What was she doing? Typing, maybe? Sam heard a few faint musical notes and realized his mother was playing an imaginary piano. She always claimed she had been a serious music student as a child, but gave it up entirely over some argument with her father.
“Playing the piano? I always figured that was just another one of her tall stories,” he whispered. True or not, her finger-music made him sad. He turned away and put the laundry basket and soup container on the bureau.
Mimi shrugged. “Who knows? Your mother is a multi-talented woman.”
Maybe, Sam thought. But she didn’t have much respect for the truth.
As if she could mind-read his unkind thoughts, Flo’s hands stopped dancing and turned over, the fingers curved up and trembling. She opened her eyes.
“Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” Mimi said. “How’re you doing?”
Flo murmured something that might have been, “Ducky.” Or not.
Mimi took a bottle from her handbag, squeezed a dollop of pale green lotion onto the palm of her hand and sniffed.
“Coriander. Your favorite.” she said, rubbing the lotion into Flo’s hand, over the swollen knuckles and into the empty sleeve of extra skin hanging from her forearm. Mimi looked at Sam with droopy eyes. “It’s too dry in here. Irritating. I wish they wouldn’t overheat these places.”
“Ma likes it warm,” Sam said. He walked to the window and studied the lawn in its slide downhill toward the river. The gazebo roof peak was just visible above the new leaves, a copper green that reflected the afternoon sun.
Careful not to disturb the sleeping cat, Mimi uncovered Flo’s foot and gently massaged the lotion into the rough callus over her bunion.
“Ma,” Sam said, turning back to face the bed. “Zoe made you chicken soup. Can I give you some?”
Flo closed her eyes and turned her face to the wall.
“Guess that’s a no,” he muttered.
“She hasn’t eaten anything in three days,” Mimi said. “Your mother is an incredibly stubborn woman.” She stood up. “I’ve got to go. Wednesday is yoga. Is anyone else coming to visit?”
“Anna’s bringing Zoe, after school.”
“Good.” Mimi held out the coriander lotion toward Sam. “Maybe you could do the other side?”
He stared at the bottle. His mother had never been a physical person, at least not with him. Plenty of bedtime hugs and kisses when he was little, but soon words replaced touch in their connection. He knew she loved him, but it was cerebral rather than visceral. Still, he could do this.
“Sure.” He accepted the bottle.
After Mimi left, Sam took her seat at the bedside. “I’m here, Ma,” he whispered. There was no response. He wanted something, some kind of acknowledgement, of connection. Even a goodbye, if that’s what it had to be.
He squeezed some lotion into his palm and rubbed his hands together, the way he’d seen Mimi do it. He sniffed the odd scent that had been his mother’s trademark fragrance as long as he could remember. How strange that each of the important women in his life had a personal perfume. Flo’s lotion was almost pungent. Anna liked to dab a drop of scented oil called Rain behind her ears, though he never really understood how rain smelled. Zoe used an almond shampoo. He wondered about Patty; how would she smell?
He took Flo’s hand between his. How slight it was, how insubstantial. He massaged the lotion onto each finger, then between them, around each nail, and across the lattice of knobby veins, coffee-splotch age spots, and hospital needle bruises on the back of her hand. When had his mother become this old?
Flo opened her eyes and squinted at him. “Who’re you?”
He caught his breath, totally unprepared for that sucker punch. Oh, he knew that happened with dementia, but not his mother. Did she really not know him? He took her hand, rubbed his thumb across a swollen knuckle.
“I’m Sam. Your son, Sam.”
She stared at him then, her eyes clearing as she examined his features. Then she smiled.
“You look like your daddy,” she stopped, then added, “Who’s your daddy?”
Sam tried to control his voice. “You tell me. I always thought Brad was my father, but now you say it’s someone I’ve never heard of.” Sam sounded like a cranky six-year-old, but he couldn’t stop himself. “Is my dad really some guy named Charlie?”
Flo closed her eyes. “I never said that.”
“You did, Ma. You said my father was a guy named Charlie.”
“You heard wrong,” Flo said. “Charlie’s my cat.”
In the two days following his first session with Patty, Jeremy replayed their conversation many times in his head. He hadn’t known what to expect and was surprised that there was no couch, no shrink-talk, and especially no pity. They sat on comfortable chairs, half-facing each other, separated by a small round table with a lamp and a box of tissues. The tissues put him off a bit; did people cry a lot in therapy sessions? But Patty just asked questions, simple ones really, and he talked. The more he talked, the more he wanted to tell her, the more the words overflowed from somewhere in the center of his chest and out of his mouth, leaving no loss, no ache, no emptiness in their place. When the hour was up—how fast it flew by—he had a question for her.
“Do you think I’m nuts?” he said. “Is that why I’m having these … episodes?”
“Hallucinations,” she said. “No. I don’t think you’re nuts. You went through some intense experiences as a child. Memories you tried not to think about, that you successfully buried. Sometimes a new stress can bring back old worries.”
“Like my dad coming home?”
She nodded. “Could be.”
“But why hallucinations?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe because it’s complicated and your brain is trying to make sense of it?”
He still didn’t understand. “But why the plants? That has nothing to do with my dad.”
“Why do you think?”
He shook his head. He had no clue.
Patty stood up. “We’ll talk more next time.”
Wednesday afternoon, walking back from the library to his dorm, he was still thinking about her question. What did he think? He half-wished for a flashbulb epiphany moment, but half-wanted it all to just disappear and leave him alone.
He stopped in the dorm lobby for his mail. There was a thick envelop from Alice with a book, the syllabus for the sustainability studies seminar in the fall, and a handwritten note. Start with this book, she wrote. It’s about the concept of plentitude, a kinder, gentler approach to the ecological decline crisis.
Crisis, he thought. That reminded him of the oak epidemic and Professor Clarke talking about it as the plants twined around his body, and Greenhope had mentioned it too. He should be reading about it, and putting in his application. He still had course assignments to make up too, and with no summer job on campus he had to be out of his dorm room by Saturday. Three days until he had to move back to Springfield and share the apartment with Francie and Tian.
Zoe pushed her chair down the nursing home hallway ahead of her mom and Emily. She slowed at a doorway and pointed. “That’s the guest kitchen, Mom.”
“Thanks,” Anna said, putting her bag on the kitchen counter. “I’ll meet you in Flo’s room in a few minutes.”
Zoe and Emily paused in the doorway to the room. Flo’s eyes were closed and Sam sat on the bedside chair, hunched over so that his head rested on the pillow next to his mother. How could they sleep with that smell? Zoe turned away from the pungent odor and buried her face in Emily’s sweater.
“She peed herself,” Zoe whispered.
Emily squeezed Zoe’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “It’s common.”
“I don’t get it,” Zoe said. Didn’t Alzheimer’s usually go on forever? Xander’s grandfather had it for like ten years before he died. “Why is this happening so fast?”
Emily shook her head. “There are different kinds of dementia. And it seems the medicine made things worse for Flo. Why don
’t you go help your mom make tea? I’ll find someone to clean her up.”
Zoe was grateful to leave the smell, happy to crowd with her mother in the small kitchen space where the kettle was singing. “Why make tea?” she asked. “I thought Grandma isn’t eating or drinking anything?”
“Tea helps. Helps me, anyway.” Anna poured the boiling water over the tea leaves in the heated pot and covered it with a patchwork cozy. “Maybe Flo’s special blend will entice her. We can take this to her room now.”
Zoe usually rolled her eyes at her mom’s old-timey tea tradition, but today it seemed less stupid. She accepted the canvas bag from her mother and balanced it on her lap. She didn’t move.
“We can’t go yet,” she said. “Grandma had an accident and Emily is looking for her nurse.”
Anna’s lip trembled. “Flo would hate this. Hate all of it. I just hope that her mind is too far gone to realize what’s happening.”
Sam and Emily joined them in the tiny kitchen. “They asked us to wait,” Sam said. “While they change, you know, clean her up.”
“I’m sorry, Sam.”
“This morning she didn’t know me. Asked me my name.” His eyes filled and he sniffled. “Then she denied it, denied ever saying anything about a man named Charlie being my dad. Zoe asked me if I want to meet this guy.” He grabbed a tissue from the counter and blew his nose. “I have no idea.”
“Oh, Sam,” Emily said. “You’ve been such a good son to her and …”
“Dad,” Zoe interrupted. “What’s a Stalinist?”
“Where did that come from?” asked Sam.
Zoe wasn’t sure where, except that she couldn’t stand all the sadness. She had to change the subject or explode. “Because you always say that Grandma is one. I’m just curious.”
“She wasn’t really a Stalinist. At least not for decades. She hasn’t even been in the Party for years.” He smiled. “She says they booted her out.”
“Why’d they do that?” Zoe asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe she told Mimi the story.” He laughed a small laugh. “Probably her big mouth. She always sounded proud of being kicked out. Or it could’ve been pure bravado. It was sometimes hard to tell with your grandmother. Anyway, I used the term loosely to describe how rigid she could be in her views. How ungenerous, when you disagreed with her.”
“She was harsh, when she didn’t approve.” Anna touched his hand. “I’ll bet it was sometimes hard to be her son.”
“Stop talking about her like she’s dead!” Zoe pushed out of the room, running her wheel over Sam’s foot. Her comment had backfired, seriously. She left the ruckus behind her. The adults talking all at once, squeezing through the bottleneck of the doorway, about how they didn’t mean it, Sweetie, and the ding of Anna’s phone timer, that the tea was steeped.
In the hallway, Flo’s nurse walked toward them. “You can come back in now.”
They reconfigured themselves around the bedside. Zoe backed her chair into the narrow space between the bed and the wall. Emily perched on the second empty bed and Sam sat at Flo’s feet. Anna took the bedside chair and set up the teapot on the bedside table.
Zoe sniffed. “Smells good.”
“Your favorite,” Anna told Flo. “I took it from Sam’s apartment.” Anna arranged five teacups on the bedside table. She poured the tea and a small cloud of cinnamon steam surrounded them.
Flo breathed deeply. Steam. Tea. Her tea. Sam. Cloud. Smoke? No, steam. Cat. Charlie.
“Look,” Zoe said. “She’s smiling.” She brushed Flo’s flyaway hair away from her ear and whispered, “You look beautiful, Grandma.”
Flo didn’t open her eyes and her voice was cracked and worn, but Zoe heard her clearly. “Nuts,” Flo said.
The nurse stuck her head into the room. “Smells wonderful in here. Do you folks need anything?”
“I have a question,” Zoe said, her heart thumping loud in her chest. So many questions. So many things didn’t make sense. Like that sometimes her grandmother was totally gone, and other times she seemed to understand things, and even answer. And, was she really starving herself to death?
The nurse walked into the room and sat on the empty bed, facing Zoe. “Shoot.”
“Is it, like, time to start a deathbed vigil?” Zoe asked. “You know, should we be here all the time?”
Sam touched his index finger to his lips, then pointed to Flo. The nurse said that maybe she could still hear them. He wasn’t ready for this. “Come on, Zoe. You read too many novels.”
The nurse looked right at Zoe when she spoke. “Your grandmother stopped eating and drinking a week ago. Her lucid moments are getting fewer. So, yes. It’s time.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It rained hard on Saturday and the early bus from Amherst got a late start. As they approached the Springfield exit, Jeremy decided it was late enough to call Zoe.
She answered right away. “Hey,” she said. “You home?”
“Almost,” he said. “I’m going to hang out with my dad a little.” How strange that sounded. “Do you want to take a walk in the park this afternoon? If the rain stops?”
That sounded stupid. Did you ask a girl who couldn’t walk to take a walk in the park? Go for a roll, maybe? That sounded worse. Why couldn’t he get this right?
“I’d like to, Jer. But I’m going to sit with Flo after her women’s group leaves. I don’t know when I’ll be home. Tomorrow morning, maybe?”
Jer? He liked that. A nickname. Better than Jerry, like Carl insisted on calling him. Carl. He didn’t want to think about Carl and Sari. He hadn’t done anything wrong, except overhear two words in a burrito bar. “Sure. How is she?”
Zoe paused before saying, “She’s dying. We’re keeping her company.”
Jeremy hesitated. “I could come sit with you too.”
“That’d be great,” Zoe said. “Mid-afternoon?”
It was almost ten by the time Jeremy lugged his wet duffle bag up the stairs to his parents’ apartment and dropped it on the dusty entry floor. As he dug in his pocket for the apartment key, the door opened and Tian stepped into the hallway. He quickly pulled the door closed behind him.
“They’re back.” Tian’s voice was a harsh whisper. “Those feds.” He grabbed the duffle and swung it into Jeremy’s arms. “Get out of here quick, Son. I’ll tell them it was kids selling Girl Scout cookies or something.”
Jeremy studied his father’s face, contorted with something. Worry? Anger? He couldn’t tell which or something entirely else. How weird—how sad—to not be able to read his own dad.
The apartment door opened again and the two agents stood framed in the doorway.
“Girl Scouts cookies, huh?” The short guy smirked.
Jeremy glanced at Tian, trying to gauge his dad’s temper. Didn’t seem too bad, but it was sometimes hard to tell. When Tim and Jeremy came home the weekend Tian was released, Tim had suggested that the number of rubber bands on their dad’s wrist might be a stress level indicator. Jeremy could see four now, three tan and one red, but he didn’t know how bad that was.
“Where’s Mom?” he asked.
“Sleeping. She worked last night.”
Jeremy shouldered in front of his father so that he stood facing the older agent. He’d been more reasonable last time, concentrating on writing in that spiral notebook.
“What do you want now?” Jeremy asked.
“We’ve got more questions. This time we need answers.” The guy sounded disappointed, as if Jeremy had personally let him down.
“And this time,” the younger agent said, taking Jeremy’s arm, “we’re taking you downtown.”
“You can’t do that,” Tian said. “Do you have an arrest warrant? Are you charging him with something?”
“We could, if you like, Mr. Jailhouse Lawyer. Accessory, maybe. Or conspiracy?” The young agent jabbed his finger inches from Tian’s face. “We don’t need a warrant. He was about to run away, so we can bring him in for questioning.”
Tian shook his head. “That’s not the law. But if you take him, I’m coming too.”
“Interfering with us is a violation of your parole, Mr. Williams.”
“I know my rights,” Tian said. “And none of this is legal.”
“You’re on parole and you got no rights.” The agent jerked Jeremy’s arm and pulled him toward the stairs.
Jeremy looked back at his father, slumped against the doorframe. That couldn’t be true, could it? A person didn’t lose all their rights just because they were convicted of a crime.
Tian picked up Jeremy’s duffle bag. “Don’t say anything without a lawyer,” he called to Jeremy. “Anything. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Jeremy wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed at the ordinary room tucked at the end of a long corridor in a high rise Main Street office building. No metal detector or one-way mirror or handcuffs. Just a standard issue metal desk with a shoe-sized dent in the side and dust bunnies in the corner. He was pointed to a chair and left alone.
His chair must have had a short leg. It wobbled each time he changed position. The silence made Jeremy nervous. He wiggled back and forth on the chair, making it tap on the gray linoleum floor. What were they waiting for?
“So?” he asked the closed door. “Why am I here?”
Nothing.
Twenty minutes or two hours later, the two agents entered and took seats facing Jeremy.
“We’re not happy with you,” the older guy said, and he sounded disappointed. “You withheld information last time. For one thing, you didn’t tell us who your daddy is.”
“You didn’t ask about him,” Jeremy said. He had promised himself to say nothing until his father found a lawyer, but that could take forever, and he had nothing to hide.
The agent leaned forward, leaning both elbows on his knees. “You didn’t think it was relevant that your father just got out of prison?”
Kinship of Clover Page 22