by Nancy Garden
“I’ll be right there.”
“Hurry up, will you?”
Nora wiped her hands on her apron, a different, smaller one from the one she’d worn for gardening, then went into Ralph’s room and gave him the urinal, although they both knew he was perfectly capable of getting it himself from its spot hanging off the headboard of his bed.
After a minute he handed it back to her, not very full, from under the covers. “Empty it,” he ordered unnecessarily.
Swallowing the impulse to say “Empty it, please,” as one would to a rude child, she took the urinal to the outhouse.
“That woman was here again,” Ralph said when she returned. “Wasn’t she?”
“What woman?” Nora asked, although of course she knew. “Mrs. Brice was here taking me to church and bringing me back, as usual. And Patty Monahan was here as usual, too, taking care of you and Mama and the roast while I was gone.”
“I don’t mean them. It’s cold in here. Close the window.”
Nora closed the window.
“I mean that stranger woman. The one with the car trouble. What did she want?”
“She was returning the tools she borrowed.”
Ralph grunted. “She shouldn’t have taken them in the first place!”
“I told you I let her take them. We don’t need them.”
“You’re naive, Nora. She probably didn’t have a flat tire. She was probably casing the joint. Took the tools on purpose so she could come back.”
“What?”
“You heard me. That’s how thieves operate. She could have a boyfriend who’s planning to rob us, once she’s told him where the doors are and had a good look at the locks.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
Ralph struggled to a sitting position. “You’ll laugh out of the other side of your face if they steal us blind! I see those papers you get on Sundays. I know about the crime rate. Don’t you let that woman in if she comes back. Don’t talk to anyone who comes. Just come inside if you’re outdoors. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you,” Nora answered, leaving, “but I don’t believe you,” she added under her breath when she was back in the kitchen.
“Nora!” That was Corinne, her thin voice snaking across the room.
Nora sighed. “Yes, Mama, coming.” She poked her head in her mother’s doorway. “What is it?”
Corinne seemed startled. “Why, I’ve forgotten, dearie. Maybe…” She frowned, looking dangerously close to tears. “Oh, what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I remember?”
Nora went all the way into the room and put her arms around her. “Maybe you just wanted to say hello, sweetie,” she said.
Corinne looked up at her, blue eyes swimming. “Hello,” she said, her soft face breaking into a wan smile. “Maybe that was it.” She patted Nora’s hand. “Is it very expansive?”
“Very what?”
“Expansive. Staying here. Do we pay a lot of money?”
“Oh, expensive, you mean,” Nora said, then regretted it: Don’t correct her, Dr. Cantor had said, unless you really have to; it’ll disturb her more. But everyone—Nora, Louise Brice, Sara Cassidy, Ralph—frequently forgot, as they had the other day when she’d had that TIA and thought she was still Corinne Parker. Thank goodness Sarah had said Dr. Cantor had come and checked her over, and that he thought it was no more worrisome than the other little ones she’d had.
“No, it’s not expensive,” Nora told her mother. “We don’t have to pay anything.”
But she was worried now, anyway. What now, she thought. Where does she think she is?
“We don’t? How nice of them. The Smithsons. How are they?”
Nora racked her brain, then dimly remembered: the Smithsons had owned the house briefly after the deaths of her father’s eccentric parents, who’d sold it to them. Ralph had bought it back when he and Corinne had married, steadfastly refusing, as he said his own father had, to put in electricity and plumbing. “Got to stay true to history,” her grandfather apparently used to say when Ralph was a boy. “And keep the taxes low.” Ralph still quoted him when anyone dared suggest “improvements.”
The Smithsons had never actually lived in the house, having bought it with the intention of modernizing it when they could afford to. But they’d lost the money they’d invested for that purpose, and were delighted when Ralph had agreed to take it back, or so Ralph had always said.
“The Smithsons are fine,” Nora said, though they’d been dead for at least twenty years, both of them. “And guess what? They’ve let Father buy the house. So now we own it and don’t have to pay anything. Isn’t that wonderful?”
“Oh, yes,” Corinne said sleepily, relaxing in Nora’s arms; Nora laid her back against the pillows. “Very nice.” Corinne closed her eyes, then opened them. “I’m hungry,” she said plaintively.
“I’m just starting supper. Lovely eggs and cheese. It’ll be ready soon. I’ll get you up in a few minutes, okay? And then we’ll sit at the table and eat it, and then I’ll read aloud for a while. Would you like that?”
“Yes, dearie.” Corinne seemed contented now. “Very nice. You’re such a good girl, Nora,” she added, suddenly lucid again. “And it’s so hard for you. You do know how grateful we are, Father and I, don’t you?”
Nora bent and kissed her mother’s soft cheek. “Yes,” she said, “I know.”
Book II
Chapter Nine
It was stifling inside the little white clapboard church with the stone front. Mid-June sun burst through the stained glass windows, making hot multicolored splotches on the maroon carpet that ran down the center aisle and between the white, oak-trimmed pews. The day lilies and irises on the altar, a cheerful yellow and blue crazy quilt at the beginning of the service, had by now, as sweaty, shiny-faced ushers passed the collection plates, become a limp and faded blanket.
“Poor Charles Hastings,” Louise Brice whispered to Nora after the service as they made their way with the rest of the congregation to just outside the vestibule, where the minister stood manfully shaking hands and thanking people for liking his sermon. His wife, Marie, who had always reminded Nora of a kindly giraffe, stood off to one side, her straw hat slightly askew, in earnest conversation with the choir director. She was a thin but rawboned woman, with a florid face and knobby features. They were an odd-looking pair, the Hastingses, for Charles was much shorter than Marie, and despite his plump cheeks and thick neck, had a slight but strong-looking build, a runner’s body incongruously topped with a decidedly indoor face.
Nora didn’t know if she’d liked the sermon or not; she’d been daydreaming, planning the rest of her garden. Could she get away with putting the second crop of beans along the back fence for another year? Or should she rotate them with the pickling cucumbers, which had been on the side fence the summer before?
“That cassock must be dreadfully hot, Charles,” Louise said when they reached the minister, whose face was streaming sweat. Her own pink features, islands in folds of damp flesh, were shiny with exuded oil that had long since absorbed their liberal ration of powder. “I imagine you’ll be glad to get it off.”
“Oh, I’m used to it, Louise, I’m used to it. And how have your parents been this week?” he asked, turning to Nora and clasping her moist hand with his own.
“Father’s been the same as always, thank you, Mr. Hastings,” Nora said primly. “But my mother’s going downhill, I’m afraid. She’s lucid less and less of the time.”
A concerned frown creased Charles’s forehead and narrowed his otherwise large eyes; he fumbled under his cassock, withdrawing a monogrammed handkerchief with which he delicately blotted his brow. “I am so sorry, my dear. Mrs. Hastings and I will stop in this week, shall we?”
“That would be lovely.” Nora forced a smile and out of the corner of her eye saw Louise nodding vigorous approval. But Nora hated those ministerial visits, full of friendly advice and demanding careful preparations. “Come for tea, perhaps Wednesday?” she asked dut
ifully, knowing the visit was inevitable. When the Hastingses decided to do something, it was as good as done. Putting it off till Wednesday, she calculated, would give her time to make sure the parlor was aired and dusted and would perhaps allow the heat wave to break before she had to make cookies or a cake or whatever she decided to give them. Thank goodness it was easy enough to keep the dining room off the parlor closed even when the parlor was being used; at least she wouldn’t have to dust and air both rooms.
The heat wave hadn’t broken by Wednesday, and Nora had spent Tuesday scrubbing and cleaning, though she’d wanted to plant the beans, which she’d decided to rotate with the cucumbers after all. But of course in this heat, with no rain, that would be foolish, she told herself, momentarily longing for running water, an outside faucet, and a hose.
Wednesday morning she baked, in between answering her father’s calls; he’d seemed unusually demanding after she’d helped him dress, though Corinne slept serenely. Nora had moved her mother’s bed closer to her window in the hope of catching any stray breeze, and had dressed her in her gauziest nightgown, though she’d been tempted to try to convince her to stay nude after her bath till the company was due to arrive.
Just when the cookies were nearly done, Ralph called again and Nora swore softly under her breath as she went to the door of his room—where she stopped, horrified, for he was lying on the floor, eyes closed, his limbs flailing about helplessly—like a downed elephant, Nora thought. She suppressed a giggle even as she rushed to him, worried, and knelt by his side.
“Father, what happened?” she cried, and he said, not opening his eyes, “What the hell does it look like, girl? I fell getting off this damn bed. If you’d come when I called the first time this would never have happened, but no, you had to be pottering around the kitchen making stuff for that ridiculous minister and his wife. God damn it, help me up!”
Nora closed her eyes with relief at his outburst. “Are you hurt?” she asked, opening them, layering her voice with an attempt at serious concern.
“Probably. Everything aches.” He groaned, watching her carefully. “Are you going to help me or am I going to have to die here?”
Nora put her hands under his shoulders and tugged, but he was too heavy, a dead weight. She could smell the cookies burning.
“Father, you’re going to have to help me. I’m not strong enough to lift you. Try to sit up.”
He made a feeble attempt and then fell back, groaning again. But that morning he had sat up, unaided, in bed when Nora went in to rouse him for breakfast, and he hadn’t seemed impaired physically despite all his demands.
“Try again, Father, please. You sat up this morning.”
“This morning,” he said angrily, “I hadn’t fallen. Oh! My back!”
“Does it hurt? I’m sorry. Where?”
“My back, I said, damn it!”
“I meant where on your back does it hurt?” she asked patiently.
“All over. I’m afraid something’s broken, Nora.”
“Maybe strained, Father, or twisted; I’m sure it does hurt. But you were moving your arms and legs and head before”—again she stifled a giggle—“so I doubt that it’s broken.”
The burnt smell escalated, then died away. There was probably nothing left of the cookies.
“I think you’d better go for the doctor,” Ralph moaned, closing his eyes.
“But Mr. and Mrs. Hastings; the cookies…”
“Damn the cookies and damn the Hastingses! Aren’t I more important? Let me have the urinal.” He fumbled at his trousers.
Nora got the urinal and held it for him. “I don’t think you have to go,” she said after about three minutes. “Maybe the shock of falling, you know? Sometimes I feel I have to go, too, when something like that happens.”
“I do have to go,” he whined. “And my back hurts. And”—he looked at her reproachfully—“‘it is sharper than a serpent’s tongue to have a thankless child’.”
“Father,” she said tiredly, “Mr. and Mrs. Hastings will be here any minute. The cookies have burned. You are obviously not seriously hurt. You could help me get yourself up, but you won’t. I can’t get you up alone. I think the best thing for me to do is to leave you here until the Hastingses come, and then Mr. Hastings can help me get you back onto your bed or into a chair. Meanwhile, I’m going to go back to the kitchen, start the water for the tea, and cut some bread for cinnamon toast. The cookies are cinders by now.”
Ralph’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m such a burden to you,” he moaned, seizing her hand. “You’re a good girl, Nora. You’ll see. You’ll miss me when I’m gone. I feel it won’t be long, dear. I feel so weak. I’m dizzy. I think I might have banged my head. Don’t bother getting the doctor. Just stay with me, sweetheart.”
She studied him doubtfully. Could he really have hurt himself seriously? One other time when he’d fallen and she’d had to leave him for some reason (her mother had called, she thought), he’d gotten himself up by the time she returned to him. But this time, in her annoyance over the cookies and the impending ministerial visit, had she misjudged him?
He squeezed her hand. “It’s nice sitting here with you,” he said dreamily. “You’re a good girl, Nora. I know it’s hard for you, seeing your old father so sick and weak. You work hard, taking care of your old parents.” He opened his eyes and smiled. “How’s your mother today?”
“Sleepy,” Nora said. Then craftily, she asked, “Would you like to go and see her?”
For a second he moved, lifting himself to a partial sitting position. Then, watching her face, he exclaimed, “Oh, ow! No, I can’t.” And he sank back down.
The hell you can’t, she thought. And then, mercifully, there came a knock at the door.
“That’ll be the Hastingses.” She extricated herself, squeezing his hand and releasing it. “I’ll just let them in and we’ll have you up again in a jiffy.”
She ran to the door.
“Why Nora, what’s that smell?” Marie Hastings said immediately, pausing with one large hand still on the doorknob.
“Cookies. I’ve cut bread for cinnamon toast to replace them. But I’m afraid Father’s fallen off his bed,” she explained grimly.
“I’ll see to the toast and the tea,” Marie announced with her usual competence, releasing the doorknob and bustling inside. “And Charles, you go with Nora and get Ralph up.” Shaking her head, Marie strode briskly down the hall to the kitchen.
Ralph was sitting up, leaning against his bed, when they reached his room.
“Father!” Nora exclaimed angrily. “I’m sorry,” she said, turning to Mr. Hastings. “How did you manage that?” she asked her father.
“I didn’t want Charles to strain himself lifting me,” Ralph said.
“What about your poor daughter straining herself?” Charles said severely. He bent from the waist, grasped Ralph under the arms, pulled him up with surprising strength given his slight build, and seated him on the edge of his bed. “Hmm? Did you expect her, a mere slip of a girl, to get you up without help?”
“No, no. I realized she couldn’t. We decided to wait till you came, but I didn’t want to trouble you.” Ralph seized the minister’s hand. “Thank you, Charles,” he said. “You’re always so kind.”
“Ralph, are you hurt or not?” Charles demanded.
“My back aches and my head aches and I think I scraped my arm. But it’s not bad,” he added bravely, closing his eyes and wincing.
“Do you need the doctor? X-rays?”
Ralph’s eyes flew open. “Not X-rays. Not the hospital! If I go there, I won’t come back alive. You know what they do there. There was that woman they gave the wrong pills to, and she died. They make mistakes all the time.” His voice dropped conspiratorily. “I know. I won’t go there, ever. Nora’s promised neither of us will, haven’t you, Nora?”
“I’ve promised to try,” Nora corrected him. “To try to keep you out. But I can’t promise you’ll never have to go.”
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“There are portable X-ray machines.” Charles turned to Nora. “I can arrange for one if you like.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary. Is it, Father? I don’t think you’re really hurt. Right? Tell the truth now.”
Ralph closed his eyes. “I can’t tell,” he said weakly. “My back does ache. Ohhhhh!”
“In most nursing homes,” Charles said quietly, pulling Nora into the doorway, “they X-ray patients automatically when they fall. It’s hard to tell with some old folks whether they’re hurt or not. As you can see.”
“What?” called Ralph. “What? I can’t hear you!”
“Mr. Hastings is just saying it might be a good idea for you to have some x-rays anyway. He can have a machine come here. I think it would be a good idea, Father, just in case.”
“No. Too expensive. I won’t hear of it.”
The minister went back to the bed. “It’ll be paid for, Ralph. I’m sure Medicare will cover it, or most of it. I really do think it would be wise. Put your mind at rest, and Nora’s, and mine.”
“Tea’s ready.” Marie appeared in the doorway, filling it with her large frame. “Well, Ralph, there you are back on your bed! Feeling better?”
“Yes,” Ralph said gruffly. “Thanks to your good husband.”
“And your good daughter, too, I should think,” Marie said. “Shall we have our tea in here, make a little bedside party of it?”
“No tea for me.” Ralph closed his eyes. “I’m feeling dizzy again. You go on, though. Enjoy yourselves.” He swept his arm dramatically across the bed, dismissing them, and leaned back against the pillows. “Nora…”
Nora moved to his side, swung his legs up onto the bed, this time without incident, removed his shoes, and covered his feet lightly with a summer blanket that she kept draped over the chair by his window.
Ralph sighed and opened his eyes again as the three of them retreated to the newly cleaned and aired parlor.
***
“I really think,” said Charles, putting down his cup so carefully that it made no sound against the saucer, “that you must have a telephone now, Nora. What if he really had been hurt?”
