Tender Loving Care

by Andrew Neiderman

  “What?”

  “Didn’t you hear her? Lillian’s calling. She’s been calling for you all day.”

  “Oh.”

  “Go up to her room, Michael. I’m sure you’re anxious to see her sitting up, aren’t you? And Michael, you’ve got to decide how to install the television set. I’ll be up there as soon as I finish here.”

  For a moment I debated making a stand there and then. I considered challenging everything and saying “No!”

  But I didn’t. I was shaking. I was trembling as I turned from her and began my slow ascent toward Lillian’s room. I was afraid, afraid that when I opened that door, I would actually see Lillian sitting up in her bed.

  Nothing could be more terrifying.

  3

  * * *

  “TELL ME ABOUT LILLIAN,” MRS. RANDOLPH SAID. “What kind of a student was she in school?”

  The three of us were sitting in the living room. Miriam was doing a crossword puzzle and I was reading. The nurse had been watching television, but a fierce lightning storm had blown in from the northwest, so I had to turn off the set and disconnect it. A friend of mine at the bank, Peter Curtiz, didn’t do that one stormy night and lightning hit his antenna. His set was destroyed instantly. Out in the “boondocks” homes like mine are too far from cable hookups. We have to depend on the old-fashioned antenna. Our reception is affected by the weather, but it’s just not cost-effective for the cable company to run wire out here. Not enough homes.

  I explained all this to Mrs. Randolph, but she didn’t seem to understand. Actually, I think it was more that she didn’t want to understand. She was simply intolerant. When I got up and turned off the television set, she was extremely annoyed.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. Miriam looked up from her puzzle.

  “The lightning.”

  “What about it?”

  “Don’t you see how the picture is jumping? If we don’t disconnect the set, it could blow up.”

  “I never heard of such a thing.”

  “Life is different in the country,” I said smugly. The skin on her face tightened, and her eyes grew smaller. I avoided her gaze and sat down again, but I wasn’t halfway through the page I was reading when she asked about Lillian. Miriam lowered her crossword puzzle book and smiled. I kept the book before me and raised my eyes.

  “A wonderful student,” Miriam said. “I have all her report cards and all her letters of commendation. I even have some of her early art projects. She has a wonderful talent for drawing. Do you want to see any of it?”

  “Yes.”

  I looked from the nurse to Miriam and back at the nurse again. She turned toward me slowly, something of a look of fury still in her eyes. Miriam started to get up then stopped.

  “Maybe you’ll get it, Michael,” she said. I don’t think she wanted to leave me alone in the room with the nurse. She sensed tension.

  “Get what, dear?”

  “Those things I just described to Mrs. Randolph.”

  “I’m not sure I know where it all is.”

  “It’s all in Lillian’s room, on her dresser and in the top drawer. I haven’t moved anything out of there, Michael.”

  I looked to Mrs. Randolph again, but she said or indicated nothing. She simply sat there waiting to see what I would do. I tried to express a thought in my facial expression, but she either didn’t understand it or rejected it. I wanted to say, “This is too painful. We shouldn’t permit it,” but the nurse seemed eager for it to happen.

  “It’s late, dear. Lillian’s probably asleep,” I said. I could play the nurse’s game.

  “Just be quiet about it, Michael. You’ve gone in there before when she was asleep and you didn’t wake her.”

  “Well, ... all right,” I said. I got up reluctantly, hoping the nurse would say something to postpone it. I wasn’t thinking about it being painful only for Miriam. Mrs. Randolph kept her hands folded on her lap and stared forward, looking as stoic and as unfeeling as a bad statue, the kind that is slapped together and put up on the lawn before a government building.

  As I turned out of the living room and started up the stairs, I heard the nurse say, “I want to get to know as much as I can about Lillian.” I’m not a doctor, of course, but none of this seemed right. Instinctively, I felt we were moving in the wrong direction, but at that point, I could do nothing about it.

  I looked at the top of the stairs. We had a hall light about midway between Lillian’s room and the stairway. It wasn’t very bright; it cast just enough of a glow to illuminate the way. But this particular evening, just because I was doing this emotionally painful thing, the light was eerie. Familiar shadows were elongated and distorted. It was as though the house had become pliable, the walls changed. They looked wider, shorter, and the ceiling was lower. I felt more closed in. My house had become clay in the nurse’s hands, and she had molded it to suit her own tastes. The idea was ridiculous, I know, but it ran through my mind nevertheless.

  As I neared the top of the stairway, I became conscious of my own footsteps. I never realized that the stairs creaked so or that I walked with such a heavy step. My heels snapped against the wood, and when I tried to be quieter, my feet scraped along. It sent chills up and down my spine, like when a wise guy in school runs his fingernails along the blackboard to make the girls scream.

  Usually, we kept the door to Lillian’s room closed, but that afternoon, the nurse and Miriam had decided it was wrong to shut it completely. From now on, it was to be kept open a good inch or two. I had forgotten about that, and the sight of the door ajar stopped me cold. Who opened the door? I wondered. I was actually afraid. Later, when I thought about it, it bothered me a great deal that I had been afraid. Who was I afraid of? Why should I be afraid? Darkness and solitude terrify most people. I know. But this was different.

  I remember the night after my mother died. I was young at the time, but that wasn’t important. I would have the same feelings if it all happened now. We had buried her that morning, and I was alone in my room. I had just said good night to my father and put the lights out when suddenly, I thought I felt her presence. I should have felt no fear, even though she was dead and we had just come from the cemetery. It was my mother’s spirit. My mother wouldn’t harm me, even in that state of existence. Nevertheless, I broke out into such a sweat that I had to get up and put on the lights for a while. My father came by, and I told him I couldn’t sleep, but I couldn’t tell him why. I never forgot that feeling. I had the same feeling standing there in the hallway, until I remembered why Lillian’s door was opened.

  In less than forty-eight hours, the nurse had certainly changed a number of things. I had a mixed reaction to her, just as I would react to a good dentist: I hate to go to him, but I’m glad he’s there when I need him. We needed the nurse, and Dr. Turner said she was good.

  I wasn’t going to put on the light in Lillian’s room. I knew where the things Miriam talked about were. By pretending ignorance, I had hoped to dissuade her from wanting them. Any time I went into Lillian’s room in the daytime, my attention was drawn to her sheets of artwork: those funny faces and pictures of animals, the picture of Dinky-Do, the holiday cards she made for us, the birthday cards, especially the one that said, “For Daddy. I love you.”

  I could still see her eyes widen whenever she handed us one of those cards or pictures to look at. There was such expectation in her face and such excitement. Miriam kept the latest ones taped to the refrigerator door. On the few occasions when I was home before she came from school, I got to see her stepping off the bus, screaming her excitement, waving the cards and the pictures as she came running up the front steps.

  And these were the things the nurse wanted me to bring downstairs. Why? All little girls did the same kinds of things. She wouldn’t learn anything special from them, anything she could use at least. Then I thought, maybe there is something in them that I don’t see, that I don’t have the education or training to understand. Maybe the nurse was
looking for clues that would help her to do her job here. Who was I to challenge it?

  I told myself I had to try to stop being such an obstructionist. Until there was a clear and obvious error that any layman could see, I had to learn to keep my objections under control. It had always been a bad trait of mine to have an initial impression and then deny all evidence that might lead to a contrary conclusion. I could be very narrowminded. My teachers often remarked about it in school.

  I put my hand against Lillian’s door. Of course, it was totally dark inside, and with an overcast rainy sky outside, there was no light coming through the window unless a streak of lightning happened nearby. Nevertheless, I couldn’t get myself to put on the light. I just couldn’t do it. I never did it at night, even when I came into the room to say good night so Miriam would be satisfied. It was always easier in the dark.

  Actually, darkness had become a friend in this room. I was grateful for it. I was especially grateful for it now. I pushed at the door, and it opened further and further. When I felt a breeze, I realized the nurse had left her window open. Damn, I thought, the rain would come in. The glass chimes that hung to my left in a corner of the room tinkled. How Lillian loved that sound. She would sit there on the floor and play with her toy dishes and listen to the chimes. Sometimes when I looked in on her, I would find her staring up at them with such intensity. It was as though she could see something no one else could see or hear something no one else could hear in them.

  So much of this room became part of her: the sounds of it, the scents in it, the feel of the rug, the blanket—all of it more than symbolized her. All of it became extensions of her. The room was always important, right from the day she was born and we put the crib in and had the walls papered with that pink and blue design-little figures playing flutes and dancing, elves and fantasy creatures. This was Lillian’s world, the world of a little girl. Ironic, I thought, how it all became Miriam’s world, too.

  I hesitated and then moved in quickly, going right to the dresser. I didn’t want to think about anything; I didn’t want to look at anything. I wouldn’t even close the window. I opened the top drawer quietly and felt for the report cards and letters. When I had them, I gathered the artwork, scooping it all up clumsily, all the while chastising myself for rushing to get out of that room. It was no way for a mature, stable man to act.

  When I came into the room, I expected I could do everything in one quick motion—simply go in, get what I wanted, and rush out untouched. But it didn’t happen that way. Despite my reluctance, I was drawn around to look toward her bed. I couldn’t help thinking about her. It was the scents and the tinkling chimes. Everything conspired against me, and I visualized an image of her so well in that darkness that I thought I actually heard her call, “Daddy.”

  Did I then say, “What, baby?” Did I actually do that? I don’t know if I made the sounds, but I am sure the words passed through my mind. Of course, I began to shake because of that. I trembled and dropped some of the cards.

  “What’s happening to you, Michael?” I asked myself. “Get a grip on yourself, Michael,” I told myself. “What if the nurse should see you this way? She’d get some satisfaction from it, no doubt. She’s the type.”

  I bent down slowly and felt for the dropped cards. After I found them and gathered them, I thought I was in control again. My confidence returned, and it would have been all right, too. I would have gone out of that room and down those stairs with enough indifference to get myself through the rest of the evening, if only I hadn’t looked back just as a streak of lightning burned the air in front of the house.

  The silver light illuminated the room. True, it was only for an instant, a part of a second, but in that particle of time, all our days of quiet pretending were washed away. We were exposed in the shadows, naked and vulnerable.

  Lillian’s empty bed was washed in light. It was as though someone had taken my face and pressed it against Lillian’s tombstone. The cold reality was driven through me. All of it returned and rushed over me, drowning me in the memories: the screech of the brakes, the metal slamming into metal, the screams, Lillian’s limp body being lifted from the car, her head bleeding, Miriam passing out and being revived and then passing out again. I was floating, moving in a surrealistic nightmare, sitting in the ambulance as it tore through the deadly night, its siren twisting and turning my thoughts upon each other. All I could do was stare at her bent fingers.

  Everyone knew it was over before we arrived at the hospital, but no one said it. Later, I found out it was a technique. The idea was to ease the parents into the realization that the child is dead. They went so far as to work at reviving her, filling me with false hope. Miriam was already upstairs being prepared for X-rays. I sat in the waiting room alone, unaware that there were other people staring at me, wondering what terrible tragedy was about to unfold for me.

  The nurse came to me first. She wore her death mask. They have a way of saying it without uttering a word. It is as though Death itself had possessed them for a short time. It uses them to announce its victory.

  I stood up and followed her back to the examination room where the doctor stood beside Lillian’s body. He said, “I’m sorry.” I believed him, believed he would go home with a heavy heart. Of course, his wife would work at helping him face it, if she were a good doctor’s wife. She would say, “You knew you would see things like this when you went into medicine,” or “You’ve got to think about the ones you save.” Whatever. I couldn’t blame her for it. I couldn’t blame anyone, but myself.

  I took her hand into mine and wished away her death with all my heart.

  I could almost feel her fingers in mine now in her room. There was a snap of thunder that literally shook the house. The chimes went mad. I cringed and I guess I shouted. Then, as quickly as that lightning had struck, I turned and fled the room.

  The roll of thunder passed and coughed quickly into silence. Lights blinked throughout the house and went out. I heard Miriam screaming for me.

  “It’s all right, dear,” I said. “I’m at the top of the stairs. I can feel my way down the bannister.”

  I heard some mumbling, the nurse’s subdued voice. She was calming Miriam in the dark. I made my way down slowly, and by the time I reached the living room, the nurse had lit two candles. She gave one to Miriam, and the small glow from each lit their faces. They stared out at me with yellowish white skin. I felt as though I had fallen through some portal and entered the Land of the Dead.

  “What about Lillian?” Miriam said. “You know she’s afraid of the thunder and lightning.”

  “She’s asleep,” I said. “I waited a moment after the thunderclap, but she didn’t awaken.”

  “We’ll have to listen for her, nevertheless, Michael, and go up to check on her in a few minutes.”

  “Of course, dear. Well,” I said coming further into the room, “I guess it’s lucky I disconnected that television set.” I couldn’t resist making that point.

  “Did you get everything?” Miriam asked.

  “Yes, but without enough light—”

  “It’s all right,” Mrs. Randolph said. “There’s enough light from the candles.”

  “There’s nothing else for us to do now? Michael,” Miriam said. “You can’t read and I can’t do my puzzles. At least until the electricity comes back on.”

  I grunted and moved forward. The last thing I wanted to do was sit there in the candlelight with Mrs. Randolph and Miriam and go through Lillian’s things. With the rain and the thunder, flashes of lightning, the nurse’s candlelit eyes, and the muffled sound of Lillian’s chimes above us, I felt as though I had joined a séance.

  “Come, Michael, sit beside me on the couch,” Miriam said. She moved over and I sat down on one side of her, the nurse on the other. All of Lillian’s things were placed on the small table before us. The candles were placed beside them. The rain, now blown wildly by the wind, sounded like a thousand tiny fingers tapping on the windows. The tiny flames
fluttered. “This was the report she got in the first grade,” Miriam began, lifting the first card. “See, everything was S and S+, satisfactory and excellent. Read the comment at the year’s end.”

  The nurse leaned toward the light. The skin of her face was like alabaster in the glow. Her eyes became smaller and smaller until they almost closed. She held the card gently, as though it might crumple into dust if she pressed too tightly. Miriam held her breath. I felt her hand move against my leg until she found mine. She wrapped her fingers around my palm, and the anger and frustration I felt turned quickly into sorrow and pity.

  “Lillian is a fine young lady who cooperates and gets along well with others. She is very polite and eager to share. It was a delight to have her this year. Mrs. Schoonmaker, 1E.”

  “Look at this Halloween drawing she made,” Miriam said quickly. She sifted through the papers. “Pumpkins with three eyes. My father-in-law used to grow pumpkins. He’d put them on a stand by the road, and people would come from all the surrounding villages to buy them, right, Michael?”

  “That’s right. He did it more as a community service than anything else.”

  “He did it for a while even after he gave up the cows. Then he just did it for Lillian. We have to remember to get her a real pumpkin this year, Michael. She enjoyed that so.”

  “Of course, dear.”

  “What’s this?” the nurse asked. She held up an award ribbon.

  “That’s when Lillian won a first prize in the third grade for a fire prevention week poster. The local fire department gave them out. The poster’s in there somewhere.”

  “Oh, yes,” the nurse said. “She does show a talent for art.”

  There was such a note of sincerity in the nurse’s voice when she said that. For a few moments, I softened toward her and thought maybe this is a nice thing she’s doing for Miriam. Maybe this gentle, interested approach is the right approach. I know it made me feel as though we were in school again, sitting around with other parents and teachers at one of those Parent-Teacher Association meetings discussing our children and the school. I was thrown back deep into my memory. I remembered the feelings of pride and happiness. I remembered how Miriam’s face lit up when the teachers spoke of Lillian’s talents and Lillian’s compassion for others. She did have Miriam’s softness; they shared that special warmth that made them naturally and spontaneously beautiful. Whenever I saw them together, in the fields, on the porch, in the house, I thought of a doe and her fawn: innocent eyes, graceful moves, reaffirmations that the world could be filled with light and warmth.