by Lois Cahall
“The pimp grabbed my mom’s arm and pushed her against a brick wall but she slipped on the ice and fell to the ground. He kept screaming at her, and kicked her in the stomach. But when she struggled to stand up, when she asked him to move aside—stayed tough like she always told me—‘never show fear’—he pulled out a knife. She put her hands up to cover her face but he went for her stomach. It all happened so fast. She just collapsed to the ground. Passersby were screaming and staring, but nobody would help her. They just stopped out of curiosity, I guess, until some taxi guy at a red light screamed out, ‘Call 911!’ and then all the people in shock scurried to phones, leaving my mom alone.
“By then it was probably too late. Nobody even knelt down to hold her hand or cover her with a blanket. She was by herself on some filthy, downtown sidewalk. It was a freezing afternoon and my mother died out in the cold, choking on her own blood. Just like that.”
“Oh God, Marla. I’m so sorry.”
“So am I. So was everybody including Tessie who kept telling me it was all her fault. My mom had originally sent Tess to the grocer to get asparagus to go with the honey-baked ham they were going to make for the celebration dinner. Mom didn’t realize that Tessie’s only fresh vegetable experience had been canned peas. She’d never eaten fresh asparagus so she didn’t know what they looked like and brought back a bundle of scallions by mistake. My mom didn’t tell her scallions weren’t asparagus, so instead my mom grabbed her coat from the rack and snatched up her purse from her desk and headed back to the store herself. If Tessie had only brought back the right vegetable my mom never would have left her desk and this never would have happened. Or maybe it can’t be blamed that Tessie didn’t know the difference. So if my mom had only told Tessie she bought the wrong thing and sent her back to the grocery store to get the asparagus, she’d be alive.” My face shows an unwilling surrender. “It really doesn’t matter though, does it, Alice? It doesn’t matter who’s to blame because nothing is going to bring my mom back to me. I couldn’t get the cops to understand that. All they cared about was a description of the killer instead of my dead mother. And for what? For nothing. Tessie’s back on the streets because the whole thing scared the hell out of her. The baby is back in foster care and my poor mom died for nothing. The least God could have done was let me be there to rub her head and say, ‘I’ll love you always, thank you for everything.’”
“Come here,” says Alice, trying to hug me, but I push her away, getting up abruptly, pacing back and forth, and briskly rubbing my arms together. My face crumbles before lighting up like some mad scientist who’s just devised some crazy plot on how to mix poison in the bubbling lab vials.
“I want to be with her,” I say pacing even harder. “You know, I should be over this by now. It’s been six months—”
“Over this?! Over this?! Are you kidding? You think you can just undo twenty something years with a person—the most important person—in six months’ time? Come on. Even your boyfriend Charlie was a shorter relationship than that and look how long that took to get over. You took that pain all the way to your wedding day years later with Eddy!”
And then I stop pacing to stand still repeating what I said before. “I want to be with her.”
“Just what the heck does that mean?” says Alice, her tone with growing concern.
“It’s so peaceful here, you know, Alice, with the birds chirping, wind chimes blowing on that nearby cherry tree. No more outside world. And I bet you forget everything that’s painful.” I turn to Alice and look her straight in the eye. “Yes. That’s it. I’m going to be in the ground right here with her. It’s the only way.”
Alice stands up tall. “Oh really? Oh no you’re not! Over my dead body!” Alice is oddly angry now “She’s not in the ground. Not anymore. She’s just bones. And what if she’s not there at all?” says Alice, tossing her hands around like an angry woman directing traffic. Now Alice is angry in a way I’ve never seen her.
“She’s got to be there,” I plead. “You told me so.”
“Yes, I know, but still…” Alice is at a loss for words, which suddenly softens me. “I don’t know,” I say. “I know I’m not making any sense. And you’re confusing me. But I know I want to go be with her, okay?”
“Suicide isn’t a way out of the pain. It will haunt you through eternity. It will haunt your loved ones. Trust me.”
I shoot Alice a look that says, How the hell do you know?
“I just know,” she says, able to read my face. A moment of silence. Two women calming down. Alice is the first to speak. “Why not try the whale watch as your first bargaining chip. Your first option. Then we can discuss how you’ll kill yourself,” she says cheerfully.
“Are you making fun of me?” I say, following behind as Alice goes to the town hose, unravels it and begins dragging it to her daughter’s grave.
“Look, I’m just saying death is not a way out. I know. I wanted to die too, but if you think about it, when somebody we loved is murdered, we blame the killer. In your case, if you kill yourself, you are both murderer and victim. It’s a hell of a confusing situation to leave your loved ones with…”
“What loved ones? I don’t have anybody, remember? I’m an only child.”
“Well, you might have somebody, if you don’t kill yourself. You’ll have kids, and grandkids someday. What about that nice mailman, Eddy? What about meeting him in the Alhambra in the fall, like you promised?” Alice bends over some geraniums to pluck back the tips for new growth. “Besides, somebody once said on some Zen calendar that ‘inner harmony is attained neither in the past nor in the future, but where the past and the future meet, which is in the now.’”
“Good for whatever Buddhist said that,” I say, “I’m really not in the mood.”
“If you focus on what’s behind you’ll never be able to look ahead. You are here now, Marla. Like those maps all over a city that point a red mark to the place you’re standing. The red mark tells you how to find the direction that you’re headed. It’s the now that is liberating. And your time here will be very short anyway.”
“I still want to die.”
“Sure you do. So did I,” she gulps, suddenly grappling for words. “But we just can’t pull the plug on our own body. It’s not our karmic destiny. Trust me, I know.”
“You already said that.”
Alice squats down and rests her head in her hands rested on her knees. She exhales deeply and looks up at me. “The plan is to live out our life as intended, whether it’s three more months or thirty more years.”
I hear regrets in Alice’s voice that I’ve never heard before. “Look, Alice, I didn’t expect you to say it’s okay for me to shoot myself or overdose on a bottle of pills…”
“Well, you can if you want,” she says standing back up and motioning for me to move before she turns on the hose. “But let’s go on that whale watch just in case she’s there. I mean, what the hell?”
“Fine,” I answer impulsively. “Do you want to come with me?”
“Why not? Sure. Yes. I’ll join you. But I have to warn you…”
“What?” I say anticipating one of her usual crazy observances.
“I get seasick. I may spend the entire time with my head hung over the railing.”
“Vomiting?”
Alice nods sheepishly.
“Oh, Christ,” I say letting a small smile loose. “Are you going to cause a scene?”
“I’m hoping the whale will show up and do that for me.” She winks.
“Don’t make me laugh. I’m supposed to be angry, in despair, remember?”
“Blah, blah, blah….” Alice is ignoring me now, releasing the lever on the water spray.
“Oh no, not again.” She aims a full-force spray at me. I attempt to dodge it, hands at my face in surrender, “What are you, like twelve?”
“Young at heart, kid, young at heart.”
Chapter Twelve
It was 5 p.m. sharp at Sam’s Beauty Bonanza.
I had been closing up shop when the phone rang and a voice on the other end of the line said, “This is Officer White down at Police headquarters. I’m looking for a Marla…”
“Yes, yes, this is Marla,” I interrupted.
“Mother named Rosie?”
“Yes.”
He dove right in: “Marla, I’m sorry to inform you…”
Stop all the clocks of the world. Grandpa’s cuckoo clocks, too. Cease counting every second. Five o’clock precisely, my entire world stopped ticking.
Arriving at the emergency room was a blur. Not that it mattered because it was too late. She was gone. The nurses tried to calm me, but I thrashed, kicked and screamed like a madwoman. Then, for a split second, I turned almost sane again, realizing my outbursts would change nothing, before crumbling to the floor. The officers supported both my arms and practically dragged me to the room where I would identify my mom’s body.
I saw her for the last time lying on a cold metal table. Her life was gone. I don’t just mean she was dead, I mean the force of life in her had gone. Her twinkling brown eyes were closed shut and a tinge of grey crept over her usual creamy complexion.
Seconds later I collapsed against the morgue wall. I screamed one loud howl. My best friend, Julia later told me that as she listened from the corridor—the only person I could call “next of kin”—when she begged the security guard to let her in.
When the story hit the evening news, Eddy phoned my house repeatedly, leaving long, tearful messages. But I never picked up. I watched through the drawn draperies as mourners left bouquets of flowers and notes on our porch, in memory of all she had done for our community. A white minivan pulled up, too. I didn’t recognize whoever was inside, but they blared John Lennon’s “Imagine.” I don’t know who they were but I thought it was so kind to show their sympathy in their own sweet way.
I asked the policeman to take me to the scene of the crime. It was important for me to see that this was real, to know exactly where my beloved mother was standing in the final moments of her life, as though details would make up for the fact that I wasn’t there.
Yellow plastic tape wound across the pavement. Lifting it up over my head, I made my way to the smears on the sidewalk otherwise covered by chewing gum stains and litter. I saw the red marks turned to streaks of brown, reached out with my fingers to touch her blood. Sticky. I brought my finger to my nose, inhaling the last of my mother, my best friend, my other half. And then nothing else mattered.
Pregnant Joy waddled breathlessly to the ringing receiver. She answered with ironic surprise—“Hello, Mother.”
“Very funny,” said Alice. “How do you know it’s me?”
“Because you’re the only person who calls at 9 a.m. every day like clockwork. That’s how.”
“Is this a bad time? Shall I call later?”
“No, its fine,” said Joy, pulling up a chair and motioning for her cleaning lady to move the vacuum into the next room so that she could hear herself speak. “Scotty took the day off to golf at the country club. Make them happy. He doesn’t even swing a club.”
“With who?”
“His parents.”
“I see,” said Alice, trying to comprehend the kind of lifestyle that allows one to have a day off in the middle of the week. “And he didn’t invite you?”
“No, I don’t golf, remember. Plus I’d be on my feet all day, so…”
“Well, how are you? How are you feeling?”
“Same as I was yesterday when we spoke, Mother.”
“Well, I’ll let you go…”
“But Scotty’s not.”
“Not what?”
“Feeling fine.”
“What’s the matter with your husband?” asked Alice.
“He’s still having weird symptoms.”
“The headaches?”
“Yes, still, but losing more weight, a lot of fatigue. He did what you said and went to a doctor who ran a series of tests. We’re waiting for the results.”
“He’s just run down. I remember being married to a young rookie officer trying to prove himself at the squad. Those old-timers work the rookies senseless. Well, if it’s serious, you’ll let me know.”
“Of course I will,” said Joy. “But you know you’ll call tomorrow anyway.”
Joy’s sarcasm caught Alice off guard. For the first time Alice could hear herself in her daughter’s voice. History repeating itself. That vague, distant, fed-up person she’d been to Joy was now giving her a taste of her own medicine. “Okay, I’ll talk to you tomorrow, then. Maybe I’ll take the train to see you next weekend.”
“Maybe,” said Joy, non-committal. “It’s a little crazy these days with Scotty’s sister’s wedding, Scotty being best man and all…”
“Well, so long as you and the baby are healthy.”
But they weren’t. It was bad. No, it was a nightmare. Joy stared at the doctor who repeated the news again with a longer explanation this time. “The initial phases of HIV infection occur briefly, usually a month or two after exposure. The doctor sat behind the safety of his desk. Scotty and Joy sat across from him, startled, hands clasped together tightly, watching the doctor’s mouth moving robotically as their minds failed to process the news fast enough. The only thing they could do was nod. “Then you understand that you’ll need to be tested too, Joy,” said the doctor. “I’m sorry, Scott.”
“But I’m pregnant!” Joy blurted out.
“This is crazy!” said Scott.
“We’re married!” said Joy.
“Marriage doesn’t incubate you from the virus. Failure to diagnose could harm the fetus.” A moment more to analyze his news. The doctor had been well versed in delivering information his patients didn’t want to hear.
Joy knew that the worst of it was that this newly discovered virus could kill all three of them, but she couldn’t bring herself to look over into her husband’s face.
She imagined what he must be thinking as he put the pieces of the puzzle together. Scotty gently pulled his hand away from hers as he replayed the accident in his mind. The victim he dragged to safety from behind the convenient store counter after the hold-up. The victim who was bleeding like a gusher as Scotty tried to tourniquet the blood on his arm, his chest, oozing out everywhere until it splattered on Scotty’s face and he wiped his own eye with a bloodied hand. It was then he must have contracted AIDS from the victim.
Weeks later he began to feel strange. Suddenly fatigued, vomiting violently, feverish, headaches. Now it all made sense.
Alice sat in the rocker of the newly decorated nursery in disbelief while Joy folded a stack of freshly washed receiving blankets on her protruding belly. “I just lost all my baby fat, and now I have, well, baby fat,” she chuckled for a moment before her laughter turned to tears. Alice leaped up from the rocker and moved to her daughter’s side. “We just had the baby shower,” said Joy whimpering. “I was planning her little layette—getting her little room ready. What if Scotty doesn’t live to see her? What if he’s not there for the birth? What if a million things?”
“I know, Joy,” said Alice, incapable of saying much more.
“What are the chances that the victim’s blood was contaminated with HIV? Huh? What are the chances? Maybe it’s a mistake. Maybe the test results were somebody else’s, right? It’s not fair!”
“Life is never fair,” said Alice, grasping tightly to the back of the rocker for support, her worst nightmare coming true. It’s one thing to lose your daughter to Philadelphia but to lose your daughter and your unborn granddaughter was unthinkable. And it’s not as if Joy had been doing anything wrong to deserve this illness. Like one of those cancers that comes from choosing to smoke. Or driving drunk and winding up wrapped around a tree trunk. Alice sighed. Nobody deserved to end up with cancer or to wind up dead, but some people made choices—they picked up that packet of cigarettes, or they downed that last tequila slammer—but what was happening to Joy was truly random, a one-in-a-million piece of bad
luck.
“Mom,” said Joy. “Did you hear me?”
“What, honey? I’m sorry, I was thinking about something.”
“How did you handle it when Daddy was shot?”
“As well as could be expected, I guess. Your father was a hero.”
“Yes, he was. We have already lost one policeman in our lives. I lost my father; you lost a husband. Now God is going to take my husband too? How many fucking heroes does God need?”
“I’ll move in with you,” said Alice, moving toward her daughter and taking her hand in hers.
“It’s okay,” Joy shrugged her off. “We’ll get a nanny.”
“But she’s not the baby’s grandmother!” Alice stepped back knocking over a pile of Little Golden books. “I don’t care about Scotty!” she screamed out. “I never did! I care about you. You’re my baby. Truth is I only want you. What if you die? That’s my question. What if you die?”
Joy gazed out the window and went into some odd protective trance: “Hey, Mom, did I tell you I tried to find Georgey Pfeifer?”
“Who?”
“Georgey Pfeifer. You know, that little boy who was always so nice to me. Lived two houses over? Was with me all through grammar school and then high school?”
“Oh, yes, yes,” said Alice, using every ounce on energy to be nice when she wanted to scream. “So?”
“Well, I ran into an old classmate the other day in, of all places, the post office here in Philly. All these years I imagined Georgey in some abstract way, like a painting that could be made whatever I wanted him to be, you know. Imagined him as some sexy hotshot banker with a sports car, cheerleader wife, paying a mortgage, raising kids, the white picket fence…” Joy turned from the window to meet her mother’s eyes. “Well, you know what, Mom? He’s dead. Died of a drug overdose nine years ago. Who would have thought?”
“That’s horrible,” said Alice. She didn’t care about Georgey right now.
“I’m worried about Scotty, Mom. If anything happens he’ll never have the chance to read all those fairy tales to our daughter.” Joy stared at her just long enough before looking away.
