Mother shifted again. William tried not to think about the way the full-sized sofa looked like a love seat with her in it, but the thought slipped through his defenses. Sometimes, however much he tried, the thoughts came—mean and cruel thoughts about Mother—and they made him sick. She looked up at him with her kind eyes, and he wanted to cry.
“Is Julia coming back for dinner?” she asked.
“No, Mother.”
“She seemed cross earlier. I hope it wasn’t something I did ...”
“No, Mother, of course not. When did she leave? Did she change you before she left?”
Mother hated having to talk about that, but it was necessary. Once she lost the ability to walk herself to the bathroom, she had to use bedpans. After her weight kept steadily increasing, William had to devise other solutions because she couldn’t move enough to use the pans. She hated the adult diapers, but William didn’t know what else to do.
“She left around 4:30, I guess.”
“And did she change you?”
“Yes, yes. Sure. Is everything alright with you two?”
“Yeah, Julia just had to go back to work for a bit. She’s got a deadline coming up and they want her to get it finished up.”
His mother seemed satisfied with his lies, so she patted his knee and turned her attention back to the television. Wheel of Fortune was on, and that was her favorite game show. As he rose and made his way to the kitchen, she said, “Why don’t you just make something quick and easy? What about spaghetti? We haven’t had spaghetti in a while.”
He went to the kitchen and put a pot of water on the stove to boil. He leaned against the counter and pressed his hands tight against his mouth, just barely catching himself as a sudden sobbing wracked his body. He slid down to the floor and let the tears come. He thought about Julia, about their wedding—Mother had been there, beautiful in a pastel green dress, back when she was still walking. He thought about buying their first home together, and how the kitchen—this kitchen—used to always smell like vanilla and fresh-baked cookies and ... and her. Julia was the vanilla and the cinnamon and the spice. Now the kitchen smelled like stale urine, like the rest of the house.
William took a deep breath and wiped the stinging tears from his eyes. He still wept as he carried out the trash, telling himself that getting rid of the offending bag would improve the smell. It made no difference. He cooked their noodles in silence, stopping to wipe his eyes every so often. The sauce would not be some doctored creation, as it was when Julia cooked. Instead, it came straight from the jar; neither of them would notice. He carried the plates into the living room, sat beside Mother, and ate from a TV tray. A mindless primetime detective show droned on, and with it the ragged sounds of Mother’s breathing.
She drifted off sometime before ten o’clock. William had changed her, and helped her brush her teeth (it was nothing compared to the ways she had cared for him for all those years), and turned the channel to Jay Leno, her favorite late-night show. He did the dishes and balanced his checkbook. And when she was asleep, he kissed her damp forehead, took another Xanax, and went to the bedroom to call Julia.
She answered on the second ring.
“What do you want, Will?”
He stopped chewing the nail of his pinkie finger long enough to say, “I want you to come home, Jules ... I love you. Whatever this is, we can work it out, y’know?”
There was no response. He checked to see if the call had dropped. It hadn’t. Finally, she sighed. “Will, I’ve really tried. I have. And I really did love you ... but I can’t live like that anymore.”
“What do you mean, ‘did’? Huh? What’s that supposed to mean? You don’t love me anymore, is that what you’re trying to say?”
He heard her inhale. Pause. A forceful exhale. He could imagine her somewhere, in the dark, a cigarette perched in the V of her fingers. She’d quit when Mother had to move in with them. She had to, with Mother’s respiratory problems.
“No,” she said. “And even if I did, I think I’d be tired of always coming in second place to your mother.”
“She’s sick, Jules.”
A bitter chuckle. “Will, that woman will outlive us both.”
William swallowed his anger and looked at the vacant half of his bed. “So that’s it, then? You won’t come home?”
“It’s not my home anymore, Will. I’m sorry. I have to go. Good luck.”
He considered calling her again. Begging. Promising to put mother in a home ... anything, just to have her back. Instead, he took two more Xanax. Women would come and go, but family—
He jolted awake, his phone ringing incessantly. As he answered, he glanced at his clock—11:49 a.m. It was Krieger on the phone—a pockmarked, officious little schmuck from HR. Was there something wrong with William’s health, he wondered, that could make him almost four hours late for work? Didn’t he know he was letting his “team” down by not being there? William apologized profusely. He showered, shaved, and was halfway out the door before realizing that he still had to change Mother.
By the time he got to work, everyone in his department was off to lunch. He needed to call the nurse to check in on Mother, but with everything that was going on, he thought it wiser to look busy for his coworkers whenever they came back. He could call the nurse later. With everyone gone to lunch, the building was quiet. William relished the silence, and found plenty of work to keep his mind and his hands busy. He rolled through processing his first seven claims—going into the files, correcting them, calling the providers to confirm—and was looking over his eighth when Potts called him to his office. Mr. Potts, William’s immediate supervisor, had spoken to Mr. Krieger and the two of them were very concerned with William’s performance. Didn’t William realize the kind of bind he was leaving his “team” in? William apologized, but Potts just kept staring at him. By the time he was allowed to return to his cubicle, William needed another Xanax. He struggled through another four claims, but his heart wasn’t in it. When he left for his appointment with Dr. Heaton, he could feel his coworkers staring at him. He could hear them whispering, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. His shirt was soaked through with sweat by the time he reached his car, and his hands shook when he tried to slide the key into the ignition.
In the safety of Dr. Heaton’s office, he ranted about the way that work made him feel. He asked if he needed a stronger prescription, because the pills just weren’t doing it for him anymore. He told the sympathetic doctor about his conversation with Julia, and about the end of his seven-year marriage. And, in a moment of acute weakness, he told Dr. Heaton that he was in love with her.
Dr. Heaton looked up from her notebook, cleared her throat, and said, “Tell me more about that.” William did. He told her how safe he felt with her, and how wonderful it was to have someone to listen to him. He told her that she was beautiful (a lie, but one born out of kindness), and that he often thought about her, at night, when he was alone (a truth, though a recent one). And as he talked he slowly began to realize that Dr. Heaton’s features had not changed. There was no grand blooming of emotion, no welling of grateful tears, no swooning from his romantic confessions.
“I think,” she said at last, “that you’re feeling very lonely, William, and very vulnerable. And I think that’s very understandable. It’s important to remember, though, that our relationship is a professional one. And it would make me more comfortable if you could keep that in mind in our future sessions.”
The wind had taken a cold turn while he was inside, and William drew in upon himself for warmth as he shuffled back to his car. He got in and started the engine. The radio blared the voice of a cheerful D.J. raving over the customer service he’d received from a local flooring outlet. William turned the radio off. He punched the dashboard until his fists ached, and cursed himself for being an idiot. In our future sessions, she’d said. Like he could ever look her in the eyes again. Like he could ever come back without thinking about the things he’d said, an
d the way she’d batted him aside like a gnat. He cursed loudly, scaring an elderly homeless man on the sidewalk, and drove away from Dr. Heaton’s office. He did not look back.
He opened his front door with the familiar greeting. He received no response. In a panic, William rushed around the corner to find Mother sleeping, slack-jawed, on the couch. He got a paper towel to wipe her chin, and gently shook her awake.
“Willy? Where were you? I was so worried ... I was all alone. Willy, I didn’t know when anyone was going to be back.” She started coughing, a thick, wet cough.
William ground his teeth. I forgot to call the nurse ... Jesus Christ, I forgot the nurse!
“Mother, I’m so sorry. There must’ve been a mistake. I’ll get the nurse, okay? How are you feeling? That cough sounds terrible.”
“Oh, Willy ... my sweet Willy ... I’m alright now that you’re here.”
After William changed Mother and got her cleaned up, he made a meatloaf. While it was in the oven, he called Lois Gilder, Mother’s nurse, and set up times for her to stop by throughout the day whenever William was at work. He’d asked Mother about her nurse when she moved in, but she waved off his questions by saying, “Oh, you know how doctors are. They’re just fussin’ over my scar on account of how it hasn’t healed up right. Everything’s fine.”
He picked at his dinner, still sick inside that he’d forgotten Mother, that he’d been so selfish. He helped Mother get ready for bed, scrubbed the stains out of the laundry, and went to his bedroom. He curled up into a fetal position under the sheets—appreciating the dark and the closeness—with his cell phone pressed to his ear. The Trident National automated switchboard picked up, and he dialed the appropriate mailbox. After Potts’s generic recorded message, William said, “Hi, Mr. Potts. Um, I’m really sorry but something’s come up with my mother’s health, and ... she needs me. So I can’t come in tomorrow. I might not be in on Friday, either. I’ll let you know. I’m really sorry.”
Nurse Gilder came at noon the next day. After checking Mother over and helping to give her a sponge bath, she took William aside. They went into the kitchen, and William offered her an iced tea. When she refused, William continued to pour a glass for himself.
“I know what you’re going to say, and you can forget it. I’m not sending her off to die in some nursing home somewhere,” he said with a calm in his voice that he did not feel.
“Oh, the time for that is passed, Mr. Baker. I honestly don’t know how we could get your mother out of this house, short of knocking down a wall.”
William frowned. “Y’know, that kind of talk isn’t necessary, alright? We both know that Mother’s overweight. There’s no reason to be cruel.”
Nurse Gilder said, “I’m not being cruel, Mr. Baker. I’m being practical. Your mother must weigh between six and seven hundred pounds. She should have been in a home long before now, but, at your insistence, she’s stayed here. Now it’s too late.”
William was stunned by the pronouncement, but he said, “Well, it’s not like you can do anything that I can’t do. I’m her son. Do you mean to tell me that you think you could care for my mother more than I do?”
The nurse looked down at her hands and said, “Mr. Baker, your mother’s problem is not about obesity. Your mother has cancer.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Nurse Gilder took a deep breath and said, “They found the tumor when they opened her up for her bypass. She didn’t want to alarm you.”
William was speechless. He was vaguely aware of his jaw quivering. Then the nurse was speaking again. “She declined treatment. It probably wouldn’t have helped anyway ... her tumor is inoperable and, clearly, growing at an uncontrollable rate. She should have lost some weight after the bypass, but ... it’s the cancer. I’ve seen it more times than I’d ever care to. Once the air hits it, it’s like wildfire. She said she just wanted to be home, with you. I can give you antibiotics for her upper respiratory infection, but I have to warn you ... I wouldn’t expect her to last more than a month.”
The glass slid from William’s fingers and shattered on the tile floor, but it was William who felt as if he were falling. Nurse Gilder walked him through some care instructions, things to do to keep his mother comfortable, but none of it registered with William. Everything was fuzzy and disconnected, and his pulse thrummed in his head, making him feel nauseated.
He left the nurse to find her own way out and sat beside Mother on the couch. She patted his hand. He leaned against her, gingerly, and closed his eyes.
Two weeks later, a package came in the mail. Inside, a letter read that Trident National regretted to cancel Mr. William Baker’s employment contract. The box contained the contents of his desk—push pins, paper clips, a picture of him with Julia. He threw it all in the trash. The phone rang later in the day, and he listened to Dr. Heaton’s message. She hoped that things were going well, and wondered why he hadn’t been coming to appointments.
On the following Thursday, William tried to call her back. It was after hours, though, and he only got her machine. He did not leave a message.
Over the following four days, he called Julia twelve times. He was answered one week later when a thick manila envelope was hand-delivered to his door. He threw it in the trash.
Through it all, he had Mother. She woke and ate and slept and needed changed. It was reliable, a stable routine. It was comforting. On a Monday night in early November, William woke in a cold sweat and stumbled to the kitchen for a glass of water. He drank the water and refilled the glass when something struck him suddenly—the silence. There was nothing in it, nothing at all.
He walked slowly into the living room and stared at the unmoving shape on the sofa. He crept closer and knelt by her side, but he didn’t have to put his head to her chest. He knew. There was no more rattle, no more wheeze. He took her hand; it was still warm and soft. He kissed it, gently, and wiped the tears from his cheeks one-handed. Somewhere in the distance he heard a siren, and he thought about calling 911. He thought about what would happen when they found her.
He would never call, he knew that. He couldn’t stand the thought of them coming in, making whatever snide remarks they would make behind his back. He couldn’t stand the thought of a world without her. William sat on the floor beside Mother and held her until the first rays of dawn crept through the curtains. When he woke, he was curled up in a ball at his mother’s feet. His jaw ached from sucking his thumb. He rose awkwardly, his body aching, and looked at the alien landscape of the room. Nothing here held any meaning anymore. It was no longer his house or his life. All of that was past, a failure, and better left forgotten.
In the bedroom, he found a basket with Julia’s old craft materials inside. She had flirted with sewing for a month or so before admitting that she liked the idea of mending things more than she liked actually working at them. William carried the basket back with him to the living room. He took a pair of orange-handled scissors from the bottom of the basket and used them to cut away Mother’s nightgown. He washed her carefully, tenderly, with a soft cloth, soap, and water, and brushed her thin hair until it shone in the dim light. He took the old bouquet he’d given her and spread the dried flower petals around her on the sofa, arranging them just so.
After a lengthy shower, William did what needed to be done. It wasn’t pleasant, but he had become used to that, caring for Mother. In the scheme of things, it really wasn’t as bad as changing her had been; the scissors were surprisingly sharp, and her scar parted eagerly. He took out the cancer that had killed his mother, tied it up in a garbage bag, and, with considerable effort, dragged it out to the trash cans by the sidewalk. On his way back to the house, he had the briefest moment of doubt, but that was the way the old William thought, and Willy knew that way was a path to failure.
Inside, he locked the doors and closed the blinds. He undressed, and patiently folded his clothes before dumping them into the trash. And then he returned to his Mother. Gently, carefu
lly, lovingly. Inside the soft, warm darkness of her body, Willy did his best to stitch up Mother’s scar. It was enough. William closed his eyes, relishing the safety and security he felt around him. In the primordial comfort of Mother’s womb, William began to doze, content. And in the twilight realm of his somnolent consciousness, a shuddering twitch from cooling muscle tissue signaled a transformation. Willy smiled in the darkness as his world heaved around him with the cavernous wheeze of new life.
YOU WITH ME
BY CHRISTOPHER NADEAU
They met in a sports bar. Sarah hated sports, but was told you could meet men there—and you could, if you liked sports, too.
Arnold was different; he didn’t like sports either. He said he’d only stopped in to take the edge off after a particularly brutal day at work at the hospital. He was a blood tech and there’d been a horrible seven-car pile-up on I-94 that day. The doctors were typically demanding and unconcerned with his issues.
She could relate. As an executive assistant, she often endured shitty meetings with shitty people. Arrogant assholes and bitches that looked down their noses at her while simultaneously expecting her to solve all their problems. This bar was the perfect place to fade into the background and forget how much she hated the weekdays.
Arnold was the first guy to approach her since she’d started coming to the bar three months previously. He was attractive, not a hottie or anything, but he had a certain earnest boyishness she found very appealing. Especially when comparing him to the cocky Alpha Males and their Beta sycophants with whom she was surrounded at work ten hours a day.
Their ensuing romance consisted of lots of trips to museums, where Arnold displayed an unusual fascination with representations of human anatomy, and rendezvous at ye olde sports bar. She was fine with that. After having undergone emotional abuse from her ex, an aloof situation based on mutual enjoyment had an immeasurable appeal.
It was during one of their sports bar nights that he shared his views on death with her.
Zippered Flesh: Tales of Body Enhancements Gone Bad! Page 6
