by Sarah Willis
Jazz take my mother for a walk? Just when I thought everything was back to normal, my daughter has become someone else in the few hours she has been at school. But my heart tells me differently. She hasn’t changed since this morning, she has been changing for a while now and I just haven’t noticed. “Chicken Kiev,” I say.
“Great!” She runs up to her bedroom and slams the door behind her, just like always. And she still likes Chicken Kiev.
Just before I serve dinner, I ask Todd to light the candles. It’s been a long time since we ate a meal with the candles lit, and he looks at me warily as if I have asked him to let wild animals into the house. It’s just candles, I think, but we both know it’s not just candles. I’m trying to make this a nice dinner, but something tells me he’s not in the mood for a nice dinner. For the past month he’s been working twelve hours a day, but the job is almost done, and he’s home for dinner at a decent time tonight.
I call Jazz. She comes skipping down the stairs and, bracing herself with one hand on the banister, jumps over the gate, landing with a thump on the hardwood floor. I see Todd wince. I know he’ll go over there later and check the floor for skid marks from Jazz’s dark-soled shoes. He’s asked us to take our shoes off in the house, but we forget.
“Jazz, don’t jump over the gate,” I snap.
“Fine,” she says. But that doesn’t mean she’ll stop jumping over the gate. She says fine because then, what’s there to argue about, she agreed, didn’t she?
“Candles?” Jazz asks as she sits down.
“Looks nice, doesn’t it?” I say. Todd doesn’t chip in with a sure does.
The dinner’s on the table, and Jazz digs right in. Todd waits for me to pick up my fork. His hair’s still damp. “How was work?” I ask.
“Not good,” he says, and starts to eat.
“Why?”
“We were sanding floors in an attic. Ever carry a floor sander up two flights of stairs?”
Obviously I haven’t. “No. It’s heavy?” I say, just trying to make conversation.
“Yes.”
Jazz watches us. She knows something’s up.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Nothing for you to be sorry about.”
We’re quiet for a while and I’m just about to ask Jazz how school was, when Todd clears his throat.
“So, what happened at the nursing home?”
“She wouldn’t even get out of the car,” I say.
“So you just drove away?”
I’m getting pretty tired of the short, sharp tone he’s using. “I almost pulled her bodily from the car and onto the asphalt, if that makes you feel better, but I just wasn’t strong enough.”
Now he stares at me. He’s stopped eating.
“The good news, though, is she’s better,” I say, trying to ease up on the tension. “She’s going through some kind of remission.”
This is apparently not the answer he’s looking for. “How so?”
“She’s more alert. Knows who I am. Even answers questions. We had a great talk today. Really. She’s not someone who should be in a nursing home.”
“Oh, really?” he says with a sneer, changing his perpetual sweet baby face into something frightening, like a cruel clown. “What is she, then? A woman who should be living with her daughter and her family, a daughter who has to quit her job to take care of her, so she doesn’t hurt herself, doesn’t hurt someone else, or tear up the house? Because, Jen, she’s not going to be able to live on her own. You know that. And this seems to be her only other option, and it’s not an option anymore.” He balls up his napkin, tosses it sideways across his lap and onto the floor. It’s a small thing, a napkin, but it’s a big thing, his disdain.
I take a breath, try to speak. “I’m not saying she should live here indefinitely, just that it’s too soon to ship her off to—”
“Yeah, right,” Todd says. “Just last week she turned on the hot water in the shower and let it run for hours before you noticed. I still don’t know how you couldn’t have noticed that, if you’re watching her so carefully. If you’re taking such good care of her. And just the day before that, she wandered out of the house because Jazz forgot to lock the door. Thank God I saw her walking down the street. And, Babe, she goddamn hit me when I tried to get her into the car. I didn’t tell you that part, because I’m Mister Fucking Nice Guy, but don’t try to tell me she shouldn’t be in a nursing home because you had a lovely talk with her today.”
Before I can say anything, Todd picks up his plate and starts for the kitchen. “I’m going up to the computer room. Just leave me alone for a while, all right? Leave me alone.” I nod dumbly, my stomach getting tight. He walks back out of the kitchen and goes upstairs. He doesn’t say thanks for dinner.
Jazz and I look at each other. In the silence I feel a special connection between the two of us, like the way it used to be before I married Todd. We could say so much with a look, a nod, a smile. I’m afraid of what she sees in my face right now. She knows me too well. I blush.
I wonder how she will explain me to her children some day. What she will exaggerate, what she will leave out.
“He’s right, I didn’t lock the door,” Jazz says.
“That’s not the point,” I say. I lean on the table, resting my forehead in my hands, my eyes closed and cupped in my own warm flesh. I want to go back to San Francisco. It was a cocoon to me—not only a place that held me safely from myself, but where I emerged new again, and that’s what I want now. To get through Todd’s anger, my mother’s illness, and to come out of it on the other side.
“It’s hard, Jazz. I don’t know what to do. She’s my mother. What would you do, if it were me with Alzheimer’s?”
Jazz lets loose a huff, and with my eyes closed, she sounds just like my mother. I look up.
“Jesus, Mom, you always ask me questions like this! You asked me if you should marry Todd, and I said sure, go ahead. What was I supposed to say? He’s okay, I mean, I like him now, but what the hell did I know?—just that he was tons better than most the guys you dated. If you and Todd break up now, are you going to blame me?” She shakes her head, her left eye squinted like it does when she gets really angry. “How the hell am I supposed to know what I’d do if you got Alzheimer’s? We could all be dead by then!”
I straighten up, startled by her anger, and worried. When I was her age, wars were in other countries, far away. I never felt threatened by Vietnam, even if I should have. “I’m sorry. You’re right. Unfair question.” I cut a piece of chicken, turn it around on my fork, put it back down. “Still, I want to know if having Nana stay here is bothering you. Is it really a problem?”
“Well, yeah, sometimes. But I guess it’s mostly your problem.”
I laugh. “God, I wish I’d been as smart as you when I was your age. I mean, do you know how stupid I was to just stick out my thumb and go to San Francisco with three hundred dollars?”
“You didn’t starve or anything,” Jazz says.
“No. I was very lucky. The Free Clinic had good people. I was lucky I walked in there that day, that I didn’t end up on the streets. Who knows, maybe if I had, I would have come back home. But then I wouldn’t have had you. Believe me, that’s my best luck. You. Having you.”
“So, who’s my dad?”
I freeze. It’s not an offhand question that she doesn’t expect to get answered, like it usually is. The stillness in her face says she really needs an answer now. Today. Has seeing Todd get so angry made her want her own father? All along, I thought Jazz had gotten used to me saying it didn’t matter, and finally it didn’t, but maybe she was just waiting until the right time. Which is now. She’s right. It is important she know who her father is. She has his genes, too. And it’s part of the story of me, that she may have to remind me of, someday.
“Come on, Mom. It would be good to get over the fantasy that it’s Mick Jagger or some rock star you met in San Francisco. It’s time you told me.”
“Okay,�
�� I say.
Her eyes get huge, and she drops her fork. Now we’re both not eating our favorite dinner.
“He was a man I met at the Free Clinic. He worked there.” I pause, but then tell the truth. “He was married. I was ashamed he was married, that’s why I didn’t tell you. He doesn’t even know about you. I’m sorry.”
I see Jazz’s eyes fill with tears, so of course, I get weepy, too.
“What’s his name?”
“Hunter Phillips.”
“Hunter Phillips,” she repeats after me. I nod.
“Would you tell him about me? See if he wants to meet me?”
“Do you want me to?”
“I don’t know! It’s just a maybe. But would you?”
“Yes. I would. If we can find him.”
Jazz starts crying. She doesn’t even bother to wipe her face. “I thought he knew about me but didn’t care. God, Mom, it’s . . . it’s like if he doesn’t know about me, it’s like I’m . . . less. Like I don’t exist. I’ve been waiting all this time for you to tell me. This is too weird. I don’t know how I feel.” I get up and walk over to Jazz, coming behind her chair. I wrap my arms around her shoulders and hug her, my cheek against her forehead. “Shhh, honey,” I say. “It’s okay. I know it’s not easy, but you’re okay. You’re a great kid.”
“What did he look like?” Jazz asks.
I still see him sometimes, in dreams. He has come back to me and we fall madly in love. They are the saddest dreams I have. “He worked at the clinic. He had long brown hair, the same color as yours, even longer than yours, and he wore it in a braid most of the time. He was very handsome, a strong jaw, brown eyes. Everyone liked him. He didn’t have any kids. He had really big toes.” I laugh, but my tears are falling on her cheek. “He was healthy. No heart problems, except for liking me, I guess.”
“Did you love him?”
I don’t say anything, just squeeze Jazz more tightly. Then, after a minute, “I thought I did, sometimes. I don’t know. I didn’t love him like I love you. It wasn’t that kind of love, where I’d step in front of a truck to save his life. He made me cry, sometimes. I thought that was love.”
“Do you love Todd?”
I nod. “Yeah. I do. I love him very much.”
“Enough to step in front of a truck?” Jazz asks very quietly.
I wait a minute, thinking about it, then shake my head no. A little shake. “I don’t know if I can love like that. A man, I mean. I love you that way.”
I move back a bit, so we’re not touching cheek to cheek anymore. I look at her. God, I love her. “I want to love Todd that way. He’s the only man I want to love that way. There’s no one else comes close. I just keep stepping back, somehow.” Now I think I’ve told her too much.
Jazz looks thoughtful, and I wait to hear what she has to say. It feels so good, to talk to her this way. I am so lucky to have her, and I believe at this minute she knows we will make it, she and I, no matter what. No matter what happens in the world.
“Maybe if adults were always sacrificing themselves for love, it wouldn’t be so good,” Jazz says. “It’s like the survival of the fittest thing. There wouldn’t be kids.”
“Yeah.” I laugh. She is smart. “But it would be nice, just once.” I kiss her on the forehead and stand up.
“I guess,” Jazz says.
“Anything else?” I ask. “Anything else you want to know about him?”
She shrugs. “Do you have a picture of him?’
I shake my head no. “Sorry.”
“Was he smart?”
She wants to know if she got smart genes. What might become of her because of him. “Pretty smart. Street smart.”
She nods. Here eyes are beginning to look a little distant. I wait a beat, and when she doesn’t ask anything else, I put my hand by her plate. “Are you done eating?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. I probably ought to go talk to Todd, huh?” I glance up at the ceiling. A piece of plaster is missing about the size of saucer. What makes them fall down like that?
She nods slowly, probably thinking about something else entirely.
“Were you really going to take Nana for a walk?”
“I guess.”
“Could you do that now? If I get her ready?”
“Okay.”
“I’ll do the dishes later,” I tell her. “And, Jazz. Thank you. I know how hard this is. Think about it. If you want, we’ll find him.”
“Thanks.”
As we walk up the steps, Jazz stops, and I look back to see why.
“Did Nana love you that way? The step-in-front-of-a-truck way? Sorry, but she doesn’t seem the type.”
“I think I didn’t let her. I think I wouldn’t let anyone, after my dad died. I think she might have, if I let her.”
It’s the first time I’ve ever said this, even thought it out, and it makes me quiet inside, as if I found something that I didn’t know I was looking for.
“Oh,” Jazz says, then she starts up the stairs, and I have to move on, to get out of her way.
I watch Jazz and my mother walk slowly down the drive to the sidewalk. It’s starting to get dark. Everything takes longer than I expected.
I stand outside the computer room, listening to the harsh, quick clicking of the keyboard through the closed door, remembering his face when he told me to leave him alone. Todd hardly ever shuts the door. He doesn’t like being in closed rooms. He doesn’t like snakes, either, and he hates country music. He hasn’t talked to me in a while about things he likes, or doesn’t like. I should ask him who he has been talking to on-line, but I’m afraid of his answer.
My heart starts to race. That same panicky feel I used to get when I thought about my mother now comes when I think about Todd. I turn and walk away from the door.
The house is so quiet that even downstairs I can still hear him typing. I didn’t even know he could type so fast.
I should call Betsy, I think, now that she might really be home. It’s something I should do, and I need something I should do right now, something besides go and face Todd. It’s time Betsy and I talked, if it’s not too late already. I look for the portable phone. It’s in Jazz’s bedroom, of course.
Rose walks with Tiffany along a sidewalk in the dusk. She’s not sure where they’re going, but she’s not going to put up a fuss. What god ugly shoes she’s wearing, though. She doesn’t remember buying them. Maybe Tiffany did—her shoes are just as ugly as Rose’s, and the bottom of her pants are baggy and torn. Tiffany reminds Rose of her daughter Jennifer, who used to wear bell-bottom jeans that dragged on the ground. She can’t remember the last time she saw Jennifer, or what she was wearing. It hurts her head to think about it, so she doesn’t.
“Hey, Nana,” Tiffany says, stopping to pick something up. “A feather.”
“Starling,” Rose says, the word slipping out all on its own. And it’s the right word. It comes with a knowledge of its right-ness. Her shoulders straighten. She likes this word, this feeling. “Starling,” she says again.
“You know about birds? Mom says you do.”
Rose doesn’t answer. She doesn’t want to take any chances with the one word she has. She puts out her hand, palm up. Tiffany gives her the feather. “Starling,” Rose says with a sharp nod, clutching the feather. If she never speaks again, at least the last word she has said was right.
They continue walking. Tiffany shuffles her feet, kicks at a stone. “I don’t know much about birds,” she says. “Cardinals and blue jays. That’s all. I want to study sharks. I’m thinking about going into oceanography.” They turn the corner. Rose looks back over her shoulder, then ahead. Nothing looks familiar. She holds the feather tighter. Where are they going?
“Can I ask you some questions, Nana?” Tiffany asks her. “About World War Two?”
Something in her heart flutters sharply. Her hand moves to her chest, a fist with a feather hitting her, as if it moved all on its own. She looks down at herself, and it�
��s not her body. “Oh!” she says, and stumbles. Tiffany takes hold of her arm so she doesn’t fall.
“Are you okay, Nana?”
Rose looks at this girl calling her Nana. It’s not Tiffany, not at all. How could she think that? “Oh, no.” Then, “Starling.”
“No, you’re not okay?”
There’s a bright light flickering in her right eye. She closes her eyes, but it doesn’t go away. “Don’t tell,” she says to the girl. “Don’t tell about the light.” They’ll do something to her. She remembers this light from before.
The girl looks around and points to a ledge by some steps. “Let’s sit down.”
Rose nods. Legs that are not hers take her to the steps. They bend. She sits.
“Jasmine,” she says to the girl, knowing this is her granddaughter. She has a granddaughter, and a starling feather, and someone else’s legs.
“Yes, Nana?”
“I’m tired.”
“Okay, Nana,” Jasmine says.
But Rose is no longer there, on that step, which is her future. She’s in the hospital. For a moment, she thinks she’s in the hospital because she’s had a stroke, but no, that hasn’t happened yet, either. She is in the hospital to meet her granddaughter.
Rose didn’t call Jennifer after that Christmas Eve dinner at Peter’s. She had been so sure she could handle seeing Jennifer with some grace and poise, but had been dead wrong about that. It wasn’t the sight of Jennifer pregnant that froze every muscle in her body, including her face, which could not have smiled if she’d paid it, it was just Jennifer herself, ten years older. It was absolutely frightening and infuriating, the same damned emotions that took over Rose’s life when Jennifer left ten years ago. How dare she just walk in carrying bags of Christmas presents? Was Rose to forgive her daughter for all that pain because she bought them wind chimes? Did she think it would be that simple?
No one had any idea what Rose had gone through. Three years, believing Jennifer had been picked up by some crazy man and murdered, left in some shallow grave on the side of the road. That’s what she believed, because that was her punishment—to believe the worst. She woke up each morning as if out of a nightmare, just to find she was living the nightmare. When Peter told her that he’d gotten a letter from Jennifer, that she was in San Francisco, Rose couldn’t breathe it hurt so bad. Her legs gave out and she had sat on the floor with a thump. Peter helped her up, then asked if she wanted to read the letter. Rose said no. It wasn’t addressed to her.