My One Hundred Adventures

by Polly Horvath

  “You gave her that candy,” I whisper to Ned.

  “What?” he says, bending down to hear me better.

  “The candy she choked on. If you hadn’t given it to her, she wouldn’t have died.”

  “Look, Bibles,” he says. He has started calling me this since my mother told him how I deliver Bibles with Nellie. For some reason he finds this hilarious. “If you’re going to live, then something is going to have to die to feed you. Everything we eat was alive at some point. Just by eating you’re going to cause trouble. I figure, every day I’m doing something like giving someone candy they’re going to choke on—”

  He is interrupted by Nellie, who places a large, meaty hand on his shoulder. He grabs it with both of his, gently removes it and gives it a friendly shake.

  “Nellie,” I whisper to her when she gets to me. “You did it. You cured Mrs. Nasters and Mrs. Parks. We should find you a gathering place today after we deliver Bibles.”

  “I could feel that thrombosis break up under these hands. I could feel Mrs. Nasters become whole. Praise Jesus. But I got no time for Bibles or anything else. I’ve got a funeral to prepare for,” Nellie whispers back.

  I have a sudden inspiration. “What about the church as a gathering place?”

  Nellie looks nervous for a second. Her mouth twitches. “It’s holy business, this healing, but I don’t know as it’s exactly churchly business, if you know what I mean. Now, move on, move on, you’re holding up the line,” she says, and yanks me out of the way with the hand she has been using for shaking.

  Because I don’t have to deliver Bibles I go right to Mr. Fordyce’s. He is sitting at his table reading and eating blueberries. The summer has moved on. I tell him about the funeral and he says of course he will watch the children but I must ask Mrs. Gourd if this is okay with her. I lie and say I will. I have no alternative because I am sure she would say no as it is not the deal we have struck. And I’m sure my mother would say yes, I must come to the funeral.

  At dinner the sea is not bloodred but a grim gray. There isn’t much conversation. No airplane rides over the sand. No stories of bones. My mother says, “It is very odd that Caroline and H.K. weren’t at church. They never miss.”

  Ned doesn’t say anything. He shovels food in and watches the gray water turn to black.

  Wednesday I drop the Gourd children at Mr. Fordyce’s. He says he is all ready for them. He has gone to the bookstore and bought Now We Are Six because he thinks they will like this poetry. He has bought the book Mud Pies and Other Recipes because he thinks it would be fun to make mud pies with them. I promise to get them the very second the funeral is out and he says, “Take your time.”

  At the funeral my mother reads a poem she has written for both the old ladies and their fruited hats. People in the church sigh as they listen to it. Several wipe their eyes. It turns out we all think about the fruited hats and what it means to have them gone. Of course, when my mother wrote the poem she thought Mrs. Nasters was going to die, but Mrs. Nasters, although she will one day die like the rest of us, is, for now, better. It makes the poem slightly less poignant. I think that it is death alone that makes things poignant.

  Mrs. Merriweather is sitting next to me. It is only when she bends down and whispers in my ear that I notice how gray her hair is. “These things seem to mark the passing of one generation and the movement along the line for the rest of us, as if we are all on a conveyor belt to death.”

  “Jesus, lady, lighten up, you’re giving me the willies,” says Ned.

  “Besides, she seems better,” I say.

  “Shhh,” says Mrs. Parks’s sister, who is sitting right behind us. “I don’t know what you mean by better. She’s dead.”

  “I meant Mrs. Nasters,” I explain.

  “Shhh,” says Mrs. Parks’s sister again.

  My mother goes on. “Sometimes I think the fated car trip was a blessing. Since the thrombosis was going to take her soon, that when it did she was on the happy errand of going to visit a new friend.”

  Dr. Callahan looks up suddenly. He is sitting in the front row. He says in a matter-of-fact voice, “That’s bursitis, Felicity. Not thrombosis.”

  “No, I mean what would have killed her eventually, sooner rather than later, she gave us to believe, was the thrombosis. She was very worried about it,” says my mother, “which is why I was saying—”

  “She didn’t HAVE a thrombosis,” says Dr. Callahan. “She had bursitis. She came to see me for a couple of simple cases of bursitis. One in her heel and one in her shoulder. Very painful but hardly life-threatening.”

  Then he folds his hands and goes back to looking out the window. It is a perfect summer day with wonderful cumulus clouds floating by. All our eyes stray there.

  “Oh dear,” says my mother. “But…” And here she leans down and says this very quietly, meaning to talk only to Dr. Callahan. But it is a small church and we can hear from our seats six rows back. “She thought she had a thrombosis.”

  “Yes, I know,” says Dr. Callahan. “And if I explained the difference once to her, I explained it a dozen times.”

  “But she said you told her she couldn’t travel by air. That her leg would explode.”

  “Nonsense. I would never say such a foolish thing. What I said was that if she took one of those long-haul flights to California she should get up and walk around. That people get blood clots sometimes from sitting for such lengthy periods. It’s what I tell all my patients who take long airplane trips.”

  “Oh,” says my mother.

  There is a pause.

  “Then there was nothing much wrong with her, really?”

  Mrs. Parks’s sister speaks up suddenly. “She wrote to me that she had a thrombosis and could not travel. She said you told her that.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” says Dr. Callahan.

  “Dr. Callahan, please,” says my mother, looking worriedly at Mrs. Parks’s sister. “I know for a fact that if she could have visited her sister she would have. Why, I was driving her there myself at her request because she believed she couldn’t fly.”

  “Nobody drove to see me,” says Mrs. Parks’s sister. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “We never got there,” mumbles my mother.

  “What happened?” demands Mrs. Parks’s sister.

  “Oh, uh,” says my mother, looking uncomfortable, “this and that.”

  “I’m telling you, she was in the PINK of health,” says Dr. Callahan. “And that’s what I told her. The pink. The silly fool wanted to go into the hospital. I made the big mistake of telling her that I had just sent Mrs. Nasters there. It is my opinion that you send one old lady to the hospital and they all want to go.”

  One of the older women in the congregation stands up and leaves the church.

  “Really, Dr. Callahan,” says my mother mildly.

  “All right, all right, the point I’m making is that I wasn’t about to send perfectly healthy old ladies to take up beds at our overcrowded hospital. But she just kept demanding to go to Lincoln Memorial.”

  “I think I can say for certain that my sister had no desire to visit the Lincoln Memorial,” says Mrs. Parks’s sister, looking more and more confused and upset. “She would have told me that.”

  “I felt her thrombosis break up beneath my hands,” bellows Nellie.

  “Balderdash,” says Dr. Callahan. “She had no thrombosis.”

  “Everyone seems to think she had one except you,” says Mrs. Parks’s sister. “It couldn’t be that you’re wrong, could it?”

  “Oh no, the doctor is never wrong,” says a little old lady clearly miffed at Dr. Callahan’s earlier slight.

  “I think it’s all been an unfortunate mistake,” says my mother quietly.

  “Or a case of very bad communication,” says Mrs. Parks’s sister, looking directly at Dr. Callahan.

  “I resent that. I did my very best to communicate to Mrs. Parks exactly what was the matter with her but she was
n’t having it. I told her clearly she had bursitis. I only told her about the blood clots on plane trips because she said she might be flying to see her sister if she couldn’t get out of it….”

  He pauses here meanly and my mother keeps opening her mouth as if maybe the right words will come out on their own, but they don’t.

  “MAYBE,” says Dr. Callahan, “I should start posting everyone’s diagnosis at the town hall so we can all read the straight facts and put a stop to these rumors and people will stop accusing me of telling people they have things that they don’t.”

  “NO!” cry several people in the congregation, and we all turn quickly to see which ones.

  “Well, then,” says Dr. Callahan with a thin smile.

  “Fie on Western medicine!” booms a voice from the back. It is Nellie, who has stood up, but for a second it sounds like the voice of God.

  “I’d say that’s one doctor who’s too big for his britches,” says the little old lady.

  I find her in the audience and wonder why she isn’t wearing a fruited hat.

  “Or one preacher who’s got delusions of grandeur,” says someone else.

  “WELL, SHE WAS A DEAR WOMAN AND I LOVED HER!” shouts my mother above the noise, and this quiets everyone and reminds them why we are here.

  There is a somber silence. Someone has died. Everyone sits quietly for a few minutes. It does not matter suddenly who believes what or who is wrong and in the stillness of that church we say goodbye.

  Later, as everyone is filing out, Mrs. Parks’s sister is heard saying that she expected better from a famous poet.

  Ned puts his arm around my mother’s shoulders and heads down the aisle of the church. My mother promises Mrs. Parks’s sister that she will help her clean out Mrs. Parks’s house on Saturday and this mollifies her somewhat. “Well,” says the sister, sniffing disdainfully. “I suppose really that eulogies are hard to do. I suppose you did the best you could.”

  “Well, of course I did,” says my mother, and Ned leads her out.

  When they get outside Ned asks my mother what she wants to do but she looks preoccupied and doesn’t seem to hear him. She is watching people leave the church and craning her neck as if looking for someone.

  “Not here again,” she says worriedly. “Neither of them. Not Henry and not Caroline. I wonder why.”

  Ned looks suddenly worried as well.

  Everyone Disappears

  My Twelfth Adventure

  The Blackberries Are Ripe

  Saturday morning Ned is gone. I notice it first. I am eating blackberries that my mother has been picking around the house, hoping to get to them before the birds do. She comes in with some more and I say, “Are you going to make blackberry jam soon?”

  The pantry shelves are lined with blueberry jam jars under the raspberry under the strawberry. My mother says, “Shhh, you’ll wake Ned.”

  “He’s not here,” I say. “He was gone when I got up.”

  My mother pulls the living room curtains then and the room is awash in morning light. All traces of Ned are gone.

  “Did he tell you he was going?” I ask anxiously.

  “No. Be careful and wipe up the smears on the table,” says my mother because I have mistakenly put my elbow on a blackberry and it leaves a large purple streak. “Blackberries stain so. Are you going to help me clean out Mrs. Parks’s house?”

  “Can Ginny come too?” I ask.

  “Of course,” says my mother. “Hurry and get her and I’ll meet you there.”

  “What about Maya and Hershel and Max?” I ask. “If Ned is gone.”

  “Oh yes,” says my mother vaguely. She is bustling around with laundry baskets and berries and mops, getting the day in order. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to take them along. What is Mrs. Parks’s sister going to do with those geese?”

  “Where did Ned go?” I ask, thinking I shouldn’t ask.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” says my mother. “Here.” She hands me a cloth to clean up the smushed berry.

  “Don’t you want to know?” His suitcase, which always sits littering the coffee table, is gone now too.

  “Well, he has a tendency to just disappear. At least he used to.”

  “You mean he’s gone for good? Just like that?”

  “Could be,” says my mother, but she seems more concerned about getting Maya and Hershel and Max, who have just awoken, fed and dressed. They will have to walk to Mrs. Parks’s now, I realize. Ned’s car had been nice.

  I run to the new development to find Ginny and bring her to Mrs. Parks’s and by the time we get there my mother is already knee-deep in piles of things that they are sorting for Goodwill and the garbage. Mrs. Parks’s sister is taking little back with her to California.

  We come upon a whole closet of wonderful dresses and shoes from some period of Mrs. Parks’s dress-up life. They are beaded and chiffony.

  “Wow,” says Ginny, reading a label. “Valentino.”

  “My sister’s first husband was a movie producer,” says Mrs. Parks’s sister. “She was only married to him for three years.” She whispers something in my mother’s ear and my mother’s eyes get large. Then Mrs. Parks’s sister resumes her normal tones. “All she took away from that marriage were these wonderful clothes. Still, I’m surprised she kept them all these years. I wouldn’t think she’d want to remember. Gee, what to do with them? They’re not really Goodwill and they’re certainly not garbage.”

  “Can I have them?” asks Ginny, and her cheeks are flushed. “Please.”

  “I guess they would make wonderful dress-up clothes,” says Mrs. Parks’s sister. “Yes, take them. I’m not carting them all the way to California, that’s for sure.”

  “Some of these are probably worth a lot of money,” says my mother, holding up something that even I can tell is just wonderful.

  “Ech,” says Mrs. Parks’s sister. “Maybe. If I wanted to go to all that bother. But I plan to dispose of all of this before I fly back. Let the girls have them for play.”

  “I’m not going to play dress-up,” says Ginny. “I would never use these for something like that. These are art. I’m going to study them. These are like a textbook, do you understand?”

  “No,” says Mrs. Parks’s sister, not looking very interested either.

  “Ginny wants to be a dress designer,” I say.

  We are examining everything and tripping on things and generally getting in the way when there is a scream from outside. A goose has bitten Hershel and he’s bleeding. My mother calms him down and asks Ginny and me if we will please take him and Max and Maya to the beach.

  So we take all the designer clothes and Max and Hershel and Maya and drop the clothes at Ginny’s house. She grabs her sketchbook and we head with the children down to the beach, where Ginny says, “I was in such despair, Jane. All I had in my life was soccer camp. Everything I wanted to do this summer was destroyed. Now I can come home every night and know that I have these clothes to study. It makes all the difference, do you understand? I can see firsthand how they are finished, how they are tailored, how they are designed. I had almost given up but now this is a sign. You believe in signs, don’t you?”

  I say I don’t know if there are signs but everybody seems to be looking for them.

  Max and Hershel keep coming up to me and Ginny and complaining. We are not fun like Ned. He builds them forts. He makes them tunnels. We just sit there and yap together.

  So Ginny decides we will build them a boat. She gets some driftwood and goes to her house for nails and a hammer from her garage. She and I nail together a raft. It is quite respectable-looking. Then she gets a piece of kelp and hands one end to Hershel. The big, bulbous end she buries under a rock on the shore. The sea is calm today with practically no waves.

  “My mom doesn’t let them in the water without an adult,” I say worriedly.

  “They aren’t in the water, they’re on a raft,” she says. “Besides, look. I have it anchored with that rock and as long as H
ershel doesn’t let go of his end they won’t go anywhere. And Hershel, you’re not going to let go of your end, are you?” she asks with such a scary face that he just shakes his head, his eyes large with worry.

  “Good boy. Now you can pretend you are sailing to China.”

  She and I go back to sketching dresses. She sketches some of Mrs. Parks’s dresses and then shows how she could design something similar based on them. Maya has her own little game going with some gull feathers and beads that Ginny has given her. She is talking quietly to herself.

  We grow tired and lie on our towels soaking up sun and I think Ginny is sketching but when I look up later she has fallen asleep.

  I hear, “Whale! Whale!” now and then but I am so used to Max saying this that I pay no attention. Then through my sun-soaked fog I realize it is not Max but Maya. And Maya never calls “Whales!”

  I turn. The boys’ raft is no longer floating attached to the shore. Hershel has forgotten to hang on to the kelp, and the raft is out to sea. And they are not alone. There is a whale. I see just the tip of the tail as it goes under. It is too close to the raft but the boys don’t notice it because they are facing the wrong way. Beyond them further out is a rowboat and in it, what I am sure is the clothes hanger man, still in his too-big suit. Even in my panic it occurs to me that it is an odd thing to wear rowing. He is making his way to the boys.

  I do not even bother to wake Ginny. I make not a sound because there is no time or spit for it but run into the water and start to swim toward the raft. The boys see me coming and smile and point. They don’t seem to care that they are drifting out to sea. They are idiots. I am suddenly furious at them but know I cannot say anything to panic them. I am glad they are idiots. They will stay calm. I do not know who will get to them first, the whale, the clothes hanger man or me.

  Just as I grab the edge of the raft and start to signal with one hand to the clothes hanger man that I have it, a huge crest of water arises behind the rowboat. The rowboat lifts with the powerful wake as the whale surfaces and I hear the clothes hanger man cry, “Maaaaaaaaaax!” Then the boat, the whale and the man all go under together.