The mug dropped from his hand and shattered on the floor. Hot liquid splashed his shin, but he hardly noticed as they bolted for her bedroom.
Mom was standing at the foot of her bed, tears dripping down her face. “Oh, Joey.…”
The collar of her nightgown hung low enough to expose one bony shoulder. Otherwise she appeared fine. Behind her, her bed was already made, a first-thing-in-the-morning habit she’d had for years. Joe was glad to see this. At least some of the old Mom was still there.
He lifted the gown back into place as he hugged her. “It’s all right, Mom. I’m here now. I’m here.”
“Thought you were dead.”
“I’m fine. I’m right here.”
“He stabbed you.”
“No, nobody stabbed me.”
Sharon came forward and patted the old woman’s back. “She just had a nightmare.”
Joe nodded toward the made-up bed. “No, she’s been up for a while.”
“Well, maybe it’s just…” Sharon made a stirring motion at her temple.
“No idea. Doesn’t matter. Come on, Mom. Let’s have some breakfast.”
“I’m not a child, Joey!” She hit his chest and freed herself from his grasp. “It happened right here in this room!”
“Okay, I’m sorry.”
“He broke in here. He had a bald head and goatee. He told you to stay back, but you’re the big wrestling champ.”
“Okay. Just calm down.” Joe reached out, but again she slapped his hands away.
“He stabbed you!” Her neck wattles tightened into cords. “And then I fought him, and he killed me, too!” She fluttered a hand at her exposed upper chest. “Pull it out, son. Please, pull the knife out!”
“It’s okay, Mom. It’s okay!”
Joe hugged her again. This time, she didn’t fight him.
✽ ✽ ✽
It took another five minutes to calm her down and convince her to eat. From her appearance, Joe suspected she hadn’t been eating much of anything these days. The depleted condition of the refrigerator bore this out. The most substantial item was a leftover slice of pizza. Sharon was a help here as her calm manner could get Mom to do things that his gruffness couldn’t. She would have made a good mother—a bossy one, maybe, but still good.
Joe took the opportunity to bag up all the collected newspapers and haul them to the curb. He chucked that morning’s paper as well, figuring it best not to dwell on what might have happened. He felt like going back to bed and pulling the covers over his head.
As he replaced the lid onto the trash can and wondered if he should check the mailbox while he was out here, he saw that a second police cruiser had joined the one from earlier. Both cars’ roof lights were flashing—but there was no one inside of them. Their doors hung open as if the cops had been in a hurry to get out and chase someone.
“Uh oh.”
Dad’s bathrobe suddenly felt inadequate for this neighborhood—compared to, say, a Kevlar vest.
Footsteps.
He spun toward them just before a man plowed into him. Joe saw only a flash of bared teeth as his wrestler’s reflexes took over and he clamped his arms around his attacker’s waist. He used the man’s momentum against him, pivoting and tackling him as they knocked over the cans.
He struggled to hold him—but then more arms and legs tangled in theirs amid shouts of “get off him!” and “let go!” from the two cops trying to pull them apart. The light bulb crunched in his pocket.
Soon, Joe realized the cops were shouting at his attacker and not him. He slipped through a hole in the pile of bodies to escape.
Once free, he gaped at the man, who screamed as a cop pressed a knee into his neck while the other cuffed him.
A skinhead. With a goatee.
The cops confiscated a long hunting knife from a belt scabbard.
“Are you all right, sir?” an officer asked Joe.
“N-no.… Yes.”
“Which is it? You injured?”
“Uh uh.” Joe backed away, his gaze darting between the knife, the skinhead, and the garbage cans. The skinhead had apparently meant to shove him into the cans and create an obstacle for his pursuers.
“You sure?”
The knife, the skinhead, the garbage cans.
The house. His wife and mother inside.
He stabbed you.… And he killed me, too.
“I’m fine,” Joe said, but he was far from it.
✽ ✽ ✽
He normally didn’t drink until the evenings, and then only a beer or two and never the hard stuff. But when the cops finally let him go back inside, he didn’t feel the slightest bit self-conscious about breaking out the bottle of scotch he found in the den.
Sharon sat on the couch across from him and occasionally asked if he was all right. She didn’t comment about the drink or the fact that it was nearing noon and he still wore the bathrobe. She did say, “Look, honey. I understand you’re upset—I am too—but you’re making too much out of the fact that he was bald and had a goatee.”
“And a knife. Don’t forget about the knife.”
“Yes, and a knife. But there must be a million people like that.”
Joe sighed. In the other room, his mother clapped along with the TV studio audience of The Price Is Right, mercifully oblivious.
“You heard what my mom said.”
“Yes, I was right there, but I just don’t—”
“What are the chances that a criminal fitting that exact same description would run by the house within minutes of her dream or whatever?”
She shrugged. “Probably astronomical.”
“And then the near-miss with the plane. What are the chances of this happening within twenty-four hours of our plane nearly—”
“That’s where you’re losing me: the connection with the plane. Like I said, this thing with the bald man is strange, but they’re two unrelated events.…”
If only you knew what I saw during the flight, he thought.
“… I mean, you’re sounding like a schizo trying to—”
“Don’t call me that, please.”
She knew he was sensitive about his family’s mental health history—Mom’s panic attacks, Dad’s bipolarism, his own aerophobia—and it pissed him off that she’d make such a low blow. He was glad now he hadn’t reported his hallucination to her.
Instead of apologizing, Sharon stood up and began leaving the room. “I’m not having this discussion anymore. It’s stupid. Even if I agreed with you, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. We still have this house to worry about.”
He felt like throwing his glass across the room. “Yeah, who cares about my feelings in this,” he called after her. “I’m just the poor bastard who nearly got killed!”
✽ ✽ ✽
He knew he would become sweaty and dirty once he started working, but Joe took a shower anyway. The scotch and pounding hot water soon had the desired effect, and as he stood at the mirror afterward combing the strands across his pate, he felt like he could be an adult again. That meant smoothing things over with Sharon. He dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and went downstairs looking for her.
She was gone.
A check out the window revealed she’d taken the car, too.
He walked into the room where Mom was watching soap operas. “I love you so damn much,” said a male lead with more looks than acting ability. “More than life itself.”
“Mom, do you know where Sharon went?”
“Joey? When did you get here?” She opened her arms for a hug. “Do you live here now?”
Joe gave her a quick embrace before rushing from the room. He told himself not to panic, that Sharon wouldn’t divorce over a simple argument. Even so, he checked that her suitcase was still in their room.
He found the answer lying on the kitchen table. A note said, “Went out for groceries. Love, Sharon.”
Well that was a good sign, at least: “Love, Sharon.” Better than what she’d said when he made travel arrangements for t
hem to come here for a whole week, then informed her afterward. “I’m not one of your goddamn brainless students” was one highlight. And it was three times better than what she’d said when he forgot their last anniversary.
Yep, they had a lot to work on—but this wasn’t the time for it. He promised himself that once back in L.A. they’d go away for a weekend to concentrate on their relationship. But right now, they needed to just get through this move.
The plan was to clean as much shit out of the house as they could this week, reducing Mom’s estate into something they could divide between their own house and the retirement home. They’d rented no storage unit because having one would be as pointless as it was expensive. It wasn’t like his mother would regain her independence one day. The real estate agent he’d spoken to had pooh-poohed his plan to dispose of all the furniture—“The house will sell better with something in it,” she’d said—but he knew that in the present market the place would be under contract within a day. (“Isn’t that assuming a lot?” Sharon had said, constantly nagging, constantly questioning.)
“No, I’m not assuming anything,” he said now, and sat down at the kitchen table. “Why should I assume anything about anything?”
He stopped squeezing his temples and forced himself to take a deep breath. When he exhaled, dust billowed from the centerpiece. “Right. Going to be an adult now.”
The attic would be the nastiest part of the move, so he fetched the stepladder and headed upstairs. He noted the loose stair railing along the way and vowed to fix it before they left. When (or if) Sharon returned, they would work together on an overall game plan. He’d be sure this time to give her an equal say in everything.
After sliding aside the access panel in the ceiling, he climbed through the opening and switched on a single bare bulb he found mounted to a support beam. He coughed through cobwebs as he found the expected assortment of junk, easily disposable—carpet scraps, rotting curtains, toys, bed rails, Christmas ornaments, antique snow skis—and boxes of things not as easily disposable, like his mother’s wedding dress and his father’s huge collection of Boy Scout patches. He also found four boxes of his grade school papers, which he supposed his parents had been reluctant to throw away because he was an only child. Even on his forty-fifth birthday, Mom had phoned him to pronounce, “You’re still my baby. Everything you do is precious to me.”
There was also a dusty steamer trunk, padlocked. It weighed a ton. Reinforcing bars of wood and iron ran around the sides.
Joe chuckled. “Where’d they get this thing, the Titanic?”
It probably held Dad’s porno collection, as extensive as the array of Boy Scout patches. He searched in vain for a key. He didn’t want to break it open, but he would if he had to.
He gave up and returned downstairs to ask his mother about it. Just because her short-term memory was shot to hell didn’t mean her long-term was. Along the way, he checked through the window for signs of Sharon.
He heard Mom weeping in the TV room: “Oh oh, no no no…”
Shit.
He ran faster than he’d meant to—thoughts of the skinhead flashing through his mind—and knocked a picture off the wall while rounding the corner.
But she was all right. Just sitting there sobbing over the sappy soap opera. Joe collected himself and re-hung the picture. He was glad his wrestling team hadn’t witnessed their coach’s clumsiness.
“No no no…” Mom whimpered. She wiped her eyes with a tissue. Joe now saw that she was looking at a magazine open on her lap.
He brushed attic dust off his jeans. “What’s the matter, Mom—have another dream?”
“This automobile.” She held up a car advertisement. “It’s the same kind that hit me and ran over all those people.”
“What? When was this?”
“Oh, it hurt so much, Joey. Broke my legs in half.”
“You never told me about this.”
“And I bled. I bled everywhere. Oh, it was so terrible.”
Sighing, he sat down and put his arm around her. He had no memory of her ever being hit by—he looked at the advertisement—a red Lexus, so he doubted it had really happened. Maybe she’d seen it on a TV show.
“Mom, listen to me.… Mother!” He grabbed her shoulders and forced her to look at him. “You were never hit by a car, you hear me? Never. I would have known about it. You would’ve been in a hospital.”
“But it hurt me so bad. Oh, I remember my bones—they shattered, Joey. Oh, no no.…” She wept even harder.
Joe stood up and went to the window, feeling as old as she was. This was just dementia—an Alzheimer’s delusion—so he knew he shouldn’t let it bother him. It would probably happen more frequently as time went on.
And yet…
He scanned the street, half expecting a red Lexus to drive by.
✽ ✽ ✽
Since it was almost lunchtime and his mother was still crying, Joe decided to ask about the padlocked trunk later—then promptly forgot about it.
Sharon hadn’t returned, so he made do with what food he could find: a can of soup for his mother, and the leftover slice of pizza for himself. He preferred leftover pizza cold, which always prompted Sharon to insist on reheating it because she said it was disgusting and unsafe. Today, he ate it very cold indeed.
But when his wife returned, he still sighed in relief, glad she hadn’t chosen that afternoon to leave him. He hurried outside to help unload a week’s worth of groceries. The street, thankfully, was free of cops and skinheads.
An awkward apology rose to his lips—but Sharon spoke first: “Honey, I was thinking about all those expired medicines. Do you know what prescriptions your mom takes?”
He blinked as she opened the car’s trunk. “What? No.”
She handed him a bag, paused, then stroked his arm. “Don’t you think you should? Your father’s not taking care of her anymore, and you know how… well, forgetful she is now.”
“Good point. Yep, I’ll find out who her doctor is and give him a call.”
She squeezed his arm and offered a tentative smile before letting go. Joe smiled back, knowing it was insufficient as hell, but his apology had lodged in his throat like a wedge of cold pizza crust. He nodded and took the groceries inside.
Minutes later, he stood gaping at the contents of the downstairs medicine cabinet. Alprazolam, clonazepam, Navane… most containing instructions like, “Take twice (2) daily for anxiety.” The most recent prescriptions—just a month away from expiration, he noted—were from a Dr. Jonathan Reitan, MD, LPC, LMFT, LCSW, Pile it Higher and Deeper. The rest were from her internist. Joe took some bottles to the phone, dialed the numbers on the labels, and left messages for Reitan and the internist to call him back.
When he got back to work, his heart was as heavy as the food in his stomach.
✽ ✽ ✽
As the mercury rose with the afternoon heat, so did the bile from his upset stomach, making it difficult to concentrate. He remembered the padlocked trunk only to forget about it during one of his emergency trips to the john for diarrhea. From the tomato-flavored spit in his throat, he knew it was the pizza, but he was too embarrassed to tell Sharon about it. “It must’ve been the airline food,” he told her instead. Sharon nodded and dug some Imodium A-D out of her suitcase.
The medicine made him feel well enough to resume the day’s task, which was packing and sorting his father’s library. He pushed aside his worries about expired milk, medicines, and leftovers.
Later, after he took two carloads of book donations to the used book store and public library, a nurse from the internist’s office returned his call and gave instructions on transferring Mom’s prescriptions to a pharmacy in L.A. She said Mom only took three medications, which were for Alzheimer’s symptoms and high cholesterol. No psychiatric drugs. Joe made a mental note to ask Dr. Reitan about this when he called.
He climbed back into the attic to sort its contents into throw-away, give-away and move-away piles. As he work
ed, he heard Mom snoring in the TV room and smelled Sharon cooking dinner. He hoped the food would be as warm as that squeeze she’d given his arm. Maybe later, if he was feeling better, he’d even try hauling the ol’ crane out of mothballs.
Then he saw the trunk and remembered he’d meant to ask Mom about it. Shit. I must have Alzheimer’s, too. He dusted off his jeans and climbed down.
The day’s work had taken more out of him than he realized, because halfway down the ladder, the color drained from his vision. He almost fell.
He groaned and flopped down the last two ladder rungs, knowing he was in trouble. Another pizza-flavored burp rose in his throat like sewer gas.
The pizza.
Oh Christ, it probably had botulism, he thought.
He continued to the stairs, feeling like a boy at the top of a mile-long water slide. This wasn’t supposed to happen to him, the wrestling coach who could still bench press twice his own weight, now too weak to walk.
—And too dizzy to stand.
“Sh-Sharon!” he screamed as he tumbled forward.
The carpeted risers smashed his nose and pushed it askew. Sharon shrieked from somewhere below as he rolled forward and sideways, all two-hundred-forty pounds of him crashing through the loose stair railing… and into empty space.
He flipped once in the air, splintered wood dropping around him, and landed head-first on the tiled floor of the downstairs hallway. His neck vertebrae snapped apart on impact, sounding to him like redwoods felled by cannonfire. Blood gushed into his mouth as his body thudded to a stop.
As he lay face-down, the floor’s starfish pattern filled his sight like a supernova. He couldn’t move.
Or breathe.
Sharon’s screams surrounded him as the starfish grew larger and larger until it dissipated into fuzzy nothingness.
✽ ✽ ✽
The kitchen materialized around him as abruptly as a movie cut to a new scene.
He was seated at the table, a steaming plate of pork chops and instant mashed potatoes in front of him. He held a cold soft drink to his chin, his lips parted as if about to sip.
Mom sat on his left. His wife across from him. Sharon smiled in mid-sentence: “… blew his horn at me like I was committing some grievous crime when he had the right-of-way. And all I could think was…”
Dominoes in Time Page 24
