Objects of My Affection (11 page)

She can rot in her own filth forever, for all I care.

I'm debating the best way to make my exit—should I strut boldly as if I don't see her, or give a friendly wave first, as if I don't care?—when I see the nurse, Nelson, come into the mudroom from the kitchen. He's dragging the IV pole behind him, chattering on as he bends over Marva and pushes up her sweater sleeve.

Crud.

I can't do it.

As much as my pride wants to, I can't.

I can't leave Marva in this mess.

As I stand here looking at Marva, I think about Ash, and how many people have been handling what I should have been able to do for him—first the interventionist, and now a team of teachers and therapists a thousand miles away. There's nothing I can do right now in regard to him but wait, and hope, leaving me feeling utterly impotent.

Yet before me is someone who desperately needs help, and it so happens this time around I've got the skills required. I can throw stuff away. And, sure, so can a trained monkey, but last time I checked, there aren't any of those here.

I turn to Niko. “Wish me luck.” Then I walk up the path to the house and let myself in through the back door.

Nelson grins when he sees me. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

I bend down so I can look Marva right in the eyes. “You and me,” I say. “We need to talk.”

Step one to eliminating clutter from your life is to confront it, scary though that may be.

—Things Are Not People

H
ave a smoke with me,” Marva says after Nelson leaves.

“I don't smoke.”

She pulls out a pack and shakes it at me. One cigarette slides forward. “Live a little.”

“Really, I'm fine.”

“If you're going to insist that I talk”—her lip curls up on the word
talk
—“the least you can do is have a cigarette with me.”

I pluck the cigarette from the pack. “Just this once.” If this is what it takes, fine. I'd set
myself
on fire if I thought it'd make this job any easier.

Marva lights her cigarette, then hands the lighter to me. It's one of those nondescript metal lighters, the refillable kind. I tuck the cigarette
in my mouth and flick the lighter. Flick it again. Nothing. Again. Nothing. I hand it back. “It's broken.”

“Have you
ever
had a cigarette?”

“I told you I don't smoke.”

“Christ Almighty.” She flicks the lighter, then holds the flame out to me. I lean forward and puff enough to ignite the tip. Then I hold the cigarette away from me, so the ashes will fall directly into the ashtray once they burn long enough.

“So, Marva …,” I begin, then falter.

I'm not prepared for this impromptu heart-to-heart. I'd only been planning to grab a photo and run, which would certainly have been the easier route. Because if there are some perfect words that will convince Marva that things between us need to change, they're eluding me.

She doesn't seem to notice I'm not talking. She's gazing out at the yard at what appears to be nothing in particular.

I take a puff on the cigarette, stalling.

Marva scowls. “What, are you planning to run for president?
Inhale.
”

I look at the cigarette in my hand. “I thought I was.” I try again, this time sucking in. My throat feels as if a comet flew down it.

“So let's hear it. Hit me with the lecture,” she says as I sputter out a cough.

I hack and harrumph more until I'm able to speak. “First, I have a question,” I finally say. It's the one that's been eating at me. May as well ask it. “Why did you agree to clear out your house if you don't want to?”

“What makes you think I don't want to?”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

She looks at me. “You're asking why I want to clear out my house?”

I nod.

“I would think that would be evident.”

“It is to me. It would help me if I could understand why it is to you. No offense, but you let it get this way. And you seem to be fighting pretty hard to keep it this way. I realize you're only cleaning out your house because Will is making you do it, but you still need to—”

“Will is not making me do it.” Her voice is hard.

“Well, not
forcing
you”—I smile in an attempt at levity, since what I said apparently chafed her—“but since he's the one who wants the house cleared—”

Marva doesn't let me finish. “You are operating under a misconception, my dear. Will is merely helping move this project forward at my request.” My disbelief must show because she adds, “Oh, he drones on about how things have to be done a certain way, but that's an annoyance I'm willing to bear in exchange for his handling—shall we say—the management tasks. It's been quite a while since I've had to hire handymen, and I wasn't eager to do it. When I mentioned to Will my intention to clean the place up, he gladly took the ball and ran with it.”

“So you're telling me this actually is all
your
idea.”

“That is correct.”

Now I'm really stumped. “Then what brought it on? Why now? And why the strict deadline?”

“
Why
—it is the most interesting question one can ask, isn't it?” Her eyes light up. “It may be titillating to learn how a man was murdered, for example—especially if it was particularly gruesome—but
why.
Now that's what drives human existence. The motive!” Marva leans back, crossing her legs and holding her cigarette out in such a way that she reminds me of a 1940s Hollywood starlet, or a drag queen—one that happens to be hooked to an IV. “Will never once wondered why I wanted to organize my home. He was far too eager to get his hands on everything, I suppose. But that's Will. Only concerned with digging through to find what's of value—and by that, I mean what's worth money. If it were up to him, he'd take the fine art, sell it, and then gut the place.”

“But it's not up to him, right?” I clarify.

“Oh, it will be his eventually—at least, what I don't choose to donate. But the day will never come when I allow myself to be mentally incompetent enough to put my life—or my possessions—in his hands. Lord only knows what would become of us.”

“You don't really believe that, do you?” Will doesn't strike me as Son of the Year, but I think if Marva were to become senile and bedridden, he'd at least hire someone to stop by and flip her over now and again so she wouldn't get bedsores.

“I've never understood that boy.” She absently flicks the ashes off her cigarette, half of them missing the ashtray. “I'd been willing to give him the world, quite literally. He traveled so many places with me as a small child, but when he got to be school-aged, he flat out refused. One time, there I was, ready to jet us to Paris—it was fashion week. Imagine the people he'd be exposed to! The atmosphere! And he dug in his heels and said no. I thought perhaps it was because he didn't understand what it was—he was only seven or eight. But, no, he didn't care. He wanted to stay home because he had
a book report due.
A book report! Over fashion week! Ugh, and those team sports he was always insisting on playing.” She shakes her head.

Although I can't imagine too many eight-year-old boys choosing fashion week over a sports game, I figure Marva is simply expressing the frustration so many mothers experience in trying to split being a mom with being a person in their own right. “So you had to miss out on a lot,” I say, nodding with understanding.

“Goodness no. He stayed with the nanny. But it goes to show that people are going to be what they are. And Will, for reasons I cannot fathom, is wholly determined to be ordinary. Tell me, do you have any children?”

Her question takes me enough by surprise that I don't let my twinge of pity for Will take root. After all, it's the first time that Marva's shown any interest in me, and I'm tempted to glance outside to see if there's a sudden frost on the ground as a result of hell's having frozen over.

“I do,” I say. “I have a son. His name's Ash. He's nineteen.”

“Off at college?”

I'm about to trot out a lie, but I stop myself. Here I am, practically rifling through this woman's underwear drawers—in fact I will be. It's downright stingy not to reveal something about myself in return. “He's in Florida at a drug rehab.”

She nods, as if I said he was attending Harvard Law School. “What's his drug?”

It bothered me when Mary Beth Abernathy asked the same question, but for some reason it doesn't coming from Marva.

“He smoked a lot of pot. But it was mostly the prescription meds that were a problem. OxyContin, benzos … at first what he could steal from a medicine cabinet. Then anything he could buy from dealers. Occasionally meth. And then … it got pretty bad pretty fast. The guy who checked him in at the rehab called him quite the little pharmacist.”

“It was coke in my day. I don't suppose anybody does coke anymore,” Marva says wistfully.

I shrug.

“I certainly did my fair share of experimenting,” she says. “Possibly someone else's share as well. No regrets about it, though.” Her brow furrows. “Well, perhaps one …”

When she doesn't say anything else, I ask, “What was that?”

But she shakes her head. “No matter. Now, as for your most interesting question: I suppose it would be quite difficult for you to have this deadline, and yet not be able to move forth as you'd like.”

“It is,” I say, relieved that she's acknowledging it.

“To be clear up front, I am not going to return the bowls. It's an insult to the artist. However, I can assure you that I won't buy anything further.”

“That would be great.” While Marva is being so open-minded, I add, “It would also help if you'd let me make decisions on my own. Do presorting. Throw away what's clearly garbage. Use my time productively.”

She stubs out her cigarette, then stands, wiping stray ashes off her sweater. “I'll require final approval, but I suppose at this point there's no harm in letting you ready things for me to look at. Now if you'll excuse me, I believe I'd like to rest.”

A
fter Marva leaves, I take one last pull on my cigarette, cough, and then bask in the glow of my victory. I didn't let her stomp on me this time! I told her what I wanted, and I got it!

But as I'm sweeping up the ashes from the floor, I realize—with a flush of humiliation—what a fool I am. Marva put up enough smoke and mirrors that I didn't even notice: For all our talking, she never answered why she has such a specific deadline.

Why do I
always
fall for that?

Ash used to do it to me all the time. When he was younger, it was kind of funny, the way he would bob and weave around any questions I might ask. I'd say, “Did you do your homework?” and he'd reply, “Really, Mom, what kind of son would I be if I didn't do my homework?” I'd catch on a few minutes later—force him to the table with his books—and we'd have a chuckle.

As Ash got older, however, it wasn't as funny. I'd say, “Ash, are you high? Were you smoking pot?” He'd snap back, “Why do you always think I'm smoking pot? You're so paranoid.” The evasion was there, but also an underlying aggression—a subtle bullying that, I'm ashamed to admit, often worked to make me back off.

By the end, he still didn't answer questions, but there was no trickery about it. “Where have you been all weekend? I was worried sick!” I said after one of the many times he didn't bother coming home for days on end and didn't answer his cell. By this point, his responses were more along the lines of “None of your fucking business.” Then he'd disappear into his room. I'd be left to shout through the door, “It is so my business! A door is a privilege, not a right!” Then I'd threaten to remove it from its hinges.

But I never did. Because at least when he was in his room, I knew where he was. He wasn't OD'ing or getting rolled for drugs or money or in any of the other scenarios that ran through my mind and kept me from sleeping at night.

I often wonder if things would have been different if I'd forced the truth from Ash—if I hadn't been so eager to be fooled. So willing to pretend that everything was okay.

I cringe at the memory of the first time I discovered a baggie of marijuana in Ash's room—which I found while rifling through his pockets and drawers while he was at school. Instead of waving it in his face and confronting him with it, I put it back. I knew I was being cowardly, but I wasn't ready for the fight I'd be in for invading his privacy. I figured I'd have a chance to “catch him” without having snooped, when he couldn't get indignant over
how
I found it. He'd be forced to accept his consequences.