Every Day

by Elizabeth Richards

  “The train was dreamy, since you asked,” Eliot continues. “So nice and smooth, and above ground! And then an enormous creature drove me over here for a small fee, so voilà, feast your eyes. I’m on holiday.”

  Because he’s so nervous, I start to wish he hadn’t come, even though the pastries are to die for.

  “How about a walk?” he asks generally, unable to question Fowler directly.

  Fowler types something out with the wand. “You two go,” it reads. “Daisy will sleep.”

  Eliot and I step outside. “He’s self-conscious,” I explain.

  Eliot puts his arm around me. “No, he isn’t. I am. And it’s making him angry.”

  “It is?”

  He stops and leans against the house, covers his face for a second. “I should go.”

  “You just got here! Let me at least get your tea.”

  “Can you drive me? To the station? I’ll have the tea in the car.”

  I get the tea and join him in the cracked front seat of the Mustard Bomb. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

  He wastes no time in saying, “It’s over. When it gets so that you’re worse off than the sick one, it’s over. You are so lucky he’s leaving, you have no idea.”

  “Of course I don’t!” I shout. “How could I?”

  Eliot sniffs, sips. “You couldn’t,” he says.

  • • •

  On Isaac’s birthday Simon drives up in a rented minivan and honks shamelessly until we’re assembled in front. I’ve got a picnic I know no one will want to eat, blankets, and cameras. I convinced Isaac, when he complained of our family’s lack of flair in terms of birthdays, that apple picking was an original party idea, that we’d go to the orchards and get messy, then come home and make stuff with the apples for the rest of the weekend, caramel apples, pies, chutney, what-have-you. We could even think about selling it, I told him.

  “You’re trying to make up for Halloween, aren’t you, Mom?” he said.

  “Maybe.” I don’t see how a trip to Salinger’s Orchard could compensate for my inattention on Halloween, Jane explaining to the trick-or-treaters that her idiot mother hadn’t had the decency to buy so much as an M&M.

  I must say I have never ridden in so smooth and roomy a vehicle, and that the fact of our all fitting in without issue, with the wheelchair, is cause enough for a party. Simon and Fowler take the front thrones, Jane and Isaac the middle, then Daisy and I in back. I open the Cheetos and we roll.

  “Brady Bunch on the road,” Isaac scoffs. I flinch at the Brady reference, thinking of the Brady Bill, but Isaac doesn’t bother with the news, thank God. It’s hard enough with Jane and her bandwagons.

  “Mama sad?” Daisy asks, because I’m making some sort of face about it.

  “No, sweetie pie. Mama happy.”

  “Happy bewfday?”

  “Happy birthday. Isaac’s birthday.”

  Daisy laughs crazily. I want to take her out of that motley and squeeze her.

  We’re impossibly cheerful as a crew, and I think it’s because Fowler leaves tomorrow, and we have to be. Mother keeps calling, worried. She’s sure I can’t handle what’s about to hit me. But I’ve told her, over and over, it’s been hitting me since June. “Still,” she says ominously.

  We’re driving him to LaGuardia tomorrow. Evelyn has been notified. He’ll be flying alone.

  From where I sit I can’t see him. His minivan throne hides him entirely. I do catch Simon looking over now and then, asking Fowler if he’s all right, if he needs anything. Simon should have been the doctor, not Carly.

  “Mom, I want those maple sugar men and ladies that come in the little white boxes,” Jane says.

  “Fine.”

  “They’ll get stuck in your rig,” Isaac says, taking more aim at Jane’s braces.

  “Drop dead,” Jane says, which sends me into a complete frenzy until I detect laughter in the front, he’s letting himself laugh, and Simon’s got an arm out for support.

  “Nice one, brainless. Any other choice phrases you’d like to spit through all that metal?”

  “Enough, you two,” I warn. “Enough about teeth.”

  “Yeah, Mom. Are you ever going to get that tooth fixed? You have one white tooth and the rest are brown.”

  “Thank you, Jane.”

  Simon glances over at Fowler. “Jim, I’d like you to meet your new family.”

  • • •

  At home, Mother and Daddy greet us at the door and help with the bags of apples. They give Isaac his presents right away, a hand-knit sweater and a check. “Put it toward your Porsche,” Mother says. At which point, Alex steps out of the front hall closet, all in black, having somehow avoided gaining the Freshman Ten.

  “Your dad called me last month,” she tells Isaac, who is red with embarrassment.

  Isaac’s eyes dart between Simon and Fowler, unsure.

  “Happy birthday!” my father shouts. “Come on! Let’s have some cake. There’s coffee, Leigh. Your mother made fresh.”

  “Now you’re only four years younger than I am,” Alex says adorably. She holds out a present done up in tasteful plaid wrap. “Happy birthday.”

  I stay in the hall with Fowler for a minute.

  “You called Alex? At college?”

  His eyes assent, closing with pleasure, as Isaac’s did, for the short embrace.

  “You’re a smart man,” I say. “You gave him exactly what he wanted.”

  He points inside, where the cake is being brought, dots of fire in the darkened dining room.

  “You’re not a bad father, either,” I add.

  • • •

  After the cake, Daddy asks for a word with me. “Would you like me to drive the young lady home?”

  “That’s okay, Dad.”

  “I don’t think she should spend the night.”

  “Neither do we, Daddy. Give us some credit.”

  My father smiles. “I give you much credit,” he says. “I don’t know of anyone doing such a wonderful thing as you have done here.”

  I break away from the dishes for a second. “I guess I’m not the fool you took me for.”

  “I’m the fool,” Daddy says, “if I ever thought you were.”

  Mother pokes her head in. “We’ve got a train in half an hour,” she alerts my father.

  “I’ll have just enough time,” Daddy says. “Tell her her chariot awaits.”

  “You haven’t driven in years.”

  “Oh, let him have his little thing,” Mother says.

  We follow him into the living room.

  “I’m taking Alex home,” he tells Isaac. “You can come along.”

  “Conference time,” Isaac says. We go back in the kitchen. “Why can’t she stay?”

  “Because she can’t.”

  “But I’ve stayed there.”

  Fowler drops something in the next room. We find his wand on the floor. I pick it up, and he starts typing.

  “Take her home,” he types.

  “Why?” Isaac types back.

  “Because your mother told you to.”

  • • •

  The next morning, Simon brings in croissants, butter, and jam. Jane holds Fowler’s coffee for him, which he sips through a straw. I’ve been up packing Fowler’s things and making a list for Evelyn of ways to take care of him. I put Isaac’s baseball photo, in a frame, in Fowler’s carry-on. One unmarked box stays by the bed.

  “What is it?” I ask him.

  He types: “For you and Isaac.”

  I take off the top, which indicates that there’s Xerox paper inside. I find film reels instead, at least thirty canisters, all labeled with the titles of his films. In the presence of my family I say, “I love you. I have always loved you.”

  After the food we suit up. Simon packs the car. Then he kneels by the chair before lifting Fowler in. “Godspeed.”

  I go to my husband, as he takes up the sidelines again. I know I will cry if I tell him, just now, that he has held all of us up, that
he’s the best person I know, that I don’t deserve him. So I reach for his hand, which he gives for me to press to my cheek. He gives my hand a tight squeeze. “You’ll be late,” he says. “Go.”

  “Mom, you forgot his hat!” Jane yells, rushing out to place it carefully on Fowler’s head, to her sister’s immediate chagrin. It is Daisy’s favorite hat. “Don’t let anyone feed you who doesn’t know what you have,” she counsels. “ ’Bye.” She offers her cheek for a kiss, which he gives, then backs away.

  I don’t look at them. I have Isaac hold my coffee until we’re on the highway. He hands it back to me without my asking, a good thing, as I don’t dare speak.

  • • •

  Airports are grisly places, generally, too functional, too full of departure. It’s hard to say which task is more onerous, parking, baggage check, the detailing of Fowler’s particular needs to the clerk behind the desk who says we’ll have to repeat this to the flight attendant anyway. The announcement for preboarding is made as soon as we’ve checked Fowler in and gotten his boarding pass.

  I sink down and face him, holding onto the chair. Isaac is behind me, both hands on my shoulders. Fowler’s hands cover my own.

  “Mom,” Isaac says. “Mom.”

  I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do, so I stand up. Isaac is taking up Fowler’s carry-on and assuming the post behind the chair. Fowler smiles—I know he is smiling, eyes narrow, lips pressed into an effort. He pushes the brake lever and pulls a slip of paper from his sleeve on which is typed the words “Every day.”

  I take his hands, press my cheek to his, and kiss his lazy mouth. I draw back.

  Isaac stands expressionless as a Buckingham Palace guard. Then Fowler flips the brakes off and they go, into the conveyor to the plane, and I am left to the long avenue of chairs and carpet at the gate.

  “No!” I say, loud enough to startle myself. “No!” Like a deranged person, over and over again until I gain the sense to direct myself to a stable piece of furniture, in this case a railing, and just hang on to it and look at it and hang on and look until my son returns.

  And when he does come back, free of luggage, free of that beaten man he’s learned to care for, he is weeping so uncontrollably that I have no choice but to let go of my rail, my help, and be his.

  “Oh, my sweet, sweet boy.”

  “Mom,” he cries. “Mom, help me. I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to put him on the plane. I had to tell them how to do everything for him. I didn’t want to do that.”

  “I didn’t want you to have to,” I say, folding him into my arms as naturally as the first time he was given to me.

  We walk, away from the engine blast. We walk out of the terminal, out of the airport, to the lot, our arms locked. We drive home.

  • • •

  A week later I hear from Evelyn by mail, the same day I receive Gillette’s wedding invitation. First I attend to Gillette via the answering machine. “Rue the day,” I say. “Of course we’ll be there. Bells on.”

  Then I open Evelyn’s letter.

  Dear Leigh,

  I have first to thank you for sending Jim home with this marvelous computer and all the instructions for his care typed out so very helpfully. We have been in constant touch with his New York doctors, who have established us with local specialists, and I do believe he is growing used to his old home again, as doddering as his parents are, and we are trying to give him everything he needs. You have been good to him, good to us.

  Thank you also for the photograph of this beautiful child, who, as I understand it, is our grandson. I think I have seen this face before, in the younger version of his father. I wept upon seeing it. All the years you managed on your own must have been trying indeed. I wish we had been told before now about Isaac, whom I would like to meet.

  Of course, this is a desperate time for me and for J.T. and more so, for Jim. I trust you’ll understand my reluctance to overwhelm myself with meeting Isaac right now. J.T. and I feel pressed to spend every minute with our son, who, we understand, will not see the new year. I fear our next communication with you will not be a cheerful one. But hear from us you will, and again, our thanks to you and your family for taking care of our boy.

  Yours,

  Evelyn Fowler

  I roar through the end of the class, the end of the book. I find Kirsten at our booth in the diner.

  “Oh, love,” she says. “I’m so sorry. You don’t deserve this.”

  “Deserve this!” I howl. “I deserve every second of this, and then some!”

  She ignores me. “I ordered for us. I want you and Simon to go away for a weekend. I’ll take the kids.” She slides a flyer, from a Catskill lodge, in front of me.

  “I can’t leave my kids for a second these days without weeping. A weekend would kill me. When I drop Jane at school, she tells me I’ll be okay.”

  Kirsten smiles. “It’s okay not to be okay, so Adrienne tells me.”

  “Our daughters. They should go into practice together. But Adrienne needs to be a little easier on the terminally ill.”

  “She’s a kid,” Kirsten scolds. “Now, eat. You’re too thin.”

  I shovel in a tuna melt, fries, and coffee while Kirsten talks just to let me know she’s still around and that these meetings are still available on request. I’ve resisted her; she’s been such a wench. I’ve wanted to stay away from everyone because meeting and talking means there’s something to get over. He’s not even dead yet. But I can no longer hear him. I cannot call his face clearly to mind. It does seem I’ve lost something. I know what he meant: Every day. He was never fully gone from me, as he is now, into that foreign, kudzu-smothered place. Nor was I, I see, gone from him.

  I thank her, drive home, and throw up.

  • • •

  The call from the South comes two days before Christmas, very early, after an hour of snowfall, when it’s just Daisy and me playing on the floor beside the tree, where we set up a small village and the electric menorah.

  It’s J.T., with the news.

  “When?”

  “Four-thirty.”

  I’d woken up! I’d woken up to see the clock, to wonder why I was up and Simon wasn’t. And then I’d drifted back.

  “Evelyn couldn’t call. She’s overwhelmed.”

  “How did he go?” I so very much want it to have been peaceful.

  “There was a fair amount of coughing,” J.T. says. “It was a difficult end.”

  “Oh no,” I say. “Oh, I wish that weren’t true.”

  “I do too, Leigh.”

  We are both crying, listening to the other. It’s permissible. There are no rules in death.

  “I’m going to write you a very long letter,” he says. “Will that be all right with you?”

  “That would be most welcome.”

  “All right then.”

  He says that he’ll be in touch about the funeral, and that if it’s too much for me, I shouldn’t strain myself to come, but they would like to see me at some point, me and Isaac.

  I leave Daisy at the base of the tree and climb the stairs. Through Isaac’s slightly open door I see he’s awake, staring up, waiting for me to pass into his line of vision.

  “I heard, Mom.”

  I sit on the bed, dry my face with the end of the bedspread. Isaac doesn’t cry. He rakes his fingers through that hair.

  “Mom, you’re fine. I’m fine. We’re all fine.” He swings his legs past me, to standing. “It’s like you said. It’s the winter. He wasn’t supposed to live longer than the winter. He was too sick! We have to go downstairs now, Mom, and eat something. Where’s Simon? Is Jane up? What have you done with Daisy? Let’s go, Mom. Now. Come on. Get up.”

  Lord, but the life anyone leads can bring them to their knees.

  He takes me by the hand, leads me through the house as he hollers, “Breakfast! Get up, punks! Let’s eat! Waffles! Pancakes! Syrup!” Sounding the alarums, raising Cain, summoning the living and the angels in our
house, Isaac, my answered prayer, Isaac, who has come to me this time.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ATRIA BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc.

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  Copyright © 1997 by Elizabeth Richards

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  For information address Atria Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Richards, Elizabeth.

  Every day : a novel / Elizabeth Richards.

  p. cm.

  ISBN: 0-671-00155-8 (HC)

  ISBN: 978-1-4767-2988-6 (eBook)

  I. Title.

  PS3568.131525E9 1997

  813'.54—dc21

  96-37231

  CIP

  First Atria Books hardcover printing April 1997

  ATRIA BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

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