Not Perfect: A Novel

by Elizabeth Laban

  She glanced at Levi in his bed in this surprisingly nice private room, which she was sure would cost more than the most luxurious hotel in the world. He was asleep, finally, though the bruises were starting. She could see them on his face, but she knew they would run all the way up his body, following the path of the bike. Tabitha asked, and the biker was okay. He was thrown but landed well, they said. He had a badly scraped elbow but nothing more. Apparently he was very worried about Levi at the scene. That was about as far as Tabitha could go in her mind before she had to shut her eyes and try to imagine something else—the two kids sitting on the couch watching television was the image that kept coming back to her, the one that calmed her.

  Tabitha tiptoed out of the room. Two nurses talked quietly at the dimly lit desk.

  “Can we help you?” one of them asked.

  “Yes, I wondered, I’m worried about my daughter at home. Levi is sleeping. Would it be crazy to run home and see her, and then come right back? We don’t live far.”

  “You can go, of course,” the nurse said. She was so pretty, with blond hair and a clear, open face. Tabitha decided there was no way that she always worked overnight. Someone who worked overnight regularly couldn’t possibly look that fresh and vibrant. “I’ll keep an eye out. When should I tell him you’ll be back, if he wakes while you’re gone?”

  “I should be back in an hour, two at the most,” she said.

  “I bet he’ll sleep through,” the other nurse said now. “He’s had a lot of medication.”

  “Thank you so much,” Tabitha said. “I’ll hurry. I just want to give her a hug and let her know Levi is okay.”

  “I completely understand,” the first nurse said. “We’ll see you soon.”

  Tabitha went back to get her purse and gave Levi one last check. He was fast asleep, breathing through his mouth, which still looked misshapen, but she had been assured it would work itself out, though it might need some help. She grabbed her bag and walked out, past the nurse’s station and to the elevator. Downstairs, she walked out through the main entrance into the cool night air. It was so dark out. She got a cab right away and gave the address, Nora’s address. She had no intention of going home. She never did. Fern and Rachel were fast asleep. They didn’t need her right now.

  The cab driver grunted an acknowledgment and pulled away from the hospital. She watched the people coming and going, so many people either just beginning to deal with their emergency or safely on the other side. She looked in her purse and pulled out a scrap of paper and a pencil. She had been formulating a new list in her head—what she owed and what she was terrified might be taken from her, what was almost taken. She set the paper on her knee and drew a line down the center making two columns. On the left she listed two things: my mother, the allergy. On the right she listed two things: Fern, Levi. At the bottom she scrawled: a life for a life? How much did she owe? Did it even work that way? And how much did she take? She still wasn’t sure. She turned the pencil around in her hand and began to erase everything. It was messy, and the eraser kept getting stuck on the paper, ripping it. When the words had almost disappeared, though, she could still make them out if she looked very hard, she ripped the paper into tiny pieces and kept them in her clenched fist.

  She had not thought about actually paying for the cab. She still had the cash from Nora, she never put it in the bank, so she pulled out a twenty and waited for the change, giving a 10 percent tip, then adding two more dollars at the last minute. She got out and walked into the quiet lobby. She thought for sure she’d be stopped now, or probably Nora’s door wouldn’t be open. It was practically the middle of the night, for heaven’s sake. She had not thought through any of these complications. She walked by the desk where a man looked half asleep, maybe two-thirds asleep, if that was possible, definitely more than half. She leaned over to drop her paper pieces into the garbage can next to his desk. She waited as they fluttered down, pushing the last few off her sticky, sweaty palm.

  The man cleared his throat.

  “I’m going to care for Nora,” she said, before he asked. “On the second floor.”

  He looked at his watch.

  “That time already?” he said, then, “It’s a little early.”

  She had no idea what he meant. Early for what?

  “It is,” she said. “I just got the call.”

  “All right then,” he said. She waited a beat longer but he seemed to be done with her.

  She went to the elevator and pushed “2.” While she was going up, she brushed one last tiny piece of paper off her shirt, which she let fall to the floor. She got out, walked across the hall, and opened the door. She wondered if Nora was sleeping. It didn’t make any sense that she would be in here, defenseless, with the door open. She would talk to someone at some point about this, maybe she’d have to make an anonymous call to Home Comforts, which was so clearly an incompetent company, and just hope someone answered the phone.

  The lights were on, but she didn’t want to yell out the way she had before. She tiptoed in thinking, This is crazy! What was she doing? But if she could just get to the bathroom and get that money . . . Maybe she could do it all without anyone knowing. As she came around the corner into the living room, there was Nora, on the floor, her knees elegantly to the side in a position Tabitha would not have thought her capable, especially with her recently injured leg. Her white hair, which was usually up in a bun, was down around her shoulders. It looked thin and slightly greasy. She had clearly been crying.

  “He’s gone,” Nora said when she saw Tabitha. “He left me.”

  Oh, Tabitha thought, this is what I read about that first day in the file. She knew exactly what was going on here.

  “Oh, Nora, I’m so sorry,” Tabitha said, joining her on the floor. “Are you alone?”

  “We were having a lovely picnic,” Nora said. “He wasn’t acting right. He wasn’t as, I don’t know, attentive as usual. I had a terrible feeling in my stomach. I couldn’t eat the sandwiches I made.”

  “Oh, Nora,” Tabitha said again. She reached out and patted her hand. As soon as she felt Nora’s dry, cracked skin she pulled away. It felt like her mother’s hand, at least how her hand had felt at the end. She had thought many times since then that she should have rubbed lotion into her mother’s hands. Why didn’t she do that? She knew why. She’d barely touched her—hand lotion wasn’t even a consideration. The only reason she knew what her hands felt like was because they kept flopping off the bed and hanging, and the nurse asked her over and over to move them back onto the bed, so they wouldn’t strain her arms. What was Tabitha going to say—No, you do it? But now she wondered what the big deal was. She always could have washed her hands after. She looked around for lotion, maybe she could rub some into Nora’s hands.

  “I’ll be right back,” Tabitha said, taking her bag with her. She moved toward the hall bathroom. As she got closer, she heard someone snoring. It was so quiet at first and then louder. She peeked in the bedroom next to Nora’s, and there was a woman sitting in a chair, fast asleep. She was wearing scrubs, so Tabitha assumed she was the home-health aide. A lot of good she was doing. She tiptoed into Nora’s room, where the bed was messed up: clearly it was slept in. Nora must have gotten herself up and dressed after the aide thought she was fast asleep. Nora could be in New Jersey by now! Tabitha went into the bathroom and closed the door quietly. The jar was still there, but, to make herself feel better, she looked for lotion first. There wasn’t any, not on the counter, not in the medicine cabinet. Maybe she would have to buy some and bring it next time.

  The money jar was like a magnet, she was so drawn to it. She grabbed and grabbed—taking what she hoped would end up being thousands of dollars. She had to pay for all the medical bills; she kept telling herself, she needed this. She made sure to leave enough that when she spread it out, the jar almost looked full—well, not quite, if you looked closely, but almost. She stuffed it all into her bag and went back to the living room. Nora was still
on the floor. She hadn’t moved an inch. No wonder she got stiff and couldn’t get up after one of these episodes. Tabitha intended to just keep walking, right past Nora and out of the apartment, but Nora was weeping now.

  “Miss,” she called to Tabitha. “Miss, have you seen a very handsome boy? Tall? He was just here. Oh, I hope he’s coming back.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be back, Nora,” Tabitha said, still on her feet.

  “Miss,” Nora said again. “Have you ever been in love?”

  Tabitha didn’t know the answer to that, so she didn’t say anything.

  “Miss,” Nora said. “Have you ever done anything bad?”

  Now she wondered if Nora was playing with her. Could that possibly be the case?

  “Because I did something bad,” Nora continued, and Tabitha relaxed a little. “I did something very bad.”

  “Nora,” Tabitha said, coming closer, sitting on the floor and putting her now stuffed bag behind her. “You didn’t do anything bad. You’re good. You’re just confused. I did so many bad things. Do you want to hear them?”

  “Sure,” Nora said, and she sounded like a teenager who was ready for some good gossip.

  “Well, I wasn’t very nice to my mother when she was dying. She had been sick, and I got used to not touching her, and I never really got back into the habit. But the worst thing is, I think I killed her. I think I gave her too much morphine and cut her life short, not by much, maybe a few days, a week, unless of course she was going to rally and get better, which she had done before. Maybe I cost her months, who knows? I will never know.”

  Nora nodded but didn’t seem to comprehend what Tabitha was saying, which only served to fuel her confession.

  “Also, I worry I killed a man. I didn’t mean to, but I didn’t properly follow my food-allergy protocol one night when I was cooking—I used to have my own business—and his girlfriend called after the meal. She said he couldn’t breathe, were there peanuts in the dish? I said no, because I truly believed there weren’t. As soon as I hung up, I realized there had been, I had sautéed the beef in peanut oil, and I had fried the spring rolls in it. Some peanut oil can be okay and not cause a reaction, even in very allergic people, but some can, and I would never normally take that chance. I wasn’t sure what kind of oil I had used, I think possibly the bad kind. I . . . I could have done more research about that, but I threw it out—we threw it out, my husband and I. I tried to call back, I tried to tell them. But I couldn’t reach them, and then my husband discouraged me from it, and eventually I stopped trying.”

  Nora nodded again.

  “And I’ve been stealing,” Tabitha said. Now she was crying, and she was too loud; she could wake the aide in the other room. She lowered her voice a little. “I’ve been stealing from people all over the city, and I’ve been stealing your money. You make it so easy. Why do you have so much money here? In the Monopoly game and in that jar in the bathroom?”

  Nora nodded again. Tabitha was ready to go, she’d told all her secrets, and hopefully nobody was the wiser, since Nora thought that it was over sixty years ago and she was in the park on a picnic. As Tabitha moved to get up, Nora reached out her dry hand. Tabitha stopped and looked at her. Something changed on Nora’s face. She looked around, startled. She moved her legs, slowly, and twirled her hair back into a bun, securing it with a rubber band from her wrist.

  “Oh, it happened again,” Nora said sadly.

  “You’re okay now,” Tabitha said. “Let me help you get to the chair, and then I have to go.”

  Nora let her grab her under the shoulders, gently—she was so light—and helped to push herself up. Tabitha got her sitting in her chair with her leg up on the ottoman.

  “Good night, Nora,” Tabitha said, turning to leave, pushing the bag to her other side so Nora wouldn’t see it.

  “I heard you,” Nora said. “I heard what you said about the stealing.”

  Tabitha stopped but did not turn around.

  “Bring me the phone, dear,” Nora said. “So I can call the police.”

  Now Tabitha turned back slowly. She imagined the police storming the apartment, the man at the desk saying, “Yeah, it seemed too early. I knew something was up.” Tabitha being carted away, so she couldn’t get back to Levi in the hospital. She looked up at Nora, thinking she was just going to run. Nora would never be able to find her. And she saw Nora smiling.

  “I got you!” Nora said. “It was too easy!”

  “Got me?” Tabitha asked, slowly, still ready to run.

  “I know about the stealing, dear,” Nora said, sounding like her old self. “I put the money there for people to take. I have so much, and so many people need it. I have one aide who can’t afford to buy her son a birthday present. He’s turning ten. Ten years old! Well, I hope she took some money. I have another who doesn’t eat much—she gives all her food to her kids and eats only what’s left over. Boy I hope she took some money. And you, well, you looked funny to me. I wasn’t sure but, I’ve been meaning to ask, are you a registered aide? You don’t dress like everyone else, and you don’t act like them either.”

  At this, Tabitha relaxed a little. She had the urge to laugh, but she didn’t dare.

  “There are no banks in heaven dear, or stores for that matter,” Nora said. “What am I going to do with it all?”

  “Well, I plan to pay you back,” Tabitha said. “One day I will, I promise.”

  “No need,” Nora said with a wave. “Take more. Just leave a little for the others. I’ll have my son go to the bank and get more cash out this week.”

  “Does your son know you do this?” Tabitha asked.

  “Oh yes,” Nora said. “The thing is, people don’t want to take money that is handed to them, but some don’t want to steal either. That’s why I put all the signs on the door. I should add some to the Monopoly board. But I still suspect some of the ones who need it have never taken a dollar. I worry about them. The best I can do is leave it and hope they find it. I’m going to have to come up with a new system.”

  “I wouldn’t normally steal,” Tabitha said, because she felt she had to. “I’ve been . . . I guess the word would be desperate, lately.”

  “We all are sometimes,” Nora said.

  Tabitha felt she had to get back to Levi. She felt a physical pull.

  “And dear?” Nora said.

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t feel guilty. Did you have a good relationship with your mother most of your life?”

  “Yes, very good,” Tabitha said, surprised that Nora actually heard what she said about her mother.

  “That’s what’s important. Let the rest go. That’s what she would want, I’m fairly sure of that.”

  Tabitha was crying now, with inappropriate spurts of laughter escaping every few seconds.

  “And that man, the one with the peanut allergy? Are you sure he died?”

  “Oh, no,” Tabitha said quickly through her tears. “I’m not. I have no idea actually.”

  “Well, find out,” Nora said. “You might be worrying about something that never happened.”

  Tabitha nodded. She considered telling her about Levi, but she couldn’t confess any more. Plus Nora hadn’t even asked her for an excuse about why she took the money.

  “I’m going to go now,” Tabitha said. “And I have money in my bag, from the jar in the bathroom, lots of it, do you want me to give it back?”

  “No, dear,” Nora said.

  “I’m keeping a record of it,” Tabitha said. “I’ll pay you back.”

  Nora waved her off as she moved around to try to get comfortable in the chair. She reached behind her back and pulled out what looked like a bent photo that she had been sitting on, one of those old Polaroid pictures, the kind that come out the bottom of the camera. Tabitha hadn’t seen one of those in a long time. Nora worked to unbend it.

  “My son threw me a birthday party,” Nora said, holding out the photo. “I have one clever son.”

  Tabitha reached in
to take it.

  “I should explain,” Nora said, but Tabitha was barely listening, something in the picture had caught her eye. “It might seem uncouth to you if I don’t. You might be aware that it takes the planet Uranus eighty years to orbit the Sun, or is it the Earth? Well, it takes Uranus eighty years to do something important. And I just turned eighty, so my son thought, well, he thought it would be funny.”

  Tabitha held the photo close to her face, it was slightly out of focus. There was Nora, all dressed up. She must have had her hair done, it looked elegant and flawless. Behind her was a big sign that said HAPPY URANUS BIRTHDAY NORA! She looked even closer, so that the picture was practically touching her face. To Nora’s right, a man stood just off to the side. He was wearing a navy sweater with a maize block M on the front. It was Toby.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  On the way out, Tabitha called the nurse’s station.

  “Fifth floor, can I help you?” Tabitha thought she recognized the pretty nurse’s voice.

  “Hi! This is Tabitha Brewer, Levi Brewer’s mom.” She loved saying that. “I’m on my way back, and I wanted to ask if he’s woken up at all?”

  “I was just in there, and he is still out,” the nurse said. “I have a feeling he’s going to sleep for a while.”

  “Okay,” Tabitha said. “I might walk back then, since I probably won’t be outside much today.”

  “Take your time,” the nurse said reassuringly. “But be careful. It’s still dark out there.”

  Tabitha had decided to walk home to drop off the money. She couldn’t very well take it to the hospital with her and hand it over. She smiled at the doorman, wondering if there had been any talk about what happened to Levi. She didn’t want to answer questions now and was relieved when he didn’t say anything beyond the usual “morning.”