No space. That’s all. Pure sloppiness. I tried again, properly this time. The Internet bolded the words I’d asked for.
. . . encourages prison visits for at-risk youths. To critics, Marjorie Lusk rebuts, “Of course it scares them. That’s our intent.” Lusk, whose interest in the project . . .
. . . her address Monday at Clark High, Marjorie Lusk began, “I remember my son at your age. A program like this might’ve changed his future.” Since 1982, Lusk’s . . .
. . . raffle winner Marjorie Lusk looks forward to the trip. All auction proceeds go to Families Across Bars, a volunteer group dedicated to easing the frustrations of . . .
. . . It is with great regret that I take over for Marjorie Lusk, who has been our recording secretary for over ten years. Her drive and organization will be missed. As . . .
I clicked that last link. Families Across Bars, an organization that sounded like so much mush. The page took an age loading. The minutes of the Illinois chapter; O’Fallon, Illinois then. The clench around my throat let go. The Mississippi between me and Marjorie. As it should be. Natural and right, that deep silted space between us.
Your mother’s replacement as secretary was singularly unforthcoming with details. She only noted that doctors remained cautiously optimistic in the aftermath of Marjorie’s stroke, before recapitulating FAB’s successes with the statewide visit day carpool system and its ambitions for a Mother-Daughter Girl Scout Troop at Logan Correctional. Respectfully submitted, Leigh Hopper. She didn’t even list visiting information; no one must have asked. These people, Clarence. I don’t know why I was surprised. Such altruism, serving prison families; never mind that they were the families. Selfishness tarted up as a 501(c)(3).
Bad blood shows. Obviously, I don’t buy into that nonsense. Look at Pamela, Clarence, and then look at you. Nevertheless, I thought it there at the computer, reading on. A heartbeat thrum to the phrase: bad blood, bad blood, bad blood. The Internet said your mother cut a compelling figure. Marjorie up on stage while her bad blood congealed. A clot one-eighth of one-eighth of one-eighth of one pinhead. Look at this: her heart beats and bears the clot up; it pulses brain-bound on oxygenated blood. It happens slowly. The crowd applauds. No one notices. The clot floats along. Passages narrow. The way before it bifurcates, bifurcates again.
You wrote that you see people clearest in your mind. That moments there can last forever. I know how that works. Every time Pam shrieked or snitted or pouted, your mother was there. Her voice: you don’t know what it is to be a mother. She knew just what to say to keep me up nights. The two of you. I hope you see this, Clarence. She stands at the edge of a driveway. Bracelets clatter as she reaches into her mailbox. Her hand emerges with grocery circulars. Her fingers feel swollen, her skin prickly, her guts dark and gummy, like blackberry preserves. This feeling, this lack of feeling, spreads up her arm. She grips at the post box. Steady. She wonders if she can raise her leg. She examines the circular. Texas Toast, two for five dollars. Coupon, she thinks. Coupon, she tries to say. The word comes out: capon. Capstone. Corningware. In her hands the paper, the whatsit, the flat smear of color blurs. She lowers her foot, slowly. She thinks it could miss the ground. A flash. A split down her brain, something clattering inside, some battering ram building for release. Some buttering churn.
Picture it. She falls.
In another life is a game for fools; Clarence, you and I know we only ever get the one. Nevertheless: in another life Marjorie and I might have kept in tenuous touch. She might have been granted the occasional visit. Family was important, essential, and Pam didn’t have much of it left. Only she came to us raw in the funeral home parking lot. Only she opened her mouth and let loose those terrible things.
Pamela cried most nights those first months.
I’d never tell Blue—or anyone—this, but she wet the bed.
Well into her teens she stiffened when she saw cop cars on the highway.
Before we took custody she had spent exactly one weekend in my care.
And your mother lay in wait outside the funeral.
You know, of course, how badly Frank and I had wanted a child. We tried from the time we first married. It never—none of them ever—took, and that was very painful. Doctors couldn’t do then what they do now, what with every third forty-year-old birthing quintuplets. Frank knew the Kellers from work and they referred us to the agency that had brought them Maisie. We gelled with the woman who manned it and read all we could about Korea. We painted the spare room buttercup gold and hung curtains with a Marimekko print. A social worker came and took notes. We answered intrusive questions and wrote enormous checks. You and Barbra penned a letter on our behalf. Mostly you, I’d imagine; you had the better way with words.
Pam had been with us eight weeks when the agency sent the photograph. A face that I will never describe to you, a bow affixed to her not-very-much hair. Hyun-Ay. A name I was sure to botch on the diphthongs. Paperwork in two languages, the English I’d grown up with, the Korean I’d had all best intentions of someday learning. Its characters looked permanently impenetrable. I let my eyes blur and they turned random, a scattering of pick-up sticks.
We disrupted the adoption. There’s a reason that word sounds like rupture, and a reason rupture is a word so often paired with the heart. Still, it was the right thing to do; Frank and I believed that absolutely. Imagine if we’d gone ahead with it and Pam thought there was a soul in this universe we wanted more than her. We never told her, and that was also the right decision; Pamela has always taken things upon herself unreasonably. Hyun-Ay’s picture was in my safety deposit box, though I needed a better plan for it; as things stood, Pam would come across it, baffled, in the event of my sudden demise.
About your mother, Clarence, and the scene she made in the parking lot: I’ve carried that with me. You don’t know what it is to be a mother. For the simple fact of saying it, I’ve sometimes hated her even more than you.
The Internet yielded a comprehensive list: elder care in O’Fallon, Illinois. I composed myself and worked through it calmly, meticulously, in alphabetical order. On the phone, I used Barbra’s old trick: if you’re ever nervous, pretend you’re someone else, an actress, auditioning for Lida Stearl. By the time I came to Riverview, I had perfected my patter. “This is Maisie Keller. I’m trying to find the best time to visit Marjorie Lusk. The best time for her, I mean, because of her treatment schedule.” Easy-peasy. Be nice, but don’t ask. Instruct. Speak with authority and people cede it.
“Lusk?”
“L-U-S-as-in-Sam-K.”
The receptionist put me on hold to check a master schedule. She returned and rattled off visiting hours.
It really was that simple.
Your mother did not need to fill out Form ISU-009v, requesting to place me on her visitor roster.
I needed to neither fill out nor return Form ISU-010v, the application to visit.
Riverview staff would conduct no criminal background check.
At Riverview’s threshold I would be subject to no search of person or possessions.
In Marjorie Lusk’s room we would be allowed our privacy.
She and I would be permitted to touch.
11.
Dear Clarence,
I never thought about the arch that way (or about it sinking into the earth, what an imagination your wife has!) before. It’s supposed to be the gateway to the west. So don’t you have to be able to pass through it going west (or east, if you like to do things backwards)? If it bridged the river, you could only go south, unless you wanted to fight a massive current. The St. Louis marathon ends right near the arch. I think it’s strange that they didn’t put it just a bit farther and put the finish line right under it.
No, I’m not a marathoner. (Don’t I wish. I ran a 5K once. Ouch.) My father was and I liked to go and cheer. He passed away last June. I don’t think I have to tell you how much I miss him. He’s what my mind returns to and I don’t think any kind of lava game will help it.
He collected electric trains and I always used to tease him that it was an old man’s hobby. Now I just wish he got to be an old man. Mom doesn’t know this but I’ve set up a small train set under my bed. At night when I can’t sleep, I switch it on. I like to pretend that the train could carry me to a place where I could see him again. But that’s not how the world works. I don’t have to tell you. The train just goes round and round.
I hope it’s not rude to mention death, given your situation. I’m sorry if it is. I imagine it could be like someone lighting up when you’re trying to stop smoking. That could have been rude too, if you are an ex-smoker. Or a smoker who feels guilty about it. Are you? Do they even let you? In movies, prisoners smoke all the time. That was rude also. I’m not usually this bad mannered. It’s just that when I think of you (and yes, I do think of you) I don’t know how to picture you or your life. My mother says I am much too nosey.
There isn’t much to say about St. Louis. I hope you are not disappointed in me. St. Louis is St. Louis and this time of year everything turns gray and cold. I work in an organic grocery and it’s funny that with fruit and stuff at work I see all the colors that are missing when I walk to there. It’s two miles. So that’s four miles a day. Maybe I’ll wind up a marathoner despite myself. Ha ha. Mom offers to drive, but it’s healthier this way and I think that maybe if I’m walking around I’ll be the first one to spot signs of spring when they come. What else? Oranges are in season. Those little baby ones without seeds. Clementines. I can peel them in one piece (and that’s just about the only party trick I’ve got). We have a little deli café and some nights I bring dinner home. I can barely fry an egg and Mom wears herself out by being lonely. Even though dinner’s a small thing I like to feel I’m helping her.
I guess this means I lied to you in the first letter, when I said that my life was good and that I am happy in it. I didn’t know that I would get comfortable enough to share this. I’m kind of surprised that I have. What I should have said is that I know my life can be good and that I am trying to be happy in it.
Mom and I go to movies some nights. I think it’s a relief for her to sit and not talk and not notice who isn’t around to talk. So even though I would like to talk with her, I try and give her what she needs, which are quiet evenings with somebody else’s story. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t nice for me to get lost that way sometimes too.
Look at this. I’ve gone and written a pity me letter. I didn’t mean to. What I mean to say is that I enjoy hearing from you and feel that when I write back I am finally, really speaking.
12.
When my mother died she went quickly; my father did too when Barbra and I were young. I had no idea what people wore to nursing homes. I unstacked trousers and blouses, scarves, my good out-in-the-world and working clothes. They’d been shut in drawers, airless, a long time. They smelled it. Pamela used to bring home arts and crafts sachets, bundles of herbs, oranges spiked with cloves. I should have kept them, I suppose, but I never did see what would stop them from rotting. Nothing suited. Not these plain old office clothes. I went to the closet. Execution suits in their garment bag. When your time came I couldn’t wear all three. And this way your mother would know me. She’d seen me in black last time around. A bit of a drive, my townhouse to Riverview. The gabardine would wrinkle least. I unzipped the garment bag. I’d stuffed the jacket with tissue paper; even back when I bought it I’d known it would have to hold its shape a while. The tissue inside crunched.
I packed a fat photo album, all Pam’s school plays and Halloweens. I’d want them, maybe, if I couldn’t think of something to say. I had to use my largest purse. Pam was mugging in some of the photographs, aloof in some, healthy and cared for in all. A long ago feeling I couldn’t properly name; shades of sitting on the school bus, homeward bound, a sealed report card in my hand and the knowledge that I had done well. I stopped at Green Mother Grocery for flowers. That darling little checker, Flamingo, steered me toward tulips because they were cheerful. I let her pick a dozen, costly and not yet in season. I put the change in her tip jar. She was saving for that China trip, after all.
Riverview was L shaped and bordered a parking lot. Its awning read Welcome in the sort of excessively curly script reserved for Italian restaurants. The river was nowhere in sight and the lobby was heated to the edge of uncomfortable. A television nested in the fireplace, broadcasting the image of an actual fire. A girl, Pam’s age or just shy of it, sat at a desk, phone crimped between shoulder and ear. She swiveled her chair and shuffled a file into one of the cabinets behind her. I waved the tulips, a jaunty salute. I made for the double doors. If asked to describe me later, the girl would only remember a yellow blur. A plastic sign announced that this was the Irene P. Cotter Ward.
Marjorie, I’d say. I don’t know if you recognize me. It’s been a while. I want to tell you that Pamela’s brilliant. Perfect. Her mother would be so proud. Her father too if he hadn’t—but it doesn’t do any kind of good, us getting into that.
But why else had I come here? In my good gabardine.
She was in this building, breathing my same air. In and out of her parking lot lips.
When she kissed Pammie goodbye we had a time scrubbing away that lipstick.
She was your mother.
I should come into her room like thunder.
Nice place you got here, Marjorie. Riverview. I’m sure it’s costing you. I’m glad. Less money in the pot for his defense. But, Marjorie, you should know that not a whole lot of it goes to security. No one made a move to stop me. That phone girl didn’t ask for my name. But you know me. You know who I—
“Ma’am? Can I help you?” the lobby girl asked. She wore frosted lip gloss.
“I’m visiting.” I shook the tulips again, so glad I’d thought to bring them. Cameras were so small now. They could perch anywhere. Catching me at strange angles, squashed or bloated, like a reflection in a spoon.
“Who are—”
“Marjorie Lusk. She’s one of your stroke patients.”
“Sure. Great. Let’s get you signed in.” Frostmouth waved a clipboard and gestured to a bouquet of pens, every one of them taped to enormous silk flowers to prevent folks from carrying them off.
“I’m family,” I said. And what a thing it was to have a family, I would tell Marjorie. Snarled together like a mess of unbrushed hair. Bound up by Clarence. Nice boy, that son of yours. I’d tell her: If you raised him right he’d be here for you. He’d bring you Pammie. She’s so big, Marjorie. I’m learning to be happy about it. You were dead wrong that day. “I called ahead,” I told Frostmouth. “One of you people knew that I was coming.”
“Name?”
I hesitated. Marjorie was your mother. Perhaps they were obliged to alert you with the names of people who dropped by. “Kath Claverie,” I said, because after Pam’s name, which wouldn’t do, and Maisie’s which I obviously couldn’t use, it was the first that came to me. “Marjorie is my mother,” I said, and then, because I couldn’t do that to Ma, “In-law. My mother-in-law.”
“Well,” said Frostmouth. I knew that tone. My brace-tightening voice. There, that wasn’t so bad. “Here we go.” I took the clipboard from her. Kath Claverie, I wrote.
I returned the clipboard. Frostmouth looked over my entry and asked for ID.
“I forgot.” I sounded like a patient, talking about a retainer. My mind went rat-ta-tat. ID. We caught Pamela once with a fake one. Maybe she’d tell me where she’d got it. She wouldn’t back then, no matter the grounding. I couldn’t tell her so then, but I was proud: Barbra wouldn’t have ratted either.
Frostmouth eyed my purse.
I made an exaggerated show of rifling through it. “Senior moment,” I said, though I hated the term.
“I’m really sorry,” said Frostmouth, not quite sounding it. “But I can’t—”
“I just want to see her.”
“Your mother-in-law?” Her voice was threaded with disbelief.
I nodded, vehemently.
Comporting myself like a galumphing puppy, I knew.
“Listen, you’re family. So I’m sure you understand how important it is we respect our residents’ privacy. And security, right? I mean—” She stopped right there, like she’d run out of script.
“Please. I have to see Marjorie.” I had to know. If there were dogs in your childhood and if you tied tin cans to their tails. If she knew then. If neighbor children put their hands a little deeper in their pockets when you passed, touching their nickels or sweets one last time before you took them. If she’d known when you started to bring home girls, spiritless dishrags with bruise-colored eyes. What she’d made of my sister and her spine. Why she never warned her.
“If there’s an emergency . . .”
“Please. I just left my ID back at home.” I raised the flowers. “I had these to juggle and it slipped my mind.”
“I’m sorry. Maybe I can give her the flowers? Say hi and everything.”
I surrendered the blooms and Frostmouth told me to drive safe. Sometimes there was a speed trap just after the merge. I didn’t want to be pulled over without my license.
A quartet stood just outside. Father, daughter, grandmother, and grandmother’s walker. I buckled myself into the car. My gabardine had begun to wrinkle. I waited to start the engine and watched the family hug goodbye. Both father and daughter wore denim and sloppy sweatshirts, like seeing family was roughly as important as yard work. Grandmother shuffled back inside. Father and daughter walked to their car. The girl was already too old to hold his hand but she gave a little skip and her shoulder brushed his arm. She passed so close to me. Adorable freckles. In another year or so she would begin to hate them. For now though she stopped before my window to adjust her reflected ponytail. I held still so as not to startle her. Imagine if instead of her face she saw my own, congealing from air, older than she’d ever imagined. She would shrink against her father. She should shrink. Marjorie had no one left to shrink against and somewhere inside Riverview Frostmouth was presenting her with tulips. How pretty, from your daughter-in-law, Frostmouth would say, because a lie, once spoken, really begins to live. They should have let me see her. Because the tulips were worse. Marjorie with Frostmouth’s words in her ear, how pretty, from your daughter-in-law. Your mother lying dead still and thinking Barbra. Barbra and her donkey laugh, rushing out of the ether, sudden, as if from a dark glass.
The Done Thing Page 6