When You Were Older (30 page)

We walked side by side down the bright hallway. I tried to remind myself I was not going to the gallows. Probably. He opened the door to Dr Bosco’s office and motioned me in, then closed the door behind me.

Dr Bosco was on the phone. She held up one finger, then pointed it toward a chair.

I forced myself.

She wore her unusually long gray hair in an intricate braid that morning. She wore red. A bright-red wool blazer.

‘I’m going to have to get back to you,’ she said into the phone. ‘I’ve got somebody here.’

She hung up the phone and leveled me with her friendly – yet somehow intimidating – gaze.

‘Problem?’ I asked. Then I attempted to swallow, with mixed success.

‘We have a problem every visiting day, Russell. We’ve just gotten him settled down. And then he sees you. And then he falls apart again. And he wants to go home. And it takes him a long time to settle again. Just about as long as it takes for the next visiting day to come around. It’s gotten to be a bad pattern. I’m going to
make
a suggestion. And I have no idea how it’s going to strike you.’

She allowed a pause.

‘You’re not going to suggest I don’t visit.’

More silence.

She was. She
was
suggesting that.

I looked her right in the eye. I didn’t do that often. With anybody. Not lately.

I asked, ‘Is this one of those things like loading kids up with Ritalin because it makes it easier for the teachers to deal with them?’

I expected her to avert her gaze. She didn’t.

‘Russell, if it was, I wouldn’t be suggesting it. It’s just starting to seem cruel. For whatever reason, Ben is incapable of remembering that you haven’t come to get him and take him home. Whether this is courtesy of his brain damage, or a function of how much he doesn’t want to know the truth, I couldn’t tell you. I just know that every time you walk out of here without him it breaks his heart. He cries for the rest of the day. He says, “My buddy left without me.” A hundred times. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.’

‘Please. Don’t tell me that.’

‘How can I not tell you, Russell? It’s the damn truth.’

‘I’m getting tired of the damn truth.’

‘I imagine you are, my friend.’

A little ripple of electricity ran through me when she called me ‘my friend’. It was as though she were channeling Nazir.

‘He’ll think I forgot him.’

Then we both took a long breath. A moment to poke our heads up above the sludge of the damn truth.

‘Maybe we could just try it for a couple of months,’ she said. ‘See if we like the effect on his mood better than what we’ve got now.’

‘All right. Here’s some damn truth for you, too, doctor. I’m not in any position for experiments. I have to choose. I have to make a move. Make up my damn mind. I’ve got nothing keeping me in Kansas except Ben. I still pay rent on my apartment in New York. My stuff is still there. My mail is still dropping there. My utilities are probably about to be turned off. Any chance I have at continuing my career path is there. If I’m not going to see Ben, I need to make a full break. I’m not just going to sit here in Nowhere-ville for a couple of months while we wait and see.’

Bosco rocked back in her big leather chair until she hit the back of it with a little cushiony ‘whump’.

‘Oh, Russell. I had no idea. Russell, go get your life back. I had no idea you were staying here for Ben, and Ben only. And if it’s doing him more harm than good … Just go. Let us take care of Ben. If it breaks his heart because he thinks you’ve forgotten him, you can fly out once or twice a year and tell him you haven’t. You need a life. You need time to process everything that’s happened to you. Don’t you ever feel tired? Like you’re pushing a river?’

‘Always.’

‘So maybe stop pushing?’

‘Don’t hit me with all the psychological crap,’ I said. But in a tone that made it clear I didn’t mean it as a genuine complaint.

‘I have to,’ she said. ‘I’m a crappy psychologist.’

‘No, I think you’re a decent one.’

‘If I was, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be in private practice. Earning a mint. Get yourself someplace cheery for the holidays, young man.’

‘Sure. Good idea. I’ll go back to my apartment in Jersey City, overlooking lower Manhattan. I can spend the holidays looking at the empty space where my office used to be. Maybe the rubble is still smoking. That would be cheery.’

‘Might be more fun than this.’

I rose to my feet. A little unsteady.

‘You going in to see Ben now?’ As though she fully expected me to ignore her warnings.

‘No. I’m going home.’

As I was walking out of her office, it struck me as ironic. Maybe even funny. I finally broke the stranglehold of Nowhere-ville. After the better part of three months, I finally got it to let me go. Right at the same moment I accidentally let down and called it home.

I checked my cell phone when I got back to the car. Just like I always did. Nobody had called.

I drove home, or back to my mother’s house, or
whatever
you want to call it, and checked the message machine there, too. Like I always did.

Nothing.

I sat for while with my head in my hands. I’m not sure how long.

Then I pulled out the comically thin local phone book and looked up that real-estate agent who’d been friends with my mom for ever. Cheryl Baker-Keene.

I dialed her cell phone. Told her who I was. Told her it was time to unload my mother’s house.

She said she understood completely. She said she’d be over in less than an hour.

‘I have no idea how long it’ll take me to go through all my mom’s stuff,’ I told Cheryl.

I was re-experiencing how perky she always looked. And, in reality, was. It was a nearly oppressive amount of perk.

‘May I make a suggestion?’

‘Please.’

‘There are services that’ll do it for you. For a fee, of course. There’s one I recommend all the time. Two local sisters. They haul away everything that isn’t worth selling and sell everything that is. Then they clean the house all up for sale. They’re fast. And they send you whatever money’s left over after their fee.’

‘Sold. I didn’t know there were people who do that.’

‘Lots of people lose their parents, Rusty. And then
they
have to deal with the estate. I see it all the time. It’s too overwhelming. Partly because their parents accumulated a lifetime’s worth of stuff. Partly because it’s a shared history. Too much emotion.’

‘So let me see if I have this straight. I could basically pack a few things and walk out of here. Almost anytime. And you would handle the rest.’

‘That’s my job. What you would have to do is make sure you’re taking anything you might possibly want. Because anything you don’t take will be disposed of. One way or the other.’

I looked around. What did I want? I could think of a couple of wants, but they would not be filled by anything under this roof.

‘Just photos, I guess. The photos on the mantel. And the big album.’

‘Financial records.’

‘Right. I’m glad you said that. I have to tie up a lot of loose ends of Mom’s business. I’ve been letting things slide.’

‘That’s how I earn my percentage. May I make another suggestion?’

‘OK.’

‘I know you’re probably not feeling very sentimental right now. But check the attic. The attic is always where the memories live. Holiday decorations that’re a family tradition by now, but you won’t think of them if it’s off-season. The ashtray you made for your mom at summer camp.’

I almost said, So that’s where you find an ashtray around here. I didn’t.

‘I have to ask you a weird favor,’ I said.

‘I’ve probably heard weirder.’

‘I keep thinking …’ Then I stopped. And seriously questioned if I could go on. But I had to. I had no choice. ‘I keep thinking maybe my friend Anat lost my phone number. Maybe it was in the bakery and got burned up. Maybe she can’t get it from information because she doesn’t know my cell phone is listed in Jersey City, not New York. But she knows where this house is …’

I waited. Silence. I looked up, hoping Cheryl Baker-Keene wouldn’t have heard about me and Anat, that her eyes wouldn’t be full of pathetic sympathy. I lost. They were.

‘Did you ever try to call her? Or go out to their house?’

‘The only phone number I ever had was the bakery phone. It took me two weeks to find out where they lived – it wasn’t listed – and by the time I got out there, they’d packed up and gone. I have no idea where they went. Never mind. It’s stupid.’ I knew Anat probably hadn’t even tried to call.

I dropped my head into my hands. Thinking, I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry. And crying. Just a little bit.

Cheryl came close and sat on the couch beside me. I willed her not to touch me. She put her hand on my arm.

‘What did you think I could do to help?’

‘I was thinking maybe I could write a note. In case she came by the house. Later. After it’s sold. Do you think whoever buys the house would give her a note if they had one?’

‘I’d be willing to ask.’

I kept my head in my hands. It was the closest thing to a dark cave I could find.

‘It’s stupid. I know it is. But I feel like otherwise I’ll always wonder. You know. If her father’s keeping her from getting in touch with me. Or if she lost my number. Or …’

Needless to say, I was headed for my most likely option. That Anat didn’t
want
to get in touch with me. I decided to stall. I decided not to get there. Ever.

‘Write the note,’ Cheryl said. ‘It might make you feel better. And call me when you’re headed back to New York. We can do most of the rest of our business by phone.’

She might have waited for a minute or two. I’m not sure why. Maybe to see if I would ever unbury my head.

Finally I heard the door click closed behind her.

Here’s what I found in the attic, other than old furniture: three cardboard cartons. They were each the same size. All former paper-towel cartons from the supermarket. Probably from Gerson’s. Carefully labeled. Carefully taped.

I was unprepared for this level of sparse organization.
Why
was the house so cluttered compared to this? Somehow my mother had exerted more control over her ancient memories than over her everyday life. Maybe there was some logic to that. I couldn’t decide.

One box said CHRISTMAS. One said RUSTY. One said BEN.

I opened the Christmas box. Also very organized. On the bottom she’d packed the strings of lights for the tree, thoughtfully wound into a circle and secured with twist ties. No tangles. On top she’d packed the ornaments, each carefully wrapped in a full sheet of newspaper.

In the middle, the Christmas village. Fresh unused cotton batting, still in plastic. The houses. The horse-drawn sled. The mirror lake. The ice-skating skunk. The family of deer, perpetually bent to drink.

I taped it back up and brought it downstairs.

I remembered Dr Bosco telling me to get myself someplace cheery for the holidays. I’d pack this in the car with a few boxes of finance stuff, and drive it back to New Jersey. And I’d cheery up the apartment with the Christmas village. I didn’t have a mantel. But maybe I could rig a table-top. It was worth a try.

I opened my box. But I didn’t rummage around in there long. It was mostly what I would’ve expected. Report cards full of As. Handmade Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day cards. Pictures I’d drawn in kindergarten. I opened Ben’s. The same. Nothing of any intrinsic value. Stuff only a mother could love.

I taped up my box again and carted it down to the car.

Then, as an afterthought, I went back up for Ben’s carton, and loaded that into the car as well.

Not that I really wanted all his memorabilia, or even mine. More because my mother obviously had wanted them. And because, if she wasn’t around to hoard these memories, I’d have to hoard them on her behalf.

And maybe, just maybe, so that if Ben ever accused me of forgetting all about him, I could tell him, ‘How can you say that, Ben, when I still have the Mother’s Day card you made when you were six?’

I didn’t exactly write a note for Anat. Because I had no idea what to say. Because I had no idea what had happened.

Instead I just wrote down all my contact info – cell number, land line in Jersey City, address in Jersey City, email – folded it up, put it in an envelope, wrote her name on the front, and left it on the kitchen table.

IT WAS FRIDAY
. Four days from the moment I’d done a complete turnaround on where I intended to be. Geographically and otherwise.

I was eighty-eight floors above Manhattan. More than halfway through interviewing for a new ad job. It would be a great job, if I ever got it. But it wasn’t likely that I would. Because too many other people wanted it just as badly.

I sat in a leather chair, trying not to slouch, yet trying not to sit too stiffly, either. Which meant I was losing. Once you misplace the ability to be yourself without thinking about it, without second-guessing it, you’re pretty well cooked.

And there was another problem I couldn’t overcome. Or maybe they were intertwined. Sitting in the well-appointed offices of an ad firm in a Manhattan high rise was causing my post-traumatic stress to flare. There are only just so many times you can wipe sweat off your forehead before it gets conspicuous.

I watched my interviewer glancing over my application. Nodding here and there. He didn’t seem to be paying full attention. Almost as if actually sitting down with each of these applicants was a burdensome formality. I took that to mean I wasn’t high on his list. His head was tilted downward, exposing the thinness of the top of his hair. I guessed he was in his mid-forties. I guessed he was a nice guy at heart. But fundamentally tired. On the inside.

He sat back and looked up at me. Set my application down on his oak desk.

‘What do you want for yourself in five years? Where do you see yourself? What do you want your life to be?’

‘I just want to be happy.’

He cocked his head slightly. ‘Happy?’

I thought, Yeah. Happy. You’ve heard of it. Right?