Twenty

by Debra Landwehr Engle

  I got up, took down the mantel clock from Daddy’s bookcase, and wound it as usual. Then I put on some coffee, put out food for the mama cat and kittens, and checked the temperature. Seventy-six degrees already. I sat on the porch with my coffee and looked at the brown leaves on the trees. They were so dry that when I watched the birds at the feeder, I could hear a crackling rustle as they landed on the branches.

  Everything dies, I thought to myself, feeling justified in my decision. Suddenly it occurred to me that someone might label this suicide. The thought surprised me, and I felt a wave of guilt.

  No, I thought, willing that feeling away. I’ve only accelerated my death. Just like if I smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. Everything dies. This is the cycle everything goes through.

  I looked at the flowers, which typically would be bursting with color and vitality at this point in the summer. The drought accelerated their cycle of death this year, I thought. It’s a natural occurrence. I’m just doing the same thing. For them it was the drought. For me it’s the pearls. It would have happened eventually anyway.

  I’m at peace with that. I don’t think God will judge me. Not when I miss Mama and Rose so much.

  * * *

  It’s hard to think about Rose without memories of Joe right beside her. He knew her better than I did because they were so much alike. Practical, levelheaded. Rose may have looked like a princess with that thick, long, blond hair, but she would have traded a trip to Disney World for camping with her dad any day.

  I thought Mama’s love of flowers would pass right on through me to Rose, but our girl was all about bugs instead. Spiders, worms, caterpillars—she collected them in baby food jars that Holly gave us. Rose and Joe would go out at night to dig in the flower beds—always with Rose’s dog, Cricket, tagging along—and come up with a new crop. Then she’d fly into the house to show me her latest specimens.

  “Mom, look,” she said one night when I was baking cupcakes for her Sunday school class. She brought a jar of worms over to the counter where I was spooning the batter into the pans. She teased out a worm and put it on her finger.

  “It’s green,” she said. “Dad said it’s wearing camouflage. Isn’t it cute?”

  Cute wasn’t the word I would have used. Especially when the worm fell off her finger and into one of the cupcakes.

  I made a noise somewhere between “yuck” and a rhyming expletive. But Rose just laughed, reached into the batter, pulled out the worm, and said, “Come back here, you little rebel,” and took it outside to clean it off in the grass.

  I looked at Joe across the kitchen with obvious exasperation. But he just smiled that coy smile of his, got a glass out of the cupboard for water, and said, “You know, in most parts of the world, bugs are an essential part of the daily diet.”

  “Fine,” I said, happy to play along. I took the muffin cup with the contaminated batter out of the pan, handed it to Joe, and said, “Enjoy yourself.”

  “Hey, thanks,” he said, not missing a beat. He took it outside, and from my view out the window, I could see him and Rose licking that muffin cup clean.

  That’s what I mean. Two peas in a pod. I can’t say I felt jealous of the bond between them. In fact, I kind of marveled at it. I remember one night, washing dishes and watching them walk back into the hills on one of their scavenger hunts. They each wore a headlamp and carried a miniature spade and bucket. When they disappeared into the valley, into that magic light of dusk, I was almost overcome with contentment. I wondered how I could be so blessed, finding everything I ever wanted in the two people I loved most.

  * * *

  All the way into town this morning, I stewed about what to tell Nancy. Did I need to tell her anything?

  We had one of the slowest days ever at the store. Just another Wednesday. Usually we’d be selling all sorts of fall bulbs and fertilizer this time of year. But everyone’s waiting until there’s some sign of rain.

  A customer came in carrying some half-dead hosta plants. “I bought these last spring,” she said. “I need to return them. They’re guaranteed.”

  “Did you plant them in the shade?” I said, guessing she’d never checked to see what conditions they needed.

  “Well, sort of,” she said.

  Yeah, I thought. You probably burned them alive. I was just about to say something when Nancy intervened.

  “Certainly,” she said. “We’re happy to give you a refund.”

  I stepped back and finished dusting the shelf of garden books while the customer pocketed the cash.

  “How could you be so accommodating to her?” I asked Nancy after the woman left. “Doesn’t she know that everybody’s plants are dying this summer? It’s not our fault it’s a hundred degrees with no rain.”

  “But the customer’s always right,” Nancy said.

  “Yeah,” I said, “even when they don’t pay any attention to the laws of nature.”

  But even daft customers couldn’t shake my sense of calm today. I worked harder than ever, but it seemed effortless. I rearranged the window display and cleaned out the back room. Then I swept everywhere except around the floral design counter, where our florist, Betty, was snipping stems and muttering under her breath, trying to get several arrangements ready to go. I know better than to interfere when Betty’s in her zone, but she did let me carry the bouquets—five for a funeral and two for a fortieth anniversary—out to the van.

  It felt a little like the weeks before I gave birth to Rose—a compulsion to make things neat and tidy, a nesting instinct to prepare a place for what’s to come.

  At one point, I was alone in the shop. Nancy had gone down the street for lunch, and Betty was making her deliveries. I reveled in the solitude of the back room, straightening up the bundles of baby’s breath and stems of dried eucalyptus and singing at the top of my voice. I felt like something mischievous in me had been unleashed. I even danced a little. Then I heard the bell ring, signaling someone had come into the store.

  Suddenly I felt embarrassed, wondering if the customer had heard me. I brushed off my pants and went out to the front desk, where two cheerleaders from Lincoln High were waiting.

  “Hi, girls,” I said. “How can I help you?”

  “We’re selling sponsorships for the football team,” the girl with dreadlocks said. “Nancy bought a sponsorship last year, and we’re hoping she’d like to renew.”

  So confident. Was I ever that confident at their age?

  I called Nancy on her cell, got her approval, and filled out the paperwork.

  “When does school start?” I asked.

  “In two weeks,” the blonde said.

  “It’s changed a little since I went there,” I said. “Back in the Dark Ages.” The girls giggled.

  “You’re not that old,” the girl with dreads said. “Do you have kids who go there? Maybe we know them.”

  “No,” I said. Rose would have graduated years ago, but I didn’t tell them that.

  “There you go,” I said, finishing up the agreement. “Hope you have a great season.” It struck me that I wouldn’t be around to watch the Friday night sports reports to see how they did.

  “Thank you,” they said in unison. “Tell Nancy thanks for us, too.” Then they bounced out of the store the way teenagers do, as though they have springs in their shoes.

  I resumed my work in the back room, keeping my voice down as I sang this time, and thought about what I’d say to Nancy when she returned. As much as I love the shop, it’s not where I want to spend my last days when I have so many things to take care of. And she doesn’t need me here, not when it’s so slow.

  I’d just finished sweeping when Nancy found me in the back room.

  “Wow, everything looks amazing,” she said. “How did you get all this done?”

  “A burst of energy, I guess,” I told her.

  “Well, thank you. It hasn’t looked this good back here for as long as I can remember.”

  She had picked up a bag of trash to take to
the Dumpster when I said, “I’ve been thinking.” She stopped and looked at me.

  “I haven’t been feeling the best lately,” I said.

  “Oh?” she said, immediately concerned. “Anything wrong?”

  “Not really,” I said. “I think it’s just this time of year. When Mama died. It’s been five years.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” Nancy said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Well, I’m wondering . . . what would you think if I took a few days off? I wouldn’t ask if I thought it would put you in a bind, but things are pretty slow on my end. . . .”

  Nancy smiled. “Actually,” she said, “that would be more than fine. I was going to ask you if we could cut back on your hours for a couple of weeks, until things pick up again. Especially now that you’ve got things in such good shape. It would really help the balance sheet this month. So, absolutely. Take the time you need. Betty and I can handle things for a while.”

  “Thank you, Nancy.”

  She reached out and gave me a hug.

  “You’ve got it, sweetie. Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” she said.

  “You’re already doing it,” I told her. “This is more than enough.”

  I gathered up my things to leave, took one last look around the shop, and pinched a leaf off the African violet on the counter. Getting rid of that one dead leaf made the whole plant look so much better.

  * * *

  The day six years ago when I went to see Dr. Edelman, I could hardly see the road for all the sleet. Mid-March, high winds, with shards of ice falling from the sky that stung where they hit bare skin.

  I hurried through the parking lot of the clinic, pulling my beige coat collar up around my neck and trying to keep my umbrella, useless against the sleet, from turning inside out. I stood in the entryway, shook out the umbrella, and ran my fingers through my hair, which had turned into ringlets in the rain. Then I approached the reception desk.

  “I’m here to see Dr. Edelman,” I told the nurse.

  “Certainly,” the nurse said. “And have you been here before?”

  “Yes,” I said, “I’m here about my mother. Dr. Edelman said he would see me.”

  She led me to Dr. Edelman’s office—a neat, spare space with big windows that would have been bright on a sunnier day. They faced the north, so sleet spat against them.

  Tall and thin, Dr. Edelman had a pointed chin and glasses and salt-and-pepper hair. His lab coat looked like it had been pressed, and his voice was low and soothing. It reminded me of the radio commentators we listened to when we were little.

  A bouquet of flowers sat on his desk, a contrast to the angry sky outside the window.

  “Thanks so much for seeing me,” I said.

  “No problem,” he said with that deep, gravelly voice. “I’ve been taking care of your mom for a long time. I’m happy to do whatever I can.”

  “I know this is odd,” I said, “but I have to ask. With your voice, have you ever been on the radio?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “No, but you’re not the first to ask me that. Years ago a local station interviewed me about being a medic in the war. But that was my last radio appearance.”

  He leaned forward, ready to change the subject. “So,” he said, “tell me how your mother’s doing.”

  “She’s going downhill,” I said. “Every day it seems like she fades a little more. And she’s having more pain. It’s getting harder for me to take care of her. She’s started having accidents, and she’s getting less mobile. It frustrates her so much, and I don’t know how to help her.”

  The doctor nodded.

  “And the other day, for the first time, she didn’t know who I was,” I said, taking a breath. “I want to help her and I don’t know how,” I repeated.

  I looked at my hands, trying to distract myself so I wouldn’t cry. I glanced around the office at the diplomas on the wall, the photos of Dr. Edelman’s family, a photo of him in uniform, clearly taken when he was much younger.

  “When did you serve?” I asked, wishing the change in conversation would make my problem go away.

  “The early seventies, in Vietnam,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “It’s not a time I care to remember.”

  “But you’ve got the photo,” I said. “Doesn’t that remind you?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I may not want to remember, but I can’t forget it, either.”

  He leaned toward me and put his arms on the desk, suddenly serious. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but your mother has always been one of my favorite patients,” he said. “She’s one of the most gracious women I’ve ever met. She used to bring flowers when she came in for her checkups. I’ve never had another patient do such a thing.”

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s why I’m desperate, doctor. She doesn’t deserve this. She won’t leave the house, we can’t afford a nursing home, but I don’t think I can keep caring for her. The home health aide does what she can, but Mama’s in more and more pain. And with the dementia, I’m afraid to leave her alone for more than a minute. Plus, there’s something else.... She said the other day that she doesn’t want to be here any longer.”

  Dr. Edelman leaned back in his chair again and looked at the Vietnam photo on the shelf. In the image, he wore a camouflage helmet and glasses. He sat on the back of a truck with rice fields behind him. Expressionless. Just a moment in time.

  Without looking at me, he said, “I may have something that could help as a last resort.”

  “What is it?” I asked, feeling slight hope.

  He continued staring out the window as though recalling a battle in his mind. “Let me give it some thought,” he said, “and I’ll get back to you later today.”

  He turned his chair, sighed, and looked at me with compassion.

  “Will that be all right?” he asked.

  “Yes. I think my cell phone number is in my mom’s file.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to have it handy,” he said.

  He jotted it down on a slip of paper and tucked it in his pocket.

  “Thank you,” I said, slipping on my coat.

  “You’re welcome. I’ll get back to you this afternoon.”

  * * *

  The next morning, Mama was still sleeping when Dr. Edelman came to the back door, carrying a small black bag. True to his word, he’d called me three hours after I left his office. It surprised me to get a call directly from him—not from a nurse or assistant.

  He asked if he could drop something off for me at the house. It was the first time I could remember a doctor making a house call since Daddy had pneumonia a few months before his accident.

  “Sit down,” I said. “Would you like some coffee?” I wasn’t quite sure how to host a doctor.

  “No, thank you,” he said, setting the bag on the table. “I won’t be here long. How’s your mother this morning?”

  “She seems to sleep well at this time of day,” I said. “It makes up for the fitful sleep she has in the middle of the night.”

  “That’s very common,” Dr. Edelman said as he turned the silver clasp on his bag. “Is the medication she’s been on helping at night?”

  “A little, yes.”

  He reached into the bag and pulled out a small cooler. Inside, packed in ice, sat a small white bottle without a label. It looked odd for a pharmaceutical bottle. The only markings were numerals stamped on the side: 20.

  “Twenty,” I said. “What does that mean?”

  “That’s the code we used in the military,” the doctor said. He took the bottle, unscrewed the cap, and opened it. Inside were a dozen little green frozen pearls, like small drops of gelatin.

  “I’m going to give these to you, but I want to be clear about them,” he said. “Use them only if you see a dramatic change in your mother, if her pain is unmanageable. They’re tasteless, but they’re easiest to administer in yogurt or ice cream. Just mix them in. They’ll dissolve when they come in contact with anything.”
/>   “And what do they do?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know.

  “They’ll make her feel much better,” he said, then paused. “And on the twentieth day, she’ll pass on peacefully.”

  I took a deep breath, trying to understand the power of what I held in my hand.

  “So they’re lethal,” I said. My voice sounded monotone, the same way Dr. Edelman’s had the day before. “You’re giving me something to kill my own mother.”

  “I think of it as life-giving,” Dr. Edelman said. “They’ll make her final days more comfortable and will give her a peaceful passing into the life beyond this body. And they’ll restore your life, as well. You won’t have to see her suffer needlessly.”

  I stared at the bottle. “Why twenty days?” I asked.

  “I can’t tell you for sure,” Dr. Edelman said. “They were developed so they couldn’t be detected. After twenty days, they trigger a complete and peaceful shutdown of the heart.”

  I stood, silent. Part of me wanted to throw the bottle at him and tell him to leave. But I didn’t.

  “This is one complete dose,” he said. “It needs to be taken all at once. Give it to her just before bed, and she’ll pass in her sleep twenty nights later.”

  I felt chills going through my body. Not so much chills of fear as the chills of truth. I knew I should be outraged and appalled at the power in those green pearls, but instead I felt grateful, even humbled, as though I stood in the presence of something sacred.

  “And you know for sure that they work?” I asked.

  Dr. Edelman nodded. “I’ve used them only in extreme cases, of course. But sometimes helping people cross that threshold from pain to peace is the greatest gift you can give them.”

  “You’re sure they can’t be traced?” I said. “What if there’s an autopsy?”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. His soothing voice comforted me. “They turn off the control centers in the brain, and it looks as though the patient has had a heart attack.”