Warm Wuinter's Garden (30 page)

Those were glorious moments. She said the
sharpest things and then waited, poised in a kind of pre-orgasmic
tension, poised knowing that just one more flick would cause an
avalanche of feeling to crash between them. She came to believe
that anger might be the strongest emotion left to them. His love
was garbled with pity and fear. Hers was intertwined with
resentment and envy. Anger was something hot enough to burn out any
conflicting properties. If nothing else, anger was pure. During
most of the days in the last horrid weeks she had savored its
untainted heat. She had felt its engrossing warmth spread
throughout all the crevices and crannies of her mind until there
was not an image nor a memory not infused with its distracting
glow. She would stoke her anger until it overflowed its crucible
and spilled down her throat and ran red throughout her body. Using
unintended slights and unacknowledged and misinterpreted whims as
bits of coal, and pain and fear as the bellows, Bett had spent her
hours heating hurts until their glow suffused and finally
transcended the heat of her disease.

Unlike fire, anger did not burn itself out.
Instead, it fed upon itself. A miracle force, anger could raise the
hottest flame from the smallest kindling. Bett admired the vitality
of her rage. It wasn’t sick. It wasn’t weak. It was so strong it
made her pulse race and her skin itch. Its energy would fill her
and she would want to flare out at all around her. One morning, a
week before, in exquisite experimentation, she had risen from her
bed and had permitted the anger to flow down her arms and out
through the cracks of her fisted hands.

Books and Kleenex boxes, vials and glasses
had gone flying. What a fearsome joy.

Sweet, silent simpering Neil. Weak.
Spineless. Sliding down the softest roads. Smiling to all. Kind and
caring in a dithery absent-minded way. Colloidal kindness, like a
bivalve, able to shape itself to any situation. Except maybe now.
Always patting. Backs and arms and children’s head. If asked, would
he even know what head was underneath his patting palm? Her
patient, plodding pash and pal. Neil. Slow smiling, slow talking,
slow moving. Oxen walk. Imperturable. Until now. Until life moved
faster than his bovine pace. Until disease outraced his measured
tread. Until kindness turned to care and then concern and, now,
consternation. Until fear and disgust hobbled his moves. Until it
was impossible for him ever to catch up to where she was going. She
was flying along, compelled by her disease, impelled by anger and
with each moment poor, plodding Neil was left further behind.

What was the matter with him? Why, after
forty years, didn’t he know when to steady her and when to move
away? Why couldn’t he understand? Where did all of this new
stupidity come from? Why couldn’t he figure out how to do
something? Whatever it was that she needed. She was the sick one.
Why couldn’t he make the right decision for once? Why couldn’t he
keep up with where she was being compelled to go? Each day his
actions, his demonstrations of concern, his love and kindnesses
were less appropriate to where she was. She was accelerating out of
any life she had ever known and he clop clopped along like an old
field horse.

Disease was running rampant in her. It pushed
time. The cancer’s speed accelerated her own time. She closed her
eyes to allow a spasm of nausea to pass and when she opened them a
morning was gone. She moved a hand up over her brow to explore the
febrile corrugations where once hair had been and half the
afternoon would disappear. During the quickest catnap, an afternoon
would age to evening. A bite or two of cooled food, a sip of tepid
water, intermittent swallows of the brightly colored orts of
medication, a page read, a slow walk to the bathroom, one corner of
a crossword puzzle filled, a desultory conversation whispered back
and forth with a healthy husband and a day was gone.

Gone.

Lost.

Torn from her.

It was amazing how fast time fled. It rushed
past roaring like a waterfall. Swept through her darkened room.
Churned up her life. Cascaded through her memories. Poured and
powered its way through her days. Her days…just her days. Not
always the nights. Some nights, many nights, she had measured
time’s indolent passing by the irregular sound of bubbles breaking
free from the side of a glass of warming ginger-ale and bursting to
the surface. Many nights time was slower and anger was harder.
Night seemed to be made of viscid time—thick and slow, the perfect
medium for regret and remorse. At night, utter blackness covered
enough of the details of her life that Bett could see what remained
more clearly. She could see the self-pity that she was molding,
like sand castles, into a whimsical shape about her. She could
reach her hands out into the night and feel its cool, smooth,
slippery clay. Patting, shaping, kneading, pinching, she was
entombing herself in a vessel of her own fine making. She was
building something to hold her remains. Living remains. Pity and
anger were the barriers. Not time.

The soda’s silence would signal the approach
of day. As night lightened, as the architecture of the sick
returned, as the druid’s circle of pill vials emerged on the
bedside table, as the monoliths of books and the clear columns of
brackish fluids rose out of the night, as her life of sickness was
reconstructed by a dawning sun, she would go blind again in rage.
Time would fly again. In a twist of covers and a blink of pain
another day of her life would be taken from her.

Bett settled herself under the mess of
covers. She reached out to the nightstand for something. Her hand
wandered and finally her eyes turned to look, but she could find
nothing to free her from her feelings.

The phone was off. Let him call. Let him
worry. A nap filled with feverish dreams and he would be home. A
groaning weight upon the stairs. A well-signaled anticipation.
That
smile would precede
that
look. Neither would be
forthright. She disgusted him. He knew she knew it. False smiling,
he would fear her fury. How was her day and was there anything he
could do for her? Was there anything that she thought she might be
hungry for? Was today’s discomfort any better than yesterday’s? Had
she gotten any rest? A litany of questions that were meant as
declarations. Of his love and concern and goodness. Why couldn’t he
just ask what he really wanted to know? Are you closer to death? Is
it coming? How long before it’s here? How long must I pretend? How
long before I can return to my life? Bett was sure that if she were
to look into his face that that would be what she would read. She
would read the same questions there that she constantly asked
herself. How long? How long? How long? How long?

How long. How long.

How?

Too longgggggg.

* * *

Ellen’s only surprise upon entering Bett’s
room was at how cold it was. She had guessed it would be hot and
airless. She stood looking through the gloom to the shapeless,
sleeping, susurrating mound on the bed. She walked across the room
and pulled the cord on the curtains.

Weak northern light eddied into the room.
Amorphous forms gained corners and colors, but the light was too
weak to waken Bett. Ellen left the room. When she returned she was
carrying a tray filled to a delicate balance with teapot, cups and
saucers, milk, lemon, ginger, sugars, honey, butter, two jam jars,
plates, and a plate of toast points. After setting the tray down on
the scarred top of an old red paint blanket chest, she stood over
Bett staring at the baldness and the furrows and troughs of her
face.

Before leaning over to rub Bett’s brow, Ellen
whispered to herself, “Break a leg, kiddo.”

“Hello, my dear, sorry to wake you, but, if
we’re to have tea, we need a hostess. ‘The sad and solemn Night
hath yet her multitude of cheerful fires; The glorious host of
light.’ Bryant. Of course, it’s not light, but rather a light tea,
I’ve just made toast, that we would have you be host of. And, of
course, it’s not a heavenly host that we be seeking, but rather an
earthly, even earthy, one. And if it’s not too forward of me, a
quick look around this room suggests that we do have that. I wish I
had a better quote, but it’s the only one I can think of that uses
host. Or, hostess, for that matter. Arise, my sweet, and eat my
crumbs.”

Bett’s hands emerged from under the covers.
She grasped the satin blanket tape as if it were a bar which she
would use to pull herself from sleep. Her eyes slowly opened. Her
mouth unlocked, then, closed as if she had forgotten what she meant
to say.

Ellen’s small hands, as bony and blue as
pullets’ wings, grasped Bett’s hands.

“A bit disoriented are we? That’s fine.
That’s commendable. It used to be such a feminine thing to be. My
dear, I’ve come to rob you. I cased the joint, thought you might be
feeling peckish, and I just waltzed through the door. You must lock
your locks if you wish to avoid me. Which, I suspect, you may have
been, are now, or surely soon will be wishing. Well, I’ve broken
and entered and now will rob you of your sleep and, perhaps, a
certain kind of consciousness.

“Now, although you are the hostess in
principle, I shall be the hostess in fact. I know everything may
sound terrible so I brought a choice. Do you care for lemon, sugar,
honey, crystallized ginger or castor sugar with your tea?”

Bett shook her head back and forth against
her pillow.

“Wincing is fine. It’s all terrible, I know.
Just tell me which is least terrible.”

After waiting through a half-minute of
silence, Ellen turned to the tea tray.

“Choice overwhelms. I’ll just make you a
small cup. With lemon and ginger. I’ve made toast from some bread I
baked. Nothing like kneading to firm the underarms and raise the
bosom. Sweet memory that it is. No butter, unless you beg. There’s
cherry rhubarb jam or my own lemon curd.”

When Ellen turned back around with a cup of
tea in her hand she found that Bett had lifted herself into a
half-sitting position. Bett’s face was turned toward the open
curtains.

“Winter’s poor, pale orb.

“Please drink, my dear. This room’s so cold
it will cool in no time.”

Bett took the cup and saucer from Ellen’s
hands. She rested it on the ridge of covers that crossed her
lap.

“Thank you.”

Ellen curtsied.

“You’re welcome, mum.”

Bett set the cup back down after having just
touched the rim to her lips.

Ellen nodded, “Brass tack time, my dear. You
feel terrible. I could be polite and concerned and ask you how you
feel, as if I were some damned ninny who had failed to notice the
decor.”

Ellen’s airy wave took in the pill containers
on the bed table.

“I could ask you with heartfelt concern how
you are, but I’m sure you’ve been asked so often that my sympathy
would only anger you. You feel terrible. You look terrible. You
want to act terrible. It’s all very understandable.

“Try the toast, dear. It’s made with…”

“Stop! I don’t want toast and I don’t want
tea. I want to be left alone.”

Bett was pleased at the strength anger gave
her voice. She looked to see what response would shade Ellen’s
face.

“Yes, I know, my dear. That’s why I’m
here.”

“You know what?”

“That you want to be left alone.”

“Then, why are you here?”

“Sheer spite, my dear.”

Ellen came close to the bed and set a plate
of toast onto Bett’s lap.

“Pure pleasure, my dear. I’ve told you before
that I’m quite defiant. Hurt and helplessness bring out caring in
most people. I see helplessness and I want to get close and rap it
with a stick. Partly, just to be sure that it’s helpless. Mostly,
because if it is helpless, it can’t do anything back to me. As I’ve
grown older and weaker in so many ways, I’ve found it to be quite a
treat to find a victim I needn’t fear.”

Despite her intention to remain silent, Bett
said, “You can’t mean that.”

“Can’t I?”

Ellen fierce bright eyes looked directly into
Bett’s eyes until Bett was forced to break off from her gaze.

“Just why couldn’t I mean that? Because it’s
not becoming, or not Christian, or not in character? But what is
character? Can circumstances outweigh character? Has your character
changed recently or has it been overwhelmed by circumstances? Is it
cancer or character that’s dictating your behavior?”

Ellen pulled a honey-colored comb-back
Windsor chair next to Bett’s bed. As she moved the chair and then
her cup and saucer, she continued to talk.

“When we were thrown together in the hospital
the thing that most drew me to you was your character. It helped to
see me through and I was sure that it would do the same for you.
The last time we met, when you came to my house after Christmas, I
began to have my doubts. There seemed to be some cracking at the
edges. From our phone calls—the ones we’ve had and, especially
lately, the ones we haven’t had—I became worried.

“My dear, I know people—my sister-in-law, for
example—who go to pieces when two loads of laundry stack up. I know
so many people who become overwhelmed by a faulty car, an unruly
child, a delayed doctor’s appointment. You are not like that and,
from what you’ve told me of your past, never were. Your parents
died when you were young and that was a tragedy, but it seemed to
have toughened you up without making you tough. Life on lie’s
terms. Until now. I think you’re overwhelmed and, what makes it
worse, you’re even more overwhelmed by the idea of being
overwhelmed. It’s not enough that your body has betrayed you and
allowed some cells to grow willy-nilly. What’s worse is that in the
moment when you need it most, your character, by being overwhelmed,
has betrayed you, too. In a way, I’m not too surprised. You’ve had
damn little practice at being overwhelmed since that early tragedy.
For someone of your years, you’re singularly ill-prepared for
setbacks.”