A Good Distance

by Sarah Willis

  Looking at him now, mad, hurt, wanting something from me, I love him. I am in love with him. It stuns me, this thought. It’s so strong; a sinking, swelling feeling all at the same time, and I don’t know what to do with it. Telling him right now, he’s not going to believe it. It’s too damn convenient. I’ve finally fallen in love with my husband and how the hell do I say that?

  “Why did you marry me? You had other boyfriends. Why didn’t you marry them?” He’s asking for the truth, knowing it might hurt him. I want to protect him. But how can I love him, and not be honest?

  I tell him part of the truth.

  “Because I wasn’t in love with them.”

  “But you weren’t in love with me.”

  “Not all the way,” I say. Then I tell him, because it’s building inside me, because I know it’s true and it’s wonderful, even though I know he won’t believe me. “I am in love with you now. I really am.”

  “And when the hell did that happen?”

  “Right now,” I say. I try to smile. “I think it started a while ago and I didn’t even know it, but right now, I feel it. I know it.” My face and eyes are hot. My heart feels like it’s stuck in my throat. This is so goddamn unfair. No wonder I’ve been afraid of falling in love.

  He rolls his eyes.

  “I mean it. I know what I’m feeling now.”

  “Do you?” he asks. “Come on. Why did you marry me, if you weren’t in love with me then?”

  I don’t want to say this. Why is he making me? “Because I thought we were good together. Not just the sex, which is good, but the way we get along, like we’ve been good friends for a long time. I like how you treat Jazz, how you take pride in what you do.” This is all going in the wrong direction. “I do love you. It’s in these bright flashes, and then we get on with our regular life. I didn’t know that that was being in love. I didn’t know it till now.”

  He doesn’t say anything.

  “I didn’t believe in a great overpowering love, and I didn’t want to lie to you.”

  He raises his chin. I can see the anger in his jawline. “Bull-shit. All I’ve ever heard about is this great love your parents had. You believe in it. But you settled for less, because you got tired of trying. Plain and simple. And now I’m supposed to be overjoyed that you’re in love with me? Hey, Jen, maybe this is just a fucking flash. You’ll get over it.”

  “No, I won’t,” I say.

  He has his hands braced against the desk, like he’s ready to push away his chair, get up. I put my hand on his. He doesn’t jerk away, but he’s sure as hell not smiling. “So you don’t love me anymore?” I ask.

  “Sure I do. I wasn’t lying about anything. That doesn’t mean I’m not . . .” He closes his eyes, breathes. It’s his way of calming himself down. When he opens his eyes, he looks right at me. “Hey, it’s nice you’re in love with me now. Thanks, but I’ll think about it.” He stands up. Brushes his hands on his pants as if he’s got something dirty on them.

  What have I done by telling him I’m in love with him? Has it ruined everything?

  “I’m sorry,” I say. Everything inside me hurts and turns and shifts. “Let’s just go to bed. I’ll love you tomorrow.” Shit, that sounded wrong. “I mean, I’ll still be in love with you tomorrow.”

  “Maybe even Wednesday, huh?” he says.

  “Yeah,” I say firmly. “Wednesday and forever.”

  He just nods.

  We brush our teeth, do all the ordinary things we do every night to go to bed.

  Lying next to Todd, his back to me, I understand something; being in love with Todd is a great thing for me. It’s like a gift for myself. For Todd, it’s something he thought he already had, and I just took it away. My love’s not something he trusts anymore, or understands.

  Still, I know what it is. It’s like stepping out in front of a truck.

  And just when I have found the strength in love, it hurts the man I love.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I am up and dressed when Todd comes downstairs in the morning, just as I used to be, when I, too, went to work, except I’m in jeans now. The coffee’s brewed, and the newspaper sectioned. I popped raisin bread into the toaster oven when I heard footsteps on the stairs. We look at each other silently until the toaster dings, making me flinch.

  He nods a thanks, fills his car cup with coffee, picks up the toast, and leaves. If it’s time he needs, I can give him that; I want to give him all the time I have.

  Jazz gets picked up for school. I have never wondered if she plays hooky. It has never crossed my mind.

  After I dress, feed my mother, and make sure she swallows every pill, I ask if she would like to go for a walk.

  “Out to get . . . cream ice?” she asks.

  “No, not for ice cream,” I say. “Just a walk, for fresh air.” It’s a lovely day outside, the October air is cool and clear. I grab my mother’s wool cap and place it on her head. Hold out her coat.

  “Well . . .” she says, looking around as if for help—someone who will save her from this woman who wants to walk to nowhere.

  “Good,” I say quickly. “I’m so glad you want to come with me. Thank you.”

  Another trick that works with Alzheimer’s patients, one I discovered all by myself. Act as if they have agreed with you, maybe they won’t remember they didn’t.

  I take my mother’s elbow and spur her down the drive and onto the sidewalk, where we turn left, and already I know where we’re going. The high school’s a half mile from our house, and Jazz is a third-generation student there. My mother went there, I went there—for a while—and now Jazz.

  My mother and I walk slowly, lost in our own thoughts. It will probably take us a long time at this pace, and I wonder if this is not such a good idea. What if I get my mother there and she can’t walk back? I imagine setting her in a bus shelter while I go back for the car. I imagine her getting on a bus, going God knows where. I imagine her face on the news. “This woman was found wandering alone with no identification. If you know who she is, please contact . . .” I’ve told myself a million times to get one of those ID bracelets, but I haven’t done it yet.

  The neighborhood we walk through is familiar. I kissed a boy inside that white colonial with the eagle above the front door. He had a small face like a doll’s, and I can’t remember his name. We pass a brick house where the Coopers lived. They had five sons, and the youngest, Rob, was my brother’s best friend, until they moved away.

  “Do you remember Mrs. Cooper?” I ask, pointing to the house. Since it’s brick, it hasn’t been painted another color, and she may recognize it. Small things, like the change of a color, upset her memory. One of the very first signs of her Alzheimer’s was while she was staying with Peter and his family. Emily, whose natural hair color is a dirty blond, dyed her hair red, and my mother didn’t know who she was. Really didn’t know.

  “Yes,” my mother says. “Of course I do.”

  I pause, look at her. Her eyes are bright and clear as the day. She looks at me, and squints.

  “What?” she says.

  “Mrs. Cooper,” I say. “You remember her?”

  “Didn’t I just say I did?”

  “What did she look like?”

  “Jesus, Jennifer, what is this, a quiz?”

  Standing on the sidewalk in front of a stranger’s house, I take my name into me on a deep breath of air. I hold on to her hand. Her skin is cold, and so thin, hardly attached to her anymore. I cover her hand with my own. She looks at me like I’m crazy, and I laugh.

  “Hi, Mother,” I say. “You need gloves.” There are some in my coat pocket, and I take them out, put them on her. It’s really not that cold. It must be almost fifty-five.

  She rolls her eyes, and I grin. Suddenly I believe in miracles, just like a kid. I believe in a greater being, not God, but something that unites us all. I believe in ghosts. I believe my mother knows exactly who I am. This is the opportunity I have been waiting for. Because I have made her
a promise that I have to break, and she needs to know that. I can’t hide behind her Alzheimer’s.

  “Mother, I’m sorry, but this isn’t working. You have good days, like this . . .” I motion to her, and then the day around us, as if she, the blue sky, the late blooming mums, the fall leaves at our feet, are all part and parcel of the same thing: the good days. “But I can’t do this anymore, because it requires all of me to take care of you, and I have a daughter and a husband who need me, too. Jazz and Todd. Remember?”

  She nods.

  “I wanted to do this, take care of you, to make up for everything, but I can’t.” I thought I had more to say, but I don’t. That’s it.

  She tilts her head and looks at me. Then she looks away, points down the street. “Where are we going?”

  Does she think I’m walking her to the nursing home, so I don’t have to drag her out of the car?

  “Just for a walk, Mother. Just for a walk around the neighborhood. Do you understand what I’m saying? That I have to break my promise? That you do have to go someplace where they can take better care of you? I’ll come visit every day. Do you understand what I’m saying? That I’m sorry?”

  “No. I won’t go.” She walks around me, continues on the way we were going. I feel a deep sadness invade me, the inevitability of hurting her once again. I follow her, catching up quickly because she moves slowly. I take her arm, and we walk.

  I said what I had to, and she heard me. That will have to do.

  We actually make it all the way to Heights High, walking by the beauty school, where we might have turned in, past Wendy’s, where we could have stopped, crossing the street and coming right up to the front steps of the school. I drive by this place often enough, but walking up to it is a different experience. I belong in a car driving by. I do not belong standing here, and the kids who hang out in the parking lot stare at us. Too much of me has been stuck back then, when I was seventeen. It’s time to move on.

  I had to come here, to my old school, to say goodbye to who I was.

  I remember a science teacher, a thin woman wearing drab, utilitarian clothes, who reached her hand into a bottle of fat leeches, smirking when the class groaned and covered their eyes. But I watched. This is what I wanted from school. Something startling. She asked if anyone would come up, hold leeches in their hand. I wanted to say I would, but I didn’t. I was afraid of those slimy things that would attach themselves to me. The teacher became disgusted with our weakness. I could see her shoulders sag. “Sissies,” she said. I think she wanted to find the one student she could teach that year, and standing here on the front steps of the school that I walked out of so long ago, I wish I had been that student, for her and for me. I tell myself that if I had put my hand in that jar, I would have loved school, and gone on to be a scientist, someone important.

  I want to be someone my mother would love.

  “Let’s go into Wendy’s,” I say to my mother. I think she needs to sit down.

  “For ice cream?” she says.

  “Sure,” I say, even though I know they don’t have ice cream. A Frosty will have to do.

  “Well, good.” She adjusts her wool hat so it sits back on her head, then she pinches her cheeks. “Let’s go!”

  As we walk across the street, I’m thinking about reaching my hand into a jar of leeches, knowing I would do it now.

  I order coffee for me and a Frosty for my mother. She doesn’t complain. It’s not strawberry.

  “You know,” I say, looking around to make sure no one can hear us, “I’m sorry I was so difficult when I was a kid.” I shrug. “I was pretty bad.” I’ve waited for so long to say I’m sorry, and now I’m doing it in a fast-food restaurant. But I’ve been waiting for a moment when she seems to be doing okay, and this is it. “I was awful. I’m sorry.”

  My mother nods like all get out. She can’t even get the spoon to her mouth. I don’t know how much more I can say while she nods like that. She’s supposed to say I wasn’t that bad. This is when she’s supposed to apologize, too.

  I let her eat, and I drink my coffee. An elderly man and woman sit on the other side of the room. There aren’t talking, either. The quiet and the warmth remind me of church. Only when my mother is done do I whisper, “Did you ever come back that night?”

  She opens her mouth, and nothing comes out. Her eyes widen, and she starts breathing in quick shallow breaths, and then her arm shoots out, knocking the pepper shaker to the floor. She looks at her arm, and then at me, and now she’s badly frightened. I can see it in her eyes.

  “Mother?” There’s impatience in my voice. I can’t help being angry. I was so close. She was going to answer me. I know she was.

  “Ah . . .” she says. “Ah . . .”

  Damn it, there is something wrong. “Let’s get back to the house.” I stand up, go behind her, and pull out her chair so she can get up. She doesn’t.

  I help her up, get her into her coat and wool hat, lead her out of Wendy’s. I have to hold her elbow tightly as we walk. She’s wobbly. I can feel her arm twitch hard, then it stops.

  Just as we get outside, she shouts, “Damn you!”

  There are so many kids out here. Why aren’t they in school? “What?” I say, not loudly.

  Pulling her arm out of my hand, she turns. I reach out to grab her. She trips and falls to the ground. She cries out in pain. I think I heard something snap.

  “Oh, my God!” I bend over her; she’s moaning loudly. I look up for help. We’re in front of the beauty salon, where women sit under huge hair dryers, the windows fogged from the heat. Behind me, I hear loud music. I turn as a young black kid hops out of a large silver car.

  “Hey. You need me to call 911? Looks like she hurt bad.”

  “Please,” I say. “Please.” I squat down next to my mother. “Are you okay?”

  She whimpers, and I want to die.

  The boy reaches in his jacket and takes out a cell phone so small it looks like a toy. His pants hang down around his ankles, and his head is covered with a tight black stocking. His car’s still running. It throbs with music, the bass loud enough to feel in my chest. Cars are piled up behind his. Someone honks their horn. He gives them the finger, then speaks into the phone. “A lady here is hurt. Bad. We at the high school.” He listens for a second. “Cleveland Heights High School. Front of the beauty salon. Better get here quick.” Another pause. “Don’t want to give no one my name, thanks.” He closes his phone. “They coming.”

  “Thanks.”

  “She your mom?”

  “Yeah.”

  Kids are crossing the street, pointing. A hairdresser comes out of the salon and asks me if she needs to call an ambulance. I shake my head no. People surround us, talking to each other.

  “Don’t move her,” someone says. I nod. I’m sitting down, and my mother’s head is on my lap, but I don’t remember doing this. The sidewalk is so cold. Her head is warm. Her hat is missing.

  “Her hat,” I say. The black kid moves away, then comes back.

  “Here.” He hands me her wool hat.

  “Thank you,” I say. This kid is so wonderful. I get teary thinking that if he walked up behind me quickly, I would have been scared. I start to cry. I can’t help it. “What’s your name?” I ask.

  “Hey, don’t be needing to give you no name.”

  “Please,” I say. “I want to thank you.”

  “You did,” he says. “Hope she be okay.” He nods and goes back to his car. Just before he gets in, he looks at one of the kids standing around. “Don’t you be saying nothing, you hear. I wasn’t here, you got me?”

  “Yeah, Darnel. It’s cool.”

  Darnel gets in his car and drives off. I’m left with a dozen strangers and my mother. The blare of the siren sounds like a loud accusation.

  We go to University Hospitals, where I work. I’ve been here only once in the last two months, to check in with my boss and the woman replacing me on my leave of absence, which is supposed to be over. I feel em
barrassed being here, bringing in my mother. I’m on the wrong side of the stage and don’t know my lines. The bustle and hurry bothers me. Can’t they slow down?

  My mother is wheeled into a room and transferred from the gurney to the table with a careful thump. She’s frightened and confused and won’t talk. I have to answer all the questions. Even when the doctor asks her if this or that hurts, she just looks at me, still breathing shallowly like she can’t catch her breath. The doctor says she needs X rays; she has broken her wrist, and maybe a rib or two. Jeanne Sonville, a nurse I know, asks me if I’m all right.

  “I’ve been better,” I say.

  She gives me a hug. “She’ll be okay.”

  “Thanks.” It’s hard to say more, and she seems to understand. I feel as if Jeanne is a dear friend, even though we have seldom done anything together. I promise myself I will make plans with her when this is all over.

  I go down to X ray with my mother. We have to wait. Two kids were in a car accident. Minor injuries. I close my eyes and give thanks to whoever, whatever, might be listening.

  Finally we find out that she does have a broken wrist. Her ribs are only bruised. She might have a slight concussion. She didn’t fall that far, I think. She just tripped.

  But what I’m not expecting is that they think she’s had a small stroke, and want to keep her here overnight for observation. Meanwhile, they’ll set her wrist. There’s nothing they can do for her ribs but medicate the pain with codeine. They ask her if she understands, but she doesn’t answer. The doctor motions to me to step away, so we can talk in private.

  “I don’t believe there’s been much damage from the stroke. We can only hope that whatever abilities she had before will return in the next forty-eight hours. Her body’s in shock at the moment. Let’s just give her some time.”