Washing the Dead (16 page)

She held a straw to my lips while I took small sips of water. I drifted in and out of a hazy slumber, periodically flinging open
my eyes to see if she was still there. She swaddled Lili in the yellow blanket, and my baby girl curled into her grandmother’s boyish torso as if it were a bassinet custom made for her. “She looks just like you did, Sweet B,” my mother murmured. For a second, I was her Sweet B, warm and safe in her slender arms.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I said, and she responded by kissing me on the forehead. She still bathed in lavender but no longer smelled of cigarettes.

My mother slipped out while I dozed off. That night I started hemorrhaging and asked Sam to call her. She promised him she’d be there in a few minutes.

She never showed.

The next morning Neil visited me, but he couldn’t look at me as he told me that he’d just dropped our mother off at the Badger Bus depot, that she feared she was catching a bug and didn’t want to get the baby sick. She’d call me later, he promised, fussing with the zipper on his windbreaker. She didn’t call. I was finally done. Well, almost. I called her the first time Lili spiked a fever but hung up after a few rings. And maybe a few times after that, too.

A month later, I joined a Mommy and Me group, and in the musty basement of a church, over banana bread and bottled water, we shared war stories about our birthing experiences. I didn’t mention the blood transfusions or my ruptured uterus; instead, I told the story of my mother standing me up in the hospital. I told it slow and cold.

My tale prompted other women to tell far worse tales of their mothers’ transgressions. The raw anger and sadness in their voices stirred me, and the ultimate war story about my mother bubbled up from a place deep inside, to my tongue and lips. I opened my mouth but stopped short when I noticed that our babies were suckling, drinking in breast milk tainted with bitterness. I didn’t want that for Lili.

I unlatched my baby from my nipple, held her close, and promised that I wouldn’t deny her a relationship with her grandmother, no matter what. I’d always desperately wanted a
grandmother. I also vowed never to tell my war stories. I’d been using them to shield myself from the temptation of letting my mother back inside. My shield was losing its armor. Now here I stood on the lip of the mikveh, my hatless mother slipping, slipping, and me both wanting her to steady me and wanting to follow her into the waters.

“Look, Mom, it’s your favorite part,” Lili said, returning me to the present.

Meryl Streep was singing about time slipping through her fingers as she combed Amanda Seyfried’s hair, as my mother had combed mine, as I had combed Lili’s. Crap. Tears gushed from my eyes.

Sam looked over at Lili, and they both laughed at my sappiness.

“I’ve got a few years until I flee the island, Mom,” Lili said as Sam handed me a tissue.

Out of solidarity, we ate bad hospital food with Lili. From the way Sam was fondling his Blackberry, I could tell he was itchy to tend to a client who had been hectoring him all day. I waited for Lili to fall asleep, and then I grabbed my purse and pulled him out into the hall to talk.

“What’s up?” Sam asked.

“Big Al is in hospice.”

He put his Blackberry back in his pocket and gave me his full attention.

“Jenny’s going to need to go to St. Paul to see him and my mother will—”

He pulled his phone out and started scrolling through his address list.

“Sam, what are you doing?”

“I have a client who owns a nursing home. He’ll give us the name of someone to stay with your mom at Neil’s.”

Typical Sam. Pull out the phone and find the right people for the job.

I put my hand over his screen. “No, sweetie. I can’t do that.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that my mother is going to stay with us.”

He looked baffled. “But what about Lili? She’s going to need care.”

“I can handle it.”

“Barbara,” he said tentatively.

“I can, Sam. Trust me.” I could do this for Neil.
The world doesn’t revolve around your drama with Mom.
I didn’t want to be that person My quivering lip betrayed me.

“Honey, I’m not so sure.”

“Maybe it’s a good idea to pop over to Neil’s, give Jenny a hug, and assess the damage.” His phone was vibrating, and I felt guilty leaving him here. “Are you okay with that?”

“Go. Lili’s asleep, and I’ve got my laptop.”

I didn’t want to leave Lili, and I was half hoping that he’d beg me to stay. He would support me doing whatever it took to regain my bearings. “Okay, you hold down the fort then.”

I kissed him and then walked down the corridor before I changed my mind. When I got out of the elevator, I heard someone call my name.

“My God, you walk fast. Didn’t you hear me shouting my lungs out?” Dawn Travinski said breathlessly.

“I’m sorry, I’m a little spacey.”

“Here, let me walk you out. How’s Lili?”

“Hanging in there.” I smiled.

“Such a bummer about that ankle.” Dawn studied me.

“How’s Megan? I miss that girl.” I missed the girls, all so busy with cross-country practices and meets. I missed their backpacks lined up neatly in the hall and their laughter coming from the family room. I missed shopping for their favorite treats. Megan loved to dip Wheat Thins in salsa, Kara liked applesauce of all things, and Brooke was always foraging for something sweet. The list went on.

“She misses you too.” Dawn looked away. “And of course Lili.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, I’m hoping Lili loses interest in that Taylor Miller soon.”

Dawn said nothing for a few seconds and then she touched my arm. Her kindness startled me, and I blurted, “My mom just moved here.”

“Just in time to give you a hand with Lili, eh?”

I laughed aloud at the notion of my mother cooking meals or fussing over Lili’s injury.

Dawn looked puzzled. Her mom, also a nurse, and a spark plug of a woman, stayed with her for two weeks after she had a hysterectomy.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I laughed, because there’s nothing funny about my mother right now.”

Dawn reached behind her head, split the hair in her ponytail in half, and tugged. Megan tightened her ponytail the exact same way. They looked so much alike with their inky black hair and matching crossbites.

“My mom’s sick,” I said.

“Oh, shit. When it rains, it pours. I’m sorry.”

Dawn’s compassion made me want to cry, but I resisted the urge to unload on her. She was probably on a well-deserved break. “I’m going to my brother’s to see her for a second.”

“That will make you feel better.”

“Can you check in on Lili?” I asked.

“Done.”

“And Sam?”

“Double done.”

I thanked her, though I preferred being the one who pitched in by picking up extra carpool duties or feeding Megan. We stood there for a few uncomfortable seconds before I went out to the parking lot.

When I got to Neil’s house, he kissed me on the cheek, and I felt calmer. “You’re here,” he said.

“I’m here,” I answered, absorbing the slight awkwardness between us.

“How’s Lili?”

“Sleeping.”

“Jenny took Mom to Kohl’s to pick up a few things. They’ll be back soon.”

I pictured the two of them filling a basket with cottage cheese and canned pears, if she still ate that every morning for breakfast. “I don’t have much time.”

“It’s Alzheimer’s,” he said loudly, as if I were standing in the next room.

A surge of panic ripped through my body. “How long has she had it?”

“I don’t know. She covered it up pretty well for a while, but she’s deteriorating at warp speed.”

Neil rubbed his hand along the back of his neck, disappeared into the kitchen, and returned with a glossy brochure for Lakeline Assisted Living. He let the brochure drop on the coffee table. I told him that whatever he and Jenny had picked would be fine, but I didn’t mean it. My mother had been my responsibility when she had her breakdown, and I was irrationally put out that he and Jenny were taking charge.

I heard the front door open and Jenny tell my mother that I was here for a visit.

“Oh, Barbara’s here for a visit,” my mother repeated.

I met them in the hallway. Her cheeks were rosy from the crisp air, but she’d stopped coloring her hair, and gray helmeted her skull, the remaining auburn fringing around her earlobes.

She sat down on the couch with her coat on.

I embraced Jenny and spoke into her hair. “Neil told me about Big Al. You okay?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Not really.”

My mother looked at us, bewildered.

“Here, Mom. Let me take that for you,” Jenny said, helping my mother out of her coat. It had never bugged me to hear Jenny call her “Mom” until now.

“No thank you, darling. I’m cold.”

I sat down a few cushions away from my mother, and Neil turned off the Brewers game he’d been watching.

“How’s Lili doing?” Jenny asked.

“She’ll be okay. I’m going to need to get back to her in a sec,” I said.

“Lili’s in the hospital. She had ankle surgery,” Neil explained to my mother.

“Oh, she’s in the hospital,” my mother repeated carefully. She wrinkled her nose. “I’m not one for hospitals.”

“Because of the appendicitis attack?” Neil asked.

I felt like we were kids sitting around the Shabbos table or at one of my mother’s teas, waiting for her to tell one of the recruits her moving story of meeting the Schines in the hospital after her appendicitis attack.

She looked at Neil blankly. “Appendicitis?”

“When the Schines came to see you in the hospital and they took care of you, Mom,” I prodded.

She looked back and forth at Neil and me, like a lost little girl we’d found in a shopping mall. “You must be confusing me with Dad. He had his appendix out.”

My mother had told her appendicitis story to every recruit we’d ever hosted. Neil and I glanced at each other, and I was both scared by my mother’s confusion and grateful that I had a brother to confirm the facts of our childhood.

“Lili should soak those legs. It will make the world of difference,” she said with great authority.

“Thanks, Mom. That’s good advice,” I said.

“It sure is. Isn’t that right, Norman?”

“Right, Mom,” Neil said.

“All this talk of Lili. How are
you
?” I asked her.

“How am
I
?” She put her tongue over the top of her upper lip as she’d done when she was threading a needle or removing a splinter from my big toe. Then she looked at me, and her eyes clouded.

I looked away, too frozen to act on my Pavlovian impulse to
jump in and either answer or divert the question, to be that girl in the Schines’ pantry who’d pointed out her mother’s smeared lipstick.

Jenny came to her rescue instead. “She’s doing just great. We’ve been getting some big shopping done, and we went to feed the ducks today.”

“Oh yes, the ducks.” My mother clapped her hands together.

“Well, Lili will be happy to see you after she gets better,” I offered.

“I hope you don’t mind, but all this fresh air has worn me out.” She got up and started walking in the opposite direction from the guest room.

Again I felt the strong drive to cover for her. Jenny rose and went to her. “Here, Mom. Let me take your coat before you go to bed.”

My mother turned around to face us, her eyes revealing her gratitude that she’d been spared the embarrassment of getting lost in her son’s house. “Sleep tight, chickens.” She bade Neil and me her old goodnight. He looked over at me, and I could see that his eyes were starting to water. No doubt he too was remembering how we’d waited for our mother in our beds, all cozy in our Dr. Denton pajamas. She’d ask us if we’d brushed our teeth, and if she wasn’t too tired, she’d make up a story about an orphan named Birdie.

My mother unbuttoned her coat slowly, revealing the pale pink cardigan I hadn’t seen since she left us. The delicate wool had pilled, and a long thin coffee stain paralleled a row of mother-of-pearl buttons.

I was back in the hospital within an hour. Lili was snoring, and Sam had muted the television and was staring blankly at a closed-captioned news report about Roman Polanski’s arrest in Switzerland for an old charge of sex with a minor.

“What a creep,” I muttered, and sat down next to Sam.

“Yeah,” he said, dazed. He pointed to an enormous bouquet
of stargazer lilies. “Sheri.”

“They’re gorgeous,” I said. I loved Sheri.

“She wants you to call her when you come up for air.”

I walked over to the flowers. Their odor was strong and sweet, like Sheri. “Did you tell her where I was?”

“Yeah.” He rubbed his eyes. “Jenny okay?”

“She’s tough,” I said, avoiding mention of my mother.

“I’m glad you’re back.”

“Did Lili wake up?”