Wherever You Go, There They Are

by Annabelle Gurwitch

  A row of walkers rest against the wall and several residents are being fed by attendants, but I try not to stare as we make our way toward our table. My sister has already introduced herself to everyone who is able to chew with a closed mouth. My parents are perusing their menus, so I head over to a lively group of female diners, where Lisa has ingratiated herself.

  “Your mother will fit right in. She’ll love it here,” a bubbly bubbie type says.

  I’m pimping my mother to Bubbly Bubbie for a full ten minutes before I notice that she’s got on a bib. It’s a pattern that blends in well with her blouse. Don’t look at the bib, I tell myself, avert your eyes, don’t embarrass her. As I move down the row, I catch the interest of Twinkle Toes. Twink jumps up and does a little jig. “I’m ninety and I’m one of the only ones here without a walker! We came here with our husbands, but when they passed, we formed this group. We go to the ballet, concerts, and play cards together.”

  I’m not sure which part of what she’s said is the source of her joy, that their husbands have passed or that they go to the ballet. She gestures to a lithe woman seated next to her. “Her husband is still alive.” She points to a man with a grumpy expression seated across the room. “He says she nudges him when they eat, so he eats by himself.” Now I am certain that this is the right place for my parents. The idea that my father can eat a meal far from my mother’s haranguing sounds ideal, although I can’t imagine what my mother will do, as her raison d’être seems to be giving him a hard time. I look over the crowd. With its collegial air, it has a senior hostel vibe, and as impossible as it is to picture her here, it makes sense. Mom’s early life was populated by women who looked like these ladies, and the food is just bland enough to be reminiscent of Nanny’s cooking.

  I order a chicken salad, and it’s not Le Cirque but it seems like a small mercy that they have gumbo on the menu. It’s nowhere near as flavorful as my dad would prefer, but given the state of my parents’ finances, that even this comfort is within reach seems like a miracle.*

  Because Twink appears to be the leader of the pack, I ask, “Who are they?” nodding toward a man who is neatly dressed in a polo shirt and pressed trousers. He appears younger than my parents but he’s in a wheelchair and is being spoon-fed by a middle-aged woman with the kind of angular haircut that requires regular mainteance. I’ve lasered in on her as another potential BFF for my mom.

  “That’s Bruce; he’s sixty-five years old and he lives here. He was an architect. He designed this building and now he has Parkinson’s. His wife comes every day to visit and have meals with him.”

  I start to tear up, so I put my glasses on. I can’t let them see me cry.

  “You’re going to like my mother,” I tell her, leaning in to kiss her cheeks. “She’s smart and funny and always full of surprises.”

  “We already love her.” And with that, Bubbly Bubbie kisses my hand and I take a seat at my family’s table.

  “This is going well,” I’m whispering to my sister when we hear something in the distance that sounds like an alarm going off but, as it gets closer, is unmistakably a human scream. A sturdy woman, with a build like a tree trunk, bursts into the dining room. I noticed her in the hallway walking (unassisted!) and pegged her as a possible buddy.

  “Help! Help!” she screams. “They’re trying to kill me. They’re trying to kill me!”

  She’s jabbing her index finger in the direction of a soft-faced attendant who is standing in the doorway, arms hanging slackly by her sides. The aide doesn’t appear to be in a murderous mood.

  “Help me, help me,” the sturdy woman pleads. Her eyes search the room and meet mine.

  A shrunken man, skin hanging loosely off his slender frame but dressed in a sartorial tweed nonetheless, shakes his fist at her and whines, “You’ve got to stop saying that. Why are you saying that?”

  A sudden calm comes over her. “I wouldn’t be saying that if it weren’t true.”

  No one is moving toward her. I stand up. “Someone has to help her,” I whisper under my breath. What if they are trying to kill her?

  “They’re all over me. They’re crawling all over me!” She rushes out of the dining room screaming and waving her hands in the air. The diners return their attention to dessert.

  Are we in a senior-living version of Rosemary’s Baby? They’re all in on it, I think, no wonder they’re so welcoming. My parents are Mia Farrow’s baby and these people are members of Ruth Gordon’s coven.

  In the distance I hear some island-accented voices—the aides at the Gardens are uniformly Jamaican or Haitian—trying to calm the screamer down, and I realize what everyone else knows. This is not their first time at this rodeo. I also realize I’m an idiot. There’s a compelling reason that has nothing to do with the ethnic makeup of the neighborhood for why the campus is ringed by high walls. “Well, that’s not good timing,” I say to no one in particular as I push my food around my plate.

  I excuse myself to go to the bathroom. Now that my eyes have adjusted to the surroundings, I notice the emergency pull cords that are stationed along the walls, little scuff marks near the floor moldings—the turning radius of wheelchairs must not be terrific, or maybe it’s marks from the walkers and carts most of the people are pushing—and an extremely faint smell of some sort of human excretion. I lock myself into a double-wide bathroom stall, sit, and weep.

  When I’ve collected myself enough to wash up, I see that my mother is drying her hands at the sink. I have no idea how long she’s been standing there.

  “I can really see you here, Mom. You’ll be the one screaming, ‘They’re trying to kill me,’ in no time at all.” We laugh and dab at our eyes.

  There isn’t an apartment available for us to visit, but my parents and sister have already seen one on a previous trip. We take a cursory look at the pool, gym, and hair salon, and it’s time to go. It won’t be until months later that I will wonder why didn’t I check out the rehab facility. But I’m not thinking clearly. My sister was right to question if I was prepared. It was like being on a moving walkway: I went in the direction we were going and I didn’t think to get off, or maybe I couldn’t bear to see the advanced care units, which my parents will likely graduate into, because if I did, I’d never be able to make a decision.

  None of us have visited the next destination but it’s the only other place my dad found online that’s within their price range and that has the word “club” in its name.

  The Admiral Club is in what might be considered a nicer part of town. The palm-lined entrance reminds me of the driveway leading to the Jockey Club and seems promising, but as we get closer, we see a nondescript midrise apartment building, one of the few stucco structures that haven’t been replaced by the glass monoliths that crowd the Miami skyline. The windows in the building look small, there are no grounds, and there’s no security.

  My spirits rise when I see that we’ve made the lobby LED screen. Welcome Gerwartz Family! But it’s the thought that counts.

  Then I see the parlor. Mixed-and-matched dining room chairs are crowded into an area that is poorly lit. Rows of seats are facing in the same direction, a television is on, and it looks more like an emergency room than a community room. The upholstery is visibly worn, the carpet well trafficked; even the wrinkled wallpaper looks tuckered out. Along the back wall, residents are lined up in their wheelchairs, gazing inertly at the screen.

  The director of the Club, Faith, greets us with flight attendant efficiency and invites us to tour an apartment.

  The apartment has low ceilings and that same sad carpet. When my father learns that cooking is not allowed in the apartment, his mouth falls open, but the bathroom is by far the saddest part of the place. A plastic tub has been hastily modified for seniors unable to lift their feet by sawing out the middle section and sealing the edges with caulk. My parents take it in silently. It’s only when my mother looks over at a w
indow, with its crooked aluminum blinds, slats bending in the wrong direction, and a window air conditioner unit, that she sighs defeatedly, “I thought we left that behind in Delaware.”

  My mother says she never shared my father’s first-class fantasies, but life on Sunset Island II was awfully seductive.

  I’ve lived in far less glamorous places. But she doesn’t know that. My mother couldn’t bring herself to visit my apartment when I lived in New York. “I know my limitations,” she’d said. Fearing the place would be so ratty that it would upset her, she asked a friend who lived in New York to check it out. Ruth stepped over the vagrant who lived in the garbage-strewn vestibule of my building, trudged up the five stories in her full-length mink coat to my cramped sublet, and reported back, “Yep, it’s just as ratty as you expected!”

  But it’s different when you’re young and hopped up on dreams of your glorious future and cheap deli coffee. There was also something special about each of my chosen hovels: a view of treetops, an antique lighting fixture, purple tiles in the bathroom. Here, there is no place to rest your eyes that isn’t industrial, uninspired, and it’s likely that many hours will be spent inside these walls.

  In that moment, my heart breaks for my mom. I spent so many years angry at her passivity, how she looked the other way even when Dad’s irresponsibility harmed her children, but depression makes you selfish, and that is the tragedy of her life.

  My sister has gone quiet, which is not a good sign. She has a constipated smile plastered on her face.

  “So what brings you here?” Faith asks my sister and me, not making eye contact with my parents.

  “We were thinking this might be a weekend getaway spot for my teenage son,” I’m tempted to say.

  “Your parents present very well,” she says, as though sizing them up like they’re farm animals at a state fair. In all of the arguing about the garbage can, we neglected to discuss whether to mention that Mom is sick, but it seems better not to bring it up because we need them to get a place in independent living. We don’t want to have them put in a higher level of care, because they won’t accept that. Not yet.

  “It’s time for our parents to think about the next place,” I say.

  Faith nods and generously proffers an impromptu dinner invitation. We peek into a cafeteria that is markedly shabbier than the one at the Gardens. It’s four p.m., so the dinner service is about to commence, and the featured dish is displayed under plastic wrap. My dad looks heartened to see that it’s sliced ham, but the vegetables are overcooked. Before I can answer, Lisa says, “Thank you, but we have other plans.” She all but breaks into a sprint and my parents move quicker than I’ve seen in years to exit the building.

  We do actually have plans, because my one-step-ahead sister wisely made dinner reservations at my parents’ favorite haunt.

  We consolidate into one car and to break the silence, I ask my parents to hand over their new iPhones. In an attempt to retire their outdated flip phones, my sister has generously treated them to new ones. They’ve already expressed concern about using the touch screens, but I am going to make it easy for them by transferring their contacts, starting with my father’s phone.

  “Who is Artz?”

  “That’s Gary Artz.”

  “Is he dead or alive?”

  “Dead.”

  “Who is Ellis?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Alan?”

  “Not sure.”

  “Myer?”

  “Dead.”

  “Oh, is that Cousin Mike?”

  “Yes, dead.”

  “Brother?”

  “That’s Cousin Brother. Dead.”

  “Dad, why do you have Christie Hefner’s phone number?”

  “I put some investors together to buy a Playboy Club, but it didn’t pan out.”

  “When was that?”

  “In the late eighties.”

  “Who is ann345mwx?”

  “That’s you.”

  “Not dead, just resting,” I say, borrowing a line from the terrible Ishtar.

  Now I’m facing that singularly twenty-first-century dilemma: to delete or not to delete. That is the question. In the past, one might have drawn a line through the deceased’s name in a bound address book or Rolodex, allowing the presence of absence. Electronic deletion is so swift and complete that I can’t bring myself to remove the departed from my own lists, but given that 99 percent of Dad’s entries are no longer living, scrolling for a phone number has got to be an emotionally draining exercise.*

  The irony is that everyone who knows me has either called or texted and gotten my standard reply, “What wonderful person is this?” because I’ve never managed to enter contacts in my phone, but I want to exercise some small control over my parents’ future. I’m determined that they are going to know who is calling them, damn it! Texting? We probably don’t have to worry about it, people over eighty don’t tend to text, but you never know with my dad; he’s always been an early adopter.

  A month ago, Lisa was on one of our rotating tours of parental duty and invited a high school friend, Stephanie, over to our parents’ condo. Stephanie suggested setting up a Skype account on their home computer. They might want to see their grandchildren when conversing, not to mention that my sister and I could keep an eye out for signs of decline. Our parents agreed. Lisa, Stephanie, and Dad gathered around his computer, but when they tried to sign up, they learned that he’d already opened an account and had been Skyping with Hot Babes, Really Hot Babes, and the Hottest Babes on the Web for quite some time. Mercifully for all involved, Mom was busy emptying the trash bin. Someone had thrown out a paper towel, so with the celery stick already there, it was overflowing.

  I decide to delete only the longtime dead, ten years or longer; to leave Christie Hefner for old times’ sake; and to leave ann345mwx as is because it has a certain ring to it and there’s also a chance that it’s not me. I can’t bring myself to open the contact and see what number is listed. I hope that I am ann345mwx.

  “Can I interest you in a cheap Merlot?” my mother asks when we arrive at the restaurant. Tonight will not be a good night to give up alcohol. We’re so relieved to be in a place where everyone is ambulatory that we don’t discuss anything other than our food, and polish off two bottles between us.

  Back at the condo, Lisa and I parcel out the silver, politely declining the iced tea straws. We are cordial, verging on solicitous, in our distribution of the linens—four napkins is the equivalent of one tablecloth—but we hit a snag on two silver-plated serving trays that once belonged to Becca. We both prefer the rectangular to the round. My sister suggests we play rock, paper, scissors.

  “I can’t. I just went to adult summer camp and am still traumatized by the memory of two hundred people in onesies pointing their scissors at me.”

  “What about a coin toss?”

  “Sure, no problem, whatever you want,” I say, but something in my brain breaks. I have to win this coin toss. My sister throws a quarter up, catches it in her palm, and invites me to call it. But I can’t do it.

  “Call it . . . Call it, Sisterbelle!”

  “Hea . . . ails.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Hea . . . ails,” I repeat in an effort to form a word that sounds exactly like both “heads” and “tails.” “Hea . . . ails,” I stutter. “Hails. Hails.”

  “Hails? Are you calling hails?”

  “Uh-huh. Hails.” Something must have broken in her brain as well, because she punches me in the arm. Playfully, but her fist is closed. I punch her back. She punches me. I punch her. She punches me. We pummel each other like five-year-olds. Our mother sashays in and wants to know what’s happening.

  “Mom, what are you wearing?” I gasp. She’s got on a high-collared full-length flannel granny nightgown.

  “It was
Rebecca’s, it’s so comfortable,” she says, executing a wobbly but passable fashion show twirl. “What’s going on in here?”

  “Hails! Hails!” we say, but it doesn’t make any sense. Our mother, who had a bit too much of the cheap Merlot, starts laughing, and all three of us are giggling now. My father, hearing the noise, shuffles in. He is wearing a bathrobe that barely reaches his thighs.

  “What’s so funny?”

  A spinning spectral figure, like something from a children’s ghost story; a stooped colossus in a Lilliputian bathrobe; and two middle-aged women duking it out over serving trays. This will be the last memory we make as the Gurwitch family relaxing at home on a Saturday night.

  When none of us can offer an explanation, Dad shrugs and shuffles back to the bedroom. He’s probably got a Hot Babe waiting. How much dough he is spending, we don’t know, but it’s better than risking getting hit over the head or worse at a “golf tournament.”* Thank goodness for porn on the Internet!

  I sober up quickly with the realization that I’m going to have to call heads or tails after having thought about porn.

  “Heads?” I say because it conjures an only slightly less vivid image.

  Lisa turns the coin over and it’s tails. She slips the long, thin tray into her tote. You can never beat the General.

  Back at the Sun Harbour, I ask Lisa if she’ll miss our parents when they’re gone. She says that she will, adding in a measured voice that she knows they always believed in her. “Always.” She repeats the word “always,” and I know she means they always believed in her, but I hear it as a reminder that they were always so predictable.

  That summer I went to Los Angeles with my dad, my next stop was Northwestern University’s summer theater institute, known as the Cherubs program. If I wasn’t sure already that I wanted to head to a life in the arts, that summer convinced me. I also met Tonya Pinkins, who would go on to win a Tony Award and every other honor you can win as an actress on the New York stage. Tonya and I have seen each other through failures and felicities since we were fifteen years old, and it’s hard to imagine my life without her and that program.