Some time before morning. I did finally fall asleep. I woke right after the sunlight brightened the edges of my shaded window. Passing clouds made it seem like God himself was taking pictures of the earth with a flashbulb on his camera. Each click of brief brightness finally nudged my eyelids open.
I rose slowly and listened for the sounds of Brenda or Mama or both. I heard nothing, not a peep. It was as if the house itself were holding its breath, awaiting the next bit of shocking news. I scrubbed my face vigorously with my dry palms to bring some blood to it and wake myself even more. Then I rose, put on my robe, and slid into my slippers. When I stepped into the hallway. I saw Mama's bedroom door was open. Gazing in. I realized she was up, and so I started for the kitchen. Brenda's door opened, and she, also in her robe and slippers, came out.
"Yes," I said. "but I don't hear her. Maybe she's gone somewhere."
Worried that she had left without us to find Daddy, we went looking for her quickly and found her still dressed in her nightgown and sitting in the kitchen, her hands around a mug of coffee. She looked up at us, her eyes so full of fatigue and sadness they looked as if they might slam shut forever and ever. Her hair fell wildly about her face. She gazed at us with a distant look that frightened us both.
"Mama?" Brenda asked. "Are you all right?"
"I've decided there's no point in pursuing all these people who seem to have been involved in your father's conspiracy of silence," she began. "I started to look for more evidence of what he had done, and then I stopped and realized what difference does it make anyway now? I want to go directly to that facility to see him."
"We do. too," Brenda said quickly. "Yes, Mama."
She nodded. "You girls have breakfast, dress, and each pack a small bag for overnight or so just in case. We'll go right away." she said. "Brenda, you'll drive. I don't feel up to it," she said in her take-charge voice. "Of course. Mama."
"While you're having breakfast. I'll start getting dressed," she said, rising.
"I'm not hungry," Brenda said.
"Make yourself something, if it's just some toast. It's a long trip. Brenda. We're going to need strength for the journey and... for what's to come," she added.
Brenda nodded. Neither she nor I needed to be told exactly what that meant. Mama walked toward us, paused, and then reached out, her arms embracing us both and pulling us toward her. She held us for a moment.
"Thank God for you two," she whispered, and then let go and went to her bedroom.
Brenda didn't shed a tear. She glanced at my tear-streaked face and went right to work getting us juice and preparing some toast and soft-boiled eggs. I set the kitchenette table, and she poured herself some coffee. I did. too. Neither of us spoke. It was good to have things to do, to keep ourselves moving and busy.
We ate quickly, almost in total silence, just asking each other for the salt and pepper. After we finished. I asked Brenda how long she thought the ride would take. She estimated five hours. She told me to go shower. She would look after cleaning up.
"What should I wear?" I asked her. For a moment.
I
thought she was going to laugh at the question, but then she looked thoughtful. After all, we were going to see Daddy in a hospital, maybe for the last time.
"Wear that pretty blue dress they bought you for your last birthday." she advised, and I hurried off to do what she said.
She didn't wear a dress, but she wore one of her nicest pants suits. Mama was waiting for us in the kitchen, just standing and gazing out the window.
"Good," she said when she saw us. "Let's go."
We got into the car. Mama decided to sit in the rear, so I sat up front with Brenda. Moments later, we were on our way.
"I didn't even ask you if you knew how to go. Brenda," Mama said once we left our street.
"I went into the office and got directions from the computer." Brenda said, and held up a sheet she had printed. "April will be the navigator." She handed me the printed directions to follow.
Brenda was right about the time it would take. We made a decision to stop for something to eat, if just to break up the journey. Brenda wanted us to do it so Mama would eat something. We both knew she hadn't had anything but coffee. She fell asleep for most of the trip and woke when we stopped at a roadside diner. She at least had some soup and a buttered roll. A little more than an hour later, we entered the small community in which the facility was located. I read the directions Brenda had printed from the computer, and about ten minutes later, we saw the address printed in gold lettering on a large, square, rust-brown pilaster by the entry gate. The building was considerably back from the street and off to the side a bit, and you would have to stop to see it well. The gate was open, so we drove right onto the property.
The long driveway was lined on both sides with long-leaf pine trees neatly spaced. The grounds of the property were very well manicured, the grass and bushes trimmed. We saw some fountains, and stone benches I was sure no one ever sat on. There was no one in sight, and it all had a peaceful, tranquil atmosphere. Even the birds seemed to fly slower, gliding as if they were in a dream before they rested on branches or the fountains and benches. I hesitated to say it was beautiful. I hesitated to say anything nice about a place in which my daddy was dying or in which he had already passed away.
The three-story building itself was so different from any I had seen. It had a light tray cladding with a centered gable and an accentuated front door supported by pilasters, a hipped light blue roof with three dormers, and rectangular windows with doublehung sashes. There were three chimneys. What made it very unusual was the wing set at an angle. It had a separate doorway and looked as if it had been added on some time after the original structure was built.
There was absolutely no name on the building to identify it. It looked more like someone's old mansion. Whatever automobiles were there were parked behind the building, even though there was a distinct area off to the right in front of it for visitor parking. We pulled into a space. and Brenda turned off the engine. For a moment, none of us moved.
"I guess this is it," Brenda finally said. "That was the address."
Mama dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief and opened the car door. We all got out and walked slowly toward the main entrance. It was odd, because for an institutional facility that was really a hospital, it had a doorbell to ring. Brenda had tried the door and found it locked. What sort of a place was this? I wondered.
We waited, It was still quiet, not a sound coming from inside, not a soul outside, not even a grounds-keeper. The street from which we had turned in was still, too, with not a car passing by since we had arrived. It was truly as if we had entered a way station between this world and the next. It gave me the jitters.
Brenda pressed the buzzer again. We could hear it ringing inside. She looked at Mama, who was obviously battling back her own hysteria and trembling in her clothes. Finally, the door opened, and a tall woman with very short dark brown hair specked with gray stood before us. She wore a nurse's uniform, but it was more gray than white and had her name in black sewn into the right breast pocket: "Ms. Luther," She wore no makeup, not even lipstick. A fine trickle of lighter brown hair ran down her temples to the top of her jawbone. She pressed her thin lips together before speaking, and her somewhat bony nose dipped and came up as she finally did speak.
"Yes? How can I help you?" she asked.
"Were here to see Matthew Taylor," Brenda said. "We're his immediate family."
Ms. Luther scrutinized the three of us as if she could tell just by looking at us if we were telling the truth.
"That patient specifically has written on his admittance form that there would be no visitors, and no visitors are to be permitted," she replied. She looked as if she would slam the door closed as well. Her hand tightened on it.
Brenda, being the athlete she was, pivoted her left foot quickly to make that impossible and stepped forward. Mama came around on her right.
"Matthew Taylor is my husband," she said firmly. "These are his daughters. We just recently learned he has checked himself into this... this place, and we insist on seeing him."
"This place, as you call it, is special because we guarantee that we respect the wishes of our patients. It's very, very important to them and to their families. You'll have to contact Mr. Taylor's trustee to see about any possible changes, and then..."
"We're not leaving here until we see him." Brenda asserted. "If you want to have a scene, we'll have a scene. When people are very ill, they make decisions that they would not make if they were well. We don't care who his trustee is or what he says. That's our father, and that's my mother's husband in there. I'm sure this situation will interest newspaper and television people, and that's where we'll go, not to any trustee," she added.
Even Mama was surprised at Brenda's strength. I saw the way she lifted her eyebrows when Brenda finished. My own heart was thumping the way the heart of a coward would. I was ready to turn and bolt for the car. Brenda looked ready to grapple with the woman.
Ms. Luther saw that as well in Brenda's face. She pulled her head up, tightening the skin on her neck and lifting her narrow shoulders against her uniform.
"I am warning you," she said. "I don't intend..."
"Go on, call your security, and start the festivities," Brenda challenged.
"This is outrageous," Ms. Luther said, but I could see that she was weakening. Her shoulders sagged, and her hand loosened its gip on the door. "Mr. Taylor is in a coma and has been for days," she added. "He is off any life support as well, as he dictated in his admittance papers, and before you threaten any lawsuits,
I
want to assure you, it was all done through an attorney of his choice and properly assessed. That is the only way we accept any of our patients."
"Why do you call them patients?" Brenda asked her. "They're here to die, not to be treated and get well."
"Please," Mama pleaded. "Let us see him.
If
he is as you say, there is no possible harm done. anyway,"
Ms. Luther turned her attention to Mama, since she had the more reasonable and far less threatening voice and look.
"Very well, I'll make an exception to our rules, but only for now.
If
you return, you will have to have the trustee go through a proper legal procedure.
She stepped back, and we entered. The lobby was bare. The chairs and sofas looked vintage but rarely used. On the table between them was a brochure of some kind. There was an unlit pole lamp beside one of the chairs. Against the far wall was a desk with nothing on it and a dark cherry-wood grandfather clock against the wall to the right of that. The lobby walls were otherwise bare, except for a sin that read "No Smoking."
Ms. Luther turned to her right to lead us to a door. The floor was black marble with light white streaks that reminded me of the Milky Way. Our footsteps echoed because the building was deathly silent. It was truly like walking into a giant tomb, and it gave me the chills.
"Please be as quiet as possible," she said.
Mama reached back to put her arm around my shoulders to bring me alongside her. Brenda was right on Ms. Luther's heels, her hands clenched, her body poised and arched slightly forward like a bow about to shoot an arrow. Ms. Luther opened the door to a short corridor, at the end of which was a typical- looking nurses' station that you could find in any hospital. The two nurses behind the counters looked our way curiously. The air had the scent of detergents used to scrub floors and walls. Everything looked surgicalroom aseptic.
Ms. Luther stopped at the third door on the left, put her hand on the doorknob, and turned to us.
"I ask only that you respect my situation and don't stay longer than a half hour," she said, and waited for some response before turning the doorknob.
Brenda looked as if she would lunge at her.
"Okay," Mama said quickly.
Ms. Luther opened the door and stepped to the side. The roam also resembled a typical hospital room, the walls a light blue, a set of windows to the right and the left of the motorized hospital bed. There was an intravenous bag on a stand, still with some liquid, detached but still at the side of the bed. A heart monitor beeped on the right. The floor was of the same tile that was in the lobby. It was all Spartan without a painting, a vase of flowers, anything to add color and warmth.
Daddy was slightly propped up, his head lying a bit to the left, his eyes closed. Despite his condition, his complexion was surprisingly robust. I thought. It gave me a surge of optimism. Maybe he had begun a miraculous recuperation.
"What are you doing for him?" Brenda demanded, as if she were thinking the same thing.
Ms. Luther, who remained at the doorway, smirked. "There's nothing more to do for him under the circumstances.' she replied,"I'll give you the contact number for his trustee, and you can have him put you in touch with Dr. Blocker, who administers to our patients."
"Administers what?" Brenda fired back at her.
"Peace and tranquility at a most troubling time," she answered without flinching. "A half hour," she added, and stepped out, closing the door behind her.
"That woman must be a direct descendant of a Nazi commander who ran a concentration camp," Brenda muttered after her.
Mama moved slowly to Daddy's bedside. Brenda brought the one chair in the room to her, and Mama sat, taking Daddy's hand in hers. I stood there looking down at him. Brenda moved to the window and gazed out, her body still very tight. I noticed her hands were clenched into fists that she kept at her side.
"Oh, Matt." Mama began, rubbing his hand softly. "This was so wrong, so wrong. I know what you hoped to do, but you didn't protect us by doing this. I believed in my vows, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. We love you. Matt. It's not and never has been a one-way street when it comes to that. We should have been at your side all the time, throughout this ordeal."
I looked at Mama. She was lazing at Daddy and talking to him as if she believed he could hear every word, as if they were having one of their normal conversations at dinner. Brenda listened but didn't turn to look. She kept her shoulders high, her head slightly back, as though she were experiencing a whipping.
"Now you're in this horrible cold place with people who never saw you as we did. Why?" Mama asked, her voice cracking. "Oh why, my love?"
She lowered her head until her forehead could rest against his hand. I tried to breathe, but my chest had hardened into cement. When I looked at Daddy. I thought he appeared just as he would in any deep sleep, without Death slipping in beside him and entering his body to claim it.
Why did Death want to claim it? Why couldn't he leave us alone until Mama and Daddy were old and gray and tired of struggling against maladies of age, like so many other elderly people? Why couldn't he let Daddy live to see Brenda and me marry and have children of our own? What had he done to deserve this? I felt the need to shout, but I swallowed it all back.
The heart monitor continued its slow but regular beep.
Brenda finally turned and looked at Mama. "Look at her. We shouldn't stay here more than a half hour, anyway," she whispered to me. "It's too much for her.'