The Virtues of Oxygen (10 page)

Just then Racine came in the front door, with Marshall and Connor behind him. Racine had a smile on his face, but both boys looked hot
and tired.

“Hi, Holly,” Racine said, surprising her with a kiss on the cheek. “You’ve got some hardworking boys here. I had them all o
ver town.”

The kiss threw Holly so much that she stood there without introducing Marveen, who stepped forward with her
hand out.

“Hi there, Racine. I’m Holly’s friend Marveen. Marveen Langdon. I just wanted to tell you that I’m interested in investing in your next shop. Very in
terested.”

Marveen said all this with the sort of smile on her face that would have made a less confident m
an blush.

“Nice to meet you, Marveen,” he said, shaking her hand. “I’ll definitely keep that in mind. Right now I’m focused on getting this place up and running. The traffic’s a little slow, but I think the flyers shou
ld help.”

Holly left Marveen talking to Racine and approached the boys, who had gathered up their backpacks and stood in a corner waiting for someone to transport them s
omewhere.

“You look exhausted,” she said, brushing the hair off Connor’s damp forehead. “Did he have you climbing telephone poles or s
omething?”

Marshall gave her his impatient face and pulled on the strap of his backpack. “Can we just go?” he said. “I have band practice later, and I need to learn
a part.”

“Sure. Let me just tell
Marveen.”

Once she made sure Marveen didn’t mind walking back to the office by herself, Holly ushered the boys out
the door.

“I’m wiped,” Marshall said as they headed down the street. “He had us go into every store at the outlets and try to talk them into putting up
a flyer.”

“He was nice, though. And he did buy us Cokes,” Con
nor said.

“Yeah, two Cokes,” Marshall said. “Big spender. I was hoping he’d give us a few bucks so I could go to the movies
tonight.”

Holly was disappointed that Racine had viewed her boys as free labor. She tried to remember whether she had anything in her wallet besides coupons and spar
e change.

“We could rent a movie,” she said, needing to offer something. “You could invite your frie
nds over.”

“It’s okay, Mom,” Marshall said. “I’m tire
d anyway.”

Just as they were about to turn the corner, Racine came running up from beh
ind them.

“Boys, I forgot to pay you,” he said, breathing loudly. He handed each one a twenty-dollar bill. “Thanks again for your he
lp today.”

“Anytime,” Marshall said, glancing at Holly as if to acknowledge that Racine had redeemed
himself.

“Thanks!” Connor said, folding his bill and tucking it into his ba
ck pocket.

As they walked away, Holly turned her head and caught Racine turning his head to watch them as well. She smiled and she waved and she
wondered.

The next weekend, Holly told the boys they were driving to Connecticut to see Celia. Marshall didn’t want to go, but Holly convinced him that his grandmother had been missing out by not hearing him play the trumpet for at lea
st a year.

“You want me to bring my
trumpet?”

“Of course,” she said. “Old people love brass ins
truments.”

Marshall was the best trumpet player in his high school, and he loved his instrument as much—or even more—than his cousin Phoebe loved her trombone. She knew he couldn’t pass up a chance to
show off.

About halfway to the rehab hospital, Connor leaned toward the front seat. “Where are we goi
ng again?”

Connor followed Marshall so blindly that Holly worried he might find himself standing in Marshall’s first college dorm room—if she could find a way to send him to college—under the impression that he would be living there, too. Holly’s theory was that Connor forced his feet into Marshall’s footprints because his father wasn’t there to help him set his own course. Connor rode Marshall’s old bike and took the same courses he did. He wore his hair the same way—too long—and used the same speech patterns. The exception was the trumpet, which Connor dropped after a year of agonizing lessons. Now he played the clarine
t instead.

Holly wondered what Chris would say if he could see them now. She imagined him coming home one day—as if he had been on a long vacation—and noticing the torn wallpaper and the chipped paint, then seeing his boys, practically grown, looking so much like him. Would he fault Holly for their circumstances, or would he understand that she had tried to do her best? Would he worry that his boys didn’t have a strong male role model, or would he see as clearly as she did that they were turning out nice
ly anyway?

Holly filled up the Subaru using a new gas credit card that was approved despite the growing weight of her unpaid debt. The less responsible she was about paying off her credit cards, the more the offers flooded her mailbox: sample drugs for junkies. But sometimes she just didn’t question it. When the pump accepted the card, she felt the fear clutching her chest loosen just enough to smile at the boys as they entered the highway on a spectacularly fine day, all azure sky and verdant hills and a smooth ride with the gas
tank full.

The wind from the malfunctioning window in the backseat kept them from talking much. A rip in the upholstery left a little cave in the back of the front passenger seat, providing Connor with a place to store the plastic bag of randomly assorted crackers he had found in the bread box. Marshall sat in the front, noodling around on his trumpet, until Holly told him that it sounded too much like a car horn. Along the way they ate the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches Holly had packed and drank apple juice from some miniature boxes she had found in the back of t
he pantry.

The rehab hospital was in a semirural Connecticut town, and Holly had to drive down a long, steep hill before the closest inte
rsection.

“You shouldn’t ride the brakes,” Marshall said as they started down the hill. Holly hadn’t come up with the money for driver’s ed, but ever since Marshall’s friends had started driving he’d been correcting her with all the information he picked up from them. “You need to d
ownshift.”

“It’s an automatic,
Marshall.”

“But you’ll put less wear on the brakes if you put it into the lo
wer gear.”

Holly kept heading down the hill, thinking about how much Chris would have loved teaching Marshall
to drive.

“What are you going to play for Grandma and her
friends?”

“You should be in the lower g
ear, Mom.”

“I’ve been driving a lot longer than
you have.”

“But sometimes I know stuff you do
n’t know.”

Holly knew this to be true, but she wasn’t in the mood to let Marshall tell her wh
at to do.

“How about a John Philip Sousa march? They’d
love it.”

“I was thinking Cole Porter or maybe
Gershwin.”

It sometimes surprised Holly that Marshall had knowledge in his head that she herself hadn’t provided. At such times she would look at him and see a young man she wasn’t sure she knew very well. She could only imagine the stew of images, needs, desires, and impulses simmering in his teena
ge brain.

“One of Grandma’s favorites is a Cole Porter song. ‘You’re
the Top.’”

Marshall picked up his trumpet and began playing “You’re the Top” in a plaintive, jazzy variation that made Holly wonder how he spent his afternoons when she wa
s at work.

As they negotiated the last segment of the hill, they could see the more active rehab residents gathered on the porch, all lined up and staring toward the intersection as though they were watching a TV show. The green light turned to yellow before Holly passed through the intersection, but she couldn’t stop in time, so she kept going, narrowly missing a car that had been waiting to turn left as the light turned red. Marshall had been right. She should have dow
nshifted.

Holly parked, and they walked toward the main building. As they navigated the maze of wheelchairs on the front porch, Marshall kept his face in a frozen smile, while Connor stared at an old woman who was gumming her own hand. Holly poked Connor in
the side.

Marshall and Connor knew that their grandmother, whom they loved, would never be the same after her stroke. Holly didn’t want them to be left with a sunken, medicated version that replaced the old Grandma—the one who had pushed them on swings and taken them swimming in cold lake water she called “bracing”—but she felt they were old enough to face her decline. Vivian, Holly thought, would have had a lot to say about medical advances that kept people alive when they might not want to be, given a choice. Holly entered first and straightened out her mother’s bedclothes as Marshall and Connor filed in and stood heavily to one side, looking down at their large and ungainly feet. Marshall held his trumpet with one hand, and Holly thought it might slip out of his grasp. He loo
ked upset.

“Say hi to Grandma,” she prompted, and both boys came shuffling over to give Celia a loose and tent
ative hug.

The most significant change in Celia’s appearance was the downturn of her mouth on the left side. It gave her face a half-sad, half-confused look, as if the two sides were battling each other for the dominan
t emotion.

“Pffbbt,” Celia said, which Holly sensed was some sort of attempt to acknowledge their
presence.

Marshall lifted his gaze, and Holly could tell he was trying to access an inner adult to meet the changes in his grandmother with
maturity.

“Hi, Grandma,” he said. “I thought I’d play you some Col
e Porter.”

Marshall lifted the trumpet to his mouth and blew a few practice notes. Within seconds a nurse came running in
the door.

“It’s naptime for a lot of folks,” she said. “Do you mind taking that into the activ
ity room?”

Marshall reddened and lowered his
trumpet.

Holly turned to the nurse. “Can we move my mother to a place where Marshall
can play?”

The nurse agreed—though Holly thought she was somewhat less than enthusiastic—to put Celia in a wheelchair and bring her to the activity room, which was a large open space filled with tables and chairs, some of them occupied by elderly card players. In one corner a group of women sat in straight-backed chairs and did arm exercises, though their dappled, loose-skinned limbs didn’t look strong enough to pick up a bag of groceries. They were led by a middle-aged woman in vintage Jane Fonda attire. Holly could hear her over the recording of Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” shouting, “Stretch . . . and reach . . . punch left . . . then right . . . and left . . . and right . . . and left . . . a
nd right.”

“You can play when the class is over,” the nurse said. “They should be finished in a few
minutes.”

Marshall put his trumpet to his lips and pressed the keys rapidly, though he didn’t make a sound. He looke
d nervous.

When the class ended, everyone in the room turned toward Marshall, whose face was now the color of a bing cherry. He’d performed solos before, but always with the backing of a band that could cover for him if he made
a mistake.

Marshall put his horn to his lips and let out a few blahts and bleats to warm up. He was the rare child who connected with an instrument the way some people connect with animals. He spoke its language; he saw it as an extension of himself and practiced without nagging. Holly knew he loved the trumpet, but even she didn’t realize how much until he played for his gr
andmother.

A few crumpled crones in the back were whispering to each other when Marshall hit those long notes in a minor key that signal the beginning of “Summertime.” The crones stopped talking and looked up just as Marshall began channeling a grizzled old blues man from Mississippi. He played with authority, filtering the piece through some inner sadness that caught Holly by surprise. He stretched out the low notes creatively and shortened the high notes, giving them unexpected punch. Celia closed her eyes, and the nurse, who was standing behind her, started to hum, not loudly enough to draw everyone’s attention, but softly and deeply—driven by some inner vibration. Holly inflated with the pride that every mother feels when her child does something extraordinary. She told herself she wouldn’t nag Marshall for a week about his
long hair.

When the last solemn notes fell on the crowd, a full second of silence elapsed before the applause. All the spectators smiled, turning and congratulating each other on their mutual good fortune to be awake for such a performance, when Marshall, charged up by the applause, launched into “You’re the Top.” They all looked toward him again, nodding their feeble heads on necks so reed thin they looked as if they might snap. The music seemed to energize them for a moment, infusing their sallow, sagging skin with pinkish tones. Holly looked around and saw glimmers of memory on each dried-potato face. And then it ended, with the last loud notes of “But if, baby, I’m the bottom, You’re
the top.”