Authors: Elizabeth Berg
I look at him. He’s lost weight; his cheekbones are too visible. A crystal-clear line of drool has started down from the side of his mouth and I wipe it off with the sheet, I don’t know where his Kleenex has gone to.
“Jay?” I say, aware of my own foolishness, feeling it like a wadded-up thing on the bottom of my stomach. “Jay? Did you hear me?”
What I know now, I can never tell you back. Here are my hands, immersed in water they remember. Here are the stirrings of the elements. I can look in here, in the clearness, and see every atom, every spark. If I could pull this all in, carry it back with me to the other life, if I could sit out on the porch steps with you and start to talk the real language, we would only end up weeping, holding each other against the terrible beauty that is always our lives. We cannot say so much. We cannot even pretend to see it. We must live as though we don’t know. We must keep the secret. This is the real curse that came from the Garden
.
“Jay?” I say. Behind me, I hear someone approaching and I turn around to see Gloria.
“He can’t hear you,” she says, a wise sorrow in her voice. “He’s in a coma. You know.”
I look down at my purse, wonder how much she heard of what I said to him. Then I say, “Well, actually, people in comas can hear, Gloria. I’m surprised you don’t know that.”
“Oh, that’s what they say, I know that. But I never saw no evidence myself. I never saw people waking up, saying
‘Remember when you said this to me, remember when you said that to me?’ Uh-uh.”
Here would be the obvious place for me to say, “So … you do see people wake up, then? Here?” But I say nothing, watch as she squeezes the bag with Jay’s feeding. It’s almost gone, and she clamps the line, starts to remove the tubing.
“There’s more in there,” I say.
“I beg your pardon?” She is fumbling with his shirt, frowning all over again.
“I said there is more in there. In the bag. Of his feeding.”
“There ain’t but thirty cc’s or so.”
“I would like him to have it, though.”
She turns to me, and I can see her deciding if it’s worth arguing. Then, “Fine,” she says. “But I’ll be busy now, and this thing will run out, and I won’t be here to flush the tubing. And then the feeding tube’ll get all stuffed up. That stuff turn to cement, you leave it there too long.”
“Well, I’ll do it,” I say. “I’ll flush it.”
“You know how?”
A hand of fear, clutching the back of my neck. “Just … I’ve seen it. You just use that big syringe, put some water in, right?”
“That’s it.”
“I’ll do it.”
She nods, leaves the room.
I don’t know why I said that. I can’t do that. What if I hurt something? That tube goes right into his stomach, which is
some pink-colored, pouch-shaped thing, from what I recall from sixth-grade health. I think it’s wrinkled on the inside, little ridges on the lining, or is that some other organ? I don’t know. But I should know what the stomach looks like before I put things in it! I can’t do this. I could put too much water in and hurt something, rupture it, whatever they say. I’ll have to go get Gloria or someone else when the thing is empty. And now I’ll have to watch the bag until everything is gone, which suddenly seems so hard. Sometimes I just talk too much.
When the bag looks like it’s empty, I go out into the hall. I’ll find Gloria, apologize, bring donuts in to her tomorrow, I happen to know she favors lemon-filled, powdered sugar on top.
I don’t see any nurses in the hall, and so I start looking in rooms. Behind the third door is Flozell. He is sitting in bed with his chest bare, washing exuberantly under his arm from a blue plastic basin. I notice the fatherly smell of Old Spice. “Well, looky here,” he says. “There’s my new girlfriend. How you doing, Peaches? You want to come on in here and help me?”
I close his door, and then I see Gloria coming down the hall. “It’s empty,” I say. “And—”
“I know, I know,” she says, waving her arm, and walking quickly past me. “I’ll do it.” And then she mumbles some more things that I can’t hear. But can certainly guess at.
She reaches the room before me and I hear her say, “Who put the damn
sneakers
on him?”
“I did,” I say, coming into the room. I lean against the wall, watching her. “I’ll take them off.”
“Leave them on,” she says. “They’ll help prevent foot drop. That I
have
heard of.”
T
he kids are gone to a movie when I get home. Doubleheader matinee. Alice again. How will I ever, ever repay her? I step out of my shoes, leave them in the hallway, which I would yell at the kids for doing. There’s a stack of letters from yesterday on the floor below the mail slot, which I now pick up and sort through. Bills. A car magazine for Jay, which makes my throat ache. A letter from my mother, which I open and read on the spot. She will have enclosed a check, which I can use. Yes. One hundred dollars. And on pretty floral stationery the usual stuff about what she’ll put in her garden this year; how she has fallen behind in her housework, she’s not as young as she used to be, don’t we know
that
, ha ha. And then, “You know that Dad and I are praying every day for Jay, and for you, too. We know everything will be just fine. Remember, if you want us to come, we will.”
I reread the letter, then throw it away. We live skimming, eating the small bugs off the surface. I will cover my children tonight. I will decide on the food they will eat. I will
fold their small socks and put them back in their drawers. “I love you,” I will say, and press their growing shapes into me. “I love you,” I will say, and run my brainy finger down the oblique line of their shoulder blades, their old angel wings. This is as far as we are allowed to go. Inside, love roars louder than we can hear. Outside, we write letters that don’t begin to say what we intend, and fold our children’s socks.
I don’t want my parents to come. I don’t want Jay’s parents to come anymore either. What can they do? Distract me from my sorrow when what I really need is to occasionally immerse myself in it? It’s like a big hand pushing at me all the time. And sometimes I just need to give in to it, sit in the bathtub and cry hard. I don’t do it when the kids are around. With them, I act as though everything is fine. Different. But fine. I’m glad they’re not here now.
I go upstairs, turn on the tap, lay out a towel. I think the kids have some bubble bath in the linen closet, I’ll use that, even though the scent is grape gum. When the tub has begun its slow fill—the water pressure in the bathroom is ridiculous, we never did find out why, or fix it—I go into the basement, sort some laundry. After my bath, I’ll put a load of underwear in, make sure the girls are set with clothes for school on Monday. I upend the basket of dirty clothes, start pulling out what I want to wash.
“Can’t get ahead for being behind,” I hear. “Isn’t it the truth?”
I drop what’s in my hand, turn around. No one. Then, when I start sorting again, I see the ghost woman standing by the wringer, doing her own laundry. She is wearing a blue-and-white print dress, a floral apron over it. “You don’t have to worry about those stains on your husband’s shirt,” she says. “You just soak them in a little white vinegar and water first, the stain will come out fine.”
“My God, I am exhausted,” I say, to her, to my own unraveling self.
“Take a nap,” she says, straightening suddenly, as though she has a kink in her back. “Twenty minutes, do you a world of good. I used to do that when the kids were little, take a nap right with them. It was awfully nice to pull down the shades in the middle of the day, slip off my shoes and lie on top of the spread. I’d wake up before the kids, go down into the kitchen and do a little for dinner, maybe peel the potatoes, or try a new dessert. I’d have the radio on low, I liked to listen to the afternoon shows. It always refreshed me so, to take a nap. Then when the kids got up, why, I was happy to see them again.” She hikes her basket up on her hip, juts her chin at me. “Go ahead, take your bath and lie down.”
I see her so clearly, her left arm across her waist, helping to hold the basket. The tiny diamond on her wedding ring has turned to the side; the ring has gotten too big. I swear I can see her beating heart in her throat. And I know about her. She uses dark-blue ink in her fountain pen, signs her letters, “As always.” She takes her slippers off at her side of the
bed at night, leaves them lined up and ready for when the morning sun pushes into her bedroom. She drinks from jelly glasses washed in the metal dishpan, rinsed in water that reddens her hands, then dried with a dishcloth embroidered with pastel daisies. She feeds her children lunch at a table covered with decorated oilcloth: sandwiches cut on the diagonal, milk; and on Friday, a Baby Ruth for dessert. She uses cold cream from the five-and-dime that comes in a white jar with a pink top. She prays on her knees at night, her head bowed, her faith steadfast and unquestioned. She has never looked at herself naked. Her back bothers her frequently, but she doesn’t mention it.
I mean, I could just go on and on. It’s like idly looking down into a well you thought was dry and seeing the black face of water so obviously deep you feel fear in the pit of your stomach like a fist.
It is worrisome, what is happening to me. As though there weren’t enough going on. I’m just tired. I’m just too tired. I do need a nap. My subconscious has had to grow big, has had to play tricks to get me to pay attention to my most basic needs. I turn out the basement light, then turn it back on, head upstairs on legs that feel like they have the flu.
I sleep awhile, a good half hour, and then wake up with a fuzzy-brain feeling. I go to the bathroom and splash my face with cold water, then go across the hall to Sarah’s room, sit on her bed, think about what we should do for
dinner tonight. We always used to order out Chinese on Sunday night—shrimp with lobster sauce, he got that every time—then eat in front of a rented movie. I haven’t done it since the accident. I wanted to wait for him to be back. But maybe we should just start doing things again, without him.
I lean back on my elbows, feel a lump on the bed, turn and reach under the covers to take it out. It could be anything: a shoe, her lunchbox, a book she is reading. It is a book, her diary, a white leather thing, gold trim, unlocked. I know I shouldn’t, but I open it and read the last entry.
I think my Dad is dead. I told Lindsey, but that’s all
.
Oh, Sarah, I think. Do you really believe I wouldn’t tell you? But the truth is, I keep so much from her. Surely she knows that; kids are all the time being smart in ways you wish they wouldn’t be. Just learn your math, we think; never mind the secret places in your parents’ hearts. But they know when you’re hiding something. Why should she not think I’m hiding the fact that he’s dead? Why should she believe he’s alive when he lies unresponsive to her every word, when he no longer rolls up his sleeves to help her make Lego cities, when he no longer checks her homework and tells her she’s a genius, or lies on her bedroom floor with his hands behind his head, his ankles crossed, listening to all she wants to say before she goes to sleep?
I put the diary back under her covers. Then I go into my bedroom, stare at his side of the bed. There’s a wrinkle
there. I go over to straighten it out, but I don’t just give a little tug. I pull a bunch of fabric into my fists, and then I start shaking it. “You’re so stupid,” I say. “Walking under ice. What’s the matter with you?” I pull the spread off the bed, throw it onto the floor. Then I pull off the sheets and I hear myself making the growling noises I used to make when I played monster with the kids. “Stupid!” I say. “You never think of anyone but yourself!” I stomp all over the sheets, try to rip them, fail, try again, succeed. I tear both sheets into long shreds. Then I walk over to the dresser and upend his top drawer, watch the rain of boxers and T-shirts and folded socks. “Now what do I do?” I ask them. “Huh? Now what do I do? You tell me! You tell me!” And then, of course, I start sobbing. I sit down on the floor, hold one of his T-shirts against me and ask him to forgive me. I say I am just so scared.
I cry until my stomach aches, until my throat is sore. And then I get up and put Jay’s things away, put fresh sheets on the bed, carry the torn ones out to the trash.
Tonight I will try once again to teach Sarah how to use chopsticks. And then I will start being honest. “Sarah,” I will say, looking her right in the eye, my insides true and calm as a ticking clock. “Daddy is in a coma, and I still hope he will wake up. I still believe he will wake up. I know you said you don’t want to see him anymore, but I think we should all go together next time.” And then I will take her to see him, which frightens her, I know, Amy too; but I will
take them to see him and I will say, “Talk. He can hear you. That I know. I really do know that.”
And if I need to cry, I will cry. “I’m just feeling sad right now,” I’ll say. “I just need to cry to feel better. Maybe you need to, too. It’s all right.” What would be wrong with that? What would be wrong with the three of us sitting on the sofa in the living room, crying together? The three of us asking together in silence for something we want too much to say out loud. There is nothing wrong with that. It’s probably only real prayer.
I want to get up. This long, bright field of things waving, you are all on the other side. The field is so bright, yellow sun, and then a rush of birds rising up, their calls, their calls to me, three birds. They rush toward my face and then they are gone, black dots high up in the sky, shimmering pepper
.
I
work at a beverage distribution center. Beverage World, it’s called. I can walk to it. There’s a globe on a pole outside the small brick building. It used to spin on its metal axis. Now it stays still, rusting a little more each day. There’s a big office with two desks in the front; a smaller room in the back where the boss, Frank, sits. He’s one of the most elegant-looking men I ever saw: tall and slender; neat mustache;
thick, gorgeous gray hair; looks like he ought to rule a country or at least conduct symphonies. He loves sailing, has little toy boats all over his office, and one of those wave-in-glass things that offer an approximation of the continuous comfort of the ocean. He has a terrible stutter. You just don’t know what to do, sometimes, when he gets going. You just stand there, thinking really hard
it’s all right, you just take your time, I’m not mad, don’t worry
but of course he does worry, he feels really badly that he just can’t spit it out. He’s a nice man, he lets me come and go, work around the kids’ schedules, leave early if I need to, come in on Saturday if I want to. The woman I work with in the front, Dolly, is in love with him. She’s full-time, she’s worked with Frank for twenty-three years, and I don’t think he knows how she feels. He’s married, happily; Dolly’s shy and careful. She wears, with no sense of irony, pearl-decorated glasses chains and cardigan sweaters buttoned at the top. She’s so happy when Frank’s on the phone and can’t get his own coffee. She carries it in to him as though it’s her heart on a silver platter, which of course it is.