Death Benefits (16 page)

“I am indeed. And I have seen yours, although none of them do you justice. You have the Jenkins nose, you know.”

I reach up and stroke my nose. “Yeah. Big.”

She laughs. “I prefer ‘patrician.' Now, I know these places insist on one visitor at a time, so why don't we let your mother have some time with Arthur? I could really do with a cup of tea.”

I strip off the mask and gown and hold out my arm to Coralee. She hooks her hand around the crook in my elbow, like a southern belle at her first ball.

“Such beautiful manners,” Coralee murmurs. “So rare these days.” Mom snorts as she puts on a mask and gown.

When we get to the cafeteria, I steer Coralee to a table overlooking the garden. She lowers herself into the chair with a soft sigh.

“Black tea, dear. With a bit of lemon, if they have it,” she says, “and perhaps something sweet to eat?”

I load up a tray with metal teapots, thick white mugs and a selection of desserts: a brownie, some carrot cake, a chocolate-chip cookie in a plastic package. What she doesn't want, I will eat. There is no lemon, so I add some honey and milk to the tray.

When I get back to the table, she is laughing at the bunnies gorging on some red-and-white-striped petunias. “Ordinarily I would want to shoo them away,” she says. “They're destructive little beasts, but I loathe striped petunias, so I'm enjoying the show.”

“Arthur used to watch them from his window,” I say as I set a pot of tea and a mug in front of her. She peels off her gloves and puts them in her purse.

“I bet he was wishing he had a rif le,” she says, reaching for the carrot cake. “He was a crack shot, you know.”

“Arthur Jenkins, bunny-sniper,” I say. Watching Coralee eat, I realize I haven't eaten yet today. “Is it okay if I have the brownie?” I ask.

She gestures with her fork. “Help yourself. Got to keep your strength up.”

We eat in silence for a few minutes.

“Where's Aunt Marta?” I ask.

Coralee stops eating and puts her fork down beside her plate. “In Australia.”

“You mean she's not coming?”

Coralee nods. “I am her proxy.”

“You mean, like, her stand-in?”

She nods again. “Marta is…” She hesitates.

I complete the sentence for her. “A selfish bitch?”

Coralee sits up very straight and glares at me. “There's no call for that kind of language, young man.”

I glare back. “Why isn't she here then? Why does Mom have to do everything? It's not like Marta can't afford to fly out here.”

Coralee's glare disappears, and she slumps back in her chair. “Yes, she can afford it. But she's afraid.”

“Of what? Flying?”

“Of Arthur.”

“You're shittin' me.”

The glare returns. “I most certainly am not. To her, Arthur is still a powerful person. Why do you think she moved so far away? Why did your mother settle in Lunenburg? Arthur has always been a force of nature. Often a destructive one. Especially to his children.”

I nod. “Yeah, I know. I've heard the stories. But he's changed. You've seen him. Marta should get over herself. Suck it up. Mom has.”

“You're right,” she says. “But I'm afraid she won't. So you're stuck with me.”

She lifts her mug in a toast. I lift mine, and we clink mugs over the crumbs of our desserts. “To Arthur,” she says.

“To Arthur,” I echo.

Coralee and I finish our tea and go back up to the ICU. Mom is in a huddle with some of the nurses. Coralee gowns up and goes into Arthur's cubicle, where she eases off her shoes, climbs up onto the bed and lies down next to him, her face next to his on the pillow, one arm over his chest. I can hear the soft murmur of her voice, but I can't make out the words. After about ten minutes she comes out, shoes in one hand, wiping tears away from her eyes.

“I think it's time for me to go, Royce,” she says. “Can you call a cab? I'm sure your mother wants to stay here for a while.”

“Go? You just got here. What's the rush?”

She pats my cheek. “You'll get tired of me soon enough. I need to rest. Traveling is hard on old ladies. I'm staying at Arthur's house, dear, but I have no idea where it is. My bags are in your mother's truck. Could you get them and come with me?”

“Sure.” We say goodbye to Mom, and I call a cab from the hospital lobby before I get Coralee's suitcases from the truck. Three of them, each one big enough to smuggle a small child. I guess she's planning to stay awhile.

“I'm sorry I missed the gala,” she says as we ride into town. “I hear Arthur was in fine form.”

“Yeah. He was pretty stoked, I guess.”

“Stoked?”

“Excited. Happy. Enjoying every minute.”

She leans her head back and closes her eyes, and I can see how tired she is, how fragile. Wisps of hair are coming out of her bun and there are smudges under her eyes. She opens her eyes when the taxi stops outside Arthur's house, but she makes no move to get out of the car. It's as if all her energy has been used up in flying out here and getting to the hospital. Her hands shake as she digs in her purse for money to pay the cab driver, and I realize that her head is also shaking, or rather vibrating slightly. Either she's about to collapse or she has Parkinson's or both. I help her out of the car, and she stumbles slightly as we walk down the path to the front door. I get her into the house and help her into Arthur's chair. The drapes are still open and the view is, as always, spectacular. Ocean, sky, mountains. A line of fish boats heading back to Fisherman's Wharf.

“I'm sorry,” she says.

“Why?”

“For being a burden.”

I laugh. “You're kidding, right?”

She shakes her head. “I used to love traveling. Now it just reminds me that I'm an old lady.”

“An old lady with a lot of suitcases.” I grin at her so she'll know I'm joking. “I'm going to put some clean sheets on the guest-room bed. It's kinda small, but the mattress is okay, I think. You gonna be all right?”

She nods. “Lovely. I'll just sit here and soak up the panorama, dear. Imagine waking up to this every day. Heaven.”

She's asleep by the time I finish changing the sheets, putting clean towels in the bathroom and humping her suitcases into the guest room. It's weird to see her in Arthur's chair, her head lolling to one side just the way his used to. Her neck will be sore if I don't wake her up, so I touch her shoulder gently and say her name. I half expect her to yell at me, demand coffee, tell me I'm an idiot, but all she says is “Thank you,” as I help her to the guest room. She sits on the bed and bends over to pull off her shoes. Then she swings her legs up onto the bed and lies down with a huge sigh that is almost a groan. I pull a fleece blanket over her and leave the room.

While she sleeps, I make a grocery list. Milk, bread, butter, cheese. I put on a pot of coffee and make myself a
café
without the
lait
. I wash the dishes and wipe the counters. I dust the piano and tidy the desk. I text Dani and bring her up to date. When Coralee gets up, it's almost dinnertime and I have made a decision. We will order pizza and I will tell Coralee how I know that Arthur wants to die.

Sixteen

W
e sit at the kitchen table and share a large meat-lover's pizza with extra cheese. Coralee has a Diet Sprite and I have a regular Coke, which we pour into proper glasses, with ice. Mom always says, “Only hillbillies eat off cardboard and drink from cans,” so I get out china plates for our pizza too. Coralee eats hers with a knife and fork, which I find pretty funny. She eats a lot for an old lady—almost half the pizza—and when she belches delicately into her paper napkin, she giggles afterward.

“Excuse me. I haven't had pop and pizza in years. I'd forgotten how good they are. Very naughty though. My doctor would not approve.”

I put our dishes in the sink and sit down again at the table.

“What did you do after you and Arthur split up?” I ask.

“Arthur convinced me to go back to school. He told me I was an educator, not just a nanny. He paid for my education. I got my teaching certificate and worked for many years at schools for girls in Third World countries. Sometimes our teams had to build the schools first, before we could teach in them. I stopped teaching when I couldn't get travel insurance anymore. That was a very sad day. I was a headmistress at a private school in Toronto for a while after that, but it wasn't the same. Too much privilege. Too many stuffed shirts.”

I must have looked surprised because she raises an eyebrow and says, “You thought I was a rich old society lady, didn't you? Soft hands, never worked a day in her life. Watercress sandwiches for lunch. Bridge on Thursday afternoons. Cocktails before dinner.”

“N-no,” I stutter, although she is right about the rich society-lady part. “I didn't think anything. Other than that you were—are—beautiful.”

“Oh, you are definitely Arthur's grandson!” She balls up her napkin and tosses it at me. “He knew how to treat a woman.”

“Still does,” I say, remembering how courtly he was with Midge and Bettina, how he totally charmed Dani. “At least some women. He's not that nice to Mom. Or the nurses.”

“He was a wonderful husband,” she says. “Attentive, funny, romantic. So romantic.”

“Then why did you get divorced?”

She frowns slightly. “I couldn't stand that he was away so much, and I was left at home. I thought I would be happier with a man who didn't travel, who came home for dinner every night. And I wanted a child of my own.”

“Did you have a child?”

She shakes her head. “Sadly, no. But I had a wonderful career. And another husband, a good man who came home every night for dinner. But no children.”

“What happened to him—your husband?”

“He died a few years ago. Heart attack.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. We had a lovely time together, and the end was quick.”

“What was Marta's mother like? Did Arthur ever talk about her?”

“I never met Marta's mother, of course, but I don't think Arthur ever got over her death. It was very hard for him to see Marta for what she was—a child, an innocent. He always saw Lenci's face when he looked at Marta. He tried though, especially that first year, when he gave up touring, but they never really connected. And Marta never forgave him for his absence.” She stops speaking and takes another sip from her glass.

“What about my mom's mother? Did you ever meet her?” I can't bring myself to call her my grandmother. She doesn't deserve it.

“Your mother's mother? Feh!” Coralee scowls and spits—really spits—into her palm. “That's what I think of that woman!”

“Wow. That bad?”

“Worse,” she says. “Much worse. She ran off with a flute player half her age. Abandoned her child and then demanded spousal support payments. Arthur, the old fool, paid her. He was heartbroken.”

“Where is she now?”

“Dead.”

“Does Mom know?”

Coralee nods. “It was many years ago—a car accident—but I think it was hard on your mother…to have all hope extinguished.”

“I guess.”

“And what about you, Royce? How are you coping with all this?”

I shrug and stand up. I don't want to talk about how I'm coping, or how much my mother must be hurting or how messed up this all is.

“Can I show you something, Coralee?” I extend my hand to her and help her out of the chair. She nods and follows me downstairs to the garage.

When she sees the T-bird, she clasps her hands under her chin, as if I have just offered her a trip to Paris. “He certainly loves his cars, doesn't he?” she says as I open the passenger door for her and she lowers herself into the vinyl seat. I like it that she still speaks of him in the present tense.

“Do you have a driver's license, Coralee?” I ask.

“In my purse,” she says. “At home I drive a beautiful old Karmann Ghia. Pumpkin orange. Had it for years. Your grandfather taught me to appreciate cars.”

“Do you want to go for a ride?”

“I thought you'd never ask,” she says.

I run upstairs and grab her purse and a couple of things from Arthur's desk. When I start the car, the gearshift feels cool in my hand and my shifting is smooth and noiseless as we exit the garage. We drive along the waterfront, the setting sun behind us. Coralee rolls the window down, and the smell of the ocean fills the car—kelp and salt and a whiff of sewage from the outfall off Clover Point.

“Is it supposed to smell like that?” Coralee asks, wrinkling her nose and rolling up the window.

“Not really,” I say. “But they still pump raw sewage into the ocean around here.”

“Disgusting,” Coralee says.

We ride in silence until we get to Cattle Point, where I park, facing the ocean, and kill the engine. I know kids come here to party and the cops do regular sweeps, but it's still light and I don't have anything to hide. I'm just a kid taking an old lady for a drive.

“I used to bring Arthur here,” I say. “He liked to drink coffee and yell at the sailboats. ‘Come about, you bastards. Trim the jib! Hoist the spinnaker! You're luffing, you moron!' If there weren't any boats, he'd yell at the seagulls or people's dogs. Or at me.”

Coralee laughs softly. “You sounded just like him then.”

Two Japanese girls in skinny jeans and high heels stumble in front of us across the grassy area that borders the rocks. One of them talks on a pink cell phone while the other takes a tiny dog out of an enormous jewel-and-chain-encrusted bag. The dog stands on the grass, shivering, while the girl says something to it in Japanese. Eventually the dog squats and takes a tiny dump. The girl scoops him up, motions to her friend and they stagger toward the silver Beemer parked next to us.