He and Rachel had wanted to have such a dinner at Thanksgiving, he said, but Rachel had taken sick and had spent Thanksgiving Day in bed. And he couldn’t miss the opportunity, of course, to give himself credit for stepping in to fill the gap by bringing home takeout turkey dinners from the L & K Cafeteria. He failed to say, however, that the Thanksgiving dinner from the L & K Cafeteria was a pathetic affair, consisting of pale, undercooked turkey, a spoonful of gummy dressing, hard green peas, and a dollop of institutional-style mashed potatoes with a small craterful of congealed gravy. Dessert had been mincemeat pie. If I were to make a list of all the desserts I have ever eaten, from best to worst, that slice of mincemeat pie would be the last entry on the list.
Somehow Patrick had finally wrapped up the speech and had ended the dinner by inviting us all to “join our voices” in singing one of his favorite Christmas carols, “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” Mindy shot him a look of disbelief, as if he had suggested that we all play Bingo or try yodeling.
“Why, that is such a nice idea,” Della Boyd said eagerly. “I just love Christmas carols, don’t I, Helena?”
“She starts listening to them in October,” Helena said.
Della Boyd laughed. “That I do! That I do!”
Patrick was nothing if not prepared. He had printed off copies of the carol, three stanzas and the refrain, which he now distributed around the table. Rachel rose and moved to the piano, an old upright model in the living room. I had never heard the sound of the piano since coming to live here. I didn’t know Rachel could play it.
And as it turned out, she didn’t play well, though her playing was no worse than our singing. Except for Potts and Steve—they outshone the rest of us. After the first stanza they began to harmonize. It was clear that they both had an ear for music. Della Boyd sang the melody in a high, light voice that could have been pretty at one time. Before the last refrain I stopped singing, ashamed that I had allowed myself to be coerced into participating. What was I thinking? It was the height of hypocrisy to sing “O come let us adore Him” when I had so long ago given up adoring anyone or anything, mortal or divine.
As the others finished the song, I said to myself, My father was right. Christmas is much ado about nothing. I thought of the play by that name, a play that Shakespeare did not intend to be taken too seriously, and of a song near the end of it. Claudio introduces the song thus: “Now, music, sound,” he says, “and sing your solemn hymn.” I remembered some of the words of the song: “Midnight, assist our moan, / Help us to sigh and groan, / Heavily, heavily. / Graves, yawn and yield your dead, / Till death be uttered, / Heavily, heavily.” Scholars agree that it is a song that makes no sense.
Much like “O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant,” an entreaty that would yield a pitifully small turnout if the truth were known. As Patrick offered a “prayer in closing,” I looked around the dinner table. Who besides my nephew, I wondered, would dare to call himself “faithful”? Or “joyful and triumphant”? I looked at Veronica across the table. She appeared to be enchanted by the lingering echoes of the singing, her head thrown back and her mouth open as if she thought the music was something she might like to catch on her tongue and taste.
After Patrick’s prayer, Della Boyd said, “What a nice way to end our dinner, with a Christmas carol and a prayer. I’ll never forget the time I sang that same song at one of our school programs in Yazoo City. We teachers were putting on a little play for the pupils, and I had to dress up like a fairy godmother and walk across the stage singing that song.” No one spoke for a moment. Perhaps everyone was trying to imagine what kind of play would have a fairy godmother singing “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” Perhaps someone would have asked the question if Mindy had not suddenly risen from her chair and bolted through the living room and out the front door.
“Well, my stars,” Della Boyd said. “Is she all right? Did I say something?”
Steve and Teri looked at each other. Both of them started to speak, then both stopped. Teri started to get up, but Steve reached over Veronica and touched her hand. “No, don’t run after her,” he said. “Give her some time. She’ll be okay.”
It surprised me that Patrick had nothing to say at this juncture, no word of advice, no passage of Scripture to offer. Again no one spoke for several long seconds. And then Veronica suddenly made a quiet gagging noise and promptly deposited most of her Christmas dinner onto the tray of her chair.
“Oh no!” Teri cried. Steve jumped up and pulled Veronica’s chair away from the table. Teri bent over Veronica and spoke to her. “There, sweetie, it’s all right.” She brushed Veronica’s hair away from her face. The child seemed not in the least distressed. She looked vaguely at the tray before her but appeared to see nothing. Nor did she respond in any way to her mother’s words of comfort. I wonder if the ancient Mandarin language of Nushu was ever used for expressing the woes of a mother’s heart whose child was beyond her reach.
“I’m so sorry,” Teri said to everyone in general. “She usually only does this in the mornings. We thought she’d . . .”
Rachel stood. “Hand me the tray,” she said.
“Oh no, no. I’ll clean it up,” Teri said. “I don’t want . . .”
But Rachel stepped forward and took it out of her hands.
I see a hearse now approaching the funeral home. It pulls into the parking lot and around to the back entrance.
Patrick’s words come back to me: “It was less than a week later that we received a letter from my aunt Sophie concerning her need for retirement accommodations.” I turn around to look at the living room of my retirement accommodations. What a grandiose term for such a house. I take in the old piano, the faded pink sofa, the large framed print of a lighthouse, the worn braided rug, the small tacky Christmas tree. Yet I prefer the retirement accommodations here at Patrick’s house over those in what they call a “home” or a “facility.” Certainly I prefer them to the place across the street.
I turn back to look at Wagner’s Mortuary, its wreathed doors and gingerbread trim masking the horrors that go on inside. I wonder if the old couple who went inside are touring the casket showroom yet, listening to someone describe the various features of each model. Surely not yet. Surely they save that part until last.
Suddenly a movement catches my eye. The door of Steve and Teri’s house flies open, and Rachel emerges, holding Veronica. She takes the steps quickly and heads toward the street. She is walking faster than she normally walks. In spite of the burden she carries, she is in fact almost running. I realize that I am caught. At the rate she is coming, I cannot make it back to my apartment before she will arrive at the kitchen door.
I rise from the rocking chair and move it back to its place, then stand for a moment considering what to do. Perhaps I should meet her head on. Perhaps a plausible excuse will come to me. Or I could stay in the living room and hope for an opportunity to slip through the kitchen to my apartment if she should take Veronica back to the bedrooms.
But she opens the kitchen door and calls at once, “Aunt Sophie! We need your help!” I hear her go to my apartment door and knock, repeating her words: “Aunt Sophie! We need you. Can you help?”
I walk into the kitchen behind her. I see her shift Veronica in her arms, then knock again. “Aunt Sophie, are you busy?” She turns the knob and opens the door.
“Here I am,” I say.
She wheels around. She looks relieved. “We need you,” she says again. “Can you help?” She does not ask what I’m doing in the kitchen instead of in my apartment. Something far more important is on her mind.
I nod. “Yes, what is it?”
I hear the honk of a horn in the driveway.
“That’s Teri,” Rachel says. “We have to take care of Mindy. Can you watch Veronica?”
I don’t remember answering, but seconds later Rachel is gone and Veronica is lying on my bed. She makes no sound, but her eyes rake the ceiling. There is no sign of fear in them, however, and her lips are parte
d as if preparing to comment on the wonders of a new ceiling, one she hasn’t seen before.
Chapter 19
Like a Fair House Built on Another Man’s Ground
Bird watchers are often disappointed when they finally see their first glimpse of the elusive warbling vireo. Though known for possessing one of the most beautiful songs in the bird kingdom, the vireo has little else to distinguish it—no bright plumage, no unusual markings, no unique habits.
It is New Year’s Eve. A time for reflecting on the past year. A time for establishing grand and noble intentions for the coming year. In Patrick and Rachel’s case, a time for going to church for a special prayer service. For Sophie, a time for sitting in her recliner as she does every night. Time for watching the images on her television. Waiting for something she cannot name. Wondering what is on the other side of now.
I have never been to New England, but tonight I learn from Time magazine that there is a place in Boston called Heartbreak Hill. “DIED. JOHN KELLEY, 97, Massachusetts native who ran the Boston Marathon a record sixty-one times from 1928 to 1992.” He won the race two times, once at the age of twenty-eight and again at thirty-eight. Seven times he came in second. Time magazine reports that the city of Boston erected a statue in John Kelley’s honor in 1993 at the base of Heartbreak Hill. The obituary also tells that John Kelley carried with him a “lucky handkerchief” when he ran. I think about the irony of a statue on Heartbreak Hill in memory of a champion who carried a lucky handkerchief.
I wonder if the statue depicts John Kelley as young or old. Chances are, the sculptor aimed for middle ground. Strangely, sculpture often comes closer to depicting reality than photography. Sometimes I see a photograph beside a newspaper obituary and say to myself, “And who is this youngster? Surely this beauty is not the same ninety-year-old woman whose death is being reported.” I wonder about the implication of such a picture: “This is how we want her to be remembered.” If this is truly the family’s sentiment, does it not seem to suggest that they want to forget all the years between then and now, which in most cases would comprise the larger portion of the person’s life? Is a person in the prime of life of more value than when he is old? This is a question with a ready answer: Yes. I envision all the old people of the world gathered in one place, all of them holding signs: Dead Weight, Burden, Has-Been, Drain on Society, Albatross, Millstone, and so forth.
“DIED. RODNEY DANGERFIELD, 82, stand-up comic whose old-fashioned style of one-liners thrived in an era of hip young satirists.” His signature line, “I don’t get no respect,” will long be remembered, according to Time magazine. I think of all the comedians who have used old people as the target of their humor. At least Rodney Dangerfield, an old man himself, knew what he was talking about.
But as my mother used to tell me regularly, getting old is not funny. With her frequent reminders, I began to brood over my own advancing years. Having no children, I began to wonder who would take care of me when I got old and sick. Marrying Eliot distracted me somewhat from these concerns; however, since he was older than I by many years, occasionally I imagined the grim possibility of nursing an aging mother and a husband at the same time.
I think of the way people look past an old person, as if seeking someone younger and therefore more interesting to talk to. I think of how they smirk or yawn when an old person speaks, of how they discount the plain truth when it comes from the mouth of someone whose body is feeble, as if body and mind are one. I recall how my college students used to pass me on campus without a word of greeting. In their eyes I ceased to exist outside the classroom. I think of store clerks speaking their words loudly and slowly as if dealing with an imbecile or lapsing into a bored, mechanical delivery of their standard lines. I think of Mindy on Christmas Day, sitting at the dinner table with a look on her face that said, “Don’t talk to me and don’t expect me to talk to you.”
Mindy’s trip to the emergency room of King’s Daughters Hospital four days ago resulted in this: Her stomach was pumped. This Rachel told me when she returned three hours later. Mindy’s emotional distress of late is due to more than teenage moodiness, I have learned. It is due to a boy. A boy of whom her parents do not approve—a condition, I have noticed, that almost always leads to greater attraction between a boy and girl. Forbidden desire always burns hotter.
Steve and Teri have told Mindy she must give up the boy. They have told her she may not be with him, a difficult prohibition to enforce since the two of them attend the same school. Steve and Teri have requested the aid of the high school personnel to keep them separated, have asked to be called whenever Mindy does not report to her classes on time. The holidays have been full of turmoil for Mindy, being “stuck at home” and “watched like a hawk,” as she puts it.
All of this was reported to me by Rachel when she came to my apartment to get Veronica and take her back home. For over three hours Veronica had lain silently on my bed, drooling onto a large bib around her neck. Part of the time I sat beside her and stroked her arm, though she gave no sign that she was aware of my presence. She finally fell asleep. She continued to drool in her sleep and several times jerked and grimaced. I wondered if a child like Veronica ever dreamed. What would she dream about? I have read that dreams are necessary for life.
I have not seen Mindy for a week, not since Christmas Day. I think of the trouble she is going through. I know what she thinks: that if she could have this boy, life would be a glorious thing. I want to tell her to listen to what grown-ups have to say about the false hope of young love and the speed with which “bright things come to confusion,” as Shakespeare described it. I want to tell her that even in Shakespeare’s time romance without the blessing of one’s parents was never portrayed as happy. These words would fall on deaf ears, however. Even if she were to hear them, Mindy would consider the sources—an old woman and a dead playwright—and count them of no merit.
The house is quiet. It is almost eight o’clock. I take the Time magazine from my lap and drop it in the trash can, then turn up the volume on the television. I will see what my fifty-one channels have to offer on New Year’s Eve. Patrick has given me a recommendation. I want to ignore it because of the imperious way in which it was given, but I suspect I shall look into it, out of curiosity if nothing else.
Patrick came in with Rachel earlier tonight, when she brought my supper tray. “Aunt Sophie,” he said briskly, “we want you to come with us tonight. We don’t like to think of you sitting at home alone on New Year’s Eve.”
“Then don’t think of it,” I said.
“Go with us,” he urged. “It won’t be a long service, and then there will be sandwiches and desserts and games. You’d enjoy it.”
The idea of Patrick’s presuming to tell me what I would enjoy rankled me. “I am well accustomed to sitting at home alone,” I said. “That is what I enjoy. It suits me. New Year’s Eve is no different from any other day. It is only a day on the calendar.”
Rachel set a plate of meat loaf, black-eyed peas, and collard greens on the round table. I was pleased with the prospects, as my father used to say when Mother served collard greens at dinnertime. Though a native of New York, Daddy had taken to southern food with gusto, collard greens, corn bread, and black-eyed peas being three of his favorites.
“Well, then,” Patrick said, “if you insist on staying home, you need to watch something at eight o’clock. It’s a movie you’ll like. It’s on channel 35.” I told him I did not watch movies, but he brushed me off. “This is one you need to see,” he said. “It reminds me of Mother every time I see it. You’ll see. You’ll like the story.” I instantly made up my mind not to watch it, or at least not to like it.
* * *
At precisely eight o’clock I turn to channel 35 to see what it is that reminded my nephew of his mother—my sister Regina.
Driving Miss Daisy is the name of the movie. Miss Daisy is Daisy Werthan, an elderly Jewish woman who lives in the South. I see at once why she would have reminded Patr
ick of his mother. Miss Daisy is a fine-boned woman with aristocratic carriage and strict standards of propriety. Though Patrick didn’t mention this, I see also that Daisy’s son, Boolie, and Patrick are alike in certain ways. Boolie speaks loudly and likes to take over. Like Daisy Werthan, Regina, though only a quarter Jewish, also employed a Negro man for many years, a man everybody in Vicksburg called Lingo.
Lingo drove Regina to the grocery store, to the meetings of her various clubs, to the doctor, to the library, and to Monk’s Department Store, where she worked four hours a day on the lingerie floor. Lingo also took Regina to both of her divorce hearings and waited for her out in the hall, then escorted her to the car and drove her home by way of the Dee-Lish Drive-in, where she ordered a chocolate malt both times. When Regina reported this fact to me after the second divorce, she said, “I think I’ll get a regular milkshake next time. I’m losing my taste for malt.” Her third husband died before she could divorce him, however, and by that time she had lost her taste for marriage, also. She lived as a widow for the remainder of her life.
Though Miss Daisy’s story is a good one, I keep losing track of the plot as I think about Regina. She was “unlucky in love”—this is how my mother referred to her and her three marriages. There was a time when I had no patience for Regina and her marital failures. This was before I married Eliot. Now I know how easy it is to misplace one’s affections. I am reminded of the answer to Falstaff’s question in The Merry Wives of Windsor: “Of what quality was your love, then?” The reply: “Like a fair house built on another man’s ground; so that I have lost my edifice by mistaking the place where I erected it.” So much is lost for all time when one mistakes the placement of his love.
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