companion was waiflike and less than five feet tall. The waif had hooked her arm around her friend’s. “We’re going out to the barn,” she said. “Have to put away the horses.”

  Maggie smiled. “Good idea. Thanks.”

  Jeanne shook her head as the women wandered away. “Don’t they know there is no ‘out’ and no ‘barn’?”

  “We give them pleasant days. Why yank them back to a reality they won’t remember five minutes from now?” Maggie turned toward the kitchen. Jeanne wished she could forget the reality of her pregnancy.

  A voice nearby caught her attention. “Mom, look at Jennifer’s sweet baby. He’s named after Dad.” An attractive brunette, in her fifties, with long hair brushing the tops of her shoulders, leaned in and made earnest entreaties. She laid her manicured hand on her mother’s arm, the magenta polish vivid against the crepe-like skin. “Mom.” She shook her mother’s arm.

  The old woman’s face was crowded with wrinkles, but she had a beautiful brow and thin braids of gray hair across the top of her head like a milkmaid’s. Her sad mouth was pinched, and there were sparse hairs growing on her upper l
ip and chin. A woolen cardigan enveloped her as though she’d shrunk several sizes. Hands in her lap, she rocked herself and muttered, “Mama, Mama, Mama.” The young girl tried to get her grandmother’s attention, but the old woman’s eyes remained downcast. “Mama, Mama, Mama.”

  On impulse, Jennifer leaned over her grandmother and pressed her son against the flaccid arms. Without hesitation, the old woman clasped the child to her bosom. When she cradled him and kissed his forehead, humming a barely discernible tune, her daughter’s expression changed from apprehension to surprise to joy. Jennifer spoke softly and placed her hand on her grandmother’s bowed shoulder. “Yes, Grandma. That’s just what he likes.”

  Jeanne couldn’t watch. She turned away, her eyes moist. Hurrying through the lobby and out to the parking lot, she ignored the receptionist’s cheery goodbye and avoided meeting anyone’s gaze. Golden leaves, propelled by a cold wind, rained down on the pavement. Shivering, she turned up her collar and wiped her eyes with her coat sleeve.

  How? Why? Questions crowded into her mind. The tools of rationality were the rock she clung to, but they couldn’t explain what she’d seen.

  Did there have to be a reason? Maggie was right about Jeanne’s instincts—to find a cause, to intellectualize the moment, to analyze. Perhaps enlightenment lay elsewhere. Looking back at Dawning Day as she climbed into her car, Jeanne wondered at the formidable physical and emotional power possessed by that tiny baby. A woman wandering lost in her own mind knew, from the moment his skin touched hers, there was a connection between them.

  Had Jeanne’s mother felt the power of that connection? If so, she’d succeeded in concealing it from her daughter. It was a perversion of maternal feelings to love Jeanne’s future more than she loved Jeanne. Companionship, romance, sex—Jeanne was taught she could have them all without the burdens of motherhood. Without the burdens, but without the joys either. She turned on the ignition. As the engine came to life, she moved her hands from the steering wheel to her abdomen and intertwined her fingers.

  Mother’s house was cold as a mausoleum. Jeanne had turned the heat down to fifty degrees, a sensible temperature for an unoccupied home, but the chill penetrated her coat. She hadn’t planned to work in the attic today, but searching her mind for moments of connection with her mother had jogged loose a memory. Climbing the stairs to the attic, she felt the warmth of risen heat and a sense of anticipation.

  Her cell phone flashlight reflected off a taped carton under the eaves. It was still there. Elated, she dragged it out and tried to pry the flaps apart. The box defied opening, so mummified was it with tape. The label read: “Time Capsule: to be opened in 2029.”

  Jeanne ran her fingers across the words. She remembered the conversation, how excited she’d been after learning about time capsules at school. It was Mother who’d suggested they each create their own, to be preserved together in a single carton.

  “When can we open it, Mom? In five years?”

  “Has to be at least fifty.” Jeanne was aghast. Why, she’d be sixty-two, and Mother would be . . . “Don’t worry. I’ll still be alive and kicking. Besides, putting off present pleasure for future gain is the mark of maturity.” Mother was full of these life lessons, but to young Jeanne, she was a born killjoy. “You’ll thank me someday for teaching you the importance of strong character.” Thirty-six years had passed, yet Jeanne could still remember her disappointment. Right or wrong, she’d never tendered her thanks, depriving her mother of that satisfaction before she went to her grave.

  Jeanne fished out her house key and drew it swiftly across the carton seam, which, though rutted, resisted penetration. Surveying the attic, she saw nothing that would cut through its multiple layers. Downstairs, not a knife or pair of scissors remained in the kitchen she had cleaned out so thoroughly even the crumbs in the crevices of the drawers were gone. The box wasn’t heavy, in spite of its awkward size and unbalanced weight. She worked it down the stairs and maneuvered it into her trunk.

  After hauling the box into her condo and depositing it on her carpeted living room floor, she attacked the tape with a serrated kitchen knife. Bricklin sat down beside her, cocking his head in puzzlement. She stopped to stroke him, and as she buried her hand in his neck fur, his eyes closed in pleasure. “Did Mother really think I was going to open it early?” Bricklin opened one eye to acknowledge the question and check that it was rhetorical. “No adult would be deterred for long by packing tape, only a child.” Truth was, were it not for Mother’s death, the box would still be tucked away under the attic eaves.

  Jeanne’s hands became quiet, prompting Bricklin to push his wet nose into the crook of her arm. “Sorry, boy. I need both hands for this.” He withdrew to a respectable distance and continued to gaze at her as she pulled back the flaps and reached in. The two boxes lay next to each other, and, mercifully, Mother hadn’t taped them closed. Jeanne pulled out the smaller one, her own time capsule, which bore her name and the date printed in her twelve-year-old hand. She’d included her middle name, Hayley, to make her sound more grown up.

  Jeanne remembered parting with her Little League team hat so it could emerge in fifty years—they’d won the city championship that spring—but she was hazy on what else she’d put in. Certificates lay on the bottom with two trophies and three medals on top. Medals from Camp Wampanoag, of course, in swimming, tennis, and lacrosse—Jeanne had often been told she had awesome athletic potential. She pinched her love handles with a sigh. Hard to tell today.

  The trophies were from gymnastics and soccer. She fished out the yellowed certificates underneath and leafed through: first prize in the sixth-grade spelling competition, first prize for her essay on the UN. She let her hands drop and the papers slip to the floor. What a letdown. The only storybook was The Wizard of Oz. She remembered her fascination with the movie. Life could change in magical ways with the right path to follow and a good witch for a mentor.

  Sure, she had been a smart kid and an excellent athlete, Jeanne remembered that much, but what was important to her? What did she love? What did she dream about? The box provided no clue, only proof of her successes, proxies for what her mother valued in her, valued her for. Her mother’s time capsule probably contained more of the same, since she considered achieving the highest form of good, her eleventh commandment, “Thou shalt excel.” Dispirited at the evidence that Jeanne’s twelve-year-old self had already bought in to her mother’s philosophy, she pushed the box aside.

  CHAPTER 4

  How Bricklin sensed she was awakening, Jeanne never understood, yet she had only to open one eye to find him sitting at the foot of the bed, regarding her intently. His tail began its slow swish across the blanket as she swung her legs over the side. When she stuffed her feet into her fleece-lined slippers, he stood and wagged his tail fast enough to create a perceptible breeze. Anticipating her path, he trotted ahead toward the kitchen as Jeanne belted her robe.

  “Still limping, puppy boy. You must have really wanted to be on my bed to jump up there. We’re going to take it easy today, starting with coffee and the Sunday paper. This afternoon will be for work”—she glanced into the living room—“and the other half of that time capsule.” Jeanne’s agenda failed to excite Bricklin, and he pushed his nose into the crack of the back door. She opened it and linked his collar to the snap hook of his cable tie-out.

  Annoyed by the inconvenient ringing coming from the bedroom, she debated ignoring her cell. It was not, however, in her DNA to avoid what might be a business call. She reached her phone by the sixth ring. Vince’s number was displayed on her caller ID. “I thought you were out of town.”

  “Nice greeting. Try this. Good morning, Vince. I’m sooo happy to hear from you.”

  “I am happy to hear from you. Just haven’t had my coffee yet.” She cradled the phone in her neck so she could let Bricklin back into the kitchen.

  “Lucky for you, you’ll have a chance to atone for your grumpiness. I decided to drive back this morning instead of tonight.
Need to get in a couple of hours at the office. Mind if I swing by? You’ve been on my mind all weekend.” She agreed, though, in truth, she was not anxious to see him. Vince would want to know her decision. Some part of her wasn’t sold on abortion. The scene she’d witnessed at Dawning Day had affected her more profoundly than she could explain. Maybe she just wanted to see if she could do a better job than her own mother had. Bricklin waited patiently at his food dish. Jeanne scooped out his kibble while serving up the bad news. “We’re going to stick to leash walks until the vet tells us what’s going on with that leg.”

  When Vince arrived, Jeanne was dressed in jeans, a red wool turtleneck, and leather boots. Outdoors seemed a better place to talk than on opposite sides of the kitchen table—more space to back away from each other if they disagreed. The issue was more complicated than whether she should have the baby. If she had it, what would Vince’s role be? What should it be? Growing up without a father, Jeanne could only define fatherhood by its absence.

  Vince was barely across the threshold before enveloping Jeanne in a bear hug. His stubbly cheek sandpapered hers, and she reached up to rub it. “How are you feeling?” he asked. “See, I remembered to ask that first. I’m coachable.”

  “And sweet, when you want to be.” She kissed him and extricated herself from his arms. Reaching for her corduroy barn jacket draped over the newel post, she suggested he keep his jacket on. “Up for a walk? Should be peak color this weekend, and I want to catch the display before the wind blows the trees bare.”

  “Maybe, if you’re nice to me, I’ll whip up a little Sunday brunch for you after our walk. Let’s see . . . Belgian waffles, eggs Benedict, croissants with farm-fresh butter—”

  Jeanne groaned. “And you’ll come with me to Weight Watchers to explain to Lucy why I gained five pounds this week. Let’s go.”

  “To the reservoir?”

  “Bricklin’s limping. Thought we’d just go across the road and walk the trail through the conservation land.”