I knew that if I stopped eating altogether the doctors would insert a feeding tube in my abdomen, so I saw only one path. I would eat less and less until I wasted away. I thought if I did it gradually enough, it might be too late for anyone to intervene.
Naturally, my mother noticed almost immediately, but instead of coaxing me to eat my peas like a toddler, she tried a different approach. She brought in Professor Harold Margolis from the community college in Albany, which I looked down on because my grades would have qualified me to go to a much better school. The professor knew that. He knew so much about me that I suspected my mother had been badgering him for months.
“So Vivian,” he said, “I’ve been asking your mother if she would consider loaning you out to us on an occasional basis.”
“Spare parts for your heating system?”
Professor Margolis laughed and looked at me with either appreciation or bemusement—I couldn’t tell which.
“Not exactly,” he said. “We’re developing a computer program, and we need good minds to help us see the patterns—connect the dots, as it were. You’d visit us once a month to work in the computer lab, and in exchange we’d offer you some classes at home. You could get your associate’s degree, and it won’t cost your parents a dime.”
I’m embarrassed to say that I thought too highly of myself—even as I wallowed in depression—to want an associate’s degree from Albany Community College, but I was intrigued by the idea of working in a computer lab, even just seeing one.
“Who would teach me?” I asked him.
“That depends on what courses you’d like to take.”
On the spot, it occurred to me that I wanted to learn about business. I had always been a math whiz, probably because I couldn’t use a slide rule, or even a pencil and paper, and had to do all my calculations in my head. I loved listening to news reports about the economy and about the new businesses cropping up as the world remade itself into a modern and interconnected place.
“Business,” I said. “Economics and business.”
“Then business it shall be,” the professor said, nodding at my mother. “I’ll work something out with our business department. You’ll be hearing from us soon.”
My mother walked Professor Margolis to the door, and I could hear them speaking in low voices, something that infuriated me, which my mother well knew. When the professor left, I turned my venomous tongue on her.
“So you think you can buy me off with a few days outside this godforsaken house? Do you think I don’t know he just feels sorry for me?”
My mother, normally quick to placate me, instead kicked the ottoman my father used to put his feet up after dinner and tipped it over.
“I’ve had it, Vivian,” she said, tears streaming. “It took me three months to get him to come out here. Well, here’s how I see it: you can either drown in your misery, or you can decide to live your life. Not the one you wish you had, but the one God gave you.”
With that, maybe the longest speech my mother had ever made to me, she left the room. A minute went by, then two. I wondered if she had finally given up on me. As two minutes ticked into three, I realized that I truly did want to learn about business and spend time in a computer lab, if only to get out from under the same ceiling I had been staring at for years and years. Just as I began to panic that my mother had left the house, I heard her from the kitchen.
“Mar-co,” she said, her voice still shaking.
“Po-lo,” I called without hesitation.
CHAPTER 10
Holly dialed Desdemona’s cell phone number.
“I’m thinking about going to see Mom again this weekend,” Holly said.
“Do you want me to come?” Desdemona said.
“Do you think you could get away?”
Holly could hear the crowd noise on the streets of the East Village, where Desdemona had a studio apartment the size of the walk-in closets in the development near Holly’s house. As Desdemona paused, Holly could hear shouts and car horns and bicycle bells in the distance—the never-ending soundtrack of the city.
“Sorry,” Desdemona said finally. “I had to get around one of those knockoff purse vendors. They always clog up the sidewalk. I have rehearsal on Saturday, but if you go on Sunday, I can meet you there. We can look for her rings again.”
Holly wanted to tell Desdemona that their mother’s rings were long gone, probably melted and turned into a new ring, maybe even an engagement ring that would stay on someone else’s finger until it withered, and the ring fell off in a nursing home fifty or sixty years from now. But she said none of it.
“I’ll call you tomorrow and we’ll set it up. Should I see if Henderson wants to come?”
“Do you think he’d drive down from Boston?”
“He’s not working right now, so why wouldn’t he?”
Holly remembered Henderson’s indigestion fiasco at the funeral home and briefly wondered what might happen this time. She pictured him needing the Heimlich maneuver in the hospital cafeteria.
“Sure, then,” Desdemona said. “It would be nice to see how he’s getting along. Maybe he could bring Phoebe. I haven’t seen her in ages, and she’s probably changed so much.”
“Middle school will do that to a girl. I’m not sure if he has her this weekend, but I’ll ask. Bye, Des.”
“Bye, Holly. See you soon.”
They entered the room in birth order—Henderson first, then Holly, then Desdemona—and each kissed Celia’s wrinkled forehead.
“Hi, Mom,” Henderson said in a voice overly animated for the occasion. “Here we are. Your children. We came to visit you.”
“Why are you talking like that?” Holly said.
“I’m just trying to be upbeat,” Henderson said.
Desdemona, who was standing on the side of the bed opposite Holly and Henderson, picked up her mother’s hand. “Still no rings,” she said. “I was kind of hoping they’d just reappear.”
Henderson let out a string of profanities. “Somebody walked in here in broad daylight and robbed her,” he said. “Because she’s helpless. Look at her. She couldn’t do a damn thing about it.”
“We don’t know that,” Desdemona said, still reluctant to think the worst. “Maybe there’s some other explanation.”
Holly and Henderson looked at each other as if they pitied their sister’s faith in humanity.
“Look,” Holly said, “we don’t know what happened, but we know the rings are gone, so let’s start with that and decide what to do. We’ve already reported it to the hospital, and they claim they’re not responsible. They blame us for letting her wear them in here, so we’re dead in the water there. Is it worth it to call the police?”
“I doubt it,” Henderson said. “We can’t prove she even came in with them.”
Holly sat down in a straight-backed chair near the bed. She rubbed the fourth finger of her left hand, which still had faint indentations from the years she had worn her own wedding rings.
“What about insurance?” she said. “We could file a claim.”
“She didn’t have a jewelry rider,” Henderson said. “I already checked.”
Desdemona picked up her mother’s left hand again. “I still think they might turn up. Remember how Dad wanted to buy her an even bigger diamond, but she refused? She said the one she had was enough.”
Holly got up and rifled through the side table again but came up empty. Celia stirred and put one hand to her white throat. All three moved toward the small plastic pitcher on Celia’s bed table. Holly got there first and poured some water into a plastic cup.
“Here, Mom,” she said. “Here’s some water. It’s Holly, Mom.”
Holly held her mother’s head and tilted it toward the cup. Celia took a small, feeble sip.
Henderson moved toward the bed. “It’s Henderson, Mom. I came down from Boston to see you.”
Celia turned her head toward him, though she seemed to be looking through him, as if he were a window. Hende
rson let out a sob.
“Oh, Hen, it’s all right,” Desdemona said. “She’s not herself.”
“I can’t help it. Think of what we’ve lost. I should have videotaped her years ago so that Phoebe would remember her like she used to be. I can’t bring her to visit now. She’ll be traumatized.”
“Don’t say that,” Holly said. “She’s still Phoebe’s grandmother.”
“But why did this happen to her?” Henderson said. He found a box of tissues and blew his nose. “Some people are fine into the triple digits. She’s only seventy-six. She could have had twenty more good years, and now there’s nothing but scraps. Scraps aren’t enough. And she could live like this for years and years. And for what?”
While everything Henderson said was true, Holly wanted to pinch him—her weapon of choice in elementary school—for sounding like a whining child.
She turned to face him. “You’re acting like she had a choice. She didn’t. She’s here, and she’s hanging on to whatever’s left, even if it doesn’t seem like much. What’s the alternative, Hen?”
Henderson said nothing, only folded his arms and walked over to the window. Desdemona kissed her mother on the forehead again and smoothed back her hair.
“Maybe I could take care of her,” Desdemona said. “I could take a leave of absence from the company. My bunion’s inflamed anyway. My podiatrist says I should rest it.”
Henderson turned back toward them. “In that crappy little studio? It’s a fifth-floor walk-up. How would you even get her up there? That’s ridiculous.”
“Now wait a minute. It’s not like I want to live in a ‘crappy little studio.’”
“Don’t even think about it,” Henderson said, finishing his original statement. “Holly at least has a bedroom on the first floor.”
“Hold on,” Holly said, amazed that Henderson knew so little about her life that he could suggest such a thing. “You’re not even working right now, and you have an elevator in your building.”
“I’m not even working?” Henderson said. “Don’t you think I’m working my ass off to find a job? I’m working more than I ever have. And Phoebe’s going to live with me for a while because the bankruptcy court suspended my child-support payments. I had to take Phoebe so Wendy could go work for her father, who is the only person who would ever hire her.”
Desdemona stroked her mother’s hair, which seemed to relax her and allow her eyes to close again. “We can’t fight about this,” she said softly. “We need to figure out what to do if they decide she doesn’t belong here anymore.”
Holly regretted getting upset with Henderson, falling back into ancient rivalries. She knew that Henderson, like her, only wanted the mother he remembered back.
Holly flipped through some paperwork they had given her on the way in. “If she improves significantly, they’ll release her. Same goes for if she declines significantly. The only way she stays here—and Medicare pays for it—is if she shows very gradual improvement. Otherwise, she’ll either go to one of us or to a nursing home.”
Celia’s eyes fluttered for a moment, and Desdemona moved to the bedside and patted her hand.
“She looks agitated,” Desdemona said. “Her eyes were moving. I saw it.”
But now that all three of them were staring at her, Celia was completely still.
Maybe it would be better if she died, Holly thought, immediately reprimanding herself for letting such a thought run through her head while simultaneously recognizing it as the unfortunate truth.
Marveen wore a low-cut blouse with a statement necklace that featured a large enameled daisy. Holly thought she was even more overdone than usual—her hair was especially inflated—but she wasn’t going to argue, since Marveen had agreed to forgive her sixty-dollar debt in exchange for a personal introduction to Racine. Marveen had learned all about Holly’s second job through Vivian, and it seemed not to bother her at all.
They walked over from the newspaper office, where they had met on a Saturday, with Marveen stopping every thirty or forty feet to adjust her toes in the strappy stiletto sandals that held her feet like the strained casings of overfilled knockwursts.
“I don’t know why you wore those shoes,” Holly said. “You’ll tower over him. Men don’t like to feel short.”
“Oh, you’re right,” Marveen said, stopping to pull at one of the straps. “But it’s too late now. I’ll just have to make the best of it.”
As they moved on, Holly caught Marveen looking at her reflection in the plate-glass window of an empty storefront. The next three storefronts were empty as well, which left Holly wondering if Bertram Corners’ downtown would ever bounce back from the devastating effects of the outlet mall. The outlets attracted shoppers from as far away as Syracuse, but they never seemed to venture beyond the pale gray moat of its vast parking lot.
“We should do another update on the downtown development committee,” Holly said. “I don’t think they’ve had a meeting for a year. We could shame them into doing something, even if it’s just repainting these trash barrels.”
“You can do all the stories you want about this miserable downtown,” Marveen said. “The ad revenue has dried up. If it wasn’t for the outlets, the paper would have no income at all. I say we admit defeat and move Town Hall into the outlet food court.”
Holly couldn’t argue with Marveen’s logic, but it seemed sad that the town’s former economic engine had been usurped by the insatiable desire for cheap tube socks and discount leather goods. She liked a bargain as much as the next person, but the unintended consequences of the “buy cheap” mentality were in front of her every day. As the downtown shops floundered because they didn’t have the economies of scale or the access to second-quality goods, their owners and families couldn’t even afford to support each other anymore. Now everyone needed cheap tube socks.
Marveen looked at her reflection again as they passed Dunkin’ Donuts, and Holly wondered if they should stop and get coffee so that her hands had a job to do when they stopped in to The Gold Depot. When Holly’s hands were empty, they tended to travel through space in ways that she herself did not expect, especially around a nice-looking man. But Marveen had charged ahead and held the door to the shop open for Holly.
“You first,” she said, smiling broadly. “Remember what you’re supposed to say.”
Holly edged around Marveen and walked into the gold shop, which had two customers. One was looking in the cases that held old rings, watches, and bracelets, while the other sat at the back with one of the visor-wearing gold appraisers. Both looked up when Holly and Marveen entered, and the woman selling her gold registered a flash of embarrassment at being found there.
“Where is he?” Marveen said. “I thought you said he’d be here.”
Holly peeked around the display case but saw no one. “He’s got to be around. The boys met him here this morning to work on putting up some flyers.”
Just then Racine came in the front door, with Marshall and Connor behind him. Racine had a smile on his face, but both boys looked hot and tired.
“Hi, Holly,” Racine said, surprising her with a kiss on the cheek. “You’ve got some hardworking boys here. I had them all over town.”
The kiss threw Holly so much that she stood there without introducing Marveen, who stepped forward with her hand out.
“Hi there, Racine. I’m Holly’s friend Marveen. Marveen Langdon. I just wanted to tell you that I’m interested in investing in your next shop. Very interested.”
Marveen said all this with the sort of smile on her face that would have made a less confident man blush.
“Nice to meet you, Marveen,” he said, shaking her hand. “I’ll definitely keep that in mind. Right now I’m focused on getting this place up and running. The traffic’s a little slow, but I think the flyers should help.”
Holly left Marveen talking to Racine and approached the boys, who had gathered up their backpacks and stood in a corner waiting for someone to transport them somewhere
.
“You look exhausted,” she said, brushing the hair off Connor’s damp forehead. “Did he have you climbing telephone poles or something?”
Marshall gave her his impatient face and pulled on the strap of his backpack. “Can we just go?” he said. “I have band practice later, and I need to learn a part.”
“Sure. Let me just tell Marveen.”
Once she made sure Marveen didn’t mind walking back to the office by herself, Holly ushered the boys out the door.
“I’m wiped,” Marshall said as they headed down the street. “He had us go into every store at the outlets and try to talk them into putting up a flyer.”
“He was nice, though. And he did buy us Cokes,” Connor said.
“Yeah, two Cokes,” Marshall said. “Big spender. I was hoping he’d give us a few bucks so I could go to the movies tonight.”
Holly was disappointed that Racine had viewed her boys as free labor. She tried to remember whether she had anything in her wallet besides coupons and spare change.
“We could rent a movie,” she said, needing to offer something. “You could invite your friends over.”
“It’s okay, Mom,” Marshall said. “I’m tired anyway.”
Just as they were about to turn the corner, Racine came running up from behind them.
“Boys, I forgot to pay you,” he said, breathing loudly. He handed each one a twenty-dollar bill. “Thanks again for your help today.”
“Anytime,” Marshall said, glancing at Holly as if to acknowledge that Racine had redeemed himself.
“Thanks!” Connor said, folding his bill and tucking it into his back pocket.
As they walked away, Holly turned her head and caught Racine turning his head to watch them as well. She smiled and she waved and she wondered.
The Virtues of Oxygen Page 7
