How Many Letters Are In Goodbye?

by Yvonne Cassidy

  In the toilets, there’s a fat girl pretending to do her makeup and I know she won’t say anything about seeing me crying. It’s the drink that makes the tears come so fast, but even with the drink I hold most of it until I’m inside the cubicle. I don’t know why I’m crying because if I feel anything, I feel angry, not sad. Not with Nicole, it’s not her fault, I’m angry with myself. Because I don’t know what I expected to happen. Because I don’t know why I’m so sad. I’m angry because I don’t want to know, because once I know, really know, then I can’t unknow it.

  It’s not fair, Mum, you know? That’s what I’m thinking that night in that cubicle. Sticks and stones can’t hurt me, I know that I don’t care what people say about my arm, what they say about you. But I don’t want to be a lezzer. I can’t be. Not a lezzer, not that as well.

  Lisa’s glad when I want to get the bus home early that night instead of waiting till the end, and when school starts again in September, I sit next to Áine Geraghty in art. Áine gives me the cold shoulder for a bit, but then she’s fine and there’s no seat next to me so Nicole sits beside Julie Kennedy. They’re always laughing, her and Julie, and when Nicole looks over sometimes to catch my eye, I pretend not to see her. And after a while, it’s as if nothing has happened. Because nothing did happen. I could make myself believe it. I could even make myself forget.

  Until it happens again.

  Rhea

  Battery Park, New York

  30th April 1999

  5:22 p.m.

  Dear Mum,

  Whenever Cooper had something to tell you, he’d always ask if you wanted the good news or the bad news first, he’d never just tell you what happened straight out. Laurie always wanted to know the bad news, but I’d always ask him for the good news first. Nine times out of ten, the bad news cancelled out the good news, so at least if you got the good news first, you could enjoy it, even just for a little while. This is my letter, so I get to decide what order to say things, and I’m deciding to tell you the good news first …

  We found your mum! Nana Davis, we found her! I even spoke to her!

  It’s been such a long day and so much has happened, it’s good to write that down, to know that it’s real.

  It starts at your apartment building. Sergei doesn’t want me waiting on the corner with the bags and everything, says it’ll look suspicious, so I have to go to the park while he talks to the doorman. He’s wearing a shirt and tie of Michael’s and a grey blazer over his jeans and even though it’s a bit big for him, he looks good. Smart. He’s even slicked his curls down a bit at the front. I told him how posh the building is and he’s made an effort, he wants to make things up to me for the other day.

  He’s gone for ages and I wish I knew what was going on, that I’d been able to watch from across the street even, but he was right, with all those doorman buildings along the block, there was nowhere to watch from. I don’t know why he insisted that we bring our bags anyway—he usually wants to leave them in Michael’s—and I’m thinking that I must ask him about it but then I see him crossing at the lights. His hands are in his blazer pockets and his shoulders are hunched. He has bad news, I know it. I forget about the bags.

  I wave at him, but he doesn’t wave back and when he stops in front of me, he looks down at his shoes. One of his curls is sticking up.

  “I’m sorry, Irish bullhead—”

  “What happened?”

  He shakes his head. “I’m really sorry.”

  “Serg? What happened? Tell me?”

  His face is solemn when he looks up, but there’s a twitch on the left side of his lip and there’s something about his eyes that gives him away.

  “Serg?”

  His smile escapes, he can’t hold it in any longer.

  “Sergei? What the fuck? Tell me!”

  He grabs my shoulders, starts jumping on the spot.

  “I got it!”

  His curls are coming loose, into his eyes, and he blows them away.

  “Got what? Serg? What did you get?”

  “Clover Hills Nursing Home. 67th Street. Between 1st and York.”

  Every bounce he makes drags me forward. I try and pull away, to stand still.

  “Clover Hills Nursing Home?”

  “That’s where your grandmother is! We’ve found your grandmother, Irish bullhead!”

  Aunt Ruth was telling the truth. That’s my first thought, Mum, that she didn’t lie to me.

  “Oh my God. How did you find out? I mean, are you sure?”

  He stops jumping but keeps grinning. “Oh, you know, Paul thought it was nice that her grand-nephew was coming to visit her, that she could probably use some visitors.”

  “Paul?”

  Sergei picks up his bag from the bench. “Paul, the doorman. Nice guy. Keep up, Rhea!”

  I’m still trying to digest what’s happened but Sergei is already heading out of the park to find a payphone. He’s got a plan figured out, he’s explaining it to me too fast to make sense—how he’s going to call Clover Hills, pretending to be from a funeral home with a bill for a Mr. Miller who died last week.

  “What are you talking about, Serg? Who’s Mr. Miller?”

  He stops at the first payphone, checks that there’s a dial tone.

  “Do you have a quarter?”

  “Serg, I don’t get it. Who’s Mr. Miller?”

  “Hopefully no one. Do you have a quarter? Two, just in case.”

  I have sixty-five cents in change in my left pocket. I know exactly. I reach in and take out fifty cents, hand it to him. That’s a toasted roll with butter I’m handing over for a phone call. A phone call that I still don’t get why we’re making.

  “Why don’t we just ask for Mrs. Davis? Catherine, her first name was Catherine.”

  I catch myself speaking about her in the past tense, as if she’s dead, but she isn’t dead, she’s in a nursing home a few blocks away. He has the phone in his hand, about to put in the quarters.

  “Maybe I’m wrong, Irish bullhead, but aren’t there people related to this woman? People in Florida who might be looking for you?”

  My face flushes. I can hear Laurie’s voice: Dumbass.

  “I guess.”

  “And you don’t want to be found by these people?”

  Sergei talks slowly, like he is explaining something to a five year old.

  “No.”

  He slides in the quarters, starts to dial. “Then trust me.”

  His plan has two parts. It’s a good plan, Mum. In the first part, he puts on an American accent that sounds oddly real. I’d never heard him sound American before. He says he’s from a funeral home, Crosby and Golden. He has an invoice for the funeral of a Mr. Miller and he needs contact information for the Miller family. There’s no Mr. Miller? Perhaps he has the name wrong, the handwriting is hard to read. He’s only the administrative assistant. Mullin maybe? Or Malone? Had anyone passed away recently with a name like that? A gentleman? Mr. Shapiro passed away last week? No, not Shapiro, definitely not. There must be some mistake.

  He gives me a thumbs-up when he says “Shapiro.” When he hangs up the phone, his smile is wider than before. “Let’s go find your Nana!”

  On the way to the nursing home, he explains the second part of the plan. He’s Mr. Shapiro’s grandson who has just arrived from Poland, too late to pay his last respects but he very much wants to see his grandfather’s final home.

  “But what about my grandmother?” I ask when he stops talking long enough to let me speak. “How do we get to see her?”

  He rubs his hands together. “That, Irish bullhead, is the best part. My dear old grandfather told me about his great friend, Mrs. Davis. Catherine. And my fiancée and I would really love to meet her!”

  “Your fiancée?”

  We look at each other for a second before we both burst out l
aughing at the idea of us being engaged, married. We’re still laughing when we get to the corner of the block. He takes off my baseball cap, stuffs it in my backpack, brushes my fringe to the side, flattens down the collars of my jacket. He holds his head to one side, assesses me. “I wish your hair was longer.”

  “What’s wrong, Serg? I’m not fiancée material?”

  “Not for me, although if I ever do have a fiancé, I’d probably like him to have a shaved head.”

  We’re both giggling again at the idea of that, or maybe because we’re nervous, I’m not sure. I’ve been carrying his bag since the park and he takes it from my hand. “Let me take that. No groom would have his bride carry everything.”

  I’d forgotten about the bag. “I meant to ask you that. Why did you want to bring the bags today?”

  He’s slicking down his hair, pauses for just a second before he answers.

  “We’ve just travelled from Poland to see my grandfather, Irish bullhead. Don’t you think we’d have some luggage?”

  I should have seen it then, Mum, the lie in the pause, but I’m excited, following Sergei through the revolving door into the lobby, feeling the soft carpet under my Docs. There’s a dark wooden reception desk and wing chairs and lamps on little tables and a fish tank—it’s more like a hotel than a nursing home. The only giveaway is that the heavy black woman behind the desk is dressed in white, some kind of nurses’ uniform. Sergei winks at me, walks straight over.

  “Hello there,” he goes, “my name is Sergei Shapiro and I’d like to talk to someone about my grandfather. He was a resident here.”

  I notice he makes his accent thicker, he sounds more Polish, less likely to be confused with the man on the phone. But I don’t think he needed to have worried because I don’t think this nurse is who he spoke to on the phone. Whoever he spoke to on the phone seemed helpful, friendly. This nurse has a frown.

  “You’ve come to see who?”

  “Mr. Shapiro. I mean, not to see him, I know he passed on last week. I’m his grandson, Sergei. This is my fiancée, Natalie. Natalie Peterson.”

  I try and look like Natalie Peterson might look. I’m glad the counter is too high to shake hands. “Hello.”

  The nurse is standing, looking from Sergei to me. “And what was it you wanted?”

  My heart is galloping. This isn’t going to work. She isn’t having any of it, she can see right through us, has probably pushed some button to call security even as we were speaking. If Sergei feels the same way, his voice doesn’t betray him. It sounds casual, calm.

  “Dziadzio wrote so much to me about this place. Didn’t he, Natalie?”

  I nod.

  “And even though he’s no longer with us, I was hoping we could see it—this place he spent his last days.”

  She’s already shaking her head. “I’m sorry, Mr.—”

  “Shapiro, like my grandfather. Back in Gdansk, where we’re from, there’s many of us Shapiros, but here—”

  “Mr. Shapiro, I’m sorry for your loss, but this is a private facility and I can’t just—”

  Sergei moves closer to the counter, rests his elbow on it. “But Dziadzio always said we could visit him, anytime.”

  She’s shaking her head, her frown deepening. “Our visitors policy applies to our residents who are living, Mr. Shapiro. Your grandfather is dead, so there’s really nothing I can—”

  It’s right on the word “dead” that Sergei puts his hand over his face. His shoulders shudder. The nurse stops talking, so the only sounds in the lobby are his breathy sobs and the whirr of the fan.

  I put my arm around his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, he’s still very cut up,” I go. “You see, we couldn’t make the funeral.”

  Sergei’s shoulders shake more.

  I keep talking because if I don’t keep talking we’re going to have to leave. “We’d been planning this trip, saving up. We hoped we’d make it on time. When he passed away, we thought about cancelling, but Sergei wanted to come anyway, to say goodbye—”

  Sergei’s sobs are louder now, and I think he’s overdoing it because the nurse’s frown deepens more.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t make the rules. I’m not even supposed to be on this desk, I’m only covering while the other person is on lunch. Usually we have two people, but—”

  Sergei speaks in a strangled voice, interrupting her. “I just thought I could see his room, meet Nurse Small—”

  “Meet who?”

  “Nurse Small.” Sergei still doesn’t look up. “Dziadzio’s favourite nurse. Do you know her?”

  The nurse’s hands are on her hips now. She points a pudgy finger at a black plastic badge with gold lettering: F. Small. “You’re talking to her.”

  Sergei looks up, slowly. Somehow he looks like he’s been crying too, only maybe his eyes are just bloodshot from last night. He looks from the nurse to me and back to her. “Natalie, this is Nurse Small. Remember all those things Dziadzio wrote about her?”

  The nurse leans forward, so her huge breasts rest on the reception desk, her hands on either side.

  “What things?”

  Sergei spreads his fingers long on the counter top too, so they almost touch hers. “Your kindness, the way you took care of him so well.”

  There’s something else in Nurse Small’s face other than her frown—relief, maybe, or surprise. “He said that? He said I was kind?”

  “He called you his gentle angel.” Sergei beams and turns to me. “Didn’t he, Natalie?”

  I’m sure he’s gone too far, blown it, laying it on so thick, but all I can do is smile too. “His gentle angel,” I repeat.

  “He said if it wasn’t for you and Catherine, he wouldn’t know how to keep going.”

  Nurse Small shakes her head. “I’m not sure what your granddaddy was telling you, but there’s no nurse called Catherine here.”

  “Not a nurse, a patient. A resident. Catherine Davis.”

  She keeps shaking her head, her hands back on her hips. “He wrote all this? In his letters?”

  She doesn’t believe us. She has to believe us.

  My hand is still on Sergei’s shoulder and my fingers stroke the hair on his neck.

  “Sergei only met his grandfather a few times, when he was a little boy, before he moved to New York. He wrote to him every week. Nothing would get in the way of him sending his weekly letters. They were the only connection they had.” They’re both looking at me. I’m shocked by how real the lie sounds. “We saved up for so long to come here—it broke his heart that we were too late. Please, Nurse Small, it would mean so much to him, to us.”

  Afterwards, Sergei tells me he’s as shocked as I am when Nurse Small lifts the hinged part of the countertop to come over to our side.

  “Two minutes, that’s it. I’m not supposed to leave the desk unattended. And you won’t be able to see his room because Mr. Stieber is in there now.”

  For a large woman, Nurse Small is fast on her feet. She pushes through a set of double doors to the left of the fish tank. After another set of doors, we’re in a corridor with tiles instead of plush carpet and walls painted two shades of pink. It smells like a hospital and I don’t know how they stop the smell leaking into the lobby. Most of the doors are open and even though we’re whizzing by, I can see some of the people inside, in pink leather chairs or low beds nearly on the floor.

  The televisions are really loud, competing with each other, but not loud enough to cover the sound of someone shouting. Here in this corridor is the truth—that this place is a nursing home, hidden behind a lie that it’s a hotel.

  At the end of the corridor, it gets nice again, or nicer at least, because there’s floor to ceiling windows looking out onto a garden with a fountain in the middle. There’s more of the comfy chairs like in the front, but some of the pink ones from the bedrooms too. A man
in a wheelchair looks out through the glass, at the trees finding their way towards the sky in the little patch of green surrounded by buildings. Two women sit next to each other and I think they are having a conversation until I notice one is sleeping.

  Nurse Small turns to Sergei. “This is the conservatory. Mr. Shapiro liked to spend time here.”

  Sergei looks around, taking it all in, and I suddenly realise that one of these old women, the one chatting or the one sleeping, could be Nana Davis. Would I recognise her? They both look kind of the same. And if it is her, what am I going to say to her? Sergei and I haven’t talked about this part of the plan. How could we not have talked about this part of the plan?

  “It’s just like I pictured,” Sergei says. “I could see him here with Catherine having their conversations.”

  “I don’t know what he said in those letters, but the only time Mrs. Davis leaves her room is when we take her up and down the corridor to get some exercise,” Nurse Small says.

  “Catherine’s sick?” Sergei goes.

  “She’s got severe dementia. Beats me how he was having any conversations with her. I’ve been here four years and I’ve never heard her say anything that makes any sense to anyone except herself.”

  “Is it possible to see her?” Sergei asks.

  Nurse Small checks her watch. “Real quick, then I got to get back to work.”

  We’re heading up another corridor, two shades of green now instead of pink. We’re moving too quickly for my mind to digest what the nurse has just said. I need to stop, to stand still, but we’re racing through more sets of double doors. It’s as Sergei’s holding one open for me that he whispers, “When we find her, say you need the bathroom.” He walks ahead of me then and turns around, raises his eyebrows again to make sure I’ve got it.

  Ahead, Nurse Small pushes open a door to the left and we follow her into a room that’s surprisingly spacious. In the middle is a hospital bed, with rails down the side and a green bedspread. On the wall facing the bed there’s a whiteboard, with the date and the weather written on it. Next to it, there’s a printed sign with the name “Davis.”