Habit (26 page)

Shirley is so glad we came on Fish Day.

Anyway, I think it's fish. I'd rather not describe it: a greyish shriveled blob sort of thing, swamped in something viscous. No wonder Ma's been losing so much weight. I can't believe how sweetly she of all people has tolerated this, for literally months. She is really brave, because this is truly awful.

Colette has that
I-lived-in-a-trailer-don't-mind-the-brick-wall-outside-the-window
poker face on again. She gamely forces down a bite or two, pretending not to gag.

—Yum, she says.

Meanwhile, Ma is dutifully gobbling everything on her plate, down to the last bite. I pick up a forkful.

The stench. Oh, please. How do people do this? Sorry, I'm sure they do, but seriously, how?

—So, Ma, will you please come live with Babbie and Olivia at the Abbey? For us?

Mother Brigid puts down her fork, crosses herself, and looks very serious. It's amazing that our mother, with all her standards and sensitivities, her linen napkins and candlesticks, would be so fully prepared to sentence herself to this kind of food for what's left of her life.

It's as if she has become a sort of modern-day hermit in the desert.

Orthodox Christianity claims to have kept closer than any religion to the original practices of the early followers of Christ. Among those early Christians were people who, in around the first century, found it difficult to keep their spiritual focus in ordinary society. So one by one they left and took to the wilderness like John the Baptist. They lived alone and fed themselves as best they could: locusts and honey, whatever. Just to be able to concentrate and avoid worldly distractions. It's not that they considered themselves more special or holy than others—a lot of them felt quite the opposite, and that was the issue. They knew they needed a quiet, simple life to keep their faith intact.

Eventually, other Christians followed, uninvited—those who needed a living example for inspiration. Then the John-the-Baptist types had to figure out what to do with the sheep types. So rules were made. This is how the first monasteries and convents came into existence.

I'm still not converting. But I'm definitely impressed.

I'm having the same otherworldly feeling I had at the tonsure ceremony. I have known this person my whole life. I would never have predicted she'd be willing to make this kind of sacrifice. For the Ma I know to ever consider staying here in Carlisle, living on this kind of food for the sake of her spiritual sustenance—the evolution of this fascinating, complex woman, her absolute determination is awe-inspiring. It just is.

—Ask Father Nectarios, says Ma. I'll do whatever he decides.

Ring. Ring.

—Yes, he says about the Abbey, but please bring her back for the High Holy Days if she's fit, God willing. We'll keep her away from candles.

Prior Planning and Preparation has truly Proven to Prevent Piss-Poor Performance. But let's give credit where it's due with another P-word: Ma was right. God
did
Provide.

Well, the schedule today sure has changed. High on the list: Make a nun résumé quick and find Ma's bank statements before the Abbey changes their minds. Good thing Eliza sourced that résumé sample on the Internet, because we'll need it. But first I have a therapy appointment with Rita, who is supposedly helping me to cope this year without having to dump every thought I have on Colette and David.

In the morning, I'm jumping out of my skin, racing all over the house flapping my papers around. Colette pretty much has to shove me out the door—this appointment is happening not a moment too soon because I'm like some kind of geyser about to blow. When I get to Rita's, I do, gulping my heart out from under a towering pile of crumpled tissues. Leave it to me to conjure up the one negative in this happy fairy tale come to life—I am inconsolable.

—What if she DIES before she GETS HERE??????

Rita is kind about my condition. Her mother is installed in a modest but decent assisted-living place Ma would not even consider back during radiation, because she once visited a friend there and
it smelled like tinkle. Unacceptable.
Our sessions to date have been about teaching me to reconcile with the sad facts of life for the elderly, and they've been incredibly helpful. Now here I am paying this nice hardworking woman to listen to my despair over a miracle—it's like having a close friend whose kid settled for a city college downtown, making the best of things, and yours has just gotten a scholarship to MIT or wherever, and you expect
her
to comfort you because it's JUST TOO FAR FROM HOME!!!

Rita should really tell me to get over myself, but she listens to all my pathetic palavering. Only two weeks ago, she was hearing me coldly calculate how long Ma would live and the costs. The subtext was practically out of ESD's playbook:
Hopefully, she
will
pop off before the money runs out, because the cheapest route sucks.
Now I've got to seem like a spoiled baby:

—I WANT MY WONDERFUL DARLING PERFECT MOTHER TO LIVE, LIVE, LIVE!!!!!

I really should be ashamed.

Okay, that's enough of that. Even I am sick of myself.

H
AS THE HAPPY ENDING
started yet?

At one point during all the proceedings (the handing-in of the nun résumé, the submission of the financial particulars, the approval of the apartment), Georgia Brady explained the beauty of a CCRC: Kids get breathing room to sit back and enjoy their parents during the twilight years. When Lily showed me the apartment, she asked
what will you do with all your free time?

—I have something to write
, I said.

Ma will have her cataracts done this summer: no problem. The nurse at the Abbey will schedule visits, and appointment reminders will appear in Ma's mail slot. Aides will materialize on cue with eyedrops. The in-house doctor's office will be magically given all insurance information, and her transportation will be arranged, with a helper by Ma's side if she needs one. Follow-ups will snap into place, and all I'll have to do is share the excitement when Ma can see better. In Georgia Brady's words:
She'll be ours
.

Not quite yet. We're still waiting for medical approval, so the future feels almost real but not quite. She'll stay at Cloverfield for the rest of this spring at least, and I'll have plenty to do in the meantime. I have to pack up Ma's apartment soon; I've given them a move-out date. Colette and I did a lot of sorting before she left; next Ma and I have to really go over what to sell, what to give away, what to store, what to toss, what to keep, and how to fit what she keeps into one small room and a storage closet down the hall.

But first, the boys and I get to have spring break.

Every year at winter's end, we take a week somewhere tropical with two other families. We're really good buddies, and it's become a tradition. Fishing and scuba diving for the men and boys; sunbathing and parading around in bikinis for the teenage girls; crossword puzzles for me and my lady friends, between long walks designing elaborate scavenger hunts and things for the group. David can't go this time, and neither can Eliza because her break doesn't overlap with ours. That's very sad, but not sad enough to skip our island getaway.

I've pushed myself to get ahead on paperwork this week. Monthly bills have been paid in advance. The latest appeal with evil ESD has been filed, in response to their most recent denial letter:

Dear Ms. Morse,

Our panel of experts has carefully reviewed Ms. von Morphschmuckster's case. It is our opinion, as professionals who know so much more about these things than you, that the decision to dump your mother was correct.

Isn't that miserable woman dead yet? Time for you to get a life, Ms. Morse.

Respectfully, ESD

Coming soon: A phone hearing with a judge. I can't wait.

The iPods have been updated; passports are at the ready. Sunscreen, bathing suits, sandals, and books for the beach are packed. Arrow the dog is suspiciously sniffing two bags of scuba gear in the front hall. The alarm clock is set for six a.m. tomorrow—we have an early flight.

I've said good-bye to Ma, who's enjoying her final few weeks of attention from the priests and all her friends at church before she leaves Carlisle. Last year in March, she was deep in radiation, and David was doing
John Adams
. I almost sent the kids off on break without us, but a friend stepped forward and offered to take over my job for a week. This year, I think Ma can go it alone.

My only issue is that our destination, Guana Island, doesn't have phones in the rooms, and my cell phone won't work outside the country. I could rent one there, but the idea is I'm taking a real break. Colette is right—she can handle it from overseas. She is my legal stand-in with the Medical Power of Attorney, and Cloverfield has her contact information. I sent her a detailed email with all the names and numbers I could think of—got it off just barely in time before her Internet went on the fritz. (This always happens.)

I had a long talk with Ma this afternoon to go over all her instructions (
Try to keep eating. Don't make any sudden movements. Don't go outside if it looks like rain. No field trips to church. Call Colette if you need anything, but don't forget about the time difference, and please DON'T DIE
). It feels nostalgic—one last flurry of anxious fussing. We're almost there.

Nine-thirty p.m.:

Ring. Ring.

—Hello?

—Susie.

—Ma! Why aren't you asleep yet?

—
C'est impossible.

—What?

—
Je ne peux pas dormir du tout. Du tout!

—You can't sleep at all at all?

—
Oui, c'est ça.
Yes.

—Ma, why are you speaking French?

—
Parce qu'elle est ici.

—
She's
there? Who's she?

—
La nouvelle copine de
—

—Your new friend? What—

—
de CHAMBRE. Ma nouvelle copine de CHAMBRE.

—
Ohhhh, your new
roommate
is there and you don't want her to know what you're
saying
?

—
Exactement.
(That's French for
you betcha
.)

Ma is pretty much fluent in French. Her mother and Granjack took Ma and her sister Bobs to live in the south of France when they were teenagers in the late 1930s. They went to school and had all kinds of adventures, driving with their older half-sister Priscilla through the hills outside Cannes during blackouts at night with their car headlights painted blue. They were there for two years, making it back to the States just before the Nazis moved in up north and things got bleak.

I also went to school in France, for the last semester of boarding school. I double majored in theatre and French literature in college, so I can keep up. Sometimes I think I mainly went Gallic in order to be able to cope with moments like this, when Ma resorts to French.

The first time I can remember this happening was striking. It was shortly before we left for Ireland, so I was maybe about four. We were living in Penllyn. Daddy had probably been in the throes of hepatitis, or heart trouble, or career frustration, something. Ma was
beside herself,
as she put it, tipped over the edge by sinus pain—she'd been having fits of rage for days.

One morning, she woke us girls up with the Latest Answer To Everything: We had to
learn French immediately
; it was
essential
to our
upbringing
. She'd read somewhere that children thrive on language exposure the way plants need sun, for their very souls, and you have to start them at an early age or they'll miss the crucial developmental sweet spot when their brains are like sponges. She wanted to saturate us—we'd learn the same way a baby learns to speak, by being immersed.
Sink or swim
.

Her intentions may have been good, but I think this was the moment it occurred to me that our mother was a bit of a challenge.

That episode lasted just long enough to make a life-altering impression on four-year-old me. It was one thing to be ordered around and harangued in English—by the time you're four, it's possible to follow simple commands. But the sight of Ma clutching the bridge of her nose and screeching unintelligibly like a frantic Pepe Le Pew was unsettling.

So, in order to reduce Ma's frightening behavior to its usual, more familiar level of weirdness, I figured I had to somehow fix her nose. This seemed to hinge on my ability to learn French in, like, one day flat. I've often thought my hard-won facility for the language several years later may have been nothing more than a long-term survival project.

Good thing, because it seems now Ma has an urgent roommate problem, and it must be handled in French.

Ma recently put her foot down about her first roommate, Evelyn Sue. The nonstop TV-blasting was bad enough, but when Ma discovered Evelyn Sue's kids would be sending her a cuckoo clock for Easter, she put in an urgent request for a change. There are no private rooms at Cloverfield, and for most residents, television is a way to take their minds off the monotony. By a stroke of luck, they found her a new roommate who at least doesn't keep TV on from morning to night. The move was sudden, and I haven't been up to meet this new one yet.

Apparently, the adjustment's not going too well. What I get from Ma is that TV is not the issue this time. She can't even bring herself to articulate it in French, but apparently
The Beverly Hillbillies
at full volume would be a picnic compared to whatever's going on in the new room. Something about amputated legs and visits from a husband in the evening and crying for home inconsolably when he leaves. It's too much for Ma—she wants out, and it can't wait till I get back. It has to be
tout de suite,
like tomorrow. What complicates things further is that while the new living situation seems to literally terrify Ma, she is too immobilized, both physically and emotionally, to think of a way to talk privately to the right people at Cloverfield herself. And the right people won't be there until tomorrow morning at nine.