“Blair, it’s about Mom,” his sister, Cynthia, was saying on the phone. “I don’t mean to alarm you, but she’s taken a turn for the worse.”
He steadied himself. “How much worse?”
“She’s not going to die, if that’s what you’re asking. But her lucid moments are becoming far less frequent.”
“Shit!”
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you. I just thought you’d like to know.”
“It’s no bother at all. I’m glad that you called.” He paused.
All day long he’d been racking his brain for someone he could turn to for advice. His ex-wife was adversarial. Jeremy Samson was his best friend. But he, more than anyone else, was involved in this situation, whether he realized it or not. Andrew Sciascia, his lawyer and another friend, was a good guy, though Blair didn’t believe they were sufficiently close. So that left only one prospect. Why not turn to his sister? If he went to Montreal he could visit his mother, then spend time with Cynthia. He would confide in her. She would have a different perspective on things.
“Blair?” she was saying now.
“I’m here.”
“What are you thinking?”
Go for it, he told himself. “Look, how would you feel about my driving up there? If I leave early tomorrow morning, I can be at your place by mid-to-late afternoon.”
“Really? That would be wonderful.”
“Okay,” he said. “If there’s any delay, I’ll call you. Oh—” He caught himself. “One more thing. Make dinner arrangements at Gibby’s for us.”
“Gibby’s? Isn’t that a little extravagant?”
“No problem. You deserve it. See you tomorrow, Cyn.”
He was on the road the next morning before six.
Some three and a half hours later, he was driving through the Adirondacks. The clouds had darkened and a light hail was beginning to fall, making the condition of the road precarious.
He questioned his decision to drive instead of fly. But he had lost faith in air travel, the hassle it had become.
A Daughtry song came on the radio. It was the second week of May but many of the farms Blair passed still evidenced a light blanketing of snow.
He was getting closer to Canada.
When his sister opened the door to her apartment, a bachelor pad in the Montreal suburb of Notre Dame de Grace, Blair was taken aback by her weight. The moment they embraced, however, he realized how much he missed her. And that was all that mattered.
She held him at arm’s length. “My God, what happened to you, Blair? Your face…”
“It’s nothing.”
“Nothing? Not only your face. It looks like you lost twenty pounds. Tell me your secret. I could use a little weight loss myself … as you can see.” She did a pirouette. “But never mind. With the crappy weather just about gone, I’ll start jogging again. It’s the damn winter that does this to me. Too friggin’ cold to do anything.”
They gave each other another hug.
His sister liked to talk and for once Blair found it therapeutic. He became lost in such mundane topics as their cousins and their kids, everything that had happened to them in the past six months or so. These were not thumbnail sketches, by any means.
Then Cynthia mentioned the man she was dating, a fireman. She wasn’t in love, she said. But her relationship with the guy was the next best thing.
Blair observed that even with her added weight, his sister was still attractive. Over five feet, five inches tall, blonde hair cut short. Smooth, wrinkle-free skin. Her face was only marred by the Mulligan curse, the start of a double chin.
“Where’s your bag?” Cynthia asked. “I thought you were staying over?”
He moved into the foyer. And his heart sank. “It’s in the car,” he said. “I’ll get it later.”
Disposophobia was the clinical term for her condition, an obsessive-compulsive disorder that caused her to hoard newspapers and magazines, shoes, clothing, and everything in between. But to Blair, “hoard” wasn’t sufficiently descriptive.
Cynthia’s apartment was designed in an open style. But its concept was defeated by the columns of unwanted goods. They were piled almost to the ceiling. Along the walls in the foyer. In the kitchen. Throughout the hallway.
She caught his expression. “Don’t say it,” she said.
“I thought you had it under control,” he admonished.
“Blair…”
He didn’t want to criticize. But it hurt him to see that Cynthia wasn’t getting any better.
“Do you want to wash up before we head out?” his sister asked a few minutes later. “You must be exhausted from the drive. Can I get you a drink?”
He gave her arm a squeeze. “It’s so good to see you,” he said.
She placed her hands on his shoulders. “Good to see you, too. But you are troubled, my brother. I can see it in your eyes. Blair, we don’t have to go out. I made a reservation at Gibby’s, like you requested, but I can cancel it.”
“No, no, Gibby’s is fine,” he said, “but let’s leave now, so we can spend some time with Mom.”
Cynthia nodded. “Okay. My car or yours?”
On the rare occasions he had allowed his sister to drive, he’d felt in need of a tranquilizer. “We’ll take mine,” he said.
Blair knew that Montreal was an easy city in which to get around. Especially in May. If this were mid-summer, road construction on most major routes would likely have been slowing traffic to a crawl.
From N.D.G., he took Cote des Neiges. They entered the downtown core some ten minutes later. A few turns and they were parked at the special-care facility that housed their mother.
Cynthia led the way inside the converted three-story office building. There was a strong antiseptic smell in the air. Nurses and doctors were speaking in hushed tones. The reception area was painted an austere shade of gray.
“Est’ce que je peux vous aider?” a woman in her mid-sixties, wearing a form-fitting off-white dress, called to them from the lone desk. “Ah, Cynthia,” she caught herself. “Je m’excuse. Je ne vous ai pas vu.” She indicted toward Blair. “Et c’est ton frère, j’imagine?”
“Oui,” Cynthia said. Then she switched to English. “Blair, meet Monique. Monique, Blair.”
He approached the desk and shook the woman’s hand. This was not the same receptionist he’d met the last time he had visited. “C’est un plaisir,” he said, enjoying the use of what little French he still remembered.
“The pleasure is all mine,” Monique said in perfect English.
Her smile was infectious. And it dawned on Blair how charming most French Canadian women were, no matter their age or status in life.
“I guess you’ve come to visit your mother,” Monique said. “Let me call someone who will bring you to her.” She reached for the phone.
The wait took longer than expected. Finally, a male orderly dressed in hospital green led the way to their mother’s private room. The unit was of average size, approximately twelve by fourteen.
The apparition Blair spotted on the bed frightened him. Much of the woman he remembered was gone. She’d been replaced by a stick figure. Skin and bones, and not much else.
“Ian?” his mother said when she saw him.
Blair moved closer to the bed. “No. It’s me, Mother. Your son. Not your husband.”
The woman raised a scarecrow arm. Then she yanked the bottom denture from her mouth and cackled. “I don’t have a son.” She pointed at Cynthia. “And whose bitch are you?”
Stunned, Blair felt his mouth go dry. In all the time he had lived at home, he had never known his mother to use foul language.
In commiseration, his sister placed her hand on his arm. “Mom,” she said in a gentle voice. “Blair’s driven in from New York to see you.”
“Who?”
“Blair.”
Their mother began to cry. Galloping tears streamed from her eyes.
Blair recalled their last telephone conversation. She had appeared to be losing it then. But this was worse.
Cynthia bent over the bed. She used a Kleenex to wipe her mother’s eyes. “Now, now, Mom. You should be happy. Not sad.”
As quickly as they had begun, the tears ceased. “Blair?” the woman questioned.
“Yes, it’s me,” he said, brightening.
“How is New York?”
He wanted to humor her. To keep her going on the straight and narrow. “New York is wonderful, Mother dear. Congested as usual. Do you remember the time you visited?”
A near-beatific look crossed the woman’s face. “I remember,” she said. Then her eyes closed, opened again. “Ian?” she said.
“No. It’s Bla—” He caught Cynthia’s head shake and stopped in mid-sentence. There was no point in correcting her.
His mother nodded off.
“She looks terrible,” Blair said.
“She has her good days and her bad.”
“Worse than this?” he was afraid to ask.
Cynthia shrugged. “No. Not worse.”
He used what little comfort that knowledge brought him to silence his other concerns.
“Remember when you were a kid,” Cynthia broke into his thoughts a short time later. “And Tommy Curry bopped you in the head with that shovel? The doctor suggested Mother keep a twenty-four hour vigil. Instead, she took it upon herself to monitor your breathing non-stop for five full days. She wouldn’t let you out of her sight. Morning, noon, and night. Dad got really pissed at her.”
“He did?”
“Who could blame him? She stopped making his meals. Sharing his bed. All because poor Blair was hurting.”
“I wish I could remember.”
“You were only seven.”
A noise came from the bed that startled them both. Their mother was talking in her sleep. But the voice was like that of someone possessed. It kept rising in pitch.
They looked at each other. Neither said a word. Then Cynthia broke into a laugh.
“What?” Blair said.
“I was thinking of the time I brought my first date home to meet Mom. We were only going to the movies. But she gave that boy the third degree. He was to be careful where he took me. He was not to leave me alone. And he was to naturally get me back at a decent hour. I never heard from him again.”
Blair caught his sister’s laughter turning to tears.
“Dammit,” Cynthia said. “Why couldn’t she grow old with dignity?”