So how could my mother still be alive? This? I touched it with the ball of my thumb, even polished it a little. It’s my good luck charm. The lie was so horrible that it had a kind of splendor.
I got it when I was there with my mother, a long time ago. She took me on the Bullet.
Yvonne the Information Lady smiled as if this were the sweetest thing she had ever heard. Give her a nice hug and kiss, she said. Seeing you will send her off to sleep better than any of the pills the doctors have. She pointed. The elevators are over there, around the corner.
With visiting hours over, I was the only one waiting for a car. There was a litter basket off to the left, by the door to the newsstand, which was closed and dark. I tore the button off my shirt and threw it in the basket. Then I rubbed my hand on my pants. I was still rubbing it when one of the elevator doors opened. I got in and pushed for four. The car began to rise. Above the floor buttons was a poster announcing a blood drive for the following week. As I read it, an idea came to me . . . except it wasn’t so much an idea as a certainty. My mother was dying now, at this very second, while I rode up to her floor in this slow industrial elevator. I had made the choice; it therefore fell to me to find her. It made perfect sense.
The elevator door opened on another poster. This one showed a cartoon finger pressed to big red cartoon lips. Beneath it was a line reading our patients appreciate your quiet! Beyond the elevator lobby was a corridor going right and left. The odd- numbered rooms were to the left. I walked down that way, my sneakers seeming to gain weight with every step. I slowed in the four- seventies, then stopped entirely between 481 and 483. I couldn’t do this. Sweat as cold and sticky as half- frozen syrup crept out of my hair in little trickles. My stomach was knotted up like a fist inside a slick glove. No, I couldn’t do it. Best to turn around and skedaddle like the cowardly chickenshit I was. I’d hitchhike out to Harlow and call Mrs. McCurdy in the morning. Things would be easier to face in the morning.
I started to turn, and then a nurse poked her head out of the room two doors up . . . my mother’s room. Mr. Parker? she asked in a low voice.
For a wild moment I almost denied it. Then I nodded. Come in. Hurry. She’s going. They were the words I’d expected, but they still sent a cramp of terror through me and buckled my knees.
The nurse saw this and came hurrying toward me, her skirt rustling, her face alarmed. The little gold pin on her breast read anne corrigan. No, no, I just meant the sedative . . . She’s going to sleep. Oh my God, I’m so stupid. She’s fine, Mr. Parker, I gave her her Ambien and she’s going, to sleep, that’s all I meant. You aren’t going to faint, are you? She took my arm.
No, I said, not knowing if I was going to faint or not. The world was swooping and there was a buzzing in my ears. I thought of how the road had leaped toward the car, a black- and- white movie road in all that silver moonlight. Did you ride the Bullet? Man, I rode that fucker four times.
Anne Corrigan lead me into the room and I saw my mother. She had always been a big woman, and the hospital bed was small and narrow, but she still looked almost lost in it. Her hair, now more gray than black, was spilled across the pillow. Her hands lay on top of the sheet like a child’s hands, or even a doll’s. There was no frozen stroke- sneer such as the one I’d imagined on her face, but her complexion was yellow. Her eyes were closed, but when the nurse beside me murmured her name, they opened. They were a deep and iridescent blue, the youngest part of her, and perfectly alive. For a moment they looked nowhere, and then they found me. She smiled and tried to hold out her arms. One of them came up. The other trembled, rose a little bit, then fell back. Al, she whispered.
I went to her, starting to cry. There was a chair by the wall, but I didn’t bother with it. I knelt on the floor and put my arms around her. She smelled warm and clean. I kissed her temple, her cheek, the corner of her mouth. She raised her good hand and patted her fingers under one of my eyes.
Don’t cry, she whispered. No need of that.
I came as soon as I heard, I said. Betsy McCurdy called.
Told her . . . weekend, she said. Said the weekend would be fine. Yeah, and to hell with that, I said, and hugged her.
Car fixed? No, I said. I hitchhiked. Oh gorry, she said. Each word was clearly an effort for her, but they weren’t slurred, and I sensed no bewilderment or disorientation. She knew who she was, who I was, where we were, why we were here. The only sign of anything wrong was her weak left arm. I felt an enormous sense of relief. It had all been a cruel practical joke on Staub’s part . . . or perhaps there had been no Staub, perhaps it had all been a dream after all, corny as that might be. Now that I was here, kneeling by her bed with my arms around her, smelling a faint remnant of her Lanvin perfume, the dream idea seemed a lot more plausible.
Al? There’s blood on your collar. Her eyes rolled closed, then came slowly open again. I imagined her lids must feel as heavy to her as my sneakers had to me, out in the hall.
I bumped my head, ma, it’s nothing. Good. Have to . . . take care of yourself. The lids came down again; rose even more slowly.
Mr. Parker, I think we’d better let her sleep now, the nurse said from behind me. She’s had an extremely difficult day.
I know. I kissed her on the corner of the mouth again. I’m going, ma, but I’ll be back tomorrow. Don’t . . . hitchhike . . . dangerous. I won’t. I’ll catch a ride in with Mrs. McCurdy. You get some sleep.
Sleep . . . all I do, she said. I was at work, unloading the dishwasher. I came over all headachey. Fell down. Woke up . . . here. She looked up at me. Was a stroke. Doctor says . . . not too bad.
You’re fine, I said. I got up, then took her hand. The skin was fine, as smooth as watered silk. An old person’s hand.
I dreamed we were at that amusement park in New Hampshire, she said.
I looked down at her, feeling my skin go cold all over. Did you? Ayuh. Waiting in line for the one that goes . . . way up high. Do you remember that one?
The Bullet, I said. I remember it, ma. You were afraid and I shouted. Shouted at you. No, ma, you Her hand squeezed down on mine and the corners of her mouth deepened into near dimples. It was a ghost of her old impatient expression.
Yes, she said. Shouted and swatted you. Back . . . of the neck, wasn’t it?
Probably, yeah, I said, giving up. That’s mostly where you gave it to me.
Shouldn’t have, she said. It was hot and I was tired, but still . . . shouldn’t have. Wanted to tell you I was sorry.
My eyes started leaking again. It’s all right, ma. That was a long time ago.
You never got your ride, she whispered. I did, though, I said. In the end I did. She smiled up at me. She looked small and weak, miles from the angry, sweaty, muscular woman who had yelled at me when we finally got to the head of the line, yelled and then whacked me across the nape of the neck. She must have seen something on someone’s face one of the other people waiting to ride the Bullet because I remember her saying What are you looking at, beautiful? as she lead me away by the hand, me snivelling under the hot summer sun, rubbing the back of my neck . . . only it didn’t really hurt, she hadn’t swatted me that hard; mostly what I remember was being grateful to get away from that high, twirling construction with the capsules at either end, that revolving scream machine.
Mr. Parker, it really is time to go, the nurse said. I raised my mother’s hand and kissed the knuckles. I’ll see you tomorrow, I said. I love you, ma.
Love you, too. Alan . . . sorry for all the times I swatted you. That was no way to be.
But it had been; it had been her way to be. I didn’t know how to tell her I knew that, accepted it. It was part of our family secret, something whispered along the nerve endings.