“Mrs. Armstrong, I am sorry to tell you your mother passed away late last night.”
I wanted to tell her that my mother died years ago, that all they have been feeding and washing and medicating is an empty body. But I had enough control over my tongue to stay silent.
It was a good thing she called then. Sometimes, by late afternoon, when I’ve had a few more drinks, I say things I shouldn’t. At least, that was what my husband used to tell me.
“. . . make the arrangements,” and I understood that she had been talking to me, that I had missed something of importance.
“I’m sorry,” and the words hung in the air. “I’m sorry,” I repeated. “Could I call you back? I need . . . I need . . .”
My voice trailed off uncertainly, and she mistook my silence for grief.
“Of course, and please accept our deepest sympathy,” she said warmly. “We’ll wait to hear from you.”
I hung up the phone and wondered if my mother had remembered a little girl with straight brown hair who would bring her coffee laced with vodka.
∗ ∗ ∗
“Why don’t you watch where you’re going?”
The shout brought me back to the present, to the danger of cars passing far too closely. I stepped back onto the curb, wondering why I had ever left the safety of its shallow elevation.
It’s nearly six o’clock, and the glare of the setting sun brought tears to my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said, but the driver had already driven on. I walked more carefully, gauging my steps, holding fast to my handbag. All I wanted was to make it to the corner and around to the side street. There was a place where I could stay for a few hours. They knew me.
Before long, I was seated on a corner stool in the darkened bar. I drank the vodka straight—no ice, no lime. It took three drinks before my hands stopped shaking, one more before I could face the mirrored wall behind the bottles.
I had not expected to feel so bereft, so alone. For years, I had struggled against her needs, hoping her death would give me release. But nothing had changed.
My face swam above the line of bottles—white skin, dark eyes. The image shifted and altered, and I thought I could see the outlines of my skull behind the flesh. And, behind that, my mother’s face.
The mirror was dark and cloudy—like ice on a storm-crossed winter afternoon. Even in the crowded bar, where bodies pressed tightly against one another, I felt chilled. I took another sip, and the image shifted again. Almost, I could see the break in the glassy surface. Almost, I could hear the sharp crack as the ice began to give way.
“Lady, you want another?” and I realized that my glass was almost empty. “Hey, lady, I’m asking you—do you want another drink?”
“No,” and I stepped unsteadily down from the barstool onto the carpeted floor, onto dry land. “No, I’ve had enough.”
∗ ∗ ∗
They say the cold snap will continue for at least a few more days. Motorists are cautioned that roads are still slippery, and schools close early or open not at all.
But the below-freezing temperatures do not deter the children. Each afternoon, I watch from my apartment as they make their way to the park across the road. Some drag sleds, willing to struggle up the snow-covered hill just for the exhilaration of a twenty-second flight down the powdery whiteness.
Others, carrying skates, cross the road, heading for the small pond. There, signs indicate where the ice is strong enough to support all those daring bodies, all those sharp blades.
If the children are careful—if they obey the rules and warnings—they won’t crack the surface to fall into the darkness.
If I am careful, neither will I.
Still Life
This is how it should be—
In the morning, I would go into my kitchen, with its golden oak cabinets and white tile counter tops, where I would grind some fine brown coffee beans—a special blend, grown high in the Andes where the air is so sharp it can slice your lungs. When the coffee has finished brewing, I would pour it into a delicate gold-rimmed demitasse, and the steam would rise, rich and fragrant, almost as satisfying as that very first taste.
I would take my cup and one freshly-baked, flaky croissant, and walk out onto the deck. From there, I would see the sun as it fights its way through the pine trees, struggling to reach the sky. The first rays color the darkness orange and red, purple and gold, and as the night is conquered, the sun would emerge victorious.
On the deck, there is one small glass-topped table with wrought iron legs, a wicker rocker with a thick purple-flowered seat cushion, and my easel.
I look at the sky and then at my paint box and colored pencils, waiting on the shelf below the empty canvas. Finally, with slow, deliberate strokes, I begin to sketch my world—the pines, with each needle meticulously placed on each branch and each branch grafted carefully onto the trunk, and the sky: its colors melting and bleeding into each other like a dying harlequin.
And while I work, the kittens would come out to investigate the world in which they find themselves. The white one—the baby, as I think of her—immediately leaps into the rocker and settles down, her tail curling around to hide her face like a mask. Her blue eyes would move unceasingly from side to side, watching me as I bring the sun and sky onto the canvas.
The black one would first twine around my ankles, tickling my skin with his tail, before vaulting onto the wooden railing, as much at ease as though it was six feet wide instead of six inches, as though the ground below was not twenty feet away.
He would pace along the edge—a jungle predator hunting for food—until, tired of the game, he joins his mate in the chair where they sleep together—black and white, night and day—curled into a furry circle.
There is no radio, no telephone, no sound except the wind and the birds and the stream, far below and hidden by the underbrush. I can hear the water, even high on my deck, rushing and tumbling over rocks worn smooth by its endless caress.
Later, when I grow tired of standing at the easel, I would slip into a pair of old soft jeans, and walk through the woods in search of blackberries for lunch. With moccasins in hand, I’d ford the stream, minnows teasing my toes and waterbugs dancing on the sparkling surface.
When I reach the other side, I push through the brambles and wild rose bushes to find the meadow where the blackberries grow the best. Here, in the open sunlight, they are rich to bursting, and I am painted purple and red as I pluck them, resisting, from their stems. I gather them in my basket and slip them in my mouth, tasting the morning sun on my tongue.
Later again, much later, I would rest in my rocking chair, drinking champagne from a delicately etched crystal goblet, watching the stars glitter in the darkening sky. The fireflies dance and dart around the edges of the deck, and moths eagerly, willingly dive to their deaths into the white pillar candle burning in a hand-thrown pottery bowl.
I would stretch my legs out before me, scratched and tired from the afternoon walk, and rest my head on the back of the chair. My fingers are tinted with sunrise colors, the paint permanently stained into my skin from endless mornings spent at my easel, and I can no longer remember the true color of my flesh.
∗ ∗ ∗
I think about this sometimes, on cold rainy mornings while I am waiting for the water to boil. When the steam rises from the aluminum spout, I can make my coffee—stirring bubbling water into the dull black crystals waiting at the bottom of the chipped, stained cup.
I have ten minutes to drink my coffee, another ten minutes allotted for the stairs, and yet ten more for the walk to the corner bus stop. There I wait, amid blaring horns and choking exhaust fumes, early-morning drunks and street people curled like rags on the steam grate.
This is how it is.
The Storyteller
“When I was a little girl, we lived in a big stone farmhouse on the outskirts of the city. In the barn behind the house, there were three cows, two sheep, and a horse we called ‘Lightning’ because w
hen he ran, his hooves would glitter in the light.”
The children gathered around Connie when she began telling her stories, and for a brief time, they would forget the needles and the pills, the cold metal table in X-ray and the way they could never really tell what the doctors were thinking as they poked and prodded.
Connie took them away from the green-walled prison that was their home, back to a place where children could run freely in knee-high grass, not shuffle like old men down linoleum-floored halls, dragging IV poles along with them like uprooted trees.
“Did your sheep have names?” It was Carla, always Carla, who interrupted the story to get the details clear. Carla wanted answers to all her questions—even the most unanswerable one of all: Why?
“One was called Fluffy and the other Muffy,” Connie answered obligingly. Those weren’t good names but they would be easy to remember. It was very important that all the details be correct and consistent. The children would notice any changes, any misnamed animals or misplaced buildings, and then the fabric of the story would disintegrate.
“Every morning, my father would go outside and milk the cows, standing in the fragrant straw. The cows liked being milked. They knew how important it was to give thick rich cream for butter and warm milk for my oatmeal. And they liked the way my father would stroke their sides when he was through, telling them what good animals they were, and how much they were needed. We always had plenty of milk in the house.”
When they needed milk in the house (which was most of the time), Connie would pick through the debris on her father’s dresser, searching for enough money to buy another quart.
Sometimes, there was enough. But, more often than not, the money for milk and other necessities would have been swallowed up with the beer he drank each day after work. Then, she would have to have bread for breakfast, with cold water to wash down the day-old slices.
“Did you have a dog, Grandma Connie?” Jesse asked. Jesse had a dog once, Connie knew. But a doctor had said the dog was the cause of his sickness, and so it was put to sleep. Jesse’s parents had told him the dog was given away, but he told Connie he had heard them talking one night and he knew that was a lie.
And it turned out that it wasn’t the dog’s fault after all, but the fault of an unnamed sickness hidden deep inside of his body.
“Yes, we had a dog,” she answered gently. “But he was an outside dog—” Jesse’s had slept at the foot of his bed—“and he would guard the sheep and cows and horse.”
“Do you have any pictures?” Carla asked, but Connie shook her head.
“No, we didn’t have a camera. But my mother would paint pictures of the farm and the animals. They are at my son’s house, or I would bring them in to you.”
Connie’s mother had left the year Connie turned eight. “I can’t take any more,” she had heard her mother screaming one night, when her father had come stumbling home. “You drink all the time, there’s never enough money for me and the kid—” Connie was “the kid”, never “Connie”, never “my darling daughter.” She was never anybody’s darling. “I can’t take any more. I’m leaving, Jack! I don’t give a damn about anything anymore!”
“Where does your son live?” It was Jason, the new boy. He had been admitted a few days before, but until today, the tests had left him too weak to attend Connie’s afternoon storyhour in the playroom. He sat there in the small wheelchair, pale-faced and fragile, though his eyes burned with life.
“Down south,” Connie answered, wondering if she had answered this question before, and in which state she had placed her mythical son. “South” was a good choice—a place none of the children had gone, far from this cold state and colder hospital.
Connie would tell them about the butterflies dancing through the flower garden and the way the morning dew would tickle her toes and how the July heat would make heat shimmers on the pavement. And she would see the children’s faces glow, as though a bit of the southern warmth had touched them.
“He has two children—a little girl named Sally and a little boy named Joey. Joey plays baseball in the summer and Sally has a white kitten with four black paws.”
The children loved these little details. They needed them to flesh out the pictures of Connie’s life. She had become their window to another world, where they too could play in the barn or run races with Sally and Joey.
Sometimes, after a particularly detailed story, Connie would close her eyes and see her imaginary son and grandchildren, hear their voices, and feel their kiss upon her cheek.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Smrenak, but having children just isn’t possible, I’m afraid. There seems to be some problem with your—” the doctor had paused there, searching for the right words to delicately describe the problem with Connie’s body, “your female parts. I think it might be a good idea to go into the hospital and have some tests done, just to see what the problem is. It might turn out to be nothing very bad at all,” he had added with a false heartiness that didn’t fool Connie for a minute.
The tests were painful, the operation afterward even worse. Her husband had stood at the foot of the bed, turning his hat around and around in his fingers, not meeting her eyes. This wasn’t part of the deal, she knew. A person got married to have children. She hadn’t lived up to her end of the bargain.
He never reproached her for her failure, and she never complained about his drinking, even when the doctor warned him it would kill him. And in the end he became like a child—needy, dependent, cantankerous. When he died, she wasn’t certain if she felt relief or sorrow. Or maybe both.
It wasn’t the life Connie had wanted, but then, few things went the way one wished. She knew this, and sometimes, looking into the children’s eyes, she could see they knew it as well. Knew it, and accepted it.
“Grandma Connie, could I see you a moment?”
It was the afternoon supervisor who was calling her. Connie frowned. She didn’t like being interrupted in the middle of her storytelling, partly because the children grew restless, partly because it was difficult to remember where she had left off. But she pulled herself out of the rocker and obediently went to the nearby office.
The starched woman shut the door and then took a seat behind the desk, smiling at Connie in the false way the children would have recognized: Now, this isn’t going to hurt a bit. Just one prick and it will all be over.
But it always hurt. Sometimes it hurt a lot. Sometimes it wasn’t just one little prick but a long piercing pain that went on and on.
Connie sat stiffly in the straight-backed chair, and waited.
“You know we appreciate the time you spend with our patients. The children really enjoy the stories about your childhood.”
Connie breathed in. This was the alcohol-swab part, when the skin is made ready for the hypodermic needle.
“We recognize that sometimes medicine isn’t enough. The children need emotional nourishment, and often the parents are so stressed that they are incapable of giving any more to the children.”
Now the needle is filled with medicine, and the plunger is depressed, just a little, until some of the liquid shoots from the silver tip. Connie tightened her jaw. It’s coming now—the part that would hurt.
“So we have decided to bring in some professional play therapists to work with the children. They have books and games that will not only entertain the patients, but also help them express their feelings in a healing way. It’s not that we don’t appreciate all you have done in the past few months” —and now the needle is plunged deep into the skin, hurting, hurting—“but we feel that a professional will be better able to handle the children’s needs. I’m sure you understand—”
There, it didn’t hurt a bit, did it, dear? Now, wipe your eyes and go play.
“When?” Connie interrupted her brusquely, and the woman looked away, slightly embarrassed. Really, it was just too much to expect her to handle this. This wasn’t her job, after all. She wasn’t the one who had accepted this old lady as a volu
nteer in the first place.
“Tomorrow,” she answered, fiddling with the paper knife on her desk. “I don’t see any need to tell the children. We’ll keep them so busy that they’ll hardly notice,” not realizing how cruel the words were, and how wrong she was.
The children would most certainly notice, Connie knew. Jesse would see Connie’s departure as one more thing he loved and lost. Sometimes, when Connie would stop in to see him on her way back to her one-bedroom walk-up, she would find him clutching his stuffed bear and crying for his lost puppy. She had promised him that, when he was better, he could come visit her and her little dachshund Daisy.
Connie didn’t have a pet. Her landlady would never have permitted it. Her landlady didn’t allow anything—not a pot of flowers on the narrow fire escape, not a welcoming wreath hanging on the outside of her triple deadbolted front door.
But it was a safe lie to tell, because Jesse wasn’t going to get better. That was another lie, too.
Carla would drive the therapist wild with her questions: “Where did Grandma Connie go?” “Why isn’t she coming back?” “Why didn’t she say good-bye?”
The therapist would give her different answers each day, and Carla would grow more and more angry, and then the tantrums would begin again: toys thrown across the room, crayons smashed into a million colored bits, aides being scratched and bitten as they tried to wash her and comb her thin hair.
Carla never behaved that way with Connie because Connie always answered her—sometimes with complete truthfulness, sometimes with a falsehood that was better than the truth. But she always tried to satisfy Carla’s desire to know the simple things, because the most important question had no answer at all.
“I would like to finish the storyhour now,” Connie said, and without waiting for an answer, she made her way back to the waiting children.
“What did she want?” Carla asked, and Connie patted her on the head.
Traveling Left of Center and Other Stories Page 10