by H. D. Gordon
Ms. Crawford released her hold on Merion’s wrist. Merion offered one more smile and turned on her heels, continuing at a much swifter pace to her mother’s room. Behind Merion, her voice seeming to echo down the white hall, Joan Crawford called out, “Got to get out of heeeere!” The old woman’s voice hitched at the end, releasing a sob that was somehow withered and cobwebbed and sad. So very sad.
Merion was at the end of the hall now. She had reached room 241, where a small, easily exchangeable, paper label outside the door currently bore the names ALBERTA ROSBOUGH and RUBY GELLAR. Merion slipped inside quickly, eager to leave the white-light hallway behind. She would have to cross back through to exit, but at least she was out for now.
Her mother, Ruby, shared a room with another tenant, as did most of the “guests” at the retirement facility. Right now her roommate was Alberta Rosbough. Over the past three years her mother had probably had about twelve different ones. Merion would just come in, usually on Saturdays or Sundays because she was often too tired to visit after work, and find that the name accompanying her mother’s in the label outside of the door had changed. It was always abrupt and unexpected. One day it would simply read Sadie Freemont, and the next day, Fran Chesterfield, and she would enter the room to see a new-old person occupying the half of the room that didn’t belong to her mother. Merion didn’t have to question what had happened to them.
Bit the bullet.
Her mother would never even acknowledge the change in roommates to Merion. She acted as though it was an occurrence that was beyond her notice, and though Merion knew that her mother was mildly senile, she couldn’t bring herself to believe that Ruby didn’t spare thoughts for the people dying around her. And, how could she not? Hell, Merion only visited on weekends, and it was all she thought about while she was here.
But these were ugly thoughts, guilty thoughts. Merion didn’t have the financial resources to keep her mother elsewhere. Besides, Merion had passed over the hill herself more than a few years ago, and she didn’t have the physical condition necessary to take care of her mother herself anymore. Merion’s knee was whacked from an old horse-riding injury. She wobbled while she walked, in an effort to keep the weight off of it. Arthritis in her hands was getting worse and worse by the year. Her already-poor eyesight was growing dimmer. She could still hear as sharply as a wolf. But her clock was running out too, and okay, yeah, she was selfish. Merion wanted her last years of life to be hers. She’d raised five kids, living only for them for the past thirty-some years. She had done her duty, worked hard for her retirement. She was ready to be free.
And that made her feel the guiltiest of all.
On this particular Friday morning her mother was seated in a chair facing the large window that looked out onto the gardens around the home. Fluffy white pillows were tucked all around her, between the arms of the chair and her mother’s thin arms, behind her bony back, on her lap. Ruby Gellar, once a proud and elegant woman, sat in the middle of all those pillows and stared out at the world. She had lost weight in the past few months, Merion could see that now. The pillows seemed to swallow her mother whole, leaving just the blue-grey cloud of her hair at the top them, her silver-colored eyes floating just below it, the skin of her face pulling ever downward, as if magnetized by the earth.
To Merion’s right, still in her bed and assumedly asleep, was Alberta Rosbough. Alberta had only been here for about three weeks, but Merion never saw her out of her bed. A few times she considered saying something to the nurses about this, but ultimately knew that she never would. She knew good and well that some of the staff here were unsuitable for the job, and it was never a good idea to go pissing them off. They might take it out on her mother, and she could not afford to move Ruby anywhere else.
It wasn’t that most of the nurses were evil, just lazy. But, for people as old as the ones who resided here, that was a painful and sometimes deadly trait. Merion was rare in the fact that she was loyal, and the simple fact was that she had to look after her mother first. So, although she was nearly certain that Alberta was suffering from terrible bedsores, she didn’t say anything. She supposed she’d seen worse in the past three years.
Merion crossed quickly over to her mother’s side of the room, which was divided from Alberta’s half with a sliding curtain. She went over to the window and took a seat in the visitors’ chair. For several long moments they both sat silently, looking out at the multicolored tulips and the plush green grass.
“What’re you doin’ here?” asked her mother, in that slow way she always had. Ruby Gellar had grown up in Mountain Home, Arkansas, and though she had left her home to move to Kansas City at the age of seventeen, her voice still reflected the slow Southern drawl.
“I came to visit you,” Merion said. Her mother’s question didn’t bother her. Ruby was ninety-one, and still had all of her physical health intact, but her mental capabilities had slipped further and further away over the years. Most of the things she babbled about made no sense. It didn’t bother Merion as much as one might think. She just liked hearing the sound of her mother’s voice. It didn’t particularly matter what the words were. Her mother’s voice had always been there to soothe her, a security blanket in a world that had become all work and routine.
“I knew this man once,” her mother began, “really, I ‘pose he was justa boy at the time, because I was justa girl of sixteen myself. But anyway, his name was George Handbrook. Yes, that was it, George Simon Handbrook, but everyone just called him Jackass George.” Her mother brought her small, withered hand up to her mouth and suppressed what seemed like a giggle. Merion was watching her, but Ruby just stared out the large window, her eyes glassy with time’s touch. “I got in trouble for saying that once in front of my ma. I said, ‘Jackass George got suspended today for bringing a shoebox full of dirt and earthworms to school,’ and she slapped me upside my head. Yes she did.”
Merion remained silent, hoping her mother would continue. It had been months since she had last heard her so vocal. Her throat closed a little as she realized that someday, probably in the not-too-distant future, all she would have left of her mother was her stories.
When it became evident that her mother’s thoughts had gone elsewhere, Merion said, “What about George, Ma?”
Her mother’s tiny frame jumped a little at the question. She trained her gray eyes on her daughter, as if noticing her presence for the first time. “Meri?” she asked, her eyes growing wide with wonder and maybe a little relief. “Am I dead?”
Merion shifted uneasily, readjusted her position in the chair. She reached a hand up and rubbed the back of Ruby’s neck. “No, Ma, you’re not dead.” After a moment, she added, “You were telling me about Jackass George.”
Eyes going glassy once more, Ruby turned her gaze back out the window. “George...? Oh, George. That’s right. Jackass George. He was a jester, that boy. Every Saturday in the summer all of us teenagers used to meet up at the Lake, Longview Lake, and drink beers around a fire. Some of the more...easygoing girls and boys would even go for a swim without their skivvies. I told em, I said, ‘There’s snakes in that water, and don’t ‘spect me to be suckin’ no poison out if’n you git bit. Them copperheads is nasty things, I told em. But Jackass George had got his name for a reason.”
Though she was trying to pay her full attention, Merion was beginning to wonder where this story was going. Her mother always told a story for the purpose of a lesson, never really for entertainment or enjoyment, not even when Merion had been a child. She also kept circling around something else her mother had said, or rather, asked: ‘Am I dead?’ And, worse, the tiny bit of relief she’d thought she’d seen in her mother’s eyes while she asked it.
“So, wouldn’t you know it, that Jackass went and got himself bit by one of them copperheads an’ all a us had told our parents that we’s goin to the bowling hall. Well, you don’t git bit by no copperhead at no bowling hall, no ma’am.” Her mother paused for a moment and coughed lightly into a
white lace handkerchief. Merion waited patiently for her to continue, just as she used to do as a girl when her mother would be going on one of her tales. In the stories that her mother told, Merion would always get wrapped up with wondering what it must have been like to live at the time her mother did.
Ruby Gellar was born Ruby Anne Leasworth in the year 1924. She had been but a baby when the Great Depression fell hard on the county, knocking America to its knees. She’d had a cousin who’d died of rabies, a mother who’d died when she was nineteen because of medical problems caused by malnutrition. She’d watched the world evolve over the course of the years. Inevitably, she knew and had seen things that very few will ever know or see. She’d lived damn near a century.
“An’ you know what happen’ then? Well, a park ranger stops by the lake to make sure ain’t nothin’ outta sorts, and I’ll be darned if he ain’t have the anti-venom and the stuff to fix ole George right on up.” Now her mother stopped and looked at her, as if really seeing her daughter for the first time since she got here. Her face went grave and serious and somehow older, much older than old, if that was possible. Merion knew what was coming next: the Lesson, the Moral of the Story. Her mother said, “God takes care of drunks ‘n fools, Meri. Drunks ‘n fools.”
Merion wrung her hands together in her lap, suddenly wishing that she hadn’t come here today, wishing that she didn’t have to pass back through that white-light hallway before she would be able to get out. Be free. “I know, Ma,” she mumbled. “Drunks and fools.”
Her mother reached out and placed her bird-like hand over her daughter’s. Her steel gray eyes studied her daughter. “You ain’t no drunk, Meri, and you ain’t no fool…You sure I ain’t dead?”
Swiping a lone tear from her eye with her free hand, Merion forced a small smile. “No, Ma, you’re not dead.”
Merion left shortly after that, damn near racing down the white-light hallway in her haste to escape. She had kissed her mother on the head and told her that she would be back to visit this weekend, and Ruby cried then. The first time she had seen her mother cry in years and years. Ruby went on insisting that she must be dead, and if she was, why wouldn’t Merion stay with her? When she started screaming about drunks and fools and something else about Mondays, the nurse had come in the room and gotten her to take a little blue pill. A few minutes after that she just sat staring out of the wide window, her eyes glassy with age and blockaded tears. Merion slipped out, almost ran through that awful hallway, and burst through the sliding glass doors as quick as dog on a snapped chain.
She cranked the car radio up, but the station was playing Jimmy Buffet’s old hit, ”Come Monday,” and she shut it right back off, slamming her fingers on the button so hard that she broke a nail.
That’s what her mother had been screaming about, the coming Monday, some crazy shit about the coming Monday. Oh, and about how Merion wasn’t no drunk, and wasn’t no fool.
She drove home in silence, feeling sorry for her mother. Ruby had always had her problems. People even used to laugh at her when Merion was little, saying that her mother was a loon. Well, maybe she wasn’t a loon, maybe she was just a little touched. Not so unlike the raven-haired girl, Simple Joe. But Merion, even after being raised by her mother and in turn becoming her caretaker as her mother aged, would never even fathom such a possibility, had never even considered it.
After all, she wasn’t no drunk, and she sure as shit wasn’t no fool.
Chapter Twenty
Mina
With her only class of the day finished—a morning class that began at 9:30 and let out at 11:15—Mina sat under a large oak tree on the sprawling green lawn in the middle of the four main halls of UMMS. Everyone at UMMS called this area the Quad. The four halls–Imperial, Hopkins, Markus, and Blue—surrounding the two carefully manicured acres of the Quad were massive buildings, each of them made of tan-colored stone and capped with rust-red rooftops. Walkways led off in every direction, flanked by flower beds and ornate white lampposts. The grass beneath Mina was thick and healthy, and she ran her fingers over it as she watched Davis tossing a football back and forth with a few guys from her Sociology class.
Things had gone well today. Davis had sat next to her in the rear of the class, reading a car magazine and causing no trouble whatsoever. Even Professor Stanley had commented at the end of the class as they were walking out how well her boy behaved. Then a guy in her class—she thought his name was Kyle—had asked Davis if he wanted to play some ball in the Quad. Davis had lit up, flattered that a college boy would invite him to play. Mina took a deep breath as she watched them now. Other students had joined in, about five of them total, and they were all tossing the ball around to each other.
“Afternoon, ma’am.” A deep voice behind her, almost right in her ear, made Mina jump in surprise.
She smiled when she saw who it was. “Hey, Russ,” she said.
He gestured to the grass beside her. “Mind if I sit?”
Mina looked up at him. She had met Russell just this semester in her Spanish class. He was only taking that one class because he was a detective and his department was paying to for him to attend in hopes that he would learn the second language. He was twenty-seven, about Mina’s age, and had transferred to Kansas City from Dallas, Texas. He was a big man, with a slow drawl and a good nature. Russell had also promised Mina that he could get her a job in the forensics department at his work after she graduated with her degree in chemistry and biology. Plus, he didn’t look too bad in his jeans and old cowboy boots. She wouldn’t admit it, but she was starting to think she had a crush on him.
She gestured with a hand and nodded her permission. “I didn’t know you had class on Fridays,” she said.
Russell sat down beside her, staring out at the area where her son was playing with the other students. “I don’t,” he said. “Just came up here to pick up some books from the library. Saw you sittin’ over here, thought I’d say hello….That your boy down there?”
Mina took her eyes off of Russ and looked out at her son again, Davis’s wiry muscles pumping as he ran to catch the football, his chestnut hair—the same color as her own—blowing carelessly in the wind. A smile touched her lips and she nodded. “Yep, that one’s mine.”
Russ nodded in return, and Mina averted her gaze when she realized she had been studying the rough stubble on his cheeks, wondering what it would feel like pressed against her skin. She cast those thoughts aside right along with her glance. She had been down this road before and had ended up a single mother raising two boys, struggling to give them a good life. She figured she would date later on, after she had a steady job and some security for her boys. She didn’t have time for a boyfriend right now. But she would have time later. Course she would. There was always tomorrow. Right?
“Good looking boy,” Russ commented, and Mina realized that she had grown quiet.
Struggling for something to say, she spat out the first thing that came to mind. “Yeah, I love him, but he sure is a handful.”
Russell laughed, a deep, hearty sound that warmed her. “Sure he is. He’s a boy. You should start worrying if he ain’t causin’ no trouble.”
As if sensing that he was a topic of conversation, Davis looked up to where his mother was sitting and waved. Mina smiled and returned the gesture.
“Maybe you’re right,” she said.
Another laugh, more a small chuckle, but warming nonetheless. “Course I am. Used to be a boy myself, ya know,” he said, giving her a slanted smile. Then he slung an arm around her shoulder, and for a tiny moment, Mina stiffened. But it was just a small moment, and when it passed she felt herself settling into his embrace, basking in the rightness of it.
The world had left her jaded; that was a sharp truth. She had been only sixteen when she’d gotten pregnant with Davis, and the life she knew as a child had been whisked away in that sudden way that change only has. Suddenly she had become responsible for something. Suddenly she had become an adult. Suddenly sh
e had been expected to take the wheel and steer not only herself but this other little person down the road of life and take only the best paths that it had to offer, which often seemed to be the ones that ran uphill. When she was in the mind of it, after Davis or Dominic had done something particularly upsetting—like say, getting expelled from school–she would equate the adventure of becoming a parent with selling your soul. Maybe not to the devil, but a soul-sell nonetheless. But the truth was that her children had made her stronger, wiser. Her children had made her better.
She liked Russell, there was no denying that, had liked him since she met him. She had known him for only three-and-a-half months, since the beginning of this semester, but they often hung out for a little while after Spanish class, and she felt that she knew him well enough to admit that there was a definite attraction here. But there was work, school and children, and no time for romance in between. Soul-sell indeed.
Russ looked down at her, his lips tilting up in that lazy smile of his, showing straight white teeth behind them. “What are you doing on Saturday?” he asked.
The question was so unexpected that Mina pulled herself out from under his arm by sitting forward. He let it rest in the grass behind her. “Working,” she said, feeling her cheeks going rosy. “Got the kids during the day and then I work at the restaurant from three-thirty until ten-thirty. Why?”
He smiled, and Mina’s heartbeat sped up a touch. “Good. There’s a carnival in town. Let’s take your boys go before you got work,” he said. When she just looked at him, he added, “I’ll win you a teddy bear.”
All of her usual lies and excuses passed through her head in the space of a second. Sorry, can’t, we’ve got a lunch date with my mom. She hates it when I cancel. Wish I could, but Dominic has Little League that day. Oh, sucks, but I have an electrician coming over to fix a few things I really need to get fixed. Next time, sure. Definitely. Next time. But she couldn’t get the words through her lips. Most of the time it was easy to turn guys down, because the ones who usually approached her were in no way studs or charmers or even men with all of their teeth. Turning them away was the equivalent of shooing flies. Mina was an attractive woman, her figure and her features only growing more appealing even after giving birth to two boys. She had curly, light brown hair and naturally golden skin, full lips and hazel eyes which added up to achieve an exotic look that managed to scare away most men, the exception being those who had been turned down so many times that they had nothing to lose. Those men, and the very rare, truly confident, good-looking man. A man like Russell Remington.
