The Trouble with Joe

by Emilie Richards

  She might as well do this right. Because—why not admit it?—she wasn’t likely, daydreams aside, to sell the café and embark on some adventure. Honestly, she was beginning to wonder whether she was really disappointed in herself because she hadn’t overcome all obstacles to follow some inchoate dream. Maybe what actually disappointed her most was that she didn’t have any big dreams. The truth was, she was pretty contented day to day, satisfied by what she had achieved.

  Maybe, she thought ruefully, I’m just not very exciting, if starting a garden is one of my big dreams.

  A few minutes later, she’d dragged the hose out front and had moved it a dozen times to outline the bed she saw in her mind’s eye. She stretched the hose into a curve, but decided a rectangular shape suited the house better. Not until she was satisfied with the dimensions did she start to dig.

  Her shovel bit into the sod and sank deep. With triumph, she lifted out the first shovelful, reached down and shook loose dirt back into the hole, then tossed grass and roots into the wheelbarrow.

  Tomorrow, she thought, I’ll sneak into the hospital when I know Adrian won’t be there and I’ll tell the hat lady all about the beginning of my garden.

  A real garden.

  She wondered if Adrian Rutledge, buttoned-down attorney, had any hobbies or dreams. Or did he deny that side of himself because it reminded him too much of his mother?

  She wondered what he was doing with the rest of his day. And with tomorrow.

  * * *

  WITHIN HALF AN hour of leaving Lucy’s, Adrian wished he’d lingered. What was he going to do with himself? Hang around the hospital all afternoon and evening?

  He did feel obligated to drive straight there and settle in at his mother’s bedside for another uncomfortable, one-sided talk.

  She didn’t look better. If anything, her face seemed more sunken today, as if the flesh had begun the process of drying up, and he was being given a glimpse of how she’d look when she was laid in her coffin. Adrian wished desperately he could see her eyes and some spark of the mother he remembered.

  “I went through your things today,” he told her, because the silence was worse than hearing his own voice. “I felt bad, as if I was intruding.”

  It was rather like that moment in childhood, he realized, when it struck you like a lightning bolt that your parents were regular people, not just Mom and Dad. And you had no idea how other people might perceive them. Heck, you weren’t sure who they actually were. So you went looking.

  But you were afraid of what you’d find. He had been apprehensive. He still was. He wanted his mother to be the woman he remembered—sad sometimes, yes, confused, too, but also fun and wise and capable of true joy. He didn’t want to find out she’d become angry or disgusting in some way or... He didn’t know. Someone else. Someone he didn’t know and never would.

  The mystery of where she’d gone and who she’d become ate at him. There was a reason he had blocked her out all these years. Her mysteries left a hollow in him, too. After walling himself off all those years ago, Adrian didn’t like knowing that any part of his deepest self depended on another person.

  Lucy Peterson’s face flickered before him then, and he wasn’t sure why. Maybe because he could imagine her shaking her head and saying, “Of course we all depend on each other!” Growing up in this small town, she’d never known a day without the interconnections of family, friends and neighbors. Maybe that’s why she’d come back after college. Thinking she wanted to strike out on her own was one thing; actually wrenching herself free of the web of roots that tangled with her own was another altogether. Probably she needed those to sustain her.

  Adrian shook his head, thinking he’d be strangled by those same roots and all the well-meaning people.

  “The conch shell is beautiful. Could you hear the ocean in it?” He leaned forward, watching his mother’s face for some shadow of memory. “That piece of china, too. I remember when I found it, you telling me the ocean must have washed it all the way from China. Now, I’d just think it was a broken piece of pottery and drop it back onto the beach. But you made me think it was magical. You were good at doing that, Mom. Making ordinary things shimmer, as if they were special.” He paused. “I let myself forget the way you did that. You leaving me with Dad, I guess I started seeing things more his way. I’m sorry.”

  He didn’t even know what he was apologizing for. Letting his father have his way? Or the fact that in his grief and anger and guilt he’d wanted to forget his mother, who had abandoned him?

  Adrian sat silent for a minute, long enough to become aware again of the muted beeps of the monitors, to hear voices and a shushed laugh outside the door, the brisk crepe-soled footsteps of a nurse passing in the hall. But the quiet in here was overwhelming, the few sounds isolated and oddly lonely. Once again, he wished he’d brought something to read aloud.

  “Lucy’s going to take your books back to the library. I couldn’t tell if you’d read them yet or not.” He paused. “I met the librarian the other day. Maybe I already told you. She misses you. She says you’re her favorite patron. Now she doesn’t have anybody to talk about books with.”

  Was his mother’s color becoming worse, too? The word waxen had come to him when he first saw her, but now it seemed her skin had taken on a yellow tinge as well. Had the doctor noticed? Did that mean her organs were trying to shut down?

  He sat back in the chair, feeling stunned. Wasn’t it strange how little prepared he was for the idea that she would die without ever waking up. When he arrived Friday, he’d mostly been in shock. The idea that this frail, white-haired woman lying in the bed was his mother hadn’t seemed quite real to him. Maybe it still didn’t. But the woman his mother had been before she disappeared had come alive for him again, if only in the reawakening of his memories.

  Looking at the prominence of her bones and the pallor of her skin, Adrian thought, I might not need to move her to a nursing home near me. She might simply slip away.

  There might not be any need for dutiful visits. He’d never done one single thing for his own mother. He hadn’t even been the one to find her.

  “God, Mom...” His voice came out broken, raw. “If only I’d known...” Without thinking, he reached for her and gripped her nearest hand hard. It was warmer than he’d expected, and smaller than he remembered.

  How often had he laid his hand in hers, confident she’d return his clasp, that she liked holding hands with him. ’Cause Mom and him were always gonna do something.

  A sound tore at his throat, shocking him.

  Her eyelids twitched.

  Adrian stiffened and stared. A small shudder seemed to move over her face, flaring her nostrils briefly. Behind closed lids, her eyeballs moved. Was she trying to open her eyes?

  “How is she?” Ben Slater asked from beside Adrian.

  He started violently, then tried to cover up by straightening and rolling his shoulders to loosen the muscles.

  “I don’t know. Did you see how her face was moving?” It had gone still now, as if to make him a liar. “Her eyelids were twitching and she seemed to be...I don’t know, trying to frown or say something or—”

  The doctor laid a hand on his shoulder. “It might just have been reflexes, you know.” His voice was gentle. “A random firing of neurons.”

  “I was thinking her color looked worse today,” Adrian said.

  Dr. Slater stepped closer to the bed. “I can’t say I see a change, but we’ll keep monitoring her kidney function.”

  “You don’t think she is going to wake up.”

  “I didn’t say that. Were you talking to her when her face became mobile?”

  “Yeah, but I’ve talked to her every time I came.”

  “It could be the coma is becoming lighter.”

  Adrian suspected he was being patronized. He could imagine
the cherubic doctor patting him again and saying, There’s always hope.

  What kind of hope would they be talking about anyway? he asked himself with a surge of impatience. No matter what, she wouldn’t be the mother he remembered, who balanced on a high wire between sanity and a world that was only in her head. The hat lady was a homeless woman who pushed her belongings in a stolen shopping cart and was as crazy as the current administration’s monetary policies. If she did wake up, she’d have to be institutionalized.

  Maybe what he should be hoping was that she didn’t wake up, hard-hearted though that was.

  For a moment, he let himself imagine his father’s reaction if he’d still been alive. He’d be impatient, disdainful, distant. You’d never know this woman had ever meant anything to him. He’d have driven over here to Middleton, looked to verify her identity, made the decision immediately to move her to long-term care, then put her from his mind except to instruct his assistant to pay the bills.

  And maybe he’d have been right to be quick, ruthless and unsentimental. Adrian had no idea what, if anything, he was accomplishing here.

  The doctor was watching him with kind eyes. “I hear Lucy has been introducing you around town.”

  “She thought I could learn something about what Mom’s life has been like.”

  “Is it working?”

  “Yeah.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, it is.”

  “She was unconventional, at least by Middleton standards, but loved.”

  “Not by everyone.”

  Slater shrugged. “There are narrow-minded folks anywhere. Got to have someone to look down on.”

  It sickened Adrian to know that he would have been one of those people. Oh, he’d have been polite and maybe even given her his pocket change, the way he sometimes did with the bleary-eyed bums on First Avenue in Pioneer Square. Pity didn’t rule out disdain.

  “It she schizophrenic?”

  “It’s a good possibility, from what Lucy tells me. I didn’t know your mother well. The wife and I go to a different church, and me, I’ve dedicated myself to whacking a white ball around eighteen holes and sometimes even thirty-six at least five days a week. Our paths didn’t have occasion to cross much.”

  “Can she be medicated?”

  “If she comes out of the coma? Sure. Will she become instantly normal? Probably not. Twenty years have made her what she is.” He surveyed Adrian keenly. “Try to remember that she’s a good woman who has made countless friends, who’s a stalwart at her church and at the thrift store. She’s well-read. One of the things Lucy told me she appreciates most about your mother is that she notices beauty everywhere, instead of letting her eyes pass over it the way most of us do. Normally we see with new eyes only twice in our lives—once when we’re children ourselves, and seeing everything for the first time, and then when we have our own children and see through their eyes. But your mother gave the people who cared about her the gift of seeing afresh. I think some of them like Lucy won’t altogether lose it.”

  Adrian knew exactly what the doctor meant. His mother had never lost the ability to see with wonder.

  Adrian had lost it the minute he came home to find his mother gone.

  Lost it? His mouth twisted. Or thrown it away?

  Or maybe he’d already been losing it, like any boy heading toward puberty. Maybe that was the gulf he’d felt opening between him and his mother: he’d started caring about other people’s perceptions. Pretty soon he would have cared more about them than hers, and she would have been left all alone.

  However his father had driven her away that summer, he’d only hastened the inevitable.

  Dr. Slater moved past Adrian and took his patient’s hand, talking pleasantly to her for a moment as if she could hear. His arm blocked Adrian’s view of his mother’s face.

  Slater’s voice sharpened. “You’re right. Her face is becoming more mobile. Hmm.” He stepped back from the railing. “You talk to her.”

  Adrian stood and reached for his mother’s hand again. “Mom, it’s me, Adrian. I’m still here. I’m all grown up. I don’t look much like you remember me, but I’m the same person.” Was he? He shook off the thought. “I can hardly wait to talk to you. Find out about your life. Maman has missed you so much. We could fly up there for a visit. She’s kept your bedroom the same all these years. Wouldn’t you like to see her?”

  “Will you look at that?” the doctor murmured.

  She seemed to have multiple tics. Her eyelids twitched, her mouth worked, muscles in her cheeks jerked.

  “Something’s definitely going on.” Slater watched her with narrowed eyes. “When were you planning to move her?”

  The question jolted Adrian. He should be heading back to Seattle Tuesday afternoon. He’d expected Carol would have a list of assisted living facilities for him to check out then.

  Now, he couldn’t even remember what his Wednesday appointments were. He hadn’t opened a file on his laptop since he got here. He couldn’t imagine being able to concentrate if he did.

  “Ah...I hadn’t gotten that far,” he admitted. “I guess I was hoping for a change.”

  “Good. I’m going to ask that you not move her until we see whether her condition is changing.”

  Adrian nodded. “Fair enough.”

  “Thanks.” Slater held out his hand and they shook. “I’m going to talk to your mom’s nurses, make sure they’re keeping a close eye on her. I might check back in later tonight.”

  “Thank you,” Adrian said, his voice gruff.

  “You’re welcome. Your mom’s somebody special.” Dr. Slater nodded and left.

  Lucy, Adrian thought with a surge of excitement. He should call her. She’d want to know there’d been a change. He pictured her rushing right over to sit beside him.

  Then he remembered the family get-together and the fact that she’d spent all morning and the early afternoon with him for his benefit. He couldn’t keep expecting her to drop everything.

  And all those twitches might mean nothing at all. They might indicate—how had the doctor described it?—the random firing of neurons. Slater might have been pretending to more excitement than he felt, another metaphorical pat on the back. Did med school include classes on dealing with the patients’ loved ones?

  Forget it. She’s responding to you. Keep talking to her.

  He pulled his chair as close to the bed as he could get it and still accommodate his long legs, held his mother’s hand and talked. Talked until he was hoarse. He started by telling her about himself: his first girlfriend, getting his law degree, the friends he’d lived with through grad school, the first time he’d addressed a jury in a courtroom, making partner at his firm. A couple of different nurses came and went, adjusting his mother’s pillows and the height of the bed, shifting her slightly, talking cheerfully to her.

  He moved on to rambling about anything and everything that entered his head: the Mariners coming close to making the World Series last October, their lousy beginning this spring, a pro bono case he’d taken on a couple of years ago, snippets from the newspaper.

  A couple of times her eyeballs moved or her mouth puckered, but eventually he realized he wasn’t getting any response. He’d probably worn her out. Deciding to think of her as taking a much-needed nap, he gently laid her hand back on the coverlet and said, “I’m going to go get some dinner, Mom. I’ll come back for a little while this evening. You get some rest, okay?”

  No answer.

  Big surprise.

  Adrian stood, stretched and walked out.

  He was vaguely surprised to walk out of the hospital to find it was still full daylight. Barely past five o’clock. He hadn’t been there as long as it felt. He guessed he’d head back to the bed-and-breakfast, maybe check e-mail, then decide what to do for dinner.

  Lucy�
�s house wasn’t a quarter of a mile out of the way. He could drive by, see if her car was there. She’d want to know about his mother. He could keep it brief, undemanding.

  A block from her house, Adrian saw her car in the driveway. She must have gone out at some point, because it had been moved. Half a block nearer, and he saw her sitting on the front porch steps. She’d been working out front, since the lawn was cluttered with a wheelbarrow, shovel, rake and a heap of what looked like discarded plastic bags.

  Then he grinned. She’d dug out that flower bed she had talked about. By the time he pulled to the curb, he could see the newly turned earth. He guessed from the bags she’d dug in manure and who knew what else.

  Lucy spotted him before he came to a stop. Alarm widened her eyes and she rose to her feet as he got out of the car.

  “Adrian! Is everything okay?”

  He’d seen the wince as she stood. She was filthy. Even her face was dirt-streaked. Her hair must have started in a ponytail, but it was straggling out now, a strand sticking to her forehead.

  “Fine,” he said. “If by that you mean Mom. I stopped by to tell you she’s making some facial expressions. I thought for a minute her hand even tightened on mine. It might just be reflexes, but Dr. Slater seems hopeful.”

  “Really? She’s been completely unresponsive. Oh, Adrian!” She glowed. “I was so afraid... Oh, my goodness.”

  “I thought you might like to know.”

  Her teeth sank briefly into her lower lip. “Of course I do!”

  He nodded toward the dark, turned earth. “Appears you’ve had a busy afternoon.”

  “And I look disgusting,” she said ruefully, but without the self-consciousness he might have expected if he’d caught any of his former girlfriends in a similar state. “I was just trying to work up the energy to go in and shower.”