Dwelling Places (25 page)

Finally, she folds over the tops of the sacks and is able to put four to a box (also from Bud's) by stacking them two deep. The boxes are labeled and sorted according to which sacks will go to houses in the same general vicinity and which sacks contain treats meeting special dietary requirements. Two boxes are for diabetics only; unfortunately, her diabetics are scattered all over town, but she packs them together anyway. It's only after the sacks are packed into the boxes that Rita remembers she was going to put holiday stickers on them. (She found two packs of them for a quarter at a flea market last March.) She puts stickers where she's able, without taking the sacks out of the boxes. She's too tired to be a perfectionist today.

For the second time this week, she calls Amos for help. She can't lift the boxes when they're full. She can't ask Mack or Jodie for help because they are insisting that she stay inside for a few days, while the wind is so sharp and until her cough is completely gone. That's easy for them to require, since they are not sick and do not have holiday deliveries to make. It may be a full two weeks before Christmas, but the point of
these
gifts is to provide good eating up until, and even after, Christmas Day. It's called the Christmas
season
for a reason: one day is not enough to pack everything in. So she will not call her son or daughter-in-law and listen to them harp about her health. Amos does not interrogate her about her health, and he's right next door. Two minutes after she calls, he comes over and loads up the boxes. He offers to drive her, and Rita almost turns him down without considering it. But then she thinks it will be easier to get in and out of the car if she's not behind the wheel. She decides that this is the perfect time to let Amos be her chauffeur.

Naturally, as if the Good Lord planned it to try her patience, the snow begins the minute they get in the car. It would be pretty were it not horizontal; the wind has come into town like a razor. For a moment the two of them sit and watch the flakes shoot past, neither one daring to suggest that the weather might keep them from their appointed rounds. Amos clears his throat and starts the car. It makes a sound not unlike Rita's hacking cough but turns over after a second or two. Amos pushes on the gas pedal ever so lightly. Rita stares at him.

“Something wrong with the gas?” she asks.

“No, no. I always like to get the feel of the gas and the brakes before I pick up speed.” Amos is staring into the rearview mirror as if expecting to back off a precipice at any moment. He backs up another foot or so, while Rita holds back a sigh. Poor Amos. Either he can't see or he's got a cramp in his leg, but God forbid he just say that. Once they're out on the street, Rita pulls a sheet of notebook paper from her coat pocket and begins directing.

“Go left, down to the end of the block, then right.” She watches, eagle-eyed, while Amos makes the requisite turns. “Now right for another block. There's a stop sign, Amos.” Her voice sharpens, and he slams on the brake. “Not yet—at the corner. Okay, now go right…and right again. It's that second drive on the right. Now…pull in—watch out for the ditch. There you have it. Good.” She gets out of the car, opens the back door, and very carefully pulls out a bag from the second box. She taps on the front door of the yellow frame house and walks in without waiting for a response.

Bertie Russell is in her recliner in the sitting room, the television on, a little artificial tree twinkling lights from a small table in the front window. She is surrounded by plates and cups, and her phone is off the hook again. Bertie's palsy makes everything haphazard these days, but she's chipper and ready to visit when Rita makes her entrance.

“Bertie, hon, I can't visit just now, but I'll come over this evening when I finish making my deliveries.”

“That's all right, Rita. You just come over whenever you're ready. Oh my!” Bertie acts as if she's never seen food before. Rita takes out
every item (she can reuse the sack) and places it on the coffee table just a foot away. “You'll have to come over and help me eat all this! Now, put that down.” She motions Rita to leave the dirty dishes where they are. “Evelyn will be over in a while, and she'll take care of all that.”

“I'll just put them in the sink.” Rita clears the dishes, then hurries back in and replaces the phone on the hook. “Your phone was off again, Bertie. Have Evelyn rearrange things so it's closer to you. I'll see you later.” She gives Bertie a peck on the cheek and is out the door, feeling bad that she didn't at least sit down. But Bertie's the cheerful understanding sort and won't read it as poor manners.

When she gets in the car, Amos is grinning.

“What's so funny?”

“Why, we're practically across the street from your place!”

“I know that.” She tries not to sound irritated but doesn't appreciate his grin.

“You had me drive all the way around the block when you could've walked across the street. What sense does that make?”

“The sense it makes is that I don't
want
to walk across the street. That wind'll blow me over, and it's snowing, in case you didn't notice.”

“Well,
I
could've walked it over, or just backed all the way across and into this driveway.”

“Amos, the point of having a car is to drive where you'd otherwise have to walk. And we're not directly across—you could've backed into Bertie's ditch. Now don't argue with me, or I'll drive myself.”

Amos backs onto the road with a bit more speed this time. “Just makes no sense. Waste of gasoline—but I'll not say any more. Just tell me where to go—so to speak.” He chuckles at his own joke. Rita ignores it and begins with the next set of directions.

For most of the afternoon, Amos drives and Rita delivers. They stop at the Lunch Hour for a bowl of soup. Rita sucks down three cups of hot tea and pops in two throat lozenges at once. Because the coughing originates from her lungs and not her throat, the lozenges
do no good, but the menthol feels comforting roaming through her nasal passages. They have six more deliveries to make, and Rita can't wait to go home, fill the tub, and soak for a while. Amos has mentioned a Christmas classic movie that's on in a bit, but she doesn't accept his invitation to watch it with him. At that point, they are both tired, and she knows that he will conk out on his couch and sleep through the movie anyway. She knows this not because she is familiar with his habits but because old men sleep in the afternoons as regularly as housecats. And even though all he's done is load some boxes and drive her around, the afternoon is taking its toll. She feels a stab of guilt at how little affection she feels for Amos. The older and more tired he becomes, the less attached she becomes. It's a cold way to be, but no sense dwelling on it.

When they pull back into her drive, there's an inch of fluffy snow all around them but nothing in the air. The wind has let up some too.

“Amos, let's put the car in the garage. I'm not going anywhere else today.” She doesn't relish watching him maneuver the car into the small space, but she's not sure she can get back to the house on steady feet, let alone get in and out of the car another time. Yesterday Mack cleared the little walk between the garage and back door, and it will be easier to walk on than the uneven chat of the driveway, even with the fresh snow. Amos goes all the way up the drive to the garage, which sits near the alley. He parks the car, then helps Rita out. He helps her carry the boxes and folded-up, empty sacks into the house. One of the boxes has some loose items in it—last-minute changes made when she remembered that John can't stand bread with nuts in it and Louisa gets headaches from chocolate.

Rita offers to make Amos some coffee, but he declines and says good-bye. Rita thanks him profusely, newly appreciative of what the man has helped her accomplish today. She's not used to feeling miserable, and she's not at all sure she could have gotten all her Christmas food delivered if Amos hadn't been along.

She sits at the kitchen table and reaches for the little notebook on top of her Bible. On today's page of prayer requests is written: “help
me deliver Christmas food.” She uncaps her pen, makes a thick check mark beside that line, recaps the pen, and closes the notebook. If a person were to ask her exactly how God had been involved today, she couldn't really answer. For all she knows—and this thought she swats away as if it were a hornet—the Lord wasn't involved at all. Was He behind the bad weather, or her bronchitis? If so, He wasn't much help. But if He was involved with Amos being there to carry and drive, and with the car behaving itself, then He was helpful indeed. Her check marks these days are more habit than faith, but she figures it can't hurt to give the Lord some credit, whatever the case.

Mack

When he stops at his mother's, a bad sense hits him. He parks the truck in the alley and goes up the back walk to the kitchen door. Rita is visible through the sheer curtains above the sink. She is coughing as if to rid herself of some creature at the bottom of her gut, leaning over the sink and grabbing its rim for support. Mack doesn't even knock, just opens the back door and hurries in.

“Mom, are you choking?”

She shakes her head vigorously, turns to motion at him, and manages to say, “No, just some phlegm I can't get up.”

The coughing settles down, and she does too, in the closest kitchen chair.

“You're taking the antibiotics, right?”

She frowns. “Yes.”

“Because you've got to take 'em until they're gone. You know that, right? If you start feeling better, you take the pills anyway.”

She squeezes her eyes shut, as if Mack might be gone when she opens them again. “How many years have I lived on this planet, son?”

“More years than I have, but you manage to ignore the information you don't like.” He sits in the chair next to her and puts a hand on her arm.

“I'm taking the antibiotics, so just hush up.”

He notices then the cardboard boxes lined up on the cabinet. “What's this?” He gets up to see. The boxes are empty, except for a few items: zucchini bread wrapped in plastic, baggies full of assorted cookies, some fudge. He can tell by the red and green ribbons what he's looking at.

“Have you been out?” He looks at her sharply.

“Of course. I've got folks to deal with.”

“You were out today, in this weather?”

“If I waited for sunshiny days, that stuff might sit till Easter.”

“Mom! You're not supposed to be out—we could've delivered this stuff for you.”

“All of you are busy, and it's just a few houses in town. And Amos drove me.” She throws in this last bit of information as if that changes everything.

He looms over her, and she looks up at him, defiant as Young Taylor.

“Do you hear a word the doctor says?” he asks.

“That doctor is unrealistic. And he's overcautious. They're all just trying to keep from getting sued.”

“No, he's trying to keep you from getting another infection. He said that your lungs are weak and you've got to be careful.” Mack looks back at the food items. “You've been up all hours baking this stuff, and then you go out into the snow hauling these boxes around—”

“I am
not
going to just sit in my house! It's Christmas, and most of these old folks don't have much else to look forward to.”

“They'd be just as happy if Jodie and I delivered the stuff and told them you'll visit when you're feeling better.”

She looks away, and neither of them speaks for a long moment. Finally, she says, “It's not the same if somebody else delivers it. And I'll do whatever I see fit.”

Mack sits again, an elbow on the table, fingers kneading his head. “What is it with this family?”

“What?” She glares at him.

“We're just not satisfied until we work ourselves to death. First Pop, and now you.”

Her eyes appear suddenly to focus. “What about your dad?”

“You know what I'm talking about.” They lock gazes, and Mack knows now why he had such an ominous feeling when he drove up. He stopped here to have the conversation that's about to happen. “Pop thought it was more important to take care of everybody than to keep living.”

Rita's gaze is steely. “He was a hard worker.”

“That's not what I'm talking about.”

“Then what
are
you talking about?”

“I'm talking about an accident that shouldn't have happened.” He can't believe what he's about to say next but listens to it come out of his mouth anyway. “I've wondered for a long time if it
was
an accident.”

She draws up to perfect posture but doesn't reply for a long while. When she does speak, Mack is surprised at her composure.

“It was always in your father's character to sacrifice himself for others. It was his choice, his way. I'll not dishonor his memory by questioning his motives or his actions.” Rita says these words with a steadiness and clarity that make it seem she has rehearsed them many times for years, day after day, to herself.

Mack tries to read the depths of his mother's eyes. Of course she will defend Pop's actions, even his final one. What did Mack expect? He realizes that the question hanging in the air is not whether or not his father's death was intentional.

“Is that what you're going to do too? Sacrifice your health without even consulting the rest of us? Will we find you dead in this house one of these days, and are we supposed to be happy about it when it happens?”

Rita's face trembles unnaturally. For a moment, Mack thinks she will slap him hard across the mouth. She did it once, long ago, when Mack was a kid and back-talking her. It was the only time she'd laid a
hand on him, beyond the mere spankings when he was a small child—the swat that warned him away from the hog pen, the smack on the hand that kept him far from the stovetop when she was canning. But just that once, a real blow. It had shocked them both, but she never apologized, and he never expected it. He'd been mean-mouthed that day, a sassy kid about Young Taylor's age, too big to be speaking so ignorantly and so hatefully. He'd deserved that slap. Right now, he wonders if he deserves another. But Rita sits like a statue, trembling in her cheeks, her very eyelids.