Vivian In Red (11 page)

I
wake up like crawling out of a long, narrow cave.

Voices. Daughter-in-law, Linda: “Terrifying. The nurse found him curled up on the landing. He could have fallen down the stairs and broke his neck.”

A voice I don’t know: “Of course, that must have been terrible for you.”

For you? I’m the one … And I was on the floor?

Awareness dawns on me that I’m once again in that stiff, flat mattress hospital bed contraption. My eyes snap open the same moment I remember seeing Vivian, and worse this time, hearing her voice in my head. And next thing I knew I was on the ground and a young nurse with a blonde ponytail was interrogating me and checking me over and sticking me back in bed, at which time I crashed right back into sleep.

The people in my parlor don’t notice that I’m awake right away, though, so I close my eyes again, to eavesdrop about myself.

“I am so sorry about this. We’ve already spoken to the nurse on duty, I assure you.”

Oh no, I hope they didn’t fire her. It wasn’t her fault.

“I should hope so,” Linda sniffs. “I mean, I realize he unclipped the alarm, but honestly, she didn’t notice him walking up the stairs? This place is older than old and everything creaks!”

“Of course, you have every right to be upset.”

“I just hate to see him like this. Just a couple of weeks ago he was so vibrant and active, like he’d live forever.”

I’m not dead yet. You’re all acting as if I’m three-quarters deceased.

“He may yet live a long time.” This was said by the stranger. Head nurse I guess? Some kind of boss lady. And she didn’t say that with any kind of reassurance. She pronounced it like a sentence of doom, and this makes me feel as cold as a corpse already.

I leave my eyes closed so I can better remember what that—vision, apparition, whatever, said. What Vivian said.

I just want to be heard.

But she was heard by me, boy was she ever. They could hear her in Hoboken, that one.

The nurse and Linda continue talking about my “care,” like I’m a finicky house pet.

Why can’t I just get back to normal? I swear I’ll appreciate being able to get around without being watched, I’ll make good use of my voice and be nicer to everyone, tell my kids and grandkids I love them all day. If only I could rid myself of this Vivian-vision, and…

What if? Now that’s the ticket. What if when I get my voice back, Vivian goes away? I only started going crazy in this particular way since the day I fell, the day I saw this impossible Vivian.

I vow to myself to be nice to Marla when she comes by, and really look at her flashcards and things. I’ll try to sing along with her silly songs, and when she says “Cat and …” instead of looking at her like she thinks I’m an imbecile, I’ll actually try to say “dog.” I’ll be a good sport for the physical therapist trying to make my good arm work. I can come back from this, sure as hell I can.

I open my eyes, then, and elbow myself up to sitting, feeling for my glasses on the side table. Linda rushes over. “Pop! There you are, oh, it’s so good to see you awake and alert. You gave us quite a scare. What were you doing up? Oh, I’m sorry, I know you can’t say. I don’t mean to…”

The nurse I can now see is a gray-haired lady with tortoiseshell glasses and the severe shape of an arrow: all straight up and down. She interjects, “No, it’s good to keep talking with him, asking him things. Don’t treat him like a child. He will answer if he can, when he can, in what way he can, right, Milo?”

I nod, but I’m biting back a grimace. People these days are so familiar, right off. I can’t get used to how people who barely know me, people half my age, use my first name like it’s nothing. But I know this is one of the many ways the world has moved on without me.

I point to her and tilt my head, squinting my eyes a bit. The arrow lady gets me.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Caroline Bates, and I’m with Companions Home Health, the agency providing the care for you now. You won’t often see me, you’ll see our care workers, but I promise they are all attentive and professional. The very best in the city. And we won’t have another lapse like tonight.”

“And you won’t unclip the alarm and go traveling at night, will you?” Linda asks. The two ladies are like sentries, the boss with the glasses and Linda with her erect dancer’s posture, which seems, impossibly, even taller and straighter than usual. “We’d hate to have you in a nursing home, but if that’s what it takes to keep you safe…”

How dare she! This… girl, not even my own blood. I decide she’s bluffing. No one wants to do that to me. She’s trying to threaten me, like with her kids.

Still, it’s safer, no doubt, if I play along. At least until all this is over.

Linda goes on, “I don’t know why you were headed upstairs anyway, Pop. There’s a bathroom on this floor, and you’ve got a little buzzer there if you need help and…”

I shoot a gaze up the staircase, trying to evoke longing, sadness. I never was much of an actor but I’ve sure seen enough stage people hamming it up to make like a copycat. It feels a little ridiculous, truth be told.

“Oh!” Linda says. “Oh, you miss your own bed, don’t you?”

I nod, again with the sad face, though maybe laying it on a bit thick.

Linda says, more to herself than to Ms. Bates, “I wonder if we could get some movers to bring his bed down here? Could that alarm thing be used on his bed? We’d have to move things around, it’s a narrow room here… Or hell, just walk him up the stairs at night. Esme used to do that before he fell, even. There’s a bathroom up there, too.”

The Bates lady is getting ready to speak, but Linda raises a slim hand to stop her. “He won’t be clomping up and down the steps all day. Just like before, he’d come down in the morning and only go up at night. His leg recovered quickly from the stroke, after all. We’re keeping him at home to keep him comfortable and in familiar surroundings. The hospital bed is overkill.” Linda looks down to address me. “And you won’t be trying these solitary journeys at night anymore, right, Pop?”

I shake my head emphatically. Hell no, if this means I get to sleep in my own bed like a normal person.

A slam of the front door telegraphs my son’s entrance. Paul is a slammer, always has been. He comes around through the door and I can’t believe he looks so old all of a sudden. He comes in and when he sees his wife he stops short, and something comes over him. It’s a rigid posture that looks unnatural, but most of all it’s the distance between them he chooses not to close.

Ms. Bates takes her leave to look over the schedule for my “care.”

Paul stares at his wife a moment. Linda stands without speaking, her hands loosely clasped, and her face a mask of passive waiting. It’s easy to imagine her in this posture in the wings, wearing her toe shoes, listening for her cue to come to life.

Paul approaches me and pats my hand like he’s petting a snake and isn’t too sure I won’t bite him. Physical affection was never very much his thing. “You gave us quite a scare,” he says, parroting his wife’s words almost exactly.

Linda interjects to explain how I want to go back to sleeping in my own room. “Oh, sure, fine, whatever you want,” Paul says, as if we’d asked for his permission.

And I’m tired again, suddenly, though I’ve been sleeping for who knows how long. So I lie back down and close my eyes. The good part about being close to ninety is that no one cares if you nap at any given time, all the livelong day if you want. Like a housecat.

I roll onto my side, too, on my left, which was the side I always slept on with my dear Bee in our big four-poster bed. I could see her sleeping form, rising and falling in the faint light from outside: the moon, city lights, lampposts, all of it, the constant seeping glow of the greatest city in the world.

“He must be exhausted,” Paul says, but his voice has an absent quality to it. I bet he’s looking at his little electronic scheduler whatsit.

“It’s so strange.” This from Linda.

“What?”

“How he seems to have recovered so well, in almost every way. He walks well now, his left hand can play the piano. His face isn’t droopy or anything like that. But even with all the therapy, he’s just made no progress. Not on writing or speaking.”

“Well, he’s old.”

“He didn’t seem so a few weeks ago. Are you listening to me? Can’t you put that gadget down for five minutes?”

“Sure I’m listening, but what? What else am I supposed to do? We’re already hemorrhaging money for all this. I’m spending as fast as I can.”

“God, Paul. That’s not what I meant.”

“You’ll forgive me if I’ve got it on the brain. Pop always acted like Short Productions would go forever, but it’s not like magic, you know. We haven’t had a hit in too long, and this…” A pause. He’s probably waving his hand over me,
this problem here
, “… is taking a bite out of the one solution I had in mind.”

“
The High Hat
.”

“Yes,
The High Hat
. Book and show, and what the hell? Maybe even movie. Can you see it? I wonder if Leonardo DiCaprio can dance.”

“All our problems solved by a dancing DiCaprio? How convenient.”

“You joke, but it would probably do the trick.”

“You never talk like this in front of him.”

“He won’t listen anyway, is why. Anyway, I’m not talking in front of him. He’s out like a light there, and no wonder after his little adventure. Did you threaten him with the nursing home?”

“I mentioned it, yes, though I got no pleasure out of it. I’m not ready to parent your father. I do that enough with my parents.”

“Oh come on, you love being in charge of everything.”

“That’s not fair and no, I don’t. Hardly. But it’s not like I have much choice.”

Their conversation devolves into bickering, and I’ve gone from a harmless, sleeping elderly stroke victim to something even more insubstantial. They don’t even concern themselves now with waking me.

Their argument breaks off quick, like a tape reel that’s snapped. I hear the quick clicking of a woman fleeing in pointy heels. I wait to hear Paul’s footsteps follow, but instead I hear him flop into one of those chairs by the fireplace, and he doesn’t move.

Go after her, I’d like to say. Make up, apologize even if you’re right, because so what? This little argument is worth so much to you? I’d say the same to her. Who cares who started it?

I care.

You again. Go away. Are you a dybbuk now? I’ve heard the stories.

Ha, a shiksa like me? I hardly think that’s allowed.

You’re nothing. You’re stroke damage in my brain.

I’m nothing, am I? So why am I the only one you can talk to?

I scrunch my eyes tighter shut, resisting the urge to plug my ears with my fingers, knowing that it won’t help.