Chapter 33

The Thanksgiving after Virginia fell, Robert started working remotely for the news briefing company. He moved to New Orleans. The city had enthralled him since the first time he visited it when he was living for a time in Lafayette, Louisiana. He disliked the trashiness of Bourbon Street, but he adored the rest of the French Quarter. “Of course you love it,” Jack had wisecracked. “It’s the least American place in the country.”

There was some truth to the joke. In the Quarter, off the drunkentourist vortex of Bourbon Street, the city’s colonial soul still lurked among the French Creole cottages and Spanish townhouses. The pace and spirit of the city bore no resemblance to any American place he knew. Robert found an apartment in a two-hundred-year-old triplex on Orleans Avenue, four blocks back from the Cathedral.

He roamed the streets for hours, day after day. He sat reading in cafés and in his walled courtyard, the cat lolling under the banana tree. He explored the bars, restaurants and jazz halls with his teacher friends from Lafayette. In his attic bedroom, he could hear the steam whistle music of the sternwheelers on the Mississippi. Other than still having to work at night, Robert was in heaven.

Like many other lovers of New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina drove him from the city where he had quickly begun to hope he would live for the rest of his life. His apartment on the high ground of the French Quarter survived with little damage, but the city’s wrecked infrastructure made it impossible for him to work from there.

Robert landed in Naples, Florida, after two months of wandering from one friend’s house to another and staying with his parents and sister. Naples could not have been more different than New Orleans, all posh and manicured, but he found the prospect of living ten minutes from the Gulf of Mexico inviting. The Florida beach town atmosphere almost was as satisfyingly different as the Mississippi Delta had been.

And there was a woman in Naples, a teacher with whom Robert was intensely involved when he taught U.S. history at a private high school in Lafayette between graduate school and the job in Arlington. Shortly before the hurricane, they rekindled their relationship. She had come to New Orleans to visit her family. They met for a drink at Napoleon House, and they each felt the tug of their old affection.

The tempestuous relationship foundered a second time less than a year after Robert moved to Florida. But he enjoyed the quiet life he found there. He spent every morning after work sitting in the sun on his little patio. He read voraciously, drank too much, and watched the ducks, cranes, cormorants and pelicans living out their routines in the artificial lake. On the weekends, Robert drove over to a pristine beach in protected parkland and luxuriated in the solitude by the gently lapping Gulf.

For his second year in Naples, Robert’s cat and a retired man from Indiana who lived two condominiums down were his only companions. The man would walk past Robert’s patio every morning with his black Scottish terrier, and they would chat about politics and the news of the day while Robert petted the feisty little dog. At Thanksgiving, Robert prepared the full traditional fare and invited the man and the Scottie for dinner.

* * *

Huntington, West Virginia

August 2007

Robert drove the twenty hours up to West Virginia to visit his parents and his grandmother. A month remained on his second, one-year lease for the condominium in Naples. He had decided to move to St. Augustine, on the Atlantic coast in north Florida. The artificiality of Naples had begun to grate on him, and he had taken an instant liking to the old Spanish colonial capital on a recent weekend trip there.

He stayed in Huntington for two weeks, as had become his custom over the years. It was long enough to feel like a substantial visit, yet short enough that he and his parents could accept each other just as they were at that moment, without activating all their old conflicts and patterns.

Robert went nearly every day to the nursing home to sit with Virginia after he woke in the afternoon. The nurses and aides, friendly despite their long hours of difficult labor, always greeted him when he arrived and reported on how Virginia was doing that day. Still, it was a nursing home, no matter what it said on the sign at the entrance.

The low corridors were depressing, with their dull white walls, linoleum tile floors and fluorescent lights. Whether the building was overheated in the winter or over-cooled in the summer, the air seemed to recirculate, hermetically-sealed from the outside. The halls and rooms always smelled faintly of food, bowel movements and cleaning solution. Depending on the time of day, one of the scents overwhelmed the others.

All residents had to share a room. Virginia lived in a double with a frail woman who was approaching a hundred years old. The woman had a brother who visited three or four times a year and a nephew who came less frequently. She passed her days and evenings sitting in a chair in her half of the room, looking at the floor. She was nearly deaf, which suited Virginia. She never felt like talking anyway.

Except for the one morning a week when the aides would haul her up and take her down the hall to be bathed, Virginia had rarely been out of her bed for a year. The physical therapy at the nursing home was occasional and brief. She was not there long before she took the last tentative steps of her life.

For the first year, Virginia would let them hoist her out of bed and into a wheelchair to join the other mobile residents for bingo and other games in the commons room. But as the realization set in that she would never return home, Virginia grew increasingly withdrawn and uninterested in the activities. The lack of physical movement exacerbated her emphysema, and she became dependent on bottled oxygen to breathe.

Virginia did get to attend the wedding of her granddaughter Marilyn, the summer after she entered the nursing home. Marilyn hired an ambulance to take her to the church and the country club reception. For those few hours, Virginia’s lively post-Sam personality returned. She was surrounded by people she had known for decades and out in the fresh air. She loved having her hair done and wearing the bright purple dress she chose from a catalogue for the occasion. Her strength waned late in the evening, and the sadness returned as the ambulance came to take her back to the nursing home, but Virginia was thankful for that day.

She was also freed from the home the first two Christmases she lived there. Tom and Robert took her to his parents’ house in a borrowed van to visit for a few hours on Christmas day. The process of getting her there and back severely tried everyone. Virginia was dead weight. Tom and Robert had to wrestle her into and out of the van, from and to the wheelchair. They were terrified they would drop her. So was she, and the fear constricted her breathing, which made her more anxious. The second Christmas, she had put her head on Robert’s chest and wept as he held her sprawled on the floor in the back of the van.

When Virginia was safely in Brenda and Tom’s house, however, amid her little family and the familiar Christmas decorations, the light came back on within her. She had laughed and talked and eaten like a lumberjack. She had so wished she could stay.

At the end of this two-week, late-summer visit from Florida, Robert sat on the metal folding chair beside Virginia’s bed. She had eaten the entire plate of buttermilk biscuits and sausage gravy he brought her. Virginia despised the bland nursing home food. Bob Evans Restaurant’s biscuits and gravy was her favorite, and Robert always brought her an order when he was in town.

“You go back tomorrow?” she asked suddenly as they watched the local news on the television at the foot of the bed.

“I do, Granny. First thing in the morning.” The time had passed quickly. Too quickly. Robert was ready to be home and back to his solitary routine, but he already missed his grandmother.

Virginia said nothing, as if she had not heard him. She returned her absent, melancholy gaze to the television. The oxygen tube snaked from her nostrils to a tap in the wall behind the mechanical hospital bed.

An hour later, Robert stood and leaned over the high bedrail to tell her goodbye. He put his hand on hers, which was resting on her stomach atop the cotton blanket. “I need to go now, Granny. I work tonight, and I have to eat and nap a little before eleven.”

“I know, Son,” she said. Her voice had gotten gravelly from the years of oxygen.

Robert did not know why she had started calling him son recently, rather than Robby. But she had, and he liked it.

Virginia began to cry. Robert was startled. He could not recall seeing her weep before. It made his heart ache.

“I’m sorry, Son,” she said. “I know you have to go. I just miss you when you’re not here. That’s all.”

Without thinking about the idea, which popped into his head unbidden, Robert said: “What if I move back here for a while, so we can see more of each other? Would you like that?”

The tears still rolled from the corners of her eyes, but a smile spread slowly across Virginia’s face. “I’d like that very much.”

Robert’s decision surprised him. Usually he agonized for weeks or months over such major changes in direction. He was terrified of making a wrong choice. And he had hated living in Huntington with a passion. The day he left for Charlottesville was one of the happiest in his life. Not once in the twelve years since had he thought for a second about moving back. He would rather have cut off an arm. But Virginia needed him, and he could not recall anything ever feeling so right.

Robert kissed his grandmother on her damp cheek. “So, I’ll see you in about a month, okay? I love you, Granny.”

“I love you too, Son.”

She still was smiling, cherubic in the ugly little room, when he looked back at her from the hallway.

* * *

Every detail fell into place for Robert’s return. A week after he drove back to Florida, Tom called and said that a high school classmate of Robert’s, whom he had insured, was just completing renovations on an apartment building. He would rent Robert an apartment for as long as he needed. The owners of the condominium were sorry to see Robert go, but they waived the requirement of two-months’ notice, given the circumstances, and refunded his deposit early.

Robert had left most of his possessions in a self-storage space in Arlington, Virginia when he moved to New Orleans, taking only as much as would fit in his Jeep. On his way to Huntington, he added the majority of what he had with him to his storage bin. He bought a comfortable chair which folded out into a bed, a wheeled table for his laptop, and a television. Otherwise, the apartment was empty. Sometimes he wished that a fire would consume all the things he had packed away in storage.

As usual, sleep was not his friend. Working at night and struggling for rest during the day was too unnatural, and switching back to diurnal life at the weekends made it worse. After four or five fitful hours, he could make himself lie there no longer. Robert would drag himself from the fold-out bed, feed his old cat, and drive across the river to visit Virginia.

They quickly established as pleasant a routine as possible. Robert brought her a café latte from Starbucks every time he visited. She loathed the nursing home’s watery, burnt coffee more than she hated the tasteless meals. And at least once a week, Robert brought biscuits and gravy from Bob Evans. Virginia always slurped the entire twelveounce coffee enthusiastically and ate every scrap of the food.

They did not talk much. Robert was back, but Virginia was still depressed about her confinement. They spent most of his visits watching television and enjoying each other’s presence.

As autumn faded into winter, Virginia drank less and less of the coffee and came to barely touch the food. In January, Robert stopped going to Bob Evans altogether. Often, he poured her coffee down the drain before he went home. But he could not bring himself to stop purchasing the coffee. It would acknowledge her decline too painfully.

By the end of February, Virginia was absent more than she was present. If Robert was not working or fighting for some sleep, he sat at her bedside. Then he took off work and began rotating shifts with Brenda and Tom so she never was alone.

Virginia’s breathing became labored. Three ragged, shallow breaths, then nothing for five seconds that felt like two minutes. Three ragged, shallow breaths, then the five seconds of silence, as if her body was undecided whether to battle on or surrender. Over and over. Occasionally, she opened her eyes, clearly afraid and confused, and tried to speak, but only grunts emerged from her clenched mouth.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Robert would say, squeezing her hand. “You can go now, Granny. It’s okay. We’ll miss you, but we’ll be fine. You’ve taken such good care of us.”

“You should go home and get some sleep,” Brenda said just before twelve one night. “We’ll call you if anything changes.”

Robert relented and hauled himself home. He slept poorly, despite the exhaustion, and woke at five. He showered, fed and pet the cat, and was dressing when his cell phone rang.

Brenda’s voice was thick and choked. “She’s gone, Robert.”

“When?” was all he could ask. It could not be. He had been away for only six hours.

“Just a few minutes ago,” Brenda said. “Her breathing became smooth and even, and she didn’t wake up scared anymore.” She paused and sobbed. “Then she was gone.”

His vision blurred by the tears, Robert raced through the empty streets at dawn. He did not know why he was hurrying. His grandmother was gone, but he needed to be there.

Virginia’s forehead was still warm when he kissed her lightly, but her body was an empty shell. “Goodbye, Granny,” he said. He stroked her wispy white hair for the last time.

They sat with her for half an hour, until the two aides came quietly into the room. The bearish young man with the thinning flattop and braided necklace towered over everyone else. He wiped away his tears and put one of his meaty hands on Brenda’s shoulder. “We need to prepare her now,” he said in a near whisper.

“Yes, yes. Thank you,” Brenda said. She stood and took one more long look at the body of her mother lying on the hospital bed. “Oh, Tom,” she said and started to weep again. He held her close and walked her from the room.

Robert left the nursing home through the service entrance. He had always parked on that side of the building when he came to visit. Virginia’s window faced that way, and he could peck on the glass and wave to her when he arrived and departed. When the automatic door opened, he saw the undertakers in their black suits pulling a stretcher bearing a purple velveteen body bag from the back of the hearse.

* * *

A week after they buried his grandmother, Robert had to put his beloved old cat to sleep. He had never felt so utterly alone.

The year before, visiting a friend in Prague, Robert saw one of his graduate school professors, who was there for a conference. “Let me get this straight,” the jovially acerbic professor said after Robert told him about his job. “You can work anywhere you have an Internet connection, and in the U.S. you have to work all night. Why the hell have you not moved here?”

Sitting on the one chair in his lifeless Huntington apartment, Robert recalled that conversation and decided to go.