by Nancy Rue
“Tell them. Blasts in transformation,” she said. “Myelodysplasia.”
“See?” he said. “You still got a lot of that in there. But it’s time to move on. Time to find another reason for gettin’ up in the morning.”
The look that crossed her face squeezed at my chest. “Dr. Elizabeth McGavock,” she said.
“That’s right, Doc,” Burl said. “That’s who you are and who you’ll always be. But that ain’t all. Isn’t all, excuse me.”
He nodded his head at her. She nodded hers back, as if it were some ritual they had performed a hundred times.
“That isn’t all you are,” he said. “Now you’re gonna go home and find out what else.”
“Home,” she said.
I stepped forward. “Right, Mother,” I said. “I’m here to take you home.”
I went to her, blinking back the tears so hard that I could have given Deb Kent’s eyelids a run for their money. Slowly she turned her face from Burl to me. Her eyes flickered something, then faded. But before they did, I saw what it was. It was the light of recognition. It was a fleeting brush with love.
We took Mother back to Hopewell, and I announced that I was going to stay with her. Ponytail went off to find an extra bed they could roll into the room for me.
Mother fell asleep almost before I could get some dinner into her. When I was sure she was definitely out, I stuck my head out the door and looked for Sam. Max had taken him back to campus to get his car, and he said he wanted to come back and talk before he went home.
He was sitting in the recreation area, bouncing a ping-pong ball on a paddle.
“Hey, Blaze,” I said.
He did one last behind-the-back hit and tossed the ball and paddle onto the table. His arms came around me and pulled me to the couch beside him.
“Did you get her settled in?” he said.
“For the time being. But I’m staying here tonight. She’s liable to be really restless.”
“And what about after tonight?” He grinned. “You going to move in here?”
I shook my head. “No. I think I’m going to move her back to the house.”
He stared at me.
I would have stared at me, too. I didn’t know I’d made that decision until it came out of my mouth—not clearly anyway. But I’d known from the minute I saw her with Burl that I couldn’t leave her.
“It won’t be tomorrow, obviously. I’ll have to make arrangements.”
“You’re going to be her sole caregiver?” Sam said.
“No. I’ll get a home health aid, somebody experienced with dementia patients this time. That could take a while. I haven’t worked out all the details. I’m really just thinking out loud.”
“Then think about this,” Sam said. “Think about bringing her to Illinois with you.”
It was my turn to stare.
“I asked you to come with me,” he said.
“You asked me to think about it—if they offered you the job and if you accepted it.”
“It’s where I need to be…if you’re there with me.”
I turned my head to get my bearings, but they were nowhere to be found. I gave him a half laugh. “Do you want to throw a few more things into this pot before I start stirring?” I said.
“I think you ought to have all the options in front of you. Otherwise I wouldn’t have said anything tonight, especially after the day you’ve had. But it sounds like you’re making some big decisions pretty fast. I just want to throw my two cents in the pot—or my two carrots—or whatever the right thing is to toss into this metaphor.”
He grinned, but I didn’t. I pulled back from him so I could look him full in the face.
“I need straight answers here,” I said. “What exactly are you saying?”
“Exactly? I’m not sure.”
“Then let me give you multiple choice, okay, just so I’m clear?”
“Sure,” he said.
“A: You want me to, I guess, marry you? Move to Illinois and bring my mother with me and we’ll take care of her in our home. Or B: You want me to marry you and move to Illinois and find a nursing home for my mother there. Or C: You want me to come to Illinois, find a house for Mother and me, get a job, and continue to date you…” I let that one trail off. “Choice C is not an option.”
“Why not?”
“I love you,” I said. “You know that. But for me to uproot myself and, more importantly, my mother when she obviously needs things she’s familiar with and go to Illinois with you with no definite future plans—” I shook my head. “I can’t do that, Sam.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “And I can’t ask you to marry me.”
“Because you’d feel like you were marrying me and my mother.”
“No, that’s not it.”
He took my face in his hands. I didn’t pull away, but I could feel myself stiffening.
“There is no doubt that I love you,” he said. “I want you to come to Illinois with me so we can see where this relationship goes. I don’t mean move in with me. We’d get you your own place and of course I’d help you out financially, especially since you would be bringing your mother.”
I did pull away then. “Until when, Sam? Until she dies or I have to put her back in a home?”
“No. I told you your mother has nothing to do with it.”
“Then what?”
He leaned over his knees, arms propped across his thighs. I tilted my head back to look at the ceiling—and it hit me as if the tiles were coming down from it and slapping me in the face.
“I’m not a church lady,” I said.
He didn’t answer.
“Your father told me that,” I said. “‘Sammy wants a church lady,’ he said. Of course, who listens to a man who’s three sheets to the wind—or to the eighteen-year-old freshman who said ‘Dr. B’ could never marry a woman who wasn’t a Christian? Now if you had said it to me yourself at some point, Blaze, I might have believed it and saved myself a lot of—”
I was going to say heartache. I didn’t. But I was sure Sam could see it on my face. I was certainly feeling it, in the very pit of my soul.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” I said softly.
“We just need a little more time,” he said. “Because, yes, I do need to know that the woman I marry is walking the same path I am, and that path has to be Christ.”
“Then why did you even bring up the Illinois thing in the first place?”
“Because you’re so close.”
“But not close enough.”
“You’re making it sound like I have all these criteria you have to meet before I can marry you, and it’s not like that,” Sam said. “I do love you, everything about you.”
“But I’m not a Christian. That’s it. Period. End of discussion.” I put my hand on his arm. “There’s no other way to make it sound different, Sam, because that’s what it is.”
“But you’re so close,” he said again.
“Maybe I am,” I said. “But now I’m finding out it’s not a choice I’m making—it’s an ultimatum you’re giving me.”
“It is not an ultimatum!”
For once, his voice was unsteady and quavering. But I had never been more sure of what I needed to say.
“Then if it’s a choice,” I said, “let me make it. In my own time. Let me get there the way I’m supposed to get there. You said it yourself—we need time.”
He sank back against the couch cushions. “So what does that mean?”
“It means you go to Illinois if you need to, and I’ll stay here and take care of my mother until I’m sure it’s right to put her back in a home. In the meantime, I can keep seeking and we can—”
“Keep our relationship going long distance,” Sam said. “People do it.”
He was quiet—for an endless moment.
“I can’t see it working with us,” he said finally.
“Why not? I have no intention of going out and looking for another guy. I wasn’t looking for one when I found yo
u. Don’t you think you can be faithful if I’m not right under your nose?”
“No, it’s none of that,” Sam said. I could see the frustration in his hands. “Your seeking God has been so much a part of our relationship. I want to be with you when you finally embrace Christ.”
I looked at him, long and hard. His chin was jutted out, his eyes fixed on me. He wanted to win.
And as far as I was concerned, this was no longer a debate.
I put my hand up to his face, and he put his up to hold it.
“Is that really it?” I said. “Or is it that you don’t think I’ll continue to seek if you aren’t here to guide me along?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I’m not saying you did. I’m asking you if that’s in there somewhere.”
He took his hand away and used it to rub the back of his neck.
“It is, isn’t it?” I said. “Sam, don’t lie to me. I have to know this.”
He looked down at his lap. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is.”
“Then I think that’s our answer.” I closed my eyes. “Choice D: You go to Illinois and find a woman you don’t have to wait for.”
“And what about you?” he said.
I had to fight back tears to answer him. “I’ll stay here…and find God.”
TWENTY-TWO
I was awake most of the night, listening to Mother’s soft, even breathing and whispering to the ceiling. I fell asleep not sure there would ever be answers. I woke up the next morning knowing there would be.
They came over the course of days—weeks.
I scheduled an appointment with Dr. McDonald for both Mother and me, so that he could observe her and give me his best guess on just how fast her disease was moving. He told us her behavior indicated that the frontal lobe was deteriorating more rapidly than with the majority of cases, but that she seemed less agitated and confused than almost any Pick’s patient he’d seen.
“How long will I be able to care for her at home with help?” I said. “Before she needs total professional care. I just need an estimate.”
He studied me for a while, until I thought his eyes began to swim.
“Eighteen months at the most,” he said finally.
“That’s all I need to know,” I said. I put my hand out. “Thanks so much for your time. I know these are hard questions to answer, but I needed to have an idea.”
“You call me anytime,” he said. He looked at Mother. “You’re a fortunate lady, Dr. McGavock.”
It was a statement that would have sent me through the ceiling six months before. Now it merely sent me to the ceiling. Looking there, I whispered, “Thanks.”
Monique, of course, tried to talk me out of taking my mother home, but once she realized I’d made up my mind and that I had everything arranged, she was on hand to see Mother off. Emily Murphy—Frosty—was there, too, sleepy-eyed but anxious to give Mother and me her best wishes.
“I admire your courage,” she said to me. “We all do.”
To Burl, who was of course there to haul Mother’s belongings back home, she said, “Thanks for all you’ve done around here. Can we call you if anything else needs fixing?”
“You have my number,” Burl said.
“Did I miss something, Mother?” I said to her as we drove off. “What is it with Burl? Does he even have a home, or does he just go from house to house doing repairs and then sleep in his truck?”
“South San Fran,” she said.
“What? He does not drive all the way down here every day from South City. Does he?”
I asked him that myself when he’d unloaded all Mother’s stuff and was having a cup of coffee in the kitchen. It was a little tough to have a conversation, with Max singing selections from Turandot at the top of his lungs while he made conchiglie with cream sauce, but I managed to get it out of Burl that he was born and raised in South San Francisco, though he now lived in Redwood City. As the oldest in the family, he grew up taking care of his brothers and sisters, particularly one brother who was slightly mentally retarded.
“I talked to him like I’d talk to anyone else,” Burl told me, “and any kid made fun of him knew he had me to reckon with.”
“What happened to him?” I said.
“He died in ’79—had leukemia on top of everything else. Doc McGavock took a special interest in his case. That’s how me and her—excuse me, her and me—” he gave me a solemn nod—“we got to know each other.”
He nodded at me again as if that explained everything sufficiently and went on sipping his coffee.
It was that way most evenings from then on—Max cooking and Burl puttering and sitting by the hour with Mother, talking or not. The nurse often stayed for supper, even though she was off at three. Dr. McDonald himself had recommended her—brought her out of early retirement, he said, because he wanted Dr. McGavock to have the best.
The nurse wore a cross and said a silent blessing before she ate and had a light-hearted aura about her that obviously didn’t come from crystals or the Tao. From the first hour, which she spent merely observing Mother and asking me questions, I had no desire to call her Freda. We called her Laura because, well, that was actually her name.
On Sunday nights, Tabitha joined us, too, basically to practice with Max, who was coaching her for her music school audition. If it was nice weather, she and I would end the session sharing the inevitable Doritos on the front porch, often with Mother on the other side of her, dipping her hand in and out of the bag.
I worked on my dissertation during the day while Laura was there, checking in over at Sloan once a day to pick up mail, and twice weekly I met with Nigel. Because I wasn’t teaching, I didn’t have office hours to keep, so I moved most of my stuff out of my office, under Jacoboni’s scrutiny.
“You’re a better person than I am,” he said to me the day I went in to get my final load.
“That’s common knowledge, Jacoboni,” I said. “You’re getting your doctorate, man. Show some original thought.”
“I love my grandfather, but there is no way I would leave this program with only months to go just to take care of him.”
“In the first place,” I said, “you love your grandfather’s money. In the second place, I’m not leaving the program. I’ve gotten an extension on my dissertation, and I’ll probably graduate in August, maybe December—it depends.”
“But you’re losing your funding, aren’t you?”
“In May, yes, but I don’t need it. I’ve given up my apartment at Escondido. I have a place to live and money to live on until I finish here and get a job. But I’m not looking that far into the future. It’s day to day in my situation.”
“Wait a minute. Hold on. Back the truck up and pull it over to the curb!” His face was actually flushed. “Did I just hear you say you were living one day at a time?”
“Something like that.”
“All right, let me see some ID.”
“What?”
“You can’t possibly be Jill McGavock. The Jill McGavock I know and love does not live for the moment.”
I couldn’t help smiling at him. “You may love me—in your own perverted little way—but you definitely do not know me.”
I hiked the box up on my hip and headed for the door.
“Well, here, at least let me get that for you,” he said.
He put out his arms to take the box. I pushed it toward him, but for a moment I didn’t let go, so that we were both standing there, hands touching at the bottom of the box, faces within inches of each other.
“You really can be kind of charming, Alan,” I said. “I hope I haven’t been too much of a witch to share an office with.”
If he was surprised, he covered it well. What he didn’t cover well was the sudden urge to drop the box and enfold me in some tight, too-long hug. But he knew better than to try.
I squeezed his hand and said, “Thanks for putting up with me. It couldn’t have been easy.”
“What wasn’t easy was me
keeping my hands off you, darlin’,” he said.
I left that hanging in the air and departed with my box. You’ve got him, I said to the ceiling. That case is way out of my league.
There were, of course, rough patches in all areas. One area that was nothing but rough was Sam. Ironic, I thought. The rest of my life had begun to fall into place because of divine answers, yet the one person who was most responsible for getting me to even ask the questions was out of my life.
The night we found Mother at the lab, he left the nursing home looking confused and frustrated. The next time I saw him was the day before spring break started. He came by the house while Burl and I were pulling weeds in the tulip bed, which meant I was in sloppy gym shorts and had my hair piled on top of my head, rooster fashion. I was the picture of well-groomed confidence all over.
He, on the other hand, stood with his hands in his pockets, as at ease as he’d been the first time I met him. Admittedly, it had been at least five weeks since our last conversation, but I thought he could have had the decency to look a little forlorn. I could feel my forgotten walls rebuilding themselves, bricks stacking up on fast-forward, but I punched the stop button on that. I had already lost Sam. I didn’t need to lose me again, too.
“What’s up?” I said.
“You got a minute?” he said. He glanced at Burl.
“Sure, but it’s a little crowded inside. Let’s go in the back. It’s nice by the koi pond.”
“Koi pond?” he said. “I thought you had that drained.”
“Burl filled it back up. There are enough of us here to make sure Mother doesn’t go for a swim.”
In the backyard I offered him a chaise longue and sank into one myself. I watched him as he folded his long, lean frame into a lawn chair, and I felt an old but familiar ache. The lanky body, the olive skin, the dark curly hair—they could still get to me. With any luck, he wouldn’t grin. One eye twinkle and I’d have thrown myself into the koi pond.
“So,” I said, “what can I do for you?”
He waited, as if he expected me to say more. When I didn’t, he tilted his head at me. “You look great,” he said.
“I’m sure I do,” I said. “Garden dirt’s a good look for me, don’t you think?”
