by Jeff Abbott
Did it look smaller, or was it that I was just bigger and wiser? I couldn’t tell. I went inside and found my mother walking in circles around the cozy living room. She does that more and more now, shuffling along in her slippers and robe. I suppose it’s a nice room to orbit. Mama just has to navigate a wicker sofa and an oval, polished wood coffee table with a fan of Southern Living back issues spread across it. Normally I would have steered Mama to a chair and told her to sit down, but I had a throbbing headache. This was not the life I’d ever planned on coming home to. So I sat down and watched Mama for a few minutes. She was intent on some journey of her own and she made for good quiet company. Our quality time together didn’t last long. “You’re not being much help, Jordy, letting her do that,” my sister Arlene muttered as she walked in from the kitchen. I could smell the wonderful aroma of black-eyed peas and chicken-fried steaks.
Sister (I never call her Arlene unless I’m really mad at her) flared me a look as hot as her skillets. She took Mama’s arm and aimed her toward a chair. Mama, a lock of her blondish-gray hair straying into her face, sat unprotestingly and looked at me as though unsure of who I was. “Jordy,” she announced finally, in the same tone she’d used to reproach me for mouthing off as a youngster. That was a relief. In her mind for the past two days I’d been her long-dead brother Walter, and it was nice to be back among the living. “Eula Mae called and told me what happened at the library,” Sister said with That Tone. She gawked at my busted lip. So much for my three minutes of peace, which was my daily allowance at home. “I guess you’d like to get fired from that library,” Sister observed archly, going back into the kitchen with a toss of her blonde hair. I can always count on Sister for loving support. “That way you could just go back to Boston and your precious little publishing job, and never mind Mama.” My throat tightened. I’m still not used to Mama. It’s hard to go away from home, leaving your mother full and vital and smart, and return to find her mind eroding like a clay bank on a flooded creek. I got up and followed Sister into the kitchen. “Why are you pissed today? You have a fight with Bubba?”
Bubba Jasper owned a truck stop called The Near End on Highway 71, where Sister cooked God’s food like chicken-fried steaks, enchiladas, and pecan pies. She worked from eight at night till four in the morning, came home, and slept till ten when I went to the library. She hated that schedule, and I wasn’t that crazy about it either, but it kept one of us at home most of the time. I took care of Mama at night;
Sister handled her during the day. I suspected Bubba gladly gave Sister that shift to discourage competing suitors. Bubba needed any advantage he could muster. “Never mind Bubba.” Sister’s rosebud mouth pouted. She poked at the simmering black-eyed peas with a stained wooden spoon. She was so pretty when we were kids; I’d been jealous of Sister’s popularity in school. I’d spent most of my academic career in the Mirabeau public schools as “Arlene Poteet’s little brother.” It wasn’t a bad label. Having a popular sister helped no end in the date department. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “I-I think you resent me, Jordy.
You haven’t been much help with Mama this past week.” I had a reply ready (as usual with Sister) but I stopped. She really looked sad, staring down into the warming vegetables. She’d pulled her thick blonde hair back from her face and it made her look older and tired.
Her features were still striking, with high cheekbones and clear green eyes. “I think you resent me ’cause I brought you back here.” “You didn’t bring me back, Sister. I chose to come back.” “No, you didn’t.
We’ve been playing this guilt game long enough. I made you feel guilty about being up North, and now you won’t let me put Mama in a nursing home.” Sister looked up from her bare feet. “No, I won’t put Mama in a home.” I hoped we wouldn’t have this argument again. “I’m not going through what we went through with Papaw again.” I set my teeth. I remember walking out of my grandfather’s nursing-home room while he sobbed as we left him. Just the memory makes my heart clench. “You had-or have-the money to put Mama in a good place, and she won’t know the difference. Her mind is going, Jordy. Yesterday she thought I was Aunt Sally visiting from Houston. She kept asking if I was going to vote for Harry Truman.” I always try to find the bright side of bad times. “At least she knows it’s an election year.” I bit down on my swollen lip as soon as I said it, surprised at myself. Sister wasn’t amused. “Sometimes she doesn’t even remember Mark, and that’s hard for him. Her own grandchild.” “The money isn’t the issue, Sister.” “Yes, it is. You have it and I don’t. That’s how it is, Jordy, and has been for years.” “And you accuse me of resenting you? Listen to yourself.”
She shrugged. “Maybe I do resent you. Mr. Big Book Editor, living up North and making money to burn.” She shook her head and laughed her drawly little giggle that annoyed me when we were growing up. “You’re really using that fancy college degree, aren’t you? Stacking books back at the Mirabeau library.” “Look, running a library’s not easy.
You know that was the only job I could find here connected with books-” “You care more about books than you do me!” she snapped. “God!
I have my own life to live and I have Mark to raise. You could give me the money and keep Mama from being such a godawful burden to me.”
“Yes, I could, I suppose. But I won’t. I won’t have Mama in a home.
She needs us, not strangers in uniforms.” “It’s not your choice to ruin my life and Mark’s, too.” “It’s my money,” I answered, not adding that there wasn’t a lot of my money left. “I’m sorry you feel this way. You don’t have to help with Mama. I’ll move her into a place of my own and get daytime help while I’m at the library. You don’t have to have a damn thing to do with her.” “And let you have all that moral superiority? Let people here think I don’t care about Mama as much as you do? Forget it” Public opinion in Mirabeau still mattered to Sister. Left over from her cheerleader days, I’m sure. “Then quit complaining.” I spoke more sharply than I intended, but the strain of quarreling with her showed. “Dinner’ll be ready in about ten minutes.”
Sister went into her monotone. “Please set the table.” “All right.” I didn’t want to argue any more. I set the table quickly and haphazardly, flinging the silverware and plates down like I was dealing cards. Sister twitched at the noise, but didn’t look up from the cream gravy she stirred. “Would you please go find Mark?” I turned and went. I stumbled out the front door into the fading spring sunshine. The evening was still warm and hazy with moisture. Spring had been rainy. Mirabeau is the lush, dark, deep green that always surprises folks who’ve based their visions of Texas on John Wayne movies that were shot in dusty, brown Arizona. The oak trees, pregnant with leaves, shook in the twilight breeze above my head. The crepe myrtles were short explosions of pink, scattering their blossoms on the air. I leaned against my blue and gray Chevy Blazer and looked out down Lee Street, across front yards that were maintained like badges of honor. Yards-whether front or back-usually aren’t divided by fences in Mirabeau, and the residential streets don’t have curbs. The grass just goes straight into the neighbors’ yards and into the street. When I was little this whole neighborhood was my playground, but now I felt like I was trespassing. What was I doing here? I’d bolted at age eighteen, swearing to never come back. Twelve years later and here I was. I scanned the street My nephew Mark was down a few houses, talking with a neighbor’s kid. “Mark! Supper time!” He waved back, almost begrudgingly. Maybe Sister was right. Was I controlling her and Mark’s life by insisting that we take care of Mama at home? I didn’t feel in control; Mama’s disease was. It dictated and governed every aspect of our lives. I’d given up a life I’d loved, being a social sciences editor for a prestigious textbook publisher in Boston. I’d acquired authors, negotiated contracts, planned marketing campaigns to storm college campuses nationwide. It had been decent money and a lot of fun. Now, I was back at my life’s square one because I didn’t want my mother in a nursing home.
Logical, aren’t I? I couldn’t blame Sister for being mad. If she blamed Mama’s condition for running her life, she thought I was making it worse. She’d wanted money to put Mama in a nursing home over in La Grange. She didn’t have the money, hadn’t had anything except Mark since her rodeo-smitten husband had abandoned her five years ago and headed to parts unknown. I had headed for parts unimaginable (New England), but Sister’d had my phone number. I stood in the carport, staring at the modest house I’d grown up in. It was built at the turn of the century and had belonged to my father’s uncle who died widowed and childless. Two stories, white, with plenty of blue-shuttered windows across the front to let in light and maybe neighbors’ peering eyes. The porch was wood and held two white wicker chairs that should’ve held Mama and Daddy. Sister and I sat there and moped these days. We hadn’t kept up the house as Daddy had; it had been his pride and joy, but we took the house for granted.
Mark trimmed the yard and tended the flower beds, but the house needed a paint job, especially across the front porch. I knew I should get it taken care of, but I was wary of spending money in front of Sister.
Every cent I wasted on other expenses was a cent that could help lift the burden of our mother from our shoulders. If only Daddy had been as thoughtful about insurance as he was about lawn care. The average yearly cost of nursing home care in this country is thirty thousand bucks. It tends to be one of those facts you don’t bother with till your mother’s walking in circles, drooling on her chin, and thinking you’re her long dead brother Walter. My investments and savings couldn’t bear that assault. Part of me didn’t want Mama in a home, and the other part of me didn’t want my savings flying away so quickly. I couldn’t tell Sister my financial woes. She thought my college education resulted in an instantly swollen bank account. She wouldn’t believe me if I told her I didn’t have the money to keep Mama in a home for years of Alzheimer’s. Contrary to popular belief, publishing is not a gold mine. Mark swaggered up to me like only a thirteen-year-old can. He doesn’t even have the grace to look like a Poteet-not that it’s his fault. He’s tall and rangy like us, but that’s about it. Where Sister and I are fair-haired and green-eyed like both our parents, Mark is dark and just looks like trouble. He’s the spitting image of his daddy, the aforementioned rider from responsibility. Even wearing silvery round glasses, he looks like a rebel. I never managed that in my youth. “I hate to interrupt your cramped social schedule, but supper’s on,” I said. Usually I tease Mark, but arguing with Sister had soured my mood. Mark surveyed me with eyes older than the rest of him. “You and Mom have been fighting over Mamaw again.” “What are you, psychic?” I put my arm around his shoulder and steered him toward the house. “I don’t know why you two just don’t accept Mamaw for how she is. She ain’t getting better.”
“Isn’t,” I automatically corrected. We walked into the living room, where Mama sat chatting chirpily with shadows. Mark waved his arms in front of her face. “No one’s here, Mamaw. Nobody but us.” She looked at him, hurt. Turning her face away, she pressed the back of her hand to her pinched mouth. I took Mark by the arm and shuffled him into the kitchen. “Must you argue with her?” He’s a good kid, but I wondered if the strain of our difficult domestic situation was wearing on him.
“Nothin’ to argue about with Mamaw. An argument takes two people armed with opinions or facts. Mamaw’s lacking both.” “Don’t be disrespectful, Mark.” Mark smacked his chewing gum in a most impertinent teenage fashion. I do wonder where he gets it. “You know, Uncle Jordy, I don’t see disrespect in facing up to Mamaw going out of her head.” I opened the fridge, got out a pitcher of iced tea, and slammed the door. “You’re too young to understand. Mama’s not exactly going out of her head.” Who was I kidding? I was mad at Mark for saying exactly what I thought. “I think there’s going to be a vacancy sign hung up real soon,” Mark muttered as Sister came back in.
Needless to say, the rest of the meal did not go well. Little family squabbles over the sanity of the clan matriarch do not make for carefree dinner conversation. Mark huffed off to his room to read; as I said, the boy is not entirely without redeeming features. Sister pouted again and left for The Near End and the company of Bubba. And I sat watching TV with Mama. I think the vapid sitcom made as much sense to her as it did to me. I started reading an old copy of Eudora Welty’s short stories, disturbed only by Mama’s occasional giggle-along with the laugh track, as automatic and sad as a last breath. It was ten o’clock and I was putting on the news from Channel 36 out of Austin when the phone rang and my life turned left. “Jordy.”
It was Sister. “How’s Mama?” “Fine,” I answered. Sister thinks she takes better care of Mama than I do. “Did you give her her Haldol?”
Sister asked, and I slapped my forehead. Crap! I’d gotten the prescription filled and my confrontation with Beta Harcher had driven the pills right out of my mind. I glanced over at Mama; she looked wide awake. Our family doctor prescribed Haldol for her restless nights, so common in Alzheimer’s patients. “Um, yeah, just about to give it to her,” I fibbed. I’d left the pills in my office at the library. Well, Sister didn’t need to know about my slight dereliction of duty. I could run down to the library and be back, with Sister none the wiser. “Okay. I’ll see you in the morning then.” There was the barest hint of reconciliation in her voice. “Fine. Bye.” I hung up.
Mama was watching the television and had turned the volume to a murmur, the way she liked it now. I went to the stairs in the entry way and called up to Mark. “I’m heading off to the library for a second. I’ll be right back. Come down and sit with Mama, please.” As I went out the door, I heard the shuffle of his feet as he descended the stairs. I got in my Blazer and headed down Lee Street, driving past Mirabeau’s little city park. I could have turned onto Bluebonnet then, but a bit of curiosity as to what was going on in town steered me past the park toward Mayne Street (spelled that way because some founding mother didn’t want Mirabeau to copy every other small town in America). It had been the same growing up here-the hope that something fascinating might be going on if you just went around town to find it.
The night had cooled some, but the air felt wet with unfallen spring rain. Distant thunder rumbled faintly, toward Austin and the Hill Country. I scanned the clouded skies for lightning, but the night was dark and still. There’s no long drive around Mirabeau. If you head north of Mayne, you get the lovely quiet neighborhoods I grew up in.
If you head south of Mayne, you go through the small business district. Stores stand in sturdy brick buildings that have survived tornado, flood, and modern architecture-and proudly have their dates of dedication carved in the crests on their highest (usually third) floors. Past the business district is a small railroad yard, and beyond are the mix of trailer parks, ramshackle shacks, and small but tidy homes that make up the poor part of town. The railway also divides Mirabeau by color, an unofficial segregation marked by the nightly whistle of the train. Complete your circle and you run smack dab into a gentle curve of the Colorado River, where Mirabeau and its few thousand souls sit. The Colorado was swollen with spring rain and with my window down, I could smell the faint but pungent odors of muddy river and decay. Mayne was as dead as a street could be. A scattering of cars squatted at Hubbard’s Grocery and some high-school kids sat on the back of a pickup truck in the Dairy Queen parking lot, watching the world not go by. I sighed and made a left onto Loeber Street, away from the business district. I wasn’t missing anything by not going straight to the library and then straight home. This wasn’t Boston. The library was at the intersection of Loeber and Bluebonnet and sat dark and solid in the night. We’re lucky in Mirabeau; the library is a handsome building, built only ten years ago, made of solid brick and native granite from the Hill Country, modern materials shaped into old-style architecture. The words PUBLIC LIBRARY CITY OF MIRABEAU were carved into granite above the front doors, and at night a light shone on the words like a beacon of knowledge. Beautiful, ancient live oaks sto
od guardian around the building. I pulled the Blazer up to the entrance. The library doesn’t rate a parking lot. You have to park either on Loeber or Bluebonnet, or in the little lot next to the small softball field, or maybe in the little, tatty apartment complex that’s down Loeber. As we never have a crowd, we never have a parking problem. I fumbled for my keys, unlocked the door, and threw on the lights. Same old place, I thought. I walked past the dedication plaque, past the new, neon-colored posters my assistant Candace had hung to encourage kids in the summer reading program, past the new-arrivals bin, to the checkout counter. I opened my office door, turned on the light, and found Mama’s pills in my desk drawer.
Pocketing them, I turned off my office light and closed the door. I paused-and to this day I don’t know why. Something was wrong. A prickle ran along my neck like a ghost’s fingernail. I looked across the wide doors and the stacks of books. There was only the gentle hum of automatic air-conditioning, comforting to any modern Texan. I wandered from the checkout counter to the children’s section, glancing around like a determined shopper at the bargain mall. Everything seemed in place. It felt like someone was watching me. I took a deep shuddering breath. I was being silly; a long day with Beta Harcher and my mother had gotten to me. I looked around again, shrugged off my exhaustion, turned out the lights, and locked up. I got into my car and drove up Bluebonnet, back to my mind-numbed mother and my sarcastic nephew. And the next morning, all holy hell broke loose.
