Nora and Liz (32 page)

The blinds were drawn and there was no light on. The room was bare except for the hospital bed in which Ralph lay, a small fake mahogany nightstand, a more or less matching fake mahogany dresser, and a large vinyl armchair. Ralph’s small suitcase was on the wide windowsill. Flowers, Nora thought, approaching the bed; surely they’ll let me send him flowers!

“Father?” she said. “Hi, it’s me.”

Ralph stared blankly at her, then turned away.

“Father?” She went closer, took his hand—but it was limp in hers.

“It’s Nora,” she said, loudly, as if he were deaf. Wrong, she thought, forcing her voice back to a normal conversational level. “I’ve been talking to Mrs.
Farnum
, the social worker. She’s very nice. She said you’ll be seeing a doctor and having some tests. I think they’ll keep you pretty busy.”

Ralph ignored her.

“I heard singing coming from that big room they have, the day room, they call it. It’s bright and sunny.”

Ralph lay motionless, his hand still inert in hers, his eyes fixed on the wall opposite where Nora was standing.

Nora blinked back tears. “I’ll just open the blinds, shall I? It’s a lovely day.”

“No.”

His sudden response startled her. But at least it was a response. “What? Why not? It’s so dark in here, depressing.”

“Get out.”

“Father!”

“You and that woman, Dr. Cantor, that other doctor, you’re all against me. I’m going to kill myself. I am. You’ll be sorry. You’ll have done it. I’m not crazy. You are. You’re all crazy.”

“Father, listen, listen, please.” Nora lifted his hand, moving it up and down as if using it to punctuate her words. “You’ve had a terrible shock. Mama’s death, that’s been awful for you. No wonder you’re depressed, sad, mixed up. The doctors here are going to try to help you. They’ll find some pills that’ll make you feel better. It’s not a pretty place, here, I know, and I know you’d rather be at home, but I don’t know how to help you any more, Father. I’m sorry, but I don’t.”

Ralph turned to her brusquely, his eyes both wild and cold. “Get me out of here!” he thundered. “That’s how you can help me,
goddamnit
! Get me out of here. I’ll die here, I’ll kill myself here.”

“You can’t, Father. Stop saying that.” Nora wiped her eyes. Oh, God, she thought, that’s probably the wrong thing to say; now he’ll look for something. Surreptitiously, she opened the nightstand drawer and removed a pencil, dropping it into her purse.

“What are you doing? What’s in there? Let me see!”

“Some paper,” Nora said, “a plastic glass, a toothbrush and hairbrush. Hospital issue, I guess; your own ones are in your suitcase. Why don’t I unpack it?” she said brightly, closing the drawer and opening the suitcase. “I’ll let you know which drawers I put things in so you can find them.

“Give me my belt,” he said.

She picked up his trousers from where they were draped over the back of the chair.

No belt.

“It’s not here,” she said, puzzled. Then it hit her why it was gone. So were his shoelaces. She opened his dressing kit. So was his razor.

“Where the hell is my belt? Let me see! Let me see my own things!” Ralph sat up, dangling his feet over the side of the bed.

Alarmed, she went to him; where was the walker? Had they
taken
that away, too?

“Wait, Father, I should get someone. I don’t think I can help you without the walker.”

“Well, get the goddamn walker then!”

“It doesn’t seem to be here. I’ll just go ask. You stay put.”

Nora fled into the hall, but no one was in sight except for a small wizened woman in a pink bathrobe, creeping along the wall. She grabbed Nora’s arm. “Sally,” she said breathlessly, fixing Nora with watery blue eyes. “Sally Ann! Now where is Mother? I can’t find her anywhere!”

“I don’t know,” Nora said, feeling as if she would scream if she had to stay another minute. Where was Liz? Where were the nurses? Where was Mrs.
Farnum
?

Ralph lurched into the doorway and Nora ran to him, holding him back. The old woman tottered up to them, grinning toothlessly, and tried to put her arms around Ralph. “Timothy,” she said. “Where is Mother? I want Mother!”

“Nurse!” Nora shouted, feeling embarrassed and foolish to be yelling like that, as if she were crazy, too. But what else could she do? She supposed her father had a call button, but there was no way she could let go of him to get it. “Help! Someone, please help!”

Liz came running down the hall, followed a moment later by two male nurses. One of them grabbed the woman (the Pink Lady, Nora called her later, describing the first part of the scene to Liz), and the other grabbed Ralph. “Hey, now, fellah,” that one said, not unkindly, “Don’t want to go AWOL, do we? Best you get back to your quarters, sir. That’s it,” he said, supporting a suddenly docile Ralph and steering him back into the room. “That’s the stuff. Best you come back another day, ma’am,” he said politely over his shoulder to Nora. “Or ask the nurse. New admission, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” Nora said.

“Well, then it’ll be a few days. They’ll let you know. This your daughter, sir?” he asked Ralph. “Mighty fine-looking woman.”

“No,” Ralph said, glowering. “I don’t have a daughter. That’s two murderers there.” He raised his voice, making the words echo down the hall. “Two murderers!”

Liz pointed to a table at the back of the small restaurant; they’d driven into Providence to a quiet place she’d remembered from the last couple of summers at the cabin. The waiter nodded and led them to it, handing them menus and leaving quickly.

But Liz called him back and ordered a half bottle of white wine.

Nora had cried most of the way into town and now she looked rigid, closed.

“Can you talk about it?” Liz asked gently after they’d settled.

“No daughter,” Nora whispered. “Murderers.”

“He’s sick, Nora. Mentally ill. It’s all surfaced because of your mother’s death. He doesn’t really mean he has no daughter, I’m sure. He’s just mad at you now, because of the hospital.”

“He does mean it,” Nora said. “He hates me.”

“And you?” Liz asked. “You don’t hate him?”

The waiter arrived with the wine, holding the bottle out to Liz. She nodded, and watched Nora, not the waiter, while he poured.

“Yes,” Nora said when he’d left. “Yes, sort of. I do sort of hate him. So we’re even, is that it? A mutual hatred society?”

“That’s not exactly what I meant,” Liz said carefully. “But it’ll do. People say that hate,” she said, after taking a sip of wine, “is very close to love. I don’t think you can hate someone you don’t love.”

“Oh, sure you can,” Nora said. “What about, I don’t know, Hitler, mass murderers, people who abuse animals or children?”

“I don’t think it’s the same. It’s hate, I guess, but it’s abstract hate, impersonal, not as deep or as painful as when it’s someone you love or once loved. Someone who’s betrayed you.”

“As I’ve betrayed my father.”

“Nora, you really haven’t betrayed him! You’re helping him. He thinks you’ve betrayed him, but you’re doing the only possible thing anyone can do for him.”

Nora sighed and took a long swallow. “I know. You’re right. Of course you’re right. But it’s awful anyway. And it feels like betrayal.”

“That,” Liz said, opening a menu and handing it to Nora, “is exactly how he wants it to feel.”

***

“Just the ladies I want to see,” Roy said outside the post office when Nora and Liz pulled up after their very long and, it turned out, very liquid, lunch. “I can’t believe my luck.” He made great show of opening the passenger door; Liz, amused, noticed the skillful way Nora avoided the hand he offered to help her out.

“This is no place,” he said, when Liz had come around from the driver’s side, “to talk business, but Georgia and I—you know Georgia, Liz; she was handling your property, and Nora, you must know her, everyone in town seems to. Georgia and I would love it if you’d join us for dinner sometime soon.”

“That’s nice of you, Roy,” Liz said evenly, “but…”

“I’d love to,” Nora said.

Liz stared at her, mystified.

“Good, wonderful!” Roy beamed at her. “Liz?”

“I—well, yes, on second thought, sure,” she sputtered.

“Great! How about tomorrow night?”

“Fine,” Nora said defiantly. “Is that okay with you, Liz?”

Numbly, Liz nodded. “What on earth,” she said when Roy, giving them a thumbs-up sign, had climbed into his car and driven off, “was all that about? I thought you hated his guts, just like I do.”

“I do hate his guts,” Nora said. “But, Liz”—Nora looked straight at her, her eyes swimming with tears—“if Father has to stay in some kind of—of psychiatric nursing home or something, and I think I have to face that he will, I’m going to have to pay for it. And I don’t know how I’m going to do that unless I sell the farm. I called around a little and asked a couple of nursing homes how much they cost. It’s more than I thought. There’s only enough money for around a year, probably, after Medicare runs out; they only pay for a while, Dr.
Herschwell
said. So if Roy wants to buy the place, and I can’t think of any other reason he’d ask us to dinner with Georgia, that could be the solution for him and—and my”—her eyes softened and she squeezed Liz’s hand—“my ticket to you. Permanently.”

Liz squeezed her hand back. “Are you sure?” she asked when she could trust herself to speak. “You love that farm, Nora, the outdoors, the quiet.”

“I don’t think,” Nora said softly, “that I want to live on the farm any more. Too many bad things have happened there. Besides, I looked at it this morning with fresh eyes, sort of. I pretended I was you, seeing it for the first time. What did you see, then?”

“I saw an old, falling-down house,” Liz said after casting her mind back to her first real visit. “I saw shabby rooms, and old, worn-out furniture. I saw a kitchen that created work instead of saving it. I also,” she added, her voice dropping, “saw the most extraordinary human being it has ever been my privilege to meet. And if we don’t get out of here soon, I’m going to kiss that human being in the middle of the post office parking lot.”

“Let’s hurry up and get our mail, then,” Nora said, light coming back into her eyes. “And then let’s—I don’t know. What shall we do?”

“How about a swim? Unless we’re too drunk. Or your arm…”

“Drunk? I’m not drunk. And my arm’s better. Water’s good for injuries. I can swim one-armed anyway. And do, um, other things. Are you drunk?”

“No. Not on wine anyway,” Liz said. “Not on wine. Come on, let’s get the mail.”

***

Liz, waiting for Nora, rubbed her fingers over the dock’s rough surface—the dock, near which she’d learned to swim, to which she’d tied her first boat, from which she’d caught her first fish. Could I do it, too, she wondered. Could I do what Nora’s doing, sell the cabin, sell the land, if that’s what Roy wants?

It must be, she mused, as Nora came toward her in the borrowed bathing suit Liz had come to think of as Nora’s own. It must be what he wants. Why else would he invite both of us, and why with Georgia? After all, she remembered, watching Nora walk, the graceful way she carried her head, swung her good arm, and kept her hurt one close to her body, he
was
that interested buyer Georgia mentioned when I first met her.

“Last one in,” Nora shouted, breaking into a run, “is a rotten egg!” She ran past Liz to the end of the dock and jumped in, splashing Liz, who jumped in after her, swam to her quickly, dunked her, then hugged her.

Nora clung to her, her body molded to Liz’s as much as possible given her sprain, her hair streaming water onto Liz’s shoulders.

“You seem better,” Liz said. “Do you feel better?”

Nora nodded and stretched out her good arm, holding Liz by the shoulder. “I do. I feel—it’s strange, but I feel lighter, somehow. As if I’ve—oh, it’s an awful cliché, but I really do feel as if I’ve put down a burden. Or as if I’m in the process of putting one down, anyway.”

“That,” said Liz, kissing the end of her nose, “my brave one, is because you are in that very process.”

“And you?” Nora asked, her head on one side in the pose Liz loved. “How do you feel?”