Their mother frowned. “That motel must be costing you a fortune.”
“No, it’s reasonable,” he said. “Kate can stay for a week or two and I’ll drive back and forth from home. If you think this food is bad, you should see the meals in that motel restaurant.” He got up to go, flashing Kate a glance of collusion. “I’ll be back after supper.”
His footsteps echoed down the hallway. Kate and her mother looked wordlessly at each other, relieved. Kate looked away guiltily. Then her mother spoke, apologetic. “He’s so tired,” she said. “He’s been with me since yesterday.”
She looked at Kate, then into the air of the room. “I’m in a fix,” she said. “Except for when the pain comes, it’s all a show that goes on without me. I’m like an invalid, or a lunatic.”
Kate moved close and touched her mother’s arms. “That’s all right, we’re going to get you through it. Someone’s covering for you at work?”
“I had to take a leave of absence. It’s going to take a while afterward—”
“I know. But it’s the last thing to worry about, it can’t be helped.”
“Like spilt milk. Isn’t that what they say?”
“I don’t know what they say. But why didn’t you tell me? Didn’t you know something was wrong?”
“Yes … bad headaches. Migraines, I thought, or the diabetes getting worse. I was afraid they’d start me on insulin.” She tightened the corner of her mouth. “Little did I know …”
They heard the shuffle of slippers. An old woman stood at the open door of the room, looking in confusedly. She seemed about to speak, then moved on.
“Oh,” said Kate’s mother in exasperation, “shut that door, please? They let these old women wander around like refugees.” She sat up, reaching for a robe. “And let’s get me out of this bed.”
They sat near the window while she finished eating. Bars of moted yellow banded the floor of the room. The light held a tinge of spring which seemed painful because it might vanish. They heard the rattle of the meal cart outside the closed door, and the clunk-slide of patients with aluminum walkers. Kate’s mother sighed and pushed away the half-empty soup bowl.
“They’ll be here after me any minute. More tests. I just want to stay with you.” Her face was warm and smooth in the slanted light, lines in her skin delicate, unreal; as though a face behind her face was now apparent after many years. She sat looking at Kate and smiled.
“One day when you were about four you were dragging a broom around the kitchen. I asked what you were doing and you told me that when you got old you were going to be an angel and sweep the rotten rain off the clouds.”
“What did you say to that?”
“I said that when you were old I was sure God would see to it.” Her mother laughed. “I’m glad you weren’t such a smart aleck then,” she said. “You would have told me my view of God was paternalistic.”
“Ah yes,” sighed Kate. “God, that famous dude. Here I am, getting old, facing unemployment, alone, and where is He?”
“You’re not alone,” her mother said, “I’m right here.”
Kate didn’t answer. She sat motionless and felt her heart begin to open like a box with a hinged lid. The fullness had no edges.
Her mother stood. She rubbed her hands slowly, twisting her wedding rings. “My hands are so dry in the winter,” she said softly, “I brought some hand cream with me but I can’t find it anywhere, my suitcase is so jumbled. Thank heavens spring is early this year … They told me that little park over there doesn’t usually open till the end of March …”
She’s helping me, thought Kate, I’m not supposed to let her down.
“… but they’re already running it on weekends. Even past dusk. We’ll see the lights tonight. You can’t see the shapes this far away, just the motion …”
A nurse came in with a wheelchair. Kate’s mother pulled a wry face. “This wheelchair is a bit much,” she said.
“We don’t want to tire you out,” said the nurse.
The chair took her weight quietly. At the door she put out her hand to stop, turned, and said anxiously, “Kate, see if you can find that hand cream?”
It was the blue suitcase from years ago, still almost new. She’d brought things she never used for everyday; a cashmere sweater, lace slips, silk underpants wrapped in tissue. Folded beneath was a stack of postmarked envelopes, slightly ragged, tied with twine. Kate opened one and realized that all the cards were there, beginning with the first of the marriage. There were a few photographs of her and Robert, baby pictures almost indistinguishable from each other, and then Kate’s homemade Valentines, fastened together with rubber bands. Kate stared. What will I do with these things? She wanted air; she needed to breathe. She walked to the window and put the bundled papers on the sill. She’d raised the glass and pushed back the screen when suddenly her mother’s clock radio went off with a flat buzz. Kate moved to switch it off and brushed the cards with her arm. Envelopes shifted and slid, scattering on the floor of the room. A few snapshots wafted silently out the window. They dipped and turned, twirling. Kate didn’t try to reach them. They seemed only scraps, buoyant and yellowed, blown away, the faces small as pennies. Somewhere far-off there were sirens, almost musical, drawn out and carefully approaching.
The nurse came in with evening medication. Kate’s mother lay in bed. “I hope this is strong enough,” she said. “Last night I couldn’t sleep at all. So many sounds in a hospital …”
“You’ll sleep tonight,” the nurse assured her.
Kate winked at her mother. “That’s right,” she said, “I’ll help you out if I have to.”
They stayed up for an hour, watching the moving lights outside and the stationary glows of houses across the distant river. The halls grew darker, were lit with night-lights, and the hospital dimmed. Kate waited. Her mother’s eyes fluttered and finally she slept. Her breathing was low and regular.
Kate didn’t move. Robert had said he’d be back; where was he? She felt a sunken anger and shook her head. She’d been on the point of telling her mother everything. The secrets were a travesty. What if there were things her mother wanted done, people she needed to see? Kate wanted to wake her before these hours passed in the dark and confess that she had lied. Between them, through the tension, there had always been a trusted clarity. Now it was twisted. Kate sat leaning forward, nearly touching the hospital bed.
Suddenly her mother sat bolt upright, her eyes open and her face transfixed. She looked blindly toward Kate but seemed to see nothing. “Who are you?” she whispered. Kate stood, at first unable to move. The woman in the bed opened and closed her mouth several times, as though she were gasping. Then she said loudly, “Stop moving the table. Stop it this instant!” Her eyes were wide with fright and her body was vibrating.
Kate reached her. “Mama, wake up, you’re dreaming.” Her mother jerked, flinging her arms out. Kate held her tightly.
“I can hear the wheels,” she moaned.
“No, no,” Kate said. “You’re here with me.”
“It’s not so?”
“No,” Kate said. “It’s not so.”
She went limp. Kate felt for her pulse and found it rapid, then regular. She sat rocking her mother. In a few minutes she lay her back on the pillows and smoothed the damp hair at her temples, smoothed the sheets of the bed. Later she slept fitfully in a chair, waking repeatedly to assure herself that her mother was breathing.
Near dawn she got up, exhausted, and left the room to walk in the corridor. In front of the window at the end of the hallway she saw a man slumped on a couch; the man slowly stood and wavered before her like a specter. It was Robert.
“Kate?” he said.
Years ago he had flunked out of a small junior college and their mother sat in her bedroom rocker, crying hard for over an hour while Kate tried in vain to comfort her. Kate went to the university the next fall, so anxious that she studied frantically, outlining whole textbooks in yellow ink. She sat in the fron
t rows of large classrooms to take voluminous notes, writing quickly in her thick notebook. Robert had gone home, held a job in a plant that manufactured business forms and worked his way through the hometown college. By that time their father was dead, and Robert became, always and forever, the man of the house.
“Robert,” Kate said, “I’ll stay. Go home.”
After breakfast they sat waiting for Robert, who had called and said he’d arrive soon. Kate’s fatigue had given way to an intense awareness of every sound, every gesture. How would they get through the day? Her mother had awakened from the drugged sleep still groggy, unable to eat. The meal was sent away untouched and she watched the window as though she feared the walls of the room.
“I’m glad your father isn’t here to see this,” she said. There was a silence and Kate opened her mouth to speak. “I mean,” said her mother quickly, “I’m going to look horrible for a few weeks, with my head all shaved.” She pulled an afghan up around her lap and straightened the magazines on the table beside her chair.
“Mom,” Kate said, “your hair will grow back.”
Her mother pulled the afghan closer. “I’ve been thinking of your father,” she said. “It’s not that I’d have wanted him to suffer. But if he had to die, sometimes I wish he’d done it more gently. That heart attack, so finished; never a warning. I wish I’d had some time to nurse him. In a way, it’s a chance to settle things.”
“Did things need settling?”
“They always do, don’t they?” She sat looking out the window, then said softly, “I wonder where I’m headed.”
“You’re not headed anywhere,” Kate said. “I want you right here to see me settle down into normal American womanhood.”
Her mother smiled reassuringly. “Where are my grandchildren?” she said. “That’s what I’d like to know.”
“You stick around,” said Kate, “and I promise to start working on it.” She moved her chair closer, so that their knees were touching and they could both see out the window. Below them cars moved on the highway and the Ferris wheel in the little park was turning.
“I remember when you were one of the little girls in the parade at the county fair. You weren’t even in school yet; you were beautiful in that white organdy dress and pinafore. You wore those shiny black patent shoes and a crown of real apple blossoms. Do you remember?”
“Yes,” Kate said. “That long parade. They told me not to move and I sat so still my legs went to sleep. When they lifted me off the float I couldn’t stand up. They put me under a tree to wait for you, and you came, in a full white skirt and white sandals, your hair tied back in a red scarf. I can see you yet.”
Her mother laughed. “Sounds like a pretty exaggerated picture.”
Kate nodded. “I was little. You were big.”
“You loved the county fair. You were wild about the carnivals.” They looked down at the little park. “Magic, isn’t it?” her mother said.
“Maybe we could go see it,” said Kate. “I’ll ask the doctor.”
They walked across a pedestrian footbridge spanning the highway. Kate had bundled her mother into a winter coat and gloves despite the sunny weather. The day was sharp, nearly still, holding its bright air like illusion. Kate tasted the brittle water of her breath, felt for the cool handrail and thin steel of the webbed fencing. Cars moved steadily under the bridge. Beyond a muted roar of motors the park spread green and wooded, its limits clearly visible.
Kate’s mother had combed her hair and put on lipstick. Her mouth was defined and brilliant; she linked arms with Kate like an escort. “I was afraid they’d tell us no,” she said. “I was ready to run away!”
“I promised I wouldn’t let you. And we only have ten minutes, long enough for the Ferris wheel.” Kate grinned.
“I haven’t ridden one in years. I wonder if I still know how.”
“Of course you do. Ferris wheels are genetic knowledge.”
“All right, whatever you say.” She smiled. “We’ll just hold on.”
They drew closer and walked quickly through the sounds of the highway. When they reached the grass it was ankle-high and thick, longer and more ragged than it appeared from a distance. The Ferris wheel sat squarely near a grove of swaying elms, squat and laboring, taller than trees. Its neon lights still burned, pale in the sun, spiraling from inside like an imagined bloom. The naked elms surrounded it, their topmost branches tapping. Steel ribs of the machine were graceful and slightly rusted, squeaking faintly above a tinkling music. Only a few people were riding.
“Looks a little rickety,” Kate said.
“Oh, don’t worry,” said her mother.
Kate tried to buy tickets but the ride was free. The old man running the motor wore an engineer’s cap and patched overalls. He stopped the wheel and led them on a short ramp to an open car. It dipped gently, padded with black cushions. An orderly and his children rode in the car above. Kate saw their dangling feet, the girls’ dusty sandals and gray socks beside their father’s shoes and the hem of his white pants. The youngest one swung her feet absently, so it seemed the breeze blew her legs like fabric hung on a line.
Kate looked at her mother. “Are you ready for the big sky?” They laughed. Beyond them the river moved lazily. Houses on the opposite bank seemed empty, but a few row-boats bobbed at the docks. The surface of the water lapped and reflected clouds, and as Kate watched, searching for a definition of line, the Ferris wheel jerked into motion. The car rocked. They looked into the distance and Kate caught her mother’s hand as they ascended.
Far away the hospital rose up white and glistening, its windows catching the glint of the sun. Directly below, the park was nearly deserted. There were a few cars in the parking lot and several dogs chasing each other across the grass. Two or three lone women held children on the teeter-totters and a wind was coming up. The forlorn swings moved on their chains. Kate had a vision of the park at night, totally empty, wind weaving heavily through the trees and children’s playthings like a great black fish about to surface. She felt a chill on her arms. The light had gone darker, quietly, like a minor chord.
“Mom,” Kate said, “it’s going to storm.” Her own voice seemed distant, the sound strained through layers of screen or gauze.
“No,” said her mother, “it’s going to pass over.” She moved her hand to Kate’s knee and touched the cloth of her daughter’s skirt.
Kate gripped the metal bar at their waists and looked straight ahead. They were rising again and she felt she would scream. She tried to breathe rhythmically, steadily. She felt the immense weight of the air as they moved through it.
They came almost to the top and stopped. The little car swayed back and forth.
“You’re sick, aren’t you,” her mother said.
Kate shook her head. Below them the grass seemed to glitter coldly, like a sea. Kate sat wordless, feeling the touch of her mother’s hand. The hand moved away and Kate felt the absence of the warmth.
They looked at each other levelly.
“I know all about it,” her mother said, “I know what you haven’t told me.”
The sky circled around them, a sure gray movement. Kate swallowed calmly and let their gaze grow endless. She saw herself in her mother’s wide brown eyes and felt she was falling slowly into them.
What It Takes to Keep a Young Girl Alive
SHE SIGNED her name and the recruiter told her to be there May 5th, everyone would have a lot of fun. Maple Point was trying to outdo Disneyland and Sue was trying to leave home. They hired boys to cook and girls to serve food and run rides. Courtesy Corps girls were blonds in yellow suits and white gloves and broadbrim hats. They stood under white umbrellas and answered questions but Sue was a waitress at the Silver Nickel. Where everything was striped and a fake piano tinkled. Girls from Tennessee had rimmed eyes and hot skins. They had to wait on everyone within four minutes while the managers walked around saying Pick up that crust. The boys in the kitchen kept a list of everyone who cried. At
the end of the summer they bought a present for the girl who had cried the most. Sue felt their white judgment on her like a sun lighting up the pale thick hair on her arms. A customer found a fly under his egg and the manager accused her of carelessness. Sue said the fly must have been on the plate in the kitchen, since it couldn’t have picked up the egg and crawled under it. But it was her responsibility to check the plates.
Sue lived in a three-story army barracks. Each room had an iron bunk on one wall, a single cot on the other, and a dresser in the aisle. They stood on their beds to dress. A red storm fence around the perimeter was strung with barbed wire to protect everyone. Each morning the walks were littered with insects swarmed in sick off Lake Erie. One day they carried a girl out of the barracks wrapped in an army blanket. They found her in the showers. Sue saw her rounded buttocks sag the olive wool. Inside there she was sticky. They said she was from Sioux City. Birthmark on her face with tiny dents like a seeded strawberry. Sue had seen her running the dime movies in the Penny Arcade, Theda Bara with a gold fan and shadow eyes.
Sue got off work and drifted down the midway in a wet heat, past the American-flag petunia gardens. Screamers rammed circles in the Whirl-A-Gig cars, pasted in stand-up Roll-A-Turn cages by their own gravity. They whistled and moved in droves behind raw hot dogs. At night she lay in the top bunk naked with the lights off. Fan on full aimed at her crotch while janitors lounged in front of the garages watching the rows of windows. Rod Stewart, scratchy and loud, combed his hair in a thousand ways and came out looking just the same.
Cheers
THE SEWING woman lived across the tracks, down past Arey’s Feed Store. Row of skinny houses on a mud alley. Her rooms smelled of salted grease and old newspaper. Behind the ironing board she was thin, scooping up papers that shuffled open in her hands. Her eyebrows were arched sharp and painted on.
She made cheerleading suits for ten-year-olds. Threading the machine, she clicked her red nails on the needle and pulled my shirt over my head. In the other room the kids watched Queen for a Day. She bent over me. I saw each eyelash painted black and hard and separate. Honey, she said. Turn around this way. And on the wall there was a postcard of orange trees in Florida. A man in a straw hat reached up with his hand all curled. Beautiful Bounty said the card in wavy red letters.
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