She sat in her mother’s small apartment, feeling a weight as substantial as a ton of rock on her head. It was all too much. What was going to happen to Beverly? What was going to happen to all of them? Her mother had gone in a few short minutes the night before from being an independent working woman to being perhaps an invalid, perhaps what? Her responsibility? Or would Beverly recover? Suzanne felt guilty even asking herself these questions, but as she sat in the chair usually occupied by her mother, some book on British labor organizing in the mines still open where Beverly had left off reading it, Mao in her lap with his claws dug into her sleeve as if she too might vanish, she could not turn off
her mind. She could not vanquish the fear and the questions. If Beverly needed care, there was no one else to provide it. Karla lived on her teacher’s pension and with her adopted daughter, Rosella, and family.
Her laptop was in her briefcase. She set it up on the coffee table, went on line, and began to access the various websites on stroke. She sat up until after midnight reading whatever she could and getting more and more depressed and more and more frightened. She could not believe what had happened to Beverly, so quickly, so unjustly—although as soon as she thought that, she mocked herself. What illness was just? What calamity was earned?
She wished she had possessed more energy to draw Michael out. Obviously Rachel was far more interested in him than she had been in any young man before. Rachel was not as glib and seductive with men as Elena—in fact, Rachel probably did not have it in her to be truly seductive. She had fallen in love before, but always she had been more serious than the boy. Rachel had recovered quickly from these small romances for her gaze was fixed on academic achievement. For several years she’d had a passion for tennis and played in local tournaments. She had been involved with ecological organizations since ninth grade. Whatever Rachel did, she did wholeheartedly, and now she seemed to have seriously formed a couple.
Thinking about Rachel gave her a little rest from studying stroke, but she could not focus long on her younger daughter. She kept feeling as if a wall had fallen on her as well as on Beverly. She had no idea how to proceed, but she could not endure that feeling of total loss of control and total helplessness. She would have to have an earnest conversation with Dr. Weinstein about her mother’s condition and the options for treatment. She must make the doctors and nurses understand that she was actively monitoring what happened to Beverly. It would not do any harm to let them know she was a litigator. Doctors grew marvelously thorough when dealing with a lawyer. She felt a thrill of protectiveness: she would show her mother how useful she could be. She could master the medical jargon. She had already picked up a fair amount of the vocabulary on-line tonight. Tomorrow she would attack. Whatever Beverly needed in the way of therapy, medical intervention, Suzanne would make them understand was to be provided for her.
Suzanne sat in the back of the shuttle with her mother’s cat in his carrier whimpering under her. Occasionally he gave a sharp cry of despair just for emphasis. It was Sunday evening, and she was exhausted. It felt wrong to leave Beverly in the hospital where Suzanne was not at all sure she was getting the kind of attention she needed. But obviously given Beverly’s condition, the hospital was the only place for her.
There were elaborate instructions available for introducing one cat to another in a household, but all these rules involved much more time and energy than she had. She hauled the carrier into the kitchen and opened it. Mao bounded out, hissed at everything around him, and ran out of the room before she could feed him. She chased after him, but she had no idea where he had gone. “Elena,” she called. Half the lights in the flat were on and in fact the TV was turned to music videos, but Elena was nowhere. How could she leave the house with the television running? Suzanne tried to gain control of herself. It had been a bad weekend, and it was shaping up to be a bad year. No reason to take that out on Elena. She sat on the couch feeling flattened. The image of Beverly in the hospital bed threaded by tubes, her face twisted, unable to speak, haunted her. A fat tear leaked from her eye. She rubbed both eyes hard and sniffed her nose clear. No point weeping now.
Everything had happened so quickly, a big wind, a storm out of nowhere. She turned on her computer. Ninety-seven messages awaited her, many from her law and feminist listservs, but a number were personal. Those she would read. Jake had sent two messages:
I hope you enjoyed the weekend as much as I did. Meeting you at last was a delight. As I told you when you were kind enough to give me a lift to the airport, my meetings went well. I’ll share my notes with my staff and directors. We should come to a decision soon about New England. I’m hoping it will be positive. I felt very positive about our time together.
This morning another message:
I haven’t heard from you. I hope this means you’re busy catching up on the time you lost with me last weekend, and not that you are
having regrets? Don’t second-guess your emotions—what happened was good.
Jake felt distant to her, irrelevant. She had no energy to spare. Second-guess? He would be insulted if he knew that she had almost forgotten about their time together in fretting about Beverly. Suzanne sighed deeply, could think of nothing to write, and went upstairs to check in with Marta. She found Jim and Elena at the kitchen table just finishing dessert while Marta cleared. “Do you want some supper, Suzanne? There’s leftover chicken cacciatore. Jim made more than enough.”
Suzanne cocked her head, considering. “I guess I am hungry. I’ve been living on hospital cafeteria sandwiches for three days. I’d love some of Jim’s chicken.”
Elena got up at once. “Thanks for supper.”
“Hey,” Jim said. “I never finished telling you my lab rat story.”
“Later. I’ll remind you.”
“Elena, there’s a black cat in the apartment. Remember your grandmother’s cat?”
“Chairman Mao? What’s he doing here?”
Suzanne explained briefly. “So don’t let him out. Maybe you should put some food down.”
After Elena left, Suzanne said, “I hope she didn’t invite herself to supper. The way I just did.”
Jim frowned. “She isn’t an angry teenager any longer. She’s her own person now.”
Marta asked, “So are you here for a while? I’m not quite up to speed on your sexual harassment case. If there’s a chance I might have to take over, I’d better master it.”
“I think I can confine my trips down there to weekends, unless there’s another crisis. I paid the rent on her apartment, cleaned out the refrigerator and brought her what she needs in the hospital…. As to what’s going to become of her, Marta, I have no damned idea. One day you’re healthy and making some money and living your life. The next day you’re in a hospital bed with tubes sticking into you, unable to walk or talk or stand or take yourself to the toilet. I can’t think of much that’s scarier.”
“How’s your blood pressure?” Jim asked.
“Right now, probably off the scale. That’s one of the reasons I exercise so passionately. It keeps my blood pressure down.”
“I should get one of those handheld machines and start taking mine regularly,” Jim said. “My father died of a heart attack when he was sixty-two.”
“I don’t know what my father died of. The widow never told me.”
“Shouldn’t you know?” Marta sat across the table, sipping decaf while Suzanne ate. “Suzanne, just because you never knew your father doesn’t mean his genes aren’t active in you. You didn’t spring parthenogenetically from Beverly, no matter how much it may have felt that way.”
“I don’t even have his widow’s address…. She didn’t encourage contact. This chicken is great.” She smiled at Jim, who looked pleased. He had taken up cooking in the past few years. He was the best cook in the house.
“Suzanne, Jim and I have been talking. Elena needs a job and Jim needs a receptionist. Why not?”
“Elena is not the world’s most responsible citizen, you know,” Suzanne said slowly. “I’d be really happy for her to go back to work, but have the two of you thought this through?”
Jim waved his hand airily. “You’re too down on her. It’s not a demanding job. It’s three days a week. She might even like it. I don’t have an elaborate history with her, like both of you, so she’s more herself with me.”
“Did you ask her?”
“Of course,” Jim said. “Why wouldn’t I ask her? She’s an adult and it’s a quieter environment than the restaurant. I don’t expect it to be permanent, but my office is falling apart since my assistant got a full-time job.”
“What do you think about it?” she asked Marta.
“It sounds worth trying. Jim’s been complaining about getting behind in billing, his records incomplete, double-booking appointments….”
Suzanne understood. When Jim complained, Marta felt obliged to solve his problems. Probably the idea of hiring Elena had been hers to begin with: since Marta had defended Elena in court, she had always felt a little responsible for her. Not that Elena usually appreciated that any more than what she saw as Suzanne’s meddling.
When she came downstairs, she was able to locate Mao immediately by the sound of loud hissing—a den of snakes—and a harsh yowling she could not imagine issuing from her gentle Sherlock in spite of seeing him with his back arched and his fur on end. Tamar was up on the counter out of harm’s way, but her fur too was erected in an attempt to look even bigger than she was. Both cats were bigger than Mao, but he was standing his ground. The confrontation had occurred over a dish of cat food that Elena had put down on the kitchen floor. She wished she could explain to her cats that Mao was a visitor and needed support, not hostility. She scooped up Sherlock who made terrible threats but allowed himself to be carried off to her bedroom, where she shut the door and fussed over him. Then she unpacked her carry-on bag and tried to figure out exactly what overdue piece of work she should tackle first. It promised to be a long night. She would answer Jake in the morning. At the moment, he felt like one more demand in an increasing list of them. When she tried to call up his face, she saw only Beverly, twisted and in despair.
Elena was sprawled on the sofa with Mao on her lap. “So I think I found a job.”
“In Jim’s office?” Suzanne asked cautiously.
“It doesn’t pay great, but it’s not exactly brain surgery.”
“Elena, if you go to work for friends, it doesn’t mean you don’t have to work hard, get there on time, the whole ball of wax. Because they’re friends, you can’t just walk out.”
“Do you think I’m a total flake? I’ve held all kinds of jobs, and it’s no big deal for me to work for Jim and handle his little office.”
“But, Elena, sitting up in a therapist’s office making appointments isn’t anything like as lively as working in the restaurant. The proprietor may have been oppressive, but you liked the scene. You told me you loved going to after-hours bars and hanging out with the kitchen crew and the waiters.”
“Yeah, it’s a scene, but I’ve had it. Nothing real comes of it, just surface excitement. Some waiter goes, Look who just walked in. The second-string sportscaster from Channel Four, big deal! Enough….” Elena slowly scratched Mao under his chin and he leaned into her hand, safe in her lap from the big orange monsters her gentle sweet cats had
become. “Mother, you’re the one been telling me for years, think about your future. Think about what you want to do. Et cetera. Et cetera.”
“But surely the future you crave isn’t being a receptionist.”
“I want to see what a therapist does. You’re always making jokes about therapists, but when people hurt, that’s where they go. Remember when you thought it was awfully important for me to spend months and months in therapy!” One of Elena’s rare references to what had happened twelve years before. “Besides, I took a bunch of psychology courses.”
In the course of her four colleges during years of on-and-off schooling, Elena had taken courses in almost everything. “Do you really think you might be interested in therapy? You could go back to school.”
“How do I know if it’s real? I need to watch a therapist in action. Then I can decide.”
She would beg Jim not to blame her if it didn’t work out, and urge him not to hesitate to end the situation if Elena was getting in his way. But, yes, it seemed to her a better situation than the restaurant. From her pre-academic years in the law collective, she had a pretty good idea how much cocaine and speed and heroin passed through the kitchens of restaurants. It would be much better for Elena to be out of there. She was always at risk. She thought that Elena had stayed clear of drugs since she was fifteen, but she could never be sure. Never. She supposed she just wanted to believe that.
I feel like a bad mother. I think on the whole I have been barely adequate—like Beverly, my own mother
.
I’m also feeling guilty that one of my first reactions—silent, of course—to my mother’s stroke is to worry about what impact it’s going to have on me. What will happen to her? How much will all this cost? Is she going to move back into her apartment, ever?
I know I’ve presented myself to you as organized, capable, rational, in control. Most of the time that’s how I think of myself. Yet sometimes I look at my life and I feel just the opposite is true, that everything outside of the law is a series of overreactions and careening blunders
.
Like my mother, I got pregnant at twenty-two. I had just entered law school. The smart thing I did was not to drop out but to continue. The other smart thing I did was not to marry Elena’s father, although I have to confess he didn’t ask me
.
Victor had been five years older than Suzanne and dazzlingly handsome. When he began to pay special attention to her, she could not believe it. She met him in the clinic their law school was running, where she as a first-year student was involved in a work-study program. He was in danger of being deported. She could still remember the moment he had turned and suddenly stared into her eyes, when she felt the floor dissolve under her soles. His eyes were large and luminous, a radiant dark brown: Elena’s eyes. Stories swirled about Victor, as they always would, for he looked as if he should be a hero. Perhaps he was. He was also a skillful liar, but then that might go with being a hero in danger. She had never understood him. She had only experienced him.