by Tina Chaulk
“That’s good. The book launch sounds great,” I say.
Two hours later, I, and the four other people in attendance at the crypt, have listened to the most boring reading in the history of the world and Mom and I are sitting in a Thai restaurant. Mom decided she wouldn’t cook today and was dying to try this restaurant.
“When did you even know there was such a thing as Thai food around here?” I asked Mom when she first suggested the restaurant.
“Someone at the book club told me,” she explained.
I almost collide with a knee-high elephant statue just inside the entryway. The thin lanterns hanging from the ceiling don’t throw much light, and since it’s raining outside now, there’s not much light coming from the windows. We forego the cushions and low tables and pick a booth on the side of the restaurant. We are barely seated when two brightly coloured drinks come to our table.
“Compliments of the manager,” the pimply-faced waiter says as he spills some of my drink while setting it down. “Oops, I’ll get you another one.”
“That’s okay,” Mom says. “It was just an accident. And please tell the manager we said thank you.” She looks so proud that someone gave her a drink. I don’t want to tell her it’s just a promotional thing new restaurants do for new customers to keep them coming back. No different than the complete car wash we give a first-time customer at the garage.
“I’m not sure what to order,” Mom says.
I have to admit I’m not much help. The dishes all sound so unfamiliar: Goong Hom Pa, Pla Lad Prig, Peek Gai Yad Sai, Tom Yum Koong. I can’t even guess what they are. I have no reference to guide me. High school French won’t help here. I can’t even place the rich smells permeating the restaurant. Strong spices, peppers, a hint of lemon maybe, fish, and some other mysterious scents make my mouth water.
“Excuse me,” my mother says while waving at the waiter. “Could you help us with this menu?”
“Allow me,” a gentle voice comes out of nowhere from behind Mom.
“Oh, Petch,” Mom says. “Thank you so much for the drinks. You didn’t have to.”
Petch? How does Mom know anyone named Petch? Her most exotic adventure in life was going to a luau party at the Skinners’ house.
“My pleasure,” this man says, taking my mother’s hand and bending to kiss it.
Mom smiles, not just with her mouth but with her whole face, lines I haven’t seen in a while forming at the corners of her eyes. I clear my throat and she looks to me, pulling her hand away.
“Petch, this is my daughter, Jennifer. Darling, this is Petch. He’s in my book club.”
“Hi,” I say as he kisses my hand too.
“Charmed,” he says.
He is short and dark-skinned. His cheekbones are high and gorgeous. Dark eyes twinkle with a smile, but his eyes are no longer on mine. They are focussed on my mother and I don’t like the way they look.
“Excuse us, Petch, but we’re having our supper,” I say.
“Jennifer,” Mom says. “Petch is only saying hello. He owns this place and he can help us with the menu.” She turns to him and says, “Would you, Petch?”
He sits down, takes the menu, leans into Mom and starts to explain all the food. Watching her talking with him, laughing at his lame jokes, touching his arm as he speaks, I feel a distinct hatred for Petch rise up in me, and an increasing dislike for Mom. She’s flirting. Say what you want about her but she is flirting. I want to reach out, grab her and run out the door before this can go where I think it might be going. I’ll also need to lock her in the house, just to make sure she doesn’t attend this book club anymore.
“Well, that sounds great, doesn’t it, Jennifer?” Mom says.
“Yeah, sure.”
“We’ll have that.”
“I shall make it with my own two hands.” Petch kisses Mom’s hand again.
“Yes, you seem pretty active with your hands there,” I say. I grunt as Mom’s foot makes contact with my calf.
Petch says goodbye and Mom sits quietly for a minute, lining up her fork with the top of her napkin. I’m just about to break the silence when she beats me to it.
“You were very rude, Jennifer. Petch was just being nice.”
“And you. You seemed pretty nice too. I could go home if you two want to get a room or something.”
“How dare you?” Mom says, slamming her hand down on the table. Glasses shake. Forks and knives clink. People at other tables turn to stare.
“I think it’s pretty obvious what was going on. I don’t think acting all coy and innocent is going change how pathetic you looked.”
“Pathetic? Is that what I am?” Her eyes look sad and I remember seeing that look so many times over the years.
No, not pathetic, I want to say. I want to tell her I didn’t mean it, to make that hurt look go away.
“Yes.”
She takes a deep breath in and I watch her struggle with the tears threatening to come out. Such a crappy thing to be a weeper, your emotions always betraying you — voice breaking, eyes filling — all when you don’t want them to.
“I think we should go,” Mom says.
“No, you stay and talk with Petch there. Have dinner with him. I’ll go.”
“I came here to be with my daughter, not Petch.”
“Oh, it just so happens that the first time we go somewhere other than the Bagel Cafe in months and it’s the very restaurant your new boyfriend owns.” I lean in closer and whisper, “How could you, Mom? Dad’s not cold yet.”
Mom moves her drink around a little and looks past me when she speaks. “I think you’re right. Perhaps you should leave.”
“Fine.” I stand up and bang my knee on the edge of the table. “With pleasure,” I say through clenched teeth.
“And I think he’s well past cold,” she says. “He would be so ashamed of you now.”
This isn’t where I wanted the day to go, and as I walk out the door of the restaurant, I wish I could have said something different, had any control over my idiotic mouth, but it seems like she is betraying my father, our family. I can’t feel comfortable with this new Mom. For a brief moment I envy her and how she can smile so easily, seeming to feel it and not just go through the motions of showing teeth and turning up her mouth. I wonder if I will ever feel a smile again.
4
THE DAY WHEN Nan kept turning the dials on her stove while trying to change the radio station, the damage to her house was mostly just from the smoke. The call that afternoon from Nan’s neighbour changed things, and we all knew right away that Nan would never live alone again. Mom was the perfect daughter-in-law and told Dad that Nan could stay with them for as long as was needed.
Dad, who still believed Nan was just a bit forgetful, looked wary of it all. I didn’t doubt Dad’s opinion, but the smoky house meant Nan couldn’t stay there for a while anyway, so I thought, Why not let her go to Mom and Dad’s house? I promised I’d come by and help out when I could. Dad reluctantly agreed while Nan held firm that she was not leaving her house. That was until Dad got stern with her, and Nan, as everyone did when Dad got stern, relented.
“Won’t be so bad,” Dad said to Nan and Mom at once. The irony of his words would become evident much sooner than we could imagine.
The first night Nan stayed at my parents’ house, I decided to go home with Dad and see that Nan was settled. Dad and I arrived home a little after eight and Mom’s tear-stained face met us at the door.
“I don’t know what to do,” Mom said, looking past me and searching Dad for something, her eyes roaming his face. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“What?” Dad said.
“Your mom. ”Mom started to cry but continued to talk, sobs making her words incomprehensible as she shook her head.
“What’s wrong with her?” Dad asked, running through the kitchen without taking off his boots.
Mom buried her face in her hands. I reached out to touch her, comfort her, but decided to go with Dad and see
if I could help him.
Walking into the living room, I saw Dad crouching over Nan, who was on the floor, curled in the fetal position, rocking back and forth. A mournful, muted wail came from somewhere around her.
“Mom?” Dad said in a feeble voice I’d never heard from him. I just stood there, staring at him. I didn’t look at Nan, tried to pretend that sound wasn’t coming from her.
“Dad,” I said. “What’s happening?”
I waited for the inevitable reassurances, for him to tell me it would be fine, to explain what was going on, to touch Nan and make everything okay. He just shook his head.
Mom came in and I suddenly felt like I had left myself, as if I could see all of this happening outside my body. I watched me standing helplessly, Mom behind me crying while Dad kneeled next to his moaning mother, his trembling hand stretched out to touch her, hovering just inches above her. I wondered what stopped him, why his hand remained so close to her without making contact.
“Jack, what should I do?” Mom spoke through sobs.
He didn’t answer. His hand slowly moved closer to Nan. He exhaled, seeming to deflate before me, then closed his eyes. Waiting for half a breath, he put his hand on Nan’s arm.
The room exploded. My seventy-six-year-old grandmother, weighing all of 110 pounds, hurled herself at her son with the fury of flames surging through a dry forest, hitting him over and over, all while she screamed obscenities at him. Words not meant to come from her mouth came out and slapped us all. The house filled with violence as Mom and I ran to help Dad, to try to get her off him. Her rage turned on Mom for a second but soon went to me.
“Don’t touch me, you bitch,” she shouted at me, her words punctuated with spittle that ran down her chin and flew at me. Dad was on her in a flash, grabbing her hands and clasping them together as he yelled at Mom to get Nan’s medicine and at me to get Maisie, the nurse who lived four doors down.
“What will I tell her?” I asked as I heard Mom running up the hall.
“Go get her,” he roared at me. It was the first time in my life he had raised his voice to me. The loudness startled me and I ran out of the house, as much to get away from the awfulness there as to get help to fix it.
On the way to Maisie’s house, I tried to figure out what to say. Everything in my life with Mom and Dad had been about keeping up appearances to the outside world. When the business was struggling a few years earlier, Dad put a new coat of paint on the house. The time Mom told me she was leaving Dad and moved in with Nan Philpott, Dad got a station wagon just like Mom’s and parked it in the driveway. No one knew that she was gone, at least not until she showed up again one day in the passenger side of Dad’s car. Mom cooked supper that night, her absence never brought up, my questions going to sleep with me but never finding a way to be asked.
So I wondered how to put a good spin on telling Maisie that my dad currently had Nan pinned on his living room floor after she spit at us and cursed on me.
I knocked on Maisie’s door, trying different sentences: “Nan is having a spell.” “Dad wants you to come because Nan is sick.” Before I decided on something, Maisie’s husband Bill answered the door.
“Is Maisie here?” I asked, panting from the sprint to their house. “It’s Nan.”
“Maisie,” Bill called out and I heard a thudding as she walked toward us. “It’s her grandmother.”
Tall and broad, Maisie took up most of the doorway. No words passed my lips as Maisie slipped on beach sandals over her white socks and walked onto the steps.
“What is it?” Maisie asked as she marched up the street while I tried to keep up with her.
“It’s Nan. She was all curled up and then she went wild. She hit Dad and called me a name.” My voice trembled as I spoke. Tears threatened to escape my eyes and I thought I had them under control until Maisie touched my arm and said, “Oh, sweetie, she didn’t mean it.”
I nodded because I knew if I opened my mouth, the pain would come out.
An hour later Mom, Dad, Maisie, and I were sitting at the table drinking tea and Nan was asleep in her room.
“After supper she was up in her room and I heard her screaming,” Mom explained once she’d calmed down enough. “When I went up there she kept saying, ‘Get out.’ She was pointing at her bureau. I didn’t know what she was talking about first, but then I realized she must be talking to herself, her reflection in the mirror. And when I tried to explain she got so mad.” Mom turned to Dad. “Oh, Jack, I didn’t know she was this bad. I don’t know how she stayed on her own this long.”
Dad stared into his tea. He hadn’t looked up from it since Mom placed it in front of him.
Maisie reached over and laid her hand on Mom’s. “Nighttime is the worst,” Maisie said. “Sundown Syndrome, it’s called. Moving somewhere new might have set it off so it might not always be as bad as this. First night might be the worst. But other nights could be hard.” She turned to Dad. “Maybe you could consider getting home care.”
Dad shook his head, still not moving his eyes from his cup. “We can do it. Like you said, it’s just the first night. She’ll be all right.”
Maisie stared at Dad. She opened her mouth twice to say something but didn’t.
“I can’t do this,” Mom said, before Maisie could decide on whatever she wanted to say. “I didn’t know what I was getting into. I’ll try with some help from home care but I don’t think I can do this.”
“Maybe you can’t, my love,” Maisie said. Her prophetic words would linger in the house, and I thought of them often when I helped Mom with Nan, especially at night.
After I leave Mom at the restaurant, I go straight to the seniors’ home to visit Nan. I don’t even make it to Nan’s door, when a nurse, Carrie, runs up to me.
“Bad night,” she says, “and not a much better day.”
“Oh.” I don’t want to ask. The details always seem worse than the summary. “So, best not to go in?”
She shakes her head.
But I want to see her. Just let me look at her.
“Maybe I could try.”
“Up to you. But she’s not remembering much now. She might remember you. She thinks she got a baby in there with her today. It’s the pillow, mind you, but she’s after putting a towel around its bottom twice now, cleaning it with a facecloth first and asking us for baby powder.
“Then she’s not aggressive?”
“No, no, not at all so far today. Now, last night. Well, last night was bad but today she’s all about the baby.” Carrie lowers her voice, as if she’s telling me some secret only she and I must know. “Says it’s her boy, Jack.”
I decide to go in there. Most of the time I listen to the nurses. I don’t go in when they tell me it’s best not to. I know they’re trying to protect me as well as her. They understand that I’ll remember what happens with each visit, while her cruel, yet kind memory will let her lose it once I’m gone. But some days I don’t listen. Some days I think I know better.
“Hello,” I say, knocking on Nan’s door. “Mrs. Collins?”
“Yes?” She looks at me without a trace of recognition.
“I’m a volunteer here. Would you like a visit?” I know the routine.
“Oh my God, my dear. I needs a nap. That youngster won’t let me sleep for two minutes. He’s after soaking through six cloths today. I can’t hardly keep up.”
“Well, I can help. I can watch him while you have a nap if you like.”
“You sure?”
I nod.
Nan touches my face as her eyes roam over it. “You’re a pretty little thing. Do you have any of your own?”
“No,” I say softly.
“Best get going then, my love. You’re getting up there, aren’t you?”
I nod and touch her hand, keeping it on my face perhaps a bit longer than she would have. I tell her to go ahead and take the nap. She lies on the bed, pulling the duvet over her rail-thin body. Her wide blue eyes stare at me from just over the top of the
blanket. I pick up a pillow with a towel tied around one end for a diaper.
“His name is Jack,” she says, her eyes closing for a minute.
“Hi, Jack,” I say to the pillow, smiling at the white cotton with the words Central Laundry stamped on it, my father’s name almost sticking in my throat.
I sit down in Nan’s chair and start to rock, imagining a baby there, sure I’m only doing it for Nan. Just until she goes to sleep. I start to hum. The glider underneath moves me effortlessly as I hum and rock, hum and rock, hum and rock. Now this is my kind of kid, I think. No crying, no real poopy diapers, just serene rocking and humming. I am peaceful. No guilt over the argument with Mom, no sadness, just this make-believe baby, a sleepy Nan, and me.
It doesn’t last long. A light knock on the door is followed by a nurse’s face peeking in.
“God love her,” the nurse says, looking at Nan. “You calmed her down.” She smiles at me. “Your mom’s here looking for you.”
“Tell her I can’t let go of the baby. Nan will flip if she wakes up and the baby’s not being looked after.”
“I’ll stay here until you get back.”
I want to tell her that I don’t want to talk to Mom. I think better of it and leave the room after handing the pillow gently to the nurse.
In the hallway, Mom is leaning against the wall opposite Nan’s door, arms crossed and lips pursed.
“Why are you here?” I ask.
“I know this is where you come when you’re upset.”
“I’m not upset.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To see Nan.”
“Okay.” Mom steps across to me. “I didn’t like the way we left things.”
“I know. I didn’t either.”
We look at each other for what seems like a long time, the silence standing between us like a presence I can feel. Suddenly I hear screaming coming from Nan’s room.
We run in, getting there before any of the nurses. Nan is trying to smack the nurse who is grappling with her. Mom and I join in and have Nan’s arms before two other nurses come in and grab her, wrestling her down to her bed.
