There Was an Old Woman

by Hallie Ephron

  “They had her so blitzed out on pain medication and tranquilizers and anticonvulsants, she barely even opened her eyes.”

  Anticonvulsants would be for delirium tremens. Her mother had had those before, after she “fell down the stairs” and fifteen-year-old Evie found her unconscious.

  “Ask her yourself,” Ginger said. “You are going over, aren’t you?”

  “Right now,” Evie said, getting out of the car. She walked out of the garage and pulled the garage door down with a whump. “But I bet this will be just like the last time she crashed. And—”

  “Yeah, right,” Ginger cut her off. “As if you even know what it was like the last time. Or the time before that. You’d cut and run.”

  Evie didn’t say anything. Her fingers cramped around the phone as she walked toward the bus stop.

  “You think she’s jerking us around again, don’t you?” Ginger said. “That this is one more fire drill designed to get our attention? Well, it’s not. So brace yourself.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  A little while later, Mina looked out her kitchen window and saw Sandra Ferrante’s daughter walking up the street as she talked on her cell phone. She wondered why she’d decided not to drive her mother’s car. Family could be so complicated.

  Cats, on the other hand, made lovely, undemanding companions who required nothing more than food, water, and a little bit of attention. Ivory had emerged from under the couch and threaded her way back and forth across Mina’s legs.

  Mina put a package of frozen chicken on a plate to thaw, high on a shelf out of the cat’s reach. She’d make a pot of her mother’s chicken cacciatore. Neither Mina nor Annabelle had been particularly close to their mother, who had been, for the most part, as perfunctory a cook as she was a parent. She’d lavished attention on their brother, and later on his grave after he died at twenty-one in Iwo Jima.

  Mina would have liked to have had a child. A daughter, she thought. But she’d been far too old to start a family by the time she and Henry married, though for the first few years they’d tried. So now Brian was the closest thing she had. And she was the closest thing to a parent he had left.

  Mina fished the replica of the Empire State Building from her pocket and set it back on the mantel in the living room. It was uncanny how the girl zeroed in on it. She looked out the living room window, across the driveway to Sandra Ferrante’s. The girl had left her mother’s windows wide open. The house must have been in desperate need of a thorough airing out.

  At least Sandra Ferrante’s house looked lived-in. The house on the other side had been dark and unoccupied all winter. Why someone hadn’t broken in, she couldn’t fathom. The Jamesons hadn’t even left timers on the lights. Whoever was supposed to be taking care of the property was doing so haphazardly, and Mina had to keep clearing away flyers that accumulated in the storm door.

  Now Angela Quintanilla had gone and died, and her house would be empty, too—which reminded Mina. She should write a condolence card and drop it at Angela’s house. If the family was there, she’d stop in and pay her respects.

  From a drawer, Mina pulled out the pile of sympathy cards she’d purchased over the years. She hated ones that were religiously preachy, or sappily poetic, or so euphemistic that you couldn’t even tell someone had died. She picked out one with a spray of lily of the valley against a pale blue background. Inside was the message Sorry for your loss.

  She settled in her chair and began to write in a careful hand: “Angela was a lovely person, and I was so sad to hear of her—” Mina stopped. Passing? She hated the euphemism. But death felt cruel somehow, though it was perfectly accurate. Not that it mattered. She remembered she’d barely read the condolence cards that she’d received after her Henry and later Annabelle died. Just receiving them had been a comfort.

  She finished writing the note, then licked and sealed the flap.

  Mina had been to Angela Quintanilla’s home a few times over the years. As she recalled, it was a few blocks up along the water. She could drive, but it would do her good to walk. She tried to take a brisk walk every day, even if it was only to the store and back.

  She changed into comfortable shoes and put on her car coat. As she started up the street, on past Sandra Ferrante’s forlorn-looking house, she remembered from the obituary that Angela’s funeral was at St. Andrews. Annabelle’s little memorial service had been held there, too. The turnout had been respectable but sparse. When you died old, not many people who really knew you were left. Mina had been surprised when her new neighbor, that Frank Cutler, had shown up. Though he’d been nice enough, she doubted if he could have picked Annabelle out of an old lady lineup.

  After two blocks, Mina paused to rest for a few moments and button her coat. With the sun low it had turned chilly. She’d forgotten how far up Angela’s house was. As she continued walking, she wondered whether the house would go on the market. It was a sweet bungalow with white shingles and candy-apple trim, though it probably needed work. She hoped it would be bought by someone who appreciated its quirky charm. Who’d love the view and want to protect the marsh.

  She paused to catch her breath again a half block farther along in front of an empty lot that she didn’t remember being there. She turned up her collar. It didn’t seem possible that Angela’s house was this far away. Was it?

  Sure enough, when she turned to look behind her, there was Angela’s house. No wonder she’d missed it. One of the front windows was cracked. Another had a hole in it. Battered asphalt roof shingles littered the ground, and what might once have been chrysanthemums in window boxes were nothing but dried twigs.

  A bright yellow sign stuck to the front door read WARNING. Sagging yellow tape strung between sawhorses across the start of a cracked concrete front walkway told passersby to KEEP OUT.

  Mina took a quick look around her, raised the tape with her cane, and stepped under it. She marched up to the front door. Where there had once been a doorbell, two wires stuck out of the door frame. She pulled the storm door open and rapped on the front door with her cane. She didn’t expect anyone to answer, but she did want to get a better look.

  Wedged inside the storm door, partially hidden by the yellow warning sign taped to the outside, was a smaller official-looking notice, also on bright yellow paper. Across the top it said WORK PERMIT, and below that DEPARTMENT OF BUILDINGS.

  Mina plucked it from the door frame and held it close so she could read the fine print. It had been issued a few days ago, Thursday, May 16. That had been the day after Angela died.

  Mina felt a chill when she read what was checked off under DESCRIPTION OF WORK.

  Demolition and removal.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was past five when Evie stepped off the bus in front of Bronx Metropolitan Hospital. The building was covered in white brick and, typical of so many big buildings that had gone up in the 1960s, tiered like a wedding cake. A broad cantilevered canopy covered the entrance. A siren flared as an ambulance drove off, then fell silent when the glass door slid shut behind Evie.

  She made her way through the crowded lobby to the information desk, where she got her mother’s room number. As she walked to the elevators a pale woman with reddened eyes stumbled past with her cell phone to her ear. Another woman rushed across the lobby, carrying an enormous gift bag and a bunch of pink helium balloons.

  Hospitals ushered people in and out, and hosted all manner of crises in between, she thought as she rode a crowded elevator to the eighth floor. But no amount of intellectualizing could ease the anxiety that built in the pit of her stomach the closer she got to her mother’s room.

  She exited the elevator onto a hushed floor, the only sound the metal clatter of a hospital cart and the shush of elevator doors closing. Room 8231. Evie stood for a few moments outside the door to her mother’s room.

  Brace yourself. Ginger’s words came back to her.

  Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the door and stepped inside.

  Evie b
arely recognized her mother. Thin and haggard, she was propped up in the hospital bed nearest to the door. Her once lustrous auburn curls had turned a flat slate gray and stood out from her skull like the puff of a ripe dandelion.

  Another patient was sleeping in the bed by the window. Evie drew the curtain between the beds and pulled over a chair.

  Her mother seemed to be asleep, too. Her cheeks, flushed with broken blood vessels, gave the illusion of robust health. Her eyes were closed, but the lids trembled as if she were dreaming. One arm was taped to her chest. Her other hand rested on the bedcovers, the nails stained yellow with nicotine. Evie winced at the dark bruising on the back of her hand where an IV line fed into a purple vein.

  It’s just a movie. That was what Evie used to tell herself whenever things got ugly, when her mother woke her and Ginger in the middle of the night, transformed into the banshee that she became when she and her father were fighting drunk. On nights like that, Evie and Ginger hid under their beds and tried to sleep. When it was warm enough, they crept outside with their blankets and pillows and slept in the backyard. Or in the car. They’d occasionally take refuge in Mrs. Yetner’s garage.

  Evie’s mother had never, ever copped to having a drinking problem. Maybe she didn’t remember her bouts of drunkenness; maybe she simply chose not to. Perhaps pride kept her from admitting, even to herself, that she could behave so monstrously.

  What Evie felt now, looking at the much diminished figure in the bed, wasn’t pity, and it certainly wasn’t rage. How could it be? After all, her mother had so utterly defeated herself.

  Evie leaned forward, resting her head in her arms on the side of the bed. She felt sad and completely exhausted, and she let those feelings wash over her, barely aware of voices and footsteps from the hall, the snoring of the woman in the other bed, announcements that came over the loudspeakers.

  The next thing she felt was a light touch on the side of her head. Her mother was stroking her hair, the same way she did when Evie was a little girl. For a few moments, Evie surrendered to it. Then she raised her head.

  Her mother was looking across at her, smiling. “You came.” Those once clear dark brown eyes seemed cloudy. Without another word, her mother pushed herself to a seated position with her good arm and swung her thin legs off the bed. Evie took her mother’s arm and steadied her as she got to her feet and slid her feet into slippers that were sitting by the bed. Evie rolled the IV rack along after as her mother took one shuffling step after another to the bathroom. The thin hospital gown hung loose. Her silhouette was like those starving children she’d seen in photographs, belly distended and arms and legs stick thin. Through the open back of the hospital gown, Evie could see that her mother’s back was mottled with bruises.

  Her mother waved off Evie’s offer to come into the bathroom with her. Evie waited outside the door. And waited. And then helped her mother back into bed.

  “Water?” Evie asked. Her mother nodded. Evie poured water from the plastic pitcher on the bedside table into a glass with a straw in it. Her mother sipped. The water level had barely receded before her mother made a face and pulled away.

  Evie put the water back on the table.

  Her mother held her gaze for a moment.

  “How are you feeling?” Evie said, because she didn’t know what else to say.

  Her mother shook her head and closed her eyes.

  Evie said, “Your neighbor, the man from across the street? He stopped by the house.”

  Her mother gave her a startled look.

  “I didn’t know you were friendly with him. He offered to repair—”

  “Did you let him in?” her mother asked, anxiety flaring in her eyes.

  “No,” Evie said, glad that she hadn’t. “I told him thanks but no thanks.”

  Her mother started to say something more, but a nurse came into the room. As the nurse wrapped a blood-pressure cuff around her arm, her mother said under her breath, “So he knows I’m here?”

  “Mom, everyone in the neighborhood knows you’re here. The ambulance—remember?”

  Her mother winced and let her head drop back on the pillow, her lips a thin tight line as the nurse pumped air into the cuff. The nurse released it slowly, gave the cuff a puzzled look, and pumped it a second time. This time she seemed satisfied. She checked the IV, wrote something in the chart hanging on the end of the bed, and left.

  “God, what I wouldn’t give for a smoke,” her mother said.

  Evie realized that the nurse had left a wake of cigarette-scented air in the small room.

  “Mom, the health department is threatening to condemn the house.”

  “The house?” Her mother blinked several times, like she was absorbing this information.

  “It’s an awful mess. I’m going to need money to get the house cleaned up and repaired.”

  “I can take care of it. There’s money,” her mother said with a vague wave. “Plenty of money. When I get home.”

  “When you—?” Evie wondered if Ginger could have been wrong about how sick her mother was. “The doctor told you when you can go home?”

  “Soon. When I’m ready.” With her good arm, her mother pushed herself up straighter. Her face turned pink. “I’m not a child, you know. So don’t think you can just move in and take over.”

  Evie wasn’t sure she’d heard right. “What?” she asked. “Mom, I—”

  “That’s what you do, isn’t it?” Her mother’s face reddened some more. “Boss everyone around. Take charge. Oh yes, Evie knows what’s best for everyone. Everyone except herself. As if you care a twig about what happens to me.”

  Whiplash. That’s what she and Ginger had called it when the switch flipped. Only she couldn’t be drinking. Not here in the hospital.

  Her mother grabbed Evie’s wrist and squeezed so hard that it hurt. “Stop looking at me like that. I can’t stand it when you talk down to me. ”

  Her mother’s breath was sour, but there was no alcohol on it, Evie thought in a disconnected corner of her brain as she tried to yank her arm free. But her mother’s grip had frozen like a vise. “I was only asking so—”

  “I was only asking,” her mother mimicked.

  Evie was speechless with fury and bottled-up hurt.

  “I . . . don’t . . . need . . . you or anyone else,” her mother said through gritted teeth. “Don’t you even think—” The final word died on her lips as she shuddered. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and her body went rigid with spasms.

  “Mom?” Evie jumped up. “Mom? Mom! Help!”

  She groped for the emergency call button. Over and over she pressed it. Her mother lay there quaking. Was anyone coming to help?

  Evie ran out in the hall and headed for the nurses’ station. A nurse met her halfway. By the time they got back to the room, her mother had gone slack. Heart pounding, Evie watched the nurse take her mother’s pulse.

  A moment later, her mother’s eyes blinked open. A sheen of sweat coated her forehead and her gaze wandered about the room, across the nurse, until it fastened on Evie.

  “You came!” she said.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Going home from the hospital, Evie rode by herself in the back of the bus. She rubbed her wrist, trying to erase the sensation that she was still in her mother’s grip. She pushed up her sleeve, sure there’d be a mark, but there wasn’t. In the end, the damage her mother wrought was invisible.

  She took out her phone. She’d promised to call Ginger.

  “Evie?” Ginger said, picking up on the first ring.

  “You were right. This time it’s different.”

  “I know. So?”

  “So.” Evie could see her mother’s face, all hope and innocence when she’d woken up after her seizure. “One minute she’s talking to me, normal, you know? The next minute she’s bat-shit crazy. Saying the meanest things.”

  “Oh, Evie. Surely you know by now that you shouldn’t get upset by anything that she says. The doctors have her all doped
up on loads of medication.”

  “It was more than being doped up. She’s screaming at me. Telling me to stop trying to tell her what to do with her life. Then she shudders and goes blank. She’s not there. And she’s not there. And I’m starting to panic because she’s still not there. And then, just like that, she’s awake again. And she recognizes me. But”—Evie swallowed the lump in her throat—“she thinks I just showed up. It was like something out of Groundhog Day.”

  “Oh, Evie,” Ginger said.

  “Did you notice her belly?” Evie asked.

  “I know, it’s awful. The nurse calls it ascites. It’s a symptom of late-stage liver disease.”

  “Late stage? What does that mean?”

  “Didn’t you talk to Dr. Foran?”

  “Didn’t I—?” Evie stopped herself from biting back. Ginger never meant her Didn’t-yous to come out in the know-it-all, passive-aggressive way that they did. “There were no doctors around, and until this minute I didn’t even know her doctor’s name.”

  “I’ll text you the phone number.”

  “Thank you.”

  “So what’s your plan?” Ginger asked.

  “My plan?”

  “Tonight? Tomorrow?”

  Evie had assumed she’d sleep at the house, but she hadn’t bargained for the mess, not to mention the smell. But what was the alternative? It would take an hour and a half to get home to Brooklyn and another hour and a half back tomorrow morning.

  “I’ll probably stay there tonight,” Evie said.

  “You’ll be okay?”

  “I’ll be fine. If not, I’ll go home.”

  “See what you can figure out about her finances,” Ginger said. “If there are unpaid bills lying around. Maybe you can find a current bank statement?”

  Evie yawned. The day was catching up with her. “I asked her about money.”

  “And?”

  “She says there’s plenty.”

  “Really? Well, la-di-da.”

  “It’s a good thing, too, because between fixing the house so she can live in it and getting her some help when they send her back home, it’s going to be expensive.” The bus was getting near her stop. Evie stood and walked to the front.