by Jeff Abbott
“You shut up!” I yelled. “Get out!” Dead silence in the stacks. Those dark, deadened eyes stared into mine. I fought back a sudden, primitive urge to spit in her face. Yes, I do have a bad temper and Beta saw she’d gone too far. She didn’t flinch away, but Ruth hustled her out into the spring beat. I could hear Beta protesting the whole way, threatening Ruth with various fundamentalist punishments. I could only imagine what special levels of Gehenna she reserved for me.
I slumped into my chair. My hands shook. I was ten years younger and a foot taller than Beta Harcher, but her words rattled me more than her punch. I admit it: I could’ve throttled her—just for a moment—when she made that crack about my mother. Whack me with books all you like, but leave my family alone.
The bleeding stopped, but I kept dabbing my nostrils with the tissue. The blue-haired crowd headed straight for me, gabbing with their henhouse tongues. The Eula Mae Quiffers examined me carefully and, assured that I was okay, offered their opinions on Beta.
“She’s addled,” said one lady.
“Poor dear just takes the Bible too literally,” opined a more pious woman who had not been battered with a book recently.
“I can’t believe she struck you,” added another, disappointed that my nose was intact.
“What a bitch,” Eula Mae commented. She’s the closest thing to a celebrity Mirabeau has—a romance novelist known to her fans by the nom de plume Jocelyn Lushe. I have nothing against romances—I could probably use one in my life—but Eula Mae gets inordinate amounts of local adoration for her prose. I can only take so many heaving bosoms and smoldering loins per page, and Eula Mae isn’t big on setting limits.
Mousy Tamma Hufnagel watched me carefully. “Miz Harcher’s upset about being kicked off the library board, Jordy. She’s just awful tetchy about civic morals. She means well.”
“No, she doesn’t, Mrs. Hufnagel,” I answered. “She’s a lunatic and they’re usually not concerned with the public good.” I watched Ruth come back into the library, without Beta. “I could just kill that old biddy.”
“Don’t you listen to Beta Harcher, Jordy.” Dorcas Witherspoon, one of my mother’s friends, took my hand. “She’s a bitter fool. She’s unhappy, so she wants everyone to be that way. We don’t care if you keep smutty books. You know all I read here is the Houston paper for ‘Hints from Heloise.”’
“Please, ladies, I’m fine,” I assured them. I sighed. “I guess Mrs. Hufnagel’s right; Beta’s just mad she got kicked off the library board. She’ll just find someone else in Mirabeau to terrorize.”
That, unfortunately, didn’t happen. The good Lord decided, I suppose, that He needed Beta Harcher at His right hand a far sight earlier than any of us reckoned.
The rest of the afternoon passed without divine retribution for keeping D. H. Lawrence on the library shelves. At six I closed up and drove past the well-kept homes and fake antique light posts on Bluebonnet Street. Mirabeau is Texas old, founded in 1841 during the Republic days, but I figure the powers that be don’t think it looks quaint enough for antique buyers and city folks looking to move to the country. So they’ve started adding Dickensian touches such as Victorian light posts and wrought-iron benches on the major streets in town. We natives try not to mind.
It doesn’t take more than ten minutes to get anywhere in Mirabeau, and getting home takes me all of two minutes. I veered left onto Lee Street, drove down a block to Blossom Street, and stared up at the neat, two-story frame house I’d grown up in and recently returned to. Did it look smaller, or was it that I was just bigger and wiser? I couldn’t tell.
I went inside and found my mother walking in circles around the cozy living room. She does that more and more now, shuffling along in her slippers and robe. I suppose it’s a nice room to orbit. Mama just has to navigate a wicker sofa and an oval, polished wood coffee table with a fan of Southern Living back issues spread across it. Normally I would have steered Mama to a chair and told her to sit down, but I had a throbbing headache. This was not the life I’d ever planned on coming home to. So I sat down and watched Mama for a few minutes. She was intent on some journey of her own and she made for good quiet company.
Our quality time together didn’t last long. “You’re not being much help, Jordy, letting her do that,” my sister Arlene muttered as she walked in from the kitchen. I could smell the wonderful aroma of black-eyed peas and chicken-fried steaks. Sister (I never call her Arlene unless I’m really mad at her) flared me a look as hot as her skillets. She took Mama’s arm and aimed her toward a chair. Mama, a lock of her blondish-gray hair straying into her face, sat unprotestingly and looked at me as though unsure of who I was. “Jordy,” she announced finally, in the same tone she’d used to reproach me for mouthing off as a youngster.
That was a relief. In her mind for the past two days I’d been her long-dead brother Walter, and it was nice to be back among the living.
“Eula Mae called and told me what happened at the library,” Sister said with That Tone. She gawked at my busted lip. So much for my three minutes of peace, which was my daily allowance at home.
“I guess you’d like to get fired from that library,” Sister observed archly, going back into the kitchen with a toss of her blonde hair. I can always count on Sister for loving support. “That way you could just go back to Boston and your precious little publishing job, and never mind Mama.”
My throat tightened. I’m still not used to Mama. It’s hard to go away from home, leaving your mother full and vital and smart, and return to find her mind eroding like a clay bank on a flooded creek.
I got up and followed Sister into the kitchen. “Why are you pissed today? You have a fight with Bubba?” Bubba Jasper owned a truck stop called The Near End on Highway 71, where Sister cooked God’s food like chicken-fried steaks, enchiladas, and pecan pies. She worked from eight at night till four in the morning, came home, and slept till ten when I went to the library. She hated that schedule, and I wasn’t that crazy about it either, but it kept one of us at home most of the time. I took care of Mama at night; Sister handled her during the day. I suspected Bubba gladly gave Sister that shift to discourage competing suitors. Bubba needed any advantage he could muster.
“Never mind Bubba.” Sister’s rosebud mouth pouted. She poked at the simmering black-eyed peas with a stained wooden spoon. She was so pretty when we were kids; I’d been jealous of Sister’s popularity in school. I’d spent most of my academic career in the Mirabeau public schools as “Arlene Poteet’s little brother.” It wasn’t a bad label. Having a popular sister helped no end in the date department.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I—I think you resent me, Jordy. You haven’t been much help with Mama this past week.”
I had a reply ready (as usual with Sister) but I stopped. She really looked sad, staring down into the warming vegetables. She’d pulled her thick blonde hair back from her face and it made her look older and tired. Her features were still striking, with high cheekbones and clear green eyes. “I think you resent me ’cause I brought you back here.”
“You didn’t bring me back, Sister. I chose to come back.”
“No, you didn’t. We’ve been playing this guilt game long enough. I made you feel guilty about being up North, and now you won’t let me put Mama in a nursing home.” Sister looked up from her bare feet.
“No, I won’t put Mama in a home.” I hoped we wouldn’t have this argument again. “I’m not going through what we went through with Papaw again.” I set my teeth. I remember walking out of my grandfather’s nursing-home room while he sobbed as we left him. Just the memory makes my heart clench.
“You had—or have—the money to put Mama in a good place, and she won’t know the difference. Her mind is going, Jordy. Yesterday she thought I was Aunt Sally visiting from Houston. She kept asking if I was going to vote for Harry Truman.”
I always try to find the bright side of bad times. “At least she knows it’s an election year.” I bit dow
n on my swollen lip as soon as I said it, surprised at myself.
Sister wasn’t amused. “Sometimes she doesn’t even remember Mark, and that’s hard for him. Her own grandchild.”
“The money isn’t the issue, Sister.”
“Yes, it is. You have it and I don’t. That’s how it is, Jordy, and has been for years.”
“And you accuse me of resenting you? Listen to yourself.”
She shrugged. “Maybe I do resent you. Mr. Big Book Editor, living up North and making money to burn.” She shook her head and laughed her drawly little giggle that annoyed me when we were growing up. “You’re really using that fancy college degree, aren’t you? Stacking books back at the Mirabeau library.”
“Look, running a library’s not easy. You know that was the only job I could find here connected with books—”
“You care more about books than you do me!” she snapped. “God! I have my own life to live and I have Mark to raise. You could give me the money and keep Mama from being such a godawful burden to me.”
“Yes, I could, I suppose. But I won’t. I won’t have Mama in a home. She needs us, not strangers in uniforms.”
“It’s not your choice to ruin my life and Mark’s, too.”
“It’s my money,” I answered, not adding that there wasn’t a lot of my money left. “I’m sorry you feel this way. You don’t have to help with Mama. I’ll move her into a place of my own and get daytime help while I’m at the library. You don’t have to have a damn thing to do with her.”
“And let you have all that moral superiority? Let people here think I don’t care about Mama as much as you do? Forget it” Public opinion in Mirabeau still mattered to Sister. Left over from her cheerleader days, I’m sure.
“Then quit complaining.” I spoke more sharply than I intended, but the strain of quarreling with her showed.
“Dinner’ll be ready in about ten minutes.” Sister went into her monotone. “Please set the table.”
“All right.” I didn’t want to argue any more. I set the table quickly and haphazardly, flinging the silverware and plates down like I was dealing cards.
Sister twitched at the noise, but didn’t look up from the cream gravy she stirred. “Would you please go find Mark?” I turned and went.
I stumbled out the front door into the fading spring sunshine. The evening was still warm and hazy with moisture. Spring had been rainy. Mirabeau is the lush, dark, deep green that always surprises folks who’ve based their visions of Texas on John Wayne movies that were shot in dusty, brown Arizona. The oak trees, pregnant with leaves, shook in the twilight breeze above my head. The crepe myrtles were short explosions of pink, scattering their blossoms on the air.
I leaned against my blue and gray Chevy Blazer and looked out down Lee Street, across front yards that were maintained like badges of honor. Yards—whether front or back—usually aren’t divided by fences in Mirabeau, and the residential streets don’t have curbs. The grass just goes straight into the neighbors’ yards and into the street. When I was little this whole neighborhood was my playground, but now I felt like I was trespassing. What was I doing here? I’d bolted at age eighteen, swearing to never come back. Twelve years later and here I was. I scanned the street My nephew Mark was down a few houses, talking with a neighbor’s kid.
“Mark! Supper time!”
He waved back, almost begrudgingly. Maybe Sister was right. Was I controlling her and Mark’s life by insisting that we take care of Mama at home? I didn’t feel in control; Mama’s disease was. It dictated and governed every aspect of our lives. I’d given up a life I’d loved, being a social sciences editor for a prestigious textbook publisher in Boston. I’d acquired authors, negotiated contracts, planned marketing campaigns to storm college campuses nationwide. It had been decent money and a lot of fun. Now, I was back at my life’s square one because I didn’t want my mother in a nursing home. Logical, aren’t I?
I couldn’t blame Sister for being mad. If she blamed Mama’s condition for running her life, she thought I was making it worse. She’d wanted money to put Mama in a nursing home over in La Grange. She didn’t have the money, hadn’t had anything except Mark since her rodeo-smitten husband had abandoned her five years ago and headed to parts unknown. I had headed for parts unimaginable (New England), but Sister’d had my phone number.
I stood in the carport, staring at the modest house I’d grown up in. It was built at the turn of the century and had belonged to my father’s uncle who died widowed and childless. Two stories, white, with plenty of blue-shuttered windows across the front to let in light and maybe neighbors’ peering eyes. The porch was wood and held two white wicker chairs that should’ve held Mama and Daddy. Sister and I sat there and moped these days.
We hadn’t kept up the house as Daddy had; it had been his pride and joy, but we took the house for granted. Mark trimmed the yard and tended the flower beds, but the house needed a paint job, especially across the front porch. I knew I should get it taken care of, but I was wary of spending money in front of Sister. Every cent I wasted on other expenses was a cent that could help lift the burden of our mother from our shoulders. If only Daddy had been as thoughtful about insurance as he was about lawn care.
The average yearly cost of nursing home care in this country is thirty thousand bucks. It tends to be one of those facts you don’t bother with till your mother’s walking in circles, drooling on her chin, and thinking you’re her long dead brother Walter. My investments and savings couldn’t bear that assault.
Part of me didn’t want Mama in a home, and the other part of me didn’t want my savings flying away so quickly. I couldn’t tell Sister my financial woes. She thought my college education resulted in an instantly swollen bank account. She wouldn’t believe me if I told her I didn’t have the money to keep Mama in a home for years of Alzheimer’s. Contrary to popular belief, publishing is not a gold mine.
Mark swaggered up to me like only a thirteen-year-old can. He doesn’t even have the grace to look like a Poteet—not that it’s his fault. He’s tall and rangy like us, but that’s about it. Where Sister and I are fair-haired and green-eyed like both our parents, Mark is dark and just looks like trouble. He’s the spitting image of his daddy, the aforementioned rider from responsibility. Even wearing silvery round glasses, he looks like a rebel. I never managed that in my youth.
“I hate to interrupt your cramped social schedule, but supper’s on,” I said. Usually I tease Mark, but arguing with Sister had soured my mood.
Mark surveyed me with eyes older than the rest of him. “You and Mom have been fighting over Mamaw again.”
“What are you, psychic?” I put my arm around his shoulder and steered him toward the house.
“I don’t know why you two just don’t accept Mamaw for how she is. She ain’t getting better.”
“Isn’t,” I automatically corrected. We walked into the living room, where Mama sat chatting chirpily with shadows.
Mark waved his arms in front of her face. “No one’s here, Mamaw. Nobody but us.”
She looked at him, hurt. Turning her face away, she pressed the back of her hand to her pinched mouth.
I took Mark by the arm and shuffled him into the kitchen. “Must you argue with her?” He’s a good kid, but I wondered if the strain of our difficult domestic situation was wearing on him.
“Nothin’ to argue about with Mamaw. An argument takes two people armed with opinions or facts. Mamaw’s lacking both.”
“Don’t be disrespectful, Mark.”
Mark smacked his chewing gum in a most impertinent teenage fashion. I do wonder where he gets it. “You know, Uncle Jordy, I don’t see disrespect in facing up to Mamaw going out of her head.”
I opened the fridge, got out a pitcher of iced tea, and slammed the door. “You’re too young to understand. Mama’s not exactly going out of her head.” Who was I kidding? I was mad at Mark for saying exactly what I thought.
“I think there’s going to be a vacancy s
ign hung up real soon,” Mark muttered as Sister came back in. Needless to say, the rest of the meal did not go well. Little family squabbles over the sanity of the clan matriarch do not make for carefree dinner conversation. Mark huffed off to his room to read; as I said, the boy is not entirely without redeeming features. Sister pouted again and left for The Near End and the company of Bubba. And I sat watching TV with Mama. I think the vapid sitcom made as much sense to her as it did to me. I started reading an old copy of Eudora Welty’s short stories, disturbed only by Mama’s occasional giggle-along with the laugh track, as automatic and sad as a last breath.
It was ten o’clock and I was putting on the news from Channel 36 out of Austin when the phone rang and my life turned left.
“Jordy.” It was Sister. “How’s Mama?”
“Fine,” I answered. Sister thinks she takes better care of Mama than I do.
“Did you give her her Haldol?” Sister asked, and I slapped my forehead. Crap! I’d gotten the prescription filled and my confrontation with Beta Harcher had driven the pills right out of my mind. I glanced over at Mama; she looked wide awake. Our family doctor prescribed Haldol for her restless nights, so common in Alzheimer’s patients.
“Um, yeah, just about to give it to her,” I fibbed. I’d left the pills in my office at the library. Well, Sister didn’t need to know about my slight dereliction of duty. I could run down to the library and be back, with Sister none the wiser.
“Okay. I’ll see you in the morning then.” There was the barest hint of reconciliation in her voice.
“Fine. Bye.” I hung up. Mama was watching the television and had turned the volume to a murmur, the way she liked it now. I went to the stairs in the entry way and called up to Mark.
“I’m heading off to the library for a second. I’ll be right back. Come down and sit with Mama, please.”