She said it better than Alma could. She looks away so Tera can't see in her eyes that Alma agrees with her. “It was still a mean way to say it,” Alma admits, then goes on to tell Tera about the week of worrying, about how Helen is going downhill, how she might not even make it to Christmas, before Alma leaves for Florida, where the plan is to meet up with Richard at her parents', who aren't doing so well themselves. And all these things are true. But there's still just the sheer rush that comes from letting her mean streak have a go at it. Honestly, and she talks about her capricious Mamasita!
“If it weren't for you, I'd have such a petite soul, I mean it, Tera. You keep us all on our toes.” Alma goes on defending Tera, as if ganging
up on herself will make up for wanting to hurt her friend, turning the meanness on herself, more of the same.
Tera has started unpacking her overnight bag, which looks like a big flowered carpetbag. Everything in it seems to be pamphlets. She stops for a moment, a stack of info in her hand, and scowls. “Who wants to be on their toes all the time?”
Alma can't help herself. “You do!”
Tera narrows her eyes at Alma in mock anger, then hurls the stack in her hands, pelting Alma with pale blue hospice care pamphlets.
November 13, Saturday noon
TO:
Mi amor         Â
FAX:
802-388-4344
FROM:
Ricardo         Â
FAX:
809-682-0800
Mi amor, yesterday, after faxing you and calling you (Did you get my message? So sorry to have missed you!), I ran into the new liaison person for the clinic, Starr Bellâyep, that's her name. Texas, what can I say. She said it's crazy for me not to have access to the phone and fax, and so now I have my own key to the main office, so I don't have to be on their schedule to fax or call you.
Don't know what to make of her, Starr, that is. She's youngish (midthirties?), attractive, a take-charge person. Everyone seems to like her. She's done a lot to calm things down. Perfect Spanish, thanks to a Mexican nanny, she told me. Drives a pickup and comes loaded up with food from the capital. Ms. Santa Claus with a cowboy hat. She totally supports our green center. Says we can create a model community here, count on Swan's support. Swan's the drug company she does PR for. Starr actually knew Emerson from an on-site internship she did with HI back when she was in college (our Haitian outhouse initiative) and so when Swan was looking to sponsor a community project of some kind, she suggested us. I guess Swan always does some sort of goodwill project when they go into an area. I mean, even Tera can't find fault with that.
Speaking of whom, how's the weekend going?
This place is beautiful, I mean absolutely hands-down gorgeous. Shangri-la, if it weren't for the poverty. Really bad. So, our Centro Verde del Caribe is a godsend, as I think it will create jobs and also encourage locals to stay on the land and make a living at farming.
Our little casita was one of several built by Swan for their staff, but they're fine about letting Bienvenido and me stay in it. So, mi amor, I'm living in the lap of luxury: electricity from their generator, on-and-off hot water, and get this: a lighted toilet seat, works with some sort of solar battery, though how and why it got here, nobody knows. But just so you don't get too jealous, remember, you wouldn't get much writing done hereâsolitude is in short supply. Only time I'm alone is nights Bienvenido is gone or when I wake up early, sip coffee (toasted and ground by our neighbor), watch the sunrise, and miss you.
Anyhow, please don't worry. Tell me about Helen, how everything is going. Thanks for getting those leaves. Wow, my wife is turning into quite the gardener! Please call the boys and tell them I'm fine. I'll call once I've got a better phone setup. Take care of yourself. Remember, te adoro, mi amor querida, Ricardo.
O
N SATURDAY
, T
ERA,
of course, wants to go over to see Helen and hand-deliver the pamphlets she brought. They have met several times before, and one meeting with Tera and you're in her clan, especially if you're female and have had a hard life. Alma was going to drop by anyhow with a flan she made for Helen, but she exacts a promise from Tera that the pamphlets are to stay in her bag and not come out until they can talk to Mickey privately.
“Who's Mickey?” And then, before Alma can tell her, Tera breaks out with the Mickey Mouse song. “M-i-c K-e-y M-o-u-s-e. So does Mickey wear his ears?”
Alma loves it when Tera acts goofy. “His real name's Michael, Michael McMullen. Helen's son, a character.”
“Michael McMullen ⦔ Tera puzzles over the name. “It sounds so familiar. Maybe from meeting Helen before?”
Alma shakes her head. “Helen's last name's Marshall. According to
Claudine, the McMullen comes from Mickey's wife. He changed his name to hers.” It is strange when simple salt-of-the-earth folk end up having lives as complex and troubled as those of Alma and her friends. Were Helen not sick, Alma would pelt her with questions about why her son changed his name, why he doesn't call her Mother, why he periodically falls off the face of the earth.
They drive over to Helen's, releasing their trail of hydrocarbons in the air, when they could just walk across the back field. But Alma vetoes that suggestion. There is a north wind blowing, and flans are tropical critters.
Mickey's out in the front yard, unloading wood from a rusted blue pickup. He stops when they pull in, doesn't come forward to greet them, doesn't go on with his work, just stands there, watching. The here's-looking-at-you routine. “Is that Mickey?” Tera wants to know.
“Uh-huh,” Alma says under her breath, her heart quickening again, some Pavlovian reaction triggered by this guy, who has unnerved her both times she has seen him before. It's not attraction, at least she doesn't think so. It's the same feeling she gets with people who stand too close when they talk to her. Some psychic trespassing going on. Mickey's still wearing that plaid shirt, except now he's donned a down vest, in deference to the north wind, she supposes. It is wicked cold, even Tera says so.
“I'll bring in the flan,” Tera says, “Can you grab the pamphlets?”
“Let's leave them here for now,” Alma suggests. Watching Mickey watching them, Alma just knows pamphlets are not his thing. “Hi!” she calls out as she gets out of the car, as if he's some strange dog she wants to be sure won't bite before she leaves the safety of her vehicle behind. “Brought Helen a flan and my friend to visit.”
Again a time delay in which he stands and watches, having received her words, an envelope he's not going to open yet. “Just keep walking into the house,” Alma tells Tera under her breath, which in this cold shows up as a plume of white breath like a cartoon character's balloon, so it's dumb trying to be discreet. Besides, it's too late. Tera is making
a beeline over to Mickey. Alma swears her best friend looks for trouble. And what can she do but follow.
“Ta da!” Tera imitates a drumroll and lifts the cake lid from the flan. “Flan!” And by God, the man laughs. Tera can be so cool sometimes.
Tera introduces herself.
“Tera?” Mickey asks, like there might be something wrong with her name.
Tera gives him a firm nod. “From Teresa. And you?”
“Mickey.” Mickey grins, daring her to make something of it.
Of course, Tera does. “Mickey? Like in Mickey Mouse?” She grins back, a little taunting game going on between these two.
“Is Helen inside?” Alma steps in, worried that Tera might start in on her Mickey Mouse routine.
Time lapse. Message received. Time lapse. Mickey nods. “Thanks,” Alma says, nudging Tera, whoâAlma can tellâis intrigued by this odd guy. But Tera takes Alma's cue and starts down the path. Alma falls in beside her, both women looking straight ahead, holding in their laughter, that unspoken female communication going on between themâ
Just keep walking, don't turn around, we're being watched
âboth feeling that old chagrin at how men always seem to have the last word, their eyes sizing up your butt as you walk away.
I
NSIDE, HELEN IS SITTING
in a big chair by the fireplace, a fire going. This is the first time in ages that Alma has come in the front door, because in the past, even when she drove, she'd go around to the back door into the kitchen, where Helen almost always was sitting.
Alma can feel it in the air, like a season turning. The kitchen era is over. Soon the time of the living room shall pass. How long before Helen is confined to her bed, where she has let it be known she wants to die? How long before she's part of Snake Mountain where she wants her ashes scattered? “In the summertime, when it's convenient,” she told Alma a few days ago. “Oh, Helen,” Alma had scolded, “let yourself make a few demands!” But Helen explained that the top of a Vermont mountain in winter with gale-force winds blowing wasn't her
idea of a pleasant funeral. Besides, she wants to stay on Snake Mountain, not be blown clear down to New York City.
“Hey! Look at you, all cozy!” Alma says, bluffing it. Helen looks terrible. It's as if now that people know about it, her disease can have a go at her, no holds barred. Her skin is deathly pale and seems to hang on her, a size too big. Her bones poke out, and for a split second Alma's heart stops because what she is seeing is the skeleton Helen will soon become. But then the skeleton smiles, and Helen is back again!
“Mickey made me a nice little fire. It's been so long since I had a good fire.” She's feeling around for her walker, so she must sense there is company, as she never stands up to greet Alma anymore when it's just the two of them.
“Don't get up, Helen! I brought my friend, Tera. She's here for the weekend. You remember Tera, don't you?”
“What do you mean, don't get up?” Helen fusses. “Of course, I remember Tera!” And then, as if to prove it, she reels off a brief bio of Tera, full of glowing highlights Alma has told her, with all the complaints Alma has ever made about her best friend left out. Alma tells Helen everything, or used to, until this new knowledge turned her friend into this new person: a person who is going to die on her.
Alma was always bringing up Helen in her sessions with Dr. Payne. Why did this old woman mean so much to her? Usually, Dr. Payne tossed the question back: why did Alma think Helen was so important to her? But one time, he told her straight out what he thought. Helen is the mother Alma never had in childhood.
“You're paying this guy a hundred bucks an hour to tell you stuff like that?” Richard had said, a look of total incredulity on his face. “How about she's your friend. You like her. Period.” It was Alma's own fault for telling Richard, but then she was always running Dr. Payne's observations by him. She supposed she shared Richard's deep mistrust of people who charged money to heal your spirit.
Whatever the reason, it did seem that with Helen, all Alma's usual safeguards were out the window, and she loved the old woman without
a whole lot of second guessing, no periodic flaring up of mistrust or dislike. Oh, now and then Alma felt a little bored, because there was none of the exciting, edgy stuff that was usually going on with other people. But it had taken her by surprise that she could love someone without the usual big-brand bonds: not Lover or Husband, not Son or Daughter, not Familia or Boss or some other powerful person. A 100 percent unimportant, generic person. Helen was living proof. It was a revelation.
“Alma made you this flan,” Tera is saying, maybe as a way of letting Helen know why she, Tera, is not giving her a full frontal hug. One of Tera's hands is occupied. Still, a half hug from Tera is a mighty thing. Helen's fragile little figure tottersâshe never did find her walker, tucked behind the box of kindlingâand Alma catches her just in time to help her back down into her chair.
“This fire is yummy, Helen,” Alma says, feeling its warmth radiate right down into her cold bones. “I wish I'd known you loved them so.” She wonders if this will be one of her regrets months from now, how she never came over and made Helen a nice fire. “You feel like having a little flan now, Helen?”
“How did you know?” She's pretending again. Helen hasn't had much of an appetite all week. Every day, Alma has dropped by with a dish, and after seven days, her repertoire of recipes is close to used up. Helen always takes a few nibbles in Alma's presence, but Alma can tell Helen can't keep stuff down. Some pain medication she's on, no doubt. Alma has asked Mickey about it, but each time he just looks back at her, that watchful look that makes Alma want to withdraw the question. “She's okay,” he always says.
Alma takes the flan from Tera to serve up in the kitchen, since she knows where everything is. The place is surprisingly tidy: the dishes are done; the floor looks mopped. Mickey is running a tight ship, good for him. Alma opens the cabinets and finds the small plates with their dainty, chipped flowers, so old-fashioned, so Helen; the brass utensils with rosewood handles that Mickey got for his mother somewhere during his world postings, with the Marinesâso Alma learned a few
days back; the tray with the peeling decal that once said
home sweet home
but now reads like a phrase written in a foreign tongue,
HOM EET OME
. Alma is taking it all in: everything, everything making one sound, ticktock, ticktock. She turns on the water and lets it get hot and holds her hands under it, until it's scalding, until she can't stand it. So much for conservation, this trick she has for making something else hurt when her heart's about to crack.
Finally, she has got everything on a tray, ready to go, and the back door opens. It's Mickey, clapping his hands together, like he, too, feels the cold!
“I don't see how you do it without a coat.” Alma shakes her head, startled into this confession by seeing him responding like a regular person, not a man she can't understand and is half afraid of.