by Rita Ciresi
“We don't need those,” I said. “Just put them in your pocket.” I started to stalk off down the hall.
“Where are you going?” he asked. “It's to the left, not right.” From the tone of his voice, I knew he was accusing me of not visiting often enough. I clutched my present and followed him. He came to Saint Ronan's every day after work and spent Saturday and Sunday afternoons with Mama. He sat next to her in the easy chair, reading the sports page from end to end. Then he read the front page and the want ads—God knows what for—before he put down the paper and fell asleep. Lina told me that when she came to visit Mama she often found Babbo snoozing in the chair. “Just resting my eyes,” he said.
Mama's room was at the end of the second wing, across from the showers. Her roommate, who also had suffered a stroke, was named Evelyn. She always lay on her back in bed, her white hair brilliant against the faded pillowcase, her arms like withered sticks on top of the bedspread. There were no flowers or cards on her nightstand. “Nobody ever visits her,” Babbo said as we walked by her bed.
Mama—or a strange, silent shadow of who she used to be—sat in the exact same position as the last time I had seen her. The nurses always strapped her in her wheelchair and turned her parallel to the window, with her good side toward the doorway and her bad side—with the drooping eyelid, sagging cheek, and crooked mouth—hidden. She was dressed in a navy blue robe. Her hands hung in her lap like weights, and her feet looked like they were glued to the wheelchair rests.
“Hi, Mama,” I said. The false cheerfulness in my voice made me sound like I was talking to a two-year-old. I took a deep breath before I went up to her, leaned over, and did what I always dreaded: deposited a dry kiss on her surprisingly soft cheek. She blinked. Babbo handed me the geranium. He moved a water pitcher, a paper cup, and a box of tissues off the nightstand and onto the windowsill. He pushed the big pot of yellow mums to the side.
“Those must be from Lina,” I said.
He grunted. He put the geraniums directly in front of the mums, then sat in the easy chair facing Mama. I went over to Evelyn's side of the room and got another chair. The cushion made a soft farting noise when I sat down on it.
I bit my lip. Sometimes I wished we could just sit there with Mama and respect her silence. But we had to talk. The conversations were inane when we tried to include Mama and equally ridiculous when we ignored her.
“Well,” Babbo said loudly as he looked at Mama, “we got ourselves a gorgeous day here. Pretty as a picture. The sun's out and the air is just right. No traffic at all. Coming here was smooth sailing.”
I bit my lip. I got so mad at Babbo I almost hit a truck, I felt like telling Mama. Babbo was braking so hard on the passenger side, I'm surprised his foot didn't go straight through the floorboard. The fact that Mama probably wouldn't understand anything I told her made me feel giddy. I knew I could say any number of horrible things to her and she would just have to sit there and take it. Fortunately, Babbo was there to keep me in check.
“Babbo brought you a geranium,” I said to Mama.
“A nice-looking geranium,” Babbo said, louder.
“She doesn't need a translator,” I said to Babbo.
“She has trouble hearing.”
“She's not deaf.”
Babbo glared at me. I ignored him and looked at Mama. “And we brought you some cards,” I said.
“Nice cards,” Babbo said loudly. “She wrote them all by herself.” He gestured at me. “Show them to her. Read them to her.”
I got up to get my purse. “I'll just show them,” I said.
“Read them,” he said. “And while you're up, fix her glasses.” Mama's eyeglasses—silvery-gray frames with thick lenses—had slipped down her nose. I carefully pushed them up again. She didn't even blink. I sat down next to her and opened the cards. The one I had brought home for Babbo had the words A Prayer for a Mother embossed in gold on heavy white stock. A red rose on a long green stem decorated the page. Inside was my typical chingy-changy rhyme scheme, ending with:
and all the mothers everywhere
may God this good day bless
but you alone are special to us
—miles above the rest!
I read it aloud to Mama in a soft, self-conscious voice. Babbo had forgotten to sign the card, but I still said “Love, from Babbo” at the end, as if his signature—crooked and not very familiar-looking to me, since he rarely wrote anything—was present.
Then I read my card. I hadn't written it. I had picked it out at a Hallmark shop. I must have stood in front of the rack for fifteen minutes, rooting through the selection, bypassing all the ones that would imply that Mama was the best mom a daughter could ever have, the ones that would call her warm, wonderful, and compassionate, the ones that would baldly state I loved her. My card showed a robin sitting on a tree. The verse was short and sweet.
A little bird has come to say
Warm wishes for Happy Mother's Day!
After I read the cards, I handed them to Babbo to put on the nightstand. Babbo took the one with the robin on it and turned it over. “Hallmark bought you out now?” he asked.
I shook my head.
He held up the card. “You paid money for this?”
“Obviously,” I said. I turned around and got out my present. Babbo frowned as he took in the size of the package, the red and blue paisley foil wrapping, and the extravagant red ribbon and bow.
“Where'd you get that fancy wrapping?” he asked.
“Macy's.”
“They gift wrap for free?”
“Not anymore,” I said.
“What's in there?”
I pointed to Mama. “It's supposed to be a surprise.”
Babbo sat back and watched me open the box. Inside was a navy blue velour robe with white piping on the collar and cuffs. It wasn't all that different from the robe she had on, but it had been the only thing in the entire lingerie department that was appropriate for Mama. Her wardrobe, before she had the stroke, consisted of a black dress worn to mass, novenas, and funerals; a flowered dress for weddings; and for everyday wear, a black pilly cardigan sweater, several pairs of sleeveless shirts two sizes too big for her, stretch slacks, and low-heeled Cobbie Cuddlers. Lina and I had been in despair over her clothes for years. As teenagers, we had hung back from her or marched on ahead, embarrassed by her dowdiness. As adults, we gave her new sweaters and dresses that hung in her closet with the tags still attached. She acted as if only sluts paid attention to what they put on in the morning. “Fancy duds,” she said, “for fancy ladies.”
Picking out the robe at Macy's had been almost as excruciating as picking out the Hallmark card. I made the mistake of responding to a saleslady's May I help you? not with a noncommittal Just looking but with the specific I'm looking for a gift. That was just the opening the woman was searching for. A gift for whom? What size did my mother wear? What colors did she like? What kind of material did she prefer?
I couldn't stand to be put on the spot like that. “I'm looking for something sensible,” I told her, rudely turning my back. Ordinarily I loved everything about shopping—the screech of hangers being pushed aside as I combed through the garments, the hum of the lights, the ding-ding-ding of department-store bells, and even the innocuous Muzak that, inappropriately, failed to crescendo when you found just the right item for just the right price. But because I had been looking for a present for Mama, I found myself shopping like Mama. I was brusque with the saleswoman, suspecting her of trying to railroad me into buying something beyond my means. I grabbed at the garments and inspected the price tag before asking if there was a clearance rack. I made my choice and grimly pressed my lips together as I reached into my purse to pull out my wallet. I even paid with cash, not a credit card. Then, ashamed of my behavior, I took the escalator upstairs and shelled out ten bucks to have them gift wrap the present.
I held up the box and displayed the robe to Mama, then passed the box to Babbo.
“That'
s just like the one she's got on,” Babbo said.
I shrugged. “So now she has another one.”
“What does she need two for?”
I pressed my teeth together in the back. “It's supposed to be a present!”
He fingered the robe, then put the box on Mama's bed. “Tanning salons,” he said, with just enough of a sneer in his voice to let me know he hadn't believed my story for a second. “Cards that cost two dollars. Gift wrap. Expensive presents. You better learn how to save for a rainy day.”
Every day of my life is rainy, I felt like telling him. So why save for it?
“I make good money,” I lied.
“For now, maybe. But what about the future?”
“What about it?” I asked.
Babbo gestured at Mama. “Something like this costs a lot of money. You got good health insurance? You got savings?”
“Just because Mama had a stroke doesn't mean I'm going to have one.”
“They say—”
“Who says?” I asked.
“The doctors,” he said. “That it runs in families.”
I shrugged.
“That one with the beard, the Jewish one in the hospital, he even told that sister of yours she better watch her step, cut back on the red meat, and not take those birth-control pills—” Babbo's face grew red, from both anger and embarrassment. “So what does that sister of yours do? She laughs at the doctor. She laughs at this Dr. Klein, so even he says to her, ‘When you're young, you think nothing is ever going to happen to you.’ He says to her, ‘Just remember what happened to the dinosaurs!'”
I laughed, a little shrilly. “What do dinosaurs have to do with it?” I asked. “They've been extinct for millions of years.”
Babbo shook his finger at me. “That's right,” he said. “Because they couldn't see what was coming. Selfish. Stupid. Living like there was nobody else in the world to think of but themselves. You want to be the same way?”
Babbo rarely looked me straight in the face. But when he fixed his eye on me with the intensity of an animal about to jump upon its prey, I could tell he was trying to figure out how much I knew about Lina and this affair of hers, as he would call it. A blush spread across my face and gave everything away. He looked disgusted, as if I were in cahoots with Lina, or as if I were the guilty party.
“Hey, look,” I said. “Just because you're mad at Lina doesn't mean you have to take it out on me.”
He sat back in his chair, triumphant. “Who said anything about her?” he asked.
“It's always the same thing,” I said. I unconsciously looked over at Mama, then looked away. “Whenever Lina did something wrong I got punished for it. She stole from the drugstore, so I couldn't play outside for weeks! She stayed out too late with boys, so I got locked up in the house!” I kept on talking, all wound up with self-pity, like some blond-out-of-a-bottle actress on the three o'clock soap opera. “I'm sick of it!” I said. “I'm not Lina. And I'm not Mama. I'm not going to have a stroke! So why don't you let me live my own life?”
Babbo glared at me. “Who knows what your life is?” he said. “You come and go, here and there. You got your own agenda. So follow it.”
I fingered my car keys in my pocket. “I'm going for a walk.”
“Fine,” Babbo said.
“I'll be back soon.”
“That's perfectly all right.”
I despised myself for keeping on talking. “Do you want anything from the vending machines?” I asked.
Babbo stared straight ahead at Mama. “I came here to visit,” he said.
I pushed my chair back, walked past Evelyn (whose eyes were now closed), and went down the hall. The overworked, overweight nurses were making their rounds, pushing their carts in and out of the rooms. I couldn't stand their brisk and efficient movements, their loud voices, and their ugly watches with round faces and black bands, which they consulted every time they dispensed medicine or wrote something on their charts. It was always time for something with them. Now it's time for juice, they said. Now it's time to get changed. Time for showers. Time for bed. It wasn't that I didn't appreciate the care they gave Mama. But the fact that they saw my mother reduced to this— that they bathed and diapered and fed her, washed her bottom and wiped the applesauce that dribbled down her chin—made me want to look away from them in shame.
In the old days, Mama would say, daughters used to take care of their mothers!
I started to seethe inside. I got so angry I almost answered her out loud: This isn't the old days!
I walked down to the end of the hall, where the south wing met the east. In the activities room, the more-alert patients came to visit with their families. The room was long and flooded with sunlight. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out upon an open meadow. Beyond that lay an apple orchard, where the gnarled trees already were covered with healthy white blossoms.
The room was more crowded than I had ever seen it. The older people here didn't look as if they were permanently fixed in their wheelchairs, but as if they had just sat down to take a short ride. Some of the patients grasped metal walkers. All of the generations were here: grandparents, parents, teenagers, toddlers, even crying babies. A man in a straw boater was playing a medley from The Sound of Music on the piano. As he launched into “My Favorite Things,” I thought about how much the whole scene reminded me of a wedding. On a table in the corner of the room, a plastic tray of cookies sat next to the ever-present dull silver coffee tank. I went over, took a Styrofoam cup from the stack, and filled it with the evil-looking black liquid. Whoever made the coffee at Saint Ronan's believed in doling out strong doses of bitter brew. I drank it anyway.
From my chair in the corner, I surveyed the room. The decorations on the bulletin boards, like those in a kindergarten classroom, changed from season to season. Mama had been here long enough to run the entire calendar: Valentines made from doilies, green leprechauns, Easter bunnies, witches and jack-o'-lanterns, turkeys and pilgrims, snowflakes cut from white construction paper, and nimble little elves and reindeer that pranced from floor to ceiling. The central bulletin board sported a large multicolored sign that declared TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE! Beneath it sat a frail old woman in a wheelchair. A corsage was pinned onto her dress, and in her lap sat a photo album. A middle-aged woman—obviously her daughter—was flipping the pages and pointing out the pictures.
I watched them jealously. I wished I were anyplace else but where I was. I wished I were sitting next to Phil at a restaurant, my foot grazing his underneath the table. Lina had all the luck, I thought, and none of the ability to appreciate it. But she could hide her ingratitude pretty well when it served her purpose. She would be drinking her Bloody Mary right now, laughing with Phil's mother and teasing the kids, as if the world were one big hunky-dory place in which nobody had the need to keep secrets or the bad taste to fuck or puke or get sick. Why couldn't I belong to such a world, where on Mother's Day, families gathered at all-you-can-eat brunches to sip champagne and orange juice and nibble on croissants and ham and eggs? Everyone would be polite and perfumed and civilized. Nobody would talk about bad drivers or bad weather, nobody would use the words buck or kook, nobody would put a price on things, nobody would harbor grudges that went back years and years, nobody would dredge up the past or make dire warnings about the future.
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. My back itched from sunburn, and what Mama always had referred to as down there felt suspiciously sore. I nibbled on the Styrofoam edge of the coffee cup. This is it, I thought. I finally got it, the big fat clap. Gonorrhea, Florida style. Herpes, à la Captiva. All thanks to a little-known sales rep for Special Moments Stationery, Inc. Why had I gone on that trip? Before we even left, I knew that I had nothing in common with him, except that we were both on the make. By the third day, I was frying on the beach while he stayed inside the hotel bar, drinking Dos Equis and watching tennis on the wide-screen TV.
Was I that lonely?
Me an
d thousands of others. Yes, yes.
As the piano man in the straw boater launched into “Climb Every Mountain,” I looked around at all the families, trying to convince myself that they were stuck together with just as fragile a glue as the kind that held together my own family. Then I looked down at my hands. The webs of my fingers were covered with shreds of flaking skin. I'm getting old, I thought. I'll never meet anyone. I'll never have children. Babbo's right, I might have a stroke. Then who will take care of me? Lina, at least, had Pammy and Richie. They may grow up to despise her, but they still would look after her. No one would look after me.
I grew overheated and restless as I drank the coffee. The pounding finale of “Climb Every Mountain” sent me out of the recreation room and back into the hall, where I had to press myself against the wall to avoid bumping into a nurse's cart. I went back to Mama's room. Mama sat as rigidly as ever in her chair, like a plastic figure permanently glued on a piece of doll-house furniture. Babbo sat just as motionless, his eyes shut and his hands braced on the armrest, as if he were on a plane that was about to take off. Someone passing by the room who did not know their situation would be hard-pressed to say who had had the stroke. Mama's wheelchair would be the only giveaway.
Babbo let out a little snore as I sat down. I sat there for a long time, just looking at Mama, at the brittle gray and black curls that surrounded her forehead, the lenses in her silver glasses that glared in the sunlight, and her crooked cheek, which hung like a dog's jowl. Her skin was pale and translucent as the glaze on a doughnut, and her lip was stretched on one side, as if to reflect her dissatisfaction. I had to bite my own lip to keep from crying. I should be good to Mama, I thought. What if she never recovered? What if she died? What if I never saw her again? There was so much to say that had never been said, that would get lost, forever, if we didn't connect right now.
I thought I would tell her that I loved her. Instead, I remembered her tight voice, the petrified wood, and the gritty bar of Lava soap (made with real volcanic ash) that she used to thrust between our lips. I'll wash your mouth out, she hollered, whenever she caught us lying or swearing. I was sure that bar of soap still sat in one of the kitchen drawers, the corners all gnawed and full of our sharp teeth marks, and I felt rage, dark and bitter as the coffee I had just drunk, boil up within me.
