by Luanne Rice
“I don’t want to free myself,” I said bitterly, starting to cry. Free myself? From what? Did I want to put my grandmother away, bury her as deep as Honora? I imagined her sitting in a rest home, surrounded by other old people, the hum of air conditioning, the stink of urine.
“I do,” Nick said quietly.
My eyes flicked: traitor!
Dr. Cooke was writing on a pad. “These are the names and addresses of three good places. I sit on the board of the first, and I’m on the staff of all three. I’ll phone ahead, to tell them you’re coming for a look.”
“Don’t waste your time,” I said.
“Thank you,” Nick said.
We rode home in silence. Pem sat in back, gazing out the window. Had the landscape of Black Hall changed much since she and Granddamon had bought the property? She had told us about the men who had delivered fish, ice, and vegetables in their wagons. I tried to imagine our car as a horse and buggy, failed, turned on the radio.
Beth had Pem’s lunch ready when we got home. Nick and I took sandwiches outside to a shady spot near the rock jetty. Ever since seeing Dr. Cooke I had felt mad at Nick, but now I rested my head on his shoulder. Across the bay the Mackens were climbing into their daysailer. We had called to tell them what Dr. Cooke thought; they agreed with him. Clare waved to us; Nick waved back. The boat tossed as everyone took their places. Then Donald hoisted the white sail; it luffed, then filled, and the boat took off on a starboard reach.
“You know it’s the right thing to do,” Nick said.
“You mean loving you?” I asked, humming a little of Carly Simon’s song, stalling for time.
“I mean putting Pem in a rest home. It’s not fair to her, keeping her with us. She could injure herself very seriously,” he said, giving me the chance to be noble and at the same time deny the real reason.
“Nick,” I said, “when we put her in the rest home it won’t be for her sake—it will be for ours.” I felt so sleepy, I could hardly keep my eyes open. Nick stretched out his legs so I could lay my head in his lap. He covered me with his sweater. I fell asleep, and I dreamed of sweet things, of a warm summer day full of the sounds of children playing, of blue sky and fair weather clouds, of me and Nick pushing our baby around the bay in a white inner tube.
“AND HERE’S THE DINING room, and here’s the TV room,” the administrator of Steamboat Landing was saying. “We have special events every afternoon: bingo, travelogues, reading groups. . . .”
“Isn’t it cruel to have travelogues when they’ll never travel again?” I asked, thinking of places Pem had gone with Granddamon: Ireland, Rio de Janeiro, Paris, Cuba, Venice.
“Some of them enjoy reliving their memories,” the administrator said. “Others enjoy seeing places they’ve never visited.”
“Oh,” I said. The place gleamed, just like Honora’s hospital room. I heard Nick asking whether she could spend weekends and holidays with the family, whether she would have a roommate, whether she could have a choice at dinner. The answers seemed reasonable and positive. The place overlooked a perfect green lawn and a harbor beyond. It was neither better nor worse than I had imagined. It smelled of urine. The nurses were pleasant. I hated it.
“Come on, let’s go,” I said.
“We do have a space available; she could be admitted right away,” the administrator said. “Space at Steamboat Landing is very tight, but Dr. Cooke said to consider your grandmother an emergency.” The administrator was squat and round. His belt circled his body at its exact midpoint. He smiled happily. “It’s a hard decision,” he said, knowing we would make it wisely.
“Can we talk it over?” Nick asked.
“Certainly,” the administrator said, taking a giant step in the opposite direction.
“It’s fine,” I said.
“We haven’t seen the others,” Nick said.
“I can’t take seeing any more. Sign the papers and let’s get out of here,” I said, wondering, if I couldn’t take seeing any more nursing homes, how Pem could take living in one.
“You can bring her anytime after noon tomorrow,” the administrator said after Nick told him “Yes.” “Give us a list of her preferences, and we’ll see that she’s taken care of.”
Our ride home was bleak. There was nothing to say. The day was clear as only a sunny September day can be. Wedding bells tolled for a couple standing on the sidewalk leading to the chapel where Nick and I had been married, but I heard the death knell and thought of Honora’s funeral. I felt as though I had just made an appointment to have a beloved dog put to sleep.
“What do you want to have for dinner?” Nick asked.
“I don’t care,” I said.
“This is going to be a special dinner,” Nick said. “I want it to be.”
“Nick, it’s too sad—let’s not commemorate it any more than we have to.”
At home I called Clare, to tell her the news and to invite her, Donald, and the boys for dinner. Pem was napping; I felt glad, because I didn’t want to see her again. I wished I could fall asleep, wake up, have someone tell me it was taken care of. Nick paid Beth. “You’re doing the right thing,” she said, but there were tears in her eyes. “We had to put my grandmother in a home,” she said. “Everyone hated it. It was the worst thing we’ve ever had to do. It takes real courage.”
Her words hardened my heart. They made bile rise in my gorge. Beth Wilton’s statement symbolized the reason Honora had prided herself on keeping Pem at home. No one ever claims it is easy to send an old person to a home. The heart of the person most eager to be free of an incontinent mother or a senile father aches when the time comes to send them away. We had seen it happen to Aunt Kat’s son, Aunt Gert’s daughters. Did the fact that they had sent their parents to nursing homes mean they loved them less? Of course not. Did the fact that Honora had kept Pem at home mean she loved Pem more? Honora thought so, and so had we.
Nick said he would cook dinner that night. I took a walk far out on the peninsula and sat with my feet in the water. The sun was setting earlier every day. I looked across the Sound, at the water tower on Plum Island. It glowed like fire for that instant; then the sun set a little more, and the water tower was just dull metal. I thought of what Clare had said to the Swift Observer, of how Honora wouldn’t want us taking as good care of Pem as she had. It was true. I knew it. She would sacrifice Pem to the nursing home, just so Clare and I wouldn’t take her place in Pem’s affections. It turned into a big conspiracy in my mind. Sitting there, looking across the water, I was counting Honora’s manipulations, her wily ways of keeping each of us for herself so that she got the best of us and others in the family got what was left over. God, I longed to confront her. If the cemetery were nearer, I would have kicked her gravestone.
“Hi,” Clare said, startling me.
“Hi.”
“Nick told me you were out here. He and the guys are having a big game of fluorescent Frisbee, and Pem is home base.”
“Don’t tell me that. I don’t want tonight to turn into one long, poignant goodbye.”
“Don’t you think that’s inevitable? This is very hard.”
“Wait till you see the home. It reeks of sincerity. ‘Oh, we’ll take such good care of your loved one—by the way, what’s her name?’ ”
“Does she know she’s going?” Clare asked.
“Not yet. I don’t want her to worry all night. I’ll tell her tomorrow morning. Nick’s taking the day off to help me.”
“I’ll help too. I have to admit, it came as a big shock when you called me today. I didn’t even know Pem had sprained her ankle. You should have called me before you went to Dr. Cooke.”
“Well, I didn’t think it would turn into such a big thing. He practically railroaded us into visiting the home. Are we doing the right thing, Clare?”
“Yes,” she said. Then she laughed a little, and I laughed too. “‘Are we doing the right thing?’ ” she asked in a Providence accent, and I knew she was imitating one of the gre
at-aunts’ children.
“Won’t it be a barrel full of monkeys without her here?” I asked. “Just think of the fun things we can do—go shopping in Hartford at a moment’s notice, plan a dinner party without worrying if Pem’s going to say something embarrassing. . . .”
“Just like when Honora was alive,” Clare said.
Then it had been really perfect. The family had been together, and Honora had had responsibility for Pem. The rest of us had simply enjoyed her company. Her company, I now knew, was a great deal easier to take when one was in it for only an hour or two a day.
“Dinner!” Nick called, his strong voice carrying across the bay.
“Come on,” Clare said, and we walked home holding hands.
Candles flickered in the breeze blowing through the open windows. A platter of summer’s last corn sat on the table. Smoke from the grill wafted in. “Can we please have some light?” Pem asked, gazing pointedly at the lamp hanging above the table.
“We have candles, Pem,” Nick said.
“I like to see what I’m eating,” she said. She took her second ear of corn.
“We love corn, don’t we, Euge?” Casey said, nudging his brother.
“Yeah.”
“Aunt Georgie, can we talk on the tape recorder?” Casey asked. “Mommy said you’d let us.”
“Sorry,” Clare said, grinning.
“Of course,” I said, even though I hadn’t thought of it before. The idea gave me the chance to escape; I could be the Swift Observer instead of Georgiana. I could view the scene with detachment. My eyes could view Pem coolly, instead of filled with tears. She ate her corn with such gusto, butter dripping down her chin. Would they serve her corn at Steamboat Landing? Would it be native, just-picked that same day? I looked around the table. Nick had moved his chair closer to Pem’s, to fill the space where Honora’s place had been. Soon Clare would have to move in from the other side, to fill the space where Pem now sat. In a year they could push apart again, to make room for the baby’s high chair. I had to look away.
Eugene Swift Macken & Clarence Bennison Macken
“We have so many grandparents we don’t know! And we’re almost sick of hearing stories about them. Because it’s weird to hear stories about people you know were real but you’re never going to meet. Like our grandfather who drowned in the sea, and our great-great-grandfather who was an Indian, our grandmother who lived in China when she was little. She was Daddy’s mommy. We don’t visit any of Daddy’s relatives.
“At the beginning of summer we saw an octopus. Granny saw it too. It had eight tentacles that moved around a lot, and she said it wouldn’t eat us. We miss Granny. She got mad on the Fourth of July. The fireworks were long and red.”
“I WAS BORN in the land of Uncle Sam, the good old U.S.A.!” Pem sang at the mention of the Fourth of July.
“Pem loves the Fourth,” Donald said.
“Maybe we should clear the table,” I said. “Thank you very much for recording your message,” I said to Eugene and Casey.
“Is it going to go on the radio?” Eugene asked.
“No,” I said.
“How come Pem is the only one who won’t talk?” Eugene asked.
“Give me that thing,” Pem said, and she grabbed the microphone. She stared at it long and hard, as if it were an ice cream cone she wanted to eat. Finally Nick held it, and Pem began to talk.
Penitence Isabel Bennison
“I shall tell you the story of my life. I was born in the land of Uncle Sam, the good old U.S.A. We lived in Providence, Rhode Island. I worked at the hosiery when I was a girl, and I loved to go to Aunt Florence’s, at Silver Lake. She had a big basement kitchen with windows that went all the length of the house. And a window seat! We used to put on our skates in the kitchen, then walk right out on the ice. Could my aunts skate! My aunts could do anything on skates. They did the Grapevine, the Covered Bridge, even the Vienna Waltz. We would eat hot apple pie in the snow. And then, you know, the Grand Trunk Railroad bought up all those places out by the lake. They filled in the lake, and they never even went through. That was such a shame. I never forgot that. My aunt had a basement kitchen with windows that ran all the length of the house. . . .
“I hated school, but I won a reading medal. Gert was jealous and she was hitting me, so I put a bean in her ear, and the doctor had to take it out her nose. She was a pain in the neck. All the contestants had to read in front of all the principals of every school in Providence, and I was the one they chose. I had malaria then, and every other day I threw up. The only way I could feel better was to put my cheek on the cool grass. I was too sick to go to school, but I had to go anyway.
“I had my ninth birthday on the boat from England. No, that was Ma. I must have had my ninth birthday in Providence. When I married Damon, he took me to Connecticut. Everyone said to me, ‘Oh, you’ll never like Connecticut,’ but I did! Everyone in Connecticut was nice to me! We had such lovely neighbors. I can’t remember who they were, but they were lovely. I had a daughter, Honora. I remember her, all right!
“One of our neighbors, Martha Tobin, was a pain in the neck. She had all the money in the world, and do you think she’d have anyone to her house? She was always coming over for a meal. She was a chiseler. Oh, Lord, we’d see her coming through the gate every night at seven o’clock. Honora would never pull the shades or pretend we weren’t home. Martha Tobin was one pain in the neck, and Father Lavery was another. Martha Tobin always thought her view was so wonderful. She thought she had the nicest view in Black Hall.
“You know, so many people say to me, ‘Where can you see Long Island Sound from your house?’ And they’re looking right at it! It’s funny.
“So many people say to me, ‘What do you do to your brows?’ It’s funny! My hair turned gray when I was only thirty years old, but my brows stayed dark. They don’t believe you; they call you a liar. I had Honora when I was only twenty-seven years old. Honora was my only daughter. And you’re her daughters. Clare and Georgie. Georgie, porgie, pudding and pie . . . heh, heh.
“Honora was a good daughter. I miss her very, very much. When you have a daughter, so many people say to you, ‘Oh, don’t you wish you had a son?’ But I never did. I only wanted Honora. She had straight brown hair, and when she was very young, she learned to play the piano. Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do . . . she could play the Vienna Waltz, all our favorite songs. She loved school. Sometimes I’d ask her if she didn’t have a little sore throat, something that would make her stay home from school, but she always wanted to go. She was a very neat girl. Her bookcovers were as neat as could be. ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP . . . P for Penitence!
“Damon and I were very proud when she became the weather girl. We couldn’t see her on our set here, so we would drive to Providence, where they could pick up the New Bedford station. Wendy Swift—that was her stage name. Wendy Swift. She had two little girls, and you are those little girls. Your grandfather would smash anyone who asked him if we wished you were boys.
“I can’t believe Damon is gone, and I can’t believe Honora is gone. Every night I pray for them. I love them very, very much. I’m the old grandmother, alone with her granddaughters and grandsons and great-grandsons, and I love you all very, very much.”
21
PEM WAS OLD. THAT WAS HER ONLY PROBLEM. That night I lay awake making magical arrangements: if only Pem were ten years younger. If only Honora were alive. The rest of us could stay the same. Nick slept beside me. His gentle breathing was as rhythmic as the waves. My hand moved under the white sheet, came to rest on my belly. I felt crazed with sorcery, prepared to deal with the Fates: my baby in return for the Point as it had been at the beginning of summer.
What if Rumpelstiltskin had confronted me in June, said, “Give me your firstborn, and I’ll let you keep Pem and Honora”? I pictured him humpbacked and hook-nosed: Pem in disguise. With a Providence accent and a leather jerkin, a whalebone walking stick, and a bag of fool’s gold, he was waiting for my answer. Aft
er I told him no, he let me roll over and go to sleep.
PEM SAT VERY STILL as Clare and I told her she had to go live at Steamboat Landing.
“You’ve been hurting yourself, Pem,” I said. “They’ll take better care of you there.”
Her lips tight, she shook her head. Her white hair was proud and wild, and looking through it to her scaly scalp, I felt relieved that I wouldn’t have to touch it again.
“It’s true,” Clare said. “And of course you can come home on weekends and for vacations. You’ll have people around all the time—you’ll make a lot of nice friends.”
“Dr. Cooke will be there. You like Dr. Cooke, don’t you?” I asked, but Pem refused to answer. She was giving us the silent treatment. All that morning she sat on the sofa, refusing to look me or Clare in the eyes. We were her betrayers. Sobs choked me every time I passed her, so I avoided the living room.
The afternoon was brilliant and windy; September 21, the first day of autumn. I packed Pem’s bag while Clare marked her clothes with an indelible marker. I used a cheap vinyl suitcase, one no one would miss if it were stolen. Beth had told me thefts were common in nursing homes. I packed Pem’s pajamas, her dresses, her toothbrush, some lipstick, and pictures of Honora, Timothy, Clare, Donald, Eugene, Casey, Nick, me, Granddamon and Pem at their wedding, Granddamon in his Navy uniform, the great-aunts and -uncles on our porch one Fourth of July, and a family photo Nick had taken with the timer last Christmas.
