This is Your Life, Harriet Chance! (13 page)

R
ing-a-ding-ding, it’s your thirtieth birthday, Harriet Chance, let the party begin! Bernard has risen to the occasion, once again proving that he’s a thoughtful husband, in addition to being a good provider, an excellent mechanic, and a prolific shoe shiner. He’s arranged a sitter for Skip. Dinner reservations with the Blums at Canlis! A table by the window, overlooking Lake Union. Filet mignon and Chianti by the bottle. Why, just seeing Bernard in a suit and tie ought to be worth the price of admission.

So, why so glum, beneath that courteous smile, birthday girl?

Is it because you couldn’t find a thing to wear, not a stitch of clothing that would fit over your blasted stomach, swollen
as it is to the size of a bowling ball? Because your ankle straps are cutting off your circulation? Because after barely a year back on the workforce, another unplanned pregnancy has sunk your prospects for a career?

That’s part of it.

But there’s more, isn’t there? Something darker troubles you, Harriet, as you and Margaret retire to the ladies’ room for a powder. Something you could never confide in Margaret. Or Bernard. Something you’ll never tell Mildred. Something you’ll have to confront by your lonesome. As a matter of fact, it will be forty-eight years before you will confide the information to anyone.

But let’s put things in perspective here. It’s not the end of the world. That’s still coming, Harriet. No, in the big picture, what troubles you probably won’t matter.

Unless you make it.

So c’mon, birthday girl, turn that frown upside down, and start counting your blessings! Things won’t turn out so bad. It’s just a little setback. So you’re gonna lose your administrative job, so what? Really, you should be thrilled. It’s not like you’re barefoot. Go on, take a nip of that flask Margaret carries around in her purse. That ought to help. Hey, it’s 1966, smoke a cigarette in the bathroom while you’re at it. Hell, you can smoke it at the table.

The thing to remember, the thing not to lose sight of, the thing your mother has been trying to tell you forever is this: Quit being so selfish, Harriet. You’re not worth it. Quit being
ambitious, quit wanting so much, you don’t deserve it. Once and for all, quit casting yourself as the victim. Just be a good woman, and bear the load life hands you. Put on some lipstick and live a little. And order another martini while you’re at it.

This is your life, Harriet, the first day of the rest of it.

B
y the time Harriet and Caroline stake out a window seat and unfold their napkins, the public address has sounded its call for Skagway and the Lido deck is beginning to empty. The mighty
Zuiderdam
slows to a crawl as the tiny borough of Skagway appears off the port side, a little slab of a town wedged deep in the gullet of a steep valley. Above and beyond, loom the great snowcapped domes of the Yukon.

“You’re sure you won’t join me for the train excursion?” says Harriet. “I’ve got two seats.”

“I’ve gotta pick up Skip’s wire and buy some clothes. Find some other stuff.”

“Then why don’t I just forgo the train and come along with you on your errands?”

“No.”

“It’ll be fun.”

“No, Mom. Definitely not.”

A little crestfallen, Harriet turns toward the window.

“Mom, don’t be that way.”

“Lord knows, you don’t need me slowing you down.”

“It’s not that.”

“What is it, then?”

“Look, I just won’t have you missing that train trip. It sounds amazing. Much better than slogging around this frontier looking for a fax machine. I can meet you afterward. We’ll go to some shops and grab a bite.”

Within the hour, Harriet has taken her place alongside the railroad tracks next to cruise facilitator C.J. and fifty or sixty other cruisers. From this vantage she can see straight through the center of town, which could be a film set, with its lone, wide avenue dressed up in gold-rush glory, its wooden storefronts, facades painted cheerfully in reds, and pinks, and yellows, brimming with tourists.

The trip to White Pass Summit does not disappoint. By the midway point, Harriet has deemed the excursion well worth the $130 she paid in advance. The vintage railway coach is both comfortable and tasteful with its burnished wood and expansive windows. And the scenery is nothing less than breathtaking. A panorama of jaw-dropping grandeur: of gorges and glaciers and cliffhanging corners. Ice fields, thawing meadows, and alpine lakes splayed fingerlike between
the broad-shouldered mountains. Even the names are evocative: Bridal Veil Falls. Dead Horse Gulch. Inspiration Point. And oh, how Bernard would have loved the tunnels and the towering wooden trestles, the feats of engineering, of jobs done right, how he would have adored the noisy workings of the train itself, the thrum of the rails, and the clatter of the coaches.

Harriet finds it virtually impossible to entertain anything but reverence for the rugged splendor of the Klondike. She can’t remember the last time her imagination was so free to wander. The vastness of the place is profound. Here at last is the perspective she’s been looking for these past few days through the myopia of her emotional and psychological distress.

Harriet’s lone regret is the vacant seat beside her, its emptiness so dense that it seems to occupy space. Is she weak to forgive Bernard so readily, weak to let him off the hook so easily? Is she pathetic—gazing out the window of that bygone train as it carves its way through what was once the last frontier—to wish that she could once again summon the ghost of her husband?

Of course she is.

Like a prayer answered, Harriet turns to find Bernard seated beside her, paunchier and slightly jowlier than his last incarnation. His Brylcreemed hair is receding, his eyebrows are nearly growing together in the middle.

“Don’t get too cozy over there, Bernard. I finally enjoyed
myself today in spite of everything else, and I don’t need you badgering me with apologies.”

“What can I say, doll? I like our little talks. Hearing your voice, it’s like old times.”

“I guess it took death to make a conversationalist out of you. The Bernard I remember could go an entire evening with little more than a few grunts from behind his newspaper. Anyway, what makes you think you can waltz in here and act so familiar? You must think I’m pretty quick to forgive.”

“Quick to forget, anyway. Besides, you’re polite—it’s your good breeding. How do I look, honestly? Do I look fat?”

“No.”

“See? You didn’t even hesitate.”

“Well, you don’t. You look healthy.”

“Admit it, you miss me.” Harriet averts her eyes.

“You do,” says Bernard. “The quiet little things that didn’t add up to much: watching TV together, stringing Christmas lights, beating me at Scrabble.”

“That’s not fair, and you know it. Nothing is what it was. It’s like my entire past has been rewritten. And for the record, you were a terrible Scrabble opponent. Always hurrying me. Grousing about your lack of vowels. Double-checking my math. Rolling your eyes every time I consulted the dictionary. You were incorrigible.”

“Fair enough. How’s Caroline?”

“Why don’t you ask her yourself?”

“I’ve tried. She won’t communicate with me. That’s the thing. They gotta be willing.”

“Well, she certainly doesn’t have the highest opinion of you. She says you were a bully.”

“Some people are not easily persuaded. Maybe my style was a little bullish, I see that now. But I got results.”

“Don’t take it personally,” says Harriet. “She’s says that I favored Skip.”

“Did you?”

Forced to consider, Harriet is not pleased with the verdict. Hadn’t she always been slower to comfort Caroline? Even as a baby, Harriet had let Caroline cry more than she’d ever let Skip. She’d weaned Caroline at barely six months, whereas Skip might have nursed until his freshman year of high school if he hadn’t weaned himself at two. Of course she favored Skip.

“Yes,” says Harriet. “I guess I did.”

“So did I,” says Bernard “Well, there you go. The rest is easy.”

“Nothing is easy between Caroline and me, you know that.”

“What could be easier than apologizing?”

“You don’t seem to understand. She wants to remain at odds, I’m convinced.”

“Stubborn,” says Bernard. “Like her mother.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure. You’re the one who refused to use the bypass for seven years. Winding around that damn marina, driving four miles out of our way to get to the grocery store.”

“That damn bypass killed the town.”

“We were the last house on the peninsula with a rotary phone.”

“Perfectly good phone.”

“If it were up to you, we would have used a telegraph.”

“Now you’re exaggerating.”

“You wouldn’t eat shrimp if I put a gun to your head.”

“Not meant for consumption—”

“—unless,” she chimes, in perfect unison with Bernard, “you happen to be a narwhal.”

Harriet blushes at the familiarity. How can she still feel at home with a man she no longer knows? It vexes her that she takes comfort in his usualness.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me, Harriet?”

“You’re a fine one to ask that question.”

With a great hiss, the train grinds to a halt in Skagway. There’s Caroline, waiting by the tracks.

When Harriet turns back to Bernard, she finds only a vacant seat.

L
ook, Harriet, you’ve done an admirable job caring for your husband the past eight months. You’ve tried—really hard, you’ve tried. If you could ever manage to attend the support group, you’d know the task is nearly impossible. You’d know that you’re not alone. You’d know that your futility and rage were perfectly normal. You’d know that caring for someone with Alzheimer’s is one of the most difficult and demanding jobs in the world. Nobody’s good at it.

If you could only see clear to read the stack of materials Dr. Ritchie provided, you’d know that you’re only in the middle stages. Yes, Harriet, it gets worse! You’d know you have to take better care of yourself, even as your partner’s disease swallows your every available resource. You’d know
you have to step away from it all sometimes, ask for help. Call Mildred, call Skip, call the Department of Social and Health Services. The Department of Aging and Disabilities. There are outside resources, Harriet, plenty of them. Most of them have acronyms.

No, they can’t help your husband remember your name, but they could give you some tools to work with. They could refer you to some home-care possibilities. They could probably send somebody out to walk you through your options, some kind of social worker. Gracious, Harriet, you live in the banana belt, the state capital for elder care. A mecca for the blue-haired set. Swing a cat, hit a medical specialist. Alzheimer’s is as common in Sequim as athlete’s foot.

Then, why oh why oh why won’t you ask for help? Exactly what are you trying to prove?

Maybe it’s time to say when, Harriet. Before Dr. Ritchie sees the bedsores on the backs of Bernard’s legs, before he finds the string of bruises along Bernard’s inner thigh. Funny, how they’re shaped like the Aleutians in a crescent, each yellowing island the mark of an offending finger.

You lost it, Harriet. Just for a split second while you were bathing him, patiently trying to scrub the mess from between his legs, the one leftover from his recent accident in the post office, where he would not be ushered out of the lobby without making a scene. The clerk stared at you with pity and revulsion as you shepherded him out the door, cursing and swinging his arms. In the car, Bernard kicked the rear-view
mirror clean off the windshield. Twice, he tried to grab the wheel on the drive home, and you had to fight him off. You kept your cool the whole time, Harriet. You dealt with the situation competently. You managed to settle him down, get him home, undress him with the usual difficulty, take off his diaper, and coax him into the bathtub.

Not bad.

But when he began to splash you and curse you all over again, that stifled rage came rushing up from the center of you in an instant, and Mount St. Harriet blew her top again. Maybe not twenty-four megatons but a pretty good blast.

It was an isolated event. It happens. Take your own advice, and let it go, Harriet. Quit remembering the confusion in his eyes, the helplessness in his prairie-blank face, as you dug your fingertips into his soft flesh.

Yes, it’s time to say when, Florence Nightingale. Before Skip and Caroline and Dr. Ritchie intervene. Before they sit you down in your own living room and tell you how it’s going to be.

You better hurry, though, because they’re knocking on the door.

C
aroline looks positively delighted standing there by the tracks, clutching two oversized shopping bags. She’s wearing a lovely Cowichan sweater cinched at the waist, featuring twin orcas, one over each breast. The sweater couldn’t have come cheap, especially not in a tourist trap like Skagway. Happy as she is to see her daughter in high spirits, Harriet can’t quite overcome the suspicion that Caroline is somehow taking advantage of Skip’s generosity.

“So, how was it?” Caroline asks, offering her an elbow.

“The views were stunning,” she says. “Your shopping was a success, I see. The sweater is adorable on you.”

Harriet suggests that they double back and drop Caroline’s bags in the cabin, but Caroline insists she’s famished.

Dining at the Harbor House, they both order the salmon, and Caroline displays her new clothes for Harriet while they wait for their entrees. A polar fleece pullover in a flattering blue. A stylish pair of bootleg jeans. A black one-piece bathing suit. The more genuine enthusiasm Caroline expresses over these purchases, the less Harriet worries about Skip. He can afford it. It’s sweet that he’s doing this for his sister. When was the last time Caroline went shopping anywhere but Ross or T.J. Maxx? When was the last time she even seemed to care what she was wearing? It occurs to Harriet that she’s not the only one with a history of being cheap with herself.

The salmon is overcooked and Harriet doesn’t even recognize the vegetable. There are spots on the water glasses. Everything is overpriced. But nothing can dampen the spirits of mother and daughter as their dinner conversation unfolds easily. No trampled toes or raised hackles along the way. Caroline’s monkey’s fist never leaves her purse.

Afterward, Harriet insists on picking up the tab, tipping a hair over twenty percent.

“Look at you,” Caroline chides. “Big tipper.”

“Oh, stop it,” Harriet scolds. But the truth is, she’s pleased by her daughter’s approval.

Arms grazing, they stroll back down Skagway’s main thoroughfare, as the sun dips below the mountains and the dusky air assumes an autumnal chill. The little shops begin to light up, and somehow the town seems less rugged and suddenly more quaint.

“I’m glad I came,” says Caroline.

“Me, too,” says Harriet, clutching her hand.

They continue their leisurely pace, past the Gold Digger Mine and Dine, and Prospector’s Cafe, soaking up the manufactured charm. Passing the hokey mercantile, a half-dozen more gift shops, and the train museum, they arrive, pleasantly flushed, at the monstrous hull of the
Zuiderdam.

Upon their return to the cabin, Caroline is still energetic.

“They’ve got karaoke in that lounge upstairs. What do you say, Mom?”

“Dear, I couldn’t eat another bite.”

“No, it’s music. People sing along. It’s fun.”

Exhausting as the mere thought of venturing out is, Harriet can’t disappoint Caroline.

“Just give me a few minutes to freshen up, dear.”

Caroline changes into a fresh blouse and her new jeans. Side by side, in the tiny bathroom, they apply their makeup and finesse their hair. By the time they’re finished, Caroline looks ten years younger and ten years happier. Harriet looks like a dried fig.

“You look nice,” says Harriet.

“You, too, Mom.”

But the long walk down the Rotterdam corridor to the elevator bank is beginning to take a toll on Harriet. Her neck is starting to throb. The balls of her feet ache. She can actually feel her mental focus softening.

The interior of Northern Lights certainly doesn’t help. The
club is even more incoherent than the Vista Lounge, as though Dorothy Draper and a color-blind sultan have been set loose in the place. The host, DJ Raj, is a swarthy young man clad in pointy dress sandals and a fez, shiny pants of indeterminate material, and a billowy shirt with a leather drawstring.

“Next up, give it up for Cindy, yo. Cindy in the hoooouuusse!”

An inebriated bottled blonde of forty-five, with a suspicious tan, wobbles to the stand in an immodest blouse, seizes the microphone from Raj, and promptly announces, “People say I look like Stifler’s mom,” just as a chorus of synthesized strings takes flight beneath her.

No sooner do they find a table and start perusing the nonalcoholic beverage selections than Caroline stands up, as if to go to the bathroom.

“Dear, are you certain you don’t have a bladder infection? You just went five minutes ago.”

“I forgot, I’ve gotta e-mail Skip real quick, let him know everything is okay. I told him I would.”

“Didn’t you just phone him in Skagway?”

“What can I say, Mom? He’s concerned.”

Though the news ought to annoy her, it pleases Harriet to know that Skip is thinking about her. He may be his father’s son, he may not visit enough, he may take Harriet for granted much of the time, and yes, her little Skipper underestimates her, always has, but she’s never had reason to doubt his genuine concern, or question his motives. Not like Caroline has given her so many occasions to do.

“Please hurry back, dear,” she says.

In Caroline’s absence, Harriet is forced to give the music her attention, with nothing but a flat club soda to distract her. And frankly, it’s giving her a headache. It’s not that the singers themselves are terrible (though, make no mistake, most of them are completely tone deaf and can’t keep time to save their lives), it’s not even the canned elevator arrangements that aggravate her. It’s the material itself that grates on Harriet. The compositions are inane. They just don’t possess the same pluck and punch as her beloved standards. Often, the lyrics suffer from imprecise grammar. In some cases, they don’t make sense at all. Mosquito, libido, anything for a rhyme.

No, it isn’t Harriet’s imagination, this new music cuts corners whenever possible, suffers from the yawning, butt-scratching torpor of the overfed teen, sprawling on unmade beds in the glow of television sets. Where timeworn sentiment, even pith, was once the objective of well-turned lyric, a simple “yeah yeah” would now suffice. A rhyme. An arbitrary allusion to insects.

Harriet sips her warm club soda and tries to tune the music out, though each performance commands her attention anew. Cindy’s appetite for center stage cannot be sated. Her forehead glistens under the bandstand lights, the neckline of her blouse plunging farther, as she caws and screeches like a disgruntled raven. But worse still is the imprecise grammar of DJ Raj, yo. He may as well be speaking a foreign tongue with all his “shiznits” and so forth. With each song, Harriet’s mood
deteriorates further. And she can’t even order a glass of wine to take the edge off.

By the time Caroline finally returns, twenty-five minutes later, Harriet can hardly contain her annoyance.

“Sorry, Mom. It’s such a pain to log on. It takes literally forever.”

“Which is how long I’ve been sitting here alone.”

“I said I’m sorry, Mom.”

And just like that, they’re back to their old ways. All the goodwill they created throughout the past two days is beginning to erode.

“And just what did you tell Skip that was so important that you left me sitting here by myself all night?”

“I told him that we were fine, Mom. That we were having fun.”

“Mmm,” says Harriet, folding her arms.

“Well, aren’t we?”

Something in Caroline’s expression softens Harriet. She could say something else about the thoughtlessness of Caroline’s actions, about the terrible music, about the warm club soda, about her aching neck and back and feet. She could say something about Caroline hijacking her cruise and taking advantage of Skip. But something has changed. For the first time in years, Harriet can see a glimmer of hope in her daughter’s eyes.

“Yes, dear, of course we are.”