The Lies We Tell

by Theresa Schwegel

  I say, “I’m sure you’re a better driver than I am. You know, I totaled a car once.” I don’t tell her it was a squad, or that it was six weeks ago.

  “What happened?”

  “Well, it was real hot outside, and the air-conditioning wasn’t working. And I have this disease where if I get overheated, I have issues. So I was driving and I got what’s called transient disability glare. I was suddenly blind in one eye. It threw my depth perception off and so I wound up sideswiping the car next to me and spinning out.”

  Kay looks at me like I just told her exactly what I just told her.

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m fine now. Well, not fine. Lately, I’m having trouble with my hands. And my feet. My left foot feels like a bird claw. Or that’s how I imagine it. But it’s nothing new, and it’ll go away. And you know, I feel a hell of a lot better now that I’m out of the hospital. What about you?”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “No. I’m just telling the truth. What about you? Why were you in the hospital?”

  “Well,” she says, and she starts to laugh, “they think I’m crazy.”

  “I was talking about your eye.”

  “What’s wrong with my eye?” She touches it and flinches; a rediscovery. “I guess I must’ve upset Daddy again.”

  I’ve heard it’s common for people with Alzheimer’s to dwell on a certain point in their history. Something so deeply imprinted on the brain it remains as clear as today. No way Kay’s father is still alive, but he might’ve left some real marks when he was.

  “Robin says it was your son Johnny who did that to your eye,” I say, to bring her from the bad old days to the bad nowadays.

  “Robin doesn’t like Johnny.”

  I stop on the red at Diversey and pretend to look at my map while I switch to the Smart Voice app. I should record this, if only so I can play it back for her should I have to convince her to testify.

  “Do you remember, Kay, was it Johnny?”

  “He was frustrated,” she says. “He never had it easy. And he never would accept my help. Even when he lost his job. You know, I think he lost his self-worth right along with it.”

  “The same thing happened with my brother,” I tell her. “He got hurt on a construction job. Had to have back surgery. But he didn’t want my help. He didn’t want anything, really, except painkillers.”

  “Oh, honey, I’m sorry to say it sounds like we have a lot in common. Johnny’s on more drugs than I am.”

  And … we’re getting somewhere. “What does he do for work?” I ask, to keep her talking.

  “He’s a musician.”

  “What does he play?”

  “Music.”

  Of course. “Do you like his music?”

  “He doesn’t let me listen anymore. Not since he left.”

  “Moved out, you mean? Because he still comes around, obviously.”

  She doesn’t answer that. Just looks off, somewhere past here.

  I say, “I guess it’s hard to stay mad.”

  “Mad isn’t much, when you love someone.”

  I wait to turn onto Lakewood while a woman pushes a stroller across the street, the canopy pulled.

  “Isn’t that nice,” Kay says.

  “I have a little girl,” I tell her, again.

  “Oh, little girls are wonderful. Until they aren’t yours anymore. Boys—they’ll always be Mama’s. There’s a dependence, there.”

  I wonder if that’s why she won’t press charges. “Is Johnny dependent on you?”

  She looks over at me. “Who are you?”

  Here we go again. “I’m Gina. Your driver.” I hear the impatience in my voice. As though she’s wrong. As though I’m not leading her on. Still. “I was asking about Johnny because you’d said once that he’s the one who gave you the black eye.”

  “My eye?” She touches it again. Realizes. Says, “It wasn’t my Johnny. It was the police.”

  I stop the Smart Voice app because suddenly I don’t feel so smart. Why did I think I could get a confession from a woman who, lucid or not, only wants to protect her son? “The police beat you up,” I say, not that I need her to elaborate.

  “Yes. Well. I was so angry when they said I had to pay to keep Johnny out of jail.”

  “I don’t think that’s how it works,” I say.

  “Now you think I’m crazy, when I’m telling the truth.”

  “You’re claiming the police are extorting you—”

  “They said I couldn’t be with Johnny. Daddy agreed. They sent him away.”

  She’s getting worked up now, and she must be drawing from that deep brain imprint.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. I shouldn’t have pushed. I only confused us both.

  I pull over and park. We’re six blocks away. So long as Kay knows the gas from the brake, we can make it. And god damn, after what I just put her through, she deserves to make at least one good memory.

  “What are you doing?” Kay asks.

  “I’m thinking: screw company policy. You want to drive?”

  Kay’s hair stands on end, static, an extension of her delight. She says, “I have a perfect driving record.”

  Six blocks later I’m thankful there is no actual company that has any sort of policy. Kay may as well have been driving a tractor.

  “There’s the house,” she says and turns hard, wheels bucking the curb, then climbing it. “I don’t remember the street being in such bad shape,” she says, like the pavement is the problem.

  She unbuckles her belt and starts to get out; the front right wheel is wedged up on the curb so the car can’t roll but—

  “You have to put it in park—”

  “Where?”

  “Press the brake,” I tell her and when she does I shift the gear. “There. Park.”

  “Park,” she repeats, like it’s a pleasing new concept. Then she gets out and stops on the sidewalk in front of the house, outside the gate. It’s an old brown-brick duplex on a corner lot. It looks like it’s been remodeled at least once: newer windows with honeycomb blinds, modern landscaping, a bright red door. And even if it hadn’t been updated since it was built, the address is money. She must have some.

  I grab Kay’s bag and get out to wish her well. The chauffeur routine was a nice idea, but I’m no better undercover than Kay is behind the wheel. Anyway I’ve got to get back, pick up Isabel.

  When I approach, Kay’s mouth hangs open. She says, “I never wanted to leave this place.”

  “I’m sure you’re glad to be home. I’ve got your bag, here. Are your keys inside?”

  “Keys,” she repeats, like she has a vague recollection.

  “Should I check?”

  “Oh, CeCe. I don’t have the keys anymore.”

  “I’m Gina.”

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” She curls her knobbed fingers around the wrought-iron fence.

  I check the gate. It’s locked. “How are you supposed to get in?”

  “I didn’t think about that.”

  I feel my temper surge. “You don’t have keys? What are you supposed to do? Where is Robin?” I shake her bag. I hear keys. I go for them.

  “Mrs. St. Claire,” I say, and hold up her key ring, anchored by a plastic-framed photo featuring a mall-studio portrait of three of the same-looking kids no older than three.

  I ask, “Will these help?”

  I hand her the key ring. She looks at the photo. “Who are these people?”

  “I don’t know. Your grandkids?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, they’re adorable.”

  “Of course they are,” she says, “they’re children.”

  I make that my segue. “Mrs. St. Claire, it’s been a pleasure, but I have to go. My daughter is waiting for me at daycare.”

  “We’d better go, then.”

  “Thank—Sorry, what? We?”

  “Well, I don’t live here.”

  “This is thirty-twenty-four North Racine. That’s wha
t you said.”

  “Yes, that is what I said. And this is home. But I don’t live here anymore. Not since Daddy moved us out to the farm.”

  “Which was…?”

  “The summer. 1959.”

  “Are you—” fucking kidding me, I’m about to say, and I’m pissed—I mean, I’m on the other side of town, I’m already late, and I had no idea we were following a sentimental map—but then I see Kay’s face: the lines drawn away, hope in the hint of a smile. She is home, that theoretical place so many of us spend our adult lives trying to re-create.

  And then I think about how much time I give Isabel to get things wrong. It’s cute, when she botches an answer to a simple question, or mixes up a name. I take pleasure in watching her think. Why am I annoyed to see a grown woman struggle with the same things?

  Tears get in Kay’s eyes, another memory surfacing—1959, maybe. When she was a girl. When she realized home wasn’t here anymore.

  “I’ll give you a minute,” I say, and I go back to the car; I’m not going to be the one moving her out to the farm this time.

  While I wait, I slip the hospital folder from her bag and check page one, where her address is listed as 2221 West Haddon. We have to double back to Ukrainian Village. I don’t know why I didn’t check her paperwork.

  And I don’t know why I think I’m so great. I’m twenty-nine and most of what I know I learned from the street or a Google search. Kay is eighty. She has children. Grandchildren. A history. Even if her mind is going, she’s got a lot more to go on.

  When she gets in the car, I ask, “Where to?”

  I’m relieved when she tells me the correct address.

  Afternoon traffic starts to build and I try not to bitch about it. I can’t blame Kay if I’m late. And anyway, if she remembers any of this at all, I’d like her to remember me fondly once the noise of the day burns off. I’d like her to remember the joy she felt, behind the wheel.

  When we get into the neighborhood, I realize Kay lives just blocks from where Rosalind Sanchez was attacked. Makes sense; Marble probably visits the hamburger joint and other local businesses when he comes to visit. I should do the same, and soon.

  I snake around a dead stop on Damen and take side streets and when I pass St. Mary’s of Nazareth Hospital and find Kay’s street runs right into it—literally dead-ends at the ambulance entrance—I’m back to wondering why she was taken to Sacred Heart. Insurance is not the same as assurance, I guess.

  I turn onto the street against the one way and back up to the address. Kay’s is a two-story brick walk-up, one of the only original A-frames on a street of old multi-units and gut rehabs whose structures stand tall on property lines, the new houses’ interior square footage pushing sale prices into the millions. I’ll bet there’s at least one developer who regularly checks for Kay’s name in the obits.

  I park in front of a hydrant and by the time Kay reaches for the door I’m opening it, her bag and keys at the ready.

  “Robin,” she says.

  “I’m Gina.” I say it more patiently this time. I take her hand.

  “Robin,” she says again, and then I get that she’s talking about the rail-thin crew-cut blonde coming out her front gate.

  Shit.

  I slip the discharge paperwork from Kay’s bag—I’m not supposed to be the police, or a police escort, and I don’t want to get caught in a lie by somebody who won’t forget.

  “Mrs. Kay,” Robin says, and I think she is beautiful except for her uniform and until she smiles; nobody can wear scrubs with style, and her equine teeth ruin her face. She greets Kay with a hug the old woman doesn’t appear to want.

  “You’re Robin?”

  “Yes. And you—?”

  “I’m late.” I hand her Kay’s bag and keys and make for the car.

  “I didn’t pay her,” Kay says. “Wait—”

  I don’t.

  7

  I’m twenty minutes late to pick up Isabel, but we still have time to play before my IV treatment, so we make a pit stop at the playground north of Division.

  While Isabel runs around the slides, I call Metzler for the third time. He doesn’t answer. I’m starting to take it more personally.

  At three-forty, the bell rings at the school across the street and a hundred grade-school kids burst out the doors. The kids are all older, faster, and more reckless than Isabel, so when they chase toward the playground I take Isabel over to the opportunistic ice-cream man who has parked his cart at the gate. I buy two coco locos and Isabel and I sit on the grass and watch the big kids.

  Once the ice cream is gone and most of the school kids are, too, I say, “Spaghet, will you swing with me?”

  She gets up and runs off toward the swing set.

  “Wait for me!” I get up and three steps later, my left heel catches on the rubberized surface. I tumble. I roll. I recover.

  Isabel comes back. “Mama?”

  I find a smile and explain, “Somersault.”

  She giggles. She doesn’t know a somersault from a degenerative disease, but she does think I’m pretty funny.

  At the swings, I wedge my butt into the black rubber seat that cannot possibly be comfortable for any woman whose hipbones have given an inch. I lift Isabel up to straddle me. We take the chains, her little hands beneath mine. And then we swing.

  When she leans back, mouth wide as her eyes, I see she’s finally getting another tooth. She’s in low percentiles for height and weight, too, but there isn’t much I can do for her physical development. I can only help her heart and brain grow.

  When I lean back, she lets go of the chains and wraps her arms around me. I close my eyes. I know that pretty soon, she’ll want to swing by herself. Until then, I’ll let her hold on, just like this.

  I lean in. I whisper, “I’m with you.” She knows.

  When the clock turns four I promise her a treat at home and when we get there, I fix a plate of raisins and oyster crackers—still haven’t made it to the grocery—and set her up in front of a Disney distraction, TV being the treat. Yes, I know, doctors say no screen time before age two. But please consider she came from a place where they never took her to the doctor and the tube was running Spike TV 24/7. This? For Isabel, this is therapy.

  I eat a handful of her crackers and then I go into the front room and pace back and forth in the window as I wait for Lidia Marzalek, RN, from Complete Care LLC. It’s five thirty-one; she should be here any minute ago.

  At five forty-five, a woman in a curve-tailored business suit comes up the steps. She’s got a briefcase. She looks sharp. I wonder if she’s Iverson’s. I open the door.

  “Ms. Simonetti? Sorry I’m late. I’m Lidia, from Complete Care.”

  “Great,” I say, without the enthusiasm that should accompany the word. I half hoped she was here to pry instead of poke. “Come on in.”

  She follows me into the kitchen. “I haven’t been over this way in a while. Lots of new building going on.”

  “Uh-huh.” I hate small talk, may as well make that clear. I move the newspaper and this morning’s coffee cup off the kitchen table. “You can set up here.”

  “Have you lived here long?”

  “Almost a year. We…” I hesitate because without Tom around, “we” makes it seem like Isabel is a decision maker. “I think it’s a good investment. Do you want something to drink?”

  “No, thank you.”

  I open the fridge and I’m glad she said no, because the only something I’ve got is a pair of light beers.

  “Well, sweet thing,” Lidia says. She’s talking to Isabel, who’s come in to investigate, and who’s hiding her face with her hands. She still thinks she’s invisible that way.

  “Lidia works with me,” I say, figuring Lidia’s suit tells the same story. “We just have to do a little work.”

  “Help someone?” she asks, because that’s what I tell her I do.

  “That’s right.” I pick her up and kiss her face. “We are going to help someone, and I�
�ll be done before you can count to a hundred.”

  “I not.” She’s right. She can’t.

  “But you can try.”

  “One,” she starts, as I carry her back into the TV room. I plop her down on the couch and lose her to the singing princess before she gets to three.

  Back in the kitchen, Lidia has everything ready to go, the needle assembled, the alcohol swabs torn open. She passes me some paperwork and a pen and asks, “You’ve had this treatment before?”

  I know she’s working from the medical order I’m about to sign and I know it includes all the information she needs, so, “Yes. Yesterday.” I’m not going to offer anything extra.

  “Have you experienced any side effects?”

  “Nothing unmanageable.”

  “I have a heparin lock, will it be okay to leave the catheter in for the remaining three treatments?”

  “No.” I’m not prepared to have the “What is that?” conversation with Isabel. Or anybody else.

  “I understand,” Lidia says, “but I always ask.”

  I sign the order and pass it back.

  She swabs the fold of my elbow and ties a rubber band around my bicep. “For most people the needle is the scary thing, no matter the sickness, or the medicine.”

  I don’t know if she’s trying to get me talking or what. I stick with or what.

  “Make a fist.” She gets my arm into place and says, “Just a pinch.”

  I watch her insert the catheter. I don’t feel the pinch.

  “There we go. This should take about ten minutes. Do you mind if I step out to make a call? I’m running behind, and—”

  “You don’t have to explain to me.” Because I’m not about to explain to her.

  Lidia goes out to the porch and I sit there and watch the drip. In the other room, the princess is getting betrayed by the guy she thought she loved who turns out to be a power-hungry throne thief. I don’t know why princesses never anticipate these things.

  Five minutes later, Maricarmen blazes through the door ahead of Lidia.

  “Mama,” she says, “I got tamales. You share these, okay? I’ll split them up. For you and Isabel, and for your nurse here, okay?”

  “You don’t have to—” Lidia starts.

  “Yes she does,” I say. Maricarmen feeds everyone, no matter what.