Blueberry Hill

by Bette Lee Crosby

  Don turns to me. “What happened?”

  I give him the whole story: the hospital, the surprise tracheostomy, and the fact that it has to stay in until her throat heals. Again I lie.

  “Hopefully it won’t be too long,” I say.

  Don walks across and kneels next to Donna’s chair. “You’re not getting rid of me so easily,” he says. He takes her hand is his, but she is like a stick of wood. She allows him to take her hand, but she does not move into the embrace he offers. He tells her how she should trust that he would love her no matter what the circumstances.

  “This is a temporary thing,” he says. “We’ll get through it together.”

  Donna looks at him, raises her eyebrows, and crooks the right side of her mouth into an expression of doubt.

  Don stays for nearly an hour, and we fill the time with small talk and watching bits of the detective show Donna has on television. When the pizza arrives Don doesn’t eat but says he’ll have a drink if there is any scotch in the house.

  “No scotch,” I say. “But we’ve got rye.” It is the bottle Mama keeps on hand. Mama and Donna both drink rye whiskey now. Rye mixed with Coca Cola.

  Don says yes to the rye, then drinks it quickly and leaves.

  The next day Don sends flowers. He calls every day but doesn’t come back during the week I am there. I mention this to Donna, and she gives me a thumbs up. It is a hand signal that requires no writing. Although Donna claims she is tired of him anyway, I know that is not the truth. The truth is that she is unwilling to make her misfortune someone else’s problem.

  I say, “Give the guy a chance. He’s trying to do the right thing.”

  Donna gives me a scrunched up look of doubt and shakes her head. A few seconds later she takes the notepad and writes, Not love. More like drinking buddies.

  In an odd way I realize that is probably true. Everybody loves Donna, but few people ever know the whole person. I do and her daughter Debi does. Mama is only a maybe, and although Geri is our sister she was always the baby so she never really had the chance to know Donna as I have.

  Don’t misunderstand me; they both love Donna and would do most anything for her, but with Mama it’s a love-hate relationship. It’s been that way ever since Donna ran off. As much as she loves Donna, there’s a grain of unforgiving stuck in Mama’s heart.

  Don soon tells their friends at the Crab House about Donna’s situation, and the get-well cards start pouring in. Many of them call even though they know she cannot speak. They leave warmhearted messages and say they will stop by. A few do, but when Donna peers from the side window and sees who is standing at the building entrance she shakes her head and I know not to answer.

  She allows one friend to come in. It’s Henrietta, a black woman who works with her at the bank. I wonder why Henrietta is the exception, but as I watch them sit there and carry on a one-sided conversation I understand.

  Henrietta is a woman who knows heartache. She is the mother of two children, both born with birth defects. As she talks I learn her older boy has Down’s syndrome, and the younger one who is seven years old has yet to speak. It is easy to see why she and my sister are such close friends; their lives run in parallel lines. They both carry a burden heavier than many can even imagine. I look at Henrietta and see parts of her that indicate she is a young woman, but the slump of her body and the weariness in her eyes tell another story.

  Before I get ready to leave on Friday, Debi arrives and a new brightness lights Donna’s face. Her daughter is the one person who can bring about such a change. I know Donna loves her children equally, but Debi is the one she prefers to be with. Young Charlie has a male crustiness about him. He promises to visit, then doesn’t show. If he does come, he flicks the television on and gives that his attention. Charlie is too much like his father. I doubt he knows how to reach inside his mother and pluck loose the things in her heart. Debi knows how. She and Donna are not simply mother and daughter; they’re best friends.

  Even though Debi has a job, she drops everything and comes when I tell her what has happened. When she arrives, I climb back into my car and start home to New Jersey. It is a long and tearful trip.

  Coming Home

  It is after nine o’clock when I pull into the garage, and I am weary to the bone. It is not the weariness of work but the weight of worry pressing down on me. As I turn into the drive I see the lights of our house aglow, and it warms my heart. The sight of it welcomes me home.

  When Dick hears the garage door rumble up, he comes down the kitchen stairs to meet me. I have been gone nine days and he has had to shoulder the workload of running our ad agency alone, but he hasn’t complained. He knows how painful this trip was and asks nothing of me. He steps aside and makes room for my sorrow. When I am ready to cry, his will be the shoulder I lean on. He is not only my husband, he is my greatest confidante.

  “Hi, sweetheart,” he says. “How was the trip?” He wraps his arms around me and squeezes me close.

  “It was long,” I say with a sigh. “I’m so tired.”

  This is painfully true. With Donna unable to speak, I forced myself to fill the voids with conversation. My mind never stopped. I reached out and grabbed bits of news, recalled memories of yesterdays, and laughed about long-forgotten friendships. The only thing I didn’t speak of was her silence.

  “Have you eaten dinner?” he asks.

  “No, but I’m not hungry,” I answer. The words are no sooner out of my mouth when I see the smile fade from his face. There is a foil-covered plate sitting on the back of the stove. He has dinner waiting for me.

  Although I’ve given no thought to food, I feel warmed by his thoughtfulness.

  “First I need a hot bath,” I say. “After that I’ll grab something to eat.” I pretend not to notice the plate.

  Dick’s smile brightens again. “After that long drive, I thought you might be hungry. I baked a chicken breast and sweet potato. When you’re out of the tub I’ll heat it up.”

  “Oh, honey, how sweet.” I kiss his cheek and head for the bathroom.

  When the tub is filled with steaming water, I add two handfuls of jasmine bath crystals and pull my hair up in a rubber band twist. It looks more like a Brillo pad than a ponytail.

  A bath is therapeutic. I take a shower to get clean; I take a bath to be rejuvenated. When the tub is full I step into it. The water is so hot it takes several minutes to ease myself into the froth of bubbles, and as I do my skin turns a rosy pink. For the first time in nine days I feel the muscles in my shoulders relax, so I lean back and let my head rest against the plastic pillow. Already I feel better on the outside, but the thoughts inside my head are still with me.

  Worry makes my brain work overtime. When I’m at peace, thoughts fly in and out of my head like dandelion puffs carried off on a breeze. But troublesome thoughts take root and refuse to move on. They stay and pick at me with constant reminders of what I’m trying to forget.

  I try to clear my mind by recalling the warmth of a summer day. I think of the lilac trees in the side yard and remember how fragrantly they will blossom in a few short months. For some odd reason the song “Blueberry Hill” comes to mind, and I hum a few bars of it. I haven’t heard the song for ages, so why now? My thoughts slowly drift back to long-ago days. Days when Donna and I were both so young, still in school and still unsuspecting of the life ahead of us.

  “Blueberry Hill” was her favorite song, and she could dance to it like no one else could. I picture her tight jeans wriggling across the gym dance floor to the bump-and-grind sound of Fats Domino and start to relive a night that is now a lifetime ago.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Wouldn’t you love to go there?” Donna says.

  “Go where?” I answer.

  “Blueberry Hill.”

  Realist that I am, I chuckle. “Blueberry Hill isn’t a real place. It’s just a title somebody made up for this song.”

  Donna shrugs. “Believe what you want, but I know it’s real.”


  ~ ~ ~

  These are good memories. I try to hang on to them, wriggling my toes beneath the mound of bubbles and stretching my mind to recall what my favorite song had been. There is nothing. That memory is gone, and now I can recall only the chugging sound of her suctioning machine.

  A gentle rap on the door shakes me from my reverie.

  Dick calls out, “Honey, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I answer, even though I am far from fine. I’m here and I want to be here, I need to be here. But I’m angry with myself, because I can’t be in two places at once. I vacillate between great sympathy for what Donna is going through and a swell of anger that reminds me of how she ignored all the warning signs and allowed this to happen. Still, I say “I’m fine,” because that’s what you do. When someone asks how you are, you say fine, regardless of whether it’s true.

  Dick says, “You’ve been in there an hour.”

  “I’m unwinding,” I answer. “I’ll be out soon.”

  “Okay,” he says. “As long as you’re all right.”

  The sound of his footsteps tells me he is returning to the basketball game, and in a strange way I am glad to be left alone with my misery. Misery is not something to be shared. Just as Donna refused to share it with Don, I withhold it from Dick. Perhaps I do this because I know the sad truth is no matter how much I am loved, my husband can do nothing about the horror of this situation.

  I have been in the tub so long the water has grown cold. It is no longer a comfort, so I pull the plug and step onto the bathmat. A soft flow of air from the heater warms the room. It is a sharp contrast to the frigid air in Donna’s apartment. Although she lives south of here her building is poorly insulated, and the iciness of winter slides across the floor and settles in the air. The apartment is always cold. It’s the kind of cold that goes through your skin and burrows into your bones.

  Even so, Donna doesn’t complain about her circumstances. Debi and I both asked her to come and live with us, but she refused.

  I like my independence is what she wrote on her notepad.

  If an intruder broke through the thin glass of Donna’s apartment window she couldn’t cry out for help. Without a voice, she can’t even do something as small as ordering a pizza, so how can it be considered independence? I think the truth is my sister lives alone because she doesn’t want to be a burden.

  Perhaps if I were more insistent she’d change her mind.

  I wonder if I accept her answer too readily because deep inside I am fearful of living with oxygen tanks and suctioning machines? They carry the sound and smell of sickness, and once experienced it is something that can never be forgotten.

  Yes, they give life, but it comes packaged in heartache.

  The Onset of Winter

  It is an ugly day. Dark clouds push up against each other and hover low in the sky; not even a pinpoint of brightness shows through. Another storm is on the way. Yesterday’s snow is already a hard crust of ice on the trees, and the street is a slippery mixture of mud and slush. Although the furnace here is chugging out a steady stream of hot air I shiver, thinking about Donna huddled beneath an afghan as she sits alone in her apartment.

  The building she lives in is old. Old and drafty. The wind pushes against the window and passes through the towels tucked around the sill. For the millionth time I wish Donna was closer, close enough that I could drive over every afternoon and bring hot soup or a few minutes of friendship. Baltimore is less than two hundred miles away, but right now it feels as if it’s on the other side of the earth.

  I move aside a pile of papers, reach for the telephone, and punch in a sequence of numbers. My finger has barely left the last digit when the ring bounces back and closes the stretch of miles between us.

  I listen and count, certain there will be no response until after the fourth ring. Finally the click comes, but the recorded voice is not Donna’s. It belongs to her daughter. Debi sounds like her mother did a short time ago. Most callers don’t realize it’s the daughter speaking, not the mother. I do, but then I know the story.

  Debi says no one is available to answer the call, then tells me to leave a message after the tone. As a long beep sounds in my ear I say, “Donna, it’s me, Bette. Pick up if you’re there.”

  Moments later I hear the second click and know my sister is on the line. For want of anything better to say, I ask, “Are you there?”

  Tap.

  “Is everything okay?”

  Tap.

  “Is anyone else there?”

  Tap, tap.

  I ask questions that can be answered with a yes or no, because those are the only answers she can give. A metal pen sits beside the telephone for use when I call. A single tap means yes, a double tap is no.

  I continue with a steady stream of conversation about inconsequential things: a newspaper article I’ve read, a television show I’ve watched, and so on. I don’t talk about books because Donna doesn’t read. She loses herself in a television show the way I lose myself in a book.

  It has been just two days since my last call and I have nothing new to say, but I talk anyway. I force myself to sound cheerful. This may be the only outside communication Donna has today, so I try to make it as pleasant as possible. I tell jokes that are older than Mama, poke fun at the day’s headlines, and laughingly complain about the price of tomatoes. Occasionally my sister taps an affirmative agreement, but there is nothing else. The sound of her silence is painful beyond belief. When I say goodbye, I promise to come for a visit next week. As I am about to hang up I hear the smack of Donna’s lips kissing the telephone receiver and understand it is her way of saying she loves me.

  Two days later I receive a letter from Donna. Her letters are short and to the point. She is no fonder of writing than she is of reading.

  Dear Bette, she writes. When you come down please bring a bag of peanuts in the shell. I need them for the squirrels. Still no sign of Lucifer. I miss that damn cat and wish he’d come back. Tuesday the county nurse is taking me to Doctor Craig for my monthly checkup. Last time he said there was a possibility he might be able to reverse the tracheostomy if the scar tissue in my throat heals. Geri’s birthday is coming up and I’ve not been able to get out to buy a present. Would you pick one up for me? Well, I’d better close for now, my hand is tired and I think this pen is running out of ink. Love you, Donna

  The letter reminds me of Donna’s two squirrels. Every afternoon they come and wait alongside the rusted grill standing outside her patio door. They stay there until she slides the door open and places four peanuts atop the grill. They seem to understand the way this bounty is to be divided, and neither of the squirrels ever takes three. Donna has named them Sam and Susie, but their names remain unspoken.

  Now that Lucifer, the cat, has run off, there are days when these two squirrels are Donna’s only company. Mama comes over several times a week but not every day.

  “I’m getting older,” she says. “You can’t expect me to be running over there every day.”

  No one argues with Mama anymore, because it is useless to do so. Arguing with her means one of two things will happen. Either she’ll get mad and stop speaking to you for a good long while, or she’ll get her feelings hurt and cry and when that happens you end up apologizing all over the place.

  Thinking about Lucifer gives me an idea, an idea that warms my heart as much as Brandi herself does. Brandi is the Bichon Frise sitting in my lap. She is my constant companion. She loves me when I am loveable and loves me just as much when I am impossible. This is a secret only dog lovers know: rubbing a dog’s tummy brings peace of mind. I tell myself it is almost impossible to be sad, lonely, or depressed when you’re petting the dog in your lap. Then I congratulate myself on having such wisdom and start calling the pet shops.

  Eight numbers later, I am still asking the same question. When the woman at Framer’s Pet Shop answers the telephone, I ask, “Do you have any Bichon puppies?”

  “Not on hand,” she say
s, “but if you want to place an order, I’m expecting two in about a month.”

  “Bichons are on back order?” I ask incredulously.

  “Yes.” She takes on a tone that infers this is the norm. “The litter is still too young to be sold. But if you want to leave a credit card deposit, I can reserve one for you.”

  I glance at the yellow pages where there are listings for another twenty or thirty pet shops. Reasonably sure I’ll find one today, I say, “I’ll think about it and let you know.”

  “Don’t wait too long,” she says. “They may be gone.”

  I hang up and dial the next pet shop, then the next, and the next. This continues all morning until I get to Zelda’s Pets. Like the first twenty-seven pet shops, she does not have a Bichon but sympathizes with my plight and gives me the telephone number of a friend who breeds Dalmatians.

  “Maybe Klaus can suggest something,” she tells me.

  Since Zelda’s is the final listing for pet shops, I have no choice but to call Klaus.

  “Zelda thought maybe you can help me,” I say, and I tell him what I am looking for.

  He speaks with a heavy accent and acknowledges my words with “Ya, ya.” Afterward I hear some indistinct mumbling and assume he is consulting with someone else. Apparently this is not the case, because he ultimately suggests, “Dalmatian make nice pet. For friend of Zelda I do small price. Is good, yes?”

  “No, not good. I’m looking to get a dog for my sister, but her apartment is really, really small. She’s sick and all alone,” I say. I give him the entire story, most of which I am certain he neither understands nor cares about. Still, I feel if someone realizes how important this is, they’ll help me find a dog. Klaus comes through and gives me the names of three places to call. One of these is the North Jersey Kennel.

  The phone rings nine times before a man picks up and says, “This is Pete.”