Traveling with Spirits (17 page)

  “Mending nicely. Thanks for asking, Mom.” Shifting the focus, she says, “So Jeanne, tell us what about the bank. How are things at work?”

  “Nothing as thrilling as resuscitating preemies or venerable elders.”

  Monica stares at her plate.

  Mom, looking deflated, passes the potatoes.

  Monica tries again. “Weren’t you revamping your computer system? Our new one at the clinic is driving me wild.”

  “Technology was never your strong suit.”

  “Jeanne,” Mom reproaches gently. “Monica is asking about your work, your life.”

  “Unlike Alberta Schweitzer here, my life is not my work.” She forks a piece of the succulent pink lamb.

  Monica sips water, missing the wine she used to bring to Sunday dinner until she got tired of watching Jeanne consume three quarters of the bottle.

  Mom tries again. “Do tell us what’s new with you, Jeanne Elizabeth.”

  “Nothing much. I got promoted to assistant manager three weeks ago.”

  “Congrats!” Monica cries before she realizes her enthusiasm is bound to annoy.

  “It does entail an extra hour of work each day. Remarkable stuff. I get to review the tellers’ accounts. Fascinating. And I’m in charge of Travelers Cheques. Imagine the thrill.”

  Mom tilts her head. “Don’t devalue yourself, dear. It’s a good job you have. A responsible one. I was never promoted to any kind of management post.”

  Jeanne cradles her glass pensively.

  Monica has urged her to finish college, saddened how this bright woman has isolated herself—moving to Duluth, eating and drinking too much, mocking herself constantly.

  Monica recalls her last phone call with Dad:
I don’t expect you to understand, honey, or to forgive. But one day on the bus, I realized I wasn’t going anywhere, just around and around. I had to get out—out of Ireland first. Then out of marriage. I’m too free a spirit. Leaving was selfish. But I had to.
Jeanne, it seems, has found her own ways of leaving.

  “I was remembering that time we all went down to Minneapolis,” Mom begins.

  Monica is always astonished by her talent for deflection. She loves how her mother says “down to Minneapolis” as if she were describing a trip to Mexico.

  “We went down to one of those lakes off Hennepin.”

  “Lake of the Isles, Mom.” Monica grins because Mom often talks about this special Sunday when “the whole family was together as family should be.”

  “That’s right! And your father surprised us all by doing pirouettes on the ice.”

  Jeanne adds, “And we stopped for cocoa and oatmeal cookies.”

  There’s no sarcasm in her sister’s voice.

  “Oh, my,” Mom races on. “When we got home it was all you two could do to drink tomato soup for dinner. I think we watched
Bonanza
.”

  “We always had to watch
Bonanza
on Sunday nights until…” Jeanne trails off, draining her glass.

  Until Dad followed the Cartwrights out west, she was probably going to say.

  “It’s strange,” Mom tries again, “how sad I felt each time one of those actors died.”

  “Me, too,” Monica nods. “Pa and Hoss and Little Joe.”

  “It was a stupid
TV program
!” Jeanne explodes. “For Christsake, what’s wrong with you two? Jesus!”

  “Jeanne Elizabeth! Using such language in this house. And on a Sunday!”

  “Mom, sheez.” Jeanne ducks into the living room for a refill.

  Monica whispers. “She’s not planning to drive back tonight in this condition?”

  Mom shrugs. “That was the plan when she arrived.”

  “But Mom, she’s a danger.”

  “I’m her mother. Don’t you think I know?” She reddens, then lowers her voice further. “I’ve already hidden the car keys. We went through this last month, when you were in New York. After an hour, she gave up searching. Called in sick the following morning. And sick the lass was.”

  “It’s been this bad before?” Monica is aghast.

  Mom crosses herself.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I pray on my knees every night,” her voice is breaking.

  Beata has suggested an intervention with an alcohol counselor, but Mom would never discuss family problems in public.

  “Her new position must bring a lot of stress. Your sister isn’t as self-reliant as you. She’s a sensitive one, alright.”

  Monica refrains from cataloguing her own sensitivities.

  “Discussing the problem child?” Jeanne enters, raising her glass gaily.

FIFTEEN

February-March, 1998, Minnesota

  Monica inches along the slick, shoveled sidewalk. Beata strides ahead, scoping out the neighborhood.

  “Why, again, did you decide to look for a house in February?” She pulls the knit hat over her ears. “It’s even more incomprehensible that you’re looking in St. Paul.”

  Beata drops back. “St. Paul is pretty. It has a small town feel. Lots of churches. And well-kept neighborhoods.”

  “Precisely!” Monica declares, surveying the modest wooden houses with closed-in front porches. Picnic tables and garden chairs sag under six inches of snow. Swing sets stand brittle in the wintry landscape. She takes Beata’s arm, unnerved by her own urgency. “Listen, friend, I grew up here. You don’t know how provincial and stifling Irish Catholic neighborhoods can be.”

  Beata laughs, little white puffs of breath dissipating into the frigid afternoon. “Honey, we share a lot of things, but not the same nightmares.” Then she grows subdued. “I need change. St. Paul is quieter. I work in our neighborhood all day. I’ll see you at the Coffee Shack.”

  “Our
old
neighborhood, when you move. Past tense.”

  “Relax, Monica. I’m not dying, just moving to a new place.”

  “Won’t you be lonely over here?” She knows she’s overreacting. On a good traffic day, Beata will be 15 minutes away.

  “St. Paul is more diverse now. Besides, I don’t have your antipathy to churches.”

  “OK, it’s your life. Your choice. And I promise I’ll cross the Mississippi to see you if you cross the river to see me.” She recalls the relief and freedom of finding her Uptown apartment. Minneapolis always seemed more urbane, sophisticated, indifferent and therefore safe, compared to the sociable streets of St. Paul. As a proud passenger on her father’s bus, she often wondered about the differences between Minneapolis’s metropolitan avenues and St. Paul streets. Why were the towns called “Twin Cities?”

  A cheery realtor in a turquoise pants suit opens the door. “Welcome in from the cold.”

  Hot cider. Corny. She slips off her wet boots.

  “Cider!” exclaims Beata. “What a lovely idea.”

  Trailing her friend through kitchens with their avocado appliances and compact bedrooms papered in 1960s flowers and forests, she recalls family dinners she precipitously escaped for homework or a meeting of the Foreign Activities Club.

  Beata sips cider contentedly in the funky kitchen.

  Monica thinks about her friend growing up, daughter of a lawyer and a teacher, in a big modern apartment overlooking Lake Harriet. Maybe what sparks their friendship is the differences. Maybe they’re nostalgic for each other’s childhoods on opposite river banks.

*****

  She glances through the café window at the drifting snow.

  “We deserved that lunch!” Beata warms her hands on a cup of mint tea.

  “It’s been an, um, invigorating day.”

  “What a true friend, following me through the shadows of your youth!”

  She shrugs, savoring the chocolately dregs of espresso.

  “Only two more today, I promise,” she says contritely. “We’re both exhausted.”

  “I’m not as tired as you. I’m not carrying the weight of a mortgage and renovations.”

  “You can’t live in a rented place forever.”

  “Of course not. I just sense, I don’t know, that something will change permanently in my life when I buy a house.”

  “Something with Eric?”

  Monica purses her lips. “Maybe.” She’s ready to head back to real estate land.

  Beata’s dark eyes brighten. “Has Monica been keeping
quelque chose
from her loyal friend who tells her everything?”

  “No, no,” she squirms in the hard chair. “Hell, something has to happen one way or another. Remember that kid’s game, ‘Statues?’ ”

  Beata is artfully applying deep mauve lipstick. Monica envies her friend’s innate femininity. Lipstick always smears on her teeth and she hates the taste.

  “I remember.”

  “Eric says one thing that throws me into a frozen position. Two days later I come up with a perfectly neutral idea and he freezes. Clearly we’re both scared. What’s not apparent is whether we’re wise to be skittish or whether we’re both guy-shy because of our parents’ divorces.”

  Beata nods, deflated. “Same with Arthur. But I’m not waiting on him. I could go grey in rental housing. Working for a non-profit, I have to grab good interest rates.”

  “Let’s get moving before the percentage rises!”

  Beata snatches the bill. “My treat, with thanks for your good company.”

  Immediately, Monica fancies the large brick apartment house converted into condo flats. The entry door has a beveled glass image of two dancing peacocks. The wide stairway is covered in warm blue carpet.

  Fact sheets are piled on the marble foyer table.

  “No cheery invitation to cider, like the last three places,” Monica notes approvingly.

  “Crank!” Beata pulls a face. “If you don’t like cider, why do you drink it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “This is a palace!” Beata beams at the large rooms.

  “Like one of those old New York apartments on the Upper West Side. I remember visiting Tina, my med school roommate, and her parents on Riverside Drive.”

  “Check out the fireplace! Can’t you see me reading here on a cold night?”

  “The look of love is in your eyes.”

  “Let’s just sit here a second.” Beata pats a cushion on the overstuffed sofa.

  Green. Sea green from her girlhood dream. She grins at Beata.

  “Yes, I could be peaceful here,” Beata sighs. “Remember what I was trying to describe about the sensation at the retreat house? It was this very feeling of being
embraced
by a room.”

  Monica is happy for her friend. But there’s something about the place, the clouded mirror over the mantle, that plunges her into a sudden funk about Mom.

*****

  “I’m fine,” Mom shakes her head, “it’s a little harder to get around, dear, is all. I’d think you’d anticipate that, being a doctor.”

  “Sure, a touch of arthritis is no cause for panic. Still, you need more help.” She leans back in the old kitchen chair inhaling the familiar fragrance of coffee and vanilla. The room has barely changed in thirty-eight years. They repainted the cabinets in the late eighties. And the picture of the Sacred Heart has faded into pink. But she can still see eight-year-old Monica watching Mom measuring and stirring and pouring and making magical sweets with that big oven.

  “Mom, did I like hot apple cider as a kid?”

  “What makes you think about that?”

  “Oh, I had some with Beata recently.”

  “Strange.”

  “What?”

  “Well, Daddy used to fix hot cider every Halloween. After he left, why I remember you went off your cider. One Saturday I’d gone to a lot of trouble and mess with cinnamon cloves and you complained about the sugar. Bad for your teeth, you said. I thought, Yes, she’s going to be a doctor. Funny, never did think you’d be a dentist wearing all that mining gear on your head and excavating in people’s mouths.”

  Monica smiles thinly. Whenever Mom does mention Dad, she always makes a prompt detour. But she hasn’t riffed on dental archaeology before.

  Mom concentrates on the cookie batter. “Don’t fuss over me. I have lots of company. Mrs. Casey drops by once a week. And Mrs. Farah’s daughter—you know, the smart one who is following your example and applying to medical school—she still helps with the garbage, the recycling. I’m so lucky to have two lovely daughters.” She bends down to the oven for the cookie tray, which has been warming. “Oh, Oh. Ow!”

  “What’s the matter?” Monica jolts from the kitchen chair.

  “Stupid, stupid to forget the potholder.” Mom reaches into the freezer. “A little burn.”

  “Here, let me help.” She presses two ice cubes on her mother’s thumb.

  “I taught you this,” she clucks. “An early medical lesson.” Her face drains.

  “Dear Dr. Mom, I owe you many debts. Now, please take a seat.”

  She crumbles into the chair. “Don’t worry so.”

  “Hey, what’s this?” She lifts her mother’s left hand. “All these little scars.”

  “Now Mickey, you know I’m clumsy.”

  Clumsy? The nimble woman who typed liked a demon and sewed the straightest hems?

  “What about this large greenish purple bruise on your arm? When did you fall?”

  “Does it matter? Such little things. Now, do something useful. Just drop a spoonful of batter every few inches and then slip it into the stove.
With the potholder
. I have to have something for St. John’s Bazaar.”

*****

  Monica has been staring at the novel for half-an-hour without turning a page. She switches the lamp to a higher beam and takes in her own pretty, petite living room. All she needs, really.

  She misses Beata already. Worries that she’ll grow distant in her handsome condo. She’s already phoned her twice tonight. She can’t be gardening in mid-March, in the dark. Maybe there’s a lively condo party with her new neighbors.

  She closes the book and switches on PBS, hoping for something illuminating to take her mind off Mom. Yes, she does fuss. And it’s important for older people—let’s face it, old at 74—to have independence. She does have attentive friends.

  Damn pledge night.

  She makes a cup of chamomile tea and tries to finish the latest
Guardian Weekly
. She craves international news. Tonight on every page of the paper, she sees as photo of Mom, the poor woman crumpled next to the stove, in her bedroom, grasping for the phone.

  She’s in the middle of dialing Jeanne before she really thinks about it.

  A telephone rings one hundred miles north. It rings. And rings.

  Where can Jeanne be? She doesn’t know anything about her sister’s life in Duluth. Why does she assume Jeanne will be home at 9 o’clock on a Friday night?

  “Yes,” the voice is oddly defiant.

  “Jeanne?” she asks tentatively.

  “Yes, this is her.”

  “Well, this is her sister,” she aims for a lighthearted tone.

  “Funny.” Her voice is recognizable now. She sounds as if she’s concentrating hard. “What’s up, sister?”

 
Thunder-and-lightning
. Dad’s revised nickname for Jeanne in the fourth grade. “Baby Doll” had morphed into a tempest rolling in, flooding the room and extinguishing anybody’s good mood.

  “You there?” Jeanne barks again.

  “Sorry to wake you, I didn’t—”

  “Wake? I’m just watching a cruddy movie on TV.”

  Monica identifies the tone: alcoholic, mid-evening. Maybe Beata is right about an intervention. Meanwhile, she should simply call back tomorrow morning. Late tomorrow morning.

  “Mom’s not doing so well,” she hears her desperation to connect with Jeanne.

  “Finally,” Jeanne says.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve been waiting for you to wake up. Obviously she needs help big time. You’re the older sister. The doc. I knew you’d notice sooner or later.”

  Ignore the provocation. Is it too late to suggest talking tomorrow?

  “Well?”

  She sips the tea, begins again. “Do you think we could talk about it sometime?”

  “What are we doing now?” Jeanne takes a long gulp.

  She draws a breath. “Maybe this isn’t a good moment for you. I can call back.”

  “Mickey, all moments are pretty much the same for me. I don’t have a hectic medical schedule and a fancy social life and trips to Ghana or wherever. I go to work. I come home, fix dinner, turn on the tube. Maybe this isn’t a convenient time for you? Maybe you just got beeped for emergency heart surgery or something?”

  She’s never before felt this degree of anger from Jeanne. She wants to say,
I don’t have a fancy social life. I’m often lonely. I’d like to be closer to my sister. I lost Dad, too
. But she can’t say this just as she can’t say good-bye without alienating Jeanne further. How has this happened—her resentment and coldness?

  “We want to handle this delicately, of course. We’re both concerned for Mom’s feelings. And our own feelings. Some siblings wind up estranged, or worse.” How did she get on this track? Jeanne hates discussing emotions.

  “I don’t pack guns, Mickey. It’s pretty straightforward. Mom can’t live alone anymore. She can come live with me. I’m a grown up. I have a whole house.”

  Mom moving two hours north is crazy. She’d miss her friends. Her parish. Monica would miss her.

  “Besides I’ve already invited her.”

  “You have?” Monica feels the panic and anger rising. “When? Just this weekend, she said—”

  “We discussed it the last time I was down. Once I persuaded her to return my keys.”

  “You drove home that night?” This is out of her mouth before she thinks about it.

  “Don’t start.”

  Everything’s moving too fast. Monica takes a long breath. “What did she say?”

  “She said no,” Jeanne scoffs, “because it would hurt your feelings.”