by Jo Barney
Sarah moves to the overstuffed chair, sits straight in it, doesn’t seem to be breathing. “Tell me.”
I’m glad she’s not in uniform today. This is her day to be only a mother.
“I’m dying, Mom. Cancer, fast-moving cancer that cannot be cured. I wondered if something was wrong a while back when I was tired and you said I seemed jaundiced. I was, and my eyes were tinged with yellow. Liver. The doctor did some tests, told me the…”
“Wait a minute! You knew this and didn’t tell me?”
“I wanted to have my life a little more organized before I told anyone except Eleanor, who has been helping me plan for whatever is next. I wanted you to know that I am okay, at least at this moment, with my illness, and it took me a while to get to that place. You are my mother, and you have worried about me for years. It seemed time that I worried about myself for a while, to give you a few more days of calm.”
“Mothers expect to worry about their children. I’m hurt that you thought I needed protection from the truth.” Sarah is angry, tearful, and right. Mothers do worry about their children. One is always a mother. I know that.
I need to interrupt. I touch Sarah’s arm. “Patsy is a mother, too, Sarah, and right now she’s very worried about her child. Maybe we can help her with that worry and, in doing that, find the strength to deal with our own pain.”
Sarah is silent for a moment, then she turns to her daughter. “How do you feel, Patsy? How will this go down? How long?” The white-haired woman sits tall, ready to face the details, and Patsy answers her questions. I stay quiet until Izzy cries, and I rescue the little girl from her room. When we come out, Sarah and Patsy are huddled on the sofa, arms entangled, sharing tears.
“Mama,” Izzy chirps, and mother and grandmother separate and reach for her. It is time for me to leave. There will be time another day to talk about Izzy.
When I get back to my house, the back door is open, and I find empty boxes stacked in the hallway. The washing machine is running. My son is grinning at me.
40
Hank helps his son load the boxes and suitcase into the car. They hadn’t done much together beyond eating ice cream in front of the TV for a long time. Years, maybe. Jim’s hands are as big as his, his head an inch or so above his; his son has become man-sized while Hank wasn’t looking. Hank owes him an explanation.
“Do you have room for me?” Eleanor leans into the window, looks at the stuff piled up to the roof of the car, including on Jim’s lap.
Hank shakes his head, turns the key; the motor churns. “I’ll help him unload all this. You and I can drive by later to make sure he hasn’t forgotten anything.” He can see that his wife is disappointed and surprised; he too is surprised, but by his desire to get a little time alone with Jim. A few blocks away, he asks, “How about a happy farewell ice cream cone?”
They drive into the DQ and get out for their celebratory treat. Jim chooses chocolate, soft chocolate served in a cone, as usual. Then he asks, “What, Dad? Something wrong?”
Hank takes his cup of ice cream and points at an empty picnic table at the side of the building. He is pleased that Jim has noticed his father’s discomfort. “I need to tell you something and to apologize.”
Jim looks at him, listening, waiting. Not like when he was a little kid and couldn’t focus on anything but Legos. Hank puts down his spoon; the ice cream will wait. “I’ve been going to a counselor, maybe like the one you go to. She has encouraged me to talk about things that have been bothering me for years, the nightmares, for instance, and lately other things, like being angry so much of the time.”
“Yeah?”
“She has helped me face the war that I was in before you were born.”
“You never talk about it.”
“And that has been the problem. I kept it all inside, tried to stuff it away somewhere. It leaked out and made me someone I didn’t want to be, a not-good husband, and a parent you must have been afraid of.”
“Sometimes. When you yell.”
“So, I’m going to tell you what made me that way. This is not a happy story, but finally I am going to explain to you and your mother what has been going on inside me. I will apologize to you for being unloving when you needed to be loved.
“I was about your age, twenty or so, when I was sent to Korea and I was stationed near a village that had been hiding enemy soldiers in their houses and tunnels. My squad was sent to stop those soldiers who were killing our men. We entered the village, and the huts seemed empty because the villagers had been warned we were coming. We decided to burn them down.”
“You burned their houses?”
“Yes. That’s what we did in that war. One last hut was left. I had a hand grenade in my belt and decided to use it. Weapon in my hand, I pulled out the grenade’s pin, threw it through the door of the hut, knew I had about five seconds to lie down and protect myself, and at that moment I saw a little kid in a T-shirt in the doorway, holding the grenade. He looked at me as if he was about to say hello. I panicked, squeezed the trigger, and turned away in time to be blown down by the blast, injured, but alive. The boy was gone. His red shirt was caught on my boot, soaked with our blood.”
“He died? The little boy?”
“Yes. I was flown to an Army hospital in Tokyo and then came home, but I never forgot the boy in the red shirt. He’s still alive in my nightmares.”
“Because you are sorry, I think.”
“Yes. Jim, I’m sorry about the little boy and much sorrier that I have been so angry ever since then. You deserve a better father.”
“Maybe you deserved a better son.”
“No, you are a good son, a fine young man, about to begin a new life. I admire you, Jim, for being so brave, so willing to find your way to your next place.”
Hank doesn’t know he’s crying until he notices the wetness floating in Jim’s eyes. He pulls a hankie from his jacket pocket and wipes his son’s eyelids, then his own.
When he gets home, Eleanor opens the car door and climbs in. “I have to go by that house again, to make it real. Please?” They drive by slowly, see several of Jim’s new housemates on the front porch, watch as Janey pulls up the shade of one room and laughs at someone, maybe Jim. “Guess I don’t have to remind him to keep his room cleaned up anymore.” Now it is Eleanor who uses his hankie.
Hank turns a corner. “Time for another dose of ice cream.”
“Yes, it is,” his wife answers, turning her own corner.
41
Patsy tosses against her pillow, sinks under the pillow, then shoves the pillow off the side of the bed. The bed feels empty and cold. Her head is hot and full. She will never get to sleep until she figures out how she will tell Ray what will be happening soon. He has to be willing to work through his program if he takes on the responsibility of Izzy when he comes home. He has choices, though. He can hire a caregiver for her. She will be in preschool for part of each day. Mom will help. Eleanor will be near. His job is waiting for him. It’s going to be okay. Isn’t it?
It is midnight. Even the palms of my hands look a little yellow. Eleanor and I have to finish my list. Why do I think I’m the only one with a list? Eleanor has a list, I’m sure. Mom has a list. She always does. One item on that list seems to include calling me every morning. Maybe her list should also include a tranquilizer. No. Mom doesn’t want to be tranquilized. She wants to be the opposite, untranquil. I’m her daughter—so do I. I am dying. Go to sleep.
Someone is in the backyard. A really scraggly-looking man in torn jeans is moving through the hole in the hedge. Patsy gets up, dials Eleanor’s number. “A guy is in your backyard. He doesn’t look like anyone you want to be in your backyard. Should I call the police?”
“I’ll look.” Eleanor is gone for a minute. Patsy hears, “Oh, shit.” Then, “I know who it is. The man from my past I told you about. I’ll get rid of him.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Eleanor hangs up.
Patsy hears Ele
anor’s voice, a man yelling, then a door closing. A moment later, Eleanor calls, tells her that she threatened to call the police and that Lloyd, on something, has run down the street. “He’s gone,” she assures Patsy. “Time to go to sleep for both of us.”
When her mother checks in the next morning, Patsy asks, “Should I tell Ray? He’ll be finished with the first phase of his program this week. I think he needs to know what is going on here.”
Sarah agrees. “First call his counselor and tell him your news. If he says that this is the right time to let Ray know—and he might because Ray is being counseled every day, besides the group meetings; it may be a good time for him to hear about your illness since he has support—then I want to go with you. You need support too, brave girl that you are.”
Two days later, they drive into the parking lot of Serenity Lane. Patsy leads the way, and Sarah, in civilian clothes, follows. When Ray appears at his doorway, they cluster in a threesome hug, and the women tell Ray how wonderful he looks. Then Ray says, “What?”
Ray and Patsy have been married six years. Ray was in Vietnam two of those years, came back to celebrate their third wedding anniversary by getting Patsy pregnant. Even as she was carrying Izzy and still working as a social worker, Patsy began to understand that the man she married was not the man who now slept next to her each night. This new man drank. A lot. He didn’t laugh like he used to, over silly jokes on TV programs. He didn’t talk, except to complain about work or occasionally to ask her whether she felt like going to see a movie, which usually ended with them in a bar.
“Let’s invite someone to dinner. I want to keep in touch with friends, and it will be hard to do that once the baby has come,” she suggested. They did it one time, and Ray got loudly drunk, and she never suggested it again. Sometimes she wondered why they were married. Why did she marry him in the first place? Then she would remember a different Ray, one who loved her and whom she loved back. Maybe having a baby would change things, she thought.
Izzy didn’t. In fact, when it became clear that she had Down’s syndrome, things got worse. Ray drank more, talked even less, and held their daughter just one time, when the doctor handed the baby to her father. Then he stood silent, not looking at her.
Patsy didn’t want to end their marriage because she could never abandon a needful person, whether at her job or in her home. Somehow, she would find a way to change him, them, she thought, but she hadn’t, and she became depressed, quit her job, and stayed home. “You’ve quit your life,” her mother commented. Sarah stayed close, waiting, like her daughter, for something good to happen. Then they planned the intervention meeting as a positive nudge toward a better life for them all.
Now both mother and daughter have stopped thinking about a better life. They are struggling to get through the one they have.
“What?” Ray says again. He frowns, signals for them to sit on the chairs while he hunches on the bed.
Sarah begins, “We have bad news. It will affect Patsy, Izzy, and you when you are well enough to leave this place.” She describes Patsy’s illness, the doctors’ sad prognosis and then nods at her daughter. “Do you want to add anything?”
Ray is silent, staring over their shoulders out the window.
Patsy stands up, talks at Ray’s back. “I want to know that Izzy will be cared for, that people will love her, that she remembers who I am and how I loved her. That means a commitment from you, Ray, if you care to take it on. Mom will be helping; others, too, I think.” Ray doesn’t move. She hesitates, continues, “If you believe that you cannot be a part of Izzy’s care and life, I will understand. You have your own needs and life to consider. All I want is for you to let me know soon, so that we can plan for her future.”
Ray turns. “Patsy.”
“Yes?”
Ray steps toward her, runs a tender finger along her lips. He doesn’t smile. “I am her father. I’ve been a bad husband, a worse dad, but I will be better when I’m through conquering my demons here.” He looks over at Sarah. “We can be a team, Sarah, you and I. Please include me in Izzy’s life.”
Then he turns back to his wife. “It’s not fair, is it?” His eyes are still, solemn. “That you and I will not have the time to fix our marriage? But I want you to know that I understand every day how much I love you, need you, and…” He swallows, continues, “…how much I will miss you. Our unhappiness has all been my fault, and I’m so sorry.”
Patsy moves closer to him, touches his damp cheek. “I’m so glad you are back, Ray. I thank you for that. And for your love.” Her lips brush his. She holds out a hand to her mother, a hand to Ray, and the three hands entwine. “We can do this,” she promises.
42
Jim wakes up, and for a minute, he doesn’t know where he is. Then he hears the others’ voices in the kitchen, and he sees the bed next to him is empty. He pushes out from the covers, looks for his work clothes, remembers he’d put them in a drawer somewhere. He yanks drawers open until in one he finds his Levi’s and underwear and socks and a T-shirt. At home, each of these clothes had its own drawer. He will get these clothes organized as soon as he figures out what day it is. If it is Saturday, he’ll be going with the others on a hike on a path through a forest. He needs a calendar to mark the days off like his mother does. And where had he put the towels?
“Hey, lazy-bones. Time to get dressed for our hike. Your breakfast is waiting in the kitchen.” Janey’s voice is its usual cheerful one. It must be okay to sleep in a little. “Your towels are in the bathroom. I put them in the cupboard along with your stuff. Second shelf from the bottom.” Now, if he can remember which bathroom he is supposed to use...
“The one with the red door,” Janey calls. She is reading his mind. “Little confusing at first, isn’t it? Don’t be afraid to ask questions.” She giggles. “We all did at first.”
The group takes turns pushing Janey’s chair along the paved path between the trees. Gladys walks with them, reading the signs that tell what they are looking at: a maple, a Douglas fir, a cypress, a rhododendron. The rhododendron’s flowers are dried up, but the blackberries nearby are ripe and a little sweet. Gladys said the local bears also love the berries, and Ellie quits complaining about her tired legs and begins looking for bears.
When they come back to the house, Jim remembers to rearrange his clothes and to make sure he can find his toothpaste. He couldn’t this morning, so Jerry lent him his.
He is a little bit homesick; at least that’s what Jerry calls the feeling inside him when he sees Jim blink his eyes and look away. “Not like your mother’s chicken noodle soup, is it? It’s an okay feeling. You’ll always miss your old home, but soon you will be glad you are in your new home.” Jerry is a skinny guy who can’t seem to sit still. But he’s smart, and Jim is getting used to his words rushing out of his mouth like a turned-on faucet. If Jim listens hard, he can understand his roommate, and right now Jerry is putting a pill in his mouth and explaining, “Calms me down.”
“Good,” Jim says, and Jerry grins.
“Yeah. You don’t want to be around me when I forget my pill.”
“So I’ll help you remember.” And Jim knows he has another job.
As he rearranges his clothes and makes his bed, he thinks about what his father told him. He can’t imagine burning down someone’s house. Even if you didn’t like him.
The little boy was too hard to think about, no matter what. He’ll probably dream about a red shirt if he does. Like his father.
Jim thinks that the name of the feeling that he is feeling right now might be love. He’ll ask Dr. Kauffman.
43
The house is still. This must be the way it is when you are old and alone and you wonder why you should even get out of bed. Maybe I won’t today. Hank has gone to his counselor’s and is trying to find his friend Ralph Engels, who has been released from his stay at the VA hospital. Perhaps he is free for lunch or a conversation, and, Hank hoped, as he went out of the door, for a renewed friendshi
p. My husband is in unusually good spirits. Those pills must be working—and also his visits, so far three weeks of them, with Patsy’s friend, the social worker. Amy something. No nightmares recently. No violence. Can I possibly allow myself a small dose of optimism?
The knock at the door interrupts whatever would have come next. It is l0:00 A.M., and I’m still in bed. And someone is knocking. Might be Patsy. I throw on my robe and hurry to the front room, open the door. It is not Patsy. And a foot once again does not allow me to close the door in his face.
“I went to the PO box this morning, Eleanor. No money. How come?” Lloyd is as dirty and disheveled as before. He still smells, this time of marijuana. “I won’t go away until we settle this. We had an agreement. I intend to go through with my end of it if you renege on yours. Let me in. We need to talk.”
I gather my robe around me, understand I have to tell this ugly man what I’ve decided to do about him. After that midnight prowling, I am not sure that I, we, are safe from whatever he is up to in his drugged stupors. Last night, as I struggled to go to sleep, heard noises, got afraid, I realized that I had only one option. Awhile back, Patsy had asked me why I didn’t tell Hank about the affair, about the child that came of it. I would defuse the power of Lloyd’s blackmail, she said, if I did. With Jim on his own in a new home, maybe safe from Lloyd, and with Hank getting a hold of himself, I could tell the truth about that year Hank was gone and I was nuts with loneliness. It’s time.
I let Lloyd in, get him a coffee, and he sits back in the overstuffed chair across from me—Hank’s chair. I begin with, “We need to talk.”
“You got that right,” he says, dribbling his coffee on the chair’s upholstery.
I get up, use my napkin to blot out the spots, even though Hank will not notice them. “I have decided that I have opened myself up to your scheme, to your ugly blackmail, to you, by keeping a secret that should have been dealt with twenty years ago. Now I’m paying for it, in several ways. With money, and possibly with the loss of my marriage and son. I am ready for the latter.” I sit, try not to choke on my coffee. “And I will not pay you a cent from this moment on.” My voice threatens to disintegrate. I inhale, tell myself I’m almost through. “Do what you think you have to do. Reveal our foolish relationship to the world, to Hank, to Jim. They’re strong enough for the truth. Hell, they deserve it.”
