Mimi’s eyes open—searching, beseeching—when Hugh comes into the room. A hand comes from under the blankets, a gesture. Thin-turned forearm half-blue, tape from a needle wound on the back of her blue-ivory hand. Does she know you, though, except as part of herself?
Hugh kneels. He puts the hand to his lips. So smooth it’s frictionless, soft as the lining of her old sable coat. The one she wore to get the groceries, when they lived in the highrise on Avenue Road where a cabby delivered the groceries to the lobby. Coat on over her nightgown, feet shoved into boots for the elevator ride: an outing, her hand reaching for him at the door, laughing in fright. He helped with the door, with the buttons. He was her knight. Until someone realized they hadn’t left the apartment for a month or three. Who rescued them that time? How old was he, six? He remembers the apartment: creamy white carpet, floor-to-ceiling windows, a white plastic chair like an egg on a chain, where he read. Beautiful books came to the lobby too, and cartons of cigarettes, bottles, a bag of limes. Then she got a little better, a stream of visitors came, then babysitters, then she was working all the time. But still needed help dressing in the mornings and in the evenings, before the other babysitters came. A parade of faceless strange-smelling women showing him their scars.
Forgive her. It’s not like she had any choice. Hugh kisses her hand again. This time Mimi motions to the button; he presses to make the bed-head rise. She points, or ghost-points, to a drinking cup with a bent straw. He puts it to her mouth. She drinks dutifully and smiles around the straw. “… to the last drop,” she whispers, throaty as her old commercial.
Hugh laughs, at her insouciance, at the thread of the well-loved voice back to sense and sanity if not volume. Pushing the cup away, her own hand catches her eye. She spreads the fingers, disapproving.
“Shall I do your hands?”
She nods, pleased, so he pulls the metal bedside drawer open to find her cream and a small glass file, knowing they are there because he packed them at her apartment and unpacked them here. One hand at a time, he covers the frail skin with a veil of Joy, gently pushing the skin down to reveal the moons on each fingernail, as she likes him to do. The hands are the map to her death, coming soon. Pink gone from the nails, but they are still pretty almonds. Her rings, left in the drawer, rattle loose when he pulls it open to replace the cream.
Mimi looks at her hands again, still dissatisfied. She turns her head slowly to the drawer, eyebrows up a little. “Polish?”
He laughs, it’s so nice to hear ordinary sense out of her. He shows her a bottle of topcoat; she makes a sad mouth. The deep pink she’s always used is not allowed. Nurses need to see the blue of her fingernails. He shakes the topcoat to make the tiny rattle. Mimi spreads a docile hand on the over-bed table. Even strokes, enough bead on the brush. He has been schooled in manicure. He holds each finger in turn and thinks that he might lean his head down on the bed and cry for ten years, except that would not do any good, so he does not.
“It’s Hallowe’en,” he says, tidying the last finger. “They give you any candy?”
Her eyes reproach him. She loves candy. “Ghost story,” she says.
Obediently, he starts off on the first campfire one that occurs to him. “There once was a man who had a beautiful wife, and this wife had a golden arm. They lived happily together, but after a time she fell ill, and he nursed her.” He forgot about the necessary death. But there is death in all ghost stories. She’s listening.
“Knowing she was near death, the wife said, ‘Promise you will bury my golden arm with me,’ and he said, ‘Of course I will.’ When the day came that she died, he did as she had asked. But as time went by, the man thought to himself, here I am poor and grieving, with doctor’s bills to pay. My wife is dead, she will not know, she does not need it now. So he went to the cemetery in the dark of night and dug down to her grave. He opened her coffin, and from her body he took the golden arm. He carried it home through the darkness, fearful at every step, because the night was wild and stormy. Twice, he thought he heard someone calling, and stopped to listen: nothing but the wind, or an owl calling whoo, whoooo. When he reached his house he ran straight up to bed. He lay the golden arm beside him where his wife had lain for so long, and pulled the covers up over his head. Then he heard the voice again, from far away, calling, Who, who … who has taken my golden arm? Give me back my golden arm.”
At the trembling in her hand, he checks her face. Is this too scary, now? She moves her mouth into a sort of smile, motions with her hand, go on …
“The husband pulled the pillow over his head, not wanting to hear that voice he knew so well. But it came again, Who, who, who has taken my golden arm? Giiive me baaack my gooolden aaarm … He screwed his eyes tight shut, he put his fingers in his ears. The voice came closer, closer, it was at the bedroom door, it was inside the bedroom—Who has got my golden arm?” Hugh pauses, because the story must always pause here, and then pounces tenderly on Mimi’s wasted arm: “You’ve got it!”
“You,” she says, or maybe Hugh. Not frightened. Amused and comforted. She closes her eyes slowly and seems to sleep, mouth falling open a little. Little cat mouth, still. Wide-spaced teeth terrible within, what’s left of them.
The good visits are worse than the bad visits. Hugh can’t do this any longer, come to this room and watch her dying.
He lets his head fall onto the clean sheet beside her head, to rest with her.
Ruth touches him on the shoulder.
Oh. He fell asleep holding Mimi’s hand.
He loosens his hold—her hand is slack, the polish clean except for his thumbprint on the baby finger. It’s all right, she won’t notice. Dusk in the room, everything is tidy. Nolie must have been in.
Ruth is miming. Hugh blinks and stretches his eyes, not able to make sense of her exaggerated gestures. He gets up, knees creaking. Mimi does not wake.
They go to the door. Ruth whispers, unnecessarily, “I’m back from Gerald’s, we put the bags in the back of your van. I said you’d take them to the Clothes Closet, won’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Well, you go on now, I’m sure Ivy’s finished with that class thing by this time. I had supper, I’m set for the evening. Brought my crossword puzzle.”
She waves him out, moving away already into the twilight by the bed.