When I arrive home, Simone is not waiting anxiously in the apartment. I am both relieved and disappointed. My disappointment affords me the opportunity to sashay over to the freezer, open the door, grab a thinly rolled joint I had hidden from myself before my teaching escapades; Maui wowie, sound asleep in a lovely English lemon drop tin, ready to lift my spirits high.
Two hits later disappointment turns into despair. Why did I leave Maggie? Simone is never home. True, over the last double plus decades, we have had an understanding. ‘If you need me, I’ll be there.’ I need her. I need to know that we are real. I drop my broken bag on the floor, march over to the answering machine, two messages, press play, take another hit, listen. Maggie whispers, ‘Hi. Miss you so much. It’s been raining nonstop since you left. Molly’s locked herself in her room. I’ve suddenly taken up drinking Scotch. It helps. Please call soon.’ And I left her standing at the airport. Second message: ‘Darlin’, I am so sorry I am not there. I had to stay in Zurich for business. A gallery is interested in my work. We meet tomorrow. If you are already home, please forgive me for not being there … Je t’adore, mon amour.’
And where the hell are you when I need you!? For God’s sake, my father’s dying. I just got off the road, and you are off fucking some gallery owner in Zurich. And Maggie is in my hair. I feel her right here … in my heart, my crotch. Conflict.
‘My little maid is not at home;
Saddle my hog and bridle my dog.’
‘I don’t need advice right now.’ I’ll unpack in the morning. I fall into bed, pull the comforter up over my head, wiggle my toes, roll my head from side to side, take many deep breaths. Feel myself feeling Maggie. I cannot fall asleep. Rock and rock and rock some more. I hear a voice inside my head. A child screams. ‘HELP!’ I curl up into a small ball underneath the comforter.
The horsehair mattress speaks. ‘Hold on, girl. Remember those open spaces. You have been there, before they were named. You are part of them always, no matter where you are. That prairie is yours. It is your home. Tomorrow will remind you of what it is you need to understand about yesterday … Happy trails to you.’
Laundry has a rhythm. Laundry has a deeper meaning than simply being wash, especially after Maggie. Must pick and choose what goes in, what stays unclean. I sort carefully, place my favorite Maggie-scented items in my closet. The rest of the laundry is ready for Whirlpool. When you wash dirty clothes, it is a healing event. I will bet you all of the money I have made from my teaching engagement in Beatrice (not a hill of beans) that when the soaked clothing circles inside the machine, wrapping its arms and legs around itself, in one wet and wild holy experience, it forms a mandala of cleanliness. The shock comes when the wet wash is ripped away from the water, thrown haphazardly into the dryer, a vacuum where holy water is sucked out of the laundry’s dripping limbs. Laundry is of vital importance, especially after one month on the road without a decent laundromat.
When I yank my favorite white jeans from the dryer, ink has seeped through the rear right pocket; a note meant to remind me to remember an idea that is now washed away forever. I spray Zout, pour Clorox, soak the white jeans in cold water. No time to wring and towel dry. I am already late for my leftover luncheon with Dina.
The 96th Street cross-town bus speeds by. I will walk through the park. New York is beautiful in May. The park has that pretourist, post-winter, present-spring glint to it. The grass shimmers, birds sing, squirrels look perkier than any other time of the year. Fortunately for them, they do not suffer from allergies. They have no need for a HEPA filtration system.
Visit Pop tomorrow. Dina will advise me on ‘ideal topics’, so as not to agitate him. On Monday, first appointment with Mary Michelin. Can’t wait to find out about Dr Dot. No time for jet lag. Got personal business needs attending.
Fred the doorman greets me. ‘Hi Loli. Where you been?’
‘Nebraska. How are you, Fred?’
‘Nebraska? Isn’t that where Warren Buffet lives?’
‘Yeah. He lives in Omaha. How’d you know that Warren Buffet lives in Nebraska?’
‘Everybody knows Warren Buffet lives in Omaha. At least anyone who owns any Berkshire Hathaway.’
‘You own Berkshire Hathaway?’
‘I do. My sister gave me one share thirty years ago.’
‘Congratulations. How much is the stock worth?’
‘Ninety-six thousand the last time I checked.’
Wonder how many shares his sister has? ‘Don’t buzz her. I’ve got the keys. I want to surprise her.’
‘Nebraska, huh? How’d you like it there?’
‘I liked it, lots of sky. People are nice. You know, Fred, people are nice everywhere. If you’re nice to them, they’re nice back.’
‘That’s not true in this building. But your sister, she’s a gem. You girls are lucky to have each other. How’s your old man doing?’
‘Not so good. I’m going to Beechwood tomorrow.’
‘Send him my love. He’s a great guy, your father.’
‘I’ll tell him you said so.’
I open the door to 8D, throw my belly bag on the gray satin chair, stroll into the beige kitchen. Why she chose that color, I will never know. My sister walks out from the pantry.
‘Oh my God! You scared me to death!’
‘I’m here. Aren’t you glad to see me?’
‘Why didn’t you call to let me know when you were coming?’
‘I told you the other night.’
‘I can’t remember that far back.’
‘Too many wine spritzers.’
‘Too much stress.’
We hug. She gives me a perfunctory peck on the cheek. ‘I hate when you do that.’
‘Do what?’
‘Never mind. I missed you.’
‘Let me heat up the vegetables.’
‘Please, no microwave.’
‘I forgot.’
‘No, you didn’t. Let me do it.’ I open the refrigerator to find some undercooked eggplant, overcooked zucchini, burnt cauliflower and canned pickled beets. Dina is no Alice Waters. We take out the All-Clad pots. I try to revive the vegetables, ask for some raw carrots, to save the ratatouille from further ruination. Dina grabs a bunch, rinses them, cuts the tops off with a sharp knife.
‘Oh shit!’ The blood drips down her index finger onto the carrots. Nonplussed, she sits down on the kitchen stool. She looks at her finger like a baby discovering its shadow on the ceiling. The blood drips onto the cutting board. Dina does not move.
I beeline it for the guest bathroom, open the medicine cabinet, find the Band-Aids and iodine. I close the cabinet, head back to the kitchen. Dina sits staring, as the blood runs down onto each one of her fingers. I grab a dish towel, wrap it around her index finger, get some ice from the freezer, unwrap the towel, place the ice on the cut. Dina does not blink. I run back to the bathroom, find the Q-tips, race back to the kitchen, dab the iodine onto the wound. I slide the Band-Aid out of the wrapper, wind it around Dina’s finger.
I turn her head toward me, stand her up. She is like a rag doll. I hug her. I stroke her hair. I dry her eyes with my index finger. I know where she has gone.
We were here, together, in this very same kitchen when she cut herself. It was raining. Nearly twenty years ago. She answered the phone. It was a brief conversation. Come to think of it, I don’t even know who called that day to break the news.
From that Band-Aid to this Band-Aid. ‘Dina. Dina.’
‘What?’
‘Let’s hang out in the bedroom, read People magazine. Do you have the new issue?’
‘Vanity Fair.’ She points. I grab the magazine off the kitchen table.
‘Fine. Just as trashy, even worse. Come on. Let’s be stupid.’ We get on the bed, open the magazine.
‘Would she have liked it there, in Beatrice?’
‘Would she have liked it anywhere? She would have loved the Malone girls. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I can’t stop thinking about Maggie. Let’s read about Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy’s final hours.’
‘It feels like then,’ Dina says.
‘It is kind of like then … before she …’ Now is the right time; tell her my secret. ‘She told me she was going to kill herself.’
Dina laughs. ‘She told everyone.’
‘She told you?’
‘She told me. She told Mrs B. She told Pop.’
‘She made me promise.’
‘Me too.’
‘We all knew?’ I kick off my shoes.
‘She might have told the Good Humor man for all I know.’ Dina laughs again. ‘She even told Ralph.’
‘I can’t believe it. All these years I thought …’
‘She was getting us ready. It was inevitable. You would say that it was her fate.’ Dina kicks off her shoes.
‘No. I would say that it was our fate to have her as our mother. It was her fate to marry Pop.’ I get under the covers with magazine in hand. Dina gets under the covers. ‘They were each other’s shadow.’ I throw off the covers. ‘Didn’t you say that once?’ I examine the Band-Aid on her finger.
Dina pulls her hand away. ‘Did I?’
I flip through the pages until a Calvin Klein underwear ad catches my eye. ‘You shed your snakeskin on my kitchen floor.’
‘Nothing’s changed, different kitchen.’
‘We have.’
‘We’ll never change, never.’ She thinks out loud. ‘Not until …’
‘Don’t even think that thought.’ I think the thought. ‘Too many perfume ads in this shit magazine – smells like a French whorehouse.’
‘How’s Simone?’
‘Nice segue.’
‘Sorry. What time are you going to Beechwood?’
‘Afternoon. What should I talk about?’
Dina smirks. ‘Ask him how Mom’s doing?’
‘Does he know I know?’
‘He knows about the nursery rhymes.’
‘What’d he say?’
‘He doesn’t say much these days. He’s too busy remembering.’
‘She’s busy reminding him. How’s Mrs B?’
‘She’s at Beechwood Manor.’
‘The old age home?!’
‘Assisted living. I visited her. It’s not such a bad place. That’s a lie. It’s pretty depressing.’
‘What isn’t depressing?’
‘Us. We’re not depressing. We might be depressed, but we have good reason to be. We are about to become orphans.’ She pulls the covers over her head.
‘I never thought about it like that.’ I crawl under with her. ‘So Oliver Twistish.’
Dina throws the covers back. ‘I’m making myself a wine spritzer.’
‘I’ll have one too.’
‘You don’t drink.’ She heads for the kitchen.
‘All the more reason.’ I follow her … ‘Will it be over soon?’
‘For those of you who believe in the hereafter, it is never over. For us, yes it will be over soon. He probably has a month … maybe.’
‘Not very long.’ I watch her mix the spritzers.
‘I’m sure for him, it will feel like an eternity.’ She hands me my drink.
‘Is he afraid?’
‘No.’ We toast.
‘Are you afraid?’
‘No. But I’ll miss him.’ She starts to cry. ‘I will miss that old goat.’
‘You will? I wonder if I’ll miss him?’
‘He is so wonderful with the kids. He’s been a fantastic grandfather.’
‘Finally got something right.’
Driving up the Saw Mill River Parkway to see Pop. Early evening. The road cuts right through a thick forest of trees. I ask myself, do trees have secrets? No. The beauty of a tree is that it’s just simply there for us to love, something we cherish because of its beauty. Maggie’s like that.
I park Dina’s car in front of the house, climb up the front steps two at a time just like I did when I was, oh I don’t know, six years old, maybe seven. Before opening the entry door, I stop, turn around, glance at the hopscotch playing field of my youth. It is intact, waiting for one more game.
From inside my jeans pocket, I dig out a temporary permanent good luck penny. Damn. I meant to give it to Molly. I throw the penny onto the flagstone walkway. I play: hop, skip, jump, balance, both feet hit ground simultaneously, and hop, skip, balance, bend forward, pick up … freeze in place … reconnect with … the little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her…
I am prepared to enter his world, her world, our world, the world that none of us left behind. I flip the coin. It comes up heads. I win. I toss it across the street. It lands inside Mrs B.’s overgrown front yard. Wonder who’s living there now? Patty, the maid, will tell me. Patty will tell me more than I want to know.
The front door seems smaller than it was once upon a childhood. The house, the windows, the white wooden siding, the green shutters have all shrunk.
‘Glory be to God. Look who’s come a callin’.’ Patty has lived in the United States for more than twenty years. She has been employed and stealing from my father for almost all of those twenty years. Why does Pop keep her? He never liked the china in the first place … Doesn’t want to be alone. She fusses over him. She never knew my mother, therefore she does not remind him of my mother.
Patty whispers. ‘It won’t be long now. He’s turnin’ yellow. And she’s in the bedroom. He talks to her all the time. I’m afraid to clean in there. Lord knows what might happen if I run into her. I might not get out alive.’
One less room to clean. ‘Where is he?’
‘In the television room. He loves his new hospital bed: pushes the button, goes up and down, up and down. I swear on my dear departed uncle’s life, God rest his soul, she’s awaitin’, whisperin’, showin’ him the way. She scared Mrs B. blind, killed Burt, now she’s after him. The Lord is watchin’. But mercy, it ain’t the Lord doin’ the work here. The Devil’s come a callin’.’
‘Patty! The devil is not in the house.’
‘Oh yes, and it is your mother’s soul that the devil’s got a hold of.’
‘Patty! That’s enough. She was my mother. You never even knew her. Don’t talk about her like that. Understood?’
‘I didn’t know you were so sensitive about her.’
‘Probably sleepin’, he is, like a baby. He’ll wake up when he hears your little footsteps.’
I walk in front of the old mahogany breakfront, look at myself in the beveled mirror on the wall; no longer young, I am surprised to see this older me … in my childhood house. I gird myself, step over the dining-room line. There lies my father, looking like an under-ripe banana. He is canary yellow. It is the liver cancer. The bile has nowhere to go but into the skin. He is smaller, looks sweeter, and seems unusually lucid for a dying man. His eyes dart in my direction.
‘Well, well, well, look who’s come home – the prodigal child.’
‘Hi Pop.’ I scoot over to his bedside, kiss him on his yellow forehead, grab his bony hand. His grip is unfaltering. The son of a bitch is as strong as ever. ‘Ouch.’
‘Your old man’s still the strongest man in Beechwood.’
‘Guess so.’
‘What kind of malarkey did that Irish bitch feed you? The devil’s come to get me? Should have booted her Irish ass out years ago, when she was feeding me dog food, telling me it was ground round. Sure I ate it. I never let on that I knew. Thought she was trying to save me money. Now I can’t get rid of her; at least she shows up. Loyal … She’s good to me … You have no idea what it’s like when you can’t take care of yourself. Don’t get old. More important, don’t ever get sick. They treat you like an animal. It’s despicable, demeaning, and downright demoralizing.’
‘How are you, Pop?’
‘Don’t be a smart ass.’
His perspicacity is not diminished. He knows he’s losing his grip on life, his power being stripped away. He feels it. He will go out kicking and screaming. Though he be jaundiced, incontinent and irreconcilable, he will fight for life until he is turned inside out. The bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks who got ahead has nowhere to go. He has nothing to show for making it in the world, nothing but remorse and rage; lethal combination for the final journey.
‘Let me see your lip. How are your teeth?’
‘Look.’ He opens his mouth wide, like a racehorse having an oral exam.
‘Great job.’
‘The good doc fixed the chip, stitched the lip. It was nothing. He’s a genius. You know it was Saturday, he took me anyway. Normally, he charges overtime on Saturday; big bucks, not me, not your old man. Didn’t charge me a cent. What a great guy. Imagine not charging me … on a weekend. There’s a gentleman. Tell me again? Where were you, kid? Omaha, right?’
‘Here we go round the mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush …’
Good timing, Ma, right on cue. ‘Beatrice, Nebraska.’
My father turns his head away. ‘Oh.’
I want to cry. I’m sure that he does too. ‘Daddy?’ No response. ‘Daddy?’
‘Hmm.’
‘… Is something the matter?’
‘She’s in the bedroom … Your mother’s chased me out of the bedroom.’
‘Maybe she just wanted to visit … had nowhere else to go … wanted to say …’
‘She’s come to get me. I know that’s why she’s here.’ He turns toward me. ‘I’ve given her the room. She’s won.’
‘Dad, it’s not a contest.’ I try to comfort him. ‘She speaks to me, you know?’
‘Your sister told me.’
‘Nursery rhymes.’
‘Not her. Never her.’
‘That’s what I said, but it’s her. It is definitely her … her voice.’
‘She never knew … any… how to take care of you kids … never heard a nursery rhyme from her. We hired somebody to help …’ He turns away again. ‘Would you check on my monkeys?’
‘Be right back.’ I get up, walk away. Always walk away.
He asks, ‘Are you sleeping here tonight?’
Wasn’t planning on it. God, I hate this house! I didn’t bring a change of underwear. ‘Yes. We’ll have breakfast tomorrow morning. I’ll make you some eggs and toast.’
‘I’m not very hungry these days, but I’ll sit with you.’
‘That’ll be wonderful. Be right back. Do you need anything?’
‘The monkeys. Someone’s been moving the monkeys.’ Those monkeys, his good luck trophies … Whenever he closed a deal, made a killing, clobbered a hated business rival, he bought a monkey. There were jade, silver, gold, onyx, brass, glass, wood, ivory, soapstone, all kinds, types, sizes and shapes. How he loved his monkeys. The more money he amassed, the more monkeys he accumulated. His bureau top was brimming with them. Her bureau drawers were brimming with bottles; her drugs. Now she was keeping a watchful eye on his monkeys.
I walk into the parents’ bedroom. The closet doors are unhinged, paint peeling, bed upside down, footprints on ceiling … high-heeled shoes, no less. She has been dancing on the ceiling. I want to dance with her on that cracked, aged, off-white ceiling. We have never danced upside down in her boudoir. This seems the ideal time. The room spins. I want to faint. Instead, I open a window and breathe some Beechwood air. It is toxic in that monkey master bedroom, toxic.
A ghost can hold you close, turn you inside out and upside down, but you still love it, because it is your ghost. After all these years, my father and I finally have something in common. Her. She has moved the monkeys. Each and every one of them has been turned on its side. They are lying next to each other, like a stack of dominoes in a grave.
‘Peter, Peter, pumpkin-eater,
Had a wife and couldn’t keep her…’
‘What the hell are you doing in here?’ Why talk out loud? Why ask a ghost questions? It won’t answer. ‘He, your husband, and I would appreciate it if you would leave his monkeys alone. He surrenders. You win. What more do you want from the poor guy?’ There is no reply.
I look up at the ceiling. The footprints have disappeared. I leave the monkeys and the madhouse behind. I walk into my bedroom, close my eyes and listen. Through the walls I hear her crying: no sobs, no hysteria, just muffled cries in a pillow. It is a time long past. I am once again of hopscotch age. I listen harder. Because she cries, I cry. And I am still crying.
I stay the night. Try to fall asleep. I am fully clothed, afraid to undress, afraid that someone is watching. In my fitful slumber, I hear her feather pillow become drenched with tears. I hear my father mumble under his breath. He gets out of bed, plays with his monkeys, leaves the bedroom. Where he goes, I do not know. Where he is, well, he is downstairs. Isn’t he? He too is in the master bedroom. He is in a shrinking world with no possibilities. No. He has one possibility left. But if you have but one possibility, nothing else is possible. And that is what makes life before death seem impossible.
He and I will have breakfast together in the a.m. That is a first. You see, while we are both alive, anything is possible.
When I wake up in the morning, my eyes are stuck together with sleep and nursery rhymes. I rub my eyes. The sleep falls onto my bedroom floor, floor awakens, yawns, boards creek, stretch into the new day. Still fully clothed, I walk into the upstairs hallway, once again I peek into my parents’ room. The monkeys are upright, the bed on all fours, the ceiling is ceiling-white. From where I stand, in the doorway, it looks freshly painted. I take a closer look at his monkey collection. His favorite picture-jasper monkey is missing. A hidden message from the past has slipped into a disharmonious world of apparitions. She has stolen his grief and made it her own. It is no wonder that he is dying. He cannot locate a place within himself for his personal sorrow. She is his sorrow. She holds his grief in her transparency.
At breakfast I eat half a grapefruit, one poached egg and toast. He watches, does not eat a morsel. His eyes are glassy, like a still blue lake.
‘Did you sleep well?’
I lie. ‘I did. How ’bout you?’
‘Didn’t sleep. I was too worried about the monkeys.’
I lie again. ‘They’re fine.’
‘You sure?’
‘Positive.’
‘She hasn’t been playing with them?’
One more breakfast-time lie … ‘She’s not there.’
‘Oh … I hope …’
‘Do you want a piece of toast? Marmalade?’
Bless him and his phony English accent. ‘Do you?’
‘Not hungry. I’ll watch you. You need to put on some weight.’ He stops. He thinks about what he has said. ‘No, you’re just fine. You’re fine the way you are.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Don’t let the eggs get cold. Nothing worse than cold eggs.’
‘So, that’s where I get it from.’
‘The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.’
‘The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.’
I look. I listen. ‘I know.’
‘I’m glad you came home.’
‘Me too.’
He yells at the top of his failing lungs. ‘Patty! It’s time for my medication!’ He whispers. ‘She’s not getting a penny, not a penny. Don’t you girls give her a cent. You hear me.’
‘Have a piece of toast, Pop.’ He leans over, nearly falls off his chair, finds his balance, nibbles at my toast.
‘Needs marmalaud.’
‘I’ll put some on.’
‘Don’t bother. Just enjoy it before it gets cold.’
I am not hungry, but for you, Father, I will eat. Oh shit! I forgot to ask Patty about who’s living at Mrs B.’s. ‘Dad?’ He is lost in space. ‘Dad!’
‘What?’
‘Who’s’ … better not to ask … ‘What’s the best stock fund? If you were investing, who would you give your money to?’
‘Warren Buffet … Berkshire Hathaway. Didn’t I tell you I had business in Omaha … when I first started the firm?’
‘You did.’
‘How’d you like Omaha?’
Don’t bother. ‘I liked it. I liked it a lot.’
‘Your mother would have hated it. She never liked small towns. Never.’ Simultaneously, we turn toward the kitchen doorway, listen. Her voice fills the air.
‘I went up one pair of stairs.’
‘Just like me.’
‘I went up two pairs of stairs.’
‘Just like me.’
‘I went into a room.’
‘Just like me.’
‘I looked out of a window.’
‘Just like me.’
‘And there I saw a monkey.’
‘Just like me.