Greta looked up at the ceiling again. Thank you, ceiling, thank you again.
Lotte’s face was white on one side and russet on the other. Her mouth was twisted now, too, and a growth the size of a small grapefruit protruded from her jaw. But it was her, it was Mother with her smooth, stylishly cut white hair, her new jacket, the one she’d ordered from Victoria’s Secret, her chic pants that hung a little on her now that she’d lost so much weight.
“It’s the best bird we’ve ever had,” Tony said, coming into the living room. “You’ll see!”
“That’s what my Morris used to say,” Lotte said. “Every year. And you haven’t even tasted it yet!” She leaned back in her wheelchair, allowing herself to be rolled in by that nice neighbor boy with the long hair, content that the ritual Thanksgiving exaggeration had been observed.
“Shit!” Greta said, trying to light the candle stubs sitting forlornly in the silver candlesticks. “Stupid asshole candles.”
“Watch your mouth,” Elizabeth said, pointing at Harry.
“Oh, excuse us, Miss Propriety,” Josh said.
“I’m right,” Elizabeth said.
“You are,” Greta said, trying to light the candles again and burning her fingers. Elizabeth smirked at Josh.
“What I should have said is, ‘Fucking stupid asshole candles,’” Greta said.
“If I may,” Brett said. He took the stubs out of the candlesticks. “They’re upside down.”
Elizabeth watched him light them. He was handy sometimes.
“Why don’t we have normal, whole candles?” she said.
Tim was politely pushing Grandma around while Laurie, his mother, insisted on transferring the vegetables into antique chamber pots she’d picked up last week “for practically nothing” at a yard sale on Pico.
“Is Kougi coming?” Elizabeth asked Grandma Lotte.
“He has a life,” Lotte said.
“But then who’s the other place for?”
“It’s for Daisy,” Greta said. “Didn’t she mention it to you, honey?”
No, Daisy had not mentioned it. Nor had Greta. Elizabeth saw her mother’s tourmaline ring sparkle in the candlelight. The room was so hot. She threw open a window. She leaned her elbows on the sill and pressed her face against the screen, into the wind and the rain.
“What is your problem?” Josh said. He nudged her aside and closed the window. Elizabeth pulled the dog away from Brett and lifted him into her arms. Temple growled.
“He growls?” Lotte said.
“He bites, too,” Harry said proudly.
“He’s had a hard life,” Elizabeth said.
“He should only know from a hard life.”
“Elizabeth thinks the dog is human,” Brett said with obvious irritation. “Not that she would stand such behavior from a person.”
“I’m the one who wanted a dog,” Greta said, a little irritable herself.
“Not this dog,” Brett said.
Daisy arrived last and they all sat down.
“Nice ring,” Elizabeth said to her, nodding toward Greta’s hand as it passed a bowl of sweet potatoes. “Huh?”
And there followed a loud, echoing beat of silence.
Elizabeth tried to reconstruct the series of events that led to her helping Lotte into Tim’s car at the end of a long Thanksgiving dinner. Did she volunteer to go with Tim? Was she drafted? Did Grandma request her? Or did she offer and Grandma requested Tim? She’d eaten too much. She’d had too much to drink. She was tired and confused.
“Don’t let that bastard of a hound bite me,” Lotte said.
The rain had stopped, but the street was still slick. Elizabeth held Lotte’s elbow. Lotte’s large, strong hand was clamped on her shoulder. The dog pulled at his leash, looped around Elizabeth’s wrist.
“My pocketbook!” Lotte screamed.
Tim, who was holding Lotte’s other arm and lowering her gently to the seat, said, “Here. It’s here.” He waved his elbow slightly, trying to show her the bag hanging from his arm.
“Oh! The bastards! These goddamn cars.”
They got her seated and Elizabeth leaned in to strap the seat belt on her. Tim’s cheek grazed hers as he also leaned in.
“These no-good belts, they’ll kill you before they save you,” Lotte said.
In the backseat, Temple jumped on Elizabeth’s lap. He sat there, at full alert, staring out the window.
“He barks at bikes,” Elizabeth said. “So don’t be startled.”
“At my age,” Lotte said.
They got her home without incident. No barking. No traffic. Elizabeth felt Temple’s little paws digging into her legs. Grandma said there was too much food at dinner.
“Mountains,” she said.
“Well, it is Thanksgiving,” Elizabeth said.
“I eat like a bird,” she said.
Elizabeth walked her upstairs, although it was clear she would have preferred Tim.
“A gentleman,” she said.
“I’m a gentleman,” Elizabeth said, a little hurt.
“God forbid!”
Kougi was there waiting.
“Did you miss me?” Lotte said.
“Autumn evening —” Kougi said, “there’s joy also in loneliness.”
“Haiku,” Lotte whispered to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth walked back to the car thinking that instead of sitting beside Lotte at dinner, it would have been better to sit across from her, thus sparing others the sight of food seeping through unexpected parts of Grandma’s face. She tried not to cry. It was Thanksgiving. She was thankful. She could hear Temple howling in the car.
What if he’d bitten Tim?
But when she got there, Tim was whistling and the howling was Temple’s accompaniment.
There was no more rain. The clouds had passed by to reveal a nearly full moon.
“Let’s go to the beach,” Tim said.
Elizabeth sat in the front seat. Neither one of them spoke. The dog arranged himself on her lap and growled quietly all the way to Venice Beach.
Kougi had some sort of Japanese music playing on the stereo. Lotte listened to the plink plunk of strings and the breathy, reedy flute. Was this really music? It certainly would not have done in my day, she thought.
“You can’t dance to it,” she said as Kougi helped her into her nightgown. She wondered if she ought to be more modest in front of Kougi. He was, after all, a man. That was one of the things she liked about him. She had missed Morris for so long. They took up a certain kind of space, and a lot of it, men did. But they left a person alone, too. My daughter is wonderful, don’t get me wrong, she thought. And my Elizabeth. They dote on me.
“They dote on me,” she said to Kougi.
He put her pills, one by one, in her hand.
“Aren’t they pretty?” she said. Green, pink, like Lily Pulitzer. White, pale blue, like the sky.
“My husband doted on me,” she said.
She swallowed the pills one by one. There’s nothing like a man, she thought.
“He made me feel special,” she said.
“You are special,” Kougi said.
“You see? There’s nothing like a man!”
She leaned back heavily into the bed. Though, God knows, I’m as skinny as a beanpole, she thought. Kougi lifted her weary legs onto the bed. She knew her cancer was spreading. She could almost feel it advancing, creeping, marching across her face. The son-of-a-bitch surgeon wanted to cut her jaw out. Half of it. She lay in bed staring at the ceiling, too tired even to go through the list of family she thought God ought to bless, although God didn’t seem to give a damn what she thought, so there really wasn’t much point. What should she do? Another operation? Then what? Then another and another until there was nothing left of her. She had to pee. But she was so tired. If she fell asleep, would she wet the bed? She remembered a poem Kougi had taught her:
A urine-stained quilt
Drying on the line—
Suma village.
&n
bsp; I’ll just have to move to Suma, she thought.
“Your mother seems okay,” Tony said.
Greta sat on the couch watching Tony, Josh, Daisy, and Laurie clean up. Sometimes she caught Daisy’s glance and wondered that everyone there, everyone for miles, did not know what was going on between them. But Tony seemed perfectly comfortable. Josh was too busy talking about his new girlfriend, or telephoning her in New Jersey, to notice much of anything. Laurie might have caught on if Greta had been involved with a man. But with Daisy? She didn’t have a clue. It suddenly annoyed Greta that no one knew, that no one guessed.
“Lotte is so funny,” Daisy said.
Greta looked at her with a start. Where did she come from?
“What?” Daisy said.
“No, no. Nothing.”
Nothing. Nothing at all, my darling. Daisy was wearing an odd little red dress. She might have gotten it at a thrift store. Or a swap meet. Or a trendy shop. The fabric clung to her breasts, hugged her waist, then draped loosely. It was something from an early Sophia Loren movie. Or did Greta think that because Daisy had a light shawl wrapped around her bare shoulders?
“What, Greta?” Daisy said again.
“Lotte should be home by now,” Greta said quickly. Couldn’t they hear it? Couldn’t they hear what Greta heard in Daisy’s voice?
“Thanksgiving is officially over,” Tony said, putting the last of the leftovers in the refrigerator. “Time to relax.”
“She’s dying,” Greta said.
The others paused, looked at her quickly, then turned back to their chores. But there were no more chores. The house was clean. The kitchen was clean. There was some uncomfortable shifting.
“Who told you that?” Josh said finally. “Dr. Elizabeth, M.D.?”
“I think your sister would make a fine physician,” Tony said.
Daisy excused herself and headed for the bathroom.
Greta felt Daisy’s absence. She could have mourned Daisy’s absence. She could have mourned her mother’s absence. Perhaps she could have mourned her own.
“The surgeon wants to cut away portions of her jaw,” Greta said. The surgeon wanted to take off half of her mother’s jaw, actually. It was such an aggressive tumor, he said. A swaggering, belligerent, bloody-minded bully of a tumor that had taken over the left side of Lotte’s face. Greta wondered how much of the tension in the room had to do with Lotte and how much had to do with her.
“So, see? There’s hope,” Josh said. “Right, Dad?”
Greta said, “The dirty bastards.”
Elizabeth took off her shoes. The sand was wet and cold. The dog ran to the water’s edge, then chased each wave as it broke. Elizabeth watched him snapping at the foam. Over and over. Tim stood beside her.
“I don’t know what to say about your dog.”
She had put Temple’s expandable leash on and he ran, hard, until it pulled him up short. Elizabeth wondered what he thought he would accomplish, deliriously charging saltwater foam, then being jerked to a halt. Full of hope! Hopes dashed! Once, twice—a hundred times.
“He’s so passionate,” she said, “and it’s so pointless.”
“You think passion is supposed to have a point?”
Elizabeth reeled Temple in and petted his soaking head. He lunged at her, his teeth bared, grazing her hand, then whimpered and licked her, leaping in the air trying to kiss her face.
“I don’t know what to do about my mother,” she said. She let the dog charge back to the surf and followed him. The icy water circled around her bare feet. It was so cold it hurt. Why didn’t it bother Temple? He wagged his tail and shook himself, then plunged back into the surf. “What am I supposed to do?”
Tim was now just behind her. The wind was blowing.
“What?” he said.
She turned. “Nothing.”
Tim put his arms around her. He moved closer to her, resting his chin on her shoulder.
“Elizabeth,” he said, the sound private, so close to her ear, protected from the wind and the crash of the waves. And such a new sound; a private, secret sound. His lips were touching her neck. She thought, It was Tim who gave me the Pomeranian.
“The little brass dog . . .” she said.
“Another stray for your collection,” he said.
She felt his arms around her. She said, “My collection . . .”
He said, “You have so many strays to look after. But, I don’t know, I saw it, I thought of you . . .” His body was pressed against hers from behind. “I thought it might cheer you up.”
She thought, Tim wants to cheer me up. He got me a Pomeranian dog to cheer me up. A dog that requires no care. She felt his body against hers. And now, she thought, I will fall, leaving my life and my destiny behind. Or will I simply fall into place?
Temple dug in the wet sand. The moon shone on the water, a long wavering cord. The waves collided onto the sand. And, cheerless still, but overcome with desire, Elizabeth turned and kissed Tim on the mouth, and his hands were inside her clothes, beneath her skirt, beneath her sweater.
“Elizabeth,” he whispered in her ear, softer than the roar of the waves, soft enough for her to hear. Holding her hand, he led her back to the car. In the front seat, Temple growled irritably, like a bad conscience, and Elizabeth knew what she was doing was pointless. As pointless as passion. She pulled Tim down, surprised that he was not Brett, that his weight was not Brett’s, his movements were not Brett’s. She tried to breathe, but this stranger, this new lover, this man she didn’t know, whom she’d known for years, took up all her air. She was not Brett’s wife. She was no one’s wife. She gasped. She heard herself call the stranger’s name. His eyes were closed and his lashes were long. He held her down, his fingers digging into her arms. Passion was pointless and the moon lit his face.
There was no doubt in Greta’s mind after Thanksgiving. She’d sat there in her dining room and watched her family, admiring them, giddy with love for them, resolved to hurt them.
“It’s over for me,” she said to Daisy.
They were on a bench at the Santa Monica pier, the wind whipping Daisy’s black hair romantically. Greta noticed how her own hair stood up ridiculously and marveled for an instant at how a person could worry about messy hair while contemplating the dissolution of an entire lifetime.
“It’s over,” she said. “I watched everyone move and speak and I moved and spoke. And ate. And it was as if we were all underwater.”
Daisy did not respond. Perhaps that was not what Daisy wanted to hear. Perhaps she preferred the intrigue of an affair. Perhaps she had just been playing all along. The wind carried the sounds of the video arcade behind them. Gunshots. Squealing brakes. Diabolic laughter. Exploding bombs.
“I’m freezing,” Daisy said after a while.
Greta put her arm around Daisy’s shoulder and pulled her closer.
“I really have to tell him.”
She felt sick after she said it, an empty plunge, the ashen spin of a long, long fall. She stood up, trying to breathe in the fresh sea breeze. She leaned over the railing of the boardwalk. She held on to keep her balance, her head bent, looking at the water below, in case she vomited.
Chemotherapy had nothing on the dissolution of a life. Several lives. If I did vomit, she thought, it would have to fall such a long way. Like me.
She remembered a long-ago trip to the Caribbean with Tony and the children. To St. Kitts. They had taken a day trip to Nevis and seen a rainbow on the ferry and ragged, barefoot children in the rutted streets when they got there. A taxi-driver guide invited them to his sister’s restaurant for lunch, but, although overwhelmed by guilt at the poor children, they guiltily insisted on a seaside hotel that had once been a plantation. What had they had for lunch? She couldn’t remember, but then Josh and Elizabeth, so young that they shared the other double bed in the hotel room, had projectile vomited at each other all that night.
She remembered them as they slept the next morning, their exhausted, scrubbed fac
es nose-to-nose on the fresh pillowcases, Elizabeth clutching her teddy bear, Josh his worn puppy with its long ears.
Greta smiled. Below her, a gull bobbed on the waves. She and Tony had spent the night on their knees, mopping up vomit.
“You’re sure?” Daisy said. She stood beside Greta. She looked scared.
Was she sure? She kissed the top of Daisy’s head, black hair blowing against her cheeks, in her eyes. Behind them, a toddler screamed at an unearthly pitch. They began walking back to their cars.
“Soon . . .” Greta said, “. . . ish.”
“I’ve ruined your life,” Daisy said.
Greta nodded.
“I did not,” Daisy said.
She had hoped to see Harry’s bar mitzvah, but perhaps that was greedy. Spring? She could try to hang on until spring. But who could even tell when it was spring in this place? In St. Louis, the buds would swell on the bony trees and flowers would crawl out of the damp earth and birds would sing and people would switch to navy blue. But here? Enough flowers to choke a horse every month of the year. Trees that belonged in the jungle. Birds? Who knew? Could you hear them singing with the windows closed? With the air conditioner going?
She was having trouble swallowing. Even water was difficult. That she should live this long! To see the world full of pierced tongues and terrorists. And those anchormen, the dirty bitches, they should drop dead. Why were they always so nasty to Hillary? Anti-Semites, all of them.
“Grandma, I think you’ve got it backwards. You’re supposed to say the media are all Jews.”
Lotte realized she had been speaking out loud. And there was Elizabeth sitting in the chair by the bed.
“Darling, darling! I didn’t know you were here!” She held out her arms. Her arms were heavy but she held them out for her darling granddaughter. Sometimes the pain was so intense she noticed nothing else.
“The pain, the pain . . .” she said.
Elizabeth rubbed her feet, which were cold. They were always cold. She needed a pedicure. It was one thing that Kougi did not do well. She was too weak to go to the beauty parlor.
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