Almost Eden (6 page)

“Y
ou weren’t kidding!” Jillian cruised into the back-yard on her bike.

“Hey!” I set down the wire brush I’d been using and grabbing a corner of the scaffold, I jumped to the ground. The frame rocked and rattled back in place.

“Careful,
kint
” Grandma warned. She and Auntie Nettie sat on lawn chairs in the shade, shelling ice-cream pails of peas as fast as Lena and Beth picked them.

“I had to see this for myself,” grinned Jillian.

“Check out the tan.” I pulled aside the strap on my bikini top to show her how tanned I was already in only three days on the job.

Grandma clucked her tongue. “
Schentlich
,” she muttered, followed by a stream of Plautdietsch that made Auntie Nettie chuckle.

“What’s so funny?” Sometimes it really got my goat when they talked about me in Low German.

“Grandma says you sit yourself on your ears,” said Auntie Nettie, grinning still more. “She means you don’t listen.”

Jillian cracked up. “I can totally see it.”

“My grandma doesn’t approve,” I whispered, rolling my eyes. “She and Beth think Dad’s crazy to let me paint, and that I’m plain wicked to be parading around half-naked.”

“Your friend would like something cold to drink maybe?” Auntie Nettie asked.

I offered to get lemonade for everyone. Even went around to the garden to ask Beth and Lena if they wanted a break.

Beth took one look at me and said, “Put on some clothes at least.”

There was no point in trying to be nice to her. I was perfectly respectable in a pair of old cut-offs and my bikini top. “What’s wrong now?”

“For one thing, you look ridiculous wearing a top like that. It’s not like you have anything to show off.”

My face grew hot. “Thanks for noticing.”

Beth could go jump in a lake as far as I was concerned, but I pulled on a T-shirt anyways. Partly for the sake of peace, and partly because I wondered if Beth might be a little bit right about me looking ridiculous.

When I came out with the lemonade, Grandma had put Jillian to work already, shelling peas. I should’ve known Grandma couldn’t stand to see idle hands.

“So? How goes the big job?” Auntie Nettie squinted at the house.

Personally, I don’t know what Tom Sawyer made all the fuss about. I knew this was only my third day at it, but so far I liked this painting thing. It was fun hosing off the loose dirt. I liked scraping and brushing blistered paint from the window frames and siding. I liked smoothing the rough edges with sandpaper.

I liked how Tommy stretched out on the porch to keep me company, snoozing in the sun or just watching and listening to the radio and me jabbering away at him. I liked how the sun warmed my bare back as I worked. And for sure I liked being out of earshot of Beth all morning.

Most of all, I liked how Dad nodded after work when he checked how much I’d done and said, “Good job.” He’d even asked me to do the bottom half of the house. I could’ve done the top part, too, but he wouldn’t let me climb so high on the scaffolding.

We still hadn’t got around to the actual painting part, but I was pretty sure I was going to like that, too. Maybe Grandma was on to something with this work thing.

“The garage is ready,” I said. “And one side of the house. Dad’s going to caulk windows this weekend. He thinks we’ll be painting by next week, as long as it doesn’t rain.”

Grandma shook her head. “
Uy uy uy.
”

“Enough already,
mumke
” tutted Auntie Nettie. “It never bothers anyone and she’s doing a real good job.”

“I’m doing a real good job of picking peas, right Auntie Nettie?” Lena asked. “Mom will be surprised, right?”

“Best job ever,” nodded Auntie Nettie. “Your mother will be proud of you. This afternoon we’ll blanch and freeze them yet, too.”

Lena beamed.

Beth picked up her pail. “C’mon,
schnigglefritz.
One more row to go yet.”

“I’ve got to get home, but I’ll see you at the pool this afternoon, right?” Jillian handed me her empty glass.

“For sure.”

“Uh, say hi to your Mom for me.”

“I will.” I wasn’t sure exactly if she knew Mom was sick, but I wasn’t about to talk about it right then.

I gathered the rest of the empty glasses. Auntie Nettie followed me inside with a brimming bowl of peas. “
Nah, meyahl
? You didn’t tell your friend your mother was sick?”

“I will. Just not, you know, in front of everybody. She probably knows anyways.”

“But not from you.” She dumped the peas into the big colander in the sink and started rinsing. “Only from the
schnetke
conference.”

She’d lost me. “The what?”

“The biscuit conference. You know, the gossips.”

Auntie Nettie made it sound like I was ashamed of my mother or something. That wasn’t it at all. Mom just wasn’t a subject that came up in casual conversation.

“Esther will be home again in no time,” Auntie Nettie smiled at me. “You’ll see. Are you remembering to say your prayers for her?”

“Yeah.” That’s all everyone said–pray, pray, pray. I
was
praying. Every night.

“Have you been yet to see her?”

“We haven’t been allowed. Maybe tomorrow, Dad says.” Part of me was a little bit glad we hadn’t been able to go see Mom yet.

“
Ach!
” Auntie Nettie shook her head. “What nonsense is that? Esther will worry herself crazy. And children need their mother.”

I smiled, but Auntie Nettie didn’t seem to notice. “Anyways, Dad says she mostly sleeps right now,” I prompted, hoping she might let slip something I should know.

“Sure she sleeps, who wouldn’t sleep when–” Auntie Nettie turned the cold water on full blast, mumbling to herself. “They are fools, those doctors. They think they are like God and know everything that is best for your mother. What have they done for her all these years? I’ll tell you.
Nusht.
Worse than
nusht.
”

I’d always known my mother was different. Nobody else’s mother did stuff like cry over dead baby robins. Or put on their bathing suits to go outside and play
with their kids in the rain during a thunderstorm. Or pick dandelions and weeds to put in a vase on the kitchen table.

When I was little and Beth was in school already, Mom used to take me for long walks all over town. One time in the spring we took off our socks and shoes. I rolled up my pants and Mom tied up her skirt above her knees and we spent the whole afternoon splashing and wading in the ditches looking for tadpoles. I’d never had so much fun. Only when Dad came home that night for supper he said his boss at work had seen Mom and me playing in the ditches and asked him if his wife was “
gaunz ferekt
”, which meant totally crazy.

“So? What did you tell him?” she wanted to know.

Dad smiled kind of crooked and shook his head and said, “Not totally crazy, only halfway.”

Which made Mom laugh. Then Dad put his arms around her waist and kissed her laughing mouth and Mom twirled me up in her arms and said, “Elsie and I went on an adventure this afternoon, didn’t we
schnigglefritz
?”

After that, whenever Mom got one of her crazy ideas–like maybe climbing a tree to see if there were eggs inside a nest–then she always said, “Do you feel like an adventure,
schnigglefritz
?”

Only pretty soon after that Lena was born, so she became the
schnigglefritz
in our house. And then I started
school yet, and found out other kids didn’t go on adventures with their mothers. They mostly only played on the playground at the park.

Auntie Nettie shook her head, still muttering mostly to herself. “It’s not my business. I shouldn’t go so much off at the mouth.”

I grinned. We all knew Auntie Nettie’s opinion of psychiatrists. We all knew Auntie Nettie’s opinions about most things. “You’re probably right. I bet her doctor, is a real
dummkopp
”, I teased.

“
En schozzle. En daugnichts.
” Auntie Nettie chuckled. She flicked her wet hands, spritzing me with water. “Good thing you don’t know the Plautdietsch.”

“I know some.”

Dad walked in about then, home for lunch. “What do you know, Elsie?”

Auntie Nettie got busy at the sink real quick, her back turned. But her shoulders shook silently. I broke up laughing.

“Why do I think you two have been up to no good?” Dad hung up his cap.

“Sit you
doy
, O’Lloyd,” Auntie Nettie ordered him into a chair. For sure there was no one named O’Lloyd in our family. But once, Grandma Redekop said that to a visitor named O’Lloyd when she didn’t know the right English way to say “Sit over there.” Now everyone said it all the time.

Dad didn’t bother to protest. Not that Auntie Nettie would’ve listened. She winked at me. “
Putzendonna
”, she whispered. “You’ll get me in trouble.”

“Better you than me,” I whispered back. Then because it felt so good to laugh I threw my arms around her waist and hugged her.

“
Uy uy uy
” she said, patting my hair.

For lunch Auntie Nettie had brought over two bagfuls of
rollkuchen
to eat with watermelon. She knew it was my favorite food in the world. I’d poured a lake of syrup into my plate beside a mountain of the deep-fried dough strips before I saw Beth smirking at me and realized that
rollkuchen
was probably bread, too.
Fuy.

Sighing, I gave my plate to Lena. “I think I’ll just have watermelon and yogurt.”

Everyone stopped doing whatever it was they were doing. They turned, like they were all tied to the same string, to stare at me.

“Are you sick?” Dad asked.

Grandma felt my forehead, “You don’t feel hot. You should lie down maybe.”

I started laughing again. Pretty soon I was laughing so hard my stomach hurt. I couldn’t stop till I got the hiccups.

My stomach was growling so much I couldn’t sleep, so I slipped downstairs and helped myself to a huge plate of
rollkuchen
drowned in syrup.

“L
ookit once how high I can go, Elsie.” Lena, that little monkey, dangled hand over hand from the scaffolding. A minute ago she’d been drawing chalk pictures on the sidewalk.

“Get off of there!”

“Aren’t you done yet? Let’s go see Mom.”

“Almost.”

“That’s what you said before, like an hour ago. Can I help?”

“I told you already, you’re too little still.” I leaned on the wire brush as I scrubbed the top corners of the bay window one more time. Really though, I was dawdling, putting off going to Eden a few minutes longer. Suddenly the scaffold shuddered, catching me off balance. I grabbed a support to steady myself then looked to see what the
problem was. Lena was spread-eagled across the crossbar and reaching still higher.

“Lena Margaret Redekop, get down this instant!”

She ignored me. “I’m climbing Dad’s jungle gym.”

“It’s not a jungle gym, it’s a scaffold. And it’s not for playing on. You know that.” By then Lena had climbed all the way up beside me. Tommy leaped down as she scrambled across the boards.

“Fuy,” she scoffed. “I could jump to the ground from here. Bet I could climb as high as Dad even.” She tilted her head back, checking out the top level of the scaffolding.

“Don’t even think it.” I scrambled over the edge, then held my hand out to Lena. “C’mon. I’ll help you down.”

She scooted over to the other side, swung off the platform and jumped down by herself. Then she grinned at me, all cheek. “Now can we go see Mom?”

“Not until you promise to stay off the scaffolding. Dad’ll kill me if I let anything happen to you.”

She stuck her tongue out at me. “Promise.”

Beth wouldn’t let us out of the house, though, until we ate lunch and looked “presentable.” Shorts and T-shirts weren’t good enough for her. “You can’t go to visit Mom looking like a couple of rug rats. She’ll think the whole house is falling apart.”

“What’s wrong now?” I asked.

“Look at your feet–they’re filthy. And Lena’s are worse. Don’t either of you ever wear shoes?”

Okay, so maybe she had a point. “All right already. We’ll wash our feet. C’mon, Lena.”

“And put on a blouse and sandals,” she called after us. “And brush your hair!”

She had to give us a final inspection yet before she let us out the front door. “What happened to your leg?”

The razor slice on my leg had been healing pretty well till I’d scratched the scab off this morning. I said the first thing that came to me. “I banged my shin on my bike pedal.”

“Well don’t pick at it. You’ll get a scar. Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you?”

Beth was such an old woman. It wasn’t like we’d never been to Eden before. Besides which, it was only ten minutes away by bike, and then we could head straight to the pool after.

From the outside, Eden looked more like an old folks’ home than a hospital. We dropped our bikes on the front lawn. My heart was pounding already as we walked through the two sets of double glass doors leading to the lobby.

“
Fuy
”, Lena wrinkled her nose. “It stinks.”

“Shhh,” I hushed her. For sure she was right about the smell, though. No amount of Pine-Sol could cover it up. The place smelled of sick people, all shut in together. It made me wonder if maybe that was how sadness and heartache and hopelessness smelled, and how anyone
could get well in a place like this. And then right away I was thinking of the other times I’d visited Mom here, even after I thought I’d forgotten them.

All of a sudden I was angry. Why should a smell make me angry?

“Elsie?” Lena tugged on my blouse.

My feet dragged me to the front desk. “Can you tell us where Esther Redekop is?” I wished my voice didn’t sound so little. “Please.”

“I think I saw her in the lounge,” the nurse nodded. “Right through there.”

We knew the way.

Lena and I walked through another set of doors into the lounge. I scanned the groups of stiff couches and chairs and checked the line of tables along the windows that looked into the courtyard. Sometimes we played
knippsbrat
with Mom there, or else shuffleboard at the long table at the other end of the room. A group of patients sat in front of a TV in one corner. In another corner stood a piano, all closed up. A few more patients sat by themselves, holding a book or magazine, but mostly they weren’t reading. Mostly they were just staring into space.

Holy Moses. I glanced at one blank face after another, looking away again quickly before all those empty eyes could pull me in. I’m telling you I was relieved something fierce to find Mom wasn’t among them. They reminded
me of zombies, or maybe robots. They only seemed human until you looked into their eyes. Then you knew. Then you could see they were mostly dead inside.

I’d almost forgot how much I hated this place. My mother didn’t belong here.

I pulled my shoulders back and made believe my mission was to guide Lena past all the nurses, doctors, and zombie patients to rescue our mother.

“Where is she?” Lena whispered, slipping her hand into mine.

If I went back to the desk to ask again, I might leave altogether. “Maybe she has the same room as before. C’mon.”

A hallway opened off the other side of the lounge. Walking along the corridor, we peeked in open doors and checked nameplates and pretty soon we found her.

“Mom!” Lena practically shouted.

Mom looked up from the book she was reading. She smiled to see us there. The smile didn’t reach her eyes or light up her face like a smile is supposed to, but she did smile anyways.

I hung back a little, but Lena right away threw her arms around Mom and hugged with all her might.

Mom laughed softly. “Oh, my. This is quite the greeting. Surely I haven’t been away so long already for you to miss me so much?”

Lena spread her arms out wide. “I’ve missed you this much!”

“I’ve missed you this much, too,
schnigglefritz.
I’ve missed you to the moon and back again.” She scooped Lena up in her arms and hugged her tight, smiling at me over Lena’s shoulder, until Lena finally squirmed free.

My heart was thudding in my chest still. Mom didn’t act like she was mad at me. I quickly kissed her forehead and tried not to let it show on my face that she smelled funny. Or that she looked so awfully tired. Her eyes didn’t shine like they usually did. Mom was maybe starting to turn into one of the zombies.

“Let’s go for a walk,” I blurted, because I had to get out of there and I had to get Mom out of there, too. “Are you thirsty? I’m thirsty. Let’s go get a soft drink.”

Mom moved slowly. I almost had to drag her, back out through the lounge and past the reception desk. She told the nurse she’d be outside with her daughters.

Outside Mom’s eyes didn’t look so dead anymore. We walked across the street to the service station. Mom didn’t have any money on her, but I had brought some change. I dropped fifteen cents into the slot and slid a bottle of Grape Crush out of the rack for Lena. Mom wanted an Orange Crush, and I got myself a Mountain Dew.

Then we walked back to Eden with our soft drinks and sat on a bench on the back lawn.

“So, how goes it?” I didn’t know what else to say, and I wanted for Mom to say, “On two legs, like a gander,” because then we could smile and maybe even pretend everything was like always.

Only Mom had gone somewheres, just for a second. Then she said, “
Blow gout
”, and chuckled at the puzzled looks we gave her. “It means, only good, just good. Your grandfather used to say it all the time.”

“Were you thinking about him or something?”

“I guess I was. Never mind about me. How’re you girls doing? Tell me how things are at home.”

“
Blous gout
,” I said. At least it got a little smile out of Mom. And it was true, sort of. Things weren’t going great, but I guess they could’ve been going worse yet.

“Are you girls getting along?”

“Sure. Mostly.” What was I supposed to say? It wasn’t like I could tell her that Beth was a bossy old bag or that Lena was pestering me all the time or that Dad was already pulling his hair out. We weren’t supposed to get her worked up worrying herself over us.

“Is someone remembering to feed Tommy?”

I nodded. “Sure. I’m taking care of him.” I’d have to remember to fill his saucer when I got home. I was pretty sure I’d forgotten that morning.

After that I didn’t know what else to say. Good thing Lena was with. She gabbed away about how Beth was in charge and how she was helping take care of the house. How she’d gotten sunburned and I was painting the house and had decided to be a “veternarian,” but Beth thought it was stupid. How we were remembering to say our prayers every night.

Mom didn’t even pick up on the veternarian thing. I didn’t bother to correct Lena. I could see from Mom’s eyes that she wasn’t really listening anyways.

“
Nah yo
, it sounds like you’re doing just fine without me.” It was Mom’s voice talking, but it wasn’t Mom. This person was a robot filling in for her while the real Mom was far away somewheres.

Just fine? Hadn’t she heard a thing Lena said?

“I swam across the pool three times last week,” Lena was talking a mile a minute still. “Pretty soon I’ll be able to go in the deep end.”

“Won’t that be wonderful?” said the robot Mom. “I’d like to see that.”

“You can. Come swimming with us.” Lena tugged on her arm, trying to get her to stand up.

Mom smiled. “Oh, not today,
schnigglefritz.
I can’t today.”

“Yes you can. Just stand up and come with.”

Something flashed across Mom’s face. Just like that she looked small, smaller than Lena even. She just sort of crumpled. She shook her head and pulled away.

Lena’s lower lip trembled like it did when she was getting ready to bawl her eyes out. Before she could get going I stood up and put my hand on her shoulder, squeezing a little bit so maybe she’d get it that she shouldn’t cry. “Mom can watch you swim another day. You still have to get all practiced up anyways.”

She nodded, whispering. “Don’t worry, Mom. You can watch me swim another day.”

“That sounds good.” Mom gave Lena a weak smile.

A few minutes later we walked Robot Mom to her room and kissed her good-bye. “We’ll come back soon,” I promised.

“I think I’ll put my ear a bit on the mattress,” she said, sitting down on the bed and still trying to smile at us.

“Do you want me to put out the light?”

Mom nodded. “Take care of each other,” she said. “I love you, girls.”

“We love you, too, Mom,” I whispered.

“Get better soon.” Lena stuck her head back through the door for one last wave.

And then we were hurrying down the corridor, through the lounge, and bursting out the front door, running for our bikes.

“Mom doesn’t look sick,” Lena said. “How come she has to stay in there?”

“She’s not sick on the outside. She’s sick on the inside.” I grabbed my bike.

“Because of your pajama party,” Lena said, out of the blue.

My blood turned cold. “I’ll race you,” I said. “You can have a head start.”

I pedaled just hard enough to stay behind her, even rode part way with no hands.

Far enough to wish I didn’t ever have to visit Mom in that place ever again. I wished it twice. I didn’t give a care that conditions didn’t favor my wish coming true.