Billie Standish Was Here

by Nancy Crocker

  I said, “Maybe I’ll have to give up when school starts. Maybe I’ll have to give up tomorrow.” I picked up speed. “But this is really important to her and I’m not sure I could ever forgive myself if I didn’t try. So, please let me. Please.”

  No sound but my ragged breathing. Ten seconds. Twenty.

  “It’s against my better judgment . . .” Daddy started, and I jumped to my feet. Mama stood up too. For a second I was afraid she was going to block the door. I searched her face, but all I saw was a tired middle-aged woman waving a white flag.

  I said, “Thanks, Mama,” patted her shoulder and left. That was the most I could move toward a truce just then.

  I splashed my face with cold water before going into Miss Lydia’s room. Harlan’s face was one big question mark.

  “Okay, then!” I rubbed my hands together. “Who needs what?”

  Seconds ticked by. Miss Lydia’s lips puckered into the shape of a kiss.

  Harlan contemplated his shoes a good while and then said, “Have you eaten today, Billie Marie?”

  I guess I looked blank.

  He said, “I didn’t think so. Go eat something. Now.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  W  ednesday wasn’t so bad. Harlan had made a pallet of quilts on the floor next to Miss Lydia and she slept through until about seven that morning. We passed a couple of hours with breakfast and morning ablutions.

  She seemed at peace. I was so very thankful my folks had given me this chance.

  Harlan showed up at noon with a big casserole dish and an accusing eye. “You haven’t eaten, have you?” he said.

  I hadn’t.

  After, I said I’d like to feed Miss Lydia lunch and go home for a shower and clean clothes. He assured me he could feed her if I told him what.

  I sorted through the baby food he had brought from Milton and picked out some orange stuff and some green stuff. It all looked horrible.

  “How do I heat it up?” he asked.

  I have no idea where it came from but I said, “Boil some water on the stove and set the jars in that for a while.”

  He looked at me like I had invented money.

  I had my hand on the door before I thought. “Hey, and put it in little bowls, okay? She doesn’t need to see the jars.”

  He blew me a kiss. I pretended to snatch it out of the air with my hand. It was the first time either of us had laughed since Monday.

  I sent him to Milton that afternoon for a blender. I knew I could make food that tasted better than what was in those jars.

  He came back with a bonus: a doorbell. He said, “You don’t really want to sleep on the floor from now on, do you?”

  Of course I didn’t. I was already longing for the pink room upstairs.

  “Okay, then,” he said. He spliced the wire connected to the push button into an extension cord and used adhesive tape to fasten it to Miss Lydia’s left index finger. Then he wired the bell part the same way and took it upstairs.

  Miss Lydia had to focus herself and practice, but she could push the button with her thumb most tries. She crinkled her eye at Harlan. I gave him a big hug.

  His mother called when she got home from work. He assured her we were doing fine. My mother called when she got home too.

  I started apologizing out of habit. “Oh, Mama, I forgot dinner,” I said. “Miss Willits sent a big casserole with Harlan today, and I just didn’t think to—”

  “Billie. Stop it,” she said.

  I answered, “Yes, ma’am.”

  I heard her sigh. “I wanted to make sure everything’s okay over there. I’d come over, but I don’t know if Lydia wants—”

  “That’s okay,” I broke in. “I’m pretty sure she doesn’t. But yeah, we’re doing just fine.” I told her about the blender and the doorbell.

  “All right,” she said. “But call if you need anything.”

  “Okay,” I told her. Before she could hang up I took a deep breath and said, “Mama?”

  “What?”

  “Thank you. I mean that.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said. Her tone said she didn’t trust me either.

  The nightmare began almost as soon as Harlan left Wednesday night. I had given Miss Lydia her medicine, put her on the bedpan, tucked her in and told her good night. Upstairs, before I could even get into my nightgown, Ding-dong.

  By Thursday morning I was ready to pitch that damned bell out the second-story window.

  I don’t think I got more than twenty minutes sleep at a stretch and got up feeling worse than if it had been none at all. A lot was frustration. Miss Lydia couldn’t tell me what she needed and, once we got past food, drink, and bedpan, I had limited inspiration to guess.

  I tried changing her position. I tried fewer bedclothes. Then more. I tried aspirin ground up and mixed with water in a spoon. I tried prayer.

  A couple of times I went running down the steps to find her sound asleep, thumb on the button.

  I could tell she was as frustrated as I was and I’m pretty sure we both had a cry around five a.m. But it’s all a blur and I might have dreamed that part.

  Harlan got there by eleven with another bread pan full of his mother’s cooking. He looked startled when he saw me. I hadn’t looked in the mirror and didn’t much care.

  He sat me down and made me eat food I couldn’t taste and then told me to go home for a shower and a nap. I knew I needed a shower, but told him I’d come back and take a nap in the pink room upstairs.

  “Damnit, Billie Marie,” he said, “sleep in your own bed for a couple of hours, would you?”

  “Bedpan,” I reminded him. He couldn’t argue with that.

  I didn’t dry my hair or go for the mail. I was crawling under the pink comforter in fresh clothes twenty minutes later. About the time I closed my eyes the bell ding-donged.

  I will never, ever have that kind of doorbell in any home I live in the rest of my life.

  It was a bedpan call. After I’d emptied it and washed my hands I headed back up. I was having trouble separating desperation from exhaustion just then and didn’t want to face Harlan again until I had rested.

  I slept until the bell woke me up at four. I was a little hazy around the edges, but felt so much better I managed a smile.

  But Harlan looked grim and Miss Lydia wouldn’t meet my eye. Something in the air had changed while I slept and I got a sense of foreboding.

  Harlan went to the kitchen and I sang “Don’t Fence Me In” during bedpan duty. It didn’t lighten the gloom any at all.

  His mom called at five-thirty. Later I saw my parents’ headlights swing by. When the phone rang again I motioned for Harlan to answer it. I wasn’t sure I could inspire confidence in my abilities at that moment.

  He hung up and pointed to a kitchen chair. I sat.

  “What?” I said.

  “We have to talk.”

  I snorted. “Yeah, I figured as much. Start.” I didn’t intend to be short, but wasn’t sure I could rein it in either.

  He fixed me with a big blue stare. “You’ve got to let her go, Billie Marie,” he pronounced.

  I waved my hands like I was erasing his words. “You know as well as I do she doesn’t want to go, she wants to stay here—”

  “That’s not what I mean.” It was the voice people use when they have a conversation inside a church. It was a voice you don’t argue with. It scared me.

  “I don’t know what you mean—” I started.

  But then I did.

  “Oh, Harlan . . . oh.” My scalp tingled. “I know I haven’t done a very good job, but it’s only been three days and I’ll get better.”

  He looked so calm I wanted to shake him. He said, “You’ve done a perfect job. You’ve done everything anybody could do. More. And how many days does it feel like it’s been?”

  I tried to laugh. “Well, it feels like it’s been about three months, but—” My voice sounded flat. Even to me.

  “How long do you think it’s felt like to Miss Lydi
a, lying there unable to move?” he asked.

  I thought about her not meeting my eye and couldn’t answer him.

  “I know you want to do right by her.” It was clear this was the next line of a speech he had written while I slept.

  I lashed out in all directions at once. “How can you—how could I possibly—how dare you try to tell me—”

  His eyes hadn’t left my face. “I know you both pretty well, you know.” He looked so sad. “And I love you both more than almost anything in the world.”

  I had daydreamed a whole list of scenarios built around the first time Harlan would tell me he loved me. None of them had looked anything like this.

  “Do you really think she wants to live this way?” he asked.

  I hadn’t considered it. Shame on me.

  “She’s alive, sweetheart, but that’s all you can say. She’s got no life,” he said. “And besides that, she knows school starts in a little over a week. You think she wants to put you through all this and still end up going to the hospital?”

  Thinking one day at a time had not prepared me for this. I was shaking. “What . . . what are you saying I should do?” It was the voice of a little girl and it sounded like it was coming from elsewhere in the room.

  One breath. Two. He said, “I don’t think she’ll go as long as she thinks you need her, Billie Marie.”

  She thought I needed her? I was the one answering the doorbell, emptying the bedpan, changing the sheets. . . .

  But of course she did. Of course she did. Of course.

  I was too empty to cry. “I don’t know if I can do it, Harlan. I’m not that strong. I just . . . can’t.”

  We sat there in silence. Hanging over our heads was the knowledge of what Miss Lydia had done for me. What she had found the strength to do. Somehow.

  I was a coward and I knew it.

  The night passed a little better than the one before, mainly because Miss Lydia made a mighty effort not to buzz as often. And it cost her. I found her soaked when I woke up in the morning and went down to check on her.

  There was no longer a thing she could do for herself and she still didn’t want to be a burden.

  Her good eye didn’t crinkle at my songs or jokes and my heart gained a little heft each time it didn’t. Every minute she wouldn’t look at me felt like an hour. The day crawled on.

  Harlan came at the usual time and we went through the motions of our chores like a couple of robots. I don’t think we exchanged five words before he left at bedtime. Miss Lydia wouldn’t look at him, either.

  This morning I took a long time with her bath. I washed her hair and curled it. I brushed it after it was dry and brushed it some more. She always liked that. I searched through her dresser to find her nicest nightgown and some perfume that probably dated back to one Christmas with Mr. Jenkins.

  I didn’t want to stop touching her.

  I made creamed chicken and carrot puree for her lunch and then smacked Harlan’s hand away and fed her myself before I went home. I ran the shower as hot as it would get, then stood in the steam and scalded myself raw.

  I cursed and prayed, sometimes in the same breath. All at the top of my lungs. There was nobody to hear.

  I washed away the last four days.

  When my hair was dry I twisted it up into a knot, then dabbed on the first makeup I had worn all summer. I dug through my closet and found a sundress Mama always made me cover with a sweater for church. The dress went over my head and I kicked the cardigan into a corner.

  I painted my fingernails bright red, then polished my toenails to match. War paint. I slid on some strappy sandals with a small heel.

  I can do this.

  I hadn’t bothered with jewelry all summer either, but today I pinned the ruby heart to my bodice. Fastened the ruby heart posts in my ears. Armor.

  I can do this.

  Harlan was surprised when he saw me. Then a look of recognition came into his eyes and I gave him a look as sharp as a slap across the face. This was a mission now. It wouldn’t advance the cause to turn all mealy inside.

  I said, “I had an idea. How about going through some photo albums, Miss Lydia?” It had been over twenty-four hours since she’d met my eye and there was still no response.

  “Harlan?” I said. “I got them out this morning. They’re on Miss Lydia’s bed upstairs.” He jumped like I had goosed him with a cattle prod.

  When he heard me finish “Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair” he knew the coast was clear. He came back with an armload of musty leather.

  I picked one. “Let’s start at the beginning, okay? This is Joe, and this is Charlie, and this is Robert. . . .” I had heard the story of each photo at least three times. I recited them as closely as I could to exactly as she had told them.

  Harlan joined in. “This was the summer the boys took turns jumping off the shed and little Joe broke his arm,” he said. I nodded him my approval and he looked relieved.

  We knew them all and we told her own stories to her until our voices croaked. A few times she closed her eyes. After a few seconds we would pause. But each time she opened her eyes, whispering, “Ess,” and we went on.

  It was the best I knew to do, giving her life back to her one more time.

  By the time we finished she needed to rest. While she slept I cooked a huge dinner and took most of it across the street. I stashed it in the refrigerator, took out a legal pad, and left a note on the table.

  Mama and Daddy,

  Dinner’s in the fridge ready to be heated up. We’re having a real good day, so I had plenty of time to cook.

  Miss Lydia seems to need more sleep today, though, so please don’t call tonight. You might wake her up.

  I’ll call you if I need anything.

  Thanks,

  B.

  It was a long walk back across that street.

  I fed Miss Lydia pureed roast beef, mashed potatoes, and gravy for dinner and she ate better than she had since the second stroke. I blessed each bite she managed.

  Then she napped again. Harlan and I sat across the kitchen table from one another and rearranged the food on our plates in silence, like a couple whose marriage has outlived their interest in one another.

  When I stacked the dishes I saw pink fingers reaching across the sky out the window above the sink. I checked to make sure Miss Lydia was still sleeping and slipped out the back door.

  I didn’t know Harlan had followed me until I felt his arm around my waist. I patted his hand and squeezed it. That was all the conversation we could muster.

  When the last slice of orange disappeared over the horizon, I turned and hugged him. “You go on,” I said.

  It was clear he didn’t want to. Before he could say anything I gave him a quick, hard kiss.

  “Please, Harlan. Go home,” I said. “We’ll manage just fine.”

  He looked doubtful. But he ambled away, head hung low.

  I held Miss Lydia’s hand until she woke up and then I whispered her name to bring her all the way back to the room. She looked at me with no emotion I could detect.

  I sang her favorite hymn, “In the Garden,” during bedpan, but my voice fell flat and she was avoiding my eyes again.

  After my hands were washed I stared into the bathroom mirror. Just until my face started to change. I told her, “You can do this.”

  I sat beside the bed and took Miss Lydia’s hand again. I said her name. She stared at the opposite wall.

  “Miss Lydia, I need you to look at me. I have something important to tell you.”

  Her eyes moved until they met mine, but they held no questions.

  I leaned closer. “Miss Lydia,” I said. “I want you to know that I understand now about loving someone. I can see it, loving somebody all the way from A to Z.”

  I waited. A look of cloudy confusion was my answer.

  “I want to, with Harlan. I love him that much.”

  The clouds showed no sign of clearing.

  “You know,” I said, �
�a man and a woman. Together. I want to, with Harlan.”

  Her brow creased. Then her good eye registered a look of raw terror. God help me, I almost chuckled.

  “No, no, no, now. Don’t be scared for me,” I told her. “I didn’t say we were going to. Not any time soon for sure, maybe never. I don’t know.”

  A silent question in response.

  “I have lots of things to do first. I know that. Finish high school, maybe travel some. And Miss Lydia, did you know I’m going to college?” I summoned all the sunshine I could and beamed it into a smile.

  Her face relaxed. I squeezed her hand.

  “But I want to, Miss Lydia,” I told her. “I understand wanting to now. And isn’t that what really matters?”

  Ever so slowly, the left corner of her mouth rose a fraction.

  “I’m okay. You don’t have to worry about me anymore.”

  I can do this. I can do this.

  “I know you’re tired,” I told her. “You’re so tired. Get some good rest now. You’ve earned it.”

  Her hand started twitching. I let go. She bent her index finger upward. I frowned my stupidity.

  With a mighty effort she said, “Arr.”

  Ar. I rolled this around in my mouth and finally thought I understood. “Heart?” I asked her.

  She blinked several times. “Ess,” she said.

  I took her hand and laid it on her breast. Straightened her finger. Rested it at her heart.

  “I love you, too, Miss Lydia. So very, very much.” I kissed her cheek.

  Her left eye crinkled.

  “Now it’s time to rest,” I reminded her. “Good night.”

  It always takes me by surprise when I catch up to my thoughts and realize I haven’t planned any farther, but Miss Lydia likely knew that about me by now. She didn’t let it go so far as to let me start doubting myself. Or become afraid of what came next. She showed me kindness right up to her last breath.

  It came a little less than two hours after I told her good night. She simply took a breath, and then she didn’t. She stopped, that was all. With so little fanfare and with such peace you would wonder why all the fuss is made about it by the living.

  I sat with her until I could bear to look away.