May We Be Forgiven Part 9

"His Prilosec, her birth control, her Prozac; acyclovir-that's nice, they must have herpes-oxycodone for his back."

"Oxycodone would be okay," Nate says. "Oxy is nice."

"Here, take this," I say, plucking out a pink-and-white capsule and handing it to him.

"What is it?"

"Benadryl."

"That's not even prescription."

"That doesn't mean it doesn't work; it's very sedating."

"What else is there? Diazepam, that's generic Valium-let me have two of those."

"No."

"How about one? That's what you'd take for fear of flying."

"How about four? That's what you need for a colonoscopy," I suggest.

"You're funny," Nate says, taking one pill and pocketing the bottle.

"Put the bottle back. For all you know they have a camera in here, and they'll blame me."

As we're coming down the hall, Jane's father catches my arm. "You should cut your d.i.c.k off. You should have to live without something precious to you."

The father gives me a little shove and walks off to speak with the caterer. I see the caterer's big burly boyfriend coming towards me, and I'm thinking they're going to ask me to leave, and so I start weaving through the crowd, trying to avoid the guy, thinking I better get Ashley, I better tell the kids that it's time to go. The caterer's boyfriend gets to me before I reach the children.

"Did you try the tuna?" he asks.

"Uh, no," I say. "No, I didn't try it yet."

"Be sure you do," he says. "I make it myself from fresh tuna."

"Sure," I say. "Will do." I'm shaken. "I have to go," I tell Nate.

"Okay," Nate says. "I'll get Ashley."

"Where are we going?" Ashley asks.

"I don't know," I say. "I'm not used to telling anyone what I'm doing. I'm not used to going with anyone."

"You can't leave us here," Nate says.

I pause. "I'm going to see my mother."

"Are you going to tell her about all this?"

"No," I say.

We leave without saying goodbye. I tell the limo driver the name of the nursing home and he looks it up on his GPS and we take off.

"Should we bring her something?" Nate asks.

"Like what?"

"A plant."

"Sure."

"I think it's good to bring something you can leave behind, so it looks like someone cares about her," Ashley says.

When the limo driver pa.s.ses a florist, I ask him to stop. We spend twenty minutes debating what to bring-finally picking out an African violet, a.s.suming it to be most suited to the hot, dry air of the nursing home.

The nursing home smells like s.h.i.+t.

"Someone must have had an accident," I say.

The farther we get from the front door, the less it smells like s.h.i.+t and the more like chemicals and old people.

"We moved your mother into a semi-private room. She needed more companions.h.i.+p," the nurse tells me.

I knock on her door-no one answers. "Hi, Mom," I say, pus.h.i.+ng the door open.

"h.e.l.lo there."

"It's me," I say. "And I've brought someone with me."

"Come in, come in." We step into the room, and it's the woman in the other bed, thinking we're there for her. "Come closer," she says. "I can't see very well."

I go to the edge of her bed. "I'm Harry. I'm here for your neighbor. I'm her son."

"How do you know?"

"Because she was in the house when I was growing up," I say. "What's your name?"

"I don't know," she says. "What's in a name?"

"Do you know where my mother, your neighbor, is?"

"They're having an ice-cream social, make your own sundae, down the hall in the dining room, but the diabetics are forbidden, they make us wear this vulgar bracelet." She holds up her arm; on her wrist is a yellow bracelet with "DIABETIC" in caps written on it, and on her other arm is an orange bracelet that says "Do Not Resuscitate." "That's why my eyes are lousy-it's the sugar that got them."

As she's talking, my mother is wheeled back into the room, holding an enormous sundae in two hands. "I heard I had company," she says. I notice she too has bracelets, a blue one that says "Demented" and the same orange "Do Not Resuscitate."

"I was talking to your roommate."

"Blind as a bat," Mother says.

"But not deaf," the roommate says.

"It's about time the two of you came," Mother says to Nate and Ashley. "How are the children?"

"She thinks you're George and Jane."

"Does she know about Mom?" Ashley asks.

"Don't talk behind our backs in front of our faces, it's rude," the woman in the other bed says.

"It's nice to see you," Nate says, hugging Mother.

Ashley hands her the plant, which she places in her lap but otherwise ignores.

"Are you working hard?" Mother asks Nate. "Filling the airwaves with c.r.a.p? Are the children in school, is the one with problems feeling better?"

"The children are amazing," Nate says. "Both brilliant in their own ways."

"Wonder where it comes from?" the roommate says. "Are they adopted?"

"Okay, Mom," I say. "We wanted to have a little visit; we'll come back again soon. Is there anything you need?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know, you tell me," I say.

"Next time you come, you could bring me something," the roommate says. "Bring something sugar-free; because I'm diabetic doesn't mean I should be punished. Look at me, I'm not fat, I didn't overeat. And look at her, she's eating ice cream."

"With whipped cream, hot fudge, and a cherry on top," Mother says, and briefly chokes. "I ate the stem," she says. "Forgot to spit it out."

"Serves you right," the roommate says. "I could tie a cherry stem in a knot with my tongue."

"Bet you can't anymore," Mother says.

"Of course I can," the roommate says. "Girl, go get me one and I'll show you all."

"Should I?" Ashley asks.

"No reason not to," I say.

Ashley goes to the dining room and comes back with a maraschino cherry. She hands it to the roommate, its red juice dripping like blood on the white coverlet. The old woman pops the cherry into her mouth; we see it vaguely going around and around.

"Harder with dentures," she says, taking a break, "but I'm making progress."

And voila, she spits the cherry into her hand, the stem tied into a knot.

"How'd you do it?" Ashley wants to know.

"Practice," she says.

"Okay, Mom, we have to go now."

"So soon," the roommate says. "You just got here."

"The car is waiting outside; it's a long story."

"All right, then," she says. "You'll tell me next time."

Early Monday morning, the children are driven back to school with lunches I make from what remains in the refrigerator.

With the children gone, the tick-tock of the kitchen clock is deafeningly loud. "Was that clock always there?" I ask Tessie. "Was it always so loud?"

I load the dishes into the dishwasher, give Tessie and the cat fresh water, putter and put things away until there is nothing more to do.

I walk around the house in circles.

Where does one go from here? I imagine leaving-walking out and never coming back. The dog looks at me. Okay, then, walking out and leaving a note for the mailman instructing him to have the pets sent to George at the nuthouse-animals are very therapeutic.

Before this happened, I had a life, or at least I thought I did; the quality, the successfulness of it had not been called into question. I was about to do something....

The book. Now is the time to finish the book. I feel instant relief at having remembered that in fact there was something, a mission-the book. I drag the canvas bag with the thirteen-hundred-page ma.n.u.script, covered with an elaborate system of Post-its and flags that seems entirely undecipherable, over to the kitchen table.

I sit. Sweat trickles down my back even though I am not warm. My heart beats faster and faster, the world is coming to an end, the house is about to explode. I hurry to the medicine cabinet and take the pill marked "As Needed for Anxiety." I am taking George's medication, thinking of George. I have to get out of the house. It's cold in the house, bitterly cold. As quick as I can, I gather my things, my ma.n.u.script, my empty pads of paper. If I don't leave immediately, something will happen. I grab my things and run out the door.

Outside, the sky is bright, the air is even. I stand there.

The book. I am going to work. I am going to the library in town and I'm going to write my book. I am going. I get in the car; I have no keys. I have George's pants on. I run back into the house, grab the car keys, my phone. Tessie is wagging her tail, as though she thinks I've come back for her. "I'm going to the library, Tessie, I have to write my book. Be a good girl."

Last renovated in 1972, the library is perfect for my mission. Its modern look is along the lines of a Unitarian church or community center. The entry vestibule features a floor-to-ceiling pin board covered with community-service announcements for "coffee and conversation," "Mommy and me" programs, and a table stacked with voter-registration information along with pamphlets about Disaster Preparation. All I can think of is the wailing of the Thunderbolt civil-defense siren that went off once a month for three minutes at 11 a.m. all through my school years. Once inside, I spread the contents of my bag over a long table and begin reading what I have written so far, trying to be both critical and generous-an impossible combination. I skip ahead, picking up where I left off. When did I last work on this? I have legal pads, and a pen that's gone unused for so long it doesn't work-I borrow a stumpy half-pencil, a "golf" pencil, from the reference desk and return to my seat, thinking perhaps I should review what's new in the world of Nixonology before continuing the book. Nixon himself wrote ten books, the last, Beyond Peace, finished weeks before he died. t.i.tles like that, Beyond Peace, make me nervous, like maybe some part of him knew the end was near-the first volume of Ronald Reagan's autobiography, published in the early 1960s, had the prophetic t.i.tle Where's the Rest of Me? Is there room for another book about Nixon? People often ask me, and I say, Well, you heard about Nixon's trip to China, but what about his pa.s.sion for real estate in New Jersey? What about his interest in animal welfare? I search the library's collection and find a few items that bear rereading. I have copies of the books in the apartment in New York-in what I call the Nixon Library, which Claire calls your Nixon Library as opposed to the Nixon Library.

I fill my arms with books and march to the checkout desk.

In retrospect, I wish I'd held off. I wish I'd sat down with the books, read through them, and left them right there on the table, where they belonged. I was wanting to check them out to be on the safe side, to leave no stone unturned.

I put the books on the counter and hand the woman the library card.

"It's not your card," the librarian says.

"It came out of my pocket," I say, pulling everything else from the pocket.

"It's not yours."

"You're right," I say. "It's my brother's. And these are my brother's pants, and this is his driver's license. I'm taking the material out for him."

"Your brother killed his wife," she says.

I take a breath. "My brother isn't able to come in and check out books himself, so I'm getting these for him."

"I'm going to mark the card as stolen-charges could be filed against you."