The Visiting Privilege

by Joy Williams

  This had been going on for a while. In the summer Lenore had been diagnosed and condemned but she kept bouncing back, as the doctors put it, until recently. The daisies that bloomed in the fall down by the storm-split elm had come and gone, even the little kids at Halloween. Thanksgiving had passed without comment and it would be Christmas soon. Lenore was ignoring it. The boxes of balls and lights were in the cellar, buried deep. Helen had made the horrible mistake of asking her what she wanted for Christmas one night and Lenore had said, “Are you stupid?” Then she said, “Oh, I don’t mean to be so impatient, it’s the medicine, my voice doesn’t even sound right. Does my voice sound right? Get me something you’ll want later. A piece of jewelry or something. Do you want the money for it?” She meant this sincerely.

  At the beginning they had talked eagerly like equals. This was more important than a wedding, this preparation. They even laughed like girls remembering things together. They remembered when Helen was a little girl before the divorce and they were all driving somewhere and Helen’s father was stopped for speeding and Lenore wanted her picture taken with the policeman and Helen had taken it. “Wasn’t that mean!” Lenore said to Helen.

  When Lenore died, Helen would go down to Florida and live with her father. “I’ve never had the slightest desire to visit Florida,” Lenore said. “You can have it.”

  At the beginning death was giving them the opportunity to be interesting. This was something special. There was only one crack at this. But then they lost sight of it somehow. It became a lesser thing, more terrible. Its meaning crumbled. They began waiting for it. Terrible, terrible. Lenore had friends but they called now, they didn’t come over so much. “Don’t come over,” Lenore would tell them, “it wears me out.” Little things started to go wrong with the house, leaks and lights. The bulb in the kitchen would flutter when the water was turned on. Helen grew fat for some reason. The dog, their dog, began to change. He grew shy. “Do you think he’s acting funny,” Lenore asked Helen.

  She did not tell Helen that the dog had begun growling at her. It was a secret growl; he never did it in front of anyone else. He had taken to carrying one of her slippers around with him. He was almost never without it. He cherished her slipper.

  “Do you remember when I put Grecian Formula on his muzzle because he turned gray so young?” Lenore said. “He was only about a year old and began to turn gray? The things I used to do. The way I spent my time.”

  But now she did not know what to do with time at all. It seemed more expectant than ever. One couldn’t satisfy it, one could never do enough for it.

  She was so uneasy.

  Lenore had a dream in which she wasn’t dying at all. Someone else had died. People had told her this over and over again. And now they were getting tired of reminding her, impatient.

  She had a dream of eating bread and dying. Two large loaves. Pounds of it, still warm from the oven. She ate it all, she was so hungry, starving! But then she died. It was the bread. It was too hot, was the explanation. There were people in her room but she was not among them.

  When she woke, she could feel the hot, gummy, almost liquid bread in her throat, scalding it. She lay in bed on her side, her dark eyes open. It was four o’clock in the morning. She swung her legs to the floor. The dog growled at her. He slept in her room with her slipper but he growled as she went past him. Sometimes self-pity would rise within her and she would stare at the dog, tears in her eyes, listening to him growl. The more she stared, the more sustained was his soft growl.

  She had a dream about a tattoo. This was a pleasant dream. She was walking away and she had the most beautiful tattoo covering her shoulders and back, even the backs of her legs. It was unspeakably fine.

  Helen had a dream that her mother wanted a tattoo. She wanted to be tattooed all over, a full custom bodysuit, but no one would do it. Helen woke up protesting this, grunting and cold. She had kicked off her blankets. She pulled them up and curled tightly beneath them. There was a boy at school who had gotten a tattoo and now they wouldn’t let him play basketball.

  In the morning Lenore said, “Would you get a tattoo with me? We could do this together. I don’t think it’s creepy,” she added. “I think you’ll be glad later. A pretty one, just small somewhere. What do you think?” The more she considered it, the more it seemed the perfect thing to do. What else could be done? She’d already given Helen her wedding ring.

  “I’ll get him to come over here, to the house. I’ll arrange it,” Lenore said. Helen couldn’t defend herself against this notion. She still felt sleepy, she was always sleepy. There was something wrong with her mother’s idea but not much.

  Then Lenore could not arrange it. When Helen returned from school, her mother said, “It can’t be done. I’m so upset and I’ve lost interest so I’ll give you the short version. I called…I must have made twenty calls. At last I got someone to speak to me. His name was Smokin’ Joe and he was a hundred miles away but sounded as though he’d do it. And I asked him if there was any place he didn’t tattoo, and he said faces, dicks and hands.”

  “Mom!” Helen said. Her face reddened.

  “And I asked him if there was anyone he wouldn’t tattoo, and he said drunks and the dying. So that was that.”

  “But you didn’t have to tell him. You won’t have to tell him,” Helen said.

  “That’s true,” Lenore said dispiritedly. Then she looked angrily at Helen. “Are you crazy? Sometimes I think you’re crazy!”

  “Mom!” Helen said, crying. “I want you to do what you want.”

  “This was my idea, mine!” Lenore said. The dog gave a high, nervous bark. “Oh dear,” Lenore said, “I’m speaking too loudly.” She smiled at him as if to say how clever both of them were to realize this.

  That night Lenore could not sleep. There were no dreams, nothing. High clouds swept slowly past the window. She got up and went into the living room, to the desk there. She looked with distaste at all the objects in this room. There wasn’t one thing here she’d want to take with her to the grave, not one. The dog had shuffled out of the bedroom with her and now lay at her feet, the slipper in his mouth, a red one with a little bow. She wanted to make note of a few things, clarify some things. She took out a piece of paper. The furnace turned on and she heard something moving behind the walls. “Enjoy it while you can,” she said. She sat at the desk, her back very straight, waiting for something. After a while she looked at the dog. “Give me that,” she said. “Give me that slipper.” He growled but did not leave her side. She took a pen and wrote on the paper, When I go, the dog goes. Promise me this. She left it out for Helen.

  Then she thought, That dog is the dumbest one I’ve ever had. I don’t want him with me. She was amazed she could still think like this. She tore up the piece of paper. “Lenore!” she cried, and wrung her hands. She wanted herself. Her mind ran stumbling, panting, through dark twisted woods.

  When Helen got up she would ask her to make some toast. Toast would taste good. Helen would press the Good Morning letters on the bread. It was a gadget, like a cookie cutter. When the bread was toasted, the words were pressed down into it and you dribbled honey into them.

  In the morning Helen did this carefully, as she always had. They sat together at the kitchen table and ate the toast. Sleet struck the windows. Helen looked at her toast dreamily, the letters golden against the almost black. They both liked their toast almost black.

  Lenore felt peaceful. But it was a cruelty to feel peaceful, a cruelty to Helen.

  “Turn on the radio,” Lenore said, “and find out if they’re going to cancel school.” If Helen stayed home today she would talk to her. Important things would be said. Things that would still matter years and years from now.

  Callers on a talk show were speaking about wolves. “There should be wolf control,” someone said, “not wolf worship.”

  “Oh, I hate these people,” Helen said.

  “Are you a wolf worshiper,” her mother asked. “Watch out.”
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  “I believe they have the right to live too,” Helen said fervently. Then she was sorry. Everything she said was wrong. She moved the dial on the radio. School would not be canceled. They never canceled it.

  “There’s a stain on that blouse,” her mother said. “Why do your clothes always look so dingy? You should buy some new clothes.”

  “I don’t want any new clothes,” Helen said.

  “You can’t wear mine, that’s not the way to think. I’ve got to get rid of them. Maybe that’s what I’ll do today. I’ll go through them with Jean. It’s Jean who comes today, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t want your clothes!”

  “Why not? Not even the sweaters?”

  Helen’s mouth trembled.

  “Oh, what are we going to do!” Lenore said. She clawed at her cheeks. The dog barked.

  “Mom, Mom,” Helen said.

  “We’ve got to talk, I want to talk,” Lenore said. What would happen to Helen, her little girl…

  Helen saw the stain her mother had noticed on the blouse. Where had it come from? It had just appeared. She would change if she had time.

  “When I die, I’m going to forget you,” Lenore began. This was so obvious, this wasn’t what she meant. “The dead just forget you. The most important things, all the loving things, everything we…” She closed her eyes, then opened them with effort. “I want to put on some lipstick today,” she said. “If I don’t, tell me when you come home.”

  Helen left just in time to catch the bus. Some of her classmates stood by the curb, hooded, hunched. It was bitter out.

  In the house, Lenore looked at the dog. There were only so many dogs in a person’s life and this was the last one in hers. She’d like to kick him. But he had changed when she’d gotten sick, he hadn’t been like this before. He was bewildered. He didn’t like it—death—either. She felt sorry for him. She went back into her bedroom and he followed her with the slipper.

  At nine, the first in a number of nurse’s aides and companions arrived. By three it was growing dark again. Helen returned before four.

  “The dog needs a walk,” her mother said.

  “It’s so icy out, Mom, he’ll cut the pads of his feet.”

  “He needs to go out!” her mother screamed. She wore a little lipstick and sat in a chair wringing her hands.

  Helen found the leash and coaxed the dog to the door. He looked out uneasily into the cold, wet blackness. They moved out into it a few yards to a bush he had killed long before and he dribbled a few drops of urine onto it. They walked a little farther, across the dully shining yard toward the street. It was still, windless. The air made a hissing sound. “Come on,” Helen said, “don’t you want to do something?” The dog walked stoically along. Helen’s eyes began to water with the cold. Her mother had said, “I want Verdi played at the service, Scriabin, no hymns.” Helen had sent away for some recordings. How else could it be accomplished, the Verdi, the Scriabin…Once she had called her father and said, “What should we do for Mom?”

  “Where have you been!” her mother said when they got back. “My god, I thought you’d been hit by a truck.”

  They ate supper, macaroni and cheese, something one of the women had prepared. Lenore ate without speaking and then looked at the empty plate.

  “Do you want some more, Mom,” Helen asked.

  “One of those girls that comes, she says she’ll take the dog,” Lenore said.

  Helen swallowed. “I think it would be good,” she said.

  “That’s it, then. She’ll take him tomorrow.”

  “Is she just going to see how it works out or what?”

  “No, she wants him. She lives in an iffy neighborhood and the dog, you know, can be impressive when he wants. I think better now than later. He’s only five, five next month.” She knew the dog’s birthday. She laughed at this.

  The next day, when Helen came home from school the dog was gone. His bowls were gone from the corner near the sink.

  “At least I have my slipper back,” Lenore said. She had it in her hand, the red slipper.

  Helen was doing her homework. She was a funny kid, Lenore thought, there she was doing her homework.

  “It’s almost over for me,” Lenore said. “I’m at the end of my life.”

  Helen looked up. “Mom,” she said.

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “I’m a nihilist,” Helen said. “That’s what I’m going to be.”

  “You can’t think you’re going to be a nihilist,” her mother said. “Are you laughing at me? Don’t you dare laugh at me. I’m still your mother.” She shook her fist.

  “Mom, Mom,” Helen said, “I’m not laughing.” She began to cry.

  “Don’t cry,” Lenore said dully.

  Helen looked down at her textbook. She had underlined everything on one page. Everything! Stupid…She’d be stupid in Florida too, she thought. She could think about Florida only by being here with her mother. Otherwise Florida didn’t really exist.

  Lenore said, “God is nothing. OK? That’s Meister Eckhart. But whatever is not God is nothing and ought to be accounted as nothing. OK? That’s someone else.”

  Helen didn’t speak.

  “I wasn’t born yesterday,” her mother said. “That’s why I know these things. I wasn’t even born last night.” She laughed. It was snowing again. It had been snowing freshly for hours. First sleet, then colder, then this snow.

  “Helen,” her mother said, “would you get me a snowball? Go out and make me one and bring it back.”

  Helen got up and went outside as though hypnotized. Sometimes she behaved like this, as though she were an unwilling yet efficient instrument. She could have thoughts and not think them. She was protected, at the same time she was helping her mother do her job, the job being this peculiar business.

  The snow was damp and lovely. Huge flakes softly struck her face and felt like living things. She went past the bush the dog had liked, pushed her hands deeply into the snow and made a snowball for her mother, perfect as an orange.

  Lenore studied this. “This is good snow, isn’t it?” she said. “Perfect snow.” She packed it tighter and threw it across the room at Helen. It hit her squarely in the chest.

  “Oh!” Lenore exclaimed.

  “That hurt, Mom,” Helen said.

  “Oh, you…” Lenore said. “Get me another.”

  “No!” Helen said. The thing had felt like a rock. Her breasts hurt. Her mother was grinning avidly at her.

  “Get two, come on,” her mother said. “We’ll have a snowball fight in the house. Why not!”

  “No!” Helen said. “This is…you’re just pretending…”

  Lenore looked at her. She pulled her bathrobe tighter around herself. “I’m going to go to bed,” she said.

  “Do you want me to make some tea?” Helen said. “Let me make some tea.”

  “Tea, tea,” Lenore mimicked. “What will you drink in Florida? You’ll drink iced tea.”

  That night Lenore dreamed she was on a boat with others. A white boat in clear, lovely water. They were moving quickly but there was a banging sound, arrhythmic, incessant, sad, it was sad. It’s the banger, they said, the fish too big for the box, that’s what we call them. Let it go, Lenore begged. Too late now, they said, too late for it now.

  “Lenore!” she cried. She went into Helen’s room. Helen slept with the light on, her radio playing softly, books scattered on her bed.

  “Sleep with me,” her mother said.

  Helen shrank back. “I can’t, please,” she said.

  “My god, you won’t lie down with me!” her mother said. She had things from Helen’s childhood still—little nightgowns, coloring books, valentines.

  “All right, all right,” Helen said. Her eyes were wild, she looked blinded.

  “No, all right, forget it,” Lenore said. She shook her head from side to side, panting. Helen’s room was almost bare. There were no pictures, no pretty things, not even a mirror. Plastic wa
s stapled to the window frames to keep out the cold. When had this happened? Lenore wondered. Tomorrow, she thought. She shouldn’t try to say anything at night. Words at night were feral things. She limped back to her room. Her feet were swollen, discolored, water oozed from them. She would hide them. But where would she hide them? She sat up in bed, the pillows heaped behind her back, and watched them. They became remote, indecipherable.

  It became morning again. Mother…Earth…said someone on the radio.

  “An egg,” Helen asked. “Do you want an egg this morning?”

  “You should get your hair cut today,” Lenore said. “Go to the beauty parlor.”

  “Oh, Mom, it’s all right.”

  “Get it trimmed or something. It needs something.”

  “But nobody will be here with you,” Helen said. “You’ll be home by yourself.”

  “Go after school. I can take care of myself for an hour. Something wouldn’t happen in an hour, do you think?” Lenore felt sly saying this. Then she said, “I want you to look pretty, to feel good about yourself.”

  “I really hate those places,” Helen said.

  “Can’t you do anything for me!” Lenore said.

  Helen got off the bus at a shopping mall on the way back from school. “I don’t have a reservation,” she told the woman at the desk.

  “You mean an appointment,” the woman said. “You don’t have an appointment.”