26

I’ve worked in a nursing home. I once thought about getting my certification as a nurse’s aide, but I never got around to it. I did learn how to change a bed with a patient in it. I learned about bedsores. I watched the CNAs as they fed, bathed, changed, and spoke in humiliating baby talk to the old people, treating them like unthinking imbeciles simply because age or disease had taken away their speech or their mobility. I’m not squeamish. A woman who has had to support herself and a child alone can’t afford the vapors when a good job pays up to seventeen dollars an hour.

I stand over my father and wait until he signals that he’ll take another spoonful of soup. He can feed himself, but he prefers being helped to having tomato stains on his pajamas.

“Ready for another spoonful?”

“No. I’m done. Take it away.”

I look down on his blanket-covered knees and try not to think how emaciated this disease has left him. Adele can stuff him with all the soup and protein drinks he can tolerate, but there is no reversing this decline. I take back my earlier assessment; this wait will not be long.

“Just one more.” I sound like I did when I was coaxing Tony to eat peas.

“I said no. I’m not hungry.” My father sounds like Tony when he wouldn’t eat those peas. Petulant. When did this grown man become petulant? I remember him as silent, accepting, probably cowed by the woman he replaced my mother with, but never petulant.

“Okay.” I pull the tea towel out from under his chin.

“Give me the remote.”

Fighting the temptation to make him say please, I hand him the clicker and leave the room.

Adele has gone to lie down, so I am alone in the kitchen to clean up the minimal debris left from heating a can of Campbell’s soup. It may only be a saucepan and a ladle, but cleaning up without making a sound that might disturb the resting and the dying is hard work, and at the end of it, I am exhausted. I sink onto a kitchen chair, which I instinctively choose, the one that was mine for all those years, my back against the wall. There is a notepad tucked into the napkin holder on the table and I take it and find a pencil. I need to figure out what to do next. I hunt down the New Bedford phone book, right where it has always been, in the top drawer, and try to think of whom to call. Maybe the local rescue can get me started with a search. What I really need is a computer and Internet access. I need to get online and map out a nationwide strategy. I open the phone book, searching for “Animal Rescue” in the Yellow Pages, and there it is under “Automotive”: Markham Motors.

For forty years, my father worked for Markham Motors. He sold Chevrolets until Markham Motors expanded into the foreign car market, and then he sold Toyotas, although he always drove Chevys. Every year, Markham awarded sales prizes and almost every year my father came away with another bronze plaque to hang on his wall at work. The name Markham was sacrosanct in this house. It wasn’t like it is now, people changing jobs and moving from one career “path” to another. In those days, and especially with a man like my father, loyalty to an employer was admirable. As long as he identified himself as a Markham man, my father was happy. He never anticipated anything other than retiring from Markham Motors.

I pull my finger away from the listing and flip the Yellow Pages back to the animal listings. Before I can find what I’m looking for, my phone rings. I don’t recognize the phone number on the display. Then I do. “Mitch?”

“Hi. Just thought I’d check in and see how you’re doing. Where are you?”

“I made it to New Bedford.”

“And the dog?”

“Nothing yet.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.” I am touched by the fact that this stranger whose body I clung to for a hundred miles is thinking of me. “I have a couple of leads. The truckers are using their CBs to try to locate Artie.” It’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I comfort myself by just saying it.

“I’ve posted your lost dog story on my Facebook page. I’ve gotten lots of comments.”

“That’s sweet of you.”

“So many people out there can relate to losing a pet. Makes you want to cry.”

The image of this tough-looking, one-legged, Harley-riding violinist crying makes me smile.

“And how are things in New Bedford?”

“All right.” And that makes me feel a little better, too. “How did your concert go?”

“Same old, same old. A little Vivaldi paired with a modern piece that has no discernible melody.”

I laugh. “Maybe someday I’ll go to one of your concerts. I’d like to hear the Vivaldi.” This is true; I’m not just making conversation. Over the years, I’ve developed a taste for good music. Candy doesn’t object too much when I pop a classical CD into the player as we close up the bar for the night, although she won’t let me do that until the last customer is gone.

“Look, Justine. I have a little break coming up. We’ve just finished the last of the summer season and rehearsals for the winter series don’t start for a couple of weeks.”

It’s the “Look” that alerts me, a verbal hint that something more than a change of topic is coming. “A little vacation, then. What will you do?”

“Thought I might jump on the bike and go see the Whaling Museum in New Bedford.”

“It’s a nice museum.”

“I can be there tomorrow, day after if I take my time.”

“That would be nice. But I don’t think you should.”

“Because it would be inconvenient?”

“Sort of. I’m staying at my father’s house. I don’t know for how long.”

“Not because you are being too polite to tell me to back off?”

“No. No. It would be nice to have a friendly face here.” I can conjure up the feel of Mitch’s leather coat on my cheek, the scent of him, but not the eyes that were behind sunglasses the whole time we rode together. “It would be nice to have a friend, but I don’t think that this is the time.”

“I understand.”

“It’s just…” Just what? Another guy hitting on me? Something that has happened to me all my life and I’m no longer flattered? It doesn’t feel like that. It feels like something I would encourage. But not now. I have too many emotional irons in the fire to think about encouraging a man to drive from Cleveland to New Bedford on a whim. “After this. When I leave, maybe I can…”

“No problem. Really. It was just an idea. Stupid. Of course you’re all tied up. I was being impulsive.”

“Mitch. It’s fine. A really sweet idea. Maybe on my way back to Washington I can stop.”

There is a quiet moment while we both adjust our thinking. He wants to come; I won’t let him. He was a ride when I needed it; now he thinks of me.

I hear Adele talking to my father. I need to get off the phone and see what else she has in mind for me.

“If I had a picture of your dog, it would help. On the Facebook thing.”

For the first time, I wish that I’d invested in one of those fancy camera, e-mail, text, do-your-laundry phones. But all I have is an ancient Nokia that simply acts like a phone. “I don’t have one with me. But my friend Saundra does. I can have her send you something.” Saundra is the unofficial photographer at our freestyle competitions. She has dozens of photos of dogs performing, and surely one of Mack can be e-mailed to Mitch.

I get his e-mail address. “Thanks for helping, Mitch. And thanks for calling me. I really appreciate it.” I just can’t appreciate his showing up. That’s the thought dangling out there. For once, I have to keep my eye on the ball.

“Don’t hesitate to call me if you need to.” He sounds sincere, but I doubt that Mitch will repeat this act of kindness. In the old days, I would have told him to come. But I’m older and wiser now; I know how tempting a distraction is, and how destructive.

*   *   *

After I left Anthony, I headed south, attracted by the warmth and the purported lower cost of living. I waitressed in Orlando, worked in a nursing home in New Orleans, got a receptionist’s job in Dallas. By the time Tony was five, I was hollowed out. I was exhausted from the responsibility of being the sole source of emotional strength, of decision making, of punishment and reward. The girls I met at my various jobs were still playing. They made plans to meet at nine at night; I was in bed, my son safe in his own bed, the night-light illuminating the dinosaurs on his sleeper. They invited me out of politeness; I declined because I couldn’t do it, leave Tony with a baby-sitter I couldn’t afford to drink margaritas I also couldn’t afford. To be reckless when I was the only support for a little child. I had taken on single motherhood by my own choice, and I was dedicated to it. But even a dedicated mother gets tired and resentful and frustrated.

The first time Dan asked me out and said he’d pay for the baby-sitter, I told myself that it would be fine. And it was. Then it was Carl, then Bruce, then a host of other men willing to see me as more than just a mommy. Their attention, however brief, reminded me that I was still young, still in my twenties, and maybe I didn’t have to be alone. Didn’t I deserve a little adult time? A few hours more with a sitter at the end of the workday wasn’t going to warp my kid. Even a two-parent child got left with a sitter.

I loved having a little grown-up time, and it became a habit. Dressing up and going out told me that I could have a life outside my role as a mother and provider. Talking about something other than homework and play dates, being kissed—both reminded me that I still had a Life.

And then they each moved on. Leaving me lonelier than ever. Although they never exactly said it, I knew that having a kid was a drawback, especially as Tony grew up and was no longer easily charmed by presents and being tossed into the air; when he no longer went off and played by himself as my guest and I waited for the sitter to arrive, but wanted to be a part of the conversation.

When push came to shove, they all wanted an unencumbered woman. Each time, each disappointment, and I’d swear to myself that I’d stick with my little boy and forget men. I just didn’t realize that Tony wasn’t an oblivious little child; he was growing up and was all too aware of my failures.

*   *   *

No, I don’t need a distraction now. I need to stay focused and leave comfort aside for now.

“Justine.” Adele is beckoning from the sickroom.

I snap my phone shut and head in to get my next set of orders.