My mother is dying and I am furious. Each person who nudges me on the street, each petty thief who grabs someone else’s seat on the subway, every tasteless woman wearing the wrong shoes—all better candidates for an early death than my mother, and I hate each one of these should-have-beens If God gave me the word, it would be no problem to kill one of these not-so-innocents in her place. Even if it was an acquaintance, a co-worker, a friend—no problem. Dale from accounting, who screwed up my tax withholding last year? In a heartbeat Chris Conway, my unpublished-poet ex-boss whose wife hates him for being poor? Without hesitation Annette? Well, I could easily kill Annette anyway. Brian would be an easy choice. Chloe would be harder, Veronica, I would have to think twice, but probably yes. Definitely yes.
Most of all I want to kill the doctors They know nothing. They don’t even pretend to be optimistic anymore. The drug trials have proved as useless as the alternative therapies I’ve essentially bullied my mother into. Chelation therapy lowers her cholesterol, Zyban helps her cheer up, hormone treatments make her hair thicker, but none of them stop the dumb merciless forward motion of the disease
I hate all my friends, now, for having such perfect fucking families and having absolutely no gratitude for the privilege of having parents I hate them also because, as I’ve learned, people avoid death and the people near it as if it were contagious They make insipid little cracks like She’ll get better or At least she’s comfortable or She’s lucky to have you, and then they quickly change the topic to something that will cheer me up. They offer to take me for icecream cones and for drinks and to women’s wear sales, as if I could be distracted from my mother’s impending death by a butter pecan dip or a Cosmopolitan or the perfect size-six sheath As if all I need is to see how darn fun an afternoon can be The person who I now hate the absolute most, whose heart I would rip out with my bare hands, if only God would take him instead, is an old friend (now a mortal enemy) who says—when I run into him on Sixth Avenue when I’m doing my mother’s grocery shopping one sunny afternoon—It’s God’s will Fuck you, God’s will. Would it still be God’s will if a cure were discovered tomorrow? Would it be God’s will if your mother got it? Would it be God’s will if you had it? Would it be God’s will if I sneaked into your charming studio on Leroy Street, a studio I suspect your very-much-alive mother and father pay the rent on, and took off your head with an ax? Should I sit here, serene and enlightened, chant my ridiculous little mantra, and just accept? I accept nothing
Most of all I hate my mother, who seems to be accepting perfectly well. She’s accepting the fact that she’ll never see me again She’s accepting the fact that next year on my birthday no one will take me to agnes b. and watch me try on thirty pairs of pants and buy me the least ill-fitting pair as a birthday present. She’s accepting the fact that on her birthday, I will go alone to the Russian Tea Room for blinis. She’s accepting the fact that I will be left with a black cardigan on Christmas Eve, wrapped in tissue, with no one to give it to
And what brings my rage up to a point so overwhelming that I have to punch my sofa and hurl my Fiestaware across my apartment is that that’s all there’s been That’s pretty much been the extent of it; shopping on my birthday, lunch on hers, Christmas gifts exchanged on December 23 or 24, phone calls once a month I always thought someday we’d be closer. Someday we’ll call each other for no reason at all, sometime we’ll have lunch just to catch up. Now that we spend so much time together I see that this could have happened. We could have been friends. We get along well enough, we both read a lot, we both like old movies—this is more than I’ve had in common with half the men I’ve gone out with But I never called just to say hello, and she didn’t either And at least I have the heart to be furious about it, while Evelyn accepts.
We’re in my mother’s apartment on a Friday afternoon. I come over every day now. At least I know, when I’m with her, that I’m doing the right thing. When I’m anywhere else, I’m not so sure.
“So I decided,” she says out of the blue. We’re sitting on the sofa reading fashion magazines—neither of us has the concentration for books anymore “I’m not doing any more drug trials No more vitamins, no more chelation, no more shots, no more blood tests I’m through.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “What are you talking about?”
“That’s it, with the doctors. I want to enjoy what I have left So I’ve got a year, maybe less. I can’t stand this guinea pig shit anymore.”
“But—”
“But what? But maybe one of them might be the magic potion that keeps me alive another six months? I had a long life I don’t need it.”
The rage heats up I can not believe how calm she is “You can’t be serious”
“Why not? Because with all this technology we’ve got, the pills, the radiation, the voodoo, I’m supposed to want to live forever? Listen, I’m telling you this now because soon I won’t be able to. I already filed all the papers with Allison. So when I’m … well, soon I won’t even have a day as good as this anymore. Soon I’m going to be, you know. I’ll be wearing diapers and I won’t be able to think for myself anymore So I signed all the papers with Allison so that when that happens, she’s going to be in charge. I told her what I want and she agrees with me. She understands.”
“Allison! You picked Allison!”
“Don’t yell at me’ Of course I picked her. You would keep me alive forever, like this, not knowing whether I’m coming or going I can hardly go to the corner store and back by myself anymore!”
“You could get better!” I scream “They could find a cure!”
“Oh Mary, for Christ’s sake, sit back down. Don’t yell at me I’m not getting better Can you understand that? I picked out a place uptown, a nursing home. A hospice Hopefully I’ll have the stroke before that happens.”
“How can you be talking like this? Mom, we’ll keep trying Dr Leonards says—”
“Dr Leonards is an asshole, even you can see that.”
“So we’ll get another doctor,” I yell at her “There’s doctors all over the world.”
“Oh, honey, stop crying Sit back down, come here and sit next to me That’s right. Someday you’ll see, honey. Someday you’ll understand, when you’re old and they’ve put you through the wringer and you just don’t want it anymore, you’ll think of me and you’ll say, you know what? I get it now Now I understand what my mother did.”
We sit and cry for I don’t know how long before my mother starts making a funny sound with her nose.
“Do you smell that?” she says.
Olfactory hallucinations This is one of the last steps, I’ve heard. The olfactory center is in what they call the “old brain,” near the nubs that control breathing and heartbeat
“No, Mom, there’s nothing.” She disagrees and swears something is burning And so we do a tour of the apartment I take the bedrooms and the bathroom, find nothing, and catch up with Evelyn in the kitchen, where she stands in front of the oven The door is open and clouds of black smoke are billowing out. She looks stunned I fan some smoke away and there inside the oven is a black little blob that I think was once a chicken.
“Mom, when did you put this in?”
She looks amazed, like she’s just seen a circus trick, and I think she might laugh. “I have absolutely no fucking idea.”