Heft - By Liz Moore Page 0,65
some water which he immediately spilled down his shirt. Then he lay back on the couch like a rag doll.
Oh Trevor, said Mrs. Cohen.
She went and tried to lift his head up with her hands and dropped it again.
Geddoud, said Trevor. Grronabed.
Walt, said Mrs. Cohen, and Mr. Cohen tried uselessly to do what his wife could not. Mrs. Cohen meanwhile went across the room and sat on the edge of a chair. Her knees stuck out of her bird-covered robe. The top of it fell open just a bit and I saw the inside of her right breast. Her bone-ridged chest. I looked away.
When Mr. Cohen had Trevor sitting up, he looked at his wife and then he looked at me.
Well, said Mr. Cohen. You know, I’m not quite sure how to handle this. He laughed a little angrily and squeezed the back of his neck.
I don’t want to put you on the spot, he said. Trevor needs to hear this too. Maybe we should wait until morning to have a talk. Don’t you think, Sharon?
Mrs. Cohen nodded, her head in her hands.
OK, then, said Mr. Cohen. Why don’t you get some sleep.
I looked at them both.
I’m sorry, I said. I’m just really sorry about this.
No one said anything.
I walked up the stairs.
I set my cell phone alarm and lay awake until I could not keep my eyes open anymore.
This morning I leave the house as quietly as I can. I get in my car which takes three tries to start. By the time the engine turns over I am certain I have woken the whole house.
Pells Landing is silent. My car is making a noise like a tin can dragging. After a moment it begins to snow.
It’s still dark out and some of the houses have Christmas lights on for the first time this year. My mind turns to Lindsay Harper and the things I sometimes dream of giving to her and for a moment I’m happy. It’s not too late for us, I think. If I apologize to her. If I crack myself open to her and tell her all the things that so far I have kept hidden from every friend I have. I imagine doing this: sitting before her cross-legged in her strawberry-scented basement, taking her hands in mine, letting words spill out of me like water, confessing to Lindsay Harper every sin I have, every fear I have, every hope. Then resting my head in her lap—my head, unburdened, light. I could do this. Suddenly I can see myself doing this and it seems to me the simple and lovely solution to every problem I’ve ever had.
The snow has picked up by the time I park in the hospital’s parking lot and the cars on either side of me are white with it.
I’m underdressed in my sweatshirt and jeans and I run slipping across the lot, swerving to avoid an ambulance that roars in from the street.
The woman at the front desk looks at me lazily. Help you? she asks.
I’m here to visit Charlene Keller, I say.
Visiting’s at eight, says this woman, fat and yellowheaded and unhappy.
But I’m her son, I say.
She looks at me. What unit, she asks.
I don’t know, I say. She’s—Dr. Moscot’s patient.
Name again, says the woman.
Charlene Keller, I say, and this time I spell it.
Aright, says the woman. Fourth floor. Elevator down that hall. Tell the nurse up there what you want.
It’s funny to think that this is only my mother’s fifth day in the hospital. It feels like months. She’s still in the last place I saw her, a curtained room, one of many centered around a nurses’ station in the middle. This way, says the nurse on duty, and I follow her. She’s wearing pink scrubs with teddy bears on them.
She leads me to my mother’s bed. When I approach her, I see she looks just like she did last time. Her lips are slightly parted. She looks clean and restful. The tubes coming out of her don’t look quite as frightening.
Hi, Charlene! the nurse says brightly. Hi, honey!
I say nothing.
She’s been doin’ good, says the nurse, but I don’t know exactly what she means, and I don’t ask.
I put down my hood. I don’t touch her. I don’t know what to do. I look at the nurse.
You can talk to her, says the nurse. Sometimes that helps.
Or sing to her, she says over her shoulder on her way out. Sing her her favorite songs.
The nurse shuts the curtain