Waiting to Exhale (43 page)

"What'd she say?" he asked.

"She was very nasty," I said.

"I know that. But what'd she say?"

"Why? Is there something I should know?"

"Nothing you don't already know," he said.

"She said you gave her herpes."

"What? And I suppose you believed that shit?"

"Well, is it true?"

"Do I look like I've got herpes?"

"It's not a look, Russell. Do you have the shit or don't you?"

"No, I don't have no damn herpes, and if I do, then she gave i
t t
o me," he said, and he turned on ESPN and pretended like he was hypnotized by some football game.

That night I checked for myself. It was still as smooth as it always was. And so was Russell.

I bet Bernadine, Gloria, and Savannah are probably talking about me like a dog behind my back, but I don't care what they might be saying. Not a one of 'em have been in love for centuries, so they can't say what they'd do if they were in my shoes.

Russell literally begged me to give him another chance and told me he'd made the biggest mistake of his life, leaving me the way he did. I wanted to correct him, and tell him, You didn't leave me-I put you out. Remember? But it's okay. All men have bad memories.

Anyway, when he first got here, we had a long talk. He told me he only married Carolyn on a whim, and now he was sorry he ever met her. He said she kept tabs on him. He couldn't walk out of the house without her asking where he was going and what time he'd be back. And she was bossy. Always telling him what to do and how to do it, and it eventually got on his nerves. He also said that right after she had the baby (which I finally found out was real, and it was a boy), she changed. He said Carolyn got lazy and fat. She never cooked, the house was always a mess, and he just couldn't stand it anymore.

Well, color me jealous, because the sound of her name made my skin crawl, which is why I told him never to say it in front of me again. So now, when he mentions her, he refers to her as "Her." Which is cool.

He also finally admitted that he'd been a fool for treating me the way he did, and actually said he was sorry. Would I please forgive him? I didn't want to say yes right there on the spot, but he sounded so pitiful and so sincere and all that I couldn't help but give in. You get the best loving in the world when a man is begging. Afterwards, he said, "Can I stay here with you for a minute?" I told him I wasn't sure if it would work. He rolled over and gave me some more. "I'm not sure if I'm ready to come back yet, but the only way I'll know is by being here. Would you give me that opportunity, at least until I can figure out what I'm doing?" he said, and kept touching me in places he knew would make me say yes to anything.

Later on, I was thinking about asking him what really happened over there, but to tell the truth, I didn't much care. I didn't need to know all the details. The important thing was this: He had a hundred other places he could've gone, but Russell came here, to me, which-as far as I'm concerned-is where he wanted to be: closer to the bone.

Right now I'm going a little bizonkers, because he's over there negotiating with Her about how they can end this marriage without getting a lawyer. Russell said he didn't want a whole bunch of legal hassles. He said he was willing to pay Her whatever child support was reasonable. As a matter of fact, he took one of those little do-it- yourself forms you get at the stationery store for her to look at. I heard there was a drive-up window somewhere in Phoenix where you could hand them that form and be divorced in a matter of minutes, as long as you didn't have any property. Everything Russell owns is on his back, in a closet, or parked in a garage.

I'm just glad he was honest and told me where he was going, which tells me that he's finally maturing. Learning how to tell the truth when you're not used to it is definitely a sign of maturity, if you ask me. All I can say is this: It's about time.

He's been gone close to three hours, and I want to know what's taking him so long. I was trying to pay attention to what they were doing on Growing Pains, but I couldn't, so I switched to Unsolved Mysteries, and that was too eerie for me, so I decided to call my mother to see how she and Daddy were doing. One thing I hate about Alzheimer's is that you can pray all you want to, but once that disease takes hold of you, that person doesn't get any better. I keep hoping my daddy's condition will improve, but the last time I was down there, he could hardly utter a word. He babbled and didn't seem to know where he was or who I was from one minute to the next. He went to the bathroom on himself, even though Ma got him one of those wheelchairs with the toilet right in the seat. Daddy refused to sit in it and bit her on her arm when she tried to force him.

Not long after Daddy was diagnosed, the doctors told us we should start our grieving process now. How can you grieve for a person who's not dead? we both wanted to know. The doctors warned us that all of Daddy's good personality traits would vanish, one right after the other. But we didn't believe him. He'd always been spirited and spunky and smart to us, and we couldn't imagine him otherwise. It didn't take long for us to see that the doctors had been right. But we didn't know how to grieve ahead of time. We were too busy trying to keep Daddy happy.

I knew there was a chance she might already be in bed. It was almost nine o'clock. But she answered the phone right away.

"Hi, Ma. Did I wake you up?"

"Nope. I'm up. Can't sleep," she said.

"What's wrong?"

"Well," she said, and let out an exasperated sigh.

"Is it Daddy? Has something else happened? He's not in the hospital, is he?"

"No, he's not in the hospital," she said, and her voice trailed off.

"Ma?"

"I'm here, dear."

"What's wrong."

"Well, I had to go see a lawyer."

"For what?"

"About me and your daddy's assets."

"Why?"

"Hold the line a minute," she said.

I held the phone to my ear so tight I could feel the oil from my skin making it slippery.

"Robin?"

"I'm here, Ma. Why'd you have to talk to a lawyer about your and daddy's assets is what I want to know."

"Well." She sighed. "He thinks I should divorce your father."

"You should do what?" I didn't think I heard her right. What she just said sounded crazy. Maybe she was under too much pressure and didn't know what she was saying. But I know my mother. She's go
t m
ore strength than any woman I've ever met. I figured it would be best to hear her out.

"I've got to put him in a facility, Robin. I can't manage anymore. He can't pick up a fork, he can't get out of bed, and I have to turn him over every two hours. He's lost ten pounds in two weeks. You wouldn't recognize him if you saw him. I'm using flash cards to get him to understand me, and he doesn't know who I am. I don't know, sweetheart, I just don't know."

"I understand, Ma. But why does the lawyer think you need to divorce Daddy? What's that supposed to do?"

"Well, let me say this. Your father worked very hard all his life to make sure we'd be comfortable when he retired and we were both up in age. So we've got money put away, but it'd all be gone if I were to use it to pay for a nursing home. Right after he was diagnosed, your father told me to swear I wouldn't use our savings to care for him if he became incapacitated. He was worried about what would happen to me more than himself. So the lawyer said that if I divorced your father, that would separate our assets and make it so that the state would pay for his care at the nursing home. All on his own, Fred wouldn't be able to afford it."

"How much does the nursing home cost, Ma?"

"Twenty-five hundred dollars a month."

"What? I know this may be a stupid question, but how do you feel about doing something like this?" After I said it, I thought it might make her cry, but it didn't. I wanted to find out how she was dealing with the whole idea.

"I married your father for better or for worse."

"I know, Ma."

"As Catholics ... I know you're not a practicing Catholic anymore, Robin, but I am. I don't think I can go through with it. Divorce is a sin."

"I know, Ma. I know."

"It would feel like I was abandoning your father. I swore before God I'd never do that."

"I know, Ma."

"If he knew I was even considering doing this, he'd be angry, so very angry."

"I know, Ma."

"From the beginning, Fred said he'd rather I pull the plug on him before letting him go to a nursing home. If he knew I'd have to use up all our savings and go bankrupt in order to do it, he'd be enraged. I know he would."

"So what can we do, Ma?" I asked, knowing she didn't have an answer. I wish Russell-or somebody-was here, somebody that could help me think of what to do. I wish somebody was here who could put their arms around me and her, too, and make everything all right. I wish somebody would stop my daddy from dying the way he is, make all his pain go away. And I wish I was ten years old again and we were still living in Sierra Vista and everything would be like it used to be. Like it should be: normal.

"I've got to think about this a little longer, although the lawyer told me I don't have much time. If I'm going to do it, it had better be soon, so as not to look suspicious."

"I truly wish I had some way of helping, Ma. I don't have anything that's worth anything. Which is embarrassing. At my age, I should be in a position to help you and Daddy. But I'm not."

"You're doing the best you can, Robin, and don't worry. We'll figure something out. We'll figure something out."

"Is he asleep now?"

"Yes, he is."

"I wish I could take tomorrow off, but I have a meeting with these transportation people, an account I've written the proposal for, and it's a biggie-a ten-million-dollar account. I think we may get it, so I have to be there. And if we do get it, I'll probably get a raise. Let me think. Tomorrow's Thursday. I'll take off Friday and drive down there. How's that?"

"You don't have to miss work, Robin. Saturday'd be fine."

"If I could, I'd come right now, Ma. I feel so helpless. I don't want you down there by yourself, dealing with all this. As a matter of fact, I think I'll take next week off. That's what I'll do. Longer if I need to. You'll be sick of me."

I heard her smile through the phone.

"Do you have anything around there you can take that'll make you sleep?"

"Yes, but I can't take it. It knocks me out, and I have to be able to hear your father. Don't worry, I'll doze off pretty soon. I always do."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure."

"I love you, Ma. Kiss Daddy for me and tell him I love him too."

"I will, and I love you too, baby. Good night."

After I put the phone in its cradle, I sat there thinking about what my mother must be going through. I'm the one who feels disabled, because I can't do anything to make the situation better. I wanted to tell her Russell was back in my life, but I knew it wasn't appropriate. Plus, Daddy never liked Russell. He said Russell was too pretty, dressed entirely too flashy for a man, and a woman should never trust a man as pretty as he was. Ma couldn't accept the fact that he hadn't asked me to marry him, that we were sleeping together and living in sin, which was the main reason they never came to visit the whole time we lived together.

I was watching Quantum Leap when Russell walked in the door.

"Hi," he said.

"What took you so long?" I asked, and then wished I hadn't said it like that. I didn't want to sound like Her.

"I wasn't gone that long," he said, and went straight into the bathroom.

I got up and followed him.

"Well?"

"Well, what?" he said, taking his clothes off. He turned on the shower and stood there as if he was waiting for me to leave.

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

"What do you mean, 'nothing'?"

"We talked."

"I assumed that much, Russell. Is she going to sign the divorce papers or what? That's a simple question. I'd appreciate a simpl
e a
nswer."

"We talked about it."

"Talked about it?"

"Yeah, that's what I went over there to do," he said, and got in the shower and started lathering his body. "You don't just decide to divorce somebody and then they sign on the dotted line and it's over. It's not that simple."

It was getting so steamy and hot in there, I decided to wait until he got out before I said another word. I wanted to tell him about my daddy and the predicament my mother was in, but for some reason I didn't think he'd be all that sympathetic.

I put on a silk nightshirt and waited for him on the bed. When he came out of the bathroom, he stopped in the middle of the room, butt naked. "Where'd you put my pajamas?"

"Why?"

"Because I wanna put 'em on, that's why."

"What if I don't want you to?"

"Come on, Robin. I've had a rough day, a long-ass night, and I'm not in the mood for screwing tonight. Just tell me where they are, so I can go to bed. I've gotta be in Yuma at seven."