When she was a child, being poor and not having a father was a constant problem for Lynn. She hated having to make excuses for the way she looked, that she was often dirty or wore the same clothes more than once in a week. She mastered the ability to remain silent when being asked a question she didn’t want to answer, until she was no longer asked. Teachers hounded her; wrote letters to Alice and called her on the phone, but Alice had found her method of dealing with it, and that was denial. Lynn could do no wrong. And it wasn’t until Lynn was in her teens that she realized that she could do no wrong not because she was perfect, but because her mother didn’t want to deal with whatever Lynn was doing wrong. That revelation was the catalyst which propelled Lynn into the no-man’s land she found herself in now. You didn’t have to do anything you didn’t want to do by just not doing it. It might mean you had to live on the street in a box, but you never had to answer to anyone, or make an effort, or try to rationalize what was happening to you. It simply was.
After a few years of the lifestyle, Lynn came to the conclusion that she belonged to the group of homeless who were self-absorbed narcissists. People who lived the way she did, moaning and complaining about their predicament were really lazy losers. She was suspicious of Barry; he might fall into the stupid category. She hoped not because she hated a stupid man to lay hands on her, no matter how good it felt.
Another startling revelation was discovering Alice was afraid of her. In the early years of her homelessness, rarely she’d miss her siblings and mother, calling to ask if she could visit. Alice would offer to pick her up at the bus station in Bridgeton, and Lynn noticed she kept her purse close to her and would make a point of disappearing with it into her bedroom. The medicine cabinet would be emptied of everything but dental floss and hemorrhoid cream. Her mother avoided touching her and kept a distance, as though she might catch a whiff of a bad odor. Alice was afraid of her daughter, and it showed.
Lynn looked through the bookshelf in the women’s lounge at the shelter and found the book she’d started the day before. It was a compelling drama set before the war between China and Japan. She walked out to the kitchen and asked if there were any snacks available, and one of the workers gave her a choice of chips or cookies. She took the chips back to her room and, lying on her cot, read and ate the chips. It was almost as good as being in her old bed at home.
~ ~ ~
After dropping Alice off at the hospital, they drove home in silence. The whole situation was terribly sad, but so senseless and such a waste, that both John and Beth were angry. Anger was good, though, because as long as they were mad, they wouldn’t cry. And when they got home, they had to tell their children about the accident. It would bother their Doug the most, both because it was his namesake, and because at just ten, he was the closest in age to Dougie.
Jason and Brian were stony silent, but Amy and Doug cried out. They’d just spent a wonderful day at the beach with their cousins, the memory of the littlest kids looking up in awe at their older cousins, and soon, Jason and Brian broke down, too. Brian talking about how glad he was that he took the time to show Dougie just the right way to make a sand castle so the surf wouldn’t break it down too quickly, and Jason told them he showed him how to hold a football so that when he threw it, it would go right where he wanted it.
The four children decided they should go to the funeral of their cousin, so the family agreed they’d go together and show a unified front.
“Dad, are you really going to move out?” Jason asked.
Brian perked up, waiting to hear what his father had to say.
“Oh, kids, it’s so exhausting, do we really need to talk about that now, too?” he asked.
“Ah, Dad, I think so,” Amy said. “We deserve to know what’s going on in our own home.”
John looked at Beth with pleading eyes, but she wasn’t going to back him up. The kids were correct.
“We haven’t decided yet. I love your mother,” he said.
Beth smiled, but shook her head in exasperation.
“Is that enough of an answer, or do I have to make the decision right now?”
“No, I guess not. But you owe it to us,” Jason said.
“I know I do,” John replied. “Have a heart, okay? I’m sad, too. Also, just an FYI, Aunt Lynn will be here tomorrow night; I almost forgot she’s coming to the funeral with us.”
Beth mouthed, Oh, Lord.
“Aunt Lynn? Cool!” Brian said.
“Don’t get any ideas,” Beth said. “You’re not going to stay with her in her cardboard box.”
The kids laughed, but John didn’t think it was funny. He let it go, however.
“No, I don’t intend to,” Brian said. “But I always liked Aunt Lynn. She must have a reason she’s living on the street.”
“Yes, she does. It’s called mental illness,” Beth replied.
“I’m going to bed,” John said and left the kitchen.
Beth could hear him walk to his room near the mudroom, but was trying to concentrate on the conversation the kids were having about Lynn. Everyone went there own way finally, the older children to their rooms to study, and Beth got Doug into the shower and ready for bed. She insisted they go to school on Friday because she wanted to drive back up to Deptford to see her nephews in the hospital. John would probably have to work.
She was taking her time getting ready for bed when she heard the sound of her phone receiving a text message. It was from John.
You up?
Yes, she answered. What’s wrong?
Can I come and talk to you?
I guess.
She heard the door to his room open up and footsteps down the hall to the master bedroom. He tapped on her door before he opened it. She tried not to let him see her smile; he had on red underpants and a baggy T-shirt. She wondered if that was his sleeping attire when he spent the night with Karen, but didn’t ask.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Can I sleep in here tonight?” John asked.
Beth hesitated. Was it good to start up sleeping in the same bed when he still hadn’t made his mind up about moving out?
He saw her hesitate and walked over to her. He put his hands on her upper arms and pulled her up off the bed, bending down to kiss her. His mouth was tangy from the minty toothpaste he liked, and she tasted chocolate, too.
“Are you hiding chocolate in your room?” she asked.
“No, I would never do that,” he whispered in her ear.
She kissed him back, and he pulled away, reaching down the front of her nightgown to fondle her breasts. Beth had huge breasts, and they were still full if not a little pendulous, even after four kids. He fumbled with the buttons on her gown, but she let him do it. If he wanted her, he was going to work at it a little bit.
“Oh, boy,” he moaned, but that was all. He helped her pull her gown up over her head, and he slipped his red underpants off and his T-shirt and got right on top of her. There was something so comforting about the familiarity of Beth’s body; her herbal scent and the muskiness of her skin drove him crazy. He gently pushed up against her, and her body didn’t resist him. It didn’t take long for either one of them, and when he was finished, with her lying next to him and her breathing rhythmic with sleep, it occurred to him that he hadn’t thought of Karen once all night.
Chapter 18
Alice tiptoed into Todd Junior’s hospital room. Another parent was there, sleeping in a reclining cardiac chair. She put her bag down and pulled a chair up to her grandson’s bedside. He was at that funny age where a kid is almost too small to be in a regular bed, but too big to be in a crib, and this not being specifically a children’s ward, they didn’t have any intermediate beds. So they’d put his bed down as far as it would go and had the side rails up with added bumper pads that might have been used for restless patients so as not to hurt themselves. Even if he fell out of bed, it would be so close to the ground that he wouldn’t hurt anything. He didn’t have an IV that Alice could see, and
no big bandages. The nurse came in to check on him and, seeing Alice there, stopped and whispered, “How’s he doing?”
“I just got here, but he seems to be sleeping okay. I don’t see anything wrong with him, thank God,” Alice said. “I’m his grandmother, by the way.”
The nurse looked at Alice curiously. “Are you the mother’s mother?” she asked with a frown, and Alice nodded her head. The nurse didn’t say anything else as she lifted up Todd’s wrist to take his pulse and put a stethoscope to his chest. He slept through the exam. As she prepared to leave, she told Alice she’d get her a comfortable chair to sleep in if she was going to stay through the night.
Alice stayed by the bedside, leaning up against the side rails with her arm over the top, touching her grandson. She couldn’t get the image of Dougie’s red curls out of her mind. She saw him sitting at her kitchen table with a pile of children’s books that belonged to his mother when she was a child. April was a voracious reader at seven, just like Doug.
“You saved all my books?” she asked Alice.
“What was I going to do, throw them away? I asked you if you wanted them last year and you said no,” Alice replied.
“Can I change my mind?” she asked, and Alice nodded her head. The more stuff she could get out of her house, the better.
“It’ll be less you have to divide after I’m gone,” Alice said.
April nodded her head in agreement. They’d just been to Alice’s oncologist, and the news had not been good.
“The chemotherapy really did a job on your blood,” the doctor said.
April looked at him like he was from outer-space. “Meaning? I have a college education, Doctor; you can speak to me in more specific terms,” April said impatiently.
“Meaning your mother’s blood counts are extremely low. If they get much lower, we should consider transfusing her,” he said.
They looked at Alice, and she shrugged her shoulders.
“Don’t look at me,” she said defensively. “I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
Alice would be admitted the next day, and they’d give her two units of whole blood. Hopefully, it would be enough. They hadn’t saved any of her own bone marrow just in case something like this happened, so there wasn’t anything else they could do for her until her own body started to produce cells in sufficient numbers.
“What a one-horse operation,” April said as they walked out to her car. She was carrying Mark, and Alice had Todd Junior by the hand. Dougie was making spacecraft motions with his hands and providing the sound effects for them.
“He reminds me of John at his age,” Alice said, laughing.
“Beth says John still makes sound effects when he’s in the shower,” April said. “Let’s go back to your house. I think we need to regroup.” Alice knew it was April-speak for “I need a drink.” They drove through rural roads surrounded by farmland and scrub pine, sandy shoulders hinting at the proximity to the ocean.
“I love you, Mom,” April said as she drove.
“I love you, too, April,” Alice said.
Now, as she leaned over her grandson’s hospital bed, Alice remembered that afternoon. When they got back to the house, Alice threw some lunch together, nothing fancy as usual because she never kept a lot of food around. April got a small bottle of vodka out of her mother’s refrigerator and poured a meager ounce in the bottom of a water glass. She held it up for Alice to see.
“Just a jigger, Mom,” she said and downed it one swallow.
Alice watched her screw the cap back on and put the bottle back in the freezer.
“You know I might die,” Alice said. She put plates with bread and butter on the table and heated a can of soup divided four ways in the microwave.
“I know that,” April said. “I don’t want to think about it, but I realize it’s a possibility.”
“Is Granny going to die?” Dougie asked, his voice clearly frightened.
“Honest to God, that kid has hearing like a bat,” April said.
“I think bats see well,” Alice corrected.
“Sorry, Doug, I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sick, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to die.” Alice explained, kneeling down by his chair.
He was upset, his cheeks flushed. “What does it mean, exactly? That you’re sick?”
“It just means that my body is not working the way it should. The doctor doesn’t know why. Tomorrow I’ll get a blood transfusion, and that will make me better.”
“How do you die?” Dougie asked.
April rolled her eyeballs, and Alice pumped her hand up and down to shut her up, she’d handle it.
“You just go to sleep and don’t wake up. Some people believe you go to heaven and see your old family members and pets that have died before you,” Alice explained.
“That’s what I believe,” Doug replied. “When I die, I’ll see Dad’s dog Otis, and Granddad, and Aunt Beth’s cat.” He smiled. “Are all our pets waiting for us?”
Alice decided that she had nothing to lose by lying to the kid; he still believed in Santa Clause and that served no real purpose in life. Having a fairytale about death might soothe him and help him understand if she died of this cancer ravaging her body.
Of course, the reality of it was that she would be cured, strong as an ox, ride across the country on the back of a motorcycle, and her little grandson would die. She hoped he died instantly, that he didn’t suffer for a second, life squeezed out of him on impact. That would be the only fair thing about this tragedy.
“Thanks, God. Boy, that’s really loving. I can feel your love. Please don’t love any more of my grandchildren that way,” Alice whispered. With that pronouncement, she lowered her head on the side rail and began to sob. She couldn’t help herself, the vision of Doug in the backseat, sitting on his bumper seat with a box of animal crackers in his hand, passing it back and forth to his brothers, came to mind. Or on Christmas morning, him reading the little gift tags out loud, sounding the names phonetically, and then giving them to the correct recipient. He came to John’s son Brian. “Burrr-i-o-enn,” he said. “Brian!” She saw him guiding his baby brother at an Easter egg hunt last year, finding the plastic eggs and pointing them out to Mark and Todd so they could get them.
“Don’t you want some eggs?” Todd asked his son.
“I like my brothers to get the eggs,” he said. And later that day, both boys shared their candy with Doug, who it turned out, didn’t like it that much anyway.
Alice decided that when she got home, she’d definitely get the old picture albums out and really torture herself. She wanted to remember her grandson, to emblazon his face on her brain so she could conjure it up whenever she wanted, to be able to hear his voice calling for her, or reading a story to his brothers. Her chest hurt from crying, so she made herself stop. A new nurse came in the room.
“Mrs. Bradshaw?” she whispered. “You have a phone call at the nurses’ station. I can sit here with Todd if you’d like.”
Alice frowned, wondering why her children would call her here. She thanked the nurse and got up to go to the phone.
“Alice, it’s Dave,” she heard after she said hello. “I called John, and he told me you were there with your grandchildren. Are you okay?”
Alice muffled the phone as she cried, more out of relief that she wasn’t alone than from exhaustion and sadness.
“I’m better now that I’m hearing your voice,” she said. “It’s so sad! The little ones are bruised, but they’ll be fine, but of course, Saturday we have the funeral. I don’t know how April and Todd will get through it. I’m not sure I will.”
“Can I come up? I’ll be home by the morning, and then I’d like to drive up with you,” Dave said.
Without meaning to, and uncontrollably, Alice started to cry again.
“I don’t know what to say. Of course you can come here. I will be forever indebted not to have to go through this alone,” she said.
“When will you be home?”
“I don’t know,” Alice answered. “I’ll need to have appropriate clothes. I can take the bus home in the morning, I guess.”
“Let me rent you a car for now,” Dave said. “I’ll have the rental place pick you up at the hospital at nine. Is that okay?”
Alice thought for a moment; it would have to be. She’d see her grandsons, and then when the other grandmother arrived, she could leave.
“Yes, that sounds reasonable. Thank you, Dave. I doubt if I can ever repay you,” Alice said.
They said good-bye, and she went back to Todd’s room. The nurse smiled and left, returning shortly with a cup of hot tea for Alice and a package of graham crackers.
“You’ll have graham cracker toxicity by the morning, but this is the only snack we have up here. They discourage us from giving snacks to the kids unless it’s part of their meal plan.”
Alice was starving, realizing she hadn’t eaten since the pretzels and soda she’d gotten on the plane. Whatever they gave her she’d be grateful for.
Todd woke up from time to time, but Mark was miserable, missing his mommy and daddy and crying for them non-stop. The nurse asked Alice if she would mind coming down to his room until Alice asked if it wouldn’t be easier to just room the boys together. They wheeled Todd’s bed down to Mark’s room, and immediately the boys broke into smiles of happiness. Alice helped Todd out of his bed and lifted him into the crib with Mark, where they quickly fell asleep lying together, holding hands.
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