Guesswork

by Martha Cooley

  Yes, says Mom softly. Yes. It’s been a while.

  I know this is as close to I’ve missed you as she’ll get. But speaking those words myself isn’t—not yet—what I can do. We’re alike, she and I: when reuniting, we don’t effuse. Confronted with evidence of her increased frailness, though, I feel unsure. Will our usual implicit I know you know be good enough? The situation has changed: I’m living abroad, she’s got heart disease. Do she and I need to do things differently? And on whose behalf am I asking these questions—hers, or mine?

  You know, Antonio says to my father, your daughter and I will be here for six whole days! Wow. I hope you realize we’ll be the youngest residents . . . I’m a teenager, actually.

  Hah, says Dad. A teenager with almost no hair? You’re a baldy! Hey, who’s your friend? he asks, grinning at me. Pointing one forefinger at Antonio, he uses the other to trace a you’re crazy circle in the air around his ear.

  Our days in the assisted-living community proceed at an uneven tempo. In this sense, they’re very like our days in Castiglione.

  Mornings move briskly: Antonio and I work on our translation project and leave Mom and Dad to their usual routines. Afternoons seem to dilate. Supper comes earlier than we’re used to. Every other evening, we sit and chat with my parents while they eat at six o’clock, then say goodnight and head into town for a noninstitutional meal at eight or so. One night we stay up very late, reading; the next, we tumble into bed like an old couple and are asleep by ten. At four the following morning, I awaken to find that Antonio’s eyes are open, too.

  Is this lurching of time inevitable during a caesura, or simply a matter of chance here in Philly? Perhaps other factors impinge. On the island of Giglio, time seemed stalled because of the boat stuck on its side. Once the Concordia’s gone, will days on the island pass at a faster, steadier clip? Or will time sway uncertainly as it tries returning to an even keel? Didn’t my own days seem to go faster, then slower, then faster in the weeks before and after Andrea’s passing?

  Antonio and I have a quiet room on the second floor of the guest house, as it’s called. As it happens, we’re the only guests all week. At breakfast, Antonio and I pad around the kitchen in our pajamas as if we own the place. I’m struck by how steady Antonio has been since our arrival; he’s thrown himself uncomplainingly into the weirdness of being here, which helps make my sadness about my mother’s decline easier to handle.

  We check in with my parents before work. Dad’s morning opens with a slow breakfast and NPR news, after which he does his five minutes on the treadmill, fetches the mail, and tinkers at his desk. My mother, too, listens to the news after taking her breakfast in the Lodge. Then she settles into a Talking Book for the rest of the morning.

  These days, I’ve discovered, she’s drawn mainly to thrillers and mysteries, which I’ve been phone-ordering for her from Italy.

  She’s keen on the novels of Alan Furst—noirish World War II narratives—and John le Carré’s spy tales. She claims not to follow their plots, but I’m amazed at what she reports after reading them: in her retellings, the knots untie and the twists somehow make sense. She’s alert to the characters’ underlying motives and flaws.

  I spend the latter part of every morning with her, before all four of us meet for lunch. Mom and I speak about what she’s reading. About Antonio’s son, daughter, and grandchild; about the translation project; about the cats in the borgo. About different types of risotto. About the elderly castle owner’s impending death. My mother is interested in all of it, though dispassionate about il professore. If an afflicted person is over eighty years old, her reaction to news of his or her ill health is likely to be a shrug of the shoulders. When, on the third day of our visit, I tell her we don’t know how much longer Bononi will be with us, my mother turns pointedly to practicalities.

  What’ll Raffaella do? she asks. My mother’s always been good with names; I rarely have to introduce anyone in my stories more than once.

  I dunno, I answer. Raffaella herself doesn’t know. It’s like Bononi’s part of the castle itself, and nobody can imagine him not being there anymore.

  He’ll haunt it, then, Mom says. Isn’t that what happens in castles?

  My mother doesn’t need to be told that it’s tough when one’s partner of many years is no longer present, there one day and gone the next. If Dad goes before her, I wonder (not for the first time), how will she fare?

  She’ll rally, I think. She’ll make sure she’s not too much alone.

  Or will she? Might she not, instead, use the reality of solitude—not to mention blindness, hearing impairment, heart disease, arthritis—like a springboard, to launch herself more quickly across her own finish line? Might that not be her secret wish?

  I don’t know. Don’t know, either, what I want for her, or for myself. Gazing at her now, I recall vividly what I used to sense, long ago, as she was going blind: that her self-possession was saving and endangering me at the same time. Back when I was still a child, it spared me her inevitable grief, fear, and anger; these she kept wholly to herself. Yet at the same time, her self-control pushed me into the vortex of those same feelings of my own, much as I longed to ignore them. Mom’s management of the unfolding situation ensured that I’d never speak with her outright about what and how she was suffering, yet I could nonetheless imagine it. And react, and suffer as well. And, worse, feel ashamed for suffering.

  By the way, Mom asks, have you found another of those undershirts at your local market? I love the one you sent me.

  She’s referring to a wool-and-silk tank top I mailed a month or so ago. It’s practical and well-made, the sort of undergarment old ladies across Europe have worn for centuries. My mother is frequently cold, though she never used to be; she often used to wear short-sleeved shirts in winter. Now she’s bundled in wool, and it’s only October.

  Ah, Ma, I say, you beat me to it! I wanted to surprise you . . . Actually, I’ve already snuck a couple in here. Two different types, for variety. I was planning on telling your nurses not to show them to you till after I leave.

  Mom likes a good trick, especially if it involves accomplices.

  Too late now, she says, smiling. Let me see.

  It’s usual, this phrasing of hers—let me see. Normally those words roll right off me. But I’m already primed for pain, so her phrase dunks me directly into the well. For years I’ve taken pleasure in buying clothes for my mother; it’s something she didn’t—couldn’t—do for me when I was a teenager, and doing it for her now, I feel I’m setting things right. Of course I want her to see what I’ve brought her from Italy. But suddenly I want my mother to see—to see all, I mean, and right this instant: not just the two undershirts but Dad, my siblings and me, my husband, my siblings’ families, and everyone and everything else Mom would want to see, plus all she doesn’t even know exists, all that would thrill her if she were to lay eyes on it; and the ferocity of this wish makes my own eyes prick and leak.

  Pulling one of the two undershirts from my knapsack, I blot my eyelids carefully with its hem, then unfold it neatly in her lap.

  What color is it, she asks.

  Cream, I said. They’re both cream. That’s the standard-issue color for this stuff in Italy, Mom.

  I’m glad, she says. Cream goes with everything. I’ve never thought much of white undershirts.

  Oh god, I say, tell that to Dad. All of his have turned gray.

  Then do me a favor, she says. Go into his drawers, throw out every single one, and buy him a set of new ones. Three, at least. With V-necks, please. So he doesn’t look like a truck driver when he wears a button-down shirt.

  He’ll know you put me up to it, Ma. He hates spending money on himself . . .

  Don’t worry, she responds, smiling. I’ll manage him. D’you need my wallet? It’s in the bottom drawer of the bedside table. I’m pretty sure there’s a ten in it.

  My mother doesn’t realize that a three-pack of men’s undershirts is
likely to cost more than ten bucks. It’s been a while since I’ve taken her across the road to the little mall where she used to enjoy a bit of shopping. She hasn’t had the energy.

  I watch as she passes her fingertips across the undershirt and around its armholes, assessing the fabric and cut. Giving the top a light shake, she traces its length. Finally, she returns her fingers to its neckline.

  Very nice, she says. Toasty fabric, but not heavy. And it’s got lace here, doesn’t it? Around the neck.

  Yep, I say. Cream-colored, of course.

  Good. Your father will like the lace, she says.

  As always, I’m moved by how my mother relies on her husband’s appreciation of her looks, appearance, clothing. She’s right: Dad will notice.

  Now, says Mom, show me the other top.

  My friend the poet Liam Rector used to assert, by way of a motto, Nobody gets to stay. As he wrote in one of his best poems, “Handmade Shoes,” going was Liam’s / Real subject. He in fact / Thought of little else.

  Suicide was his response, five years ago, to the question of how to go. For him, “taking matters into one’s own hands” wasn’t a cliché but an imperative, the quid pro quo for existential freedom. That boy paid / A price for living / The way he lived, he wrote.

  Liam’s imperative, natural for him, has never spoken to my mother. Eye disease and hearing loss have extorted their price; she’s used to paying it. The transaction doesn’t bear on how she’s chosen to live. For her, ending the whole shebang would be unseemly. I imagine my grandmother’s suicide attempt still irks Mom—all that high-drama, in-the-bathtub bathos . . . Dad, however, is more susceptible to Liam’s way of thinking. A few years back, realizing it’d be hard to acquire a sufficient quantity of the right kind of pills, my father somehow managed to procure a handgun for the purpose of eventual self-release. My mother made him get rid of the weapon as soon as he’d announced its purchase. (Ridiculous, she said. As if we need more reasons for gun control! And who gets to clean up after you? Dad ditched the gun.)

  * * *

  Sitting with her now in this sun-drenched room whose brightness she cannot perceive, I wonder what regrets my mother may harbor. Will any be passed along to me, an emotional legacy I may not be capable of resisting or refusing?

  There’s so much she might’ve done . . . In fact, Mom has consistently accomplished more than plenty of sighted folk. But that doesn’t necessarily mean she has no regrets. And if she does, she’s got no one to talk to about them—for sharing them with my father would be a lousy idea, as she surely knows.

  So much she might’ve done . . . The phrase haunts my life, too. Admitting this to myself, I feel my throat constrict as if I’m about to choke. But now my mother’s starting to take off her pullover; she wants to try on the second undershirt, and she’ll need a hand getting that sweater over her head.

  Clearing my throat (to me the noise sounds raw and imperative), I state loudly that it’s almost time for lunch.

  All right, she says. Help me out of this, please.

  The task requires speed; she’s clearly uncomfortable. I yank the pullover swiftly up her sides and over her head. My mother gives a little sigh of relief, and her shoulders sag. She’s wearing a brassiere I bought her several years ago; it’s faded and lumpy, ruined by high-heat spins in institutional dryers. Yet her unclothed torso retains its essential linear elegance; it doesn’t appear to be that of a woman approaching ninety years old. I don’t often see Mom half-dressed. The sight both moves and unnerves me.

  Picking up her new undershirt, I ask her to raise her arms so I can slip it over her head. As she does so, I pull the top down carefully over her hands, elbows, head, and shoulders. Mom shimmies a little, letting the fabric settle on her. She gives the top a final downward tug.

  Just right, she says. And I like the width of the straps, they’re comfy. The trim—it’s satin, isn’t it?

  You guessed it, I tell her.

  She smiles, fingering the undershirt’s neckline.

  I pull a lightweight cardigan from her closet and help her put it on. I’m still thinking about the softly undulating folds of her torso. Having seen what my mother can’t see—her body uncovered, her flesh—I’m feel as though I’m also seeing what I can’t see: my mother’s aloneness. The do-it-yourself-ness. The sovereignty, the solitude.

  What else? I’m seeing my own self-doubt, which would fill my mother with impatience were she to know of it. So I keep it from her, just as I conceal the effects of the losses I’ve experienced. It’s easy to imagine what she’d say if she knew: So your friends have died, you miss them—fine. But why have you made their deaths a prison and locked yourself into it? You’re not going to do that with my death, are you?

  Mom readies to stand up.

  I take one of her hands in mine, pulling her lightly upward. She manages to get herself upright, wobbling a little. But can she stay that way?

  Hold on, Mom, I tell her. I’ve got to wheel your chair around . . . Stay right where you are.

  She sways as I let go of her hand, but doesn’t topple. I’ve timed this wrong. Quickly, fearfully, I pull the wheelchair over and park it just behind her knees, locking its brakes. I should’ve brought the chair over before making her stand.

  Okay. Are you ready, I ask.

  Uh-huh, she says matter-of-factly. Just fine.

  Reaching behind herself, she gropes for an arm of the wheelchair, grabs it with one hand, and drops into the seat, her frame torquing slightly as she descends. Her body lands with a thud.

  Mom, I say. I missed you. I’m glad I’m here.

  Me too, sweetheart, she replies, and it’s not the words but her tone, unforced and unencumbered, which lets me know she really is fine. For now, at any rate.

  Picking up her feet, she swings them adroitly onto the wheelchair’s footrests. Then she places her hands firmly on the armrests. This is a daily ritual; she’s done all these moves hundreds of times, with nurses I’ve never met. Some of the nurses must be even clumsier than I when it comes to wheelchair maneuvers. Then again, they spend more time with her.

  Releasing the brake, I turn Mom around and wheel her toward the door.

  And now . . . to lunch, she says. We don’t want to keep those men waiting, do we?

  * * *

  The day before Antonio and I leave, a bit of drama shakes things up.

  At lunchtime, Antonio finds me in the dining room as I’m pushing my mother toward the table where Dad is already seated. Their sandwiches—tuna, since today is Tuesday—await them.

  Get her seated, Antonio says. I gotta talk to you for a moment.

  At first I’m alarmed. Quickly rolling Mom up to the table, I excuse myself and return to my husband.

  Don’t worry, everything’s okay, he says, smiling as he tugs me toward the salad bar. But you won’t believe what just happened . . .

  He recounts the incident as we fill our plates with greens. Because he needed to pick up a load of laundry down the hall, Antonio told my father to go ahead to lunch on his own. Then, returning to the apartment with the laundry basket, he carried the clean clothing into my father’s bedroom and began sorting it. All at once he heard a sound and, assuming my father had come back for some reason, went to the kitchen.

  There, standing before the fridge with his back to Antonio, stood a stranger in a parka. The fridge door was open. The man was chugging on a bottle of wine—a bottle my father kept chilled for my mother, so she could have a glass when she visited the apartment every Sunday afternoon. Hearing Antonio enter, the stranger started in surprise, wiped his mouth rapidly with the back of his hand, corked the bottle, and stuck it back in the fridge. Astonished, Antonio watched in silence as the man fled.

  Can you remember what the guy looked like? I ask when Antonio finishes telling his story.

  He was a resident, says Antonio. But it happened so fast . . .

  Finding out who the man was necessitates some tact.


  We can’t, of course, recount to my parents what has just gone on in Dad’s kitchen. Neither of them needs to be agitated. So I attempt an oblique approach, inquiring, while they (slowly, so slowly!) eat their sandwiches and fruit, about various residents. How’s the nice lady who’s always in the library, how’s the cranky Republican? The conversation gradually works its way around to the man in the parka. Indeed, it’s the parka’s color, a vivid yellow, that allows my father to recall who he is.

  Oh yeah, that guy, I know him, says Dad. Can’t recall his name . . . Smart fellow. Lost his wife to Alzheimer’s two years ago, poor guy. He was very committed to her. She was a tough patient, used to get kind of worked up, hard to manage. Anyway, he’s a good man. But you know, I had to speak to him last year about something.

  What, Antonio asks, and I carefully lay a hand on his knee under the table, warning him to stay impassive. My husband is quite capable of making a poker face, but I’m worried he’ll start smiling. Or worse, chuckling.

  Well, says my father, the guy used to come into the apartment when I wasn’t there and drink my liquor. Now that I’ve stopped drinking—did you know I haven’t had a drink in over a year?—

  —yes, Dad, I break in, to spare us this repetition.

  Well, I don’t buy hard alcohol anymore, just some wine for your mother.

  Not very good wine, inserts my mother teasingly.

  Oh, I’ll fix that for you, says Antonio.

  Grazie, says my mother.

  So anyway, says my father—wresting the narrative back so he won’t lose track of it altogether—I don’t buy liquor. But last year, there was still a half-full bottle of vodka in the cabinet, you know, the one in the kitchen? And this guy would come in and help himself to a shot of it now and then. Right out of the bottle! I caught him once or twice and told him, look, you shouldn’t do this, you know. He was really embarrassed. I know he’s had a hard time, but hell, you can’t go around to other folks’ apartments and drink their booze . . .