The Eves

by Grace Sammon

  How could I even figure out what a relationship with Roy could look like? I can just see me opening the conversation, Oh, Roy, by the way, you know that whole thing about the kids and the car…?

  Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive. Who said that, Shakespeare? I don’t think so, someone Scottish, I think. I should ask Roy, he would know.

  Roy, again. I’ve gotta stop that. I don’t do relationships. I haven’t really since James and I divorced. Another bad idea, I should have dated, given the kids role models, created a new family. I didn’t date because I didn’t want to worry about bringing a man into our lives. I had to be sure no one would ever hurt either one of them. It’s probably more true to say I didn’t date because, simply, I loved the three of us. Three.

  Shaking all of this out of my head is important. Sydney didn’t want to wait for a face-to-face meeting. I’ve arranged to do a Google “Hang Out” with her today. She, apparently, uses and prefers the Google video chat options in her work. Already familiar with Skype, this is one more technology thing I have to master. Thank God for Erica. She’s got me all set up.

  Judging that it’s late enough in the day, I go to the kitchen and only pause for a moment before grabbing a coffee cup and pouring the vodka. I’ve got time to go over my notes before Sydney calls in. I’m trying to capture the messages, themes, and lessons each person seems to impart. I’ve written questions, wonderings, and “thoughts for the ride” in the squares and margins of my chart. The “thoughts for the ride” was supposed to be “thoughts for the run,” helping me focus, along with my ever-present music playlist from the iPod the kids gave me. I’ve been trying to increase my running endurance. I’ll have to put that off for a few weeks.

  I set up for the video chat at the kitchen counter. I can get a better height to the camera, the light comes in from behind, I don’t look so old, I can put my hand on my chin, hide the jowl that seems to have suddenly appeared, and be closer to the vodka.

  While I wait for Sydney to initiate the chat, I go over my emails. Allison and I have been emailing back and forth. Malcolm has been checking the weather. Unseasonably warm. One o’clock game. If I can be there by ten “The Captain” will get us out on the water, down the river, around the tip, and up to an anchorage on the cliff’s side. Allison assures me that I should bring nothing, that she always has too much food and too much to drink. Reading into this last bit, I have to assume that she is referring to the number of available beverages, but maybe she, too, overdoes it, on occasion.

  She’s told me that on the boat tomorrow there will be me, Roy, Sydney—if she’s up for it, Tia, and CC for sure, and, possibly, Tobias. Between six and eight of us then. Not quite a crowd, but enough. Interesting, she hasn’t included Sonia.

  She’s warned me, as Roy did, that she doesn’t like talking during the game, but that if I want to chat there are multiple decks and plenty of room on the boat. “Wear something purple,” she demands. There is also no rooting for the other team, apparently.

  It’s almost time for Sydney to initiate the call. I pour just a bit more vodka, and settle in for the chat, realizing I’m nervous. In all likelihood, she’s dying. Thirteen at table. How do I frame this conversation?

  The computer prompt rings right on schedule and Sydney’s beautiful, soft face, appears on my screen.

  “Hello Jessica! Thank you for doing this today. I’ve really been eager to talk to you. How are you?”

  We exchange pleasantries. She comments on the surprise of seeing the orchids over my shoulder, I tell her how easy they are to grow and that I’m pleased that she will be boating tomorrow. I tell her that I have no set agenda for our conversation but that I’ve made some notes. I know she already has the set of questions. I invite her to begin and study her face and mannerisms as she speaks. I peek over her shoulders to take in what her room looks like. Soft colors, great artwork, comfortable feel. She begins.

  “I don’t have the luxury of a lack of focus and purpose right now, Jessica.” She says this ruefully, she’s not scolding me. “This is my second round at ‘the attack of the brain cancer.’” She says this like it’s a sci-fi movie title.

  “I’ve completed the therapy. Now we have to wait and see if it works. If it doesn’t, there’s only one more option. It sounds ridiculous. If the cancer isn’t killed off, they will actually inject the polio virus directly into my brain. Seriously, what mad scientist makes these things up? Anyway, I’m on a short leash, and I know it. If things go south, I’m prepared, not like Joan, but prepared. My kids will come. I will be fine.

  “But, I’m also angry. I know that’s common, but that doesn’t matter. I am so angry. I am afraid. I feel powerless. I hate it. I grab every opportunity I have to reclaim myself. I feel I lose my way far too often.

  “You know, this is all made more absurd because of what I do for a profession.” I prompt her to tell me about that and she continues. “I’m a ‘life coach,’ really, a life coach. Someone who has clients that come to her with goals or no goals, skills, or no skills, and together we create a plan, set goals, acquire skills, and build the life they say they want. It’s not therapy. I don’t have the time, or the skill, for that. Life coaching is simply focused work, taking charge of your life and positioning it for happiness and success as you define it. I do most of it electronically, in email, blogging, and videoconferencing, like this. I’ve been able to continue with most of my clients while here at The Grange, except on the really bad days. But there’s a cruel irony being in this situation and being a ‘life coach,’ don’t you think?”

  I agree, feeling both curious and vodka relaxed. I ask her how she would treat herself if she came to herself as a client.

  “I’ve thought about that—good question. I’d want to know what I want to accomplish, what goals I have set. I’d want to know if I thought I could accomplish them, or what I would need to accomplish them. And, honestly, I’d come up blank. I’m content with what I’ve done. I love my kids and grandkids. Oh, don’t look so surprised. I married stupidly young, but we succeeded at it. We defied the odds for teenage marriages succeeding, especially for young Black kids. I worked for DC schools for many years. We had four children, two boys, two girls. Howard worked for the Justice Department. He was killed in the line of duty, a drug bust, nearly twenty years ago. The kids were tiny. Luckily, among the amazing things you can say about the Black community is there is almost always a strong family and extended family. I miss my husband to this day. He’d be very proud of the children, especially how his boys turned out to be fine men. I have five grandbabies. I am not ready to leave them. I am blessed that they all live up in Anacostia, near the ‘Big Red Chair.’ They visit me most weekends.

  “When I think of what more I’d like to do, I wonder why it matters. I’d like to read more history before I go. I’m fascinated by Frederick Douglass, his mixed-race ancestry, the work he did shortly after this grange came into existence. There’s no record that he was ever here, but I’d like to think he came, maybe with his second wife, Helen Pitts.”

  Knowing nothing about this I urge Sydney to go on. “I don’t really know much about her other than she is responsible for the Douglass museum in Anacostia, and that Helen graduated from Mt. Holyoke, was a suffragette and, as a white woman, was the subject of much scorn in both the Black and white communities. Her marriage caused her to be estranged from her parents.

  “I identify with that since I don’t speak to my own parents. I’ve been thinking a lot about trying to fix that. I could toss out the lure of my dying in front of them, but I’m not sure it’s that important to me. As a life coach, I can tell you that the number one goal of older parents is to improve or fix the relationships they have with their adult children. I fantasize that it might be important to my own parents to get reconnected, but I cut them off long ago. Do you know, Jessica, that parents who are estranged from their children are suicidal at ten times the national average?”


  I tell her, “I didn’t know, but I’m not surprised.” I understand exactly what she is saying at very visceral level. I sip from my coffee cup, and prod her with “what did you learn from your mother that you remember now?”

  “Most things about her make me angry. I’ve got a list. On the positive side, I remember, when we were little, she would always tell us that in each day there will be many occasions to say ‘please,’ and ‘thank you,’ and ‘I am sorry.’ She would add, ‘See those things, say those things, often.’ I’ve tried to do that with my life.

  “I guess that’s what I’ve been thinking about. I’m waiting for my mother to say she’s sorry. One of the reasons I haven’t contacted them is that the research shows that parents who really want to reconcile with their children go to them and do the big apologetic, apologizing for everything under the sun, not even knowing what they are apologizing for, failing to see what their own children experienced. I don’t want her coming here all fake apologizing. I want the real thing.”

  “Boy, Sydney, I get that, and that you are angry.” I am not proud that I’m happy she’s moved the conversation away from her own idyllic situation with her children and grandchildren to one of pain. It’s a much more comfortable place for me to be. I imagine her as the petulant child waiting for a parent to apologize.

  Without the details, I can only wonder what Sydney’s mother needs to apologize for, what was her experience? What did her mother do that Sydney cut her out of her life, taking, presumably, her dad with her?

  While I make notes Sydney unexpectedly explodes. “Did you just say that you ‘get that I’m angry’? Damn you, I started that way, or weren’t you listening? Are you so self-absorbed in your little project to have missed that? Let me be clear, I am angry at everything. I am God damn angry at being sick. I am angry at the failure of medicine. I am angry that I am going to miss my children’s and grandchildren’s lives. I am angry that I feel I need a mom right now and don’t have one. I am even pissed that I am pissed. If I have to be sick, I want to be freakin’ Mother Teresa or Job, dealing gracefully with life’s adversity. Angry, angry at everything,” she mutters composing herself.

  “I try to be grateful for this place and that the old women are trying to make a home for me. Instead, I find myself irritated at each of them. Deirdre is annoyingly perky, prancing and dancing among her llamas. Jan is always trying to make everything all right—as if that will keep Tobias, Tia, and CC from realizing that Joan is actually dead. Margaret Mary, haughty, overpoweringly strident, skeptical, has an opinion on everything.

  “And, if I have to listen to Elizabeth sigh one more time her stupid ‘whatdoyouhaftado’ I’m going to scream. Could she just freakin’ ask a question? We’d all gladly have her ‘go on the vacation’ she wants. She can have mine for goodness sake! I hate that they all seem to have time left and I don’t. I hate that a polio injection to the brain might be my best freakin’ shot at survival. I even hate this stupid project, Jessica,” she says almost sneering and leaning into the screen.

  “What the hell do you want from us, some great life lessons that you can catalogue and fit into a doctoral dissertation or book, some words of wisdom from the old, the dead, and the dying that will heal whatever the hell is wrong with you?

  “One of your stupid questions is ‘what will your tombstone say.’ If I died today it would simply say ‘She Was Pissed.’”

  Her energy spent, she finishes with, “But that’s not how I want it to end. I’d like to have the anger behind me. I’d like to think it’s not too late to have a man I love at my side. I’d like to think that the little dash between the date of my birth and the date of my death symbolizes a life well lived between those two events. I want the dash to matter. But, just for today, I am so maddeningly irate.”

  We close, awkwardly. She apologizes, I do too. I tell her I hope we are OK for tomorrow and she says it will be fine. She’s exhausted.

  Her image gone from my screen, I get up, dumping the rest of my vodka/coffee cup into the sink, thinking about our apologies. Thinking about how many more there may need to be. I’ve been so caught up in my own pain I never once wonder what Ryn’s and Adam’s experience of these years apart have been like. Do they miss their mom? I ache for them.

  Turning on my iPod to the Mama Mia soundtrack, I putter about as the music fills the house. I turn it louder. Alternately, singing and swaying on my crutches, until that certain song makes me stop in my tracks with grief, “slipping through my fingers….”

  “To a Rock Star Mom. Love always, Ryn and Adam.”

  Really?

  I stop by the front closet to pull out Ryn’s quilt squares from the chest in the front hall. I don’t remember leaving their handprints on top of the chest. Pausing I trace them. I then select two orchids from the dining room humidifier, one with small yellow blooms and one with bold violet ones. Packaging them in therma-sealed bags, along with instructions on how to keep them easily healthy, I will give one as an apology to Sydney, one as a hostess gift to Ali. I’m not sure what she drinks, but I remember the smell of Malcolm’s rum at the new house. I’ve picked out a “sipping rum” for The Captain to enjoy while we motor over to the cliffs. My tidy packages placed by the front door, I set the alarm on my phone.

  My meeting with Margaret Mary is scheduled for stupidly early in the morning. I’ll need to be up before dawn to get ready, make the drive, do the interview, and still get to the boat. The ride home will be late. I make a note to take care of Gabler before I leave. Head to the parlor, just for tonight. Push Gabler to one side, and nestle in. I fall asleep wondering if Sydney is OK and thinking about the dash.

  food for thought

  I

  ’ve fussed more than I want to admit in getting ready for the boat. Put on clothes, changed clothes. Put my hair up, take my hair down. Put on makeup. Put my hair back up. I think the ankle swelling has gone down enough, and the ankle feels good enough, to forgo the awkward crutches. Gingerly, I slip on my RocketSoc® ankle brace, check that the ankle will hold, and change my clothes again.

  Sydney’s words about Margaret Mary echo in my ears on the drive south. Strident, haughty, skeptical, opinionated. My notes say she’s the one Elizabeth said was a former nun. I’m forming an image of Mother Superior from some movie, maybe Sister Aloysius from Doubt. I’m dreading our meeting.

  Remembering, at the last minute, that Ali has asked me to stop into the M and M, I swerve in, carefully climb the stairs, and am greeted by the little bell as I enter. The menu is modest, a few breakfast items, some sandwiches, and a salad bar. Music from HMS Pinafore is jauntily playing. Appropriate for the boat outing later. I grab a cup of coffee and tell the culinary student behind the counter that I need a sandwich for later in the day and ask for tuna salad on rye toast with lettuce. I observe, as instructed by Ali. The student washes her hands. Good. Tells me they don’t have a toaster. I suggest that she ask the program to provide one. She indicates that would be good, as a lot of people ask for toast.

  Hmmm. Then, we get to the lettuce. She tells me that they don’t have any. I stare at her for a moment. “Um, maybe I should just get a salad?” I say to prompt her thinking. When she doesn’t react but says she will get me a to-go plate, I ask her to tell me about the salad bar. She starts telling me “lettuce, tomato, cucumbers…” and then, the light bulb goes off!

  “Hey, I could get you some lettuce from the salad bar and put it on your sandwich!”

  Brilliant! She’s so proud of herself! My sandwich wrapped up, I hobble down the steps and she calls after me, apologizing for the lack of toast. The little bell echoes its good-bye to me. Thank heaven for teachable moments! I’ll report to Ali that basic problem-solving skills and a toaster could help. I leave in a much better mood.

  Elizabeth and Pavarotti again greet me as I enter the side door. Elizabeth is listening to the news on an Italian TV station. We exchange pleasantries. I ask to put the sandwich in the fridge. The house is quie
t, so I assume most everyone is still in bed. Elizabeth corrects me. CC, Tia, and Deirdre are out tending to the animals, Tobias is probably up at the cemetery with Jan, and Sydney is out by the cliffs doing yoga. I’ve carried the orchid for Sydney into the house and placed it on the counter so Sydney doesn’t have to carry it back after the boat. Elizabeth suggests, with a raised eyebrow, that I finish up my coffee, telling me that Margaret Mary doesn’t allow any food or drink in her room.

  “Really?”

  I comment again that I’m surprised how early everyone is up. Elizabeth assures me that while they are all early risers, Margaret Mary rises before dawn each day to say Lauds. Lauds? Surprisingly, I remember this from the nuns and my old Catholic school days—these are the earliest of morning prayers, said as part of the Morning Office. “Really?” I say again, “Wow! Lauds, I’m surprised I even remember what they are, more so that people still say them!”

  “She prays, prays a lot. Maybe enough for you and-a me!” Elizabeth winks and we both giggle. I feel conspiratorial.

  With a quick “up” to Pavarotti, Elizabeth laboriously rises from her chair with his help. The two of them escort me to a door located under the large front staircase. I’m assuming it’s the loo or a closet. Elizabeth, with a cock of her head, tells me that Margaret Mary picked the smallest room in the house, a former slave’s room. She suggests I ask her about that. Shrugging her shoulders and motioning to the door she indicates I should enter, turning, I hear her mutter the now familiar, “Whatda ya hafta do.”

  Knocking softly on the door I hear Margaret Mary, clear New England accent, “Come.”

  When I enter she is, literally, rising, slowly from a prayer—kneeler placed below a two-foot-tall statue of Jesus the Christ Child. Raising her hand slightly, she indicates that I should wait a minute before speaking. The room is narrow, dim, one small high window at the far end. It is stark, but comfortable. There’s the kneeler, an easy chair by a diminutive bookcase, a small desk and straight-backed chair. A single bed, neatly made with an off-white chenille bedspread, is placed on the left wall. Hung over it is a quilt with children’s names and multi-hued faces, and images of bikes, baseballs, books, campfires, ice skates, and sailboats. In the center is a likeness of the Jesus statue.