Say Say Say

by Lila Savage

  Ella tried to draw Jill in her sketchbook, only it was like trying to draw a creek in the springtime: engorged, furious with the rush of melting ice. It was as if Jill were on speed, and when she crashed, her weariness seemed more complete for how meaningless, how endless her tasks had been. How does one decide when broken reading glasses have been adequately swirled in a drinking glass? When a foot has been slid in and out of a worn slipper a suitable number of times? Is four sufficient? Is twenty? What bearing does the presence or absence of a threadbare sock have on this magic number? Is now the right time to remove the sofa cushions? How about now? Is now the right time to empty all of the electrical sockets? How about now? If you’ll excuse me, I must turn the water on in the sink. I’ve been meaning to wash this magazine all morning. I’ve been meaning to open the toilet lid. To close it. To open it. To close it. I’ve been meaning to sit on the toilet, straining and crying with the door open, failing to shit, and then, succeeding beyond our wildest dreams, a stool as girthy as an arm. How does one work this flushing mechanism? No matter. Are you thinking what I’m thinking? That’s right. It’s time to fill this box with towels. Not all of the towels. Never all of the towels. We must leave room for the shoes. One shoe. Two? One. Say say say. Saaay. Saaay. I’m a nobody. I’m a nobody. I have nothing. I have nothing. I have nothing. Saaay. Crazy! Crazy! Saaay.

  Still, Ella managed to read, to scrawl in her journal, even, at times, to join Jill in her crying. It was a task they could share, this attempt at relief. It wasn’t that Ella was usually so close to the edge. It wasn’t like she made a habit of crying at work. It was more like it felt appropriate, even companionable. If Jill had been her friend in the more usual sense and Ella came to visit, if Jill were grieving a stunning loss, they might sit, hand in hand, and weep. Ella had no other comfort to offer, at least initially, to this person who was beyond the reach of language. Just touch, and tears, and the abstraction that was Energy, in which Ella almost, barely believed. Her perspective on such matters was shaped by two seemingly incongruous forces: on the one hand, the rote skepticism of a college-educated, midwestern humanist; on the other, a conversance with unseen forces rooted in her evangelical upbringing. Both shared a discomfort with anything relating to magic, touchy-feely hippies, life force, etc.

  And yet, Ella carried with her, quietly, almost shamefully, certain moments that were burned into her memory, of a mysterious touch that carried more than the heat of its parts; not sexual but strangely powerful. Ella didn’t know what to call it other than a transfer of Energy, and even that was only to herself. She didn’t talk about it with anyone else, afraid of sounding foolish or, worse, like a self-important, pseudo-spiritual yuppie.

  The first instance was the last time she had visited her grandmother’s closest friend, a beautiful, tiny old woman who’d perched, sharp-eyed and sharp-tongued, in her wheelchair, with a spare but radiant smile that combined the caustic power of her remarkable mind with warmth, so loving without being sweet. Ella had no reason to believe it would be their last visit, and yet her love for Ruth overwhelmed her, made her feel a sadness that was almost desperate. As the two families mingled and chatted with the ease of very old friends, Ella felt compelled to stand behind Ruth, silently, with her hands resting on the older woman’s shoulders. She was tentative—they were none of them an overly affectionate bunch—and yet, delicately, her fingers met the rough cardigan, and the gnarled shoulders beneath it. Abruptly, it had been like her hands were singing, or like her young blood flowed through her fingertips and coursed through Ruth’s veins, through the chambers of Ruth’s heart, through her all but useless legs and weakening organs. It was almost impossible not to weep; it took nearly all of Ella’s strength to ensure her tears only flooded her eyes without tumbling, tellingly, down her face.

  Months later, after Ruth’s funeral, her daughter told Ella that Ruth had described that afternoon in her diary. She had written that Ella had a healing touch. What did this mean? Ella didn’t know, but it felt right that Ruth had perceived the power that had transfixed Ella behind her wheelchair. When Ella’s first client, Betty, had nearly died, Ella had gone to sit with her as she slept, almost unresponsive, in hospice for weeks before making a gradual recovery. She had placed her hand upon Betty’s arm, this time with deliberation, and summoned the flood of love and power and tears. It had sprung, just as she’d beckoned, through her touch, it had flowed as if through a tap, her hand had grown terribly hot, and she had sat there, very still but for the crying, for as long as she’d deemed necessary.

  Now, with Jill, this was all Ella could offer, and hours, broken into snatched moments, were devoted to its practice over the months. It was an exercise in futility, or faith, which amounted to the same thing, for hadn’t Ruth died? And Betty, too, a few years down the road? If Jill could still conceptualize an abstract desire, beyond the animalistic cravings of hunger and exhaustion, it was, undoubtedly, to die. The strength of her body thwarted her; the eviscerated pulp of her mind all but screamed to be released from that fine-boned face, the freckled skin taut over the bridge of her pointed nose, stretching to form a corporeal cage of her delicate shoulder blades, ribs and hips, elbows, and toes; crowned, like barbed wire, by a tangle of reddish curls, still untouched by gray, floating above her slightly protruding ears.

  Ella wove a spell of her own disparate mystical threads, the magical power of the Energy, the strange humility characteristic of prayer, with its distinctive blend of resignation and fierce, almost defiant hope, and a third component that was unmistakably her: the cool gaze of the humanist, who, in failing to prevent her from praying, at least succeeded in reining in the scope of her supplication. She didn’t beseech her Higher Power to heal Jill, but rather, to comfort her, to bring her peace, to enable her to feel loved. Ella had no reason to believe any of this affected Jill, no tendril of promise escaped the bundle of stress and fatigue, but Ella felt only good could come of this meditation on love, even if only Ella could experience its glow.

  And yet, a part of her mistrusted this meager, private comfort—indeed, all comforts. This was not, as one might think, the rational humanist dismissing pie in the sky but the ecclesiastic ascetic reminding Ella, in a solemn though self-abasing tone, that she had no power of her own, that Ella’s every impulse led her away from Painful Truth, from Scouring Righteousness. In seeking to take comfort into her own hands, she shirked the inevitability that was death, the frailty of human flesh and will, the scourge that was suffering. The ascetic didn’t believe that Jill deserved to suffer but held that Ella did, that there was a redemptive quality to facing this darkness without the anesthetizing tonic of her alleged healing touch, which, after all, only distracted Ella, leaving Jill to face her demons alone.

  Jill’s loneliness was a horror to Ella, it seemed the very worst in the bouquet of suffering and loss brain damage carried. It was this horror, combined with her own powerlessness, that provoked Ella to explore nearly every conceivable route to connection. The passing of Energy was one route, gazing steely-eyed into the darkness was another, weeping was one, or merely standing shoulder to shoulder and taking in the sunset, or the night sky, or the rain streaming down the picture window. Language, of course, was the most obvious, and seemingly the most futile, route to human connection. This did not stop Ella from trying, verbal creature that she was.

  In the early days, there had been the pretend conversations, and when those had faltered, Ella had concentrated her words into the most spare and potent fragments, like poetry without metaphor, blunt, repetitive, almost musical: You are loved. You are loved. You are loved. We are here with you. We are here with you. We are here with you. It will be okay. It will be okay. It will be okay. This felt like pure, embarrassing foolishness, like the silly nothings a mother whispers to the warm, sweet head of her sleeping baby, and Ella never let Bryn overhear it. Where was Ella’s rational self in such moments? She was beyond cataloging her anger or her sadness,
beyond strategy or analysis. She was beyond self-consciousness, outside the seductive passageways of her capable mind. Ultimately, it was perhaps only in this state that she and Jill could occupy the same isolating plane of being: that is, feeling minus the perpetual buzz of thought.

  · 22 ·

  Ella knew immediately that something was different today, even if only incrementally. Bryn leaned heavily against the windowsill and Ella stood where she could see into the bathroom, where Jill was noisily splashing and babbling at the mirror. Bryn said, “They can take her in three weeks.”

  “Three weeks?” Ella was shocked. So soon? It was past due but also abrupt. To her credit, Ella thought first about what this would mean for Bryn: the relief, the guilt, the newly empty hours to fill. And then she thought about what it would mean for her, to no longer come to this now so familiar house, to no longer speak with Bryn with the casual intimacy of people who see each other nearly every day, to, perhaps, never see Bryn again. And then she thought about what it would mean to no longer see Jill, and it felt like planning Jill’s funeral. She would be sorry not to see Bryn anymore, but she would grieve Jill’s transition like a death.

  It was always so strange, the ending of these positions. The homes she worked in became like extensions of her own home, in some ways almost more familiar, for in her own apartment, she seldom sat and stared around herself for hours at a time. Her eyes would slide over the familiar furnishings and objects until each seemed almost like a worry stone worn smooth from fondling: the same table with white rings from sweating glasses, the same Indian corn in the ceramic bowl threaded with lacy cracks, the same ugly throw blanket, the same framed print and worn love seat. She had memorized it all, although not with any intentionality. She had her favorite mug, glazed blue, and she knew the one odd spoon in the drawer, and even the differences in the half dozen dish towels in rotation. She knew the quirks of the old vacuum, how the compartment where the bag went in would pop open and stop the suction, how the ancient attachments snapped into place. She knew where to find the salt to refill the shaker, and the brands of everything Bryn bought: which mayonnaise, which tea, which beer. She knew the patterns of wear in the runner rug on the stairs and the smells of all the rooms in the house—cool, old, slightly vegetal—and which windows stuck on broken sashes, and which light switches controlled which lights, and where the Band-Aids and spare toilet paper rolls were kept. She had spent so many afternoons contemplating the dust motes floating like gold flakes in a paperweight, drifting in the sunbeam that came through the den window as Jill drowsed, the house silent except for the hum of the refrigerator. It seemed strange that she wouldn’t watch the season change in the yard again, from winter to spring, and then the lazy heat of summer, the string beans dangling on the vine, the heft of ripe tomatoes. It would all go from utterly normal to absent, and all of this acquired knowledge would become obsolete. It would never matter again, it would be time to start over with someone new, someone whose descent was already beginning, but just barely.

  Ella hated the beginning more than anything; it was far worse than the end. The end was wrenching but finite: by that point Ella was indispensable, and usually beloved, like a member of the family. In the beginning she had to prove her worth, had to woo with her every ounce of strength, beaming with pleasure at each opportunity to be useful, mindful of every potential misstep, lulling someone who mistrusted a stranger in their home into believing they weren’t sacrificing their independence through her presence. She had never failed to charm, people-pleaser that she was. They would love her within a month, she would be like a daughter, like a best friend, like a therapist, like an escort. The toll it took wore her down, each courtship felt like the last she could possibly endure. And yet, she never failed to love her clients in return, although sometimes their families were harder to like. Not Bryn, obviously.

  She looked at Bryn now, barely able to contemplate what this would mean for their friendship. She wanted to ask for reassurance: Could she still stop in for tea? But it seemed so desperately beside the point, so utterly self-centered. The loss would be Jill, not Ella. She wanted to embrace him, but the thought made her so bodily self-conscious, she felt clumsy, overbearing, like a mama bear or like a stout madam with a customer, all bosom and squeeze. Instead, she went to turn off the sink Jill had temporarily abandoned.

  Ella tried to imagine what Bryn must be thinking. Likely he had never felt so tired or so tense, like a bottle of oil and vinegar, half dread, half longing for this to be done. He must be forcing himself to consider all of the things that needed doing. The TB test. The transfer of prescriptions. The deposit. Meetings and paperwork and more meetings. Perhaps he hoped Ella would be willing to stay for longer hours, just for this final push. It must seem unthinkable to do all of this alone. It probably seemed unthinkable that he would live in this house alone. He wasn’t fool enough to try to sell it in the dead of winter. He could rent out the spare bedrooms to help pay for the heat, help pay for Jill’s care. Bryn would have to be practical about that, as exhausting as it sounded. Likely he craved solitude for his grieving, or at least, he might think he would. Not for weeping, not for listlessness, but to avoid having to be polite, to avoid playing the role of someone who wasn’t broken. Ella thought he wouldn’t like showing a stranger which cupboards in the kitchen would be theirs, or sitting at the big kitchen table exchanging niceties over canned soup. Perhaps he could rent out the whole house, get an apartment. But then he would need to empty it, with the ice thick on the steps and sidewalk, without a yard sale, or furniture and a FREE sign at the curb. Spring would come soon enough for all of that. Ella might be able to help, although then again, she might not. She might be too busy with a new job—a strange thought to accompany so many other changes. He would miss her, she knew this, but that was likely more than he could contemplate right now.

  Ella watched Bryn pull on his jacket and walk out the kitchen door, onto the back steps. The snow was packed down hard where the door swung out; he was probably aware he should have shoveled it when it was fresh, before this could happen. She imagined there were many things he had let slide in the last few months. The list of things that had once felt nonnegotiable probably shrank all the time; he hadn’t planted any bulbs before the ground froze, he didn’t plan meals for the week and carefully select the ingredients as he once had, and last week the garbage hadn’t made it to the curb. She pictured him lighting a cigarette with numbing fingers and making his way to the truck. Bryn was heading to the nursing home, for that’s what it was, really, you could call it a care facility, or a residence, or a memory care unit—it all still amounted to the same thing. There would be the smell of urine, the cries of the confused and angry, the depressing visual cues of decline: walkers with tennis balls on the feet, hospital gowns, medical-industrial cups in shades of dusty rose and baby blue, oxygen tanks, wheelchair-bound people with swollen feet sleeping in hallways, televisions turned up far too loud.

  Most likely, Bryn could scarcely believe that this was what it had come to. He must know, truly, that it would make no difference to Jill, that Jill was well beyond knowing where she was, or who soaped her flailing body, what food she put into her mouth—that wasn’t the distressing part. The horrible part, the thing that had almost certainly made Bryn wait this long, beyond what was actually endurable, was the thought of visiting Jill there. It wasn’t as if they could talk to each other, Jill might as well be in a coma, for all the communication that was possible—in fact, that might be easier, for then Bryn could hold her hand, or sit beside her and read. Now Jill was all frantic energy with no useful way to expend it. Would Bryn come and watch her pace? Watch her move the meager personal belongings of whatever unlucky people shared her room? Watch her stagger about, crying, or talking nonsense to her reflection in the mirror? The answer was likely rarely, drifting, over the years, into seldom, and then maybe not at all, for Jill was still youngish and strong, and while Ella had never been to
ld the specifics of either Jill’s accident or her condition, it seemed she could live another twenty years, maybe more. It was so strange, how the end could precede death by years, by decades.

  · 23 ·

  Ella was asleep and then she wasn’t. She had been dreaming about trying to make a pot roast, and then, suddenly, her waking mind intruded, thinking, Did I pour out the water from Jill’s footbath? And, though the stakes were fairly low, her heart pounded, and her eyes fluttered open. Now that she was awake, the specific anxiety about remembering to tidy up seeped into a general anxiousness that filled every available crevice, like a toilet overflowing to cover the floor. These abrupt nighttime panics were becoming routine, even on her days off, when her ordinary life bubbled mercifully to the surface and she was able to focus on the bits of herself that were separate from her working life: how fun it would be to visit Alix in Spain that summer, how much she would miss her when she was gone, the party she would be attending Saturday night and what she would wear. The vague shapes of her next painting were beginning to come into focus in her mind, and while she hadn’t so much as sketched it out on paper yet, visiting the idea of it, coaxing it into view, became a coveted place for her mind to rest, or maybe engage was a better word, for rest was too easily interrupted now; it took engagement to keep worries about Jill and Bryn at bay.

  Bryn was utterly falling apart. Even his physical body was breaking down: his limbs were covered in a scaly red rash that Ella and Nick took turns pleading with him to see a doctor about. Ella suspected that he never slept at all these days. His constant irritability was like a thin crust protecting something unbearably raw, and Ella couldn’t avoid testing his patience now and again with her tentative prodding—“I know you don’t think a doctor will be able to tell you anything useful, but we could at least hear what they have to say. Maybe they could give you something for the itching” or “They’ll just sedate her in the care facility anyway, if she were on a sedative now, maybe you could get some sleep” or “That’s frustrating, but I’m sure Nick’s doing the best he can.” Bryn would stand at the picture window and talk without looking at Ella, clawing at his inflamed arms, so swollen his shirt cuffs wouldn’t button. Ella could feel his misery diffusing in vapors that coated every surface of the room—the battered down vest he wore, the stained love seat piled with Jill’s discarded towels, the shelves and desk and steps, Ella’s hands and face and hair, the ceiling above them, the large pane of glass he wouldn’t turn away from. His body was rigid with strain, and she noticed that his hair was slightly thinner than when they had met.