Trading Dreams at Midnight

by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

  They started moving again and now they were on the expressway and Nan held herself from more talk. She thought instead about the layette she’d been working on to sell at the church’s grand flea market scheduled for the first Saturday in March. The bonnet and booties were near perfect, cream-colored edged in pink and blue thread. The blanket, though, hadn’t yielded that sense of contentment that she usually got from a finished piece of work. She’d taken apart the blanket several times, undone the footed portions and the pockets she’d designed that she’d thought at the time so clever. She pondered over the fix. Imagined the pockets at an angle, maybe a double top stitch around the pouch where the feet would go. And then she cleared her mind because the van had just entered the grounds of the nursing home. Lavish grounds with formal gardens and ponds and cobblestone walkways. Counted her blessings every time she came here that a social worker had been worth her salt and been tenacious in getting Albert placed here for the price of what Medicare would pay plus his monthly disability check, though the accommodations, the level of care were worth much more.

  She stopped at the desk to sign herself in. Said, “Tom, how do,” to the desk clerk, a retired doorman from one of the apartment buildings in town.

  “Nan, good as ever to see you,” he replied, and the truly discerning would have captured the ripple in the air between them that carried the memory of their long conversations a decade ago where they talked about the Bible and hope and joy and their own dreams that been deferred. He was recently widowed at the time and Nan thought herself the same, given Alfred’s condition.

  She walked the marble corridor lined with pictures of silver-haired white men in glasses. Took the double-wide elevator to Alfred’s floor and stepped into the lounge area filled with activity where the capable gathered in their wheelchairs, the truly fortunate on their own two legs, as a guitar player led them in the singing of “Frère Jacques.” The air hung with the scent of muted urine and peppermint and Nan had the thought that all the money in the world couldn’t stop a person’s pee from smelling. Though Alfred’s room didn’t smell like pee, smelled like Old Spice aftershave and minty mouthwash and the Brylcreem that Nan supplied for the daily use on his hair.

  Alfred was dressed in his black visiting suit and his white shirt. Nan checked the neckline to make sure that the shirt was fresh, checked Alfred’s ears to see that they’d been cleaned, his cuticles to ensure that his nail beds were well oiled. Those little things told her all she needed to know about how he’d been cared for otherwise. Plus that preoccupation delayed her looking at his face, at his eyes that were likely staring off in fascination at the painting of grapes and apples in a brass bowl that hung on the wall over his dresser, or squinting at the high hedge of holly and the Japanese cherry outside his window.

  Nan puttered around his side of the room opening and closing his drawers, taking inventory of his undershirts and boxer shorts. She hummed “Lullabye of Birdland,” one of his favorite songs. That usually brought his attention to her. It did now and she pulled a chair in close to his and sat so that their knees practically touched. She lifted both his hands and got a surge from the feel of them. They were large and meaty and warm. “Magic hands,” Freeda used to say. “My daddy’s inside goodness comes out through his hands.”

  “My, my, my, you sure are looking handsome today, Alfred,” Nan said as she squeezed his hands, told herself that he returned the squeeze. Now she looked at his face, finally, at his eyes that moved slowly to take her presence in. His eyes held on her face and she looked away and laughed a nervous laugh. Felt so shaky on the inside with his eyes completely on her and she almost wished that his roommate was there now. Alfred’s latest roommate was an irritating man with Alzheimer’s who’d occasionally mistake Alfred for one of his employees at the string of Speedy Printing shops he owned and he’d start congratulating himself in a booming voice for not having a prejudiced bone in his body as he’d point to Alfred and say, “Just look at how I’ve advanced the colored.” Nan had gotten in his ear once and told him to lower his voice and go advance his momma and he’d scampered to get out of the room calling for his mother as Nan felt both guilt and pleasure over what she’d just done.

  But the roommate wasn’t here to distract her from the feel of Alfred’s eyes completely on her and she detected that look in his eye that she’d see from time to time when she visited. It was a look that whispered Please, please, not unlike the way he’d look at her when he still had reasonable physical health back when, after asking Alfred to leave, Nan had allowed him back to live in their Delancey Street row house, which meant her severing the discreet affair she’d begun with Mr. Edwards. She never knew if Alfred had knowledge of the relationship, but sometimes when she’d return from a long evening of fitting the cast of the Christmas play for their costumes, spent and satisfied after engaging hersef in work that she loved; or returning from an extended Sunday afternoon of visiting with people on the sick and shut-in list, her face lightly powdered, her hair pulled back in a soft bun, her pretty mouth pressed with the muted shade of red lipstick she wore; or even if she’d overstayed a run to Cook’s corner store and got involved in a gossipy conversation with Cook’s wife who knew the inner workings of most of the households up and down Delancey Street, a secret smile hanging from Nan’s mouth when she pushed through the door home over the juicy tidbits she’d been served; she’d detect that look in Alfred’s eyes, a longing mingled with a sad resignation as if he wanted to beg her please don’t withhold the truth over where she’d been, even as he accepted that he couldn’t change the truth of the past.

  After he’d been placed here at the Springside Nursing Home, she’d wonder if the look she was seeing now was the result of a yearning in Alfred for Nan to finish a conversation she’d started some fifteen years ago that she’d abandoned and never reclaimed. Since a series of strokes took away Alfred’s ability to speak, she couldn’t know for sure, though once many years ago when Alfred still had fine motor skills and could communicate through writing, he was printing in large block letters that Nan looked pretty, then he switched suddenly to an almost indecipherable script and wrote, Please, Nan, say it, just say it once and for all. Nan pretended to not know what he meant. Though she did know.

  Right now she chattered on about the weather. “Hope you been spending time out in this bright sunshine we been having, Alfred,” she said. “Though I told them to make sure they keep you in long johns ’til the crocuses start pushing through, I don’t care how warm it gets. I don’t care if it goes up to ninety outside. We got a different kind of blood from them; we’ll catch the grippe for sure if we take off too many layers before the air changes for good.”

  She saw his lips come together tightly, saw his jaw shift, felt his hands slacken and she let his hands go. “Okay, so you don’t want to hear about the weather,” she said as she got up and walked to the window and looked out on the splendid scene of earth and trees and the deep blue of the daytime sky. “Well then, you want to hear about Tish? Still touch and go with her situation so of course I been spending a lotta time at her bedside.” She walked to Alfred’s back and stroked his thinning strands of hair. “You know Tish told me a story I never heard before. Told me that Neena ran away once when she was sixteen. Though she got no further than Sam and Goldie’s. Isn’t that something? I never had a clue because she was back before daybreak. Anyhow, Tish said Neena was struck that night by Sam and Goldie’s love for each other. She called it a mighty love and told Tish to hold out for such a love. That was a large something for her to say to Tish, wasn’t it, Alfred? I must admit. I never thought to instruct Tish so. Mnh.” She leaned in then and kissed the top of Alfred’s head. “Though I couldda told her how a mighty love feels. Couldn’t I, Alfred? What you talking.” She chuckled. “We had us a mighty love. My, my, my. Yes we did.”

  She looked down from where she stood and saw that his hands were balled into fists. She began massaging his back. “Okay,” she said. “You irritated with me, I k
now. I can tell by how tightly you got your fists balled. You not satisfied unless I’m confessing like a Catholic school girl the morning after prom night. Right, Alfred? Let me see. What can I tell you about my recent soul-searching? Okay, so I will tell you about a mistake I made. This darm blanket I’m working on for the flea market. It just occurred to me as I’m standing here that the color border is too deep, too overwhelming. You know me, Alfred, I never see the mistakes in my design while I’m right there at the sewing machine; it’s always hours, sometimes days later when my attention is elsewhere and my error taps me on my shoulder and introduces itself.”

  She walked over to his nightstand and fingered the leather Bible resting there. The red satin ribbon page marker had been moved, she could tell, because last week she’d read to Alfred from David; the ribbon had been moved to the New Testament to Luke and she figured it likely that one of the workers was a good Baptist and had taken it upon herself to read a few verses to Alfred. She made a note to find out who it was so that she could make sure to put a few dollars in a card to give them on the next holiday to come up. Easter that would be.

  She was back in the chair facing him. His head was bent and she thought he may have fallen asleep the way he seemed to do more often after the lastest stroke. “Alfred,” she said softly and he didn’t raise his head. “She called me last night, Neena. She called in the middle of the night. Isn’t that something? Called when she knew I’d be at home to pick up. Really me she wanted to talk to this time.”

  Alfred lifted his head. His eyes were blank for a time and Nan was patient until his eyes focused again on her face and she could see that he recognized her. “So the blanket, Alfred, the error I was telling you about, I think I can correct it by bordering it with a softer color. Now why your eyes going all downcast on me, Alfred? What do you want me to say anyhow? You want to hear more about Neena’s call? Sure you do. I declare, I think Neena’s your favorite, isn’t she? Don’t worry, I won’t tell Tish. Mnh.” She was quiet for a minute as she folded and refolded her hands in her lap. Then her nose started to run so she reached behind her to where she’d hung her purse on the back of her chair and pulled out her handkerchief. “I will say that that call touched me some place deep,” she said as she dabbed at her nose, trying to avoid her red lipstick, though it smeared the handkerchief anyhow.

  Alfred’s fingers were curling against his thighs trying to go to fists and Nan lifted his right hand first and began pulling and massaging his fingers one at a time. “Yeah, let’s loosen you up in your hands,” she said. She looked at his face then and his eyes went big and soft, the way they had that first time when they stared at each other through the window of Sam’s deli. “Oh Lord, Alfred. There you go with that those goo-goo eyes that I never could resist. All right all ready. I’ll say it, Alfred. I was wrong for the way I treated her. Neena, I’m talking ’bout. You happy now, I’m saying it out loud. I was wrong. Lord knows I was wrong.” She placed his hand atop his thigh and lifted his left hand and began pulling and massaging each of those fingers. “I put all my soft attention on Tish, I surely did. Then I gave Neena the mean shavings of myself. Mnh. Father forgive me, I guess I was doing the best I had in me to do at the time, but it was wrong. And the ironic thing is that Tish was likely gonna succeed in life regardless, Tish was just made up for success. A quick quiet study Tish always been. Faithful. Never bragged, always allowed her good works to do the talking on her behalf. Plus I must say that Tish adored me. You know when someone’s looking up at you like, you’re the bright morning sun rising in the sky; it’s almost impossible to show them your harsher side.” She finished the fingers on his left hand. She rubbed his wedding band and then lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it. She sighed, then she continued talking. “Tish used to ask me often if she could live with me forever whether or not Freeda returned. It would fill me up and empty me at the same time when she asked such a thing. On the one hand I loved the adoration we shared; on the other hand I knew that Freeda should of been the recipient.

  “But now Neena made no secret of the torture she felt living with me. Face generally frowned up. Always whining, wanting to know how long before Freeda came to take them home. Neena’s off-putting ways were like thick fingers poking around inside of my chest until they came up on that tender wound that was Freeda’s absence; Neena would push and push right where the wound was open and raw.”

  She stopped talking to blow her nose. Her voice was soupy when she started talking again. “I guess it’s small wonder that I would just as soon backhand Neena to the mouth as hug her. I shudder to think about the chastisements she suffered through. The night I was just telling you about when Neena ran away, well earlier that day I had gone to a lovely mother-daughter tea with Tish. It was a soft afternoon. And then when I walked back in the house I just exploded on Neena. Not that I didn’t have some cause. Hettie around the corner had leaned over her bannister and whispered to me that she saw that boy from Richmond hanging around in my backyard with Neena and then a little while later she saw just their empty outline, and then after that saw the boy walking through the alley away from my yard. So I had some cause to extract an explanation from Neena. But I really beat her that day, Alfred. Went way beyond a chastisement for her sneaking a boy in the house when I wasn’t home. I hit her over and over with my open hand hard as I could—” She stopped and swallowed and looked at her hands as if she was asking her hands how could they have done such a thing. “As I’m telling you about it, Alfred, I’m seeing it for what it was. Lord Jesus, Alfred. You know what had happened just the night prior? Freeda had crept into the girls’ bedroom, yes she had. And I was on fire with emotion: relief that she was still among the living, but then, too, anger and hurt and grief and missing, oh the missing, Lord Jesus. The missing is what tears the heart wide open. All during the tea that afternoon, I listened to all the girls Tish’s age saying Mom this, and Mother that, and Mommy come meet so and so. So I was missing Freeda for me, for my own longing, my own heartache, then I was missing her on Tish’s behalf too. And then I got home to Neena’s face looking at me like she hated me, and well I guess she compounded the hate I was feeling for myself. I hated myself that I wasn’t able to cure my child. My beautiful cherub-cheeked daughter. I guess that’s why Neena and I had such combative spirits toward each other. Guess we were both feeling in ourselves an essential failing that we’d not been able to make Freeda stay put.”

  She dabbed her nose again and then folded her hands in her lap. Alfred’s hands were twitching now and she reached in and grabbed a hold of his hands. “I guess you just bursting you so glad I’m unshackling myself like this, huh, Alfred? Mnh. Guess I am too.”

  They sat like that with Nan holding on to Alfred’s hands. His back was to the window and the day’s brilliance spread out around him. Then she heard Alfred make a sound from deep in his throat and she realized that she must have gone into a semi-trance; she’d certainly lost track of time because she was aware suddenly how much the sun had moved while she sat there; now a dimmer light poked Alfred’s back. He was staring at Nan, that pleading look in his eye again. This time she didn’t distract herself from the look; this time she allowed the look to have its way with her, to rankle her, to shake loose the words that had been trapped and lodged for too long.

  “It was the medical examiner’s office that called me fifteen years ago, Alfred. Yes it was. Yes it was. Fifteen years ago this month it was.” She squeezed his hands, then placed them palms-down on his thighs. She wrapped her arms around her chest and rocked herself. “I guess you knew. Guess it’s been that long since she slipped in here and moved the chair close up to your bed and slept with her body in the chair and her head resting on your chest. I knew all about it. Gentleman who works on the front desk would tell me. Said the staff allowed it since otherwise she caused no disruption. Relieved my spirit to know it too, that she was finding her way periodically to you.

  “That man had such a somber voice when he identified himself. I
’clare for God, Alfred, the walls and ceilings collapsed on me and I felt as if I was being buried alive because I knew that the medical examiner only called to inform you that a next of kin had died. This one was calling from Cleveland. Last I knew, Freeda was in Cleveland. But Neena was in Cleveland too. He said, ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this—’ and I actually crawled along the floor with the phone receiver in my hand, pulling the phone base crashing down from the nightstand along with a crystal vase that contained a spray of baby’s breaths left over from the rose bouquet Tish had sent me for Valentine’s Day. But I had to get to the side of the bed where I kneeled every night to say my prayers. I needed to pray right then before the voice gave me the name that it was sorry to have to tell me about. Needed to pray that it not be Neena. Please don’t let this devastation be about Neena, I prayed. Neena was still so young, Neena still had a chance at life. Please, I asked the Lord, not Neena. Let it be Freeda and not Neena. Freeda was tortured, Alfred, you know it. She was tired. She deserved to rest. Her poor, sweet sick mind, she was sick. Our beautiful dream of a daughter had just been so sick. I prayed so hard in the space of time that it took the M.E. to say a name. Please give my daughter a resting place in your arms, Sweet Jesus, I prayed. Please kiss her eyelids like I used to do, Lord. Give her peace. Take her, not Neena, please Lord, not Neena. I prayed for our daughter to have peace, and our granddaughter, life.

  “And then the voice did say a name, said Freeda’s name, and I was awash in gratitude that Neena had been spared. Until it settled in that I had lost my child. I learned in an instant that morning that the vessel that holds human suffering is boundless; it expands, Alfred. Yes it does. And not only that, it’ll change shape on you so it won’t spill over, so that all of the grief can be contained and not a drop go without you feeling the full boat of pain. The vessel that held my grief was shaped in the form of a C, the shape of Freeda when she’d fall asleep on the bed between us. Remember that, Alfred. Lord, Jesus. I stayed on my bedroom floor, flattened for the next day and night after the call. I was completely shrouded in grief. But it’s like I heard your voice, Alfred. It’s like I heard you saying, ‘Nan, get on up from that floor.’ I responded to the sound of your voice and got up. My grief sifted higher and higher, became more like a canopy than a coffin, became something that I could walk through.