The Boys of My Youth (19 page)

“I saw Barn-door,” Linda announces. She is back, ready for her shift, standing in the doorway with snow melting on her coat
collar. “He was climbing into his gold-plated Cadillac, hightailing it home.” Linda hates Barnelle with a rare enthusiasm,
able to tick off his crimes on the fingers of both hands. She passes the plate where the rejected Christmas cookies used to
be. “God, you’ll eat anything,” she remarks cheerfully. She’s leaving tracks all over the clean floor, in meandering circles.
She’s been wrapping Christmas presents for her kids, I know, and her eyes look better. She crinkles them at me sympathetically.
“Was Barn-door open?” she asks. This is rhetorical. Over on the bed the gray eyes are closed. Linda wants to know how it’s
going, how she’s doing, but the eyes might open again unexpectedly. We tiptoe out.

“I stopped at home and went through her closet,” Linda tells me. Nowadays she and I speak of the house where we grew up as
home, we forget for long hours the places we live now, which have cupboards with our spices and canned peas, dressers with
our clothes. When an aunt or our brother relieves us at the hospital we drive over there for some empty time, some quiet,
and sit at her kitchen table with the carvings of childhood forks in its surface, stand drinking coffee right on the worn
spot where she stood to stuff chickens, weave the crusts on pies. Home, we say to each other, drawing those
dented walls around us like a wool blanket, two little girls in matching nightgowns, pinching and elbowing, acting hateful,
getting yelled at. She was browsing, trying to find something to bury her in.

I stretch and yawn, shake it off, tell her about Barnelle’s Santa.

“Gawd,” she drawls. “Did he let on when or anything?” She squints when she asks this, afraid to know, afraid not to. Barnelle
has predicted two days, which will land us right smack on Christmas. We have told each other ironically, Why not? and marvel
at how the universe is dribbling us like a basketball and then shooting us into the air.

“He couldn’t,” I tell her, “because she was alert. And I couldn’t follow him out because she already got on me about leaving
with you this morning. She wanted to know where we went.” We both shiver at that and then in turn begin crying, the ugly kind,
where you turn your clenched face to the wall until it passes. A nurse comes forward, silent, and touches our shoulders. This
nurse told me yesterday she hadn’t finished her shopping, still had crowds and the hectic traffic at the mall to contend with.
Last week, when she could sit upright and talk a little, my mother had given me her wedding ring for Christmas.

There is slush and cold air all up and down the hall. When I go back in to get my coat her eyes are open, talking even though
no one can hear.
You girls left me again
. Linda is behind me, getting her needlepoint out, untangling skeins of bright yarn. I pull on my gloves slowly, pushing each
finger down meticulously, getting my keys ready for the cold, avoiding her eyes. Behind me Linda says, Hey, remembering something.
She digs around in her coat pocket.

“Look, Ma,” she says softly, moving toward the bed. I step backward into the doorway, halfway gone. Linda holds a sprig
of plastic mistletoe in the air above my mother’s head. She whispers something I can’t hear and bends down. I’m gone.

Suddenly I have this notion that she needs to wear flannel against her skin. I stop at a department store and join the current
of tinkling people, Christmas shoppers. Music rains down and a clerk comes forward to ask if she can help. She has lost the
heel to one pump and is trying to compensate by walking on tiptoe with that foot. She leads me to lingerie and begins thumbing
patiently through nightgowns on a rack, showing me things. I tell her that it needs to be worn beneath a blouse. This confuses
her and she thinks wearily for a second, one finger to her lip, one heel up in thin air. She produces an expensive long-underwear
shirt made of raw silk, a tiny pink satin flower on the scooped neckline. I buy it even though I’m not sure anymore why I’m
here, what I’m doing. I decide I might as well go back, only two days left.

I run into Barnelle in the main lobby, he’s got his small son with him. I feel bad that he can’t get any rest, can’t be left
alone for five minutes. He speaks frankly to me while his son attempts to tie his shoes together. He says quite honestly that
he has gotten very attached to her and I say I have too, actually. He hugs me then, hard, his arms like a big pair of forceps.
He lets go and one hand scans his head, searching out the wandering hairs, laying them flat. I’ve seen him on a bench before,
reading X rays and shaking his head, biting his nails. He bends down now and unties the laces before he takes a step, his
son disappointed but philosophical. There are Christmas presents waiting at home.

The room is darkening, Linda is asleep in the chair, knees drawn up like a shield, hands circling her stockinged feet. I can’t
tell what’s happening on the bed until I turn on the light.
Her eyes are opened wide, frightened, helpless.
You left me, you girls, and here I am in the dark!
Darkness has a personality now, a power. I understand this very well, quilted satin pressing down in the velvet blackness,
brushing the nose, the face. I turn on all the lights but Linda continues to sleep soundly until I bump her chair with my
foot. She stretches her legs out and groans, gives me a dirty look, and I give her one back. I hold two fingers up to remind
her of how much longer she needs to keep this up, to pay attention. She holds up one finger, guess which one, to remind me
of who’s the oldest, who’s the boss. I would love more than anything to slap her.

I go to the cafeteria for a strawberry shake instead, which I can eat in front of her. On the way back up I land in an elevator
with ten Christmas carolers. They seem like churchy types, the men are all shaved within an inch of their lives and the women
look good-natured and opinionated. Two of them are quietly trying to harmonize on something I’ve never heard before, something
Latin-sounding and mournful. A couple others practice scales and end up sounding out of tune. They get out on my floor and
consult a list, everyone trying to get his or her head in there and direct the way. They end up following me, trying to stay
a few paces behind. They are going where I’m going.

I close the door behind me and motion my sister over, whisper to her while the eyes on the bed try to make out what I’m saying.
Quietly behind me, behind the oak of the door, their voices join together, hesitantly at first and then, gaining momentum,
confidently. They are taking care to remember they are in a hospital, there are sick people here, but they love these songs,
I can tell. One of the guys has a lilting baritone and one of the women a high vibrato. Linda hesitates and then opens the
door, gestures for them to step in. We move to the head of the bed and stand like cops with our arms folded, trying to
smile. They finish one song and all look expectantly at the lady with the vibrato. She says, Three, and they begin to sing
“White Christmas.” This is our mother’s favorite, she used to put Bing Crosby on the turntable when we all sat down for Christmas
Eve dinner. It was part of the feast, like the white candles, the clean linen tablecloth, the gleaming china. As she passed
the first bowl and our father stood to carve they would sing it together, one at each end of the table, softly serenading
their children. Our father, in fact, had a wonderful strong baritone just like someone in the crowd of carolers. Suddenly
regret is swelling in the room like the voices of the choir. As she lies in the bed she weeps, for Bing, for the melting,
shimmering candles, the filigree on the holiday tablecloth. She is an unwilling astronaut, bumping against the thick glass
of the ship, her line tangling lazily in zero gravity, face mask fogged with fear. My sister reaches across, over the bed,
and we both embrace the mother, holding her on earth, pulling her onto the ship, breathing our oxygen into her line. Ten hours
later she is dead.

Oh God, it is bitterly cold. The snow is crusted over into shocked mounds, hard as Styrofoam. My fingers are burning twigs
inside my gloves, my toes ache like amputations. The heater fan in Linda’s car screamed until we had to turn it off and give
ourselves over to the freezing-freezing cold. Old man Larson is offering something warm in delicate cups. My poor fingers.
It is morning now and he is drinking his own cup of something hot. I guess it’s coffee, although I can almost see through
to the bottom of the cup. He tips the cup to his little-guy lips but refrains from raising a pinky — he couldn’t care less
about cheering me up. He’s in the morning-after mode right now; he’s not looking directly at either of us and he has
cleared his throat several hollow times. Linda sits up straighter and visibly tries to pay better attention. She shakes her
head and clears her own throat one, two, three times in a row. Now Larson is glaring at her, his eyes vivid blue on a yellow
background.

I look away. I can feel her gazing at my ear. I look back. Then she winks and he sees and now it’s even more tense.

We have selected the
Titanic
with ivory satin and the vault with the million-year guarantee of no seepage. He has accepted with grace both the outfit
we’ve brought on a wire hanger and the prescription bottle full of safety pins, all sizes, that we think he’ll need to make
her clothes fit her now. Linda thought he probably had special clamps for that sort of thing but we decided it would be better
if he used the safety pins from her junk drawer. He looked at them for a long second and then set them on the corner of the
kidney-shaped desk. I’ve given up on the long-underwear idea. Actually, I’m wearing it myself because of how cold it is outside.

In a brown paper sack sitting next to my chair, between Linda and me, is her wig. We hate to give it over, both of us have
held it in our laps at different times during the last few hours. It is too morbid, though, even for us. She takes it out
of the bag quickly and shows it to Larson, puts it back in. She told me in the car she was going to try and scare him with
it, but I guess she changed her mind.

He informs us that the flowers have started to arrive, invites us to come back and see how they have begun to arrange them
on stands and in clusters. We rise and leave the pale gray suit on its hanger, the wig crouching in its sack, the bottle of
pins from the top left kitchen drawer. My sister touches the mahogany desk like it’s a tree in the forest. As we match his
tiny steps down the wainscoted hall we have no idea, at this minute, that he is an artist, a gentleman. We have no idea as
we move
toward the scent of the flowers and the Christmas greens that he will continue on through his beautiful house, leaving us
behind to read cards and talk. He will go through two more rooms, down a set of stairs to a place where she lies. While we
linger, rubbing our hands and whispering to each other, the grandson who is minding us watches the wall and chews gum. At
this moment we don’t know that downstairs he is working magic, that he will present to us a woman who looks rested.

That’s how I will get to see her last, in her pale gray wool suit and pink blouse, her glasses resting on her nose as though
she’s just dropped off for a minute; her cheeks will be okay again. The clothes will fit perfectly, as though she hadn’t lost
a pound. Before the crowd arrives, when it’s just me and my sister and an aunt, he will reach in his pocket and bring forth
the bottle of pins, half gone.

Her hands are the only wrong thing. They look strange to me and I can’t figure out why until Linda picks up my hand and shows
me: Her wedding ring is on my finger; I forgot she gave it to me. The hands begin to look more normal to me now, and the silence
of the room gives way to the breathing of the sisters, the coldness of the kissed hands, and the empty air that says
You girls, you girls
.

I
t isn’t even eight
A.M.
and I’m hot
. My rear end is welded to the seat just like it was yesterday. I’m fifty miles from the motel and about a thousand and a
half from home, in a little white Mazda with 140,000 miles on it and no rust. I’m all alone in Alabama, with only a cooler
and a tape deck for company. It’s already in the high 80s. Yesterday, coming up from the keys through Florida, I had a day-long
anxiety attack that I decided last night was really heat prostration. I was a cinder with a brain; I was actually whimpering.
I kept thinking I saw alligators at the edge of the highway.

There were about four hundred exploded armadillos, too, but I got used to them. They were real, and real dead. The alligators
weren’t real or dead, but they may have been after me. I’m running away from running away from home.

I bolted four weeks ago, leaving my husband to tend the
dogs and tool around town on his bicycle. He doesn’t love me anymore, it’s both trite and true. He does love himself, though.
He’s begun wearing cologne and staring into the mirror for long minutes, trying out smiles. He’s become a politician. After
thirteen years he came to realize that the more successful he got, the less he loved me. That’s how he put it, late one night.
He won that screaming match. He said, gently and sadly, “I feel sort of embarrassed of you.”