She paused at the doorway and looked in at the white-sheeted mountain range of Nick. He was no longer critical, and unlikely to lose both legs; under duress she’d exaggerated. But the stroke had been a close call on a stormy evening of downed power lines and everyone ordered to stay indoors. While Iano and Willa sped back from Cape May, Tig and Jorge had braved flooded streets to get him to an ER. Since that night they’d all been shuffling through the wreckage of Nick, looking for what valuables might be left within the gray-faced man propped on pillows. His bulk was laced with white cables like the ones people used to plug in their phones, as if Nick were getting charged up to some functional percentage. It wasn’t clear he’d get there.
Tig was sitting at his bedside with her back to the door. Her dreads were swept up in a red bandana tied in front like Rosie the Riveter, and in that can-do spirit she was spooning green Jell-O into Nick, one slow bite at a time. The stroke had affected his ability to swallow, among a hundred other things. The curtain beyond him was closed, concealing the new roommate, if any. Willa saw the TV was on but muted, on closed caption. It was Nick’s news station, of course, showcasing his new idol the Bullhorn, who else. The interviewer was that pretty, steely blonde who seemed smart enough to know better, in Willa’s opinion. The amount of airtime devoted to that man was far out of proportion to any actual ideas he seemed to represent. Not that Willa was an expert, but there were things you couldn’t manage to not know, and this guy was it. Everyone talked about him. Tig and Nick, from the sound of it, were talking about him.
“Good deal is I win, you lose.”
“So let’s say he did get to be president. Our country would win, and who loses?”
“Terrorists. Muslim, Chinks. Okay? Or he bombs their asses.”
Willa stood in the doorway remembering precisely, inside her rib cage, how it felt to watch Tig when she was three years old feeding her doll babies. When Tig was Antsy. Before she discovered the trick of tying her doll babies on tow ropes and dragging them behind her trike.
“You sure you want us to get in that war, Papu? They probably have the big bombs too, you know. The Iranians and North Koreans.”
Willa couldn’t see her face but knew Tig’s mouth would open unconsciously each time she spooned a bite into Nick’s.
“Yeah, ours work. Better. Americans know to build stuff.”
His speech was recovering slowly, but he still struggled to get his lips around words and sometimes they were disordered. And Nick being Nick, it hardly mattered.
“You’re always saying we have the worst everything, Papu. You told the nurse this hospital was a shit hole.”
He grunted. “Damn Nazi nurses.”
“It’s called physical therapy. Don’t you want to get better and come home?”
Nick waved off the Jell-O and Tig put down the little cup. “You want to try something else? We’ve got mashed potatoes and … something.” She leaned over to peer closely at the tray. “Mystery meat. Should we give it a try?”
He nodded. She gave him a tiny bite and waited for him to swallow. Then another. Nick said something Willa couldn’t hear.
“Not really,” Tig said. “American schoolkids always come in last, in the smartness tests.”
Nick grunted and pushed the spoon away. “Criminals, other countries. Dumb it down.”
“You were an immigrant, Papu.”
“Came to work. Not this gimme gimme.”
“Jorge and his brother and sisters all work. He has a full-time job, plus fixes cars.”
Willa wondered if this had been their starting point. Jorge and Tig were definitely now an item. On the night of the stroke, Jorge’s heroic efforts on the family’s behalf had either clarified the attachment or cemented it. Tig tended to draw this level of devotion from her friends, pushing everyone to the limits, herself included. But somehow she always managed to be cherished. It defied the rules Willa knew. She herself had been bullied a good deal, even as a polite and decently normal-looking child, for her country ways and bland homemade clothes. But really for the shyness that left her defenseless. Willa-Vanilla.
Nick had accepted a few more bites but now waved off the spoon emphatically.
“All done?” Tig asked, and he nodded, closing his eyes. “Okay.” She moved the rolling shelf-table away from the bed and tucked the sheets in around him. Willa knew she should speak up, but couldn’t bear to put herself in this scene. Had nothing to bring to it that measured up. Tig pulled a book out of her backpack and was sitting down on the sofa when she saw Willa and froze, as if caught in some hijinx.
“He’ll be asleep in ten seconds,” she whispered, touching her lips.
Willa watched, astonished, as Nick’s face went slack. “Wow,” she said. “What are they giving him? I need me some of that.”
“They’re not really sedating him that much anymore. Not in the daytime. But he still goes out like that after he eats, every time. Something to do with poor circulation.”
“What time do you need to be at work?”
Tig shrugged. “I’ve got a few minutes.”
“Then could you help me? I’m trying to plow through these government forms and it’s like being back in school. I’m having test anxiety. The BAGI-based methodology under the IRC-based statute.”
Tig looked puzzled, then got it. “Oh. To get on Medicaid.”
Willa made a warning face, sliding her eyes toward Nick.
Tig laughed. “He’s dead to the world, Mom. Say it loud, say it proud. You’re a welfare mother!”
Willa helped Tig clear aside some of the clutter on the faux-leather sofa: jackets and shirts, a very long striped scarf Tig was knitting, even a pile of Iano’s uncorrected essays, all evidence of her family’s squatting rights. She wondered if they’d now have to start sharing with a roomie’s clan. No signs of life had presented from beyond the curtain. The HealthVine rooms were touching for their attempted hominess, like little living rooms with entirely disinfectable surfaces.
Tig took off her sneakers and tucked her feet under her while Willa opened her laptop and waited for it to wake up. The TV clamped to the wall above their heads must still have been venting its outrage; she could practically feel the waves of doom.
“You’re so sweet to Papu. I don’t know how you do all that.”
“All what?”
“Everything. Feed him, talk to him, listen to his racist diatribes without throttling him by his walrus neck.”
Tig grinned almost shyly, and Willa felt guilty. Tig didn’t get a lot of admiration from her family. Willa opened the Medicaid website she’d bookmarked, and scrolled through the sections she’d already tried to work through.
“So here’s my problem. Eligibility is based on the MAGI, whatever the heck that is. We three kings? Gold, frankincense, and myrrh?”
“Mom. Modified adjusted gross income. It says right there.”
Willa wondered if children had shamed parents thus since the dawn of time. “I see that. Okay. I don’t know why I’m getting so bogged down. I guess it’s a clunky website.”
“You’re welcome. It’s not that clunky. You’re just having trouble with the idea of us as a Medicaid family.”
“Believe me, nothing would make me happier,” Willa snipped, noting her own use of the conditional tense. The social worker had been encouraging, but the cards never fell Willa’s way. Why expect these Magi to throw her a rope? “Some of us might be eligible, but I’m not sure how we fit together as a family. Would I include you and Zeke in our plan, or do you file your plans separately?”
“You mean my brother the hedge fund manager to billionaires? He gets to go on welfare with us?”
“He still owes more than he’s earning. I’m not saying any of this makes sense, honey. But you see what I’m up against.” Technically Willa knew even Nick might not qualify as a dependent, let alone the adult offspring, and some paperwork needed to be settled for Dusty. But her impulse was to drag all bodies onto the lifeboat.
“Her
e,” Tig said, reaching forward to toggle through some screens. “Zeke and I have to apply for ourselves, it looks like. Over age twenty-six. Yippee, I’m a grown-up.”
A choking gasp suddenly came out of Nick. They watched several different monitors discreetly signaling something, probably nearness of death. He appeared to have stopped breathing. After a few more gasps he started again.
“Apnea,” Willa said. “Can’t they put a positive pressure mask on him for that?”
“They tried. He goes ballistic.” Tig got up, went to his bedside, and spoke in his ear. “Okay, Papu?” She pushed the button that elevated his bed almost to a sitting position. Willa wouldn’t have known to do that, or how to adjust the bed.
“You’re amazing, Tigger. I mean it. I watched you feeding him Jell-O and letting him rant about the evil foreigners. You’re so … indulgent, I guess is the word.”
Tig settled back on the sofa and reached across Willa to the laptop, toggling through more screens. “You have to go to your state’s website to look up household income eligibility. I don’t know. With Papu I mean, why I let him rant like that. I guess it’s all just kind of fascinating.”
“If you say so. I sure don’t get it. He loves this billionaire running for president who’s never lifted a finger doing anything Nick would call work. Why that guy?”
“Because rich white guys are supposed to be running the world. Papu thinks this dude must have put in the time and gamed the system to get his billions, because that’s how it works in America. So it’s his turn to be president. What Papu can’t stand is getting pushed out of the way by people he doesn’t even think should be voting, never mind getting jobs or benefits or whatever.”
“Never mind the White House.”
“Definitely that. He thinks they’re cutting into the line ahead of him. How can black and brown people get to have nice stuff and be in charge of things? Or women, God forbid. When Papu didn’t get his turn yet?” Tig was studying the laptop screen as she spoke, with a wide-eyed, eyebrows-up concentration face that Iano claimed was exactly like Willa’s. She couldn’t see it, but of course you never really saw yourself.
“This particular brand of tyrant, though. Yikes,” Willa said. “I can’t take him seriously. He’s going to burn out before the first primary.”
“Don’t count on it. There’s a lot of white folks out there hanging on to their God-given right to look down on some other class of people. They feel it slipping away and they’re scared. This guy says he’s bringing back yesterday, even if he has to use brass knuckles to do it, and drag women back to the cave by their hair. He’s a bully, everybody knows that. But he’s their bully.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in white people.”
“Right? Or Santa Claus? Total fantasy. I mean, look around, who do you see that’s living la vida white man?” Tig focused on the computer screen, scrolling alphabetically through states to get to New Jersey. “Really it’s just down to a handful of guys piling up everything they can grab and sitting on top of it. And a million poor jerks like Papu still hoping they can get into the club. How long can that last? Five or six more years?”
They both looked at Nick, who was sleeping quietly with his mouth open.
“So I can be nice to Papu. He’s basically over.”
Willa didn’t believe the world could be as simple as Tig made it, but she admired the pursuit of a theory. It was easy to forget, among all the advanced degrees, that their barefoot rebel dropout was the family’s only scientist. Willa watched Tig lean into the screen, refusing to be daunted by section 36B(d)2(A), probably not even conscious of her takeover as she pulled the computer onto her own lap.
“Here we go. Modified Adjusted Gross Income eligibility standards, New Jersey. You plug in the number of family members applying. Policyholder and all dependents.”
“Start with six,” Willa said. Against all evidence, trying to keep the fledglings in the nest.
“A family of six would be eligible for free care if the household income is below forty-four thousand, nine hundred dollars.”
This was well above their combined take. Willa felt relieved and also disoriented. To have a name for this prolonged asphyxiation that was turning her into the walking dead: poverty. If it still didn’t quite register, she refused to accept Tig’s accusation. She was not clinging to any God-given right to look down on families like hers.
“What about just the four of us,” she asked. “Since it looks like you and Zeke have to file separately.”
“Four?”
“Dad and me, Nick and Dusty.”
“How do you guys get Dusty?” Tig tilted her red-kerchiefed head and frowned at Willa, suddenly possessive. “Wouldn’t you have to adopt him or something?”
“He’s a minor relative living in our household as a dependent. Power of attorney is in the works. We get Dusty.”
Tig conceded Dusty. “Below thirty-three thousand, five hundred dollars.”
“Wow. We’re a Medicaid family.”
Tig grinned. “There you go. Gift of the Magi.”
10
Gift of the Magi
Thatcher slipped alone into the crowded hall and stood at the back, hoping not to be seen by his pupils, whom he regularly scolded for failures of punctuality. The lecturer was droning like a bagpipe, his exposition on miracles under the micro-scope well underway. Another latecomer had just arrived, judging from the snowflakes still melting on the shoulders of the man’s coat. Plum Hall was stifling. Yuletide garlands appeared to perspire in the gaslights, and an infant in the audience protested the misery of its swaddling. Thatcher removed his topcoat for the first time in weeks, save for the respite under the mountain of quilts Rose piled on their bed. Her father’s house, devoutly defended through autumn, was revealing its adversity. Gracie bent herself double keeping the fires lit in rooms that inhaled winter through wheezing walls and windows. Polly had worn a fur hat to supper that evening and declared her Christmas wish was to grow wool like a sheep. But the women would not move out. Thatcher was expected to shore up the failing edifice, if not with money then his own hands.
He saw his students encamped across the front row. Requiring them to attend this lecture had been Cutler’s idea, and Thatcher hadn’t objected on principle. A glimpse of minute pond creatures would relieve the long spate of chemistry. Thatcher felt no passion for the physical sciences, a truth he worked to conceal. Botany and zoology were the sugarplums that danced in his head, and would likewise dance—he felt sure—in these nascent minds once they were properly introduced to the natural sciences. The postponement was a torment, but he still awaited permission to speak of the unities that made the whole living world comprehensible: the origin of species by natural selection. He’d submitted his materials, argued for their legitimacy, and over Cutler’s objections argued again. Now came patience. Where dangerous opponents were concerned, Thatcher’s habit was to keep his head low and wait; in his experience, bluster was a sign of poor stamina. Cutler would lose interest in the daily particulars of Thatcher’s classroom. By springtime he might consent to field trips. Meanwhile, this lecture. But Thatcher had requested a waiver of their fifteen-cent admission.
Cutler had declared that was out of his hands! (Daring Thatcher to blink at the plural.) The price of a Plum Hall lecture had been decreed by Landis from the very first days of Vineland, along with the precise distance a house must be set back from the street, and the species of trees set before it. Like all stipulations, the fifteen-cent rule stood unquestioned. Thatcher was continually astonished that his townsmen submitted to Landis like a modern-day King Herod. For many of his pupils’ parents, fifteen cents was a full day of ironing shirts or digging drainages—a difficult trade for an hour in a lecture hall. The principal could hardly believe any of his scholars derived from ditch-digging stock, but eventually was persuaded to “put it in the captain’s ear,” a favored repository for Cutler’s words, evidently. The fee was waived.
And even gratis,
Thatcher now saw the price was too high for the goods. Professor Bowman hit every word at the same high pitch with a curious absence of emphasis, leaving anyone to guess where one sentence ended and the next began. This purported Unique Lecture, called “God’s Drops of Water,” had been delivered so many times the professor himself seemed to find it soporific.
“… And thus to begin, I bring before your eyes tonight …”
Good Lord, to begin? Thatcher had hoped a significant portion of this sentence might already have been served. He eased out his pocket watch and perceived a quiet sigh from the latecomer standing near him. The man was tall and broad, still wearing his rough topcoat with the beaver collar turned up, though the snow on its shoulders had perished. Thatcher considered making his way to a seat but didn’t like to be noticed. He watched his captive students from the rear: already restless. He’d tried to cajole Polly into coming with him that night but Aurelia had other plans for her daughters, a séance at the Crandall home. Aurelia had taken up conversation with her dead husband via some charlatan, and was eager for Polly to greet her father. Thatcher was horrified. But now glad he’d conceded. Whatever sport Polly might make of a medium with a lace curtain on her head, her intolerance for professorial windbags was well known.
Bowman seemed to rouse slightly, for now after the long uphill drag of preamble he was ready to reveal the first of his Illustrative Crayon Drawings.
“… to wit, I bring before you the most curious menagerie that the micro-scope reveals …” The professor engaged in lugubrious battle with his oversize sketching book, its weight threatening to tip the flimsy easel. “… Some of which creatures you will find …”
The easel tipped and the book fell, slapping the floor with a startling report. The professor squatted, red faced and resolute in his frock coat, and recommenced the struggle of righting the tablet and turning back the enormous page to reveal the first illustration. “… Some of which creatures my dear ladies and gentlemen … shall astonishingly reveal themselves to you … in form … to be more highly organized than the horse or the elephant … to wit …”
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