A Good Distance

by Sarah Willis

  It is not the life she imagined, ever, and that’s why it’s so much fun. It is not what anyone expected of her.

  While my mother is off seeing America, I date men, sleep with some, but never stay with anyone long enough to make it to a one-year anniversary. Then one morning, on my way to work, I get a flat tire. I pull over to the side of the road and get out of the car. I’ve never changed a flat tire. I don’t even know where the spare is. A guy in a truck pulls up behind me. It’s August, and hot and humid already, and he’s got on a black tank top. I notice his arms first, then his face, and I know this is a guy who will change my tire for me, not ask if I need to use his cell phone. I like the look of him. We’re both smiling. His smile says he’s more than happy to change my tire. He does it easily, has me hold the lug nuts. When he’s done, I thank him. We just stand there, cars pulling around us. I’ve already seen him looking at my hand, to see if I’m wearing a wedding ring. “Doing anything later tonight?” he asks.

  “No. Want to do something?”

  “Would you meet me for dinner at Winking Lizard?” he asks. “Six-thirty?”

  I nod. I’m grinning so hard I’m embarrassed.

  Two weeks later I sleep with him. A year and a half later he asks me to marry him, and I say yes. My mother dances with him at the wedding, a small affair in his backyard, catered by a friend. Jazz is my maid of honor. My brother and sister come, and Todd’s whole family drive in from P.A. At moments I am overwhelmed by the emotion that everything is too perfect, but then one of Todd’s brothers gets drunk, and my mother wanders off. Betsy and Peter drive off looking for her. It starts to rain. Now I feel okay. I can deal with this.

  Jazz sleeps at a friend’s, and after the wedding Todd and I make love in his bed. Jazz and I moved in a month before, but it’s still his bed. I’m just happy to be here.

  Chapter Nineteen

  After Todd and Jazz eat, we go back up to my mother’s room. She’s awake.

  “How are you?” I ask.

  She looks at me, then at Todd and Jazz, her lips pressed together, her forehead creased. She doesn’t know who we are.

  “It’s Jennifer,” I say. “Your daughter.” Her eyes open a little and she puts out a hand covered in age spots. I hold it, asking again how she is. She doesn’t answer.

  “She’s very worn out,” says the nurse, my mother’s new interpreter. “She’ll be better in the morning. Why don’t you come back then?”

  But I can’t leave.

  “I want to stay here,” I tell Todd, Jazz, and the nurse. They all nod, as if they understand. The nurse leaves the room.

  “I’ll take Jazz home so she can do her homework,” Todd says. “Then I’ll come back and sit with you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Bye, Nana.” Jazz kisses my mother’s cheek. “See you tomorrow.” Standing back up, she whispers to me, “Will she be coming home?”

  “For a little,” I say. “Just for a few days.”

  Todd looks at me and our eyes meet. He nods, and I smile tightly. It’s how we say that I have to do this. Put her in a home.

  They leave, and I’m alone with my mother. Her eyes are closed again.

  I have to call my sister and brother. I tell the nurse at the desk where I’m going. That I’ll be right back.

  I walk through the long halls of the hospital to the office that I share with two other people. There’s a framed photo of three children on my desk. The photo, and the children, belong to Shelly, the woman who has temporarily replaced me. Unfamiliar paperwork covers the desk. I place a palm on a stack of paper, feel the thickness of work.

  I sit in the chair, and the seat is not at the same height anymore. My feet don’t quite touch the floor. Shelly is taller than I am. I don’t adjust the chair. That wouldn’t be right.

  I get out my phone card, pick up the phone, and for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, I call my sister. Should I tell her about Mother’s fall, the broken wrist, the stroke, or ask her how her kids are.

  “Hello?” It’s Betsy. I’m glad I didn’t get her husband again.

  “Betsy,” I say. “It’s me. Your sister, Jenny.”

  “What is it?” There’s no anger in her voice. Somehow she knows that I wouldn’t call again unless it was important. She understands that this call is not about us.

  “I’m at University Hospitals. Mother fell down and broke her wrist, and bruised a few ribs. They think she had a minor stroke.”

  Betsy doesn’t gasp. She’s not the type to gasp. But wheels are turning. I can hear her thinking. “How bad is it?”

  “Not so bad,” I say. “They think she’ll be fine in a few days. She’s confused now, but no one knows if it’s the Alzheimer’s or the stroke. But I can’t keep her anymore. Just before she fell, I told her I had to put her in the nursing home. I think that’s what caused the stroke.” I haven’t told anyone else this. I want to tell someone who will blame me. If I tell Todd, he will just try to make me feel better.

  “I think that’s a wise decision. I’ll fly in and help you. How about Friday? Can you call the Sheraton? Get me a room? Oh, get two. I’ll call Peter and tell him to come, too.” She doesn’t mention staying with me. She also doesn’t blame me. Did she hear me? Should I repeat it?

  “Sure,” I say. “But I thought Peter was off climbing a mountain.”

  “He’s been back for two weeks.” The way she says this lets me know I should have known, but she’s not surprised I didn’t.

  “Did he get to the top?”

  “Not this time.”

  “But he’s okay?” God, don’t let him be hurt.

  “He’s fine. I’ll call him. I’m sure you have enough to do.”

  I can’t think of a thing. “Thanks. Tell Peter I’m glad he’s okay.”

  “We’ll come help you move her. Hang in there.”

  “I will,” I say, appreciating that she’s trying to comfort me. “Remember when she danced at my wedding?” I ask.

  “Did she?”

  “Yes, she did. Really,” I say.

  “That’s nice. Well, I’ll let you get back to her. I’ll call Peter. Tell her we’re coming.”

  “I will.”

  I hang up. My brother and sister are coming.

  On the way back the nurse stops me in the hallway. The doctor’s examining my mother. “He’ll come out and talk to you when he’s done with her,” she says.

  “Thanks.” I stand in the hallway and wait.

  The nurse’s words bother me. Done with her. I thought I was done with her, once, and then the other way around, she was done with me, and then we came back together, for a brief time after her stroke, during the six months it took her to pack up and rent the house. Then she left, and I hardly saw her again, until three years ago, when Peter called me and said she was acting strange and needed to see a doctor. I worked at a hospital. Would I take care of it? Tell the people who were renting her house that she was coming back, see that she got settled in? Make sure she had some furniture? Get her to a doctor, watch her carefully? I said yes. What else could I say?

  She moved back into her house, but she wouldn’t go to the doctor. Then one night, at two in the morning, she was found wandering around outside, calling for a cat who had died long ago. Still, even after she was diagnosed, we both refused to believe it. Some days it was easy to deny, other days, not so easy. Slowly, and then in leaps and bounds, the Alzheimer’s took over. The Alzheimer’s became its own person and pushed her into the background, so that at times, all that was left was her face.

  I have lost so much of my life in the last two months, and even before, when I spent so much time dealing with the home-care people who kept leaving, getting the house ready to sell, moving out the rest of her furniture. I miss my job, going to lunch with my friend Harriet, playing loud music; I miss Pat Benatar and Sheryl Crow as if they were old friends who have moved away. And I have lost part of myself in my memory of my mother’s life; the ordinary events I didn’t bother to
recall—playing Putt-Putt with my family, the crisp, sweet taste of the cold orange pop we drank there; my brother and I throwing stones at telephone wires to hear that zipping sound that traveled along them; watching fireworks burst above Lake Erie on the forth of July, my sister Betsy with her head on my lap. I have dwelled on what I have done wrong as an explanation for what became of my mother and me, trying to convince myself that all I have to do now is be good, and she will love me.

  When the doctor comes out of my mother’s room, he doesn’t tell me anything I don’t already know.

  Todd comes back to the hospital and we sit by my mother’s bed. Each time she opens her eyes, I explain to her why she’s in the hospital. While her eyes are closed, Todd and I talk of simple things. He paid the house insurance late, but it shouldn’t be a problem. The truck needs new tires. Did I know I left chicken on the counter? He threw it away.

  I don’t remember leaving chicken on the counter.

  Our words grow quiet and slow. My eyelids close, and he says we should go home. It’s almost eleven. We say goodbye to my mother, who is sound asleep and snoring ever so slightly.

  On the ride home I tell Todd to turn right, onto North Park.

  “But that’s the wrong way,” he says, kindly, as if I am just too tired to have known that.

  “I know,” I say. He’s treating me nicely because of my mother getting hurt. I want him to treat me nicely because he loves me, knows I love him. Understands I do love him. Last night was bad. I want to make us good before we go home. “There’s a place over there, next to the lake, where joggers park. Could we stop there for a little bit?” I point to a small parking lot near the north end of Shaker Lake. He pulls in and leaves the truck running, the heater on, but I’m still cold.

  “I blew it,” I say, looking down at my hands. It looks like I’m holding hands with myself. “I waited too long. I never got a chance to have a good relationship with my mother. We never really talked. I’m not going to let that happen to us.” I look at him. “Let’s talk.”

  He takes a minute before answering. I know he’s tired. “About what?” he asks.

  And then it hits me, why I’ve made him come here. “I know what it’s like to think someone doesn’t love you. I don’t want you to feel that way.”

  He pulls back a little, leans against the inside door of the truck. There’s not a lot of room in here, but enough to move slightly away. We’re up higher than if we were in my car, farther from the ground. It feels safe in here, relatively speaking. But I’ve brought up a subject we could have kept closed for a while, while my mother gets better. We could brush this under the rug until we trip on it later.

  “Jen—”

  “Remember I told you my mother tried to kill us both? On North Park? In the winter?”

  “I remember, Jen. You’ve told me that story a few times, you know.”

  “Yeah. Well, I lied.”

  He looks surprised and I’m oddly pleased that he ever believed me in the first place. The first person I told, the old guy who picked me up outside of Chicago, believed me. Hunter believed me, I know he did. Everyone in San Francisco believed me. I don’t think Peter ever did, but most everyone else has because I tell it with such fervor. My mother tried to kill us both in an act of great rage and passion. But it’s not even close to the truth.

  His face squints up. That little slash of melon paint wrinkles on his forehead. “What do you mean? Why did you lie?” There’s a touch of disgust in his tone, and I don’t blame him.

  “Because it was a better story. It got me the right reaction. I didn’t like the real one.”

  “Go on.” He pulls the bandanna off his head, lays it on his thigh like a napkin. It seems like such a gentlemanly thing to do, take off his hat, so to speak. I bring my knees up, turn, and lean against the other door. Wrap my arms around my legs to keep my hands from shaking.

  “Remember I told you about the night I took those pills and tried walking to Lannie’s and fell asleep in the old schoolhouse?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, that part was true, but the rest wasn’t.”

  When my mother finally comes to get me at the police station, it’s late at night. The policeman tells her they aren’t going to charge me with breaking and entering. They’re going to use me as an example of their kindness and understanding. She has to sign papers and promise she’ll get me help. She hasn’t said anything to me except get dressed and handed me the bag of my clothes. As we walk down the steps outside, I swear I smell liquor on her breath.

  It’s sleeting outside, the freezing rain coating the windshield. It’s dark and cold, and as I get in the car my mother jerks open the back door and grabs the scraper. “Guess I’ll do this,” she says, and scraps at the windshield. It makes a sound like birds screaming. Then she gets in the car and slams the door. She’s not wearing gloves and her hands are shaking. She can hardly get the key in the lock.

  “You’re drunk,” I say, and she turns at me with her face contorted. Her eyes are squinted, her jaw bones grinding, her face turning red.

  “How dare you?” she says. She turns on the car and backs out. The tires slip, and we weave backward, nearly hitting a parked cop car. I almost laugh.

  On Lee she tries to stop at a red light, but the car keeps going and swerves to the right. “Damn it,” she says.

  “Watch out!” I shout. “Can’t you drive?”

  She shakes her head. “My God, you looked like a fool in my dress. What the hell were you thinking?” She’s looking at me as she drives. A car horn blares. We’re in the middle of the road.

  “Jesus, look where you’re going,” I say loudly, my voice reverberating inside the closed car. “I can’t believe you drank before you picked me up!”

  My mother keeps driving. No one says anything for a full minute until she says, very quietly and calmly, “I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did!”

  She shakes her head.

  “Jesus, you make me crazy!” I’m shouting now, sure of myself.

  “You just won’t give me a break, will you? Ever? It doesn’t matter what I do, how hard I try. . . . You don’t understand. . . . If it was me that died, I’d be perfect, I’d be the one you loved.”

  I don’t want to hear this. She makes me so mad. “That’s not true! I’d never think you were perfect, even if you died! You don’t care about me, either! Admit it. You know what, why don’t you just marry any old guy? I don’t care anymore. Sleeze-ball Joe. The next guy that asks you out. Drink and be merry. Drive drunk. What do I care? I don’t. Don’t pretend I do.”

  “Oh, Jesus, Jennifer. It’s really hopeless, isn’t it?”

  “Yes!” I shout. “It is! We are! I’m going to keep running away until you figure it out. Every night you go to bed, think about that. I might be gone in the morning!” I got her now. Tears are running down her cheeks. I don’t know why I want to make her cry, but I do. I want us to get to the worst place possible, so it’s all over, all the bad things are said and all the tears cried. I want to break down and weep inside this dark car with my mother, but I can’t. When I get scared, I get angry.

  She turns the car right, onto North Park. The wrong way home. “You’re going the wrong way! Don’t you even know the way home?”

  She pulls into the parking area at the head of the lake, where kids park to make out. She leaves the car running. The heater’s turned on too high.

  “All right. If you are going to run away, do it right.”

  “What? What do you mean, do it right?” I don’t tell her I wasn’t trying to run away. I was just trying to go to Lannie’s house.

  “Try leaving the state this time. Get out.”

  I stare at her. She can’t mean it. It’s freezing out. She nods her head in the direction of my door.

  “Do it right, this time,” she says, deadpan. It’s the lack of passion that makes me open the car door. It’s the thought that maybe she isn’t drunk that makes me start to cry, but only with my bac
k turned.

  Before I’m a few yards from the car, she drives off. I’m standing near a pile of snow and I sit down on it. It’s stopped sleeting and it’s so silent, as if there is nothing left alive. The streetlight circles me like a spotlight, and I stay here, so she can find me, when she comes back.

  My eyes ache and I rub them hard, tell myself to stop crying. She’ll be back soon.

  I wait, but waiting makes me angry. In the silence I hear our whole fight all over again. My mother looked right at me and said, Run away right this time, and she meant it. She wasn’t drunk. I was wrong about that. I won’t wait till she comes back. I’ll leave. I’ll never come back. She’ll never know what happened to me.

  I walk away, leaving the circle of the streetlight. I stay in the dark so that when she does come back for me, she won’t find me, and she’ll feel so bad. Only twice do I look behind me, but I never see our car.

  I never really meant to leave for so long. Things just happened. I told myself a thousand times I would call her tomorrow.

  And then it was just too late. Tomorrow had become ten years too late.

  Chapter Twenty

  The heater’s still blasting, but I’m trembling all over, just like that night. Todd’s waiting to see if I’m done talking. His face is neutral, as if he’s not sure what to think. Even if he’s mad at me, I’m not getting out of this car. No more running away.

  “I just wanted you to know,” I say.

  “I don’t get it,” he says. “Is this like those recovered memories? Something you forgot but just remembered?”

  “No. It’s not like that at all. Trying to kill us . . . It’s just the story I told everyone. Sometimes I didn’t even know what parts I was making up. I told it so many times, I made it seem true, even to me.”

  “But why?”

  “Don’t you see? If I said I ran away because my mother told me to, people would wonder what I did to make her say that. Wouldn’t you? So I kept telling this story, this great passionate story, when the truth was there was no passion at all. No great rage. She may not have been drunk at all. Sober. I think about that a lot. Sober, she told me to run away right this time.”