“Say what?”
“Brother. Come to take me home. Only he say I cannot go home. They do not wish me.”
Sam sat down across from Suki, forgetting for the moment how much she disliked accommodating that low table.
“He came all this way to say you can’t go home?” Sam asked.
“More honorable to say to my face.”
Sam gazed up at the popcorn ceiling. Her right leg cramped. She flexed her toes. Suki sniffed.
“You should not have pushed him away,” Suki said.
“Yeah, guess not. Look, maybe I can go after him and explain.”
“Do not. Please go now.”
“Suki, look, I was just trying …”
Suki shook her head.
Sam stood. In her misery, Suki looked even tinier. Sam wanted to help her and knew that anything she offered would be rejected. Sam left her alone. As she went down the hall she hoped Mrs. Hopp wouldn’t open her door. The door stayed closed.
Back in her own place, Sam listened for Suki’s footsteps on the ceiling. She thought of her up there, unhappy and stuck. She thought of dragging Suki’s brother across the floor. She heard a distant moan, almost ghostly. Maybe Suki was weeping again, full of remorse and regret. Maybe she was wondering how to fix things. Maybe she figured she couldn’t.
And what about my own life?
The details were fuzzy, but the gist was clear. She’d had enough of the golden west. Time to head for home.
chapter twenty-one
Sam didn’t read poetry in L.A., but poems were always with her. In her ear, in the beat of her good, non-lame foot. In her hand wiping clean the motel television screens. Even polishing the rim of a toilet that messy, stupid men had used, poetry was there.
In elementary school, her rendition of “The Little Ghost” by Edna St. Vincent Millay was passionate to the point of ridicule. Her teachers accused her of making fun. She was supposed to recite, so she did. She saw no reason to hold back.
She read poems on her way to school and when she returned home, unless her grandparents were in the house. They thought reading was a silly pastime. Young hands should hold brooms and dishcloths, fold towels and sheets, scrub counters and floors.
Now that she was home and the house was hers—well, technically her mother’s—she read whenever she damn well pleased. Her favorites were Millay, Dickenson, Sexton, and Plath.
I made a fire; being tired
Of the white fists of old
Letters and their death rattle
When I came too close to the wastebasket
What did they know that I didn’t?
Plath was her favorite. All that despair and rage! Thank you, Ted Hughes.
The first motel where she got a job was in College Town and rented by the week. The occupant of the end room was an English major, or so Sam assumed from her collection of books, particularly T. S. Eliot. She hadn’t read Eliot. One afternoon, she sat down on the bed she’d just made, and did, for over an hour, at which the point the manager walked in, raised his voice, and threatened to fire her. Sam wanted to tell him where to go, and didn’t, for the sake of her paycheck.
Then the motel was sold to a developer who planned to tear it down.
She held two more motels jobs before she learned that the Lindell Home was hiring. There, no one minded her carrying a book of verses and reading to the residents, most of whom were deaf as posts or disconnected from what went on around them, especially those that lay in bed, staring at nothing. Now and then one would smile in recognition of some lines learned long ago that took them back to younger selves, and happier times.
“Don’t you hate being around those old folks all the time?” Flora asked.
“I grew up around old folks, remember?”
Flora looked sad for a moment. She thought of her dead parents every single day.
“They weren’t so bad, were they?” she would sometimes ask.
“They stunk, and you know it.”
Flora looked even sadder then, and Sam regretted saying that. She poured her another cup of coffee, though she hadn’t asked for one.
“Look, I’ll be getting my own place eventually, once I have a little more money saved, so why don’t you sell this dump and rent one of those new apartments downtown? A change of scene would do you good,” Sam asked.
“And live there alone?”
“Well, sure, I mean …”
“I can’t do that.”
This was always a sticking point. Sam was more than ready for an apartment of her own. Since coming back from L.A. it hadn’t been easy living with Flora. It wasn’t that her mother intruded on her privacy, or made demands. It was just that she was so weighed down by her own misery! There was an air of gloom around her that nothing could lift, and Sam found it very annoying.
“You did fine without me before,” Sam said.
“I did not! You don’t know how lonely I was!”
Flora had a boyfriend she pretended was really only an old pal. Chuck Knight. He’d been in the picture a long time, well before the death of her parents. He never came around because they hadn’t approved of him, and Flora probably got so used to keeping him a secret that she thought she still had to. It was absurd, really, because he called all the time on the telephone, and Flora went out with him a lot, too, and sometimes spent the night at his house out on the lake. How he stood Flora’s constant depression, Sam had no idea, except possibly by being dense and thus insulated from it somehow. The few times Sam had met him, his good cheer and lack of curiosity about anything in the larger world always gave the impression of a major dope.
Sam was late for work, and she left Flora by herself in the kitchen. As she drove, she listened to one of the recordings she’d made of herself reading Emily Dickinson. The recorder sat on the passenger seat. One of these days she might get a used laptop and burn CDs, but for the moment, an older technology was fine.
There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!
Sam really got a kick out of Dickinson, especially because she lived a very solitary life. The idea was appealing.
Her co-worker, Eunice, was late, as usual. Their supervisor, Karen, never said anything to her about it, which ticked Sam off. Karen and Eunice had a lot in common. Both had disastrous histories with men. Neither had children. They often commiserated with one another, which probably accounted for Karen always looking the other way when Eunice failed to be on time.
When Eunice finally showed up, her excuse was the guy she was living with. He had problems with his kids, who were more or less estranged from him. What trouble could you have with someone who was basically out of your life, unless you wanted them back in? Sam didn’t ask that question. She dusted, straightened, scrubbed the toilet in each room, and hummed.
Fannie Etheridge smiled and nodded when Sam came in. Sam recited the poem she’d listened to in the car before cleaning up. She squeezed Fannie’s hand on the way out.
Sam liked the residents. She also felt sorry for them. Take Nell Morely for instance. She was often blue, and held her husband’s picture in her lap hour after hour. Frank Norton, who was called “Sarg” by the staff, looked bleakly at his younger self in an Army uniform, where he smiled confidently into the camera. Then there was Constance Maynard, who’d stopped taking her sleeping pills and was, for a time, almost frisky. Now the quiet had returned, and the frequent presence of her daughter, Meredith,
didn’t seem to help.
That was because Meredith was a sap. Always mooning around. The way she acted, you’d think she was a resident herself, though she was a hell of a lot younger than most of them. Eunice said she’d just moved from L.A. At the mention of that huge, hot, dusty city, Sam’s skin crawled.
Good old Suki. Whatever became of you?
She wheeled her cart full of cleaning supplies and fresh linens up the hall. The fluorescent lights above her buzzed quietly. A trailing ivy plant, set carelessly on a stand in a dark corner, was wilted. Some leaves were brown, and others had detached and fallen to the floor. Sam thought it was in very bad taste to leave a living thing to die in a place where everyone else was, too.
She went into the storeroom next to the nurse’s station looking for a watering can or anything with a spout so she could pour water onto the soil without sending it all over the carpet as well. The carpets at Lindell were routinely abused. Incontinence was a big problem, and Sam had asked Karen why they didn’t install tile floors instead. Karen looked at her as if that were a very stupid question, which was her way of saying that whomever made these decisions would flat out refuse. That seemed to happen a lot, Sam had noticed. There’d been a request for new tablecloths for the dining room, also a new coffee pot, and nothing had come through. Velma, the cook—and the one who oversaw everything culinary—told Sam the people who ran Lindell were a bunch of idiots. Sam believed it.
When she couldn’t find a watering can, she went down the hall to the recreation center. There was an indoor pool and a workout room. Both were empty. She opened the storage closet and found a bunch of weighted balls, stretchy ropes, and yoga mats.
I could use this stuff.
For a moment, she thought of walking off with some of the items in front of her, but decided not to risk it.
Next, she wandered into the kitchen where Velma was furiously stirring something in a large, green mixing bowl. A lit cigarette stuck to her lower lip. Smoking was forbidden at Lindell and within twenty-five feet of any entrance, which Velma knew, of course. She also knew she wouldn’t get fired. Aides were one thing, and not all that hard to come by, but someone who could make large batches of good-tasting food, which the residents and their guests praised often, was another story.
“You know where I can find a watering can?” Sam asked.
“My office.”
Velma’s office was right off the kitchen, next to the staff breakroom, and sure enough, in a corner on the floor was a plastic watering can. Sam realized that Velma was responsible for the row of African violets on the breakroom’s windowsill.
“Make sure you bring that back,” Velma said, still stirring.
“Watch your ash.”
“Ash or ass?”
“Ha!”
If Velma were younger, closer to Sam’s age, she’d make a good friend. Sam had a good friend, though, and one was all she needed.
Lucy lived across the street. She was twenty-seven, five years older than Sam, and had four kids. Her husband was a cop. When Sam needed a break from Flora, she went over to Lucy’s and watched her kids roll around on the floor and fight. Lucy kept them in line by banging two pots together and, when silence had fallen, pointing her finger at each one in turn. Sam didn’t know what unnamed threat lay behind that pointed finger, but the kids sure did, because they always stopped their mischief when it came their way.
Sometimes, when Flora was off with Chuck, Lucy and her brood marched over to Sam’s. Sam cooked Sloppy Joe’s for the kids. She and Lucy ate pretzels and drank wine. Lucy’s husband, Glen, wanted to leave town and make a fresh start somewhere else. Lucy had talked him out of it several times already, but Sam could tell she was afraid that one day she wouldn’t be able to, and that he’d quit the force, find a job doing something like driving a long-haul truck, and pack them off to someplace even colder than Upstate New York. For some reason, he had a hankering to move to Minnesota, or maybe Wisconsin. Lucy told Sam woozily over a third glass of wine if that were the case, why couldn’t they move somewhere warm, like Florida? Sam pointed out that if Glen really wanted to drive trucks for a living, it probably didn’t matter where they lived, in which case they could just stay in Dunston. Sam didn’t want Lucy to leave. She adored her. She was skinny as a rail, even after four kids. Lucy explained her figure by saying she must have the metabolism of a squirrel.
Recalling that now, lumbering back to the nursing wing with Velma’s watering can, Sam chuckled. She swung into Constance’s room, which was closest to the ailing plant, filled the can with water from the bathroom sink, and was on her way out when Constance said, “Wait.”
Sam turned around. She approached Constance’s bed. Constance motioned that she wanted to sit up. Sam put the watering can on the floor, pressed the button that raised the head of the bed, pulled Constance forward, and plumped her pillow. She was still in her nightgown. Just last week she’d declared she didn’t want to get dressed, so Sam and Eunice left her as she was but made sure to get her in a clean nightgown every third day, which coincided with her being bathed. Over the nightgown, she had a sweater knit from a light-weight wool. Her white hair had gotten so thin that patches of pink scalp showed through.
“Where is she?” Constance asked.
“Your daughter?”
Constance nodded.
“Is she coming today?”
“She comes every day.”
“She’s very devoted.”
“She’s very scared.”
“Of what?”
“My dying.”
“You’re not dying.”
“Bull.”
Sam laughed. Constance closed her eyes. Her breathing was so quiet. Sam watched her chest rise and fall.
Constance opened her eyes.
“I have something to say. I’d rather tell Eunice, but she’s not here, so you’ll do,” she said.
“Okay.”
“Get that chair, bring it here, and sit down. Please.”
Sam did as she was told. Constance said nothing. Sam wondered if she should remind her that she was there. In the hall, Stony Morris, another retired professor, wheeled himself past Constance’s room. He was muttering. He always muttered. Sam had once asked him how he’d gotten his name.
He’d stared at her crossly and said, “From my parents, you dope, what do you think?” Eunice said the name came from a former student, about his expression, but Karen said it was because he had a particular fascination with the Confederate general, Stonewall Jackson.
“Meredith is not my daughter,” Constance said.
Great. Now the old bat’s gone off her rocker.
“She knows it, too,” Constance said.
“Sure.”
“Naturally I assumed she’d get used to the idea eventually. But now, all these years later, she still resents me.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
Constance closed her eyes. She looked completely worn out.
“Tell her I embraced irony, and overlooked the human element,” Constance said, her eyes still closed.
“You’ll tell her, yourself.”
“She’s not easy to talk to.”
“I’m sure she’s a good listener.”
At that, Constance opened her eyes, stared sharply at Sam, then closed them again. Sam asked if she wanted the head of the bed lowered. Constance said nothing, so Sam went on her way, watering can in hand.
She drenched the dried up ivy, hoping the next time she passed it would be green and strong. She returned the can to Velma’s office, then went to find Angie Dugan, the Home’s social worker. Her lair was just off the
main reception area. She was at her desk, reading the contents of a thick file.
Sam hadn’t had much contact with her but felt a connection because she was overweight, too. The staff at Lindell was disproportionately slender. Sam had instantly felt out of place when she started working there, but now, starting on her third month, she was more at home.
Sam told Angie that she’d just had a weird conversation with Constance Maynard. Angie invited her to sit.
“She says her daughter’s not really her daughter. And that she—the daughter—knows,” Sam said.
A line formed on Angie’s forehead.
“Interesting,” she said.
“Maybe she’s projecting, you know. Wishing she weren’t her daughter. That kind of thing,” Sam said. She really didn’t know what the hell she was talking about, but it wasn’t a terrible notion either, as these things went.
“Possible.”
“You think she’s, you know, losing it the way they do?”
“Oh, I don’t think so. She seemed pretty sharp when I talked with her last.”
“Okay, then.”
Sam stood up. Eunice would be wondering where she’d gotten to.
“You seem to have settled in well,” Angie said.
“I guess.”
“You don’t feel like a fish out of water, with all the seniors around?”
“Nah. They’re good people. Even the cranky ones are kind of fun.”
“I hear you enjoy poetry. You sometimes read to the residents.”
“Anyone complaining?”
“Not at all. I’m sure they love it. It’s wonderful of you to take such an interest.”
“It’s sort of a thing with me. Poetry. Just wish I could write it, myself.”
“‘Many are called, few are chosen.’”
“Yeah, no kidding.”
Sam hesitated. She wasn’t ready to walk away yet.
“Well, thank you for letting me know about Constance. I’ll ask Karen to keep an eye on her. You do, too, of course,” Angie said.
Women Within Page 19
