Washing the Dead (26 page)

“Oh, I’m hanging in.” She sounded distant, and that hurt. After we exchanged niceties, I asked if I could arrange a time for me to visit my mother this afternoon.

“That’s not such a great idea, Barbara,” Jenny said with a kindness that bordered on condescension.

“Excuse me?”

“Neil called Lakeline, and we’re going to move Mom tomorrow. We’re not equipped to handle her,” Jenny said.

So I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t handle my mother. I felt a rush of relief. “Okay, but why can’t I visit her today?”

Jenny paused. “She’s agitated.”

“I’m her daughter, Jenny.” Like the Shabbos goy, Jenny was protecting my mother from
me
, and this stung like hell.

Jenny sighed. “You and Neil should hash this out.”

Great. Now I was fighting with Jenny, who had never flaunted her relationship with my mother and was just trying to do her best.

“I’m sorry, I’m being horrible,” I said.

“It’s all right,” she said, but I could tell that she was grieving hard for Big Al and didn’t have the energy to deal with me.

“No, it’s not. You’re right. Settle her in, and let me know when I can visit.” I hung up so I wouldn’t say, “And please stop calling her Mom.”

I switched lanes and cut off a young man, and he honked at me so hard that I almost started to cry. I didn’t like being at odds with anyone, be it an exasperated driver or big-hearted Jenny. As much as I hated this truth, whatever history the tahara had dug up between my mother and me needed to be sorted out and put to rest.

Breathe, Barbara, breathe. Work would calm me down. I felt like my old self when catching my students “being good” and mentoring Theresa. I stopped at Starbucks to pick up a skim latte, my new habit. I’d never understood the big whoop about Starbucks, but now I was so tired all the time that I relied on an early-morning and late-afternoon venti to power me through the day. By the time Theresa came in, caffeine was strumming the chords of my central nervous system, and I had emerged from the phone booth, Superteacher costume intact.

Daphne, a quiet little girl, arrived early, wearing leftover oatmeal on her upper lip. She carried her lovey, a tattered brown mouse she’d brought for Show and Share. I sat down next to her. She pointed to her stuffed animal. “His name is Ted.”

I shook the mouse’s paw firmly. “Hello, Ted. Welcome to the Hummingbird Room.”

Daphne laughed and surprised me with a warm hug. The sudden sweetness of the gesture buoyed me. The room began to fill. Ally arrived, and her mother told me a long-winded story about how she had been the big girl at her sister’s birthday party over the weekend. She’d helped the little ones put on their tutus
and comb their hair. Joan wanted so badly for me to tell her that this meant Ally was okay, but I knew that within the next hour she would be pushing or maybe even biting one of her peers. I put my arm around Joan’s bony shoulder.

“Ally can be helpful, and I’m glad the party went well. I’d still like us to get to the bottom of what’s bothering her, though.” I felt Joan’s shoulder sag under my arm.

“Can I call you again tonight?” She looked desperate.

“You can always call me.”

Josh Fader’s mom, in her customary yoga pants and baseball cap, hovered behind Joan. She looked upset, so I took her into the hall, and she told me she was worried that Josh was experiencing developmental delays. I let her talk for five minutes, holding her bundle of fear in my hands, and then, without warning, I lost my usual patience when she described Josh’s inability to read the Bob books, which her nephews had all done at age four.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You need to stop comparing Josh to his cousins,” I said sharply. “What good is it doing anyone?”

Typically, after she’d talked long enough, she’d hear the silliness of her concern and the worry would vanish from her face. “This is why they call you the guru,” she’d say, mistaking my silence for a mysterious wisdom that had always felt unearned. My abruptness today shocked her, and she lowered the bill of her cap with a perfectly manicured finger. “We can talk later. I can see you’re busy,” she said, recoiling into herself.

Damn. I’d never shut down a parent, even one of the overbearing ones who drove my colleagues nuts. That was why Sarah gave me the kids with the most demanding moms and dads.

When I returned to the classroom, Theresa had gathered the kids for Circle Time, and we sang a song about chipmunks, loudly and off key.

“Everyone’s full of vim and vigor this morning.” Theresa clapped her hands together. The high pitch of her voice jangled my nerves as it never had before.

By the time the last mother collected her child and I walked
out to my car, my gut was churning. During the months I’d escaped into the calm of Mrs. Kessler’s apartment and Yossi’s adoration, my mother’s mess would be waiting patiently for me when I emerged. Now the mess was seeping into my happy place.

I drove around aimlessly, manufacturing errands that I hoped would anchor me, and after I’d filled two grocery bags and picked up a week’s worth of Sam’s shirts from the dry cleaners, I went home. I sat down at the kitchen table and made a list of supplies I would need for our autumn unit, ingredients for the Greek salad I’d bring to book club, and people to whom we owed dinner invitations. I alphabetized my spice rack and emptied our pantry of the canned goods that had expired.

I left a message on Sheri’s cell phone, but I didn’t really want to talk to her. Our relationship operated under certain rules. I looked to her for sartorial and etiquette guidance, entertainment, and the nurturing she gave so readily, and I’d helped her find hospice care for her father and then arranged the shiva at her house after he died. Sharing my fears about my mother and Lili violated the rubric of our friendship. Granted, it was a rubric that I’d created.

I couldn’t sit at home with my thoughts for one more second, so I left early to pick Lili up from Kara’s house. Kara had invited Lili and Megan over after school to celebrate her birthday. Lili had been hanging around that unnerving Taylor Miller lately, and I was relieved that she was going to spend time with her old friends. I told her I’d pick her up and take her straight to her physical therapy appointment.

Kara’s mother, Dot, answered the door in her expensive exercise clothes. Dot, a professional Clutterbuster, kept such an immaculate house that I wondered if there was any trash in her garbage pails. When the girls were in junior high, I was surprised to find that Kara was the more sought-after babysitter; Lili was more gifted with children, but Kara would load and empty dishwashers, clean and arrange condiments in the fridge, and fold laundry. Here I went again, comparing the two. I couldn’t help it
when it came to Kara. Dawn and I had once discussed how Dot’s intensity goaded us into competition.

“The girls have been having
so
much fun here,” Dot said, still winded from the treadmill.

I wanted to tell her how much more fun they always had at our house, but I bit my tongue. “Well, congratulations on Kara’s birthday. Soon you’ll have a driver in the house.”

“I’m not worried,” Dot said. “Kara’s
very
responsible.”

And Lili wasn’t? “Well, we should get going. Lili’s got a physical therapy appointment.”

“That was such a shame about the season,” Dot said, oozing sympathy.

Right, Dot. Kara wouldn’t have made it to Sectionals if Lili had been healthy. I smiled and said in my friendliest tone, “Not a shame for Kara!”

Dot laughed nervously as my smile widened. I could not believe what had just come out of my mouth.

“Sure you don’t want to stay?” she said, and took a swig from her water bottle.

God, there was no way I could stay. More ugliness would certainly escape my lips if I didn’t leave. “Such a lovely offer, Dot, but we really need to run.”

The girls came down the stairs right then.

“Happy birthday, sweetie.” I kissed Kara’s cheek and then Megan’s for good measure.

“Thanks, Mrs. Blumfield.” Kara smiled at me and looked me right in the eye, something Taylor Miller would never do.

“See you at school.” Lili hugged her friends, but their goodbye seemed stilted, as if they weren’t sure if this afternoon had reunited them or was simply a respite from Lili’s withdrawal. I sure missed Megan, with her uncorrected crossbite and unspoiled appreciation for every small thing I did for her, and I missed Kara, who was lovable despite Dot. I even missed the girls I didn’t like nearly as much, like Jenna, who routinely clogged our toilet, and Britt, whose iPhone needed to be surgically removed.

“Sounds like you had fun,” I said as we went out to the car. Lili was now walking without crutches, but she hadn’t fully recovered.

“Kind of.” She teetered on the edge of sulking, which I couldn’t take at that moment.

While I sat in the lobby of the physical therapy practice, I pulled out my laptop and started to catch up on correspondence. I thought about emailing Dot to apologize but decided against it. It might only draw attention to my remark. I did write a follow-up note with a distinct tone of apology to Josh Fader’s mom, and I sent out the inaugural head lice memo, which made me scratch my scalp as it always did.

Lili appeared in the lobby with Susan, a marathon runner who had been specially assigned to her.

“What do you think, champ?” Susan asked her.

“It doesn’t seem to be healing that fast.” Lili looked so disappointed that I wanted to leap up and wrap my arms around her.

“Patience. You keep working at it,” Susan assured her.

“And
you
keep saying that.” I detected my own new hardness in Lili’s voice.

Susan tapped her on the arm lightly with her clipboard. “See you next week, and don’t forget your home exercises.”

I looked at Susan apologetically. In the parking lot, Lili shut the car door too hard.

I waited for her to talk, but she didn’t. When we got home, she hobbled up to her room, and I unloaded the dishwasher, one of her pre-injury chores that I’d absorbed into my routine. Then I cut up a pear and some sharp cheddar and put the slices on a plate.

I knocked on her door.

“It’s open,” she said sullenly.

She was in her team sweatshirt, sitting on the pink beanbag chair we’d given her for her ninth birthday. Her bad leg was propped up on a footstool, and her good leg supported her laptop. I sat down next to her, and we watched a clip of her winning the Sectionals meet last year. Sam had caught her sprinting to the
finish line, auburn ponytail flopping back and forth, a feral look on her face as she passed the top seed during the last five yards. She was stunning.

She stared at the screen wistfully. “I miss running.”

“I know, baby.”

Her eyes started to well. “I mean like a lot.”

I put my arm around her slim shoulders.

“I love everything about it, even when it hurts and I feel like I’m going to puke because I’m pushing myself so hard.” She was still staring at the screen.

“You know you’re going to run again.” I squeezed her shoulders. “Soon.”

“It’s not just that. All Kara and Megan could talk about was Coach JJ and her new method of torture, or last week when the team went to Kopp’s and Tricia laughed so hard that strawberry custard came out of her nose, and blah blah blah.” She pulled the sleeves of her sweatshirt over her hands.

I waited for her to go on.

“And then when they’d notice that I wasn’t exactly chiming in because I didn’t exactly have anything to add, they’d change the subject.”

“Oh, honey.” I felt the familiar pinch that had always accompanied Lili’s relaying of any sort of playground hurt.

“It made me feel left out.” She wiped her eyes before a tear escaped.

“Lil. I know how it feels to be left out. And it’s no fun.”

She turned to me with interest. “Like when were you left out?”

I sighed. “Where to begin….”

“Anywhere.” She looked eager for my words, and I couldn’t let her down.

“High school, for starters. We were very religious growing up.”

“Grandma eats shrimp now,” Lili said.

“Yeah, well, I guess the religious thing didn’t stick.”

“Why?” Lili probed.

I wanted to offer her some words of comfort, but I didn’t want
to get into the Schines’ story right now.

“I know, Mom. It was ‘complicated’.” She put air quotes around the word.

I stared at her computer screensaver, a photo of her with Kara and Megan. “Actually I was going to say lonely.”

Lili shut off her computer.

“Let’s go downstairs. We’ll have a homework party.” I needed to trace and cut fourteen pine trees out of construction paper. I carried her backpack while she followed me down to the den. She was quiet again, and when I looked over at her, she was doodling in her notebook. Her despondency cast a hook into the deepest part of me.

“Lili, what do you think of this tree?”

She scrutinized the paper and made a face. “Kind of flat.”

“Well, what would you suggest?”

She put her chin on her hand and thought for a second. “I have an idea.”

She got up and went outside. I knew she’d come up with something clever. Lili had a gift for making art out of objects most people would throw away, a magnet out of bottle cap, a purse from an old T-shirt, a Chanukah card artfully decorated with wax she’d dug out and saved from our old menorah. Sam and I had urged her to take art classes, but she declined. She said her hobby was private, and I respected that. She had a knack for finding disparate pieces and putting them together like a puzzle. I didn’t. I loved to sew and crochet, but my ideas for art projects came from the internet and Theresa and my daughter.