The Pirate Queen (27 page)

She closed her eyes and a phrase fluttered through her thoughts like a note dropped into her mind by Bender—
Ask Mims!
After she returned home from the hospital, she would pay the minister a visit.

The smell of her mother’s Good Morning muffins came up the stairs Wednesday and awoke Saphora from a dream about Bender. He was young again and paddling a small boat across Lake Norman. Only there were no houses anywhere along the banks, just a mist rolling down the slopes and surrounding him. He stopped the boat in the middle of the lake and then looked straight up at Saphora as if she were a disembodied spirit looking down on him. Then the scent of muffins came at her senses and she sat straight up in bed.

She did not make an effort to dress but went down in her sleep shirt and slippers. Emerald and her mother sat buttering and eating
muffins. It was a quiet circle, the three of them eating breakfast without the need to jump up and fill a coffee cup or leave with breakfast half eaten to drive a child off to school.

The morning was like a gift to all three of them, at least in Saphora’s estimation. But Emerald stared sadly through the patio doors and out across the Neuse, unable or unwilling to allow a moment of joy to seep in. Her mother sat tabulating her checkbook balance. Neither of them seemed aware of the miracle of eating muffins without interruption.

“Mama, will you drive us to Duke? I’ve got some reading to do,” said Saphora.

“Of course,” said Daisy. “Emerald, will you go too?”

“I’ll stay behind,” said Emerald. “I don’t know why I’m so weepy this morning. Saphora, why do you think?”

Saphora knew it was a loaded question. One misstep and Emerald’s sensitive comportment would topple into pity. “You’re merciful, I guess,” said Saphora.

“There’s nothing wrong with her, Saphora. Don’t coddle your sister. Emerald, you know you’ve got no reason to cry. It’s Saphora going through a crisis, but you’ve got to take it and make it yours.”

“You’re horrible,” said Emerald, so quietly that she surprised even Daisy.

“Emerald, you should take the small boat out a ways,” Saphora said, inviting her to look through the window at the boat that Eddie had been using. “Borrow my rod and reel. The fish have been biting even late morning. Whatever you catch I’ll fix along with dinner.”

“Be productive, is what your sister means,” said Daisy.

“I just mean go and have some time to yourself,” said Saphora. “Mother, can you be ready in a half hour?”

“Five minutes,” said Daisy.

Saphora dressed quickly and took Bender’s Bible off the nightstand. Daisy waited at the bottom of the staircase. Beyond the deck, Emerald got the rod and reel out of the storage shed. She pulled the line out a ways and stared at it as if she was not exactly sure what to do next.

“She’ll work it out, Mother,” said Saphora. “When we get back, will you please try not to be so hard on her?” Saphora asked as kindly as she knew how. “Her plane leaves early tomorrow. Let’s find good in Emerald.” She gave the keys to Daisy and led her out to the garage.

Only two cars passed them on the road out of Oriental and into New Bern. Saphora played Beethoven in the player. Daisy was completely enthralled with the tracking device. “At least I won’t get us lost.”

“I won’t let you, Mother.” Saphora opened Bender’s Bible. She wrote down some of his notes in a notepad.

“I’ve tried reading it. My friend Jan, she loves her Bible group,” said Daisy. “They’re all the rage now. I don’t see the attraction.”

“Bender left some notes behind for a minister friend. He must have been on a quest.”

“If it gives him answers in the midst of cancer, I’m all for it,” said Daisy.

“It’s not answers. He’s asking questions,” said Saphora.

“Like what?”

“Like this one. The scripture says, ‘Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials.’ Then Bender’s note says, ‘Is that kind of joy possible? How can I know it?’”

Daisy was strangely without comment.

Saphora took down his question in her notebook. “Then on the
next page is the scripture about loving your neighbor. Bender asks, ‘How will I know when I have that kind of love? Can I cause it to be true by something I do? Or does God put it in me?’”

“He’s on a journey,” said Daisy.

Parking decks surrounded the sprawling Duke campus. “Let’s park below and then we’ll be closer to the basement tube,” said Saphora. She helped her mother find a single space open at the farthest end of the deck. They walked into the hospital and down the tube. A small tram zipped back and forth for those who did not want to walk. Saphora led her onto the elevator.

The cancer wing buzzed with activity. A high-profile senator had checked in for operable cancer. The paparazzi press corps were not allowed past the lobby just outside the elevator. When the elevator door opened, the journalists were attentive only long enough to see if some celebrity was stepping out from the elevator.

An attendant stopped Saphora and asked for her identification. When she finally got clearance for herself and her mother, the nurse told her, “Your husband’s room is right next to the senator’s.”

Guards were stationed next to the senator’s door. Daisy was goggle-eyed over the press corps and the security. “How is the senator?” she asked the guard. He did not answer. A caterer pushed a cart around them, and the guard allowed her to pass.

“Did you see all of that?” asked Daisy. “Fruit, belgian waffles, and jams. Brunch for a king. That’s our tax dollars at work, thank you very much.”

The door to Bender’s room opened. A nurse recognized Saphora. “Mrs. Warren. Sorry for all the noise. Senator Weberman’s just checked in and brought his entourage with him.”

“How is Bender?” asked Saphora.

“No change. Have you met yet with a neuropsychologist?” asked the nurse. “He can give you answers.”

“Jim is scheduling one,” said Saphora. “Dr. Pennington, I mean.”

Daisy asked, “How about I go for coffee, and we’ll sit with Bender for as long as you want?”

“Vanilla latte, skim,” said Saphora.

Bender’s room was dark. She opened the blinds and let in the noonday sun. But it woke the patient in the bed next to Bender. He let out a yawning sigh and then brought his bed up. His head was bandaged from surgery. He said, “Who’s there?”

“Mrs. Warren. I’m visiting my husband,” said Saphora. “Is the light too bright?”

“The light’s all I can see,” he said. “My tumor’s affected my eyesight. I’m Mort.”

“Saphora.”

Bender’s eyes were swollen closed, dark around his lids and under his eyes.

“My wife just left. She’s tired of hospital food. So am I,” said Mort.

“My mother’s gone for some coffee. You want a coffee? I can call her.”

“I’ll pass. Coffee’s not coffee anymore. It’s all that flavored stuff and burned coffee beans. Diner coffee. Now that’s coffee.”

“I like diners,” said Saphora.

“Mary’s bringing me back a club sandwich if she can find one.”

“The only restaurant around here is Italian, I’m afraid.”

“That’s okay. Sorry about your husband. I talk to him when no one’s around. You never know.”

“You talk to him?” That was comforting.

“He doesn’t answer. But I don’t mind,” said Mort.

“I’m glad. I think he can hear us,” said Saphora. She opened her purse. “I’m going to read to him, if you don’t care.”

“I’d like that.” Mort closed his eyes.

Saphora read the passage about the tears in a bottle. Then she said, “I don’t know what it means, love. But I’m glad you left behind your notes. I like reading them.”

“I know that scripture,” said Mort. “My mother used to talk about God saving our tears in a bottle. It must be from Jewish history. My mother, she was Jewish.”

“God must have a water tower for mine,” said Saphora.

“How long has your husband been sick?”

“A month. He was doing so well.”

“It’s not over till it’s over,” said Mort. “The tears you think you’ve wasted on cancer, they’re not wasted.”

“You don’t really believe God saves tears, do you?”

“I think he counts them.”

“Why would he do that?”

“That’s when he’s the most attentive.”

“How do you know that?”

“He hangs out around human suffering.”

“How do you know?”

“Look at where Jesus went. Where there was pain, there was Jesus.”

“But you’re Jewish.”

“Just on my mother’s side.”

“Then he must be at the hospital a lot. You think he’s here beside Bender?”

“Of course.”

“Do you ever feel him?” she asked.

“I started out just talking to him, like he’s a regular guy. With due respect, he’s, well, God and all that. But then one day, he was just there.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Not out loud. But I felt him with me, like he was there listening to me.”

“What was he like?”

“Love like I couldn’t describe. You try it. Just get alone someplace and talk to him. See if he shows up. What would it hurt?”

Daisy came in through the door backward, pushing it open with her rear end and holding out two coffees. “The line was as long as California,” she said.

“Mort, this is my mother, Daisy.”

“We’re talking about God,” said Mort.

“People do that in hospitals,” said Daisy. “Have you ever seen an angel?” she asked.

“Not me,” said Mort. “I don’t think I’d know. Like the scriptures say, you might be entertaining angels unaware. I’d be unaware.”

“But he says he can feel God,” said Saphora.

“I did right after my husband died,” Daisy said. She had a story no matter what was brought up. But she had never mentioned this one. She said, “At first I was mad at him for leaving me all alone. Then one day when I was really steamed and lonesome, I cleaned out the refrigerator of anything that reminded me of Bernie. I was throwing out anchovies, and suddenly it was like someone was standing behind me. I turned around and no one was there.”

“Maybe it wasn’t God,” said Mort.

“Who then?” asked Daisy.

“Bernie’s shadow, mad at you for throwing out perfectly good anchovies,” said Mort.

15

Reverend Mims was pleased as could be that Saphora wanted to meet him at the Marina Bistro for breakfast. He was done with his chores of straightening the chairs and offering assistance to the infirm for the week. He told her, as a matter of fact, that he was going straight to Duke after he met with Saphora. That gave her as much consolation as knowing praying Mort was rooming with Bender.

Saphora kissed Emerald good-bye. Her flight was leaving at noon. She had finished a small square of the blue wall hanging after all. “I’ll ship it to you when it’s finished,” she said. “It’s a patchwork of our family.” She held up the blue knitted square. She had woven purple yarn into the center, creating a design of three female figures.

“It’s got three women in it,” said Saphora, finding nice things to say about a wall hanging that Emerald might never finish. “Is that you and Mother and me?”