by Alan Ryker
“Your house, huh?”
“Yeah, my house. I’m the one who spends all day there and raises our children there. If it were your house, I imagine it would look like your workshop.”
That hurt, but Pete knew it wasn’t entirely unfair. Katherine kept an iron grip on the house, but let him keep his big workshop the way he liked it. And he liked it—full. Workshops should be full. Full of tools. Full of raw materials. You couldn’t fix things without parts, and you couldn’t be self-sufficient if you had to call the repair man or—worse yet—go buy a replacement every time something broke.
But there were also the boxes of moldering magazines and repair books. There were mice nesting in the old furniture. There was the corner he’d basically given up on, so that instead of controlled chaos it was a trash heap, with bags of bottles and tin cans that he couldn’t burn with the other garbage, but that he should have taken to the dump years ago.
The anger didn’t leave him, but it simmered beneath shame. “So what do we do?”
“She’s gotten to the age and mental state where she’s going to have to accept our help whether she likes it or not. If need be, we’ll kick down the door and get that place back into shape.”
“I don’t know if I can do that.”
“It’s either that, or she goes into a home.”
Pete didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything. Her position was reasonable, but he couldn’t agree to it, because he didn’t know if he could back it up when the time came to deal with his mother. Katherine, his mother, they were made for this. For the arguing. He just wanted to get by and let everyone else get by. He loved farming for a lot of reasons, but a big one was that it was just him and the soil.
At the reception desk, a nurse pointed a doctor in their direction.
“Is she alright?” Pete asked as he stood.
“You’re the family of Anna Grish?” The doctor extended his hand. Lost, Pete stared at it for a moment before shaking it.
“Yes. I’m her son, Peter. How is she? Is she awake?”
“She’s awake, and she’s doing well. No broken bones. You say she pulled a stack of items over on top of herself when she fell?”
“Yes. I wasn’t there when she fell, but that’s how I found her.”
“She’s pretty bruised up, including a black eye and a bruise and cut on her forehead. She twisted her ankle on the way down and it’s swollen pretty good, so we’re going to have to send her out of here in a wheelchair.”
“She’s got a wheelchair, from my dad.” Then Pete thought about trying to find it in her house. “You know what, I’m not sure about that.”
“Okay, no problem. Her worst injuries are on her right palm. She explained that she was holding a glass when she fell and it broke in her hand. I think we got all the bits of glass, but a few slivers might work their way out over the next week. It took some stitches.” He looked at the clipboard in his hand. “I see here that she’s a patient of Dr. Blake. He’s going to be in on Thursday. Make an appointment to bring her in before you go.”
“Okay, so she’s going home?”
“As I’m sure you’re already aware, your mother can be a bit—feisty.”
Katherine laughed sharply, but when Pete turned to her, she was already looking intently at her magazine, one hand over her mouth.
“She’s anxious to leave, and we have no real reason to keep her. We put a bag of fluid in her and she’s rehydrated and feeling good, all things considered, though I don’t know if she’d admit to any pain regardless. She’s a tough woman. But I have to ask you something.”
“Okay…” Here it came.
“She lives alone, correct?”
“Yes. We live next door.”
“What are her living conditions like? I ask this because—I’m going to be blunt here—she was pretty dirty.”
“I don’t know how long she’d been on the floor when I found her.” Pete couldn’t meet his eyes.
“Not the kind of dirty you get in a day. I’m not accusing anyone of anything. Sometimes, when a person gets to a certain age they need some help.”
“We try, but…” Out of the corner of his eye, Pete saw Katherine’s angry expression. He knew it wasn’t for his mother’s sake, but because she felt ashamed at what his mother’s condition might say about her.
“I know how it is. But no matter how much she complains, she should stay with you or another family member for awhile if it’s at all possible.”
Pete nodded vigorously. “Yes, she’ll stay with us.”
“One last question: does she go outside barefoot often?”
“Not that I know of. I don’t think she goes outside much.”
“I think she might be without your knowing. It looks like her feet have been bitten by bugs, and some infection has set in. I’m giving you a prescription for antibiotics and a topical salve, but we’re holding off on worm medication until the tests come back. There are some mild contraindications for the medications she’s on, so we’d like to wait.”
Pete knew that worms could come up through the soles of your feet if you walked barefoot around livestock. Though he’d been raised to take his shoes off at the door, his mother had always made him wear them outside for that reason. His friends had always run around the pastures barefoot, and had frequently gotten worms, while he never had.
And she had so much trouble walking she wouldn’t go outside, anyway.
Could it be those damn cats? It had smelled like the filthy things were going wherever they pleased.
But this was all stuff to be dealt with later. Right then, Pete wanted to get his mother and get out of there.
“Anything else?” he asked.
“Nope, just be sure to make an appointment with Dr. Blake before you go.”
After the doctor walked away, Katherine said, “Well that was humiliating. Now everyone thinks we let an old woman live in squalor.”
The problem was that Pete couldn’t say they were wrong in thinking that.
CHAPTER 5
Though it was nearly 9 PM, the twilight of a long summer day still illuminated the room through the window. Lying in bed on her back, Anna craned her neck to look up at the headboard. A clown flashed its enormous teeth at her. In one hand, it held a cream pie, in the other, a bunch of balloons.
It looked like something out of a nightmare.
Feeling a crick developing in her neck, she looked back down. Beyond her own feet, giant red shoes emerged from the baseboard.
She’d raised a sweet boy in Peter. He’d built the bed frame for Junior and had even painted it himself. But it was a bit odd, and Anna wondered that the quiet little seven-year-old had the courage to lie beneath that clown’s insane smile in the dark of night.
But Junior wasn’t so much like Peter. Peter was soft and sweet and had been scared of the dark for a long time. Junior reminded Anna of her other boy, Victor. Victor had been small and quiet, too, but Anna remembered the way he used to fight at school. He’d taken after her.
Junior was rooming with Teddy for the night. Pete seemed to think it would be for longer, but Anna would only be there for the night. She needed her privacy, and the comfort of her own home. Her heart started beating so hard she could feel it in her neck when she thought of being away from her things.
She sat up. She didn’t sleep much, and was tired of staring at the wall. And tired of thinking. She wanted to distract herself with the evening news.
Anna placed her feet gingerly on the floor. They didn’t hurt as bad as they had earlier. Whatever goop the quack smeared on them must have done some good. Even the swelling in her ankle had gone down, such that she had to tighten her brace.
For a moment, she considered the wheelchair beside the bed, then stood and walked on her own two feet. She couldn’t roll herself with her cut hand, and she wasn’t about to call someone to get her when she was perfectly capable of walking to the living room on her own. And she definitely wasn’t going to argue with anyone about whether she needed
to stay in bed or not.
The strange thing was, except for the itching of the cuts and stitches on her right hand, Anna felt better than she had in awhile. She should’ve been sore but wasn’t. Not only had her recent injuries healed; some of her chronic aches and pains were also gone.
She stopped for a moment in the hallway and looked at the photos hung on the wall. It had been some time since she’d last visited. There were new ones up, including an entire collage of the boys splashing in the Lockton pool. She couldn’t help but smile, though she questioned the cleanliness of that pool. Only a few years had passed since it had started a foot-and-mouth disease epidemic. What did they expect little children to do when they put them in warm water? She’d never let Peter swim in the city pool for just that reason.
Anna slowly made her way down the hall, favoring her twisted ankle. The comforting sound of a droning newscaster soon drew her into the living room. Peter and Katherine sat on the couch reading magazines. Katherine sat with her legs resting across Peter with the end lamp at her back. She looked at Anna, then turned and put her feet on the floor.
“Mom, you should be resting,” Pete said, but his voice was more plead than command, so she didn’t bother replying.
She made her way to the loveseat; silently ignoring Katherine’s rolling eyes.
The television showed images of the local landfill, blackened and smoldering, with smoke still rolling into the sky.
“They finally get that fire out?” Anna asked.
“They think so,” Pete said.
“They thought so before. Turned out there were tires way down in there that were still burning. Started it up again. You hear that?”
“Yeah. They didn’t used to have a separate place for tires. Those things last forever.”
“Don’t see no reason to throw them away at all. I use them as planters.”
Katherine snorted, and Anna whipped her head away from the television and stared her right in the eyes as she said, “Most people today are wasteful. Don’t know what it’s like to want and not have because everything’s always been given to them. We’d never even heard of such a thing as a landfill when I was a child.”
Katherine looked back down at her magazine. Anna managed to restrain her smile until she’d turned back to the television.
“Can you believe all those rats?” Peter said, obviously trying to keep the peace.
Soon after the fire got going, someone who lived near the dump had recorded grainy footage of a fair stampede of rats emerging from the pit.
“Filthy things. Glad I’ve got my cats,” Anna said. “Rats would have to be wrong in the head to step foot in my house.”
No one responded.
When the news ended, Pete said, “Well, it’s getting late. Probably time for bed.”
“Before you go, could you turn it to the BBC for me?” Her son’s remote control was beyond her technical ability.
Anna didn’t get the BBC, though she greatly enjoyed it. She’d heard so much about the UK from her parents, but had never been able to afford a visit.
“Don’t you think you should hit the hay, too?”
“Old women don’t sleep much.”
* * *
A Masterpiece Theatre marathon was on. Anna enjoyed Masterpiece Theatre, but she could see it on PBS. Her mind wandered. She already missed her house, her things. Then a strange feeling came over her. Dryness. The house seemed so dry, and she felt it sucking the moisture and life from her. She could feel the texture of her skin deepening into a web of cracks as her flesh shrank.
And the house was sterile. The poisonous smell of cleaning products almost overwhelmed her. The place was so sterile that it seemed that it would kill not only germs, but possibly her.
Her heart pounded and sweat beaded on her forehead. She sipped the toxic air in shallow breaths. The comfort of her own house pulled at her. She wanted to wrap herself up in her house, in her belongings, in the shadows, and lock the doors and close out the world.
Instead, she went to the kitchen and made a cup of tea. She was thinking crazy. Just a paranoid old woman set in her ways. After calming herself and consciously slowing her breathing, she fell asleep to an episode of Jeeves and Wooster.
In her dreams, though, she burrowed.
She awoke to a shout and something heavy landing on her. When her eyes snapped open, the round, smiling face of Teddy filled her vision.
“Grandma!” he shouted, though only inches away. He hadn’t known she was there. Teddy had been limp as a doll when they picked him up from the neighbors’, and limp as a doll when Peter had carried him inside, and he hadn’t once opened his eyes in the interim.
Anna remembered sleeping that deeply once.
“Teddy, you’re squishing Grandma.” But she squeezed him in a tight hug anyway.
Heavy thumping filled the hallway, and her big son emerged, wide-eyed. He lifted Teddy off of her effortlessly. “Grandma’s hurt. You can’t be rough with her,” he said to the little hellion. “Are you okay, Mom?”
“Aside from the heart attack, I’m fine.”
Peter didn’t crack a smile.
“I’m joking, Peter. I’m not so fragile as that.”
“Did you sleep out here all night?” Teddy still dangled under Peter’s right arm as he spoke.
“I guess I did. You know, cable’s a treat for me.”
Pete looked concerned, but nodded. “We could get you a dish. They’re not that expensive.”
Anna scoffed. “I couldn’t run this thing to save my life. I’d rather it stay a treat, anyway.”
Pete’s gaze suddenly intensified, and he leaned close.
“What?” Anna asked.
“Mom, your cut…It’s gone.” He looked closer at her forehead. “The bruise, too.”
“I told you I’m not so fragile,” Anna said, but she was surprised. She developed bruises easily, and they tended to not heal for weeks. But she felt at her forehead and there was no pain. None in her ribs, either.
“Everything okay?” Katherine stood in the hallway holding back a yawn.
“Everything’s fine. Teddy just ambushed Mom.” Pete looked down and seemed almost surprised to see Teddy still beneath his arm, smiling up at him. He set him down, and Teddy ran off, Anna thought most likely to wake Junior up. Teddy seemed to be the household rooster.
“The way you bolted out of bed I thought maybe a bomb had gone off.” Katherine yawned again. “My goodness. Just about broke my jaw there. Anyway, how’s pancakes sound?”
* * *
Anna surprised herself by eating a third and then a fourth pancake. She smeared the last bite around in the syrup and melted butter and thought she finally might be full.
“That was delicious,” she said.
“I hope so. It’s your famous recipe,” Katherine said.
“That recipe is time-tested,” Peter said, sticking a full quarter of a second stack into his mouth at once.
“Peter!” Anna said, but she couldn’t help but smile. “Katherine, I think you make them better than I ever did.”
“Thank you very much,” Katherine said as she began clearing the table.
“I like them, too,” Junior said.
“And thank you very much, too.”
It felt good. Anna hadn’t realized how much she missed the simple act of sitting down to eat a meal with her family. And yet, behind the happiness, the buzzing anxiety remained.
“When can you drop me off?” she asked.
Pete stopped chewing and stared at her. He swallowed the huge mouthful with apparent difficulty. “Mom, you’re staying with us for awhile. Doctor’s orders.”
“Doctors say a lot and don’t know much. I need to get back home.”
“But we want you to sleep over,” Junior said.
“Yeah!” Teddy said, nodding his syrup-sticky face vigorously.
“But I need to get home. You boys can come over and play in the yard whenever you want.”
“It’s not the sam
e,” Junior said. The normally reserved little boy even pouted.
“You’ve got a doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning. You might as well stay here tonight.”
Anna didn’t like being told what to do, especially by a doctor, but she could see Peter’s concern and was touched. And her grandsons’ faces…
“Okay. Grandma’s sleeping over tonight.”
Peter managed to intercept Teddy even though he burst from his booster seat like his hind end was spring loaded.
* * *
That night, Anna again dreamt of burrowing somewhere dank and cozy. But she also dreamed of hunting. Not of killing, but of returning to her den with her prey still alive. Of holding it down and somehow making an offering of it.
She felt awe. It was the same awe she felt after a powerful church sermon. This new god, it filled her up. It filled her veins. It had commands, and in exchange for obedience, it offered peace.
* * *
Dr. Blake peeled off the large bandage and examined the palm of Anna’s hand. He stared at it closely, for a long time.
“This isn’t possible,” he said. “Your hand is completely healed.”
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” Anna didn’t try too hard to hide her sarcasm.
“It’s very good, but it’s impossible. I wouldn’t even believe this hand had been injured except that the stitches are still there. How did this happen?”
“The work of the Lord, I suppose.”
He continued examining her, shaking his head the entire time. She had no cuts or bruises. Her ankle wasn’t stiff or swollen. The wounds on her feet had healed. Her knees didn’t even hurt, and she hadn’t been able to say that for decades.
“So, how do you feel?” he asked.
“I feel great. Better than ever.”
“I’m glad. I just wish I knew why. You’re not taking any other medications, are you?”
“I don’t prefer to take the ones you already give me.”
