He needn’t have worried. As he approached the bed, he saw her eyes were fixed on the television that hung on a swing arm from the ceiling. The headset tucked into her ears was barely visible under her stringy gray hair. Her jaw was moving back and forth, suggesting to Albert that she was grinding her teeth, something she did when she was angry.
Before Elizabeth realized her son was in the room, she said, “Idiots!” under her breath. “Morons,” she added.
But then she caught sight of her son standing there. Her grim expression morphed into a smile and, awkwardly with her spindly arms, pulled off the headset.
“Albert,” she said, trying to shift herself into more of a sitting position.
“Let me help you,” he said.
He got an arm around her back and helped her up, taking a second to glance at the television to see what had gotten her thin blood boiling. It was one of the cable news networks, a panel of talking heads debating the latest scandal out of Washington.
“Hey, Mom,” he said. “How we doing today?”
Elizabeth pointed a bony finger at the screen. “You wouldn’t believe what that pinhead just said. They just spread lies, without any regard whatsoever for the facts. They know they’re lying, but it gets their base riled up and they make money off it. Assholes, the lot of them.”
“I know, I know,” he said, trying to calm her.
“What happened to facts? What happened to evidence?” Her speech became breathy.
“Take it easy,” Albert said. “You get a little winded when you’re upset.”
She sighed and closed her eyes briefly, composing herself. “I’m fine.” She raised a finger again. “It’s just that these lying—”
“Mom, let’s talk about something else. How was your night? You get a good sleep?”
Another sigh. “They never let you rest around here. Waking you at the crack of dawn.”
Albert nodded sympathetically. “They kind of get going around six a.m. in the morning here.”
His mother shot him a look. He knew instantly he’d stepped into it, wished he could claw back his words.
“Albert, you can say it’s six in the morning, or you can say it’s six a.m., but there’s no need to say six a.m. in the morning. It’s redundant. It’s like saying it’s six o’clock in the morning in the morning.”
He cracked a smile. “Maybe I was just testing you.”
His mother rolled her eyes. Elizabeth had never been able to resist correcting him, or his sisters, when they misspoke. She might have retired nearly two decades ago, but she hadn’t forgotten what she’d learned from a career in newspapers. She’d bounced around several Connecticut dailies, starting in Hartford, then back and forth between New Haven and Bridgeport, almost all of that time on copy desks, turning reporters’ error-riddled accounts into something that was not only readable, but unlikely to necessitate a correction in the next day’s edition. Elizabeth McBain had waged a lifelong war against vagueness, woolly thinking, accusations without evidence. It was a battle she fought on the home front as well. If Elizabeth asked one of her kids how school had gone that day, and heard, “Okay,” in return, she wanted specifics. What made it just okay, instead of great? What was the source of disappointment? Was it a friends issue? A bad mark on a test? A forgotten assignment?
Albert fussed with his mother’s pillow until she waved him off. He looked hurt, briefly, but he was used to his mother’s brusqueness. If anything, her hard-edged nature was one of the things he loved about her most. And he was strangely grateful that, if these were to be his mother’s final days, at least they were happening now, and not when that virus was raging. Back then, he probably wouldn’t have been allowed in to visit her at all.
“Is your sister here?” Elizabeth asked.
“No. I think Izzy’s going to visit later this afternoon.”
His mother nodded wearily. “She came last night with Norman.” Elizabeth sighed. “What a production.”
“What are you talking about?” Albert asked, although he had a pretty good idea.
“She got up here first while Norman parked the car, and when he arrived she quizzed him about where he parked it. In the lot, he says. They charge too much for parking, she tells him. He should have found a free spot on a nearby street, she says. I looked, he says, and couldn’t find one. You must not have looked very hard, she says. I can always find a spot. It went on forever.”
“I guess you can get a replay if she comes in this afternoon.”
Another sigh. “How’s the new play coming?” she asked.
Albert’s face fell. “We’re so far behind. Opening night’s less than two weeks away and no one’s got their lines nailed down and the set construction is behind and the ticket sales are slow.”
“You’ll be okay,” she said, reaching out a withered hand and patting his. “Things always come together at the last minute. That’s community theater for you. They’re not professionals. Everyone’s got regular jobs, their own lives, just like you do at the bank, you know? They’re all volunteers. The important thing is everyone loves what they’re doing. And ticket buyers, lots of them wait till the last minute. There’ll be lots of walk-ins, you just wait.”
“I hope you’re right, Mother,” Albert said, sounding more like a little boy than a grown man. He almost always called her Mother instead of Mom. Sounded more respectful, more formal. More devotional. “I don’t even know anymore if the play’s any good.”
“It is, it is,” she assured him. “I read it and liked it very much. It’s very funny in places.”
“It’s supposed to be funny all the way through.”
“Oh, it is. You know what the word for it is? Madcap. It’s very madcap.”
Albert smiled gratefully, letting his mother’s opinion rule. “Thank you.”
“How... are Dierdre and the children?”
“Okay,” he said, somewhat glumly. “Dierdre and I are talking now about a trial separation.”
Sorrow overtook Elizabeth’s face. “It’s a terrible thing to go out of this world knowing there’s this to be sad about, too.”
“Maybe... maybe we can work it out,” he said.
“Oh please. I may be on my last legs but I’m still pretty hard to fool.”
“Yeah,” Albert said. “I know.” He paused, collecting his thoughts. “She’s a good woman, Dierdre. She’s a wonderful mom to the kids. But there’s just... the spark is gone. And she... she doesn’t understand that I have dreams, you know? She resents all the theater stuff. It’s not my fault she doesn’t have something of her own that gives her joy. I’ve tried to get her involved. With costumes, or handling ticket sales. Anyway. But I’m there for Randy. I take him to practice. Same with Lyla, anything she needs. She’s on the soccer team now.” He paused, looked away. “Is it wrong that I have a dream?”
Elizabeth could think of nothing helpful to say.
“One day, some theater person, some producer from New York, will see my work and I’ll be on my way. It could happen. What I’d give to walk out of the bank and never go back, never have to approve another mortgage.”
“You have a dream,” Elizabeth said, almost dismissively. “And so do I.”
Albert smiled pityingly. “I know.”
Elizabeth broke eye contact.
“The important thing,” Albert said, “is you have to get better so you can get out of here, come home.”