The next weekend, Holly told the boys they were driving to Connecticut to see Celia. Marshall didn’t want to go, but Holly convinced him that his grandmother had been missing out by not hearing him play the trumpet for at least a year.
“You want me to bring my trumpet?”
“Of course,” she said. “Old people love brass instruments.”
Marshall was the best trumpet player in his high school, and he loved his instrument as much—or even more—than his cousin Phoebe loved her trombone. She knew he couldn’t pass up a chance to show off.
About halfway to the rehab hospital, Connor leaned toward the front seat. “Where are we going again?”
Connor followed Marshall so blindly that Holly worried he might find himself standing in Marshall’s first college dorm room—if she could find a way to send him to college—under the impression that he would be living there, too. Holly’s theory was that Connor forced his feet into Marshall’s footprints because his father wasn’t there to help him set his own course. Connor rode Marshall’s old bike and took the same courses he did. He wore his hair the same way—too long—and used the same speech patterns. The exception was the trumpet, which Connor dropped after a year of agonizing lessons. Now he played the clarinet instead.
Holly wondered what Chris would say if he could see them now. She imagined him coming home one day—as if he had been on a long vacation—and noticing the torn wallpaper and the chipped paint, then seeing his boys, practically grown, looking so much like him. Would he fault Holly for their circumstances, or would he understand that she had tried to do her best? Would he worry that his boys didn’t have a strong male role model, or would he see as clearly as she did that they were turning out nicely anyway?
Holly filled up the Subaru using a new gas credit card that was approved despite the growing weight of her unpaid debt. The less responsible she was about paying off her credit cards, the more the offers flooded her mailbox: sample drugs for junkies. But sometimes she just didn’t question it. When the pump accepted the card, she felt the fear clutching her chest loosen just enough to smile at the boys as they entered the highway on a spectacularly fine day, all azure sky and verdant hills and a smooth ride with the gas tank full.
The wind from the malfunctioning window in the backseat kept them from talking much. A rip in the upholstery left a little cave in the back of the front passenger seat, providing Connor with a place to store the plastic bag of randomly assorted crackers he had found in the bread box. Marshall sat in the front, noodling around on his trumpet, until Holly told him that it sounded too much like a car horn. Along the way they ate the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches Holly had packed and drank apple juice from some miniature boxes she had found in the back of the pantry.
The rehab hospital was in a semirural Connecticut town, and Holly had to drive down a long, steep hill before the closest intersection.
“You shouldn’t ride the brakes,” Marshall said as they started down the hill. Holly hadn’t come up with the money for driver’s ed, but ever since Marshall’s friends had started driving he’d been correcting her with all the information he picked up from them. “You need to downshift.”
“It’s an automatic, Marshall.”
“But you’ll put less wear on the brakes if you put it into the lower gear.”
Holly kept heading down the hill, thinking about how much Chris would have loved teaching Marshall to drive.
“What are you going to play for Grandma and her friends?”
“You should be in the lower gear, Mom.”
“I’ve been driving a lot longer than you have.”
“But sometimes I know stuff you don’t know.”
Holly knew this to be true, but she wasn’t in the mood to let Marshall tell her what to do.
“How about a John Philip Sousa march? They’d love it.”
“I was thinking Cole Porter or maybe Gershwin.”
It sometimes surprised Holly that Marshall had knowledge in his head that she herself hadn’t provided. At such times she would look at him and see a young man she wasn’t sure she knew very well. She could only imagine the stew of images, needs, desires, and impulses simmering in his teenage brain.
“One of Grandma’s favorites is a Cole Porter song. ‘You’re the Top.’”
Marshall picked up his trumpet and began playing “You’re the Top” in a plaintive, jazzy variation that made Holly wonder how he spent his afternoons when she was at work.
As they negotiated the last segment of the hill, they could see the more active rehab residents gathered on the porch, all lined up and staring toward the intersection as though they were watching a TV show. The green light turned to yellow before Holly passed through the intersection, but she couldn’t stop in time, so she kept going, narrowly missing a car that had been waiting to turn left as the light turned red. Marshall had been right. She should have downshifted.
Holly parked, and they walked toward the main building. As they navigated the maze of wheelchairs on the front porch, Marshall kept his face in a frozen smile, while Connor stared at an old woman who was gumming her own hand. Holly poked Connor in the side.
Marshall and Connor knew that their grandmother, whom they loved, would never be the same after her stroke. Holly didn’t want them to be left with a sunken, medicated version that replaced the old Grandma—the one who had pushed them on swings and taken them swimming in cold lake water she called “bracing”—but she felt they were old enough to face her decline. Vivian, Holly thought, would have had a lot to say about medical advances that kept people alive when they might not want to be, given a choice. Holly entered first and straightened out her mother’s bedclothes as Marshall and Connor filed in and stood heavily to one side, looking down at their large and ungainly feet. Marshall held his trumpet with one hand, and Holly thought it might slip out of his grasp. He looked upset.
“Say hi to Grandma,” she prompted, and both boys came shuffling over to give Celia a loose and tentative hug.
The most significant change in Celia’s appearance was the downturn of her mouth on the left side. It gave her face a half-sad, half-confused look, as if the two sides were battling each other for the dominant emotion.
“Pffbbt,” Celia said, which Holly sensed was some sort of attempt to acknowledge their presence.
Marshall lifted his gaze, and Holly could tell he was trying to access an inner adult to meet the changes in his grandmother with maturity.
“Hi, Grandma,” he said. “I thought I’d play you some Cole Porter.”
Marshall lifted the trumpet to his mouth and blew a few practice notes. Within seconds a nurse came running in the door.
“It’s naptime for a lot of folks,” she said. “Do you mind taking that into the activity room?”
Marshall reddened and lowered his trumpet.
Holly turned to the nurse. “Can we move my mother to a place where Marshall can play?”
The nurse agreed—though Holly thought she was somewhat less than enthusiastic—to put Celia in a wheelchair and bring her to the activity room, which was a large open space filled with tables and chairs, some of them occupied by elderly card players. In one corner a group of women sat in straight-backed chairs and did arm exercises, though their dappled, loose-skinned limbs didn’t look strong enough to pick up a bag of groceries. They were led by a middle-aged woman in vintage Jane Fonda attire. Holly could hear her over the recording of Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” shouting, “Stretch . . . and reach . . . punch left . . . then right . . . and left . . . and right . . . and left . . . and right.”
“You can play when the class is over,” the nurse said. “They should be finished in a few minutes.”
Marshall put his trumpet to his lips and pressed the keys rapidly, though he didn’t make a sound. He looked nervous.
When the class ended, everyone in the room turned toward Marshall, whose face was now the color of a bing cherry. He’d performed solos before, but always
with the backing of a band that could cover for him if he made a mistake.
Marshall put his horn to his lips and let out a few blahts and bleats to warm up. He was the rare child who connected with an instrument the way some people connect with animals. He spoke its language; he saw it as an extension of himself and practiced without nagging. Holly knew he loved the trumpet, but even she didn’t realize how much until he played for his grandmother.
A few crumpled crones in the back were whispering to each other when Marshall hit those long notes in a minor key that signal the beginning of “Summertime.” The crones stopped talking and looked up just as Marshall began channeling a grizzled old blues man from Mississippi. He played with authority, filtering the piece through some inner sadness that caught Holly by surprise. He stretched out the low notes creatively and shortened the high notes, giving them unexpected punch. Celia closed her eyes, and the nurse, who was standing behind her, started to hum, not loudly enough to draw everyone’s attention, but softly and deeply—driven by some inner vibration. Holly inflated with the pride that every mother feels when her child does something extraordinary. She told herself she wouldn’t nag Marshall for a week about his long hair.
When the last solemn notes fell on the crowd, a full second of silence elapsed before the applause. All the spectators smiled, turning and congratulating each other on their mutual good fortune to be awake for such a performance, when Marshall, charged up by the applause, launched into “You’re the Top.” They all looked toward him again, nodding their feeble heads on necks so reed thin they looked as if they might snap. The music seemed to energize them for a moment, infusing their sallow, sagging skin with pinkish tones. Holly looked around and saw glimmers of memory on each dried-potato face. And then it ended, with the last loud notes of “But if, baby, I’m the bottom, You’re the top.”
They applauded just as loudly after the second piece, but they seemed a little deflated, as if they couldn’t sustain the effort of an extended trip down memory lane. Then Marshall, oblivious to the shifting mood of the audience, dove into a Cole Porter medley. The crowd had been pleased to hear one song and enjoyed the second but now wanted out. They had not been warned that this might be a full-fledged concert. As Marshall busted his way through “I Get a Kick Out of You,” one shuffling old man actually left the room with the help of a walker, and Holly could see a few others follow him with jealous eyes.
Holly tried to signal to Marshall that he should wrap it up, but he had his eyes closed, blissfully one with the music. The medley went on for six or seven minutes, significantly past the time an audience starts to resent a musician for enjoying himself so much. When Marshall finished, Holly applauded loudly, but everyone else just nodded and scattered before he could start again.
As the room emptied, Marshall sat down at a nearby card table and played with the spit valve on his trumpet while Connor picked up a throw pillow from a stained couch and swung it a few times, making light-saber noises.
Celia had her eyes closed, and Holly couldn’t tell whether she was reliving the performance or had fallen asleep. As they followed the nurse and the wheelchair back to Celia’s room, Holly wondered how much longer her mother would exist in this abbreviated state. Would the boys know her longer this way than in her former incarnation as an active member of society? For how many years would they visit her out of obligation before her body let go of its automated functioning? Celia might end up as Vivian’s opposite, an inert brain trapped inside a body that wouldn’t stop breathing.
On the way home, Holly noticed that Connor was exceptionally quiet in the backseat.
“Everything okay back there?” she said over one shoulder.
“Not really,” Connor said.
“I know it’s hard seeing Grandma that way, boys. But it’s important that she knows we care about her.”
“Could she get better?” Connor asked.
Holly didn’t know how to answer him. If this was the most they could expect, Celia would have another month or two in the rehab and then be moved to a nursing home to live out her days. Holly didn’t know if that was what her mother would have wanted, but since Celia didn’t need extraordinary measures to stay alive, they had no choice but to watch and wait.
CHAPTER 11
Holly peered into the windows of The Gold Depot at ten fifteen on a Saturday morning and wondered why the door was locked. She had worked up enough courage to approach Racine about how business was going so she could report back to Vivian, and now she would have to start all over again. A few inches of snow had fallen the night before, so she killed a few minutes making impressions with the waffle bottom of her snow boot while deciding whether or not to splurge on a small coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts. Lately, she had been buying Maxwell House instant, which was like drinking hot water that only aspired to be coffee.
Just as she decided to skip the coffee and stop by Vivian’s on her way home, Racine came around the corner.
“Holly,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“Just checking on Vivian’s investment,” she said with an awkward smile. “Don’t we open at ten?”
“Totally my fault,” Racine said. He opened the door with his key and motioned for her to go inside as he held it. “I drove in from the city this morning and hit some unexpected traffic.”
“Do you drive back and forth every day?”
“I usually stay over a few nights at the Homewood Suites, so it’s not too bad.”
Holly put her purse down on one of the gleaming glass counters. She had to give Racine credit for keeping the store clean and welcoming inside, though she knew many people in town would never cross the threshold to find out. There was still something mildly shameful and moderately humiliating about trading jewelry for cash. As if to dispute her assumption, Narina Patel, the wife of the high school principal, came in the door behind her.
“Hi, Holly,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m helping Vivian. She’s one of the store’s investors, so she asked me to help get it launched.”
“Well, I, for one, think we’re long overdue for this place,” Narina said. “My relatives keep sending me their broken jewelry to get the best exchange rate, and I’ve been driving into the city with it. This feels a little safer to me.”
Narina took a silk pouch from her purse and spilled its contents on the counter. Heavy gold bangles and hoop earrings chimed on the glass surface.
“Let me help you with that,” Racine said, gathering up the jewelry and taking it to one of the booths in the back, where a visored gentleman had suddenly appeared without Holly noticing. As Narina sat down, Racine motioned for Holly to follow him into the rear office, which she did.
“So are you satisfied that we’re on the up-and-up?” Racine said, gesturing toward a chair in front of the small office desk. Racine sat on the edge of the desk, which meant that Holly could see the fine weave of the socks he wore with his European shoes.
“I wasn’t . . . I mean, I’m sure you’re on the up-and-up,” Holly said, feeling her cheeks warm.
“But you’re wondering—or Vivian is wondering—when she’ll see her first dividends,” Racine said. He crossed one leg over the other, as if he had all the time in the world for her. This was his gift: to make women of any age feel as if they mattered.
“How old are you, Racine?” Holly asked. “I can’t tell. You could be a mature thirty-two or a very well-preserved forty-nine.”
“Closer to that second one,” he said. “I just turned forty-two.”
“Oh good.”
“Why is that good?”
Holly thought for a moment. It was good because had he been forty-nine, she might have felt compelled to flirt with him. Even if there were no good foreseeable outcome, she would have given herself the pep talk about diving back into the dating pool—a mental tic that surfaced at the sighting of the rare available man. But since he was her age and no doubt dated women ten or fifteen years younger, she could ju
st keep her fantasies to herself. No harm done.
“It just means that you have some experience in life,” she said.
“I do,” he said. “Which is why I can tell you that the store is settling in nicely. A few more customers like Mrs. Patel, and we’ll be well on our way.”
“That’s nice to hear,” Holly said, though the “well on our way” could mean anything from tomorrow to next year. She avoided looking into his eyes, which were so dark brown that she couldn’t distinguish the pupils from the irises.
“No, I mean it,” he said. “I know this is important to Vivian, and I’m sure it’s important to you as well. I won’t let you down.”
Holly nodded solemnly. She sensed that Racine had the mistaken impression she would get more out of the gold shop’s success than the fee Vivian paid her, but she did nothing to disabuse him of that notion. She had felt lately that the universe didn’t much care if her family had a roof over its head or food on the table—maybe the universe was even conspiring to bring her down from the peg to which she had already fallen—so she accepted Racine’s concern and pocketed it as insurance for the next truly bad day.
On the way back to her car, Holly stopped at the ATM across the street to view her balance. She was worried a check she had just written to the dentist might have bounced if she hadn’t balanced her checkbook to the penny. The machine spit out the receipt showing her balance: $0.00. No more or less. Her eyes remained on the figure. The zeroes reproached her with their clean and final emptiness.
Every dollar of her next paycheck was already assigned to a bill she had yet to pay or a fee she owed for the kids. Again, she came back to the wedding ring in her jewelry box. Selling it might give her a tiny bit of the breathing room she so craved. But again, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t imagine herself walking into the gold store and facing the men in the green visors, or leaving the symbol of her marriage behind, destined for the melting pot. She looked at the receipt again and sighed. At least it wasn’t less than zero.
The Virtues of Oxygen Page 8
