Me Again (21 page)

Chapter 26

T
RAFFIC LIGHTENED UP once we got out of the downtown area, and Mrs. Margolis’s car picked up speed.

“That went a lot quicker than I thought it would,” I said. “Can I take you to dinner somewhere? It’s still early, and you’ve done so much for me.”

Mrs. Margolis shook her head. “I ate earlier, because I wasn’t sure how long you two would take. But I still have some of that homemade lasagna in the fridge – I could heat it up for you in a jiffy.”

I really wanted to take her someplace nice. But I’d had her lasagna before, when I was over at her house planning our little cellphone espionage mission. It was wonderful.

“That’s awfully tempting,” I said, “but I don’t want to impose. And I wouldn’t want to deprive you of any of that amazing lasagna.”

She smiled. “Don’t be silly. I made plenty – enough for several meals. I had an inkling I’d be seeing a fair amount of you this week, after our little Chicago adventure.”

She was beaming as she drove – it was clear she was really enjoying this, nerve-racking as I found it all. I smiled in spite of myself.

“Well, okay,” I said, “but only a small helping.”

“That would be a first for you,” she said, still smiling.

She had me there, so I shut up and let my thoughts shift from kumquat chutney to homemade lasagna.

* * * * *

“That was incredible,” I said, wiping my mouth with a napkin. “I can’t believe you’re not Italian.”

“Oh, but I am,” she said. “My maiden name was Spinelli. My parents came over from Sicily.”

“Ah, no wonder.”

“Oh, I caught plenty of grief from my family when I started getting serious about Howard,” she said, as she rinsed some dishes in the sink. “My parents wanted me to marry a nice Italian boy, and here was Howard, with his red hair and his freckles...”

Her voice trailed off, and she absently wiped a dish with a towel, her eyes welling up.

“Listen, I’m sorry I brought it up,” I said.

“Don’t be sorry,” she said, surprising me with her stern tone. “I wish people wouldn’t react like that. I
like
thinking about Howard. I
like
remembering him.” She nodded to herself, a wistful smile on her face.

Then she turned her attention to me again. “People don’t need to try to avoid everything that might make them feel bad. If you do that, you’ll also miss out on the things that can make you feel good.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” I said. “Do I do that?”

“My God, your whole family does that!”

Mrs. Margolis clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide. Then she sat down heavily across from me and reached out to touch my hand.

“Jonny, I am so sorry. I had no business saying something like that.”

She seemed unduly upset, so I tried to appease her.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I think I know what you mean. I mean, even with my, uh, reduced capacity, I can tell my mother is in total denial about how much I’ll recover from my stroke.”

“
Denial
?” Mrs. Margolis said, starting to smile. “You’ve had time to study psychology in the short time you’ve been awake?”

I shrugged. “I remember some concepts from before – that’s why I woke up with a decent vocabulary. Plus, I watched a lot of soap operas in the hospital, and they all seem to have a character who’s in therapy.”

This got a chuckle out of her. She let go of my hand and sat back in her chair.

“And actually, I have read some psychology, now that I know how to look up stuff on the Internet. There’s a lot of information about stroke victims, and I’ve been trying to see which of it I can apply to myself.”

I paused, struggling for words. “It’s hard – I’ve got to basically figure out who I am as a man, without the benefit of growing up.”

She was looking at me appraisingly. “I think you’ve done a lot of growing up,” she said. “And I think it’s pretty clear who you are.”

“Not to me it isn’t. I mean, I have feelings about what I like, and who I like, and what’s good and what’s bad. But it doesn’t seem to connect to anything I’ve learned about my past.”

I sighed, trying to put a finger on it. “It’s like I’m not me anymore. And I don’t even think I’d want to be me, based on what I keep learning.”

“Oh, honey,” Mrs. Margolis said, reaching for my hand again. “You stopped being you many, many years ago. And it had nothing to do with any stroke.”

There was such an odd look on her face. Sadness, but there was something else. Pity? Love?

“What... what are you saying?”

Mrs. Margolis stood up. “Let’s go to the living room,” she said. “I have something to show you.”

I followed her out to the living room and sat down on a loveseat next to her curio cabinet. Mrs. Margolis busied herself going through the drawers of a dark wooden hutch, then approached me holding out a small photo album.

I took it from her but didn’t open it, still waiting for an explanation.

“You were over here a lot as a little boy,” she said, gently smiling. “I accumulated quite a few photos of you before your family moved away,”

She nodded towards the photo album. “Go ahead. Take a look.” Then she sat down in a small chair across from me, never taking her eyes off my face.

I began to leaf through the album. Some of the photos were familiar – she must have exchanged copies with my parents. But others were new to me, showing me in her backyard, climbing that wonderful tree, or sitting at her kitchen table, stuffing my face.

I noticed that most of the photos were of me alone, with Teddy only making rare appearances. Some showed me and Mrs. Margolis together, working in her garden or mixing batter in the kitchen. Her hair was much darker, and she was a lot thinner, but it seemed that her face never changed.

I looked up at her, seeing the same smile on the woman sitting across from me as in the photo taken so many years ago.

Then I turned the page.

This photo showed me sitting in an old-fashioned red wagon. But I was not alone; sitting next to me was a little girl with brown hair, and eyes that looked... like mine.

“Maggie.”

The word came out of my mouth involuntarily, foreign yet familiar.

“Mag—" I started to say again, but I stopped myself, springing out of the loveseat and nearly tripping as I ran to the bathroom. I lunged towards the toilet, landing painfully on my knees and grasping the bowl with my hands as the contents of my stomach spewed from my mouth. Spasm after spasm wrenched my body, leaving me crumpled and prone on the bathroom floor, my head hanging over the toilet, arms and chin resting on its porcelain rim.

After a long moment mercifully free from heaving, I heard Mrs. Margolis’s voice.

“Is there anything I can do?”

I realized I hadn’t even managed to close the door. “Give me a minute,” I gasped. “And close the door. Please.”

There was a long pause, then I heard the door click shut.

Pulling my head back, I flushed the toilet. Then I flushed it again and sat back tentatively on my haunches, afraid of getting too far away from the bowl. But my stomach seemed to have stabilized, so I eventually clambered to my feet and cleaned up after myself.

Finally I opened the door, to find Mrs. Margolis still standing there.

“Please,” I said, “sit down.”

On shaky legs I navigated back to the loveseat. The photo album had fallen to the floor. Gingerly I picked it up, mentally plotting the optimal path back to the bathroom, just in case.

I found my way back to the photo that had so badly rocked me, and forced myself to remain calm as I examined it.

“Maggie,” I said again, trying the name out on my tongue.

“Maggie.” It felt more natural this time.

Mrs. Margolis’s voice was barely more than a whisper.

“Do you remember?”

I looked at the photo, awash in feelings more powerful than I had ever experienced.

“She was... my sister,” I said, again barely conscious of forming the words.

“Yes.”

“My sister. Maggie.”

“Yes.”

I turned the page. Maggie and I were playing in Mrs. Margolis’s back yard, me in a ridiculous cowboy hat, Maggie in a patched set of overalls.

“She was such a tomboy,” Mrs. Margolis said, sitting down next to me on the loveseat. She was smiling, that smile she had that showed happiness and pain at the same time. It was a feeling I was beginning to understand.

“My... little sister,” I said.

“Yes, she was a year younger than you,” Mrs. Margolis said. “Between you and Teddy.”

“She...
was
younger?” I said, noting the past tense.

“Yes, Jonny.”

“She’s... not here now.” It wasn’t a question, but Mrs. Margolis answered me anyway.

“No, Jonny. She’s gone. She died, Jonny. When you were just a little boy.”

On top of everything else I was feeling, my eyes hurt. And my face was wet. Then I realized I was crying. To my knowledge, I had not cried since I woke up from my coma, so essentially this was my first time crying. I didn’t like it. But I couldn’t control it. In retrospect I guess that’s what crying is – a physical result of surrendering to feelings you can’t control.

Mrs. Margolis bustled to her feet and brought me a box of tissues. Reaching underneath my glasses I dabbed absently at my cheeks, not wanting to take my eyes off the photos I was staring at. The little girl was so pretty. So happy. And in every photo that showed us together, so was I, grinning stupidly in the midst of whatever activity the camera had captured.

“You two loved each other so much,” Mrs. Margolis said. “She called you the best big brother in the whole world.”

I began to bawl, a wordless keening that hurt my throat and tore at my chest. My heart hurt, and I gave voice to its pain, calling to powers unknown in an awful full-body lament.

* * * * *

At some point my breathing returned to normal, and I was once again capable of speech. A mountain of crumpled tissues cluttered the coffee table in front of me, and Mrs. Margolis had returned to her chair across from me, letting me find my breath, my voice.

“How?” I said.

“Pardon me?”

“How did she... how did it happen?”

Mrs. Margolis sighed. “She was hit by a car. A hit-and-run driver. They never caught him.”

I felt my eyes welling up again but willed the tears back, at least for now. “Did she...”

“They say she died instantly.”

“Oh,” I said.

“She was only eight years old.”

“I don’t know what that means,” I said.

“It means she was only a little girl.”

“Oh.”

“That picture of you two in the wagon? That was taken right before she...”

“Oh.”

We sat for a long time in silence. I leafed back and forth through the photos; thinking, remembering, loving. Hurting.

“My parents,” I said finally. “They never said anything.”

“I know.”

“There are no photos of her at home.”

“I know. I saw that when I visited. But it’s what I had expected.”

“Not on the walls. Not even in any photo albums.”

Mrs. Margolis sighed. “I had wondered about that. That’s why I held off on showing you this album.”

“I’m... I’m glad you showed it to me.”

“Are you?”

I thought about this. I felt awful – truly awful. Maybe
glad
wasn’t the right word. But I had needed to know the truth.

“Yes, I am,” I finally said. “It’s like you were talking about. We shouldn’t be so afraid of upsetting somebody that we hide the truth from them.”

“Unless of course a woman is asking you if a pair of slacks makes her rear end look fat,” Mrs. Margolis said, immediately looking sheepish for having made a joke.

But it was just what I needed, and I found myself laughing out loud, the sensation curiously intensified after my lengthy crying jag. I’ve since figured out that crying leaves you emotionally raw, magnifying the impact of every subsequent feeling. At least it does for me.

I caught myself. “God, it must be late. I can call for a cab or something.”

“Don’t be silly. I can take you home.” Mrs. Margolis stood up. “Now, where did I put my purse?”

“Actually,” I said, “I don’t know if I’m ready to face my parents. I don’t know what to say to them. I don’t even know what to think about them.”

“Why don’t you stay here tonight?” Mrs. Margolis said. “I’ve got two guest rooms – you can have your pick.”

“I don’t know. I’d have to call my parents. I’ve never not come home before.” Yes, I was a grown man, and yes, I was pretty upset with my parents. But they had been taking care of me, and I didn’t want them to worry.

“I’ll call them,” she said. “I’ll tell them you’re not feeling well, and that I’ll bring you home in the morning.”

“I feel weird asking you to do that.”

Mrs. Margolis shot me a look that reminded me about how she felt about friends asking for help.

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”

Moments later I was listening to Mrs. Margolis’s side of the conversation.

“Oh, it’s no trouble. I’ve got this huge house, and frankly I enjoy having some company.”

“No, no, you don’t need to come pick him up tonight. I don’t think he’s feeling well enough to ride in a car right now, are you Jonny?”