by Grace Sammon
“This is a fine addition, thank you! What shall we cook with it, eh?” With that she slides the spoon into the jar amidst the others. “Looks like it belongs here. We will cook something fine together with it. We didn’t know we’d see you so soon. Can you stay for dinner?”
With that, the whistling stops and a voice, coming from a pair of legs protruding from under the sink says, “She can’t. She has dinner plans. Greetings, Jes.”
I bend down to pop my head under the sink to be greeted, of course, by the ubiquitous Roy. “I didn’t know you’d gotten my text. I’m glad you can come, but it really will be simple and it’s mostly your leftovers from last night.” As I straighten up, I catch Jan with arms crossed across her chest, raised curious eyebrows and a wry smile across her face. I can only shrug my shoulders and smile back as I go off to finish my inspection of the new place.
In the solarium CC is posting instructions in large print on the inside of the bathroom door that say simply, “It’s a toilet. Use it. Dump peat moss. Done.”
“This is harder than I thought it would be,” she says. “Really, you’d think it’s pretty basic. No fuss, no bother, no smell, fabulous for water conservation, amazing humanure for our gardens. I guess they’ll adjust. Hey, I’m sorry. Welcome back. How was your trip?”
“Good, really good. Thanks for asking. It looks like the move is going well, well except for the toilet thing. The solarium has shaped up really nicely.”
I leave CC to finish and continue to chuckle about the Loveable Loo. On my way back to the great room to report to Ali I notice that off in one of the alcoves, glass doors shut, Deirdre is sitting quietly knitting, eyes closed. I decide to escape the din and my current uselessness and visit with her.
Knocking softly on the door and opening it, “Hi, Deirdre, mind if I join you? I’m not much use to them today.” She opens her eyes and smiles, inviting me in, but she looks like I’ve disturbed her. “Am I interrupting you? A penny for your thoughts?”
She seems to visibly try to focus on me. “Oh, it’s Jessica, isn’t it? I haven’t heard that expression a penny for your thoughts in years. I should tell you a story about that sometime, it would be a nice little story for your project. Oh, what was I thinking? I think I was thinking about my boys. I dreamt about them and their sister last night and they were so very tiny, and cute, and active. I like it when I dream of them that way.
“You know what’s odd when you get to my age? It’s like I’m missing two sets of totally different people. I miss the little boys that I raised, and I miss my two grown boys who turned into such fine men. The first set I get to see and re-experience only in my dreams, the second set I don’t get to see nearly enough. I don’t dream about their grown-up selves. It’s hard for me to remember them, the way they look, or the sound of their voices. I don’t like that I’m not really an important part of their lives, don’t like it at all.”
I’m struck that for the first time in our brief meetings she is not the ever-ebullient person she portrays to everyone. Equally striking is the evidence of a memory issue.
“They had a sister, you know,” she tells me, as if I had this knowledge already. “An older sister by a wee bit. She died of polio. It was really quite horrible. I don’t dream of her. Did someone say that Sydney might get polio, poor dear, that and the cancer? You went on a trip, didn’t you? Tell me about it while I knit, it’s so very noisy and confusing out there, sit with me.”
I’m taken aback by the difference in her. I don’t know how to process the new knowledge of her dead daughter, I surprise myself when I tell her, “I like your image of two sets of children. It makes sense to me. I know I wake up so content and at peace when I have dreams of my children, Ryn and Adam, when they were little. I ache to know them better as the adults they are becoming. Two separate sets of the same people. I get that.”
She asks me how the name Ryn came about, noting that it’s unusual. I explain how we came to call our Cathryn by her nickname. Although a non-sequitur, this prompts her memory into a different area. “Did I ever tell you that as a child I was always called Penny? Didn’t you ask me something about that just a minute ago?
“My Irish parents, thinking I was the most beautiful of baby girls, named me Deirdre after the fabled Deirdre, the most beautiful woman in all of Ireland. That Deirdre died of a broken heart, so much so that the name in Ireland actually has come to mean ‘sorrowful.’ My grandmother, God bless her soul, however, called me Penny from the moment my mother came home from the hospital with me and the name took over. You see, dear, I was the first Farley to be born in America and my family wanted to do it up right.
“When my mother shared the news with my father that she was expecting, he was excited and nervous. He feared for his wife and he feared for, what he naturally assumed, would be his first-born son. At that time, everyone was still giving birth at home. The landlord, who also worked as a janitor at Physicians Hospital, brought home a pamphlet for my father about a new ‘maternity department’ at the hospital. It touted that the new department was the safest place for any expectant mother and her babe. My Dah feared my mother giving birth, and he feared the tenement fires that plagued so many of the places where his countrymen settled here in America. The pamphlet lured him in with its promise of fire-proof construction and modern equipment. He was determined to safeguard his newly forming family. The challenge was the price.
“My father knew he could never save enough for a private hospital room, but he thought he could save enough for my mother to stay in a ward bed. He had just six months to raise enough for the flat-rate services that would include a seven–day stay, the use of the labor and delivery room, all normal supplies, nursing care, and laundry for the baby. I can still hear my father telling the story over and over and saying, ‘Oh how grand it was to be, to bring the first Farley son born in America onto this Earth in a modern hospital!’
“The price was very dear, don’t you know? The $75 for a private room and all the services was unthinkable. However, with the luck of the Irish, and hard work, my mother would have a seven–day stay in a ward, if he could only set aside the $40 needed. In 1935 that was more than a tidy sum.
“My father was good at doing figures in his head. He calculated that he had about one hundred and eighty days to save twenty-two cents a day. Twenty-two cents a day, every day. My mother and grandmother took in more laundry. My Dah worked extra shifts at the docks, and my grandfather limited his trips to the pub. Still it was hard. Each day, each week, they counted their pennies, sliding coins around the white Formica kitchen table putting them in piles for the necessary expenses. They needed $19 for the monthly rent on their two–bedroom apartment on Fourth Avenue and 69th Street. It was the largest of their expenses. They cut back on lots of things, including the amount of ice they used. I can’t remember how much everything cost, except I know Dah stopped his half-hour weekly violin lessons. At twenty-five cents, it was a luxury he could no longer afford. He never took another lesson. Imagine that, twenty-five cents making such a big difference.
“And, that’s how it started, my parents and grandparents saved pennies, literally pennies. Although I was not the son my father so dearly wanted, I was the first Farley to be born in a hospital. Christened Deirdre, called Penny for all my life until I met Bob Stalzer who thought I was the most beautiful woman in all of Brooklyn. He took to calling me Deirdre. It amused me that the tall, handsome, Irish-German, soccer-playing boy from two streets over thought me beautiful. He was the one still turning heads with his handsome good looks until the day he died.
“It’s a nice story, isn’t it dear? I don’t understand why the young people today can’t seem to save their money. ‘A penny saved is a penny earned’ my father would always say with that great twinkle in his eyes.
My boys have no patience for my stories. Maybe their sister would have liked them. Hard to imagine such events just eighty and a wee bit of years ago. Such a nice memory. You know, I was
sorrowful, powerful sorrowful, when the boys’ sister died, but I had the little boys and Bob. I was never truly broken hearted except when Bob died.”
Deirdre then told me how when Bob died she met Joan at the church and started helping out there to fill her days. Joan told her about The Grange and invited her up to see the place and the animals. Deirdre fell in love with the mule Oliver and the feel of the barn. She said it reminded her of her grandparents’ place on Staten Island in NY. One thing led to another. Deirdre talked to Joan about how she dreaded the idea of moving north and moving in with one of her sons. She thought it was the beginning of a slippery slope to lost independence. She and Joan had heard the same from their friends and seen the decline in those that didn’t, somehow, build full lives for themselves. Together they hatched the idea that there should be a place, a place like this, where there could be not only independence but vitality.
“The rest,” as she said giggling, and mimicking Erica “is her-story. Joan and I seemed to have stated something!”
Deirdre was so engaging that I hadn’t noticed the passing time or that the noise from the great room had ended. Looking through the glass door panels I notice that all the movers had gone. Gene and Sydney are together, talking on the newly arranged furniture. Sydney is sitting with her feet tucked under her legs, black jeans, red silk shirt, matching shade of red lipstick. Gene, in jeans and denim work shirt, has his arm outstretched across the back of the couch, close enough to almost touch her.
It’s later in the day than I thought, and I should be getting back. What a gift this place is, the invitation to the boat, an invitation to dinner here, the openness of the women, the intrigue of whatever might be being said on that couch. I say a silent prayer of thanks to Sonia for the gift to me of this place before I refocus on Deirdre.
We sit together and she tells me about her Aunt Lily teaching her to knit as a child. Deirdre remembers her as having a very long neck and pursed lips, sort of like the llamas, she giggles. She talks in great detail about the fiber project, her love of the sheep and llamas, how she cares for their dietary and medical needs, and her plans for expanding the herd, the possibility of adding Angora goats. She mentions she’s interested in the fiber, but that CC is still doing some research for her on goats and sheep living together and about goat cheese, something she personally thinks disgusting.
She seems more focused now, her energy returned. It’s as if the clouded memory conversation hadn’t happened. She’s amicable, bright, and cheerful, every bit the Sleeping Beauty Fairy Godmother I imagined in our first meeting. She asks if I know how to knit, promising to teach me the process from the start, how to shear the animals, how to prepare the wools and fibers, dying and knitting. She promises that I will be knitting a sweater by next Christmas.
I can’t imagine, but she can. She leans into her knitting bag and digs to the bottom. “Take these dear,” she says handing me a pair of thick wooden knitting needles, “these are the needles I learned to knit with, a present from my Aunt Lily. It will be nice to have you use them. Please stop at the M and M and pick out the fiber that attracts you the most. Just tell them to put it on Miss Deirdre’s tab.”
“Deirdre, this is amazing. I’m really, really touched. I don’t know how good I’ll be at it, but I’d like to try. Thank you. Thank you for these, and your sharing. I hope you will keep telling me your stories as we knit.”
“You are welcome, dear.”
As I am about to close the door to the alcove she stops me. “Jessica. You offered a penny for my thoughts when you came in. It was so noisy, and we have all the new things to get use to here, I lost my train of thought when you came in. I know I’m getting confused. I know the others notice it. It’s frightening. I sometimes can’t remember words. Names are worse. I’m afraid I will forget Bob and my children and the grandchildren. Today I couldn’t remember my daughter’s name. It was Deirdre,” she says, pained. “Deirdre, because Bob thought she was the most beautiful baby he had ever seen. But he always called her Penny,” she laughs. “His Penny from heaven. That is what I was thinking about when you came in. But, her story and mine was all confused in my head. I should have been able to keep it straight. You need to write about us.”
A deep breath and a single tear rolls down her cheek as she goes back to knitting.
two chairs
A
s I gently close the door behind me, I have to wipe tears from my own eyes. Getting old is not for the faint-of-heart.
Sydney and Gene are still talking in the great room. She gives me an almost imperceptible shake of her head indicating I shouldn’t disturb them. I turn away and enter the kitchen. Roy is presumably off on another project. Jan is humming away as she continues to bring order to the kitchen. She tells me I have to plan on dinner later in the week and make sure I bring Sonia and Erica with me. They want to do something special for Tobias’ birthday but haven’t made any firm plans yet. Besides, she says conspiratorially, you’ll want to be here for the big name reveal, and so will Sonia.
I smell coffee. Tobias! I forgot all about him and making him coffee. Jan tells me she’s taken care of it and that Tobias is waiting to take me back to the old house. I silently wonder how The Grange house so quickly became just ‘the old house.’ I see why Tia doesn’t want to leave it behind, relegated to some obsolete status.
In the solarium I find Tobias in his position. Resting in the one chair he brought over from Joan’s studio, wallet behind his head, long legs outstretched, eyes closed. He’s not asleep. His hand is gently conducting the Mozart playing through the speakers. Still, I don’t want to disturb him, so I whisper softly that I’m just going to take one of the golf carts back to the house and that he can stay here. Without opening his eyes, he smiles in response, nods, and goes on conducting. “The key is on the hook just there by the door. Good to have you back.”
I haven’t driven a golf cart since James golfed decades ago in Sarasota. This one quietly zips along, responsive to my stops and starts as I get use to the pedals. The llamas trot over to the fence and I give them a wide berth as I pass. The sheep are huddled together against the fence, their wool getting heavier as winter goes on.
Back at the house, it doesn’t seem right to leave without checking in on Tia. She’s not in the kitchen so I call her name and hear her from the studio. She’s sitting in the one remaining chair in Joan’s studio. Joan’s presence is so strong here. I look at the trio of her portraits and nod a silent hello to her.
“Hey, I just needed to check on you before I go. You ok?”
“Thanks, Jessica. Sure. Dad isn’t the only one who likes to come and sit here. Frustrated as I get with him, I do understand. I don’t want her to be gone. I feel so stupid. From our birth, all that is guaranteed in life is death. We can’t ever seem to get our heads around why someone dies. How can that energy just leave us?
“Jessica, I don’t know if you’ve spent much time with Elizabeth yet. She can be a bit of a downer, always worrying, always thinking she’s ‘done.’ She really has some words of wisdom though. I was talking to her about the move and how I wish we could just live in both places, stupid as that sounds.
“You know what she said? She said, ‘Tia, you can no sit in-a two-a chairs.’” I smile as she does an impersonation of Elizabeth. “Meaning what, Elizabeth, I asked her. She explained that it’s simply impossible to try to sit in two places. She’s wicked smart, as CC would say. Elizabeth went on about how we can’t stay in the past and be fully in the present, let alone see or plan for the future. You can’t have your heart in two places. You can’t live life indecisively. You are either in one chair or another. You can’t sit in two chairs at the same time.
“The new house, your Eves, represents me renewing commitment to life and a future with CC. The new place is her dream. Elizabeth is right, I can’t sit in two chairs.”
I inelegantly segue, “Speaking of chairs, your dad’s conducting music from the one you brought up t
o the new house from this room. It looks good up there and he looked happy to be resting in it. He looked content. It was a good thought for him and for you. I haven’t spent enough time with Elizabeth. She’s really been kind, sending me emails from time-to-time. She senses, more than most, that I need to figure out parts of my own life. She’s always there to listen. As your dad would say, this isn’t a dress rehearsal. I need a lot of work to get this journey right. The women, your mom among them, are somehow helping me sort out so many life lessons.”
“They are interesting, aren’t they, Jessica? I like having these old ladies around me. When my mom came to us and told us she wanted to really open this place up with all the projects and the oldies I was dead set against it. CC and I had crafted a nice life here. We were open about our lives but did not live under a microscope. No one in the community bothered us. I just wanted to continue living with the woman I love, with the family I love, and be content. Then mom got sick. Deirdre and Margaret Mary were already here. Jan was coming down a lot but hadn’t moved in yet. They made it so much easier, cooking, picking up on chores, making Momma happy, easing our stress and sorrow.
“One day when Momma and I were sitting together she asked how I thought this was all going and if I liked the women. I shared my feeling about it being better than I thought, that they were more interesting than I imagined, and that they all seemed to be both the same and unique. I remember telling her ‘but they’re not you Momma.’
“You know what she said then? She said that no, they weren’t her, but she was so glad that they were here. She said they were angels sent to watch over me and my dad when she died. Angels.”