The Done Thing

by Tracy Manaster

  “Margie sees better ’round the other side,” said Holland. Rows of fruit dotted her scrubs, marrying uneven at the seams. Apple to pear, banana to orange. She looked like a losing slot machine. Nurses used to wear white. The measure of a decent hospital was the way its staff gleamed.

  “It’s Marjorie,” I said. Another conversational strategy; corrections can be an efficient way to regain territory. Your mother’s lips were pink and unchapped, thanks to my weeks of balm. She could at least look my way. The vinegar in the woman. Making me think all those times that I was welcome. Holding my gaze. Straining for smiles. Your Lusk mother, biding her time. Waiting for an audience before giving me the snub. “Marjorie?”

  Nothing and more nothing. Something in my gut deflated.

  Your mother’s mouth stretched into a thin and concentrated line. A new trick. If she’d just look at me, I’d tell her I was proud. She really was much improved, Clarence. She’d lost that sheen of serious illness. She no longer looked like so many gobs of rice pudding.

  “The nice nurse is going to think you don’t like me.”

  Holland’s voice from the hallway, benevolent. “It’s not my business to think that.” A better nurse would tell me not to sweat it. Of course Marjorie likes you. A better nurse would put her hand over mine and squeeze. Your mother kept staring at nothing. Her tongue flopped wild now, a fish flopping desperate on land.

  “C’mon, Marjorie.”

  Holland said, “Try talking normal. Easier for her to engage that way, isn’t it, Margie?”

  If I were a proper visitor I could insist she leave. Instead, I followed instructions. Perhaps she would leave us if my normal talk passed muster. “You wouldn’t believe the number of people here today. I had to circle and circle to park.”

  Marjorie’s lips stretched and twisted like she was trying to work them around something that kept changing consistency and shape.

  “The drive over was nice though,” I said. “It felt like summer already.”

  Holland finally retreated. Enjoy your visit, she mouthed. I would have to keep up the chitchat. She’d be just the type to lurk at doors.

  “I saw Pamela Saturday,” I said, “she looked very pretty.” Your mother’s head jerked up as if on a string. Her shirt this time was peppermint striped, a pattern they hadn’t put her in before. “Pammie had a new blouse too. Blue-greenish. Blue bought it for her birthday. Such a good color. It just about matches her eyes. I don’t see how he knew to pick it out.”

  But Marjorie wasn’t interested.

  Clarence, you know I was a shy child, gawking about in my younger sister’s wake. I’ve grown. I have more or less mastered it. But that’s a question of tips and tricks and carrying myself with confidence. Conversation itself rarely came easy; I seldom knew exactly the thing to say. I knew it that afternoon in Riverview. Exactly what Marjorie would want to hear. And hiding Holland would think we were a proper family. The lie came easily. “Pammie says to say hi. She’s sorry she couldn’t make it this time.”

  Your mother’s eyes snapped to me. Her lips worked furiously. Her tongue thrashed behind her teeth. “Careful there,” I said. She might choke. The worry came on swift, too swift for me to slough off as something I shouldn’t care about. She was your mother. Her tongue did its terrible work. Her mouth pinched closed like a drawstring purse. “I’m going to call that nurse back. Marjorie, you’re—”

  “Cassava,” Marjorie said, “cassava.”

  A word. I was almost sure that was an actual word.

  “Cassava,” she said again.

  Yes. A word. Clear. She barely slurred the ss.

  “Cassava,” once more. Some kind of gourd, I was fairly certain. African? Possibly. Marjorie looked as surprised as I was. Everything in her face shot up. Hairline, eyebrows, the doughy folds of her cheeks. “Cassava.”

  “Marjorie, I don’t know why you’re saying that.”

  “Cassava.” Her teeth flashed white against her lip. Edgy wet in her eyes. “Cassava.” Every cassava louder than the one before. Holland was clearly long gone. She’d have come barreling in at the first comprehensible word.

  “I don’t understand. Marjorie.”

  “Cassava.” Her chest rose and fell. Short breaths, possibly panicked. “Cassava, cassava, cassava.” She strained a little at the gut.

  “Do you want to sit up? I don’t know how to get you up . . .”

  “Cassava.”

  “Good, good. Yes, cassava. That’s a word. You’re talking. But can you try something else?”

  “Cassava.” There was a thinness to it this time.

  “Try, Marjorie.”

  “Cassava.” Sad slippery word. Mystified, and not a little panicky.

  “Mar jo rie.” I tapped her chest. Aside from the lip balm I don’t think I had touched her in all this time.

  “Cassava.”

  “Maybe Clarence. Clar ence. Try it.”

  “Cassava.”

  “Try Barbra.” The name my mind flashed to first, the name I associated most with yours. I hadn’t set out to pain your mother. I swear it, Clarence. Not that time around.

  “Cassava.” She caught on the double s, a small click like a motor stalling.

  “How about Pamela? Is that what you’re trying to say?” I sat on the lip of your mother’s bed. Its springs groaned. I plumped Marjorie’s pillow. She wheezed and continued to cassava. She held a curved left hand up and stared at it. She looked astounded at its emptiness.

  For the second time in one day I knew the exact right thing to say.

  “You’re back now,” I said.

  Silly thing to say, silly as cassava. Your mother had always been right here. Ridiculous to act as though she’d journeyed back from some long and distant ways away. But she was back in the wordscape now, no matter that she claimed so small a holding.

  It was the right thing to say and so I said it again.

  I began to stroke her hair. Riverview scrimped on conditioner. I’d have to buy her a bottle. Pam’s lavender kind. How soft her hair would turn. Cassava, Marjorie said and I rolled her split ends between my fingers. Cassava, I answered back, grateful for the bed that bore my weight. I doubted I could stand. Everything about today was strange. Your mother’s voice and your mother’s word and the feeling that came with hearing her. Strange that I could feel it at all. Something that was almost hope. Something that was almost happiness.

  27.

  Cassava. Noun. 1. Equatorial or tropical plant (Manihot esculenta) or the tuberous root of this plant. 2. The starch derived from said plant through the drying and leaching of its natural cyanide. 3. The source of tapioca. See manioc, yucca.

  What had I done before the Internet? I had a dictionary, yes, and the 1992 Encyclopedia Britannica, but without the Internet I would never have learned:

  Cassava was a Brazilian subsistence crop. It thrived in bad soil and kept whole families going. Last year’s yield had been threatened by fungus. The devastation had yet to be tallied.

  Cassava was purportedly delicious cut thin, deep fried, and sprinkled with salt. The Web recommended fleur du sel, kosher in a pinch. Or try the traditional preparation. Boil in goat’s milk and mash with lime.

  Cassava-Cassava would open in August at Kauai’s Hibiscus Grand Family Resort. A dance club for preteens with virgin coladas and hula lessons at the top of each hour.

  Cassava Love Dudley, heaven help her, was born last week at Sanpete Valley Hospital.

  Cassava and Crumpets could be found at 817 Whidbee Avenue in downtown Paulus, Wisconsin. Purveyors of fine coffee and bubble teas. The website offered a quiz: what kind of bubble tea are you? I was Bouncing Butterscotch. Spit welled beneath my tongue; I wanted butterscotch. The Internet’s power of suggestion was staggering. Astounding that it wasn’t better monitored.

  I searched again. This time Marjorie Lusk and cassava, bounded by quotation marks.

  Nothing.

  I cut the Marjorie.

  Still nothing.

&nbs
p; Clarence and cassava, no.

  Stemble and cassava, no.

  Barbra Lusk murder cassava, Riverview facility cassava, mother cassava, can’t stop saying cassava. No, gibberish, no, and a page that—inexplicably—advertised a cream that would augment my bust.

  I swallowed. Before Riverview I had known your mother very little. She’d toasted too drunkenly at your wedding and Barbra quarreled with you that first year of marriage over whether Marjorie had the right to an emergency house key. You won. I should have seen it then. You were no good for Barbra. You got her to cave. At the time I’d thought that was a good thing. Her mouth could get that mulish set.

  Woman with a stroke saying cassava. Woman with a stroke repeating herself. A fruitful search at last. I clicked my way through a series of stroke support sites. Perseveration, the web said. Not uncommon in stroke recovery. Marjorie was working hard to get language back. A first word had bubbled up from wherever the rest of them were stored. By chance, cassava. It could just as easily be surgery, Realtor, postage stamp. And that first word became the only one. Tuberous plug in her memory circuits, blocking every word that tried to follow. I read on: Perseveration was generally a sign of improvement. In patients, however, the onset of perseveration could be met with frustration and panic.

  “Perseveration,” I spoke the word aloud. It sounded a bit like perseverance, which I’d been raised to believe an admirable quality. And your mother had no monopoly on perseveration. Every soul alive gets stuck once in a while.

  “Perseveration,” I said again. Conscious this time of the grit in my voice. It sounded a lot like preserve too. Another word I’d always thought meant good. Me and Ma, putting up cherries. We’ll be lucky in winter. A little sweetness to do us good.

  “Perseveration,” I said again. Whatever it sounded like it meant stuck, plain and simple. Memory’s sweet. It’s like flypaper. We get stuck. We all get stuck.

  We didn’t tell Ma about all of them—she worried—but Barbra always knew when I miscarried. Clear across the country, she said, and her cycle would go all off kilter. She was probably lying; there’s no kind of science to back that phenomenon up. But I loved her so much for saying it. For the zingers she’d come up with—scathing, I was much too shy to use them—for all our foot-mouthed well wishers. The things people say. At least you know you can get pregnant. It’s nature’s way of weeding out birth defects. Maybe you just aren’t meant to have children.

  Then Barbra was gone.

  And people upped their earnest murmurs. I had nothing to say in response; I had the mental agility of banana pudding. At least it was fast. At least she wasn’t in and out of hospitals. It’s better for Pam this way, so young she won’t remember.

  I needed my sister.

  I still needed my sister

  I’m not stuck. I typed quickly. I was getting better at it; I have always been a quick study. Barbra would be inching toward her sixties now. She’d have aged irritably, like so many pretty women do. She’d wear flowing scarves and colors that no longer suited her complexion. She’d discover tanning beds and orange herself to leather. And I’d have felt petty and triumphant, aging better than her. I read the words on my screen as if they were actually true: I’m not stuck. I clicked. Foolish as Pam with one of those Magic 8 Balls she used to have, asking the same question over and over till she got the answer she wanted. Page after glowing page. The Internet was just like most people. Gadzillions of facts but it didn’t know anything about anything.

  Enough, enough. I turned off the machine and went to the kitchen. I still wanted butterscotch. The kind of sweet that grandmothers—doting and not responsible for the dentist’s bill—carried in their purses. I went to my bag. Perhaps I’d grabbed a candy absentmindedly at the bank where they had them out in cheery baskets. I needed to thin my purse in any event. I spread its contents on my kitchen table, eye out for that glinting foil. Polaroids for Marjorie, credit cards, bank cards, checkbook and register, my driver’s license, Kath Claverie’s driver’s license, a dozen grocery store twist ties I’d been saving up to give to Pam, Bic pen with lid, Bic pen without lid, Kleenex, tissue-wrapped plaster mold of Pam’s teeth at eleven, tissue wrapped plaster mold of Pam’s teeth at fourteen, a mess of photographs, eighteen receipts, lip balm—aloe and rosehips, the kind Meifen sold that I couldn’t for the life of me find elsewhere—a whistle for emergencies, your six most recent letters, $1.89 in change, a set of keys, four American glassworks stamps.

  I fingered the stamps. If they’d been the old lick-and-stick kind then at least I could get a taste of sweet. These stamps were yours; I only ever used them for you. But there was more to the universe than Arizona. I knew that, Clarence—I did. Somewhere, out beyond the townhouse, people used stamps like these to mail their bills.

  But they weren’t here—I was, standing at the head of a silent table, a silent set of objects splayed before me. I crumpled the receipts one by one. I could unstick. I left the coins out for the change jar. I could unstick. I would. I began to shunt everything else back into my purse. Maisie would let more and more time elapse between each letter. Eventually, she wouldn’t write back at all. I zipped my bag with an efficient, decisive sound. It was my favorite, fine leather, well-maintained, lines and stitching that whispered quality. Good capacity. Kath liked to tease that the sheer heft of the thing could take out any mugger who dared approach. My sister had overstuffed her purses too. Just like our mother. Her saying about that: only the shipmaker knows why his ships all bear ballast. She said it cheerily enough, but it wasn’t cheerful and it wasn’t a mystery either. I knew how it went with any ship that bears ballast. She takes on all she does even knowing it will weigh her down. And, burdened, sets sail, hoping what she holds will keep her steady and above water long enough to reach some other shore.

  28.

  Thank you for the picture, Maisie. I’ve been looking it over every few minutes since it came. At lights out I take one last look and lie back, hoping you’re familiar enough now to start coming up in my dreams.

  I’ve been having Nuz dreams. He comes down the pods holding this jar like kids use for fireflies. But the jar’s empty. Whatever was in there got out. Nuz looks the same as before, except for these holes all over his skin, just like the ones punched through my door to let in air. When I look close I can see they’re all plugged up with ice. I think I told you how I like the ice dreams. This one I am always glad to wake from. I don’t get back to sleep nights that Nuz comes. Men in here sleep loud. I try to blame their snores and grunts and all the like. I don’t snore, in case you are wondering. Someone here would tell me. And my wife never complained.

  I hope you don’t mind my talking about her. You don’t seem the jealous kind. She claimed she only snored on nights before rainstorms. But we lived in Arizona. She snored a whole lot more often than it rained. It’s funny what a person remembers. I don’t think she ever dreamed at all. But she’d talk big talk about it, all “I had this dream where you call if you’re running late.” “I had a dream you were the one who got the baby breakfast.” “I dreamed you got the oil changed.”

  Life continues all by-the-book in here. Tomorrow I’ll be seeing the medic. They actually gave me a heads up like they’re supposed to. They told me at first count. My stomach’s already all cramps but I am trying not to relieve myself. Tomorrow they’re going to weigh me. And I figure they’re going to have to check my Stemble file when they’re calculating how much stuff to put in their needles. So I want to be as heavy as I can. My biggest fear (these days, until I come up with another one) is that they’ll botch the numbers and their first try won’t take.

  Later (it’s just about lights out now). I couldn’t send this at mail call. I know it means this letter will reach you a day or so late. But I care for you, deeply. And I want you to think of me. But not this way. I didn’t want to leave you between letters thinking of me dead and stuck full of needles or bowled up in here trying not to shit.

  I have something better to leave
you with now. I hesitate to write it. Still have some vanity left, see? I don’t like reminding a pretty girl like you I’m old. But good news is meant for telling and I can’t count on that much more to share. I’ve just heard from my daughter. If I can just hang on another half a year I’ll die a grandfather.

  29.

  How I managed the linner drive without breaking my neck, I’ll never know. I passed a playground. The playground where Pam once cut her foot on a bit of bottle glass. Every time I turned my back she wriggled out of her shoes. We’d swapped out the plain laces that came with her sneakers. Pamela liked the purple best. No use. She still wouldn’t keep them on. Her cut foot bled and bled. She ran to me. I picked her up. Behind her, sticky footprints. Red proof: when Pammie hurt I was the one she came to.

  I got on the highway. When Pam first learned to merge her shoulders shot clear up to her earlobes. It took a good half mile for them to slide back down. But her voice sounded as though she’d never been afraid in her life. A Barbra kind of calm. Stop that tapping, Li. There’s never going to be a brake on your side.

  Just off the highway—there—was the chain diner she’d go to in high school when midnight pancakes were the height of sophistication. Here was the exit to her little friend Meggie’s. And her flute teacher lived just over there. Here was the exit for Blue’s office. He had ten years on Pamela; timing was just about right for Blue. And the way they both got on with the little Claveries. But she would have told me, Clarence. She would have told me first.