They May Not Mean To, but They Do: A Novel (21 page)

“It’s true I missed a few months when I was so sick.”

“Months. What’s a month?”

“I was a little fuzzy when I got back. The new building is like a railroad station, it’s so big.”

“They change things just to change them.”

“I don’t like change. They say you don’t like change when you get old, and they’re right.”

Karl shrugged. “But some change is good.” He smiled at her. “It’s good we bumped into each other again, isn’t it?”

“That’s not change,” Joy said. “That’s continuity. I like continuity.”

Karl did not want a bite of her pie. One more thing in his favor, she thought, finishing it with relish, scraping her fork against the plate to get the last lacquer-yellow traces.

37

Molly watched her mother opening folders, closing them, stroking, piling, opening them again. Each time Molly tried to pick one up, her mother swatted her away. It was hopeless. She headed for the kitchen to make some tea.

“What are you doing, Molly? You came all this way to help me clean up for the seder. Now please help me!”

Molly scooped up some mail from the other end of the table and began to sort it, but the sound of envelopes being torn open drew her mother’s attention, the way the flutter of wings draws a cat, and Joy abandoned her files to touch each piece of mail, to finger the envelopes as if they were silken Chanel or velvet brocade beaded with seed pearls.

When Joy finally went to lie down on the couch for a rest, Molly furiously extricated the bills from the slippery towers of junk mail, sorting, filing, labeling the files and sliding them, quickly, quickly, before her mother could wake up, into new blue plastic file boxes she had ordered from Staples. She labeled the file boxes. She stuffed the junk mail into kitchen garbage bags and took them out to the back hall, where her mother would not find them.

Out of breath, gathering up the last bobby pin, the matchbooks, doctors’ business cards, the coffee shop delivery receipts, Molly heard a horrified gasp behind her.

“My papers. Oh, my papers…”

Joy stared at the table, now empty. She sat down in Aaron’s chair, her small frame hidden in a voluminous silk bathrobe she had found deep in the cedar closet, a burgundy paisley bathrobe that had been Molly’s grandfather’s. Heavy fringe hung from the sash. On the lapels was a braided border. She looked like a diminutive general of the Empire in her exotic silk robe and Oriental chair, her delicate little face pale and weary, relieved to hear that the native rebellion had been put down, though at what cost?

“I think I have to lie down again. Or eat something.” Joy leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

“Listen, I have an idea.
I
can take care of all your bills from now on, Mom.”

“I’m not senile.” Eyes still closed.

“I can get everything on the computer and do it for you from L.A.”

“I’m certainly not ready for that, thank you very much.” Her voice had become rather severe.

“But I could—”

“Molly.” Joy stood up, the hem of the silk robe pooling at her feet.

“What?” Molly said, sulky now.

“Let’s face it.”

“What? Face what?”

“The buck,” Joy said, “stops here.”

*   *   *

Karl arrived at the apartment exactly on time. Joy opened the door for him and noticed again his eyes, hazel with flecks of green, slightly protruding. She could remember being young and troubled by how earnest those eyes were. He carried flowers, a burst of tulips in many different colors.

“Look who’s here,” Joy called out to her family.

“That’s not Elijah,” Cora said. “Is it?”

“This is a very old friend of mine and a dear friend of Grandpa Aaron’s,” Joy said. “This is Karl.”

Molly pulled her aside. “Mom,” she whispered, “this seder is for family. Our family.”

“One who locks the doors of his courtyard and eats and drinks together with his children and wife and does not feed and give drink to the poor and embittered—this is not the joy of a mitzvah but the joy of his stomach,” Ruby said. “Maimonides.”

“Oh Christ,” said Molly.

“I read it on Chabad.org.”

Molly shook her head and walked away. Joy kissed Ruby and said, “That’s very wise. But I don’t think Karl is either poor or embittered.”

“You never know,” Ruby said. “I mean, just in case, right?”

Joy nodded. “Just in case. But, Ruby, promise me, no more Chabad.”

“Don’t worry. I’m a feminist, Grandma.”

Joy hurried away to answer the door and let Natalie in.

“Are you poor or embittered?” she asked.

“Embittered.”

“Then you may enter.”

“I’m poor, Grandma,” said Ben, who stood right behind Natalie.

Joy hugged him and kissed him and thanked him for coming so far.

There were two more, Trevor and Melanie, a young couple from England who had just moved into the building.

This time it was Danny who pulled her aside. “Mom, what are you doing? This is a family thing. How many other people are coming? Hi, Natalie! Welcome!”

“This is so kind of you,” Melanie said. “We’ve never been to a seder.”

“Americans are so welcoming,” said Trevor.

Joy smiled. She wanted to lock herself in the bathroom and never come out. She wanted to sit by herself and think about Aaron and watch the traffic from the kitchen window. She forced another smile and took a seat beside Ben and grabbed his hand and kissed it. His beard had grown in. “You look like Grandpa.” Then she did get up and lock herself in the bathroom for a cry, but just a short one.

*   *   *

Looking down the table, Daniel realized that he, Daniel, was expected to lead the service. He cleared his throat and dinged a spoon against his wineglass. “Ahem,” he said, and there was a slight diminution of noise. They got through to the first glass of wine without too much commotion. There was an empty place for Elijah, but it looked like a chair waiting for Aaron. Daniel tried not to stare at it. Ben kept filling up the wineglasses. It was thick, viscous stuff, but Daniel had downed several glasses before they got to the part where you raise your second glass. When they finally did, he made a toast to his father and realized he was singing Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young.” “May your heart always be joyful…”

“Daddy called me Joyful,” his mother said. She sniffled. “It was ironic.”

“Daddy wasn’t ironic,” said Molly.

“Well, wrong, then. He was wrong.”

Ben had to finish the service. Uncle Daniel was lying on the couch by then, staring at the ceiling. Aunt Coco was handing out sticky flourless baked goods, her mouth set in a hard, furious line. Wine made her angry, especially at those who drank too much wine and lay on the couch.

“When do we sing the goat song?” Cora asked.

Ben led the diminished group through a few verses, the children belting out the chorus.

“What’s a
zuzim
?” Cora asked. “A penny? Or a dollar, or what?”

Molly had opened a bottle of decent wine. She and Freddie were well on their way to having to join Daniel on the couch, Ben thought.

“Mom,” he said, “easy does it.”

His mother leaned back in her chair and put her glass to her lips, defiant, like a child. Freddie said,
“Dayenu!”
and drained her glass.

“Your mother drinks like a goy,” Joy said.

“Well, you’re supposed to drink wine on Passover,” Ben said.

“It’s okay for me to criticize her, Bennie. I’m her mother.”

“Also, that’s kind of a stereotype, Grandma.” He smiled when he said it. He had noticed his grandmother had become quite sensitive to criticism.

“I love the word ‘dipsomaniac,’” Karl said.

Natalie said, “Other people’s families are so much less trouble.”

Trevor and Melanie seemed content, turning redder with each glass, gamely crunching matzoh. “Brilliant,” Trevor said each time Ben poured.

“Brilliant,” Cora repeated.

Ruby began reading the four questions in pig Latin, Cora disappeared under the table, and Joy was eating macaroons dipped in chocolate, one after the other.

“Mom, easy does it,” Molly said.

Ben laughed, then saw on his mother’s flushed face nothing but earnest concern. You’re not ironic either, Mom, he thought, but kept it to himself.

“I’ll pay for this later,” Joy said, licking her fingers. “Oh boy, will I.”

Ben wondered if he could sneak away to watch the ball game. It was opening day. It was then that he felt the stab of absence, the moment that he glanced around to ask his grandfather if he wanted to watch, too, and remembered that his grandfather was gone.

*   *   *

The next morning, Molly woke up with a headache. She and Freddie were on a single blow-up bed wedged between the pullout couch that did not pull out and the bookcase.

“It’s morning,” she said, but Freddie groaned and did not move.

In the bathroom, the door locked, Molly called her brother.

“What the hell was that all about?” she said.

“Okay, I drank too much. I’m sorry I passed out on the couch. Please don’t give me a hard time, Molly. Coco has already done that. Several times. And it’s not even nine o’clock yet.”

“Not you.
Mom
. What was with all those
people
? What was
Karl
doing here? Who is he, anyway? Some random guy from the park? At our first family gathering without Dad? What was she thinking?”

“She knew him in college. But I never heard her mention him until a few days ago. Do you think he was an old boyfriend?”

“Well, he’s sure an old boyfriend now.”

They both laughed.

“At least no one ended up in the ER after this holiday dinner,” Daniel said. But he had been shocked to see Karl there, and hurt. He couldn’t admit it even to Molly, but there was a moment when he walked into the apartment when he’d thought, I am the man of the house now, an unworthy thought that filled him with unworthy pride, until it dissolved into sadness and guilt. And then to have Karl appear—it was all wrong. Still, what was an old geezer like that going to do? Switch walkers with Joy when she wasn’t looking? Daniel thought of himself as a calm, thoughtful, and reasonable person and he was determined to behave like one, but really his mother could have shown a little more consideration. And the man had brought his mother flowers.

“At least he didn’t try to run the seder,” he said, calming himself down. “Although it might have been better if he had. But I’m sorry, there was just something about him being there when Dad wasn’t. It’s only been a few months, for god’s sake.”

“Is this what Mommy wants?” Molly was saying, talking over him. “Every holiday dinner at the Mount Sinai emergency room with an old sick man who isn’t even Daddy? This guy is bad news, Daniel.”

“Bad news.”

“The man wants a nurse, a
loving
nurse, not a paid companion. That’s what they all want. And we can’t let Mommy fall into that trap.”

“It’s like she’s not thinking clearly. She’s like in shock.”

“Look,” Molly said. “We have to face facts. Mommy’s got nothing left in her life. Nothing. No job to go to. No sick husband to take care of. Her life is empty. She’s very vulnerable.”

Daniel said, “It’s us she needs now.”

“It’s up to us to protect her.”

38

Daniel pulled his mother’s suitcase out of the closet. The sting of mold came with it.

“Oh dear,” said Joy, sneezing.

“Yeah, it’s pretty bad, Mom.”

“It’s a little like being in the country, though, that smell and the green. It makes me nostalgic.”

The suitcase had been a gift from Daniel and Coco ten years ago. He wondered if she’d ever used it.

“Why don’t you ever use this when we go Upstate?”

“Danny, honestly, it’s full of mold. How could I possibly use it to go anywhere?” She sat on the bed. “Well,” she said, “now that we see how the land lies, mold in the suitcase, very unhealthy, I’ll just have to stay put in New York. In my own apartment.”

Daniel took the suitcase down to the basement and left it by the garbage cans. That was on Saturday. On Sunday, he returned with a new suitcase. At first he’d gone to look for a cheap one in a crummy shop in Chinatown. He found a flimsy roller bag with zebra stripes for eighteen dollars and was about to buy it, thinking, It doesn’t have to last too long, she won’t be making too many more trips at her age, then immediately felt so guilty that he left the zebra stripes behind, took the train up to Bloomingdale’s, and got her an expensive roller bag in a respectable shade of blue with wheels that swiveled in all directions.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Joy said when he spun the bag in graceful circles to demonstrate.

“You can’t go to California with your stuff in garbage bags.”

“California is not for me, Danny. I’ve never been there and there’s a reason—it’s not for me.”

In the airport, Joy dropped her boarding pass, not on purpose, but she was not sorry to have lost it. The man pushing her wheelchair went back to look for it while Danny tapped his foot and forced a smile. She hated being a burden, but since she was, she wished people could shoulder her with more grace.

“I’m sorry to gum up the works,” she said.

Danny shrugged, not very gallantly. Could you shrug gallantly, she wondered.

People were rushing past her in every direction. Little children were outfitted like their parents, wearing miniature backpacks, pulling little suitcases. Too many people from too many places traveling to too many other places.

How would she bear it? Two months in L.A.

“When you come back, the kids will be out of school and we’ll all go Upstate,” Danny said.

She was weary and she had not even gotten into the airport proper, much less the plane. People wheeling luggage the size of coffins rumbled past her. She heard a sparrow chirping high above in the rafters. Poor little bird, lost in a vast edifice, trapped, just like me.

“Let’s go home,” she said.

Danny pretended not to hear her.

“I don’t belong here,” she said.

“
No one
belongs here. It’s an airport.”

The wheelchair man had reappeared, victorious, waving the boarding pass. “Okay then, Madame.” He spoke with a lilting Caribbean accent. He was almost as old as she was. Had his children made him leave his comfortable home and come to New York City because they were afraid he’d slip and fall?