Last Last Chance

by Fiona Maazel

  “Ah, so we’re back to your fuck it theory. Haven’t grown at all, I see.”

  “Nope, not an inch. You?”

  I laughed.

  “So that’s Aggie?” he said, pointing to the box.

  “Is it weird, this Japanese thing? I thought she’d like it.”

  “No, she would. It’s nice. Should we do it here?”

  “I was thinking maybe the shrine would be better. But I don’t know. I thought this was going to be more emotional. That it’s not is making me feel low.”

  “That’s emotional. And anyway, you feel what you feel and whatever you feel is part of your response. And that’s fine.”

  I smiled. “It’s really nice of you to do this with me.”

  He smiled back.

  In the shallows across the pond were two bronze statues glinting in the sun. Pelicans, maybe. Or storks. Ornithology wasn’t my thing, but I was pretty sure a pelican had no business in a Japanese garden.

  I pointed at them. “What if those were real birds in there? Like they’d been cryogenically preserved.”

  “Seems like wasted resources.”

  “No, but what if they were test-running the process for use on humans?”

  “What for? You really want to wake up after the plague has wiped out humanity?”

  I sighed. “Izzy and I just had this talk. She says she’s too old to want to outlive anything.”

  “Now there’s a cheering thought.”

  “Yep.”

  He skipped a pebble across the pond.

  “I bet we get thrown out for that,” I said. “For disturbing the peace.”

  “Then I hardly think spreading ashes is allowed.”

  “Good point. Maybe stealth is in order.”

  He stood and held out his hand. We crossed the bridge and followed the path to a waterfall. “A symbol of change,” he said.

  “You bring a crib sheet or something?”

  “No, I just watch a lot of PBS.”

  “There’s the shrine,” I said. “Looks kind of like a tree house.”

  “With a hogyo roof?”

  “Okay, who are you? Why do you know what that’s called?”

  He pointed at the learning station, which made me laugh. So much laughing. We mounted the steps and sat on the top one. I had the box on my knees.

  “Are we supposed to say anything?” he said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you going to open it?”

  “I’m afraid her ashes will get all over us.”

  “How about if we put the box on the top of that little hill and just leave it open. That way the wind will take her when it wants. And we can watch from a distance.”

  “What if there’s no wind and nothing happens so I go over to the box and just then a gust blows the ashes all over me? I only put some of them in there, so this could happen.”

  “We won’t go back to it no matter what.”

  “Okay.”

  I put the box down, lid closed. We were both staring at it. The pressure to say something was much like what I felt having to talk to God. I wanted to do it, but I didn’t quite believe it meant anything.

  He rubbed my back and said, “Just be honest, it’ll be fine.”

  I looked down at the box. “Okay, Agneth, I’m doing what you asked. I hope if you’re out there, you’re happy, and that if you’re coming back, it’s the way you wanted. I miss you. I guess scattering your ashes is just a gesture but I like knowing you’ll grow into next year’s flowers and grass. So as far as I’m concerned, you’re definitely coming back, one way or the other. I love you.”

  I bent down and removed the lid. The air was perfectly still. Eric led me several feet away, where we stood like parents on the sideline. I hardly noticed his arm around my shoulder. Within minutes, a breeze picked up, warm and gentle, which took Agneth in a swell that toured the garden—the pond, the trees, the grass.

  I leaned into him. “Just like you said.” And I felt, I felt almost quiet.

  We stayed that way for a minute or so. I thought I might even close my eyes. But then I felt him straighten up and the calm around us turn brisk. It was time for business, it seemed. We’d eaten and drunk, fucked whores, played golf, and now came the moment to divvy up New York. Only it was supposed to have been on my cue, not his, because I was the one with something to say. Unless he had something to say, which thought plied my body with cement. My worst fear? He was about to let me go in the most conventional sense of all.

  We walked until the path split. He led us to a stone bench, where he sat forward with elbows braced on his knees.

  I felt sick. I could not possibly make a speech about friendship among three knowing he was about to cut me loose. I figured for the heaviness I was experiencing already, I should just turn to stone and die.

  “Luce,” he said. “I need to tell you something.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “No, no, it’s nothing bad.”

  Then fine, don’t tell me. “What is it?”

  “It’s Kam. She’s pregnant.”

  I said nothing for a good three seconds. And it’s not like I shattered but that I felt a rolling sensation, like I might just roll away. A rolling stone, I heard that before.

  “Really? Congratulations. When is she due?”

  “Two weeks.”

  And then I shattered. He was not throwing me over at all. He was, possibly, asking me to babysit. He was including me in his life with Kam. It was exactly what I’d wanted.

  “What? And you’re just telling me now? She’s been pregnant this whole time? I can’t believe it.”

  “Luce, we didn’t want to say anything in the beginning, and then you were away.”

  “And you couldn’t tell me on the phone?”

  “I’m sorry. It just seemed too hard to talk about.”

  I perked up. “Why?”

  “Because I’m terrified. Having a child is scary enough. But if plague hits New York—I’ve been hearing rumors. It’s insane to bring a child into this.”

  “How’s Kam handling it?”

  “Same as me.”

  “And you still think her parents are understandable?”

  “No. I think they are barbaric. Lucy, I’m really scared.”

  And I was miserable. So miserable it was almost bewildering. Did I really think there was a place for me in all this? Did I really want to be in all this?

  “Don’t be scared,” I said. “It’ll be great.”

  “It’s a boy,” he said. “A son.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  “I hope, maybe if things calm down, that you’ll come see him later. Be like an honorary aunt or something.”

  I was getting clobbered. I wanted to hide under the bench. “Of course I will.” And, “In the meantime, give Kam my best.”

  We stood. “I have to go see about Hannah now. You know she moved out to a friend’s?”

  “Is she coming back?”

  “Yes. But I still have to go get her. Not looking forward to that at all.”

  “You’ll do fine. I’m really impressed with how far you’ve come.”

  I was not going to be able to take this much longer. I began to count the steps to the subway, just put him on a subway.

  We got to the entrance. “Aren’t you coming?” he said.

  “Nah, I think I’ll walk for a while. Thanks again for doing this with me today.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “And congratulations. It’s going to be great, you’ll see.”

  We fumbled through a hug-kiss, and said bye. I waited for two subways to pass and then went down the stairs. I’d been a fool, of course, but then I almost found this reassuring. Even if I got better, kept clean, beat plague, mourning for Eric would be the hurt that stayed with me. And the thing that kept me sensitive to hope. Because in addition to slaughtering the most tender parts of your inner life, hurt also says: You are a person of feeling and people who feel have everything to offer.


  Thirty-nine

  Connie Denton lived in an apartment complex that spanned a city block in both directions. It was, I gathered, where old people went to die. If you could escape detention in a retirement home, West Twenty-third Street was the place to be. It had an indoor greenhouse maintained by the residents. The lobby floors were blanched marble. For every door a doorman. I had no idea why Connie would want to live here unless to forecast her future and be prepared.

  The man manning the door was courteous. The desk guy, not so much. I looked past him to an assembly of strollers and scooters, which spoke to the intelligence of marble flooring—perfect for wheels, young and old. He wanted to help me—could he help me?—to which I said, No, thanks, to which he said, Ma’am?, to which I said, Oh, fine, Connie Denton, to which, And you are?, in a tone less querying than imperious, to which, Dorothy Hamill, okay? to which nothing, and down the hall I went, jogged, until safely behind elevator doors.

  Forty-eighth floor. I hoped Connie did not have giant windows. On my way here, the wooziness of before had turned swoon; and the carpet underfoot, it felt downy. Like cotton. Or fluff. When the elevator opened, I swear I’d been levitating. From an adjacent apartment came sounds of wildlife—a bird or birds—like crampons against the blackboard. The effect was to make noticeable on my face the extent to which this headache was eroding my will to live, let alone visit with Connie Denton, who, if memory served, had a fairly shrill voice of her own. I knocked. I depressed the bell. I heard, coming closer, a shuffle of feet, of slippers, actually, whose sound was an index of old age, which had me thinking this was the wrong door and then, too late, that I should split, for there appeared a woman in puce robe and curlers asking what I wanted, Who are you?, and, in a shriek worse than any bird: Connie, there’s someone at the door!

  I staggered inside, holding my head like it might fall off. When did this pain in my neck start? Connie rounded a corner, saying, Mom, you’re gonna wake the dead with that hollering, when she saw me and pulled up short. I love people in the instant before they make a choice; I love to watch them compute. It’s probably the most spry and accomplished your mind gets. Chicken or beef may sound facile, but think how much you gotta factor in before making a decision, like what you ate yesterday, what you’re gonna eat tomorrow, fat, protein, ancillary digestive issues, shrapnel in teeth, cost v. gain analysis—and that’s all for a shitty fajita at Taco Bell, imagine me and Connie, do I throw her out, take her coat, and why does she look half dead?

  “Lucy? What are you doing here? My God, are you feeling okay? Wait, tell me you did not come here on whatever drugs it is that you’re on. Hannah told me everything.”

  I tried to follow her line of thought, but ended up asking for water. I really did not feel well.

  Connie’s mother said to her, “What’s the matter with you? Get this girl some water.” I laughed despite what felt like combat soldiers rappelling down my spine. Mothers. You never could outgrow them.

  “Here,” Connie said, and sat opposite. It was then I noticed they wore matching robes and that Connie’s hair was just so flat as to have been newly ironed, which meant when I rang, they were doing each other’s hair. How to describe the tenderness I felt for them except to say Connie’s antipathy to me was of equal proportion.

  “I think you’d better leave,” she said. “The girls are in school and no way are you going to see Hannah like this. You have some nerve coming here.”

  I nodded and thought, Rain it on me. It was the first in many months where what was happening accorded precisely with how I felt.

  She continued. “Do I have to call the doorman? Let’s not make this ugly.”

  Meantime, Connie’s mother had put a cold washcloth to my head. Apparently, I had slouched so aggressively that the slouch had turned lie-down, and I was sweating.

  “Connie,” she said. “This child is sick.”

  “Good, she probably has superplague—” After which mother and daughter froze for the other kind of instant I love, when you realize you are absolutely fucked.

  “It’s not plague,” I said. “For God’s sake.”

  “How do you know?” Connie said.

  It’d be painful, but I rolled my eyes anyway. The last place I wanted to experience an onset of withdrawal was Connie Denton’s apartment, but then I’d forgotten what happens, even after a wean, when your body realizes its only friend has not only been downsizing the relationship but ending it altogether. How else to respond but with what’s at hand? A body in grief is unstoppable. Soon, I would be vomiting. The combat soldiers would mine every tendon and slash every nerve. Already, my head was changing shape, to swell and taper like a punchball. I felt braised. And my tongue was sere.

  “Withdrawal,” I managed.

  “Oh, good Lord,” Connie said. “In my house. Weren’t you in Texas for this?”

  “How’s my sister?”

  “Would you like some soup? Chicken or minestrone?” This from the mom, whose name was Gloria. “A child like you, you need to eat.”

  “She’s not a child. She’s thirty.” Connie had moved to a recliner. Her tone was forbearing. I had maybe ten minutes left, though I needed more like twenty if I wanted to catch Hannah.

  “Soup would be great.” And to Connie I added, “It’s very kind of you to see me. I’m sorry I came without warning.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I sat up and focused on a discolored pinch of skin visible above the cleft of her robe, because that lazy eye was no antidote for nausea.

  “So, can I ask about Hannah? I only found out recently she’s been staying here.”

  “Living here.”

  “Right. Living here. If I had known, I would have come back sooner.

  Connie sat forward. “And done what? I cannot believe the conditions under which that poor little girl has been living. She needs to be unlearned of most everything! And that man you left in charge, Stanley? Someone should have called child services.”

  “Say what you will about me, but leave Stanley out of it. He’s a good man.”

  She glowered.

  “Okay, I know,” I said. “It’s not been ideal. Things just got a little out of control this past year.”

  “A little?”

  I could hear Gloria singing in the kitchen. And I swear the lazy eye winced.

  “Don’t look so put out,” Connie said. “If this is the most honest you’ve been about what Hannah’s gone through, you are in even more trouble than I thought.”

  “But how’s she doing?”

  Connie stood. “You’ve done a lot of damage. I found little cuts all up her legs and arms. She says she got banged up in gym.”

  “Oh, man. Kids are rotten.”

  “Are you listening? Are you retarded? She’s been cutting herself.”

  “What? Like to hurt herself? No way.”

  Connie shook her head. “The school therapist isn’t too swift, but he says it’s more like punishing herself.”

  “Oh, God.” I paused and went: think, think. “Look, it’s very kind of you to have stepped in the way you did. But I’m here now, and I want to take my sister home.”

  Gloria appeared with a tray bearing soup and spoon. “Maybe she doesn’t want to go,” she said, and deposited the tray on my lap.

  “Of course she does. It’s her home.”

  Connie looked at her watch, resigned to Hannah’s arriving while I was there. Gloria said eat your soup. It stung my cheek, which meant drooling it back into the bowl. On the bright side, the pain distracted me from the pain in my head and the irreclaimable condition of the muscles in my neck and mouth, knotted so tight as to be immobile. Lockjaw was setting in. Petrified neck. So as not to panic I thought, This too shall pass, and when that failed, I said a trench prayer that set me back weeks. I’d been making a point of talking to God thoughtfully and with equal regard for ambivalence and effort. A trench prayer was like racing for the finish line after weeks of learning to stroll.

  Gloria said to Connie th
at she should cut me some slack. I was trying, wasn’t I?

  “You know,” Connie said. “Despite everything, Hannah idolizes you. That’s a big responsibility.”

  I grew ten feet and toppled; and at the door, laughter.

  Both girls seemed to rear when they saw me, Indra adding a snarl to the mix so that no matter what emotion I had roused in her, she was going to look haughty feeling it. I did not expect Hannah to throw her arms around me. But then I didn’t expect indifference, either. “Oh, hey,” she said, and made for the kitchen, where she grabbed a can of Coke, cracked it open, and off to their room, Indra in tow.

  I looked from Gloria to Connie and back. “That went well,” I said. Probably I should have gotten up. Sundered relations between me and the couch. But the people’s revolution in my gut was gaining momentum, and my legs now lacked for tensile strength, which meant from A to B, I’d have to ooze across the floor like pudding. Pudding! Gloria showed up with a garbage pail just in time.

  The sound returned Hannah to the living room. On a scale of one to ten, how little did I want her to see me like this? After I’d come so far? I was retching in a pail, which was actually an ice bucket with antelope handles on either side.

  She kept her distance, but asked Connie what was wrong with me.

  “Withdrawal, apparently.”

  Hannah nodded. Her detachment was a horror. “So guess what?” she said.

  I recognized that tone of voice. Droll and moribund. “Oh, no,” I said.

  “Yep.”

  “When?”

  “Just now.”

  “Oh, no.”

  I glanced at Connie, whose pride was such that she’d sooner stay in the dark than ask what the hell me and my sister were talking about. By the same token, she likely guessed at the satisfaction I took in keeping her in the dark, which meant she knew I was petty, which all but soured the pleasure of the whole friggin battle.

  Good thing, Gloria. She wedged the tip of her thumb between her upper and lower teeth and said, “What do you mean?” then lunged for the TV on which we interrupt this broadcast to bring you this special news report.