Five Days Left (23 page)

Mara touched a finger to the glass frame, to the middle of the girl’s small chest. What was it Laks had been telling her that day? She tried to remember. Something about a dream, or a trip, or was it—

Out of nowhere, she felt a desperate need to go to the bathroom. Realizing she had forgotten to put on a diaper after her shower, she quickly drew her hand away from the frame and turned—

Too late.

She clapped both hands over her mouth.

“No.”

She had hidden the damn things in the back of the vanity drawer the night before and in doing so had made it more difficult to remember them. Thank God she was home and not in the back of the cab. She waited for it to stop, but it seemed every drop she’d had to drink in the past twelve hours was on its way out, snaking a disgusting yellow trail down the insides of her legs, over her bare ankles and onto the white living room carpet, where it left a stain five times brighter than it looked against her skin.

The circle of reeking urine crept out from her feet and, without thinking, she bent quickly and cupped her right hand at the outer edge, as if she might hold it in, keep it from widening. The movement threw off her
balance and she toppled forward. Her reaction time was miles too slow; her arms didn’t come close to breaking her fall and she landed face-first in the puddle.

“No!”

Instantly, she regretted opening her mouth. Her lips were planted on the carpet, and now the warm, wretched-tasting liquid found its way between them, covering her tongue and teeth. She gagged, and part of her breakfast rushed onto the carpet along with her urine.

“Goddamn it!”

Slowly, and with no choice but to put her hands in the mess to push herself up, she managed to ease herself to standing. Stiffly, her underwear and skirt drenched, she made her way to the bathroom, every step a sticky, smelly pronouncement. Stepping out of her skirt, then her underwear, she stuffed both into the wastebasket, peeled off her shirt and bra, considered both, and dropped them into the basket after the others.

Naked, and cursing, she stomped to the kitchen for a bucket, cloth and carpet-cleaning solvent and carefully knelt beside the puddle, spraying and blotting and spraying and blotting again until she was satisfied the stain wasn’t identifiable.

Back in the bathroom, she knew better than to look in the mirror but she did it anyway and saw a clump of vomit on her cheek, a larger one in the hair above her ear. She felt her gut clench, threatening to send out more of the remnants of her breakfast in whatever way was quicker. Trained now to always worry about choking, she sat quickly on the toilet and stayed there until she couldn’t imagine there was anything left in her bowels.

She tore reams of paper from the roll and tried to clean herself but her arms had gone into highly uncooperative mode because of the trauma and she ended up with a revolting brown smear on the insides of her legs, the bottom of her stomach, under her fingernails. She lifted a wad of toilet paper to wipe her nose but the stench from her hand made her gag, so she lowered the paper and let her nose run down her chin, onto her neck.

She remembered the look of disgust on the little boy’s face in the grocery store. The way the mechanic in the car repair shop stepped away from her. How her daughter’s voice sounded when she asked Mara to hide behind the tree at school so no one could see her, then later, begged her father not to ever let her mother leave the house again. And she realized that as lovely as it was to imagine a future where Laks raced home after school, sat beside her mother and told her everything about her day, that wasn’t ever going to be their reality.

The reality was, if Mara stayed around longer, this terrorist of a disease would put her in filthy situations like this again and again, and it was only a matter of time before it happened in front of her daughter. And after that, Laks wouldn’t be running to Mara’s bedside to talk—she’d be sneaking past her mother’s door and out of the house, where she could be free from the disgusting woman who at the best of times walked like a drunk and at the worst of times, peed and shit herself.

And after a while, even on rare days when Laks did grudgingly sit by Mara’s bedside—by order of her father and grandparents—it wouldn’t be to gain insightful advice from a mother who listened carefully to her troubles. But only to stare wordlessly into the vacant eyes of a woman who didn’t even register her existence.

When she had cleaned herself as well as she thought she could on the toilet, she slid off, onto the floor. Kneeling, she pressed her mouth firmly closed and tried not to breathe as she ran wet towels over the splattered toilet and the floor in front, then tossed them into the garbage.

She turned on the shower and while she waited for the water to heat, she washed her hands in the sink, over and over, scrubbing as hard as she could until her skin was red and burning. Only when no more soap would come out of the dispenser did she shut off the faucet and step into the shower. She slathered body wash all over herself and scoured every inch of skin she could reach, scratching and scraping more than washing. Punishing more than cleaning.

When her expensive soap was gone, she switched to her even more
expensive shampoo. Then her conditioner. Then Tom’s body wash. When every container in the shower was empty, she stood with her back to the faucet, her body prickling with the sting of hot water against raw skin.

Her skin screamed but she wouldn’t let herself step away from the stream. She deserved this. For what she was thinking of doing to them, she deserved this. She extended her arms, palms facing in, and examined her hands. Even after all the hand soap, the body wash, the shampoo, she could still smell it. She would always be able to smell it. Turning her hands slowly, she noticed the fine line of brown under her nails and let out a bitter cackle. Was there a more fitting symbol of her failure than this?

Turning toward the faucet, she slanted her face upward. “Please,” she spoke into the streaming water. “Please. Go away. You win. I lose. Leave me alone now. Please, I beg you. Not for me—for Laks. I beg you. She needs me. Please.”

The only response was the hissing of the shower, the hollow sound of water against the hard plastic casing. And then this: a movement in her left arm. One she might not have noticed were it not for the confines of the space, but which was impossible to ignore when her wrist collided with the hard plastic outer limit of the enclosure. It hurt; the stress was causing her arm to move with a lot more speed and force than she was aware of it doing before. Bang! Bang!

“Please stop. Please.”

Bang!

“Plea—”

Bang!

“Fuck you!”

Roughly, she grabbed her left wrist with her right hand and yanked it toward her body, gripping it hard. It was like trying to hold on to a fish. Her arm came out of the slippery hold and hit the wall again.

“Stop it! Stop! Fucking! Moving!”

The showerhead hung in front of her like a microphone. She reached
a hand up, grabbed the slick metal to hold herself steady and yelled as loud as she could into the makeshift mic.

“You evil! Sonofabitch! You fucking! Devil! You bastard! Goddamn. Cocksucking. Asshole of a disease! I hate you! With every! Fucking! Diseased cell in my goddamn body! Haven’t you done enough? Haven’t you made things bad enough already? For me? For Laks? She’s a fucking! Kindergartner! Do you really. Fucking. Need. To destroy. A kindergartner? Do you really. Fucking. Need. To keep. This. Up?”

Out of breath, she let go of the metal and put her arm on the wall to brace herself. Panting, she hung her head and concentrated on regulating her breathing. She looked up again and began to raise her hand once more but her arm was too tired. She let it fall to her side as she hung her head lower.

Cranking the water hotter, she stepped away from the faucet until she could feel the shower wall behind her. Slowly, she slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor, the now painfully hot water assaulting her legs. She breathed deeply, letting the steam fill her lungs. Enjoying a respite from—

Bang!

A sob came loose from deep in her chest and after it, another. She tried to bend her legs, put her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. But her left arm wouldn’t obey. And her right leg wouldn’t stay bent.

“Fuck it!”

Right hand in her lap, she let the scalding water pound the top of her head, her shoulders, as her left wrist continued to fling itself, a little weaker now, against the shower wall. Bang! Bang! Bang!

“I. Give. Up.”

The dull sound of water raining against the shower floor was punctuated by the knocking of her wrist against the wall, the erratic gasping of her breath as she tried to suck in air past her sobs, and the steady rhythm of two words she repeated over and over until the water ran cold.

“Forgive me.”

Mara

By ten thirty, Mara was dressed again, and this time she hadn’t forgotten her padded underwear. In the kitchen, she made a sour face at the half cup of coffee she had poured, dumped it in the sink and turned to unload the dishwasher. She lifted a glass from the top rack of the machine, and as she reached to set it in the cupboard, it slipped from her grip, bounced off the counter and hit the floor, shattering. Small fragments of glass flew in every direction.

She bent to pick up the pieces closest to her but then, thinking twice, she straightened. Slowly, deliberately, she lifted a china cup out of the rack and held it up admiringly before raising it high above her head. She extended her arm as far as she could reach and then, in one fast motion, brought it down like the flag girl at a car race, releasing the cup on the downward stroke. She watched, transfixed, as the cup splintered on the tile.

As she stared at the shards of china and glass on the floor, her lips curved into a satisfied smile.

She lifted another cup from the top rack and held it aloft before quickly dropping her arm, releasing the cup to its fate. She reached for another glass. And another. Another cup, another glass, until she had
cleared the top rack. She was standing in a pile of broken china and glass when the front door opened and Harry’s voice sounded.

“Mara! Are ya okay? I heard a noise. Did ya fall—?”

He rounded the corner from the living room to the kitchen, stopping abruptly when he saw the floor. He raised huge, questioning eyes to Mara’s. She met his gaze and held it for a few seconds before she turned, took in the empty rack of the dishwasher and reached into the cupboard.

As the next cup hurtled toward the floor, Harry took a quick step to the side, out of the way of the shrapnel. He opened his mouth to speak. Closed it. And then he planted his feet wide, thrust his hands in his pockets and watched, wordlessly, a mixture of concern and admiration on his face, as Mara reached for another cup, then another glass, then another, and another. When she had made it through all the glasses and cups in the cupboard, she eyed the stack of plates.

Harry followed her gaze. “Plates might crack the tile.”

She nodded and stared at the sea of fragments around her. Gingerly, Harry stepped into the kitchen and grabbed the broom leaning against the wall. He swept the broken pieces into a large pile in the middle of the floor, and when he was finished, she pointed to the pantry. He found the dustpan inside, and some garbage bags.

When he had filled two bags, she tilted her head toward the door leading to the garage and listened to the loud thud as he tossed around ten pounds of broken cups and glasses into the garbage container. Returning, he ran water over some paper towels and, on his hands and knees, slid the towels slowly over the floor, collecting tiny shards that had evaded the broom.

“Can’t have that sprite cuttin’ her little feet in here later,” he said.

She opened her mouth to thank him but her words were missing, and he bent again to his task before she could find them. She rested a hand on his shoulder briefly and he paused in his work for a second—his way,
she knew, of letting her know it was enough. When he was finished, he carried the paper towels into the garage.

In the kitchen doorway, he asked, “Should we go shoppin’ for cups and glasses?”

She shook her head. Tom had put a box of extras in the garage. She pointed them out to Harry and leaned against the counter while he took each item out of the box, rinsed it, dried it and set it in the cupboard. He carried the empty box into the garage, stepped into the kitchen and smiled as though he had only just arrived at the house that second.

“Ready ta go watch recess?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Okay, then.” He thrust his elbow toward her. “Let’s go watch recess.”

When they were most of the way down the front walk, he asked, “Wanna tell me what was behind that?”

“Not worth bothering you about,” she said quietly.

“Maybe ya oughta let me be the judge of that.”

She looked at him briefly before turning away. “Honestly, Harry, if I told you half the things that are true about me, you’d never show up at my door again.”

“Shame,” he said. “It’s one powerful emotion.”

“Indeed.”

“Ain’t no stranger to it myself, y’know. Don’t imagine there are many among us who are.”

She regarded him thoughtfully, remembering what he’d said about having been someone once, back in Tulsa. “I’m sure you’re right. But all the same, as cathartic as it might feel to dump it all in your lap, or in the backseat of your cab, I think I’ll pass.”

“Understood.”

He helped her into the car, clicked the meter on and pulled away. “Been lookin’ forward ta seein’ the tiny thing on the slide today, I gotta say.”

She smiled out her window. “You are something else, Harry. I’m sure you do your best to make every customer feel special. And I’m sure I shouldn’t take it so seriously. But somehow, you’ve got me believing you really mean it.”

“Only one reason for ya to believe it, I’d guess.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true.”

“Same reason I get this feelin’ ya truly care about me.”

She looked at him in the mirror. “Well, I do.”

“I know,” he said, smiling at her reflection. “And if I were gonna tell anyone the sad story of my life, it’d be you. Shame and all.”

She smiled back. “You don’t have to go that far.”

He parked in the school lot, tucking the cab in the middle of a row of teachers’ cars. While he busied himself calling the dispatcher, Mara found Laks, this time in pink shorts and a white T-shirt. White for now. They sat in silence for a few minutes, and then Harry cleared his throat.

“I’m a recoverin’ alcoholic,” he said. “Sober thirteen years now. But drunk twenty-five before that, and I did a whole lotta damage in them twenty-five years.”

“What made you—?”

He held up a thick hand. “No questions. No comments. No sympathy. No judgment. Deal?”

She arched an eyebrow. It was a fair enough request, though. God knew she was sick of sympathy. And she sure as hell wouldn’t stand up to anyone’s judgment. “Deal.”

She waited for him to continue, but he was staring into the dashboard now, waiting. She took a breath and focused on her daughter as she spoke. “It’s Huntington’s,” she said quietly. “HD, they call it. The only thing my birth mother left me with when she dumped me at the orphanage two weeks after I was born was this fatal, genetic, incurable monster of a disease.”

Harry shifted his gaze quickly to the playground and the little sprite she knew he had grown fond of, if only from a distance. His lips were
pressed tightly together and his cheeks were taut, as though he were holding his breath.

“Oh, no,” she said quickly, realizing his concern. “No need to worry about her. She was adopted, too. And, thank God, she actually came with medical records. No history of HD on either side. She’s fine.”

A hiss of air escaped his lips.

“Ironically enough, my husband was relieved I wanted to adopt because he has”—she paused—“certain genes in his family he didn’t want to pass on to a child. And meanwhile, it was my DNA that hid the ticking time bomb. If she were ours, and I had passed on that risk to her . . . But we don’t have that worry, at least. I don’t have to carry that particular guilt. My greatest sin, or at least my longest-lasting one, will be depriving her of a second mother far too soon.”

Harry whipped his head around sharply and she could see a hundred questions flash across his face, as many sympathies play over his lips as he struggled to obey his own rule. He turned to his spot on the dashboard and was quiet for so long she wondered if he had fallen asleep. But when she peered closely at his face, she saw his lips were moving slightly, and realized he was saying a silent prayer. She regretted having only met him now. She wondered if his confessional was over and breathed a sigh of relief that perhaps she wouldn’t have to say more herself.

“I have a daughter,” he said finally. “Caroline. I ain’t seen her in seventeen years. And it ain’t no one’s fault but mine.” He flipped his sun visor down to reveal the photo of the young girl Mara had been wondering about. Caroline.

“I had my own diner in Tulsa,” he went on. “Harry’s Hash. Maybe not the best name for someone who turned out ta be an addict.” He chuckled quietly. “Whole town came on weekend mornin’s. Everyone knew me, I knew everyone. Caroline always said she was gonna work there, alongside her old pops. She was gonna be head waitress while I did all the cookin’. But I lost it—lost the diner. Spent mosta my money on
booze, a little on blow. Started stiffin’ my suppliers so I could buy my fix and still make the mortgage on the restaurant.

“I gave up the house first. Moved my wife—her name was Lucy—and Caroline into a crappy little apartment. All so I could keep the diner, keep up appearances. And also keep up my drinkin’ and druggin’. I was all about me.” He hung his head and sniffed, then made a fist with one hand and brought it down hard on his leg. “I was such a bastard. A selfish, self-centered bastard.”

It took everything she had not to reach out, touch his shoulder, his arm. But rules were rules. And now it was her turn again.

“I was terrible to my husband,” she said. “When the symptoms started, and before we knew what was wrong with me. My entire personality changed. I turned into a terror, almost overnight. Completely irrational. A little paranoid. Moody, oh, you can’t imagine. It’s part of the disease, or can be. So is denial. It’s not the best combination for a marriage.”

She caught Harry’s expression in the mirror. “Believe it,” she said. “I was crueler than you can imagine. Remember when we first met? The glare? The hiss? That was nothing compared to what I’m talking about. I was horrible to him for well over a year. Rejected him. Said things to him I wish I didn’t remember. But HD doesn’t get your long-term memory, unfortunately. Or your husband’s. After everything I’ve put him through, there’s nothing I wouldn’t give, or do, to spare him from pain.”

She folded her hands in her lap and waited. Harry had said no judgment, but it was hard to imagine he would be able to keep from judging her now.

He sighed. “Lucy was so sweet about havin’ ta leave all her friends in our neighborhood, our nice house, move into the tiny apartment. Anyone could fall on hard times, she told me. ’Cause of course I lied ta her, told her business was slow and that’s why I couldn’t make the house payment. Never mentioned I’d brought the hard times on myself—on my family—by snortin’ and drinkin’ away all our savin’s.

“’Bout two weeks before I knew they were gonna take the diner from me, I left. Couldn’t face her knowin’ the truth about what I’d done. Couldn’t live up ta what my life had become. So I told ’em I was goin’ out ta buy more milk. And I never went back. I left them there. My own wife and daughter. Left Lucy ta deal with the mess at the diner and the mess I’d made of our family.

“I called her a few years ago. Lucy, that is. Cried like a baby for almost half an hour while she sat there on the other end of the line, lettin’ me sob and sniff my way ta finally calmin’ down enough so I could tell her how sorry I was. I asked her ta forgive me, and she said she’d already done it. Can you believe that? I never deserved that woman. Caroline was already moved out then, and Lucy said she’d better ask Caroline about it first, before she gave me her number. Said if Caroline said yes, she’d call me back.”

He stared at his thick hands, folded in his lap. “But I never heard from her again. And that was my answer about whether my daughter wants ta hear from me. I’d give anythin’ ta be able ta talk ta her, beg her for forgiveness, see if maybe she could see her way ta wantin’ somethin’ ta do with me. But I can’t imagine she would. She’s all grown up now. Twenty-three. She don’t need nothin’ from me now.” He gestured to the photo on his visor. “This is the only picture I have of her. It was in my wallet the night I left.”

Mara bit her lip.

Harry went on. “The idea that I might never see her again, never get a chance ta tell her how sorry I am, makes me wanna get drunk enough so I don’t know my own name. Leastways what I done ta her, ta her mother, with my foolishness.” He sniffed and she saw a tear roll a thin, shining track down his face. To her surprise, he took a carefully folded cloth handkerchief out of the pocket of his plaid shirt and touched it to his cheeks, then the corners of his eyes. He took a long look at Caroline’s picture, then gently closed the visor.

Mara felt the sting of her own tears and quickly turned to the
window. She found Laks again and took deep breaths as she followed her around the playground. “Yesterday was my last day to help in the library,” she said. She put a hand on the window, wishing she could touch Laks through the glass. Stroke her hair. Tell her again how sorry she was. “She’s so ashamed of me. Tom thinks she’ll get over it,” she said. “I don’t think she should have to.”

She spread her fingers wide on the glass. Goodbye.

•   •   •

At her front door, Mara fumbled in her purse for her keys and Harry turned to study the planter, pretending to be too intrigued by the flowers to notice the trouble she was having. But a minute later, when she was still trying to force her key into the lock, Harry’s big hand covered hers.

“How long?” he asked.

“Not long enough.” She regarded her left arm, which was moving slightly, and remembered what had happened in the shower. “Or too long. Depends how you look at it.”

“And how do ya look at it?”

She let out a long breath. “I’m forty-two years old and I’m already retired. I thought I’d work till seventy. I can’t drive anymore. I can’t remember anything unless it’s written on a sticky note. And when I want to watch my daughter play with her friends, I have to do it on the sly from behind the tinted windows of a cab so I won’t humiliate her. In a year, maybe less, I’ll be in a wheelchair.

“I’ll have to take one of those special vans to spy on her at school. If I even have my wits about me enough to remember when recess is. Or the fact that I have a daughter. I might not even live here anymore.” She jerked her head toward the house. “I might be in a nursing home by then, sitting in a corner, staring at the ceiling, blissfully unaware of this house, my family inside it and the fact that you and I ever had this conversation.”