The Bubble Reputation (23 page)

“Oh, William,” Rosemary said, after a time. “Do you want to hear about life as usual?” She could tell him lots, couldn't she, this man who had given life up, given it away? She had lived in a tent in the backyard. She had written imaginary letters to Sacco and Vanzetti, and the Rosenbergs, as though they were pen pals. William had not so much as written one lousy suicide note. Oh, she could tell William loads about life as usual. She had watched Uncle Bishop move a small plastic family into his dollhouse. She had bought a dress—twenty fucking dollars—for Mother's Cabbage Patch Kid. She had scanned the skies for an ultralight man. She had held Mugs down so that he could be killed, and the killing, William, was only to spare him the pain of death. She had seen the best memories of Father sink back into the earth, where the pump was steadily pumping at the Christmas tree farm. She had talked to Father's other woman, and then she had buried Aunt Rachel, the same woman. Life had been pretty damn
unusual.

Rosemary could not bring herself just yet to hang the painting, so she left it leaning against one of the stark white walls until she knew what to do with it. In the meantime, she had business to attend to with the still living.

***

After Aunt Rachel's death in September, Mother had drifted into a sharp decline. With Aunt Rachel gone, she lost any last conceptions she had of her family, of the members in it. Now it was Uncle Bishop, her little brother, who gave her the greatest comfort, and Mrs. Fortney, a private nurse whom Uncle Bishop refused to let Rosemary help finance. “Where does he get his money?” Miriam was asking now more than ever. “He's never lifted a homosexual finger to do a day's work in his life. He lifts them to read
Dolls
World
and to build those little houses.” Where
did
Uncle Bishop get his money? An early lover of his, Rosemary knew, had died and left him all his personal belongings. She supposed that with the personal things there might have been a sizable life insurance. Maybe some stock. “I invest, Miriam,” Uncle Bishop would say. “Haven't you heard of Charles Schwab? Weren't you married to him once?”

Regardless of where he got his money, Uncle Bishop's insistence on taking Mother into his home was a touching tribute to the sister he still loved. For the two months that Mother had been in his house, Rosemary tried to help as much as she could. But it was plain that Mother felt more comfortable with the nurse than she did with any of her children. So the nurse became like one of the family. The nurse became Aunt Rachel, and the cycle began again, this time in Uncle Bishop's beige house with the chocolate-brown shutters. Mother was not long for the world of the living. The family doctor had wasted his time in telling them this because they knew by looking at her. She'd lost much weight and was now also frail. Mother was shrinking. Like so many other magic acts Rosemary had lived to see, Mother was
disappearing
.

The day before Thanksgiving, Rosemary stopped by Uncle Bishop's house to say hello and to drop off a small roaster he wished to borrow. Everyone was cooking their share for the holiday dinner, and Uncle Bishop, who was in charge of the turkey and ham, needed the extra pan.

“Thanks for the roaster,” he said. “Jason burned mine up this past summer. So I put it in the trash and the goddamn garbage men wouldn't take it. They said it didn't qualify as
garbage
.”

“They're fussy,” said Rosemary.

“Fussy?” Uncle Bishop asked. “They're
sanitation
engineers
now.” How many times had Rosemary heard him shouting at the wheels of a departing truck about some item they refused to take: a blown tire, a Christmas tree, an old lamp. “If I don't
want
this goddamn shit, then it's garbage!”

Uncle Bishop arranged the holiday turkey in the pan she'd brought. Rosemary frowned as he pried apart the unfortunate bird's legs and shoved it full of stuffing. Then he began decorating a large ham with pineapple rings.

“Must
two
animals die this year?” she asked.

“I can't wait for Robbie to get here,” Uncle Bishop said, ignoring her question, as he did every year. He took a generous sip from his eggnog.

“I expect to see his car in the yard when I get home,” Rosemary said. “I left a key for him under the mat. It'll be good to have some company for a few days.” Was it she who had actually spoken these words? Wasn't it only four months earlier that she vowed no one would darken her guest room again?
Life
is
strange, isn't it, Rosie?
Lizzie had written. Even Lizzie could tell William some things about Life as Usual.

Rosemary stopped to check on Mother, who only pushed her hand away and went back to the television program that had engrossed her. Betsy Kathleen, the Cabbage Patch Kid, sat on Mother's bed in stiff denim jeans and a cute little sweater with a large
B
on the pocket.

“Your mother's a little cranky today,” the nurse said. “She didn't sleep well last night, but she'll be fine tomorrow. She'll have a nice sleeping pill at bedtime.” The nurse patted Mother's hand and Mother sank back in comfort to finish out the drama of the show.

“I wish we didn't have to take her out but could have dinner here instead,” Rosemary said. She reached over to touch Mother's arm again, then decided against it. “But you can see how tiny Uncle Bishop's dining room and kitchen are.”

“She'll be just fine,” the nurse said. “I'll be with her.” Then she went back to her crossword puzzle.

“Uncle Bishop,” Rosemary said, “I was thinking that, since we'll have room, why don't we invite Mrs. Abernathy to dinner? My table sits ten, and she must be lonely on holidays.”

Uncle Bishop was in a festive tizzy, banging pots and pans, tasting things, reading recipes.

“Come to think of it, I haven't seen Mrs. Abernathy for days,” he said. “And from here it looks like no one has been shoveling her walk.” He and Rosemary peered out of the kitchen window at Mrs. Abernathy's house. “She used to get Bradley Simon, two houses down, that little macho asshole, to come with his shovel.”

What surprised Rosemary most was not just the walk, brimming over with snow, but the feeders in the birdless backyard, some hanging, some standing, all empty. How many times had Mrs. Abernathy cautioned her readers, in her birder's column, to remember the birds each winter?

Rosemary waded in knee-deep snow up Mrs. Abernathy's walk and peeked through the glass of the front door. It was quiet and forlorn, the house and its belongings. Had the relatives finally come for her? Was she so happily surrounded by human beings that she had forsaken the birds? Forgotten the mortality rates? Skipped town with the chimney swifts?

Back at Uncle Bishop's house Rosemary called Senior Sunshine, the Bixley civic group she had contacted earlier in the summer about looking after Mrs. Abernathy. An extension of the group that took meals around to shut-ins, Senior Sunshine also brought them companionship.

“A terrible stroke two weeks ago,” Mildred Buchannon told Rosemary, over a roar of background noise at the tiny community center where the meals were being prepared and readied for delivery. A busy time, Thanksgiving. “She's at the Bixley Nursing Home.”

***

The Datsun spun its tires on the packed snow as they headed in the direction of Bixley's nursing home, Uncle Bishop driving and Rosemary in the passenger seat. A soft snow that had begun to fall was now accumulating on the windshield in not-one-alike snowflakes that were licked away by the wipers.

“I hope Robbie beats this home,” Uncle Bishop said. He was leaning in close to the steering wheel, peering out at the white road ahead.

“I won't be long,” Rosemary said, as Uncle Bishop put the truck in park and leaned back against the seat to wait. They had already discussed this. Seeing
his
face standing next to her bed might be too much for Mrs. Abernathy.

Rosemary followed the nursing home director down a hallway that reminded her of grammar school, an institutional green reeking of fresh paint.

“We haven't had her with us long,” the director was saying, as Rosemary walked past the weathered faces that sat in doorways or peered out at her from their beds, like cats in a humane society, all wanting a good home for Thanksgiving Day. The director left Rosemary in Mrs. Abernathy's room.

Rosemary was shocked, stunned to see Mrs. Clara Abernathy stretched out immobile and helpless, her eyes tightly shut. Across the hallway a television was tuned in to
Wheel
of
Fortune
. Two nurses sat on desk corners, their backs to Rosemary, and watched in anticipation as one of the contestants bought a vowel, purchased a few seconds of time.

“Come on, you idiot,” one nurse cheered the player on. “It's ‘A stitch in time saves nine.' I wonder where they find some of these contestants.” The second nurse was smoking a cigarette and watching the squares being turned through squinted eyes.

“Does she speak any at all?” Rosemary asked, and they both jumped. The smoking nurse quickly extinguished her cigarette in an ashtray on the desk and then crossed the hall to Mrs. Abernathy's room. Rosemary smelled the scent of cigarette she brought with her.

“No, I'm sorry,” the nurse said. “Not a word. But she's only been here a short time, so she may yet.” She added this as encouragement, but it sounded memorized, as if maybe she had told many family members the same thing about their loved ones. “Is she your grandmother?”

Rosemary looked down at Mrs. Abernathy's soft curls that lay in blue-gray lumps on her head, little waves.

“I'm one of her biggest fans,” she said.

“Really? Who was she?” Who
was
she? No wonder the words of encouragement sounded fake.
It's all canned nowadays, Lizzie
. The nurse, for one, had given Mrs. Abernathy up for dead.

“A columnist,” Rosemary said. “She was very well-known.”

“Really?” asked the nurse. “That's nice. I've got to turn her.” Rosemary stepped back as the nurse resituated Mrs. Abernathy's tiny form. Her eyes were now open, but they stared only at what lay before them, patterns on the ceiling, perhaps, that might stand out like a wedge of Canada geese on their way to a warmer clime.

“Chafing and pressure,” said the nurse, “can cause sores in a bedridden person. Unhealthy tissue breaks down if it's subjected for too long to more than one and a half to two pounds per square inch.” Lovely facts! How Mrs. Abernathy had lived for facts. What a pity she would miss these last ones about her own body.

Out of Mrs. Abernathy's throat came a soft whimpering sound, an inland murmur. A smell of pee and death ran together in the room, a smell Mrs. Abernathy, in her heyday, would demand go elsewhere to hover. Her body structure had begun to arrange itself into a question mark.

So near to all the answers,
Rosemary thought.
Why a question now?
But Clara Abernathy's frame was twisting into a perfect quizzical form. The gown fell open in back as the nurse quickly turned the body, and Rosemary saw tiny sores running along the spine, the geese formation far off now, flying away, over the useless mountain of bones.

What kind of work was this? Was this Nature on the unemployment line? Was this Nature amusing herself until some real work could be found?

“Why linger?” Rosemary whispered, as she stared down upon the ravaging of what she knew was once a vivacious girl. She thought of the old pictures she had seen in the
Pictorial
History
of
Bixley
, and she imagined Clara Abernathy running through the dirt streets of town, hand in hand with Horace Abernathy, on the heels of the fire horses, maybe, during the great fire of 1929. But even Shakespeare had known what was in store for the girl that had been Mrs. Abernathy. What was it the Bard had predicted, in William's old college book, for that last terrible age? “Second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” Mrs. Abernathy gurgled again, like a little bird.
Twi-do. Clep. Cher.
The nurse checked the intravenous tubing near the bed, with its seconds dripping down, one by one, with its silent ticking. Liquid oranges now, and liquid toast and tea, this food keeping her alive. Not the hearty breakfast Mrs. Abernathy would have eaten in her prime. Rosemary remembered remnants from Mrs. Abernathy's many columns.
Dear
Birder: The shape of a bird's bill will indicate the kind of food it prefers, and do feed the birds. Winter is the cruelest season. The starling has brought down airplanes. The chickadee weighs as much as four pennies. The hummingbird's nest is the size of a fifty-cent piece. Birds cannot, I repeat, cannot smell. Dear Birder. Dear Birder. Dear Birder.
Mrs. Abernathy, Rosemary knew, was alive with bird facts. Her foggy dreams were full of beaks, and feathers, and wing bars, and other helpful information.

“I guess I'll be going now,” Rosemary said to the nurse.

***

Outside, Uncle Bishop said nothing as he drove her over the glistening streets of town. Snow was still falling lightly. Rosemary imagined Orion somewhere overhead, unseen for the gray sheet of flakes that covered the night sky. She thought of Rigel, the glorious star which is his foot, a star born before Columbus was born, behind the snow, still there, still functioning. And Betelgeuse would be there, holding up Orion's tired shoulder, and the fuzzy nebulae in the sword, three hundred light-years away, a hazy gas cloud ten thousand times greater than our sun. All this was there, beyond the gray snow falling, beyond the breakdown of Mrs. Abernathy's bones, falling down like dominos, and the slow death of brain cells in all the earthlings. Beyond the mythology, beyond the lovers, beyond mothers and fathers and aunts, beyond the houses and the house pets, the stars were still weaving their patterns. And even they would one day burn out, tired of the script, sick of the job.