All Fall Down: A Novel

by Jennifer Weiner

  I pictured her now, back in Cherry Hill. Was she trying to clean up the mess in the kitchen? Was she paging through old photo albums, the way she had the last time I’d spent the day with her, looking at pictures of cousins I couldn’t remember and uncles I’d never met? Was she remembering my father, dashing and young and invulnerable, and wishing that she’d been the one to get sick instead of him?

  “Excuse me,” I said. The bathroom at Honey’s had a rustic wooden bench to set a purse or a diaper bag on. The walls were hung with framed magazine ads from the 1920s advertising nerve tonics and hair-restoring creams, and a mirror in a flaking gold frame.

  I looked at my reflection. My face looked thinner, and the circles under my eyes seemed to have deepened over the past few weeks. I’d lost a few more pounds—with the pills, I’d found myself occasionally sleeping through meals—but I didn’t look fit or healthy, just weary and depleted. Even on my best days, I was no Little Ronnie, with her bright eyes and long, thick hair, the kind of girl a man would want to tuck in his pocket and keep safe forever.

  Turning away from the mirror, I reached into my purse. I crunched up two pills, washed them down with a scoop of water from the sink, and walked back to the table. I’d had an idea of how to give my mother some extra time, and make the day go by. “Hey,” I said to my father, “do you want to go see Ellie?”

  • • •

  As soon as I walked into BouncyTime, I knew that bringing my dad there had been a mistake. Raucous music boomed from overhead speakers. The singer fought against the roar of the blowers that kept the climbing and bouncing structures inflated. Kids dashed around the room, screaming, racing up the giant slide, hurling inflatable beach balls at one another’s heads, or shooting foam missiles out of air cannons. A clutch of mothers stood in a circle, in the Haverford uniform of 7 For All Mankind jeans and a cashmere crewneck, or Lululemon yoga pants and a breathable wicking top in a complementary color. Along the wall, a smaller group of dads had gathered, heads down, tapping away at their screens, looking up occasionally to cries of “Daddy, look at me!” or, more often, “Daddy, take a video!” I found Dave with two other men, one a lawyer, one who ran a dental insurance business.

  “Hey,” said the lawyer. “It’s the Sexy Mama from the Wall Street Journal.”

  “That’s me,” I said, pasting a look of fake cheer on my face. “Have you guys met my dad?” I let Dave handle the introductions while I looked around for Ellie. She wasn’t in the bouncy castle with the girls, or waiting in line for the air cannons with the boys. Eventually I found Hank, sitting glumly on one of the benches with an ice pack clutched to his forehead. He pointed out Ellie huddled against a wall, with her skirt smoothed over her lap, playing with what appeared to be the iPod I’d lost the week before.

  I walked over, trying not to look angry. “Ellie, is that my iPod?”

  She looked up. “You’re not supposedta BE HERE!”

  “Well, hello to you, too.” I sat down on the floor beside her and held out my hand. “You know the rules. You don’t just take other people’s things. You need to ask first.” She threw the iPod at me. It hit me just above my left eyebrow and fell to the floor.

  “Ellie! What was that for?”

  “Jade and Summer and Willow all have THEIR OWN iPODS!” She widened her eyes into a look suggesting she could barely bring herself to contemplate such unfairness.

  “Ellie, we do not throw things,” I said, struggling not to yell. Ellie ignored me.

  “And they’re the new touch ones, not STUPID TINY BABY ONES like YOU HAVE!”

  “We don’t throw,” I repeated. “And you shouldn’t have taken Mommy’s things without permission.”

  Ellie stuck out her lower lip. “I didn’t even WANT TO COME to this STUPID BABY PARTY! Why can’t everyone just LEAVE ME ALONE!”

  I sighed as she started to cry. Maybe—probably—this place was just too bright and noisy for Eloise. As if to confirm my thought, she leaned against me, resting her head on my shoulder. “I’m sorry I taked your thing and threw it at your head.”

  “It’s okay,” I told her. “Just next time, ask first.”

  At the sound of sniffling, I looked up to see Hank. “Will you do the slide?” he asked.

  Ellie shook her head. “Too scary,” she proclaimed.

  “What if we went down together?” I asked. “You could sit on my lap.”

  Ellie narrowed her eyes, judging the steep angle of the slide, watching the kids zip down, hands raised, mouths open, squealing with glee. Most slid on their own, but a few made the descent seated on parents’ laps.

  “You want to try it?”

  She sighed, as though she was granting me an enormous favor. “Oooh-kay.”

  “How about you, Hank?”

  He shook his head. “I’m allergic to burlap.”

  But of course. I got to my feet—not half as gracefully as one of the yoga moms would have managed—and held out my hand. Ellie and I were walking toward the line at the back of the slide when Dave intercepted us.

  “Hey, Al. You want to check on your dad?”

  “What’s wrong?” I peered toward the benches where I’d left him, and saw him sitting there, staring into space the same way he stared at CNBC.

  “He seems kind of uncomfortable.”

  I gave him a patient, beatific Mary Poppins kind of smile, and hoped I didn’t look drugged. “Ellie and I are going to try the slide. Just sit with him. I’ll be there in two minutes.”

  “I don’t wanna,” Ellie said as soon as she realized she’d have to climb a ladder built into the back of the slide to get to the top.

  “Honey, I’ll be right here. Just put your hands like this . . .” I bent down and lifted, putting her feet on the bottom rung and her hands on the one above it. “Now just take a step . . .”

  “I don’t WANT TO DO THIS. I’m SCARED!”

  “Hurry up!” shouted the little boy—Hayden? Holden?—behind us. I scooped Ellie into one arm and hauled us both up the ladder.

  “Come on! You’ll love it! I used to love slides when I was a little girl!”

  “I WILL NOT LOVE SLIDES!” said Ellie, but she let me carry her to the top of the slide. Red-faced, panting, with sweat dribbling down my back, I grabbed a sack, marveling at the lack of progress—in these days of satellite radios and wireless Internet, why were kids still sliding on actual burlap sacks? I hoisted Ellie in my arms and got us in position.

  “One . . . two . . . three!”

  I kicked off with my heels. I could hear my daughter screaming—from fear or delight, I wasn’t sure. Nor was there time to figure it out, because the instant we got to the bottom of the slide, someone grabbed my shoulders and started shaking me.

  “What are you doing with my daughter?”

  I tried to wriggle away, but my father’s hands were clamped down tight, his fingers curling into the flesh of my upper arms. His shirt was untucked, his tie had been yanked askew, and the Velcro closure of one of his shoes had come undone and was flapping.

  “How could you be so irresponsible?” he asked.

  “Dad. Dad! It’s me, Allison!”

  “You put her down right this minute, Ronnie! Don’t you ever, ever do that again!”

  Oh, God. Eloise was wailing as another mother-child duo came hurtling down the slide and slammed into my back, knocking Ellie out of my arms and onto the floor . . . where, unsurprisingly, she started to scream.

  “Ohmygod, I’m so sorry!” said the mother.

  “How could you be so irresponsible!” my father was shouting.

  “Ellie’s mommy is in trou-ble,” sang the little boy as I finally managed to wrench myself free. Ellie, weeping, limped dramatically over to Dave. Everyone in the place was staring at us, moms and dads and kids.

  “Um, ma’am? Excuse me?” A teenage girl in a BouncyTime T-shirt tapped my shoulder. “You can’t stay here. There are other people waiting to use the slide.”

  “Believe me, I am trying to leave,” I
told her. I took my father by the elbow and steered him away from the slide and over to the metal bench against the wall.

  “Dad,” I said, trying to keep my voice low and calm as, beside me, Dave attempted to soothe Ellie. “Listen to me. I’m your daughter. I’m Allison. That was Ellie, your granddaughter, and she’s fine . . . that slide was perfectly safe . . .”

  “Why was Grandpa YELLING at me?” Ellie wailed. She lifted the hem of her skirt and blotted her tears.

  “Ew, gross!” a little boy said. My eyes followed his pointing finger. Oh, God.

  “I think your dad had an accident,” Dave said. His voice was quiet, but not quiet enough. I figured Ellie would be revolted, but instead she slipped her hand into my father’s hand and pulled him toward the door.

  “Don’t worry, Pop-Pop,” she stage-whispered. “Sometimes that happens to me, too.”

  • • •

  Ellie and Dave arranged to ride home with Hank’s mother. I got my dad back into the car, slipping a towel from the trunk onto his seat, and concentrated on getting him back home as fast as I could.

  “Dad, are you okay?” I asked. “Do you need anything?”

  He didn’t answer . . . he just lifted his chin and turned his face away from me. As soon as we were moving I rolled down my window, holding my breath and hoping he wouldn’t notice. When I heard what sounded like a choked sob from the passenger seat, I kept both hands on the wheel and my eyes straight ahead. Get through this, I told myself. Get through this, and there will be happy pills at the end.

  We arrived to find my mother asleep on the couch, curled up in her housecoat with her bare feet tucked around each other, the same way Ellie arranged her feet when she slept. “Do you want me to . . .” I asked my dad, then let my voice trail off and cut my eyes toward the stairs. My father ignored me, pressing his lips together as he made his way past me. I waited until I heard the water running in the bathroom before I let myself collapse at the kitchen table. The room was still a mess, the sink piled with dirty dishes, the counters greasy and streaked, the flowers I’d brought the previous weekend dying in a vase of scummy water. I emptied the vase, loaded the dishwasher, sprayed and wiped down the counters, and took out the trash. I pulled a package of turkey thighs past their expiration date out of the refrigerator, along with a bag of softened zucchini and three dessicated lemons, and threw them all away. I dumped sour milk down the drain, wiped off the refrigerator shelves, and boiled water for a pot of tea, which I placed on a tray with a napkin and a plate of cookies.

  I knocked on the bedroom door. “Dad?” No answer. I eased the door open. He was curled on his side, his fist propped underneath his chin, mouth open, sleeping. With his forehead smooth and his eyes closed he looked like a little boy, a boy who’d played until he was exhausted and had fallen asleep on his parents’ bed. I set down the tray, then picked up my dad’s wet pants using my thumb and forefinger and carried them to the washing machine, which was already full of damp, moldy-smelling clothes. I ran the machine again, adding more detergent. Then I slipped back into my parents’ bedroom. Half-empty water glasses, crumpled tissues, and discarded newspapers covered the bedside tables. Dirty clothes were heaped on the floor; magazines and newspapers were stacked in the corners. I stepped over a tangle of ties and a dozen discarded shoes and opened the bathroom door. The room was still steamy from the shower. Wet towels were piled in the tub, and a few more lined the floor. Hot water was pouring into the sink, and my father’s razor rested against an uncapped bottle of shaving cream. I turned off the water, capped the cream, and opened the medicine chest. My hands moved expertly over the bottles, fingertips just brushing the tops long enough to distinguish between over-the-counter and prescription stuff. I pulled down propranolol, diltiazem, and various other medications for high blood pressure and diabetes before I got to the good stuff. Vicodin 325/10. “Take as needed for pain.” Tramadol. And—bingo—OxyContin. Without pausing, without thinking, I uncapped the bottles and emptied half of each one into my hands.

  What are you doing? a part of my brain cried as I crunched three of the pills, then bent down to gather the dirty towels, pick up the soap off the shower floor, pull a wad of hair out of the drain, and sweep discarded Q-tips and Kleenexes into the wastebasket. You’re stealing medicine from your father, your sick father. Have you really sunk so low?

  It appeared that I had. I need this, I told myself as I moved through the bedroom, gathering armloads of clothing and piling them into garbage bags, and then loading the bags into the trunk of my car to take home to wash and fold. I need this.

  PART TWO

  All Fall Down

  SEVEN

  “Welcome to Eastwood.” The woman who met me on the front lawn of the Eastwood Assisted Living Facility had her silver-gray hair in a neat bob, a high, sweet voice, and a cool, brisk handshake. She wore khakis, a sweater, and a nametag with KATHLEEN YOUNG written on it, and she led me through the doors with a bounce in her step, like a former high-school jock who’d stayed on campus to teach phys ed. “Let me show you around!”

  Her bubbly, energetic manner only made the handful of residents—a man in a wheelchair by the door, hands shaking as he held up the Examiner; a woman in a pink-and-white bathrobe, using a walker to make her slow way toward the art room—look even older and sadder. I tried to picture my father here, my smart, strong, competent father in a bathrobe, requiring the kind of care a place like this could give him. It hurt, but it was a distant kind of pain. The pills let me consider his future without feeling it too deeply. It was almost like watching a movie about someone else’s sorrows—now her father can’t remember his granddaughter’s name; now he’s having temper tantrums; now he’s having accidents, and wandering away from home, and crying—and knowing they were painful without feeling them acutely. Narcotics were like a warm, fuzzy comforter, a layer of defense between me and the world.

  “Follow me, please,” said Kathleen, bounding down the hallway on the balls of her feet. I grappled with a brief but fierce desire to go sprinting back to my car, to burn rubber out of the parking lot and never see this place again . . . only what good would that do? My mother was unlikely to take this on. Someone had to step up and do what was required.

  In the foyer I braced myself for the smell of urine, of industrial cleansers and canned chicken soup that I remembered from my dad’s last hospital stay, but Eastwood’s green-carpeted corridors smelled pleasantly of cedar and spice. There was a basket of scented pinecones on top of the front desk, behind which two women in headsets were busy typing. Behind them was an oversized whiteboard, the kind I remembered from Ellie’s preschool, with sentences left open-ended, so the kids and teachers could fill in the blanks. Today is MONDAY, read the top line. It is APRIL 7th. The weather is . . .. Instead of the word “sunny,” someone had affixed a decal of an affably beaming sun. Our SPECIAL ACTIVITIES are BINGO in the Recreation Parlor, and a TRIP TO THE CAMDEN AQUARIUM. I felt a tug at my sleeve, and heard a whispered “Help me.” I looked down. While Kathleen was deep in conversation with one of the head-setted ladies behind the desk, a tiny, curled shrimp of a woman had wheeled up beside me and grabbed my sleeve.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  The woman gave a very teenager-y eye roll. Fine white hair floated around her pink scalp in an Einsteinian nimbus. Her frail torso was wrapped in an oversized pink cardigan, and she wore pink velour pants and a pair of white knitted slippers beneath it. Her veined hand trembled, but her eyes, behind enormous glasses, were sharp, and I was relieved to see a full set of teeth (or realistic-looking dentures) when she started talking.

  “This place is what’s wrong,” she murmured, speaking out of the side of her mouth, like a prisoner in the yard who didn’t want the guards to overhear. “The steak is tough. The pudding’s bland. They’ve been promising me for weeks to order my gluten-free crumpets, and . . .” She lifted her hands in the air, palms up, a mute appeal to the God of gluten-free crumpets. “Also, my kids never visit.”
/>
  “I’m sorry,” I stammered, then squatted, my face close to hers. She extended one of her gnarled paws toward me.

  “Lois Lefkowitz. Formerly of sunny Florida, until I broke my hip and my kids moved me back here.”

  I shook her hand gently. “I’m Allison Weiss.” I shot a glance at the counter, making sure the brisk Ms. Young was still occupied, before I whispered, “Is it really that bad here?”

  She patted my hand and shook her head.

  “What’s not to like?” she asked. “I don’t have to cook, I don’t have to clean, I don’t have to shop, and I don’t have to listen to Murray go on about his fantasy football team. I read . . .” She tapped the e-reader in her lap. “With this thing, every book is a large-print book. I go to the museum, I go to the symphony, and the beauty shop’s open once a week for a wash and set.” She patted her wisps of white hair, then put one gnarled paw on my shoulder. “Mother or father?”

  “My dad.”

  “Memory loss or just can’t get around?”

  “He’s got Alzheimer’s.”

  “Oh, sweetie. I’m sorry.” Pat, pat, pat went the wrinkled little hand. It felt surprisingly nice. Both of my grandmothers were long gone—my mother’s mother had died of breast cancer before I was born, and my father’s mother, Grandma Sadie, had gone to Heaven’s screened-in porch when I was in college. I liked to imagine her sometimes, sitting in a rocking chair, listening to the Sox and yelling at my grandfather. “They’ll take good care of him here.”

  My throat felt thick as I swallowed. “You think so?”

  “I see things. I watch. They’ll make sure he’s safe. Do you have children?”

  “A little girl.”

  “Pictures?”

  I pulled my phone out of my purse. Ellie, in her favorite maxidress, was my wallpaper. In the picture, she stood on the beach in a broad-brimmed sun hat, with waves foaming at her feet. My new friend peered at the screen, then sighed. “It goes so fast,” she told me. “One minute you’re putting diaper cream on their tushies, the next thing you know, you’re walking them down the aisle. Then they’re putting you in a place like this.” She sighed again, and I thought I saw the glimmer of moisture on one seamed cheek. “And you sit here and wonder where the time went, and how you never wanted to live long enough that someone should be changing your diapers.” Another sigh. “Still. I wouldn’t have missed a day of it.” She poked at my phone. “You got Candy Crush on here?”