Paul’s younger son burbled in the car all the way home. “It was great, Dad. I was better at the video games than everybody except Harold, you know the one who’s on my basketball team? He’s three years older than me, so I didn’t feel too bad losing to him. He took a header in his wheelchair.”
“That’s terrible,” Paul said.
“No, Dad, it was funny. He’s such a jerk and a show-off. He was trying to do a wheelie. Two of the adults saw what he was trying to do and tried to stop him but they were too late.”
“They should have been supervising more closely.”
“We’re not helpless, Dad. I told you about the wheelchair races we have. It’s cool.”
Paul made appropriate parental warning noises about Jeff racing in his wheelchair. Jeff had been bugging Paul to let him join some of the outdoor races in the summer where wheelchairs were allowed. Paul suspected he was going to say yes, eventually. He knew once he said yes, Jeff would probably begin lobbying for a modified, racing wheelchair. Turner asked more about the sleep-over, and Jeff talked excitedly on.
Jeff had the birth defect spina bifida. That meant that at birth his spinal cord and nerves protruded in a sac from his back, near the bottom of his spine. He was born with bladder and bowel dysfunction and paralysis of his legs. Except for a brief scare a year before, when his shunt had to be unclogged,
there had been no major health problems in recent years.
Paul drove up to Mrs. Talucci’s house. He had called her before he left the bar. Rose Talucci lived next door to the Turners. She had the ground floor of the house to herself. On the second floor lived Mrs. Talucci’s two daughters and several distant female cousins. At ninety-two, Mrs. Talucci ruled this brood, her main concern being to keep them out of her way and to stay independent. Numerous times she’d confided in Paul that if they weren’t family, she’d throw them all out. She did her own cooking, cleaning, and shopping, as she had for seventy-four years. To her daughters’ horror, she took the bus, El, or subway on her own throughout the city and even to suburbs to visit friends, relatives, attend shopping-center openings or anything else that struck her fancy. Paul loved Rose. She cared for Jeff after school whenever Paul or Brian couldn’t be home, and often wound up giving the boys and their dad dinner. This was prearranged on a weekly basis. For several years after it started, she refused all offers of payment. Being neighbors and having known Paul and his family since before he was born, precluded even discussing such things. But one day Mrs. Talucci couldn’t fix a broken porch. Paul had offered, and since then he’d done all repairs and had even made several major renovations on her home.
A few weeks ago, she’d been diagnosed with cancer. She had refused treatments, which the doctor said would almost certainly be painful and debilitating, and, at her age, wouldn’t prolong her life much anyway. She insisted that the quality of her remaining time was what was important, not prolonging her ninety-two years. The only significant change she’d permitted in her lifestyle was that she didn’t organize the Christmas dinner for her family. She announced at Thanksgiving she was going to Bermuda for the holiday. She’d taken a week-long cruise that included a three-day stay on the island. She’d returned two days ago with a magnificent tan. She claimed she pinched the butt of her steward just for the hell of it.
Mrs. Talucci answered the door and hurried them inside.
She offered to give Paul dinner, but he told her he had to get back to work.
“I heard Judge Meade died,” she said.
“Buck and I have the case.”
“Almost wish I’d read more law when I went back to school. Never saw much point in it. Didn’t want to argue with a bunch of morons. I did read a few of his decisions.”
“You did?”
“He was against everything I was for. I try to keep up. I found the reasoning in what he wrote good, if you accepted his basic premises.”
“I heard he was stupid.”
“Could have been. It usually says who writes the decisions. Maybe his clerks wrote them for him or something. Seemed about average-bright to me.”
After her husband had died over twenty years ago, Rose had started back to school. She graduated magna cum laude from three different universities, accumulating one bachelor’s and two master’s degrees. She was proudest of her degree in philosophy from the University of Chicago.
Paul stopped at his own house to call Ben, who had already planned to stay the night at Paul’s. Ben offered to pick up Jeff later from Mrs. Talucci’s. Paul appreciated the offer.