Acts of God (13 page)

I know the dogs are keeping you awake but please hold on until I return and don't write any more letters to your neighbors.

Be of good cheer. I think it was a little over the top for Tony to beat up the man who was screwing his little Russian mistress but Shakespeare wouldn't have stopped there. He would have had him kill him. I wish the show lasted three hours every Sunday night.

Be of good cheer. I'll take care of you. With love,

Thomas

Dear Neighbors,

Please all come to my house on Saturday afternoon, the 28th of November. My lawyer from Jackson will be here to advise us. We have to get this settled. Layton, I have told the workmen not to take down my fence until we have a meeting so please join the rest of us on Saturday, November 28.

Peacefully yours,

Rhoda Manning

Dear Thomas,

There is a god. The dogs are gone, disappeared. We heard they took them to their old house on Maple Street and shut them up in the yard over there. No one's living in the house. They're trying to sell it. I feel sorry for the neighbors over there but they're mostly a bunch of old field hippies and if they cared they could do something about it like we have been doing.

Thanks so much for your help. Good luck with the trial on the coast. I've been reading about it in the paper. I don't know what kind of outcome you are hoping for.

The new episodes of
The Sopranos
are brilliant but it's being written by too many people. They are going to lay down all these plot lines and then disappear for another year. I wish I wasn't hooked on it. If Tony would fuck Dr. Melfi I'd quit watching. Or if he found out about her rape and killed her rapist. I wish I could write it.

Meanwhile, onward,

Rhoda

December 10, 2002

Dear Neighbors,

I am having my publisher send you each a hardback copy of my book,
We Come from Risen Apes, Not Fallen Angels
. I hope you take the time to read it.

I am negotiating with the city to take in some children from Tin Cup for after-school instruction and play. Since the little Hingis girl has gone to college there is no one to sell me magazines, cookies, or Christmas wrapping paper. A childless neighborhood is too dreary an affair for an old romantic like myself.

I notice that the dogs are no longer in the Fosters's yard so I assume you have come to some conclusion about all of that.

Happy Holidays to all of you. I hope you enjoy the book.

Yours truly,

Harvey Colton, M.D.

December 11, 2002

Dear Rhoda,

I don't know what we have done here. The Fosters have put their house up for sale and have bought a place out in Madison County.

Dr. Colton has applied to the city for a permit to let someone operate a day-care center for abused children in his house. The fence people have already been over there measuring the yard. One of those elegant four-thousand-dollar swing sets is already installed and they are digging a hole for what is either a swimming pool or a ground-level trampoline. Do you think he would really do that?

We have been trying to read the book he sent to us but I think it is an atheist (sp?) tract. I mean, I don't have anything against atheists or abused children but why in our neighborhood? Is there anything we can do about this?

Your neighbors,

Olivia and William Carter

December 13, 2002

Dear Olivia and William,

I'm sorry. I know it's not across the street from me but even if it was I would not care if Dr. Colton starts a day-care center. Children are pretty, they don't carry fleas, and they
don't bark.
I like the book. I think it's brilliant, if slightly overwritten.

Actually, I can't think of a better outcome from all this than to have the Fosters move out to the country with their dogs. Merry Christmas to all of you. I'm going to the coast for a while. I don't want to get too insular if I can help it.

Yours in the neighborhood,

Rhoda

Dear Olivia and William,

I think I should warn you that Rhoda Manning is now seeing (maybe sleeping with) Dr. Colton. Bob and I ran into them out at the Walmart Supercenter where they had a cart full of Lego sets and Barbie dolls. They had an Irish Barbie, an Asian Barbie, and two Rapunzel Barbies, one Afro-American, one White.

Plus, his BMW was parked in her driveway all night on Saturday night. I thought she had left town to go to the coast!

If you are as concerned as we are about the pending day-care center please call tonight and let's talk. There is just no point in starting that on Lighton Trail, is there?

It's always something, isn't it?

Yours sincerely,

Bob Hingis

Jenny Hingis

December 21, 2002

Dear Thomas,

I wrote the producers and told them either Dr. Melfi and Tony fuck each other or I'm canceling HBO. It won't be on again for ten months so what are we going to do now?

I may drive up to Jackson next week and take you to lunch and let you meet a new friend of mine. I am enclosing a copy of his book, We Come from Risen Apes, Not Fallen Angels. It's overwritten but the theory is sound. Didn't Tony look like a perfect ape in the episode where he was standing over the guy who was fucking the Russian girl. He had his belt doubled up in his hand just like the apes wield sticks they pick up from the forest floor.

Meanwhile, onward,

Rhoda

Postscript: No, I am not getting laid but I am thinking about it. Just one more time and then I'll quit for good. Maybe I won't do it. Maybe I'll go skiing instead. Sometimes I wish I would get cancer. Here would be my chemotherapy. Go skiing at Aspen on West Buttermilk. Charter a plane and fly somewhere to watch André Agassi play tennis. Fuck one of my old boyfriends, the one in New Orleans who got away would be nice or maybe the running back. Or just talk to them.

What else? Buy all my children and grandchildren who can drive new cars.

Buy Annie and Juliet one of those Barbie cars to drive around the yard.

Let you know how much you mean to me.

Happy Winter Solstice,

Love,

Rhoda

M
ultiple sclerosis is tricky,” Dr. Anderson said, on a beautiful late summer day in Biloxi, with no storms brewing in the Gulf of Mexico and none expected. “Just because it seems to be getting worse doesn't mean it's a steady decline. So many things play into the progression. I want to try a new regimen they're having success with in Cincinnati. I was there last month for a seminar and I think it's worth trying. It could help you walk longer.”

“Or not?” she answered. She was still beautiful and still charming and she used it. “I think I'll wait awhile before I change medications. Is this bad news, Will, or just what you've been expecting?”

He didn't answer right away. “It's not good news.”

“Because there isn't going to be any good news, right?”

“I'd like to try this new regimen. You've handled this so well, Philipa.” He handed her a prescription. “Your sleeping pills. Is there anything else you need?”

“No, just the truth and you always give me that. I know it's hard to treat the untreatable.”

“In Cincinnati I got excited at some of the results. The drugs may make you queasy at first, but I'd like to try them.”

“I'd better go. You have an office full of patients. My insurance doesn't pay you enough. I wish you'd let us pay you extra money. Charles told me to tell you that.”

“I'm fine. I'd like to see you again in two weeks. I'm proud of how you've handled this, Philipa.”

“Oh, well, what were the options?” She smiled and gathered up her things and went out and down a long hall to a checkout desk and turned in her paperwork.

“He wants to see you again in two weeks. And he wants you to get blood work at the hospital.” The nurse handed her more paper.

“I'll call,” Philipa said. “I'll call next week.” She turned some of the charm on the overweight woman with the pretty face who had been checking her in and out for what seemed like forever. “I'll call soon.”

SHE WENT OUT
to the parking lot and got into the new Mercedes with the special hand-operated foot pedals and the six huge airbags that sooner or later would probably go off and asphyxiate her. I finally got to use that word, she thought as she always did when she noticed the airbags.
Asphyxiate.
Keller and I used to know every word in the dictionary. We used to learn a word a day when we were young.

She laughed out loud thinking about her happy, happy childhood and her little brother, Keller, in his cowboy boots. All gone now, she remembered. Momma and Daddy and my aunts and uncles and grandparents and Keller having heart surgery and taking drugs that make him dumb, just to keep it beating. I thought we were so strong that we could never die.

She pulled down the rearview mirror and opened it and looked at herself while she slapped her cheeks with her left hand. Shut up. You have four children and countless grandchildren and a great-grandchild. You have lived a blessed life except for the dissolution of the fucking myelin sheath. You have tons of money and a great husband and a wonderful masseuse and friends if you'd ever call them up. You have good doctors who pay attention. You've had a wonderful life and now you need to find a way to asphyxiate yourself. Done deal. No turning back this time.

She was strangely happy. Having a plan always did that for her. She stopped at a drugstore and filled the prescription the doctor had given her.

THE MAIN THING
is not to talk to anyone about anything that's wrong with me. Not the children, not Charles. Lie to him, lie to him, lie to him. So he won't feel like an accomplice. So he won't think he could have stopped it. Let him be mad at me. It will help him get over it. He's still a handsome man. Someone will marry him. Someone will always take care of a handsome man. What a relief it may be to him, after this mess I've put him through.

WHEN SHE GOT
home Charles was waiting for her. “What did he tell you?” he asked. “What did he say?”

“That it's progressing and he wants to start me on some new regimen he learned in Cincinnati last week.”

“You need to go to Duke or Mayo's. You need to go where the cutting-edge work is being done.”

“He thinks it's being done in Cincinnati.”

“I don't know. How do you feel?”

“Just like I did this morning and yesterday. It's progressing. But I'm still walking. So let's don't talk about it. Let's call Salvetti's and have them deliver Italian food. I'm hungry for Italian food.”

“I'm not happy with what you're doing with Anderson. I want you at a great hospital.”

“I'm fine, Charles. Call Salvetti's and order something good to eat. I'm going to change clothes.” She left him in the living room and went into her bedroom and took off her dress and put on a pair of slacks and a linen blouse.

An hour later they were in the dining room eating lasagna and fresh bread and drinking wine. “Don't worry about me,” she was saying. “We're seventy-eight years old, Charles. What did we think was going to happen? At least you're in good health. At least we aren't both invalids. Actually, I like this disease. The dissolution of the myelin sheath, probably caused by a defect in the genes. It has a nice ring, doesn't it?

“And yes, right now it's bad news but not terrible news. And Doctor Anderson will give me all the drugs I want. He promised me he wouldn't let me be uncomfortable.”

“I want you to go to Johns Hopkins or Mayo's or Duke. Carleton works at Duke. I'll call him. See what he suggests.”

“Not this month. I need to get away, Charles. Go on a cruise. I want to make use of the time when I can walk.”

“A cruise? To where?”

“To Egypt maybe. To see the pyramids. I want to leave right away. This lasagna is great. I'd forgotten how much I love it. I craved it when I was pregnant. Do you remember that?” She reached across the table and took his hand. “Stop worrying. I'll tell you when I need you to worry.”

LATER, WHEN THEY
were getting ready for bed, he started it again. “We need to go to a great medical center and just see what they say.”

“They'll say I'll be crippled soon. This is not a mysterious disease, Charles. They don't understand the causes but the progression is understood. Take a sleeping pill and go to sleep.”

“Which one should I take?”

“Take the Clonazepam. I took one last week when my hands were bothering me. I slept for ten hours and didn't have a hangover. It's an old pill they don't prescribe much anymore.”

“I don't take pills, Philipa. I'll just read awhile. Get in bed and read with me.”

“Not now. I want to get on the computer and find a cruise to Egypt. I haven't seen the pyramids since Daddy took us when I was sixteen.”

“I'll go wherever you want to go. I'll need a week or two to get things straight at the office. I'm helping Larry with a case. But I want us to get a second opinion and soon.”

“It's not worth the time. Multiple sclerosis is understood. I've been watching my cousin David for years. It's probably genetic, another blue-eyed blond immune failing. Which is why I'm glad Caroline Jane is dating that Italian.

“Oh, my God. Come on, Philipa. Get in bed. We'll read and cuddle. I need you.”

“In a while.”

He climbed into the bed. He was wearing a faded pair of blue Brooks Brothers pajamas and he had an old cardigan around his shoulders. He picked up a stack of books from his bedside table and found the one he wanted. It was a spy novel by Daniel Silva. He opened the book to a scene where the Mossad agent named Gabriel was in the process of saving the life of the Pope. The scene took place in a synagogue in Rome where the Pope was about to make a speech apologizing for the Catholic Church's role in the Holocaust.

Philipa put the bottle of Clonazepam on the bedside table with a thermos of water. “In case you change your mind,” she said. “We aren't going to get addicted to anything at our age, Charles.”

“It's not cancer,” he said. “It isn't life-threatening.”

“It might as well be,” she answered. “It threatens the way I live.”

Charles watched her leave the room, her pink silk gown and robe trailing behind her. She still had beautiful posture, still walked like a dancer, still seemed in charge. Why a cruise, he wondered. Why not take our boat and sail in the Virgin Islands? Maybe she really does want to see the pyramids again, burial mounds where secret shafts of light connect the mummies to their gods. Hard to believe in God when you need him. Have to believe in the church, in the idea as a force for good; have to believe in something.

He closed his book and laid it on the bedside table. Then he got down on his knees and began to pray to the God he hoped somehow existed. “Now I lay me down to sleep,” he began. “Don't let her die. Don't let her suffer, don't take her away from me. Tell me what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to watch this happen to her.” Then he was crying, his face in his folded hands.

After a few minutes he stood up and looked at the bottle of pills she had left on the table. He read the label. No, he decided. I'll just read.

“The Rome Central Synagogue: Eastern and ornate, stirring in restless anticipation. Gabriel took his place at the front of the synagogue, his right shoulder facing the
bimah,
his hands behind his back, pressed against the cool marble wall. Father Donati stood next to him, tense and irritable. The vantage point provided him perfect sight lines around the interior of the chamber. A few feet away sat a group of Curial cardinals, dazzling in crimson cassocks, listening intently as the chief rabbi made his introductory remarks. Just beyond the cardinals stirred the fidgety denizens of the Vatican press corps . . .”

Reading wasn't working. Philipa was up to something. He had not known her all these years without knowing her mind. Dr. Anderson had told him she would be in denial but she was not in denial. She was wide awake and planning. She had told him a thousand times she would never agree to be an invalid, never be in anyone's power, never die in a bed.

He picked up the bottle of pills and read the label again. He poured one out into his hand and put it into his mouth and swallowed it without water. Then he took the thermos of water and poured a glassful and drank it. Then he climbed back into the bed and started reading again.

“As the Pope finally rose to speak, a palpable sense of electricity filled the hall. Gabriel resisted the temptation to look at him. Instead, his eyes scanned the synagogue, looking for someone or something that seemed out of place . . .”

PHILIPA FOUND A
cruise to Egypt leaving in three days time. Perfect. Charles would never be able to leave that soon. She'd tell him to meet her in Cairo, that she wanted to tour the new archaeological museum with her cousin Courtney, whose husband was a United States diplomat.

The cook came in early and made breakfast, fresh cantaloupe, omelets, and toast made from homemade bread their neighbor Callie had brought by the day before. The word was out. This was not a secret anymore. Philipa had not been able to hold a book at book club the month before and she had seen a friend in the waiting room of the nuclear medicine lab. “It's probably multiple sclerosis,” she had told him. “Two of my first cousins have it. It isn't bad yet.”

“You're too old to develop that,” the friend answered. “It's probably arthritis. You should go further south for the winter. Cold weather makes my hands and knees hurt all the time.”

“We'll see,” Philipa had answered. “We shouldn't have gotten old, Jimmy. It was a big mistake. A really bad idea.”

Charles came to the breakfast table dressed in a suit and tie. She waited until he was finished eating before she told him she was leaving. “I really have to get out of town for a while,” she said. “Too many people know about this and I don't want to talk about it. There's a cruise leaving Cape Canaveral at noon on Friday. I'm going to be on it. I'll wait for you in Cairo. Courtney's there. I called her this morning. She's going to take me to the new museum. When you get there we'll go down the Nile to see the pyramids. You've never seen them, have you?”

“Why Friday? If you'll wait a week I'll go with you.”

“I want to be alone for a while. I don't want to talk to anyone right now, even you, my darling. It's my disease. I need to think about it.”

“You need to tell the children. They want to know what's going on. You need to talk to them.”

“I'll talk to the children at Thanksgiving. When we're at the beach together. I don't want their lives shadowed by this. What good does that do?”

“What can I do to help you?”

“Nothing. I bought a ticket last night and got a flight to Cape Canaveral tomorrow. Maybe I'll gamble on the boat, dance with strangers, do karaoke.” She was laughing now. She had made him smile. “I'm taking my laptop. I'm going to write it down, process it on paper, do research.”

“Will you be all right?”

“I've got every drug known to man counting all the things they've been prescribing for arthritis. I'll have a swimming pool, hot tubs, people to wait on me hand and foot, people I don't know who aren't trying to decide what to say to me.”

He folded his napkin and got up and went around the table and kissed her on the cheek.

“Go to work,” she said. “I'm all right. I have a plan and I'm going to carry it through. Then I'll come home and go to Duke with you if that will make you happy.”

IN THE FOUR
Seasons Hotel in Cape Canaveral she dumped her cosmetic kit out on the bed and lined up the pills. Then she started reading the Physician's Desk Reference she had bought at Barnes and Noble. She had thirty 3-mg Lunesta, forty Ambien CR, and twenty-six Clonazepam. She had forty Percadan, a hundred oxycodone, ninety-seven Baclofen and fifteen Carisoprodol.