By way of preparation I’d filled a large thermos full of freshly ground Viennese cinnamon from the coffee place on the corner and cleaned up a travel mug for Jackie, which she accepted gracefully. She had her rebellious hair throttled into a ponytail and wore a spiffy light oxford-cloth shirt and khaki shorts outfit that made her look like a recent graduate of an exclusive women’s boarding school. Or a recently expelled undergraduate lobbying for readmission, a far more likely scenario.
She’d done the best she could with her eye patch and contusions. For her, the trip would end with me dropping her off at NYU Medical Center where they were supposed to put her face all the way back to the one she had before joining me for lunch on the Windsong deck. I coaxed her into letting me drive her in by describing some stops we could make along the way, and promising not to give her a pep talk or act in any way that could be construed as sensitive or nurturing.
“Stick to your strengths,” she’d said to me. “Make the coffee, drive your lunatic car, offend people we meet along the way.”
Inspired by her wardrobe, I picked out a pair of khakis and a blue shirt of my own.
“Team uniforms.”
It was early in the morning. The sky was overcast, but bright enough to drench the scrub oak and maple of North
Sea in rich shadowless light. We drove south out to Montauk Highway where it turned into Route 27, the four-lane highway that formed a bridge to the west over which City people and tradesmen crossed the pine barrens. But only stayed there long enough to pick up Route 24 north to Riverhead, where I thought I could easily find the Sisters of Mercy home where my mother had lived out the last few years of her life, and where Gabe Szwit and Appolonia had told me Mrs. Eldridge was living out hers.
Jackie and I had debated the wisdom of getting Butch’s or even Gabe’s okay to see her, then decided it would be easier to explain later than get permission. Jackie gamely asserted some legal theory on why we didn’t need to ask, which was good enough for me. I was more preoccupied anyway with the prospect of revisiting a place I thought I’d never have to see again. Voluntarily.
It wasn’t the Sisters’ fault. They ran as good a home as you could. It was the sight and sound of all that human wreckage, sick and exhausted souls waiting it out, or simply bewildered to find themselves wherever they thought they were. My mother never knew, or if she did, she was determined not to share that knowledge with me.
By the time we hit the incongruous four-lane road that passed the crotch of the Great Peconic Bay, the sun had burned off the morning haze and was now busy burning up the grasslands and vineyards of the North Fork. We followed it up to Sound Avenue, then went west until we came to a complex of three-story brick buildings with white trim, and discreet notices of the home’s ecclesiastical affiliations.
I crossed myself and found a place to park.
The reception desk sat in the middle of a small foyer. An overweight white guy in a white shirt and tie with a photo ID badge clipped to his breast pocket was on duty. On the desk
were a large sign-in book, a phone, a walkie-talkie and a paper plate littered with the consequences of a partially eaten corn muffin.
Jackie had done most of the prep work, so I let her take the lead.
“Hi. We’re here to see Aunt Lillian,” she told the guard, her face filled with an ingratiating smile. “Lillian Eldridge. I called ahead, they said this was a good time.”
The guard nodded.
“Oh, yeah, they’re all done with the morning routine by now. Folks’re either in their rooms or out on the patio or in the open areas with the TVs. Eldridge, is it?”
“I’m her niece Lillian. They named me after her. This is my husband, Dashiell.”
I smiled, too, and tried to look like the victim of a winter-summer romance. The guard called somebody on his walkie-talkie to check out our story, ignoring the phone on his desk. I would, too, I guess. More fun to say things like, “copy that.”
He signed off and said, “Okay I just need some identification.”
Jackie looked at me.
“You probably left your wallet in the car again, but here’s mine,” she said to the guard, dropping an official-looking photo ID in front of him. He squinted to read the fine print.
“Institute of Blepharoplasty? You got your driver’s license?”
She looked embarrassed.
“Sorry It’s all I brought. Dash likes to do all the driving,” she said, mooning at me and slipping her arm through mine to demonstrate how safe she felt with me behind the wheel.
“I always tell you to bring your purse,” I grumbled. “But what do I know.”
“At this point, not a heck of a lot,” she said, sprightly.
“That’s okay,” said the guard, seeing a way to take the side of a pretty young wife against her grouchy old husband. “This is okay. What’s blepharoplasty?”
“Eyelid surgery,” she said, signing the book. “I’ve been practicing on myself all week.”
The guard gave us each passes to clip to our shirts and a map of the facilities with Lillian’s room x-ed in. We walked the distance without challenge, passing rooms with open doors with white-haired wraiths in and out of the beds, and common rooms, the TVs blasting out advice from talk show hosts, the volume set to the viewers’ average hearing capacity.
“Wasn’t that some kind of felony you just committed back there?” I asked her.
“I don’t think you can be charged with pretending to be a member of a society that doesn’t actually exist. Or giving a false ID to a private security guard. I looked it up last night, sort of.”
“Whatever you say, Lil.”
The guard’s map brought us to a nurses’ station behind a high counter that protruded into the corridor. Two women were sitting in swivel desk chairs and deep in conversation. We waited for an opening.
“We’re here to see Lillian Eldridge,” said Jackie, waving her visitors tag.
“Isn’t that nice,” said the bigger of the two as she stood up. Bigger by a hundred pounds, carried unsteadily on legs shaped like inverted cones. Her face was round as a full moon and slick, with a yellowy, almost jaundiced tint, though warmed considerably by her happy smile. She established her balance with some effort, then offered her hand.
“What a nice surprise,” she said. “She’ll be thrilled.”
“She will?” I asked, surprised myself.
“Well, it’s been like forever. Nobody from the family ever seems to come, I’m sorry. And you’re her niece?” she asked Jackie.
“We’re from California. First chance we’ve had,” said Jackie, looking a little guilty on behalf of her impersonation.
“So you haven’t seen Butch or Jonathan?” I asked.
She thought about it.
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t recall the names.”
“So how is she?” asked Jackie.
“Remarkably well, if you ask me,” she said, forthrightly “Very stable. Been that way for quite some time.”
“So how would you describe her mental state,” said Jackie. “I just want to know what to expect.”
The nurse, Maryanne by her name tag, pondered the question.
“Well, she’s not agitated, if that’s what you mean. Might seem to you perfectly normal. Medication is a miracle, especially for people as profoundly dissociative as Lillian,” she said.
“Dissociative? I’m so sorry, I don’t know what that means,” said Jackie.
“Too much time in California,” I said. “Dissociation central.”
“Doesn’t know if she’s here or not,” said Maryanne. “Can’t quite seem to get herself fixed in the world. We all drift off a little. Lillian is never able to get all the way back.”
Jackie and her assumed identity thought about that.
“Will she know who I am?” she asked Maryanne. “It’s been a few years. Will she remember?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure. She has a difficult time remembering who she is herself, so it’s doubly hard to remember anyone else.”
Jackie jerked her thumb at me. “By the way, she never met Dash,” she said, and then, as if to celebrate Maryanne’s professional tact, pointed to her face, adding, “It was an accident.
I’m here to have some work done at NYU. Thought, while I’m in the neighborhood …”
“You’re a doll,” said Maryanne. “Mrs. Eldridge is lucky to have you.”
“We all are,” I said, giving her waist a husbandly squeeze.
Jackie returned a glowing but not entirely sincere smile. She built on her rapport with Maryanne as we moved down the hall toward the patio where Lillian was reportedly taking in the late morning sun.
“I think they’ve done a wonderful job keeping Lillian stabilized,” I heard Maryanne tell Jackie. “I just wonder,” she added, turning down the volume of her voice so I could barely hear.
“What do you mean?”
She hesitated, maybe for dramatic effect.
“I mean, Mrs. Eldridge is seventy-eight years old. At this point, how can you tell mental pathology from simple aging? I wonder if something different should be done. But it’s not up to me. It’s really the family.”
“We’ll be talking to Arthur,” said Jackie.
“See him tonight. Just got in from LA,” I added, trying to get in on the act.
As Maryanne escorted us to Lillian’s room, I wondered if Jackie had worked up a plan for the unlikely event we’d get this far. Based on a sidelong glance, I guessed she hadn’t.
I knew it was Lillian Eldridge before we were halfway across the patio, the resemblance to Butch was so strong. Slender, but a little paunchy, long narrow face and weak jaw, curly dyed-brown hair recklessly shaped by hairpins into the type of hairdo makeup people on movie sets conceived to represent the mentally ill. Everything but the harelip and manic eyes. Instead her eyes were a bland milky gray, distant and tired. Dissociated.
She wore matching pale lavender sweatpants and sweatshirt and clean white Nikes, cleaving to the fashion standards at the Sisters of Mercy home.
Maryanne strode up to her and put her arm over the old lady’s shoulders.
“Hey Lillian,” she said, looking back at Jackie as she approached. “Do you remember Lillian?”
Mrs. Eldridge looked up at Maryanne, annoyed.
“Why of course I remember Lillian. What kind of a question is that?”
Maryanne was obviously pleased.
“Well, she’s here to see you. Isn’t that nice?”
Lillian was still frowning as we walked up to her. Jackie leaned down and kissed her check.
“Hi, Aunt Lillian. It’s Lillian.”
“Of course it is,” said the old woman. “Lillian’s right here. Ridiculous.”
“Lillian and her husband are going to visit for a while, okay?” asked Maryanne, the way parents do with their children.
Lillian looked at me as if to say, “What the hell is that woman talking about?”
Maryanne plowed ahead.
“I’ll be back in a little while,” she said, still in the same sing-song voice. “You have a nice visit.”
Lillian had her eyes on us intently until we pulled up a pair of chairs, at which point her gaze shifted to the rhododendron bush beside her park bench. She was shaking her head.
“Sorry to bother you,” said Jackie. “I really am.”
She looked up at us, surprised.
“You’re not bothering me. It’s that idiot nurse who thinks I don’t remember myself. What is wrong with these people?”
she asked, more as a genuine question than an accusation. She looked more closely at Jackie. “Do I know you?”
“No,” said Jackie, moving her chair a little closer and resting her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “We pretended to be your family so we could talk to you. I hope that’s okay.”
Lillian’s attention had drifted off again by then, but Jackie moved closer to the bench to stay in her line of sight.
“Okay?” Jackie repeated.
“I’ve got nothing else to do,” said Lillian, then laughed a self-conscious little laugh. “I’ve got nothing to do all day. Not bad work if you can get it.”
“Can I call you Lillian?” asked Jackie.
“I don’t think she’ll mind.”
“Who?”
“Lillian. You’re sitting on her, you should know.”
Jackie, who was now sitting on the park bench stroking the old lady’s shoulder, involuntarily sat up part of the way.
“I am?”
“It’s okay. I just keep her over there. Sometimes I keep her in the room. She’s not a lot of bother.” She leaned closer to Jackie. “Not terribly bright,” she said, confidentially.
“You seem awfully bright.”
“I do? Really. Interesting. Who’s Prince Charming?” she asked, looking at me.
“A. friend of mine.”
“Doesn’t say much.”
“He would if he could think of something to say. Not terribly bright.”
Lillian seemed satisfied with that.
“Not much to look at, either,” she said.
“So,” said Jackie. “How’re you doing? Everything okay? Food okay?”
Lillian picked at her sweatpants as she thought about the question.
“I don’t know. I think it’s okay. I think so.”
“You getting visitors? Arthur, Jonathan?”
“Jonathan’s with his father,” she said quickly, her attention drawn again to the fat white rhododendron petals. Jackie rubbed her arm some more, pulling her back.
“He’s there now?”
“He’s always with his father.” She held her hands up defensively, and shook her head. “I don’t argue, it’s up to them.”
“And where’s Arthur?”
“I don’t know. With his wife. He’s married. You could tell him to come see me more often. I don’t like to prod, but I’m not going to be around forever.”
A nun in a pure white outfit rolled a cart out of the building and across the patio’s brick pavers. The noise and the sight of a tall chrome coffee percolator killed my interest in the conversation. I almost broke an ankle getting out of my chair to queue up with the visitors and residents nimble and caffeine-addicted enough to make the effort. Jackie and Lillian continued their conversation while I was gone.
When I got back Lillian was saying, “I wish there were more trees. I can hardly see any from my room. I like to lie in bed in the morning and look at trees, but that’s not possible if there are none.”
“You had a lot of trees in Shirley?” Jackie asked.
“Arthur’s father loved trees. Wept when he had to cut one down.”
“Jonathan, too?”
“I don’t know,” she looked disturbed by the thought. “I suppose he would, being with his father.”