Within Arm's Reach (21 page)

I can feel, sitting behind the wheel of my truck, the effort it takes Nurse Ballen to go inside. To walk into the loss, the memories, the grief, the life that no longer exists. I can feel all of that. It washes over me, so heavy and viscous I can hardly breathe. I shake my head, trying to shove the sensation away. I am angry for a moment that I have to feel this for a woman who is essentially a stranger. But then the anger is gone, too exhausting to hold on to. I watch the shades in her bedroom window clatter down like rain out of the sky, and then turn back toward the hospital.

GRACIE

I have not gone to work this week. I have not read any letters. I have not turned on my laptop. I have not returned Grayson’s phone calls. What I have been doing is sitting at home in my bathrobe when it is not visiting hours and sitting beside Gram’s bed at the hospital when it is visiting hours. Nurse Ballen says Gram is doing very well, but it doesn’t seem that way to me. She is going through the motions, and doing what she is told, but she’s not really there. She is quiet and she avoids my eyes and she sleeps much more than I would have thought possible. She seems like a totally different person, like an old lady who has taken over my gram’s body. Some of this behavior is the drugs, I know, because Gram says things to me, particularly in the first forty-eight hours after the operation, that are inexplicable and strange.

“My mother turned on the television.”

Even though I want to reason with her and draw her back to me, I don’t want to argue with everything she says the way Mom and Aunt Meggy do. “Maybe there was something your mother wanted to see.”

“No. She did it to get me in trouble. She did it because she knew I didn’t want her to. She is always doing that to me.”

“Doing what?”

“Saying things I don’t want her to.” Then, suddenly, Gram is asleep again. Breath slides steadily in and out from between her parched lips.

Aunt Meggy complains that the hospital staff is abusing Gram because they force her back on her feet only one day after her operation. A rehab nurse comes in with a walker, practically lifts Gram out of bed, and insists she walk into the center of the room and then back to the bed. Even with the drugs, Gram’s face is drawn and her green eyes watery as she takes one shuffling step after another.

“You’ve just cut her open with a knife and rearranged her bones,” Meggy says. “She’s old and hurt. Can’t you give her a few days of rest, for God’s sake? Is there someone with a brain around here that I can talk to?”

Standing behind Meggy in the corner, watching Gram’s eyes swim with tears, I agree.

Meggy sees me nodding, and says, “Shut up, Gracie.” Even though Angel seems to have forgiven me for refusing to give her my baby—she has been nothing but sweet, asking after the pregnancy, acting as if my situation is a positive one—Meggy has not been so kind. Nor has she given up the cause. She has made it clear that as far as she is concerned, my child will, by some means, go to my aunt and uncle.

Nurse Ballen enters the room then, and Meggy turns her eyes away from my big stomach. Nurse Ballen explains that it is critical to get Gram moving as soon as possible so that she doesn’t lose any of her strength, flexibility, or capacity to walk. She explains that if Gram stays immobile now, the odds of her recovery will be cut in half. She says that this is a critical and dangerous moment in Gram’s health, and that if we can all point her in the direction of her pre-fall self, she will have a better chance of reaching that goal.

Nurse Ballen’s talk seems to make Meggy feel better. At least she leaves the room and stops yelling. I am left alone with Gram, who is back in her bed now, eyes closed. But Nurse Ballen has made me feel worse. To me she seems to be saying that Gram is lost, and all we can do is force her to stand up and force her to eat and hope that she comes back to us. I need more assurance than that. I need more than just hope. I need Gram.

I SIT by her bedside through every visiting hour for the five days that she’s in the hospital. At the end of the week she will be moved to a rehab hospital, where she will stay for two weeks before she returns to the assisted-living center. I read to her from magazines, then baby books, anything I think might get a response from her. I even try, toward the end of the week, to read some of my letters and answers to her. Ordinarily, hearing an expert opinion on feeding or bathing an infant would get some kind of rise out of Gram, who does not believe in expert opinions. And any mention of my column, or the letters from my readers, brings a snort of disgust. But I get nothing from her now. If she’s awake when I enter the room, she says hello, and she says good-bye when I leave. Other than that, she sleeps or looks out the window. The view is nothing to look at. The tops of a few trees green with leaves. A sliver of sky.

I tell Gram that the baby has started kicking, and that some days I think she is on the verge of breaking through the wall of my uterus. When I’m sure Gram is sleeping, I tell her that this kicking makes me feel even more alone. It makes me feel that my body is just a big, ever-growing shell, and that the only life in it is concentrated in this baby. I also tell Gram that each morning I give the baby a little pep talk about focusing all her energy on growing different organs and limbs. I recommend to the baby that she grow up to be stronger than me. To be more open and accessible than Lila. To be less difficult than my mother. To be more communicative than my father. To be a person who knows herself completely, like Gram.

I tell Gram that I worry over this baby, a little more every day. The worry grows with the size of my belly. I think of Gram’s missing children, the twins and the little girl, and I know I could never survive that kind of loss. I can’t help but notice Meggy eyeing me every day at the hospital. The worry grows until it is the size of a full-grown person sitting beside me. How will I manage to hold on to anything, how can I hold on to this tiny future person?

Lila says, “Gracie, you smell. Will you please go home and take a shower?”

My mother says, “Your grandmother doesn’t need you here every single minute. You’ll feel better if you change out of those clothes. How about if I take you girls out to dinner?”

Meggy makes whispered comments to Angel that I am meant to hear. “Gracie is losing it. She sits there in Daddy’s sweater and mutters under her breath. She acts more and more like Ryan every day, don’t you think? Does she look like she has the makings of a good mother to you?”

I try to ignore them. Meggy is wrong. They are all wrong. What they don’t understand is that I will be fine as soon as Gram is better. When she is herself, I will cease to worry. When she is herself, I can go back to being myself. The problem is, after a few days at Gram’s bedside, I cannot for the life of me recall who that was. Which makes me worry for the baby, too.

When I return home one afternoon, there is another message on the machine from Grayson. “You need to do your work.” An annoyed pause. “You need to call me.”

GRAM SHOWS signs of life the day before she is to be moved to the rehab hospital. She notices the nurses gathering her things, and my mother filling out paperwork. She says, “Kelly.”

My mother crosses the room to her bedside. “What is it, Mother?”

My father and I, the only other people in the room, pay close attention. The hazy quality to Gram’s voice is gone. She sounds like herself.

“Promise me I won’t have to move into the other building at the old-age home. I don’t want to leave my room.”

My mother leans over Gram and speaks in a slow voice. “You’re not going anywhere for a few more weeks, Mother. You’re going to the rehab hospital first. We have to get you comfortable on your feet, moving around. The doctor says you’ll be back to doing the fox-trot and running up the stairs really soon.”

“Don’t waste my time,” Gram says. “I know all that. After this other hospital, I want to go back to my room. It’s very important to me. I want you to promise me that you’ll make that happen.”

“Mother, you need to be in a safe and supportive environment. It’s possible that you’ll need more care from now on, and the other building has more advanced medical care available. I want you to be realistic about that possibility. I am not going to make false promises. We’ll just have to wait and see what kind of progress you make.”

When my mother finishes talking, Gram turns her face away and closes her eyes.

“Did you hear me, Mother? You shouldn’t be concerned. No matter what room you have, we’ll decorate it however you like. We’ll hang the pictures in the exact same formation on the walls, if that makes you feel better.”

Gram has slipped away again, to sleep or to unconsciousness. She does not answer.

LATER THAT afternoon, in the hall, I say to my mother, “You should have told Gram that she could go home to her room.”

My mother has trouble making eye contact with me, which has been the case since Easter. She looks over my shoulder, or down at her hands. She likes to rotate her left hand while she talks, making the diamond on her engagement ring flash under the lights.

“Your grandmother is failing,” she says. “It’s my job as her oldest child to take care of her. I can’t give in to her whims, Gracie. I have to do what is right.”

The ring flashes, and the fact that my mother won’t look at me makes me feel a little nuts. I have so few conversations these days. I am so often alone. I say, “You’re not really the oldest child.”

“What?”

Now I feel mean, and guilty. “You had an older sister, didn’t you?”

I can feel my mother’s eyes on me, poring over my dirty hair, my ill-fitting clothes. She says, “Why would you talk about that? You’ve always let yourself get caught up in those old stories. What’s past is past. I don’t see the point. What is the point?”

Maybe she’s right. Maybe I don’t put enough stock in the present, in what is real. The most recent phone message from Grayson said, “Snap out of it, Gracie. It’s time to get back to living your life.”

But I can’t really agree with the narrow vision my mother and Grayson fix on the world. The past and the present are each important. They share equal weight, don’t they? That’s why it is so hard to make decisions. There is always so much to consider. I say, “They’re not just stories, Mother. They’re our family’s history.”

She blinks a few times rapidly. “I have been the oldest, the one my parents depended on, forever. And now that my mother is sick, I have to make choices for her. Do you think Pat is going to step up to the plate? Or Meggy? No. That doesn’t mean I like playing this role, Gracie, and it doesn’t mean it’s fair. Life is not fair. But I am a person who takes my responsibilities seriously.”

This is a dig at my pregnancy. Any person who takes her responsibilities seriously would not let herself become a single parent. My mother is telling me that she would have done it differently, better. Hell, she did do it better, at least in her own mind.

I wish that Lila were here, so we could share a look and roll our eyes. She has barely shown up at the hospital. We spend a lot of time together at home, though, each in our pajamas. I don’t ask her why she stopped going to school, and I don’t ask her about Weber. I know about him because I ran into him one afternoon at the supermarket and he told me that he was hot and heavy with my sister. I think she’s crazy to get involved with that jerk, but I keep my opinion to myself. I have been keeping everything to myself lately.

I take a deep breath and say, “Well then, as the head of the family you must know that Meggy and Angel came to my house a few weeks ago and asked me to give my baby to Angel and Johnny to raise.”

The look on my mother’s face confirms that she didn’t know anything about it. She clasps her hands, and the diamond ring is covered. “They wouldn’t have—”

“They did. They told me a story about a family on your street growing up. They told me that handing off your baby is part of Irish heritage, part of how Irish families take care of each other.”

My mother shakes her head slowly, as if a hinge in her neck has suddenly gone loose. “They wouldn’t dare . . . I should go in and check on your grandmother.”

I think, Everyone wants to get away from me.

“I have an idea how you can make that promise to Catharine,” my father says.

We both turn. Coming toward us in khaki pants and denim shirt, my father appears even bigger than usual. He looks over my head at my mother. I feel myself dwindle into invisibility.

My mother says, “I thought you were going back to work.”

“I know how we can help your mother.”

“I don’t appreciate everyone attacking me,” my mother says, her voice on the edge of hysterical. “I am doing the best I can for my mother. I don’t need to be second-guessed.”

“No one is attacking you.”

She gestures with her hands, palms upturned. “Then why do I feel like I’m being attacked?”

“Please,” my father says, “just listen for one minute. I know you’re exhausted, and I’m trying to help.”

My mother stares at him. I can see that she is seething.

My father smiles and crosses his arms over his chest. “I think we should hire a private nurse to sit with your mother every day at the home. I spoke to the director there, and as long as your mother’s not seriously ill and we provide outside medical care, she can stay in her current room. They have no problem with that as long as she doesn’t require any medical apparatus like oxygen or an IV, which she doesn’t. After all, what she really needs is an aide who will keep an eye on her, and make it easier for her as she readjusts to her old life.”

My mother nods, thinking. “Well, we could talk to some agencies and do some interviewing. It’s not a bad idea, Louis. It might work. Let’s just see how my mother does at the rehab hospital and play it by ear.”