The Moment of Everything (21 page)

He handed me back his flask. I drank and started to feel the warm lava of the bourbon spreading through my body, and for some reason I thought of the James Joyce story “The Dead” with Gretta mesmerized by that last song of the night in the drawing room filling her with nostalgia for her tender self.

“I kind of like you like this,” I said. “All World War Two guy, I mean. Very manly.”

“You’re one to be talking, shallot lady,” he said.

“I think you mean Lady of Shalott.”

“Yeah, something like that.”

At first the red flashing lights in the distance seemed part of the night, blinking to its rhythms. But then my mind focused through the cider and the cannabis in the air.

“Looks like there’s a problem,” Dizzy said, pointing to the lights. “Maybe we should head back.”

We started down the incline and fell into pace with others headed toward the approaching ambulance. In the distance, above the heightened voices, I thought I heard my name, but I wasn’t sure. As we got closer to the lights, I saw Jason running toward me. If he was looking for me, that meant…

I ran in the direction of the ambulance, Dizzy close behind me, toward the paramedics pressing rhythmically down on Hugo’s chest.

We were in the ER waiting room, just after midnight, when we first heard the word
stroke
. Other people, anxious to hear about their loved ones, gave us a wide berth. At first I thought it was to keep their distance from our bad news, not wanting our ill fortune to infect them. But when I picked up the train of my dress to keep it safe from the wheels of Hugo’s gurney, I remembered that we—Jason, me, and friends—were still in our Renaissance clothes and Dizzy was in his fatigues. It seemed odd that our clothes should worry them. The security guard had confiscated the swords and guns at the door, after all.

In the ICU, I gave instructions to our friends. Call Robert. Get us a change of clothes. Put a sign on the door of the Dragonfly. Hope filled everyone’s hearts as they rushed to their missions. If there was something to do, then all would be well. They left us, our knights and ladies, spurs for pretend horses clinking on the tiles. Jason and I were alone, left to stare at Hugo through a glass window in the ICU.

“What’s going to happen?” Jason asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, looking at him reflected in the glass, watching for cracks in his face.

“When will we know?”

“The doctor said he’ll come by around noon with the test results. We’ll know more then.”

“What if something happens before then?”

“Another doctor will come.”

“Are you sure?” It seemed an odd question to me, one too naïve for Jason. I turned away from his reflection to look at the real him. I started to tell him, “Yes, I’m sure. That’s the way it works.” But I stopped, realizing that Jason had probably had a lot more experience with hospitals and doctors than I had, and his fear was probably from experience.

“I’ll make sure of it. I promise,” I said.

In the ICU waiting room, I took off my cloak and offered it to Jason as a pillow. He needed to lie down. The rows of chairs had no arms, and we were allowed to stretch out here, unlike in the ER, where discomfort seemed mandatory. The nighttime janitor mopped the floor, and I could smell institutional disinfectant in the dirty soapy water. I entered a reminder on my phone to bring Hugo’s incense for his room. I posted on the store’s Facebook page, Twitter feed, and website that the store would be closed for a few days. More news was to come. We would open again as soon as we could.

The doctor came as promised. The next day there was still a murmur of hope. They let us in to see him, one at a time, fifteen minutes every couple of hours. I massaged Hugo’s feet. Robert stood beside his friend and stared at the monitors, as if they were a balance sheet he could not puzzle together. Robert’s wife, Charlene, came and in the waiting area they held hands, heads bent in prayer. When it was Jason’s time to visit him, he sat at the foot of Hugo’s bed and read him Jack London stories aloud. I could hear his voice, muffled through the glass. He read well, slowly and determined, as if he were trying to coax a fearful animal close to the fire. It was comforting listening to him. But it wasn’t landscapes crunchy with snow and the lonesome howl of wolves that filled my head. Instead, I saw a nineteen-year-old Hugo in a navy surplus coat roaming the foggy docks of San Francisco with
The Call of the Wild
stuffed in his pocket, its soft cover curled from constant reading. Looking at Hugo’s face, I imagined his drooping mouth was a faint smile and that he, too, was thinking of that young man.

On my phone, I noticed that my mother had called a couple of times and left voice mails. I couldn’t deal with her now. Later. Everything was now later.

It was never a question that someone should always be there, so we decided to take shifts at the hospital. I took the night shift. At first it was easier being there than in my apartment. But by the third night, lack of sleep caught up to me and I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I don’t know when I fell asleep, but when I woke, I found Hugo’s moose blanket draped over me.

I sat up and looked around. The only other person in the waiting room was sitting in the seat next to me, and for a few foggy moments when I first woke, I just stared at my mother.

“Your hair is a mess,” she said, reaching out to me and fingering the ends of my hair. “So many split ends.”

I just sat there, not knowing whether to be happy or annoyed that she was here. Too tired to decide, I dropped my head forward, resting my forehead on her shoulder and clutching the moose blanket up to my chin.

“I saw your post on Facebook,” she said. “About the store closing. I was worried.”

“You follow the Dragonfly on Facebook?”

“You had me send the chair there,” she said. “Goodness knows I’d never get any information out of you. What choice did I have? Then someone posted about Hugo’s stroke.”

“And you came?” I asked, when the answer was obviously yes.

She reached over and patted my hand, almost slapping at it, without looking at me.

“I thought I could help,” she said. “I posted a note on the Facebook page asking if someone could come get me from the airport. And some kind of hippie Indian boy came. He was wearing green rubber flip-flops but he was driving an Infiniti. He must have borrowed it.”

I started to cry, and she leaned her beautiful head down against mine. I could smell the lavender soap she’d used all my life, the starch on her cotton shirt and slacks, and her hair spray cavorting with Chanel No. 5.

“He took me to your apartment. We’ll talk later about why he has a key,” she said. “He said you would want this thing with deer on it, so I brought it. I figured no one would keep something this ugly unless it was important.”

Word of Hugo’s condition spread. The front of the Dragonfly was awash in flowers and cards, including an enormous arrangement from Apollo Books & Music. I called Avi the next day to thank her, but neglected to mention that I had taken the bouquet to the children’s ward at the hospital. It seemed wrong to leave a gift from the enemy camp in his room, though Robert did point out the indignation might be just the ticket to get Hugo out of bed again.

My mother had Dizzy scavenge Mountain View for “normal food” so there was always something at home and snacks to offer Hugo’s visitors in the waiting room. The rest of the time, wherever I was, she was with me, reading
Southern Living
on her iPad or the Barbara Taylor Bradford novel Jason brought her from the Dragonfly.

“You know, I don’t usually read much, but I like this,” she said to Jason, holding out the book from her and examining it like a vintage ring in an antique shop.

“Jason has a talent for picking the right book for someone,” I said.

Someone else’s mother might have talked to Jason more about this and his life and background. She might have delicately extracted details from him to piece together his history and how things had come to be the way they had for him. She might have offered motherly comfort and possibly some advice for making his way through the world. But as I saw Georgine looking down at Jason’s hands, I could smell what was coming next. My mother was fixing to be blunt.

“What happened to you anyway?” she asked Jason, nodding her head in the direction of his hands and leg.

To my surprise, Jason didn’t flinch. He held up one of his pinched hands so she could see it better and she cupped it in hers, rubbing her thumbs over it like it was a seashell she’d found on the beach. I’d never even seen Nimue touch one of his hands before, and yet there was my mother.

“Cerebral palsy,” he said. “It’s just a medical bullshit term for they-don’t-know-what-the-fuck.”

“Language, young man,” she said.

“Sorry.”

“Go on now. Don’t pout.”

He shrugged and kicked the chair in front of him.

“They’re pretty sure it was the drugs my mom did when she was pregnant,” Jason said. “She stopped the drugs. She got mean. They took me away.”

Mama nodded in a quiet way. She was a pain in the ass, but in some ways she was also a miracle.

“Baby, don’t you fret,” she said. “They always treat you worse when they feel guilty.”

Jason was halfway through “To Build a Fire” when Hugo had his second stroke. When the monitors started to wail, Jason bolted upright and sat frozen until a nurse pulled him off Hugo’s bed. I rushed into the room and grabbed him, wrapping my arms around him from behind so he couldn’t see the fear in my face. The doctor said we should prepare ourselves and asked again if there was a DNR. I didn’t know. Robert nodded. Jason left and didn’t come back. Mama stood outside the glass and watched me as I held Hugo in my arms and counted each breath until it was over.

Dizzy drove me and Mama home, in a rental car so Mama wouldn’t smell like French fry grease. While Mama went through a checklist of what we needed to decide, I stared out the back window thinking that the last time I’d seen everything we passed by Hugo had been alive.

I was anxious, feeling like I’d forgotten something. But I hadn’t forgotten. It was the leaving of Hugo that had emptied me. I tried to picture what they wouldn’t let us see. Moving the body from the room. The transport to the crematorium. These were mysteries, the things we paid other people to do for us. In centuries past, it would have been the family who tended to him in death, just as in life. But faceless, nameless people did what I could not. And what would bring me comfort now was just a job to them.

At home, on the sofa, the rims of my eyes felt raw and dry, a cold ache behind them like a constant ice cream headache. No tears left. I looked down and caught myself scratching my arm on top of the red marks I’d made earlier. Why did grief feel like ants under my skin?

At my apartment, Mama talked on and on about the right thread count as she put the new sheets she’d bought me on my bed. In the kitchen, Dizzy made grilled bologna sandwiches. I stepped outside for air and checked my phone. A dozen calls to Jason and nothing back. He knew Hugo was gone. He had to. I was worried. He should be with us.

In the side yard next to Hugo’s apartment, I heard noises. I walked to the Japanese maple so I could see around the corner. Through the dark, I could see Mrs. Callahn, yanking tomato plants out of the pots and stuffing them into large garbage bags. Without a word, I went back inside.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover
lay on the breakfast bar. Pen in hand, I turned toward the end of the book, just past where the notes had ended, and wrote:

The mail at the Dragonfly had backed up in the week since we’d closed. A few bills, more sympathy cards. Flowers lay in front of the door. Crayon drawings were taped to the glass. I gathered up a handful of mail and held it against me as I unlocked the door.

“You’re going to have a time cleaning all this up,” Mama said, holding a pink gerbera daisy while she waited for me to open the door.

“People mean well, Mama.”

By the time I managed to get in the door and lock it behind me, my mother was already standing by the counter—her right hand resting on it as if it were a ballet barre. She scanned the Dragonfly’s landscape. For the first time in a long time, I saw the store as a stranger must see it. Even after weeks of cleaning and organizing and sign-posting and rearranging, in my mother’s eyes, it must have still looked like a great big pile of books and a cash register.

In her silence, I could almost hear her calculating what they’d spent on my education, how many years I’d worked since getting out of school, the things she thought I’d sacrificed to have this life. And now she was seeing that life. She was in a cream pantsuit with a clay-colored silk blouse and matching pumps. Not a hair out of place, no wrinkle daring to appear on either her clothes or her face. Next to her, everything in the Dragonfly looked grubby, even her daughter.

“I know it’s not…,” I said. “I mean…it’s a venture.”

My mother turned around and looked at me. My mother didn’t believe in ventures just like she didn’t believe in the Easter Bunny or plaid pants. She believed in certainty, even to the point of delusion.

“I can make tea,” I said.

“It’s too early for a glass of tea.”

“I meant hot tea.” I looked at the mugs by the electric kettle and the only clean one was Hugo’s.

“I’ll go to that place next door for coffee,” she said.

Alone, I started to go through the mail. Most of it I skipped until I saw a card with the CIA Bathroom’s names on the return address.

I put their note back in its envelope and taped it to the counter to remind me to read it every day.

I was sorting through the rest of the stack when Jason walked into the store. We stood frozen in surprise, staring at each other. He was the first to move. He bolted past me and into the stacks. I went after him.

“Jason!”

I caught a flash of him turning the corner at Self-Help and followed him around the corner.

“Where have you been? I called everywhere. I was worried. Were you with Nimue?”

He stopped suddenly, and I almost ran into the back of him. He turned and looked at me, his face hard. I took a step back. He turned again and walked into the office, slamming the door behind him.

“Jason!” I called, knocking on the door. “Jason, talk to me!”

Through the door, I heard the desk chair roll and creak as he sat down.

“Jason, come on. I haven’t seen you in days.”