Chapter 32

May 2004

Robert’s cell phone rang as he climbed into his forest green Jeep Wrangler at the Safeway supermarket. He was living in Arlington, Virginia, outside Washington, DC. He worked at night as an editor for a company that produced news briefings every morning for lobbyists and politicians. He did his grocery shopping at 8 a.m., after finishing work and before dragging home to try to sleep for the day. No one ever rang him in the morning.

“Mom?” he said, recognizing the number but not expecting her call. “What’s up?”

Panic fringed Brenda’s voice, and she talked in a rapid stream. “It’s Mom. The distress alarm sounded in her apartment half an hour ago and they can’t get in because she has the safety lock on. They’re waiting for the fire department to come and break in, and they keep calling to her through the door, but she’s not answering them back. They just hear the cat meowing constantly.”

For the first decade after Sam died, Virginia lived in a condominium Brenda and Tom rented for her. She loved decorating it as she wished and sitting on the terrace watching the robins, cardinals and blue jays splash in her cast-concrete birdbath and eat seeds and suet from her feeders. But a series of mini-strokes had made her left leg stiff and unreliable, forcing her to move into an apartment in a semi-assisted living facility. The physical impairment took a toll on her psychic health. The joyful time of freedom had passed so quickly.

When Robert visited her on his rare trips to Huntington—his nocturnal work schedule and the difficulty of getting any time off from the small startup company made normal life nearly impossible, Virginia was usually sitting in her apartment with her cat, watching television.

“Why don’t you go down to the lounge with the other people, Granny?” he would ask.

“Oh, I don’t want to sit down there with those old women,” she would scoff, though Virginia was older than most of them. The one thing she did like about the place was that it had bingo night on alternate Mondays. They played for a quarter a board, and she proudly returned to the apartment most times with a handful of coins.

“I’m afraid she’s had a major stroke,” Brenda said. “I’ve called her phone a dozen times, but she doesn’t answer, and she always has it with her. I’m on my way down there now.”

With minor incidents and irritations, Robert managed only with great difficulty not to erupt in a fit of frustration. But in moments of true crisis, a single-minded focus overcame him. “Okay,” he said to his mother. “Try not to overreact. It could be anything, not necessarily the worst thing. I’ll go home and pack a bag and drive straight there. Let me know when you hear something definitive.”

Brenda called back a few minutes later. “She’s alive,” she said without a greeting. “She went to the bathroom, without her walker, and she fell. Probably that bad leg gave out.”

“How is she?” Robert asked.

“They think she broke her hip,” Brenda said. “She’s in a lot of pain and is on her way to the hospital.”

A broken hip at eighty-four was a bad thing. “Will they replace it?” he asked.

“Probably … maybe … I don’t know.” Brenda sounded terrible. “They’ll have to see how bad it is and then decide. Are you on your way?”

“Just about,” Robert said, zipping his suitcase. “I just have to corral the cat and get her into her box and in the car, and then I’ll leave.” He checked the time. “I should be there by five. Call me as soon as you know anything more.”

While Robert was driving, his mother called and said that it was indeed a bad break. The doctors wanted to fuse the hip. The procedure was much less difficult, and they doubted she could recover from replacement surgery well enough to have any mobility. Virginia overruled them. She insisted on the full hip replacement. She would rather die now than be confined to a bed or wheelchair for the remainder of her life.

His grandmother was resting when Robert arrived. He hated everything about hospitals: the smells, the sterile corridors, the machines, the lighting, the angst radiating from every room and person. He could not believe he had dreamed of being a surgeon when he was a boy.

Virginia was sedated, but she stirred when he came in. She took his hand weakly and spoke to him softly. “Hi, Robby. I’m so glad you’re here.” Her lips, creased by wrinkles from decades of cigarettes, were sunken without her false teeth in, but her hazel eyes smiled.

“Of course, I’m here, Granny,” he said. He stroked her thin, white hair. “How are you?”

“Not so good.” She sighed and closed her eyes.

“I know, Granny,” he said. “But it’ll be okay. Tomorrow, you’ll get a bionic hip. You’ll be like the Six-Million Dollar Man.”

Virginia opened her eyes and managed a weak smile. “I don’t know about that, Robby. We’ll see.” Her heavy lids slipped closed again.

Robert kissed her on the temple. “You sleep now, Granny, and I’ll see you in the morning before the surgery.” She had already sunk again into slumber.

* * *

Virginia dreamed she was a young woman again. Standing on an empty beach, she curled her toes down into the wet sand and relished the squishing, grainy coolness. The stiff, warm breeze felt as if it was blowing through her and carrying with it every pain and worry of her life. It seemed as if she could float off the sand and fly out over the blue sea on the wind like the gleaming white gulls.

She turned from the surf and saw a cheerful-looking man walking slowly but purposefully up the beach. He wore a long, white tunic and flowing cloak. The coverts of pale grey wings rose above his shoulders. She thought, but did not say aloud, “Who are you?” when he stopped before her.

“I am Gabriel,” he replied with a wry smile, though he also did not speak.

She stared at him, unable to form a specific thought.

“It will be difficult,” he said, again without speaking aloud. “But I will be with you. Robert will be with you.” He spread his powerful wings, a magnificent sight, and leapt out over the rolling waves, without another word or glance.

The gulls cried. The surf crashed. The breeze blew. Virginia stood alone on the beach and watched a white sailboat move silently across the horizon.

* * *

The surgery was a success. The recovery was not. Medicare paid for thirty days of intensive physical therapy in an excellent private rehabilitation facility. Despite her weakened condition and the intense pain, Virginia progressed little by little over the month. At the end, she could take several halting steps on her own, supporting herself on the waist-high parallel bars. Her determination had endeared her to the therapists and nurses. To continue paying hundreds of dollars a day for the treatment, however, Medicare demanded more rapid progress than Virginia could achieve.

Robert had returned to Arlington and work the week after Virginia’s surgery. Brenda and Tom met with the rehab hospital’s administrator. The woman was supportive and sympathetic during the brief encounter in her well-appointed office, but she made it clear that Virginia would have to be moved out of the facility by the end of the week unless they could begin covering the costs personally. Four days.

Brenda and Tom trudged slowly and silently down the pastelcolored corridor toward Virginia’s room. Brenda was sad, because she knew this place was her mother’s only hope of walking again. She was frustrated, because the Medicare bureaucracy was so inflexible. She was angry, because they could not afford to pay the bill themselves for Virginia to continue the treatment.

“Hi, Mom,” Brenda said as they entered Virginia’s room. She struggled to keep as much emotion from her voice as she could. The room looked more like a hotel than a hospital.

Virginia turned her attention from the local television news and smiled. “I took nine steps today,” she said.

Brenda leaned over the bed’s barely noticeable rail and gave her a quick hug. Tom sniffed and blinked hard and looked to the distraction of the television.

“That’s great, Mom,” Brenda said. “You’re doing so good. And they all like you so much.”

“I like them, too,” Virginia said. “I don’t hardly even feel like I’m in the hospital.”

Brenda felt nauseated. “I know, but you know it’s not the only nice place in town. And you’re getting so much stronger, you could keep improving even if you weren’t here.”

Virginia did not like Brenda’s tone, at once hollow and edgy, or that she was clearly beating around something. “What is it?” she asked curtly.

Brenda looked at Tom. He glanced at her, then back up at the television.

“It’s Medicare, Mom,” Brenda said, indignation creeping into her voice. “They will only pay for one month, and this place charges way too much for us to pay for it. They just told us that you have to go at the end of this week.”

Tears began to pool in Virginia’s eyes, but she continued to stare directly into Brenda’s.

“I’m sorry, Mom, but we’re going to have to move you to a … uh … a retirement home.”

Virginia looked away, turning her face as far away from Brenda as possible.

Brenda reached out and touched her on the arm. Virginia shook it off. “Oh, Mom, please. Don’t make this worse than it already is.”

Virginia refused to look in her daughter’s direction.

“It’s not like they used to be. It won’t be some awful old nursing home,” Brenda insisted.

Virginia exhaled sharply at the words nursing home.

“They’re retirement communities, with lots of activities and people there to help you,” Brenda said. She knew it would never happen, but she added: “To give you more physical therapy so you can walk again.”

Virginia acknowledged nothing. Her anguished gaze remained fixed on the wall to the side of the bed.

Brenda grew quickly frustrated. After all I’ve done for her, she thought, she shouldn’t treat me like this. “I’m sorry, Mom,” she said. “There’s nothing else I can do. Look, I know the woman in charge of a nice place just over in South Point. I’ll call her first thing in the morning and see if we can get you in there. It would be perfect.”

It was as if Virginia had turned to stone.

Brenda lay a hand on her mother’s rigid shoulder. “Love you. We’ll see you in the morning, Mom,” she said. “Come on Tom, let’s go.”