30 Pieces of a Novel (57 page)

whew!
is what I really wanted to say, and no routine; I swear, nothing like that. You let me have it and right on the
pupik
and deservedly so, besides covering everything I thought of saying to you while I was coming back from the store.” “Yeah, whew, Mr. You-know-what Artist,” and goes into her studio and shuts the door. He goes to their bedroom, time to lie down, he thinks, and lies on the bed and shuts his eyes, maybe a quick nap will help him see the whole thing better, hears his older daughter come home and yell out, “Is anybody around?” and his wife say, “I'm in here, darling; I'll be right out,” thinks, Was I, as she said, in addition to everything else, envious a little of Jock's writing? Truth is, some of the lines weren't that bad. Too late to retrieve them from the original but let's see if any—this will also be a test of his memory and the staying power of the words—comes back. Richard Cory? Surely he knew that was his name. But the “diseaseless death.” And “died of a diseaseless death” it was, which had a nice rhythm to it or whatever it had that made it stick and sound good. “Naked babe in the North Woods”? That was sweet and, again, nice rhythm. One understood right away what he meant and pictured it immediately. And the stuff with the mother holding him or he wanting to be held was touching and could have been more if he wasn't so critical at the time, and he knew that when he read it. But not the “wax and wane,” though maybe he's missing the boat there, since Jock was referring to his flesh and hair. But he definitely liked the swindle and sweat. And that it rhymed on the next line with “shlep.” And other things: “farm on the Marne,” which actually sounds too much like “Spam in a can,” and “what he did as a kid with his Minnesota grandfolks.” So the letter was strong, he has to admit, for the most part evocative and strong, particularly the quick autobiographical reminisce and his trip through memory's enclosures. Nice job, Gould, well done. So he was wrong, he was wrong, he was wrong, he'll have to tell her but not today, and that perhaps it was the good writing coupled with the intensity of Jock's memories about her that set him off, besides the guy's great life till this horrid thing hit him. So why didn't they stay together longer? His other daughter comes home; he hopes she doesn't barge in here, as right after going over this he wants to nap. Couldn't have been just the drinking and Jew and Gentile, could it? Maybe he was also a stinking lover or had some sexual problem or dysfunction. He'd never ask her. He wouldn't know how to put it. And if he did find a way, she'd say, “At one time I would have told you, though only if you had asked first. But now, after what happened, I can't, and I'm not saying by that that he did or he didn't or was or wasn't. It just isn't something I ever want to tell you.” He'll leave it at that, never bring it up again, not even years later when this whole incident will have just about been forgotten by her.

His mother died in his arms. “You shouldn't keep telling people that,” his wife said. “It sounds as if you're boasting.” “But she did die in my arms. At home, in her hospital bed there. I was holding her, had her propped up.” “I know; you've said. But from now on with other people, when you're telling them about it—this is only a suggestion—just say she died at home. Peacefully at home, because that's how you said it was, except for that last terrible moment which she might not have even been aware of.” “I'm sure she was; I saw it when she opened her eyes after they'd been closed so long.” “That could have been involuntary; some automatic physical reflex. You raised her up, she started vomiting, her eyes opened.” “But it was what I saw in her eyes that made me feel she was suddenly conscious.” “All right. I'm not arguing with you, sweetheart. But the thing with your arms—which is true, I'm not disputing that either, if the way you say it happened happened that way.” “What other way could it have? It's not something I'd forget or make up. I was there with the woman who takes care of her weekends.” “Ebonita. I know all that too. And she seemed as devoted to your mother as the woman who looked after her during the week.” “I was sitting beside my mom. Ebonita pointed out this phlegm rising in her mouth. It was white and loose, almost like water, and a little bubbly. Maybe it wasn't phlegm, I now realize. Some other juices from inside, but we thought it was and a good sign because we'd been trying to get the congestion out of her chest for a day. Raising her, trying to get her to cough up. But there was a lot of this stuff right below the top of her lips, just staying there. She'd been having trouble breathing for a day and I didn't want to take her—send her, have an ambulance bring her, I mean—to the hospital, because even the doctor said—” “And he was right. Of course, he should have come over and seen her to say this, but he was still right. All they'd do at the hospital is stick needles in her, try to keep her alive for another day, if they were lucky, and
maybe even
help get rid of her before she would have normally passed away at home. But we've gone over this. What I'm saying now, though, is that some people might think this is just another terrific story you're telling. Not ‘terrific.' That the dramatics of it is equally important or even more important to you than what you were feeling at the time and are no doubt feeling something of now.” “I feel terrible, as low as I've ever felt. Or did feel that low for a few days and now just feel terrible, almost as low. And just talking to people about it, and right here with you—” “I know, dear, I know, I'm sorry. But you still don't want to convey the inaccurate impression that you're focusing on certain aspects of what happened to make it sound more interesting. In your arms. Hugging her and crying out the things you did at the end. Who wouldn't want his loved one to die in his arms like that: peacefully, for the most part? Not in a hospital where they shoo you out of the room at precisely that moment or a little before and then come out later and say she's gone.” “That's why I didn't call EMS or that Haztollah or whatever that ambulance service is to take her to a hospital. I knew she was going. The doctor, from everything I told him, said so over the phone, and she'd been declining for a few weeks, and it was clear to Ebonita and me that this was it. I wanted her to be comfortable at home. She'd told me long ago that that's what she hoped for also: no tubes, and to die in her own bed. Well, it wasn't her own bed, it was this nursing service loan of a bed. And it wasn't even in her own bedroom, it was her dining room converted into a bedroom so she could be taken care of better, but at least it was her own home. And, she said, surrounded by—well, there was just me and Ebonita there and some old ghosts, maybe. Dad, my brother who didn't live till what, five? but did live in that apartment his last two years. I'm sure she would have wanted you and the kids there—but that couldn't be, and I wouldn't have wanted the kids to see it—and the main person who took care of her, Angela, but she was off for the weekend and we couldn't reach her by phone. And also Ebonita's daughter, just sitting there in a chair in the room and not looking scared or saying anything, just curious, as if this were an interesting new thing she was seeing, though Ebonita told me her daughter had been in the hospital room the moment her own grandmother died. So maybe that was it, reliving it, but I think more out of not knowing what to do and curiosity, the death and the way I was taking it. I didn't know how to tell her to leave, go to the kitchen, take in a movie, anything, but get out of here, please, this was a private moment for me, the worst there was; or for Ebonita to tell her—” “You were right; Ebonita should have if the girl didn't have the sense to leave herself. How old is she?” “Fifteen? Seventeen?” “Then old enough to know. And I can see why you'd be unable to say something yourself. Anyway, dear, I overheard you talking to Frederick about your mother and thought I should say something to you.” “He asked me how I was. He'd called to make a lunch date. He didn't know she'd died. So I said I was feeling the worst I'd ever been in my life, and then—after he asked—that it was because my mother had died on Sunday.” “You said she died in your arms on Sunday.” “So that's what I said, then.” “And that's why I brought it up. But of course do what you want. I just felt I had to point it out.” “Okay. I'll remember. You're probably right. Anything else?” “No, nothing. I'm making myself tea. Like some?” and he says, “No, thanks,” and she grabs his hand and squeezes it and looks up at him sympathetically, he fakes a quick smile, she says, “I understand,” and wheels herself to the stove to get the teakettle. He should help her, but he suddenly feels in his throat and eyes a cry coming on and wants to be alone. He goes into the living room and sits but no tears come and the swelling in his throat and the itchy feeling around his eyes go away. What's that mean, he's finally adjusting to his mother's death? No, he's sure he's in for a few more bad days of it. The tall memorial candle's burning on the fireplace mantel. He brought it from New York, something the funeral home gave him along with several cardboard boxes to sit in mourning on, all of which he left behind but one, and lit it the day after they drove back from the funeral. So it's been lit for more than two days and seems to have burned less than a third of the way down. His wife wanted him to put a dish under it but he said, “Why? That's for regular candles when the wax is dripping. This one's inside a long glass cylinder, and it couldn't be safer, because the lit wick gets lower down the longer the candle burns.” She said the glass might break, burning for so many days—“Have you felt how hot it is? I did, just as a test, and wish I hadn't, or had licked my fingers first, for it burned me”—and he said he knows it gets hot, he doesn't have to touch it to find out, but he's sure that that glass is the kind that won't break from such a small flame, because when she felt it did she also see how thick it is? He gets up and touches the glass; it's hot but didn't burn his fingers though would have if he'd kept them on longer, and maybe the heat from the bottom of the glass will do something to the mantel wood when the candle burns way down, but he has about three days for that. Where's the camera? and sees it on the piano and, using the flash, takes a picture of the candle for some future day when he may want to remember exactly what it looked like, Jewish star and funeral home name on it and everything. It could also turn out to be an interesting photo, a few condolence cards and the little
Prayers and Meditations
book, which he took off a side table in the funeral home sitting room her coffin was in, lying beside the candle, if maybe come out looking too much like the front of one of those cards. He opens the book to “Yizkor in Memory of a Mother.” What's Yizkor mean again? Not “again”: he never knew. Certainly not “may,” which seems to be the translation in each of the seven Yizkors in the book: “For a Wife,” “For a Son,” et cetera, and one just “Yizkor Meditation.” The prayer in the book he likes best, or maybe it's a meditation, is “At a Mother's Grave,” but the book stayed in his pocket at the burial—the rabbi did all the reading—and he's only read the prayer to himself in bed a few times before reading a couple of sad poems and shutting off the light and going to sleep. He sits on the box with the book, starts reading very low the Yizkor for a mother, something he's done when nobody was around at least once a day since she died. But he shouldn't be reading while sitting, should he, even on this mourner's box? And he doesn't want to stand up and read, or read it any louder—his wife might come in and say something like, “You, never a believer or worshiper or even someone who observed a single Jewish holiday or ritual, not even circumcision if we'd had a son, now going on every day like a yeshiva
bucher?
”—and reading it silently standing up or seated doesn't mean anything. Later, when the kids are asleep and his wife is in one of the other rooms, he'll read it or another prayer or meditation while he stands by the candle, as he's done the other times since he's been home. He's cried every time while reading from the book—oh, don't go into it. He moves to the easy chair and opens the
New York Times
, tries reading an Arts article, but thinks of her. He's almost always thinking of her, or in ten minutes or so of doing something else he always seems to return to thinking of her, and sometimes of her reading this same paper, but the late edition, which she loved doing every morning over coffee till she couldn't anymore because of her cataracts. Regrets: why didn't he ever drive her down here to see this house? They bought it more than three years ago and she never saw it once. But he's gone over that. She was frail, couldn't take the train or plane anymore, four-hour car trip would have been too tiring and maybe even painful for her, it would have been too much for him to deal with, taking care of her and also seeing to his wife. Two wheelchairs in one house: in his head he didn't like the way they looked together, especially at the dinner table and on the little patio outside, though he didn't think it would have bothered his wife. But he could have made the car seat comfortable for her, stopped as often as she wanted along the way, driven more slowly than he normally does, taken Angela with her, put them up for a few days, Angela in the basement, his mother on the day bed in his wife's studio, an intercom hooked up between them, or moved his kids to the basement and had Angela and his mother in their adjacent bedrooms, driven them home and then returned the same day. The last two summers when he drove back from Maine he told his wife he was definitely going to have his mother down for a few days this fall and she said it'll be difficult but it was all right with her, and that was the last he did of it. She would have loved that he owned this house and lived in such a neighborhood: tall trees, small hills, lots of birds, and perfumy air, nursery school playground across the street and all those children's voices, house on one level and with ramps, extra-wide doors, and a bathroom big enough for a wheelchair to turn around, hospitable supermarket nearby. Regrets: why didn't he call her every day as he'd promised? Remembers his father saying lots of times, “When I got married and moved out I called my mother at least once a day till she died and saw her twice a week for dinner or lunch,” and his mother saying a number of those times, “It's true, your father was an unbelievable son: almost too good, to where he neglected his own family.” He remembers thinking this was a nice thing to do and he'd do it too with the phone, once he grew up and moved away from home. He called her every other day or every third day and for the last year she frequently didn't know who he was or took him for someone else: her dead brother, his father, a name he didn't recognize, and when he asked who's that? she said she'd never heard the name before and why'd he bring it up? But in a minute or so, after he kept saying, “It's me, Mom, Gould, your son, Gould,” recognizing him and saying at first she didn't hear him because he was speaking so softly or it was her bad hearing or the girl didn't put her hearing aid in right this morning or the hearing aid must need a new battery or never worked right: “You'll have to take me to the place we got it at. I forget where, but you'll know or Angela must have it written down. But you will come around to see me soon, won't you, dearest? I'd really like that,” and he'd say, she knows he's in Baltimore, right, and not in New York? and weekdays there's his job, not too demanding, but also driving Fanny to and from school, and weekends the kids always have so many things going for him to drive them to, and Sally, of course, takes some of his time, but he'll be there in two weeks, he promises, take her to lunch on a Saturday, and she'd say, Two weeks sounds like such a long time when one has nothing to do, but if it's the best he can do she'll have to live with it. Or sometimes she'd say, “That was dumb of me to think you were Dad. Probably because I didn't get enough sleep last night. All I could do was run my life through my mind and not like most of it, so aggravation there too. And also wasting away here watching inconsequential TV shows the girl likes makes me stupid and I forget what year it is and where I am. Tell me, is this my home I'm in?” and he'd say, “Your old apartment for almost sixty years. It's just it's a different kind of bed than you're used to and it's in the dining room because your bedroom was too far away from the bathroom, so maybe you don't recognize your surroundings because of that,” and she'd say, “All that's probably true. Though I still have a suspicion this isn't my regular home, but then why would you want to trick me?” Regrets: sometimes he'd call and Ebonita or Angela would answer and say, She's resting (or on the potty or sitting under the water in the shower), and he'd say he'll call back in an hour but usually never did. Why? Because he'd think, he already called that day; his duty was done, Angela will tell her he called and she'll be pleased by it though disappointed she missed him and later think something came up at his home where he couldn't call back. When actually talking on the phone to her the last few years was often frustrating, where she couldn't understand what he was saying and he'd have to shout for her to hear him, and sometimes she'd give the phone to Angela and say, “You talk to him and find out what he wants; he's speaking loud enough but I still can't make out a word.” He should have called back each time and, if she was still on the toilet or had gone from the toilet to the shower or bed, say he'll call back again in an hour or two, or sometime that day, and then call back as he said. Regrets: he'd tell her he was coming to New York to see her for the day, and half the time he'd call a day or two before to say something had come up at home—Sally, or one of the kids got sick—so he'll have to put off the trip till next week. Usually his Sally or sick-kid excuse was a lie: he didn't want to make the trip, too tired to or thought he'd be, or he had work to do and wanted to do it at home and not on the train, or heavy rain was forecast for New York, so he wouldn't be able to wheel her to a neighborhood restaurant, which made getting her there—which he wanted to because he found having lunch with her at home suffocating—even with Ebonita or Angela helping him, tough because he'd have to get her and the wheelchair in and out of cabs and sometimes she was a dead weight. He also wouldn't be able to take her to the park after lunch, which she liked doing and frequently fell asleep for an hour or two there while he watched people and read. Regrets that he found having lunch with her at home, suffocating. Regrets that she slept so much when he was in the park or even at home with her the last couple of years, but nothing he could have done about that. Regrets that he didn't take her down to the river after lunch, which he thought of doing lots of times on hot days, but it was about fifteen minutes away while the park was much closer. But he shouldn't have disappointed her so much, since that's what she obviously was—her voice, or silence after, or, “That's all right, your family comes first, and maybe you have some important outside things to do too”—whenever he told her he couldn't come in this weekend as planned. Regrets: why didn't he initiate conversation more and follow up the questions he did ask with more questions about what she was talking about when they went out for lunch or spoke on the phone or sat in her home the last few years? The calls to her were usually over in a couple of minutes, sometimes less; a few perfunctory questions, and mostly the same ones: “How are you? You feeling all right? Eating okay? Anyone drop by lately? Do anything interesting recently?” “Like what?” she'd say. “When you're not here, and I'm not going to a doctor with one of the girls or your lovely cousin, all I do is sleep and eat a little and listen to the radio or TV.” A couple of times he said, “Then anything interesting on the radio or TV?” and she said, “I can barely see or hear them,” and then silence on his part and after she asked him a few things about his family—“Your kids all right? Your wife okay? Does that new medicine she's taking work? Listen,” she said, maybe twenty times, “I hear they're discovering new things all the time for what she has; is she involved with any of them?”—she'd say, “So, I guess that's it; I can't think of anything else worth mentioning. Thanks for calling; you're a doll. I love you,” and he'd say, “Same here, Mom; Sally and the kids send their love too, and I'll call you tomorrow,” and she'd say, “I look forward to it; I always do.” Face it, he usually wanted to get off the phone with her as soon as he could. The same conversations, same difficulty in holding those conversations, and whatever he told her she seemed to instantly forget. But he should have faked it, put more life in his voice, asked friends for jokes and told her them—she liked a good joke—and laughed at the punch lines if she didn't. Thought of lots of different things she might want to talk about, repeated what he had to say over and over till she finally got it. Prepared questions to ask her before he dialed. Stayed on the phone five minutes, ten minutes, even thought of follow-up questions to ask her, wrote all these questions down, even. She must have thought sometimes, He's got to be bored with me by now; probably thinks I don't understand a word he says and haven't a brain left in my head. That I'm old so I'm demented. He's probably only calling out of a sense of duty. I should ask him more about him and his family, not just general questions but specific ones—“What courses are your girls taking in school? How are they doing in them? Do you have to help them much with their homework? I'm sorry, I know you once told me, but what grades are they in again?”—but I can never think of this when we're on the phone. I should also call him more, but so many times I don't think he's glad to hear from me. It mostly seems I'm getting him at a bad time, nothing personal against me. At the end of his calls to her, she often said, “Tell me, what's the best time to reach you by phone?” and he always said, “Anytime after five is good; there you're almost guaranteed I'm home. If I'm not and you speak to Sally or one of the kids, I'll call you soon as I get your message, unless it's way too late.” She hadn't called him more than three or four times in the last two years, and one day she called him twice and just an hour apart, not remembering she'd already called him. “Do I have your phone number? I don't think you ever gave it to me,” she said several times, and he'd tell her, “It's in the little phone book on your night table. It's also taped to the inside of the cabinet door above the kitchen phone, and I know Angela has it written down in a couple of other places in case she suddenly has to get me. But don't bother calling me; I like calling you and I try to every day,” and she said things like, “I know, and it's very sweet of you.” Why didn't he ever talk to her about some of these things? “You know me, Mom, I was never much of a talker on the phone, and it has nothing to do with you if our talks are short. And if I'm relatively quiet or not too conversational, we'll call it, at the restaurants we go to or when we're sitting around at home, it's only because the long train ride's made me sleepy, or I had to get up earlier than usual for a Saturday to catch the train and get here by noon, or I did lots of schoolwork or something the previous night and didn't get enough sleep, so there, also, it was nothing you did.” Regrets: when he came to New York the time before the last, almost a month ago—and another regret is why he didn't come a week or two after that, or every week—and walked into the dining room where she was sitting in a chair and said, “How are you, Mom?” and she looked up, no smile, which she normally gave, that she was glad to see him, and said, “Who are you?” why didn't he get on his knees and hug her and say, “Mom, it's me, Gould, your son; oh, my mom, why don't you recognize me?” Instead, he stood there, saying, “What do you mean, who am I? It's me, who else could it be? I've come to see you, all the way from Baltimore, and take you out to lunch and spend the day with you,” and she said, “We're going out? That's nice. I wasn't expecting it, nobody said anything,” and he said, “But I called last night to remind you and Angela, and we've been talking about it the last two weeks. And you're dressed for going out, aren't you? so you must have known,” and she said, “Then I don't remember, but please don't make it an issue. I'll have to go to the bathroom first and then I'll be ready—call the girl,” so regrets there for upsetting her. Did he apologize? He's sure he did but forgets. He got her wheelchair—“Want to walk it outside?”; she said, “Right now I feel too weak to”—and got her into the chair, pushed her outside; “The girl; shouldn't we invite Angela? We haven't taken her to lunch in a while,” and he said, “Not today, I just want to be with you alone and I'm sure she appreciates the break, especially when she's working the weekend this week too,” when it was really because Angela picked at her food and took a half hour longer to eat than his mother—turned around in the areaway, and pulled her up the steps to the sidewalk. “Want to try walking the wheelchair now? It's good exercise for you, and only a little way,” and she said, “I don't feel I can move a step. I'm sorry, but I don't know what's wrong with me today,” and he said, “Mom, come on, you should only do what you're able to,” pushed her to the restaurant she liked going to most, table by the patio window she