Some Things That Stay

by Sarah Willis

  This makes me wonder. What does it mean to him? That we might stay at this farm because it has inspired him? I’d ask, but he’s stopped talking so he can concentrate on driving, which is a big relief. Still, I keep my eyes on the road.

  It’s a long car ride, but Megan never complains or asks how long it will take. She is so patient because she is somehow already there. I think if I spoke to her she wouldn’t answer, wouldn’t even hear me.

  Even though I have read my mother’s descriptions of the sanitarium, I can’t help thinking that it is like a madhouse, with people tied to their beds, blathering, crying out for help, all skinny, with their bones showing, their eyes bulging, drool escaping from open mouths. I know this isn’t true. Knowing doesn’t help.

  When we get there, the sanitarium looks pretty from the outside. It’s a long, wide, wooden building painted bright yellow, and it has a porch that surrounds it on all sides, and acres of freshly mowed grass. It’s big, like an enormous hotel, but I remember what my mother said, that just a few decades ago half the people sent here died. Right here. If any place has ghosts, this one does.

  It’s a day of blue, so blue the trees shimmer in applause. The warmth of the day comes right through our clothes. We stand outside the car looking around, and everything is so beautiful, so magnificent, that it feels false, like I have entered one of my father’s pretty paintings and I will rip through the canvas if I make the slightest move.

  Holding her suitcase, Megan marches through the parking lot and up the front walk. We follow.

  Inside, there is a wide curved desk with a nurse sitting behind it, wearing a starched white uniform and a little white cap. My father explains who we are and she says we will need to speak to the doctor first. She tells us to wait, then walks off down a long hall. When the doctor comes back he shakes my father’s hand and says he was expecting us, but he needs to explain some things to us before we see my mother.

  “First off,” he says, pausing to look at each one of us kids with one of those no-nonsense stares, “there is to be no physical contact with your mother. None. I am breaking some rules here, just allowing this visit. She has been moved to the lawn outside, to be in the open air. We have her seated facing the wind, which is slight. You are to sit in the seats provided, and that way, the wind will not blow any contaminants in your direction. Your mother has been very excited about this visit, almost too excited. Possibly I shouldn’t have even informed her until you arrived, but I was worried what a sudden shock might do. Either way, you should be careful not to exhaust her with too many questions. Do you understand?”

  We nod.

  “Nurse Miller will lead you to her now. And, Mr. Anderson, after you visit your wife, may I have a word with you alone before you leave.”

  My father agrees and we are led by the nurse through silent hallways and out the back of the sanitarium to a parklike setting, where the grass is mowed like a golf course and shrubs are trimmed into perfect balls. There are thick wooden chairs scattered about, some in groups, some alone. There is one person painting on an easel. Two others are playing at lawn bowling. A lake of blue silver sparkles a quarter mile away.

  The nurse points to a heavy wooden chair in the shade of a towering maple, a good football field away from the building. Someone is in the chair. There are also four empty chairs. “That’s your mother, over there. She’s doing better today. Your mother is a very charming woman. We all like her tremendously.” She says this in a very sweet voice, as adults do when speaking to children. Before she leaves us she looks directly at my sister and her suitcase. “Can I take that for you?” she asks.

  “No, thank you,” Megan says, in that sweet voice children use to adults when they think them idiots. The nurse leaves.

  As we get close, I see that my mother’s eyes are closed and I worry that she is sleeping. But she must sense us coming, because before we say a thing, her eyes open and her whole face takes on an expression of delight, except her eyes, which are sunk into her skin as if the sockets are absorbing them. I take in a small gasp of air. I can’t help it. She is so thin, and even though her face is flushed, her arms are white as paper.

  “Hello,” she says. Her chair is like a lounger. It has a place to rest her legs, which are stretched out in front of her and covered with a blanket. She doesn’t get up. Megan runs to her, drops the suitcase beside the chair, and climbs into her lap. For a second my mother’s face looks pinched in pain, but she buries her head into Megan’s hair and when she comes out of the hug, the look is gone.

  The rest of us stand by the designated chairs, then sit down awkwardly.

  “I’m so glad you’ve come,” she says. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  My father drags his chair closer to my mother. The legs of the heavy chair tear at the grass. No one must be watching us, because no nurses have come running out since Megan climbed in my mother’s lap. But it makes me nervous.

  “How’s the farm?” she asks. “How’s the garden? How’s Edith? And the Murphys? Still taking you to church?”

  I start to tell her the garden is fine but Robert interrupts.

  “Edith has tuberculosis. A vet came and tested her. They’re going to kill her.” The way he says this I can tell he hates Edith, he blames her for the sunken face of my mother; that by saying they will kill Edith, he is exacting his revenge.

  My mother’s face turns suddenly white, like cold, dry snow. She puts a thin hand to her throat, as if to stop all the blood from leaving her head. “No,” she says. Then she coughs. The cough is a full, watery-sounding thing that takes over her whole body. Her shoulders curve inwards. She bends over at the waist. Her legs shake. Megan hops off her lap as if my mother caught fire, tripping over her suitcase and falling backwards onto the grass. My father stands and puts a hand on my mother’s shoulder, then he looks around, maybe for a nurse. No one comes. My mother’s cough fades away in a minute, but she stays bent over, hands covering her mouth. When she pulls them away she wipes them on her white pants. She looks down. The plaid blanket that was on her lap is now on the ground. Megan pulled it off with her. There are red streaks on her pants. I think I will scream, but I don’t. Robert is close to tears with embarrassment and shame.

  “May I have my blanket, please,” she asks Megan. Megan gives it to her, then sits in the last empty chair. She looks down at the grass, at her feet, at anything but my mother.

  “I don’t understand,” my mother says. “You’re saying Edith gave me tuberculosis? I can’t believe it. No. I don’t believe it. I was feeling bad before we got to the farm. Months before.”

  “You were?” my father asks.

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “No, I guess you didn’t.” My mother smiles gently at my father. She forgives him even this.

  “So, you’ve made friends here?” my father says.

  “Yes. They baby me so. They’re very kind. Most of them have privileges I don’t, so they come to me, entertain me, tell me the most amazing stories. Mrs. Hyde was a publisher in New York. I love the stories she tells. I guess I miss it more than I thought.”

  My father tells her of his trip there, of his success, and she grins and nods and seems to get stronger just by hearing his news. Her questions come out in a clear, unobstructed way that makes my whole body relax.

  They talk like this for quite a while, as if they were sitting on the couch at the house, as if we were anywhere but here. She talks just to my father, finishing up what needs to be said before moving on.

  “Good for you,” she says. “But I never got to see some of those paintings you sold. Did you take photographs for me?”

  “Renny did,” my father says “The man’s in second heaven right now. The way he talks you’d think it was his idea I paint these pictures. But let him have fun. Why not?”

  “And you, Tamara? What have you been up to?”

  I start to answer, but my father stands up. “The doctor wants to speak to me. Do you mind?” />
  My mother tells him to go on. He kisses her on the forehead and leaves us.

  I tell my mother about the garden. She listens intently to the description of the tomatoes and beans. She asks what I’ve been cooking for dinners and I exaggerate, giving Robert a quick sharp look, daring him to contradict me. After my mother’s reaction to his last announcement, I don’t think he’ll say a word.

  “What about church?” she asks.

  “I’m thinking of giving it up,” I say just to please her. She smiles.

  Next she asks my brother and sister what they have been doing, and Megan tells her about the night Kip chased a skunk and how the bomb shelter filled with water. Robert just says he’s been doing a puzzle. Nothing else. His voice is jumpy again, as if it might start to squeak. She doesn’t seem to notice Robert doesn’t say anything else. With a nod, her eyes close. They stay that way.

  We sit, and wait for my father.

  By the time my father comes back, my sister is asleep, her body folded over like a wilted plant, her head practically on her knees. My mother sleeps with her head arched back, her mouth open. She snores.

  “Let them sleep,” my father says. “You two can go off wandering a bit. Not far.” He sits in the chair he dragged over before, and stares at my mother. I look at Robert and he nods. We get up and walk off.

  The lawn bowling is over and that group has gone. It’s midday, a lazy heat slows us; we walk like older people. An orange monarch butterfly floats by, lazily rowing wide wings through updrafts of hot air. There is the smell of marigolds and daisies and fresh-cut grass. I imagine my mother must love this place. She has come so far from New York City, which she may still talk about missing, but I think she has forgotten how to live quickly. I think, if she could, she would stay here.

  Robert and I whisper as we walk, even though there is no one near us. I imagine dead people listening to us. I imagine coming back to the chairs and finding my mother dead. I need to get out of here.

  “I want to go home,” I say to Robert, who has just asked me how I think our mother is, a question I don’t need to answer.

  “Me too,” he says. “It’s spooky here. Creepy. The village of the dead. Maybe the doctors are vampires. The people here are zombies. I wouldn’t go to sleep here for a million, trillion dollars, not even a zillion.”

  “You read too many stupid comics,” I say, although I have been thinking nearly the same thing.

  “Yeah, well she’s not getting any better here. She looks more like a zombie than the rest.” Robert’s eyes get watery. He looks away from me, at the lake.

  We are walking on a cobblestone path that circles the building. Men and women dot the landscape in wooden chairs like pale fleshy plants set out to get some sun. I want to leave so bad I can feel my legs twitch.

  “School’s going to start soon,” Robert says. “Who’s going to take me shopping for clothes?”

  “I will.”

  “Thanks. Dad could drop us off in town.”

  We both know shopping with my father would be a disaster. “Megan really needs new clothes,” I say. “She’s gotten taller.”

  “So have you,” Robert says.

  “Yeah.” I’m surprised he noticed.

  “So we’ll go?” he says.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Robert nods to himself as if all his problems are now solved. “Good.”

  We walk around the building, stopping at a rose garden, and read a sundial. It takes us ten minutes to go in one big circle. After the third time we both agree it’s been long enough.

  My mother and Megan are still sleeping. “Are we going to stay much longer?” I ask my father.

  “No, we’ll go now. Megan, it’s time to wake up.” He reaches over and nudges her. She opens her eyes and wipes her chin.

  “It’s time we get going back,” he says.

  This is when Megan will throw her fit, I think, but she looks at my mother. “Okay,” she says.

  “Liz,” my father says gently, but his voice catches on this simple word.

  She jerks awake. “Oh my,” she says. “Did I fall asleep?”

  “Just for a minute,” my father says. Her forehead is covered in droplets of sweat. He takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes them off.

  “Thank you,” she says.

  “We’re going to go now, Liz. You keep getting better now, hear me? You keep eating. All right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s my girl. Shall I get a nurse?”

  “Oh, let me stay here a while longer. It’s so lovely. They’ll remember me eventually.”

  My father leans over to give her a kiss, but she raises her hand and stops him. “Please don’t.” He pauses, bent over, then stands up. We all say good-bye.

  Robert cries.

  “My poor baby,” she says. “You’re the sensitive one. Just like your father.”

  She must be crazy, I think. My father is as sensitive as a bag of rocks. But then I remember his letters, and I blush.

  “You take care of them, Tamara,” my mother says. “I count on you.”

  I tense. I don’t want to take care of anyone, and she has no right to ask this, like she’s on her deathbed and I have to honor her last wish. I nod tightly. I don’t say yes or sure or anything like that, so it’s really not a promise.

  We leave. We walk away. I am aware for the first time how amazing my legs are. How they hold me up. How they move me where I want to go. I catch my breath, thankful for something too big to imagine, and, at the same time, scared of something I can now see all too clearly.

  Fifteen

  The car ride back to the farm is quiet. If my mother were with us, she would be pointing out the scenery and asking us millions of questions. Look at that, she’d say, as we drive by the steep side of a cliff, the layers of earth showing like muscles under skin. What types of rocks might be found there? Or she would have pointed out the dying trees in the swamp and asked us what animals lived there. What would they eat? Would they hibernate during the winter? Once, when I was ten, we smelled this terrible smell and it drove her crazy trying to figure out what it was. She saw a row of long, low buildings and drove us right up to them. It was somebody’s property, with a house and a drive, but that didn’t stop her. She got out of the car and went up to the house, just to find out what that smell was, so she could tell us. It was a pig farm. So now I know nothing smells worse than a pig farm.

  But now, no one speaks until my father gets off the highway and onto the back roads. Then he clears his throat and says, “I have something to tell you. Please listen.”

  He pauses, for dramatic effect, or because a truck passes us on the left, going twice the speed my father is, our car shivering in the rush of air. Either way, my stomach turns.

  “You listening?” he says, as the truck with long metal poles goes up the road in front of us, leaving us far behind. I’m sure the driver thinks my father a jerk for going thirty-five in a fifty-five-mile-an-hour zone.

  “Yes,” we all say.

  “Okay now. Here’s the scoop. The doctor says your mother doesn’t have bovine tuberculosis, which is what you get from cows with tuberculosis. It infects the body differently, more in the stomach than the lungs. She’s got regular TB, and the cow must have caught it from her. It’s a miracle we didn’t catch it, but these things happen. He says she probably got it from her father, but it’s been dormant all this time, and now it’s become active. There’s no way to pinpoint why it didn’t stay dormant. Sometimes it has to do with stress, or getting ill from something else first. But she hasn’t been ill, not like he meant. So maybe it’s stress. Not from you kids, not that I mean that. Probably from moving around. I have to admit it. It could be that.”

  We don’t say anything. Our silence is more an accusation than anything we might say.

  He clears his throat again. Another truck whizzes past, very closely. My father turns off the road, right into someone’s drive, a house I have never seen before.
The house is at the end of a long dirt drive that hooks to the right. There is a barn missing half its boards and looks like it will collapse if someone sneezes. A tractor is in the drive, but no car. My father pulls halfway up the drive, then shuts off the car.

  He turns in his seat so he faces all of us. “Anyway,” he says, as if this is a normal way to have a conversation, in some stranger’s driveway, “she’s pretty sick. The doctor says she has probably had active TB for over a year. It’s not responding well to the drugs. It may have spread to her bones. They’re doing their best, but they can’t keep her there. The sanitarium is closing in a few months.”

  He stops, as if we might want to ask questions. He raises his eyebrows, and looks at each one of us. It’s my sister who speaks.

  “Is she going to come home?” There is not the great anticipation in her voice you might expect.

  “No. Not yet. They’re going to send her to another sanitarium, not really a sanitarium, actually, but a county clinic that specializes in infectious diseases.”

  “Where?” I ask.

  “Outside Utica. It’s a very good hospital. Very good. She can stay where she is another month or two, but then they will send her to this new place.”

  “Utica is pretty far away,” I say.

  “Yes. So we’re going to move there.”

  “Utica?” my brother says.

  “Yes. To be near your mother. The land is similar to the countryside here, so I can keep painting the …”

  “We’re moving?” I yell. “We’re moving again! When?”

  “Soon as I find a place.”

  “No! I’m not going. I’m not moving again! I’m not going. You can go, but I’m not. I’m staying here.”

  “Tamara,” he says. “Please. We’ll be able to go visit your mother more often.”

  I don’t say anything, so he tries Megan. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Megan? To see your mother more often?”

  Megan only nods. She was scared by what she just saw; there is a limit to the fears we might enjoy.