Blueberry Hill

by Bette Lee Crosby

  When Dick returns with the crabs we put two aside for Floyd, then tear open the bag to divide up the remainder along with the coleslaw and piping hot French fries. I look at Donna’s plate. It is painfully sparse. She has only a small handful of fries. And she’s feeding some of those to the dog.

  After dinner the three of us play rummy while Dick watches a basketball game on television. Donna holds the dog in her lap and shows him each card as it’s dealt, but Pink-eye pays no attention. He licks his paw and cleans the French fry grease from his face. Three times in a row Donna slaps down a winning hand and goes out, racking up points while Mama and I get caught holding a slew of cards in our hand.

  The minute Donna smacks down that third hand, Mama gets a pouty mouth and says, “I’ve got to go home. Floyd’s waiting for his crabs.”

  The real reason she wants to leave is because she’s losing. If Mama was up a couple hundred points, Floyd could starve to death before she’d go home.

  As she’s saying goodbye, I grab my jacket and tell her, “I’ll walk you out.”

  Mama has parked at the far end of the lot where there are no other cars. As we start down the long walkway I sneak a glance at her face, yellowed by the glow of a dim streetlight. The laugh lines are gone, and crevices of worry have taken over. It seems as though the years have suddenly rushed in and settled upon her. Not slowly as you might expect to happen, but pow! Like a pie in the face. One day she was a dark-haired mother with kids squabbling over the roller skate key, and then suddenly she’s an old woman stooped under the weight of sickness and survival.

  “I don’t know,” she says, shaking her head sorrowfully. “I think getting this dog’s a bad idea.”

  I wrap my arm around her shoulders. “Try to be patient. Having a dog is good for Donna. She’s lonely, she needs something—”

  “Don’t you think I know she’s lonely?” Mama flares up like a Fourth of July rocket. “I’m the one who comes over here three, maybe four times a week. I’m the one who checks she’s got groceries. I’m the one…”

  Mama’s voice is thick with a mix of anger and guilt. Guilt because she urged Donna to move to a place where she is far from her sisters and children. Anger because now Mama feels it’s her responsibility to care for Donna. The irony of this is that my sister isn’t sorry she moved to Baltimore, and she doesn’t want anyone taking care of her.

  I’ve told Mama that a number of times, but it’s not something she wants to hear. Once she gets in a feeling-sorry-for-herself mood, the only thing you can do is appease her.

  “I know how much you do,” I say. “And we all appreciate it.”

  “Just so long as you understand,” Mama grumps, and we keep walking. When we reach her car, she struggles with the lock and I offer to help.

  “I can do it myself!”

  As the big Ford Fairlane pulls away, I watch how Mama cranes her neck to look over the steering wheel. She is once again getting smaller. At one time she was a formidable force; now she is a tiny woman with more responsibility than she can handle.

  When I return to the apartment Donna is in the recliner, suctioning her throat. The dog is asleep in her lap. I ask if she’s decided on a name for him.

  She nods and hands me a scrap of paper where she has written a single word.

  I read what she has handed me. “Jason?”

  She nods, gives me a mischievous grin, and mouths the words, I’ll tell you about it sometime.

  I laugh. “Okay, Jason he is.” I can’t help but think how sad it is that the dog will never hear his mistress speak the name she has given him. He has learned to come when he hears the sound of the cricket clicker I have given her.

  Winter’s End

  I wish I could tell you this is a short story, but it’s not. Like many of life’s miseries it stretches itself out, making hours into days and weeks into months. In the bitter cold we drive the icy roads back and forth to Baltimore, sometimes every third week, sometimes once a month. It is a four-hour drive, so we leave early Saturday morning and return home late Sunday evening. Often the laundry goes undone, and the dust on the dining room table is left to thicken until the grain of the wood is no longer visible.

  These things no longer bother me. I have come to realize they are small. They are actually smaller than small: they are miniscule. Several times a week I call Donna; I talk and she taps. I tell myself it is not much but it’s better than nothing.

  When we visit I see the weariness in Mama’s face. It is not the weariness of work; it’s the weariness of worry. From time to time Mama and Donna will have a spat and go for days without seeing each other. I always know when this happens because Mama will call me and say I ought to check up on Donna. She doesn’t mention them having an argument, but I know.

  All winter we take turns visiting. Dick and I go some weekends, Geri and Ted go other weekends, and Debi goes more often than anyone. We schedule it on our calendar, the same as we’d schedule any other responsibility.

  Just when I start to believe winter will never end, bits of yellow pop out on the wisteria bushes. The coming of spring seems to soften the harshness of winter. It is as if the weight of snow and ice has been lifted from my chest and I can breathe again. I wonder if my sister is experiencing this feeling.

  That same week I receive her letter. This letter is just as short as her others, but this one has happiness woven through ever word. Debi is getting married.

  Please come down, she writes. We need to go shopping for a dress.

  For the first time in many months, I can feel the happiness in my sister’s soul.

  That weekend when we arrive in Baltimore, I can almost swear Donna looks healthier. She has a blush in her cheeks and seems less dependent upon the oxygen. There are periods that stretch as long as forty minutes before she slides the tubing back under her nose and breathes.

  The portable tank holds two hours of oxygen. It goes with us on our shopping expeditions. For these excursions Donna pulls on the skinny jeans that now hang loose like trousers and fluffs a sheer scarf around her neck to hide the chunk of metal in the front of her throat. Dressed as she is and with makeup on her face, she looks pretty. I smile and say, “You look great.”

  She shrugs and gives me the cynical look of doubt that is hers alone. She mouths the words, I’m trying.

  When we arrive at the mall I get a wheelchair for Donna. Not because she can’t walk, but because the mall stretches out for almost a mile and the oxygen tank is too heavy to carry. The first trip we are there for almost three hours, and only twice does she need to reach for the oxygen. On that first trip Mama finds a dress that falls in soft folds over the areas she wants to hide. When she steps out of the dressing room, Donna claps her hands and gives a thumbs up.

  In the short span of less than a year, I have learned to read my sister’s lips and her movements. So has Mama. We have come to understand these things almost as well as others understand the spoken word. Donna makes no effort to talk to the salespeople or the waiter at the restaurant. She has already indicated what she wants, and I order for her. Were you to pass by and see the three of us at the lunch table, you would believe we are as normal as everyone else. Our heartache doesn’t show, and neither does my sister’s tracheostomy. Even though Donna doesn’t find a dress this day, it is a good one.

  It takes several such trips, but in time Donna finds a dress. The moment she puts it on I think how lovely she looks. She smiles and nods. If she had words we would have squealed with delight. She would have asked me time and time again if the back was too snug around her butt or if the color was wrong, but as it is we must settle for a single nod. “You look absolutely beautiful!” I say, and it is the truth.

  Donna has chosen a cocktail length dress of silver blue lace. The body of the dress is lined, but the sleeves and mandarin collar that rises to hide her throat are lace. It is enough to cover the tracheostomy and yet allow for the passage of air to breathe. The dress is narrow through the waist and hips, but the below
that there is a swirl of skirt to camouflage her thinness. She is ready to be the mother of the bride.

  Two days before the wedding Donna and Mama come to stay at our house. Donna drives. The back of her car is loaded with equipment: the big oxygen tank, the portable oxygen tank, boxes of saline solution, the suctioning machine, countless medications, boxes of supplies, and the dress.

  On Saturday we arrive at the church. Donna walks with her back straight and her chin high. We are seated in the first pew and only then do I start to wonder if Charlie will come with Cyndi Lou, who is now his wife. I glance at my sister and pray he doesn’t. I know it has been years but I also know in the secret part of her heart, the part where Donna hides the pain of life, she still loves him. Simply saying this prayer causes me to remember how much I detest the man. Remembering how he loves himself and with such vanity, I fear he will indeed come with Cyndi Lou hanging on his arm.

  I sit at an angle where it appears I am facing forward, but I can in fact see the church entrance. I watch and wait. Only a few minutes pass before Charlie walks in. He comes alone. I breathe a sigh of relief.

  With nothing more than a nod, Charlie slides into the pew behind us.

  After the ceremony there is a reception. As is customary, the bride and groom have the first dance; then the bride dances with her father and the groom with his mother. Then they call for a dance by the bride’s parents.

  Charlie comes to our table and extends his hand to Donna. She smiles and accepts it as if it is perfectly normal for them to dance together. He leads her onto the dance floor, and they sway to the beat of a slow fox trot. As I watch Donna gracefully glide across the floor, a swell of admiration rises in my throat. I have never felt more proud of my sister than I do at that moment. No one in the room, save myself, knows the agony she feels.

  When the dance ends, I make my way to her side and we go outside to her car where she can clear the phlegm that has collected in her airway. As we walk across the parking lot, I hear the gurgling in her throat and see a damp stain appear on the lace collar of her dress. I hand her a tissue, and she quickly blots the moist spot. She slides behind the wheel and turns on the ignition. It seems ironic that the converter enabling her to operate the suction machine works off the cigarette lighter.

  Twenty minutes later we return to the reception, but for Donna the dancing is over. For the remainder of the evening she moves slowly, nodding graciously at the other guests, smiling but not speaking.

  Before we leave I have a chance to talk with Debi, and I say it’s good that her dad didn’t bring his wife. Debi, who in many ways has grown to be like Donna, frowns.

  “Are you kidding?” she says. “I told Daddy that if Cyndi Lou shows up anywhere near the wedding, I’d have him thrown out!”

  I hug my niece to my chest and whisper, “Thank you.” I want to say Bless your heart, honey, you’re just like Donna, but I don’t because it sounds too much like Mama.

  When the Leaves Fall

  All too soon the summer is gone and other than Debi getting married, little has changed. This life of hoping for change is painful in more ways than it is possible to count. I think it is because our expectations have risen. During the months prior to the wedding and even for a short while afterward, Donna seemed somehow better. More alive. Happier. But with the coming of winter, that happiness has waned.

  A month or so after I have packed away my summer dresses and thoughts of warm sunny days, I get a telephone call from Debi.

  “Hi, Aunt Bette,” she says. Her voice is exceptionally cheerful.

  “You sound happy,” I say.

  “I am,” she answers. “You’re going to be a great aunt.”

  Not immediately catching the inference of what she’s said I laugh. “I thought I already was a great aunt.”

  “No.” Debi stretches the word out, slowing the conversation. “I mean you are going to be a Great Aunt!”

  When she puts emphasis on the word “great” I suddenly catch on. “Oh my goodness! You’re having a baby?”

  “Yes,” she giggles.

  The usual barrage of questions follows: When is the baby due? Do you know if it’s a boy or girl? And most importantly, does your mom know? When Debi and I talk, my sister becomes her mom.

  Debi laughs. “Of course Mom knows. Jim and I went down this weekend and told her.”

  “She must be so excited.”

  “Excited is hardly the word for it. We went shopping, and she bought a whole bunch of yarn so she could start crocheting a baby blanket.”

  We talk for a while, and before I hang up I realize this will not be a terrible winter.

  Donna only knows how to crochet one thing: granny squares. I imagine by this time she has ten, maybe twelve squares waiting to be hooked together. That same afternoon I call her, and I talk for almost twenty minutes with her tapping out answers. When I ask how many squares she has made she taps out the number, but there are so many taps I lose count.

  “Eleven?” I guess.

  Tap, tap.

  “More?”

  Tap.

  “Fourteen?”

  Tap, tap.

  We continue through this game until I hit seventeen, and then I get a single tap. “You’ve got seventeen squares done?” I laugh. “You can slow down, the baby’s not due until April.”

  I hear the chuff of her laughter.

  When we finally hang up I feel the surge of expectation returning. Once again I believe something good will happen. I believe my sister will get well. Maybe not the dancing, drinking, partying woman she once was but well enough to have this chunk of metal removed from her throat. Donna can do it, I tell myself. She’s strong, she’s tough, and she’s going to be a grandma.

  That Christmas we celebrate like never before. The whole family comes to our house. They arrive on Christmas Eve and stay until the day after Christmas. Mama and Donna drive up from Maryland, and this time Floyd comes even though there will be a crowd.

  “Don’t expect he’ll answer anything you ask,” Mama says, “because he’s not wearing his hearing aid.”

  When we sit down to dinner on Christmas Eve Donna sits next to Debi, who is now full and round. Dick says grace, and we thank the Lord for all he has given us. I take the words Dick says and place them inside my heart along with the hope that we will soon hear Donna speak again. She looks good, and she is eating better than she has in a long time. The gauntness has left her face, and when she smiles it is like the years have rolled back.

  Beneath the tree sits a mountain of presents. Many of them are small things: a pair of socks, a box of notepaper, a bottle of nail polish. The joy of this night does not come from the value of the gift; it comes from the fun of being together, giving and getting small surprises.

  Our baby sister, Geri, has gone overboard in being creative. She arrives with stockings filled with gifts for everyone, and this is the year of the walnut. There are two or three walnuts in every stocking. Some have been pulled open, the nutmeat scooped out, a small trinket placed inside, and then glued back together.

  Donna, the practical joker in our family, is this night the butt of the walnut jokes. As we one by one pry open the walnuts, I shout, “Oh, wow, I got a key chain!”

  Mama shouts, “Mine has a dollar bill inside!”

  As Donna pries open her walnut and shows it to us, she mouths the words, My walnut is just a walnut.

  We laugh. Then we move to the next round and the next. It is always the same; Donna’s walnut is nothing more than a walnut. We all understand that this way of joking with Donna is our way of making her feel normal, of making her feel we have no need to tiptoe around her silence.

  Donna can’t speak and Floyd can’t hear, but we are together. We are a family, and we are happy.

  This winter moves faster than the one last year. It is broken up with moments of laughter and happiness as Donna prepares for her new grandchild.

  She has little money to spend because her only income is what she receives fr
om Social Security. We all offer to help out but she flatly refuses, so we do it in other ways. Mama takes the electric bill from her mailbox and pays it without Donna ever seeing it. I slide bills into her wallet and say nothing. Geri comes with boxes of groceries, and Debi tells her mom there was no co-pay on the medication.

  We find ways to do these things, but we never act as if we are sorry for Donna. It is not something we speak of, but we all know being the object of pity is far worse than being sick or being poor. Being sick robs a person of their health and being poor robs them of life’s luxuries, but being pitied robs them of their will to live.

  In early March Debi’s friends plan a baby shower. By then Donna has scrimped and saved enough to outfit the crib. She has bought yellow and green print sheets, bumper pads, and pillows. Plus she has crocheted enough blankets to keep the child warm into adulthood.

  You might think in a situation like this there is little to make a person unhappy, but some people are born unhappy and throughout their life they carry the need to share that unhappiness with others. Jim’s mother is just such a woman.

  Shortly after I’d receive an invitation to the shower, Debi calls me in tears. Under normal conditions she wouldn’t know about the shower in advance, but this isn’t a normal situation.

  “Jim’s mother told Ellen not to invite Mom because she’s an embarrassment,” Debi wails.

  “What are you talking about?” I ask.

  “The shower. Ann told Ellen not to invite Mom!”

  “That’s crazy,” I say. “Why would she—”

  “Because Mom has the tracheostomy and can’t talk.” Debi sobs. Then she says she’s not going to the shower unless her mom comes.

  “Did you tell Ellen that?” I ask.