17
Rose met me at the airport, wearing dark blue high heels, dark nylons, and makeup, as if it were autumn. She hugged me briefly, with her face slightly averted.
“We have to hurry,” she said. “My car’s parked illegally and I don’t feel like getting a citation.” Her heels clicked across the hard gray floor, so loudly that a few people looked searchingly, curious about the noise.
I had to strain to keep up with her.
“How is he? “I asked.
“He’s waiting for you. He’s at Jackson Park Hospital. A terrible place. But…” she glanced at me: but that’s where his lover died.
“How is he?”
“He’s not a youngster. He’s been working double duty to help support that woman’s children. And you. Not just for the past few months, but for years. That woman played him for a sucker and this is the result. Not to mention…”
We pushed through the glass doors. The heat pounced on us, thick with gasoline and dust. Horns blaring. They were repaving part of the airport road and the smell of tar was violently present. The sun pulsated behind a bank of low clouds. The parking lot was a long walk away but Rose had left her car right across from the terminal exit, in a space reserved for buses. A cop, looking incongruously military on his little blue and white Vespa, pulled up and began writing out a ticket.
“Officer! Officer!” called Rose, running toward her car. “Help!”
The cop looked up, his face impassive. He had blond eyebrows and freckles.
Rose waved her hands over her head. “That’s my car,” she called. “Please don’t give me a citation.” She darted recklessly out into the traffic and was by his side.
“It’s too late,” the cop said, turning his ticket booklet toward Rose. “See? I’ve already got your plates down. Once I do that it’s out of my hands.”
“But you don’t understand,” cried Rose. “My son’s just gotten in from the East Coast. His father’s suffered a massive heart attack. We’re on the way to the hospital right now.” She opened up her purse and extracted a ring with at least twenty keys on it. She held one up for the cop to inspect. “Here. I was just about to start my car.”
“I’m sorry,” the cop said. “But you’re parked illegally. I’ve already started writing your ticket.” He glanced at the tip of his ballpoint pen and began to write.
“But didn’t you hear me!” said Rose. “This boy’s father is in the hospital.” She whirled around to look at me. I stood a few feet behind her, holding my suitcase and sweating. I thought of the cop looking at me and suddenly recognizing my face—did they have photo files of parole violators? But the cop didn’t look at me; he hurried through writing the ticket and handed it to Rose with a brief, formal nod. Rose stared at the ticket and then turned it over. “Five dollars,” she said. “I could have had valet parking for that.”
I opened the back door and threw my suitcase in. It bounced off the seat and landed on the floor. Rose was still studying her parking ticket. She seemed to be checking the license plate number he’d written down against the number on her plate, hoping an error might invalidate the whole thing. A car pulled up next to Rose and the driver shouted through the window, asking her if she was leaving her space.
“You better not park here,” she said to the man. “The police are giving out citations like there’s no tomorrow.” The man waved at Rose and drove off. Rose watched him go and then returned her attention to the parking ticket.
“Maybe we better set out,” I said.
Rose folded the ticket into thirds and slipped it into her purse. There were beads of perspiration on her forehead, exquisite little drops as delicate as lace. I walked around to the passenger side and got in; a moment later, Rose was at the wheel. The seat was pushed back too far and she could only reach the accelerator and the brake with the tips of her toes.
“Of all the times to call,” she said, as she turned the ignition, “you had to pick the twelfth. Did you think we wouldn’t know it was the day of the fire? I struggle all my life for a decent existence and you change it all with one match.” She swung the car into traffic.
“Would you please tell me how he is?” I said. “Was it a bad attack?”
“I said he was all right.” She shook her head, as if my interest was somehow suspect. Did she resent my concern? Did she believe I’d care less if it were her in the hospital?
We drove in silence until we were out of O’Hare and on the Dan Ryan Expressway.
“I shouldn’t say this,” Rose said, “but you look nice.” She drove with her eyes straight ahead, breaking her intense concentration every minute or so with a glance in the rear-view mirror. “You look better than you have in a long while. Apparently your new life agrees with you.”
“I don’t have a new life,” I said with some vehemence.
Rose shrugged. “And you’re with…?”
“Yes.” As I said it I felt a wave of doubt—perhaps I shouldn’t have told the truth. And when the momentary panic subsided, I was left with a dense congestion of sadness. I could feel and identify all the parts of me that loved my mother, but all the passageways that connected what I felt about her to what I could express were in ruins, or had totally disappeared. My loyalty and instinctual affections crouched within me like ancient idols that preside over the thick silence of some tropical jungle. You can view them from the air but you cannot bring them forth.
“We knew you were,” said Rose. “We tried to contact the family but we couldn’t find any of them. Your father and I both looked through your apartment—you were evicted, by the way, for all you care—but we couldn’t find a thing that told us anything about them. Weren’t you in contact with any of them?”
“There were some letters, but I took them with me.”
“Knowing you wouldn’t be coming back.”
“No. I just took them. I didn’t think about why.”
“We could have dug up one or another of them if we’d pushed harder but we had to be careful.”
“I know. And I’m glad you were careful. I appreciate it.”
“Well what did you expect? You’re my son. I’m not going to have you thrown in jail.”
We were silent again. My mother was driving slowly, and trucks and cars roared past us on either side. I looked at the speedometer; we were going exactly 40. I wanted to find out more about Arthur’s condition but Rose began to speak.
“I’ve done a little snooping around on my own—you might be interested in this. Following your lead, and Arthur’s too. You know who I’ve been looking for?”
“I don’t know.”
“Guess. Take a guess.”
“You’ve been looking for Carl Courtney.”
“And I found him. He’s in Cherry Hill. That happens to be a nice Philadelphia suburb, though it sounds like a place you’d put a bunch of whorehouses. He’s married to a gal from Chicago. They live in a six-room condo, brand new. One of those places with a laundry room on every floor and—well, it’s like a hotel. If you call and the person’s not in, the front desk picks up and takes a message. Someone comes in and changes the linens twice a week. They have their own medical staff. It’s for so- called senior citizens.”
“Like Grandpa’s place in Florida,” I said.
Rose shook her head and was a moment in answering. “Not really. I would imagine Carl’s is different.” She glanced in the rear-view mirror. “Though who knows? You never can tell. The only reason they got in is because Carl’s wife is over sixty-five. Carl’s just sixty himself. And pretty well tied to his wife’s apron strings. She’s a big Zionist. They were thinking of moving to Israel but they took the place in Cherry Hill instead.”