And while I was at it, I’d better clean up my thoughts, as well.
5
adelaide
THE FOLLOWING MONDAY
Watch your head, Mom.” Eddie cushioned the top of my noggin with his hand as if I’d never gotten into an automobile before—when the fact is, I’d ridden in enough cars to fill an antique road show, starting with my granddaddy’s Model T.
Of course, that’s what I was now. An antique.
One thing those old cars had going for them—you didn’t have to fuss with that ridiculous strap contraption Eddie was easing over my head and clicking across my lap. What the heck was that annoying thing called? I can’t remember. I can remember the license plate of our family car back in 1939—122-147—but I can’t remember the name of this silly restraint device. It’s sad to remember just enough to know how much you’re forgetting.
“Ralph and I will meet you at the house,” Eddie said.
“Fine,” I said, although I didn’t really register what he’d said. I was too caught up in noticing that there seemed to be two Eddies. Something was wrong with my vision, because sometimes I saw double and even triple.
Becky—no, it was Hope; I’d seen her face fall too many times when I’d called her the wrong name over the last few days, and Isure didn’t want to do that again—smiled at me. “Does the seat belt hurt your ribs?”
Seat belt—that’s what it was called. And why on earth was she asking about my ribs? Something must be wrong with them. That must be why my lower chest throbbed. “I’m fine, dear.”
But I wasn’t. I was confused and disoriented, and my hands were clammy. Thoughts flitted in and out of my head like hummingbirds, pausing for just a few seconds before winging on their way. I couldn’t seem to hold on to any of them.
I knew I was in a car, but where the heck were we? I looked around, searching for clues. A woman in a blue medical outfit—what do they call it? Scraps?—was pushing a wheelchair away from the curb. “Take care now, Mrs. McCauley,” she said.
The hospital—that’s right. I’d fallen, hit my head, and cracked my ribs. Relief washed through me—first relief that I could remember where I was, and then relief that I was leaving. The next time I came here, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be so lucky.
My days in the hospital all blended together in my memory like that cottage cheese and Jell-O recipe I used to make, opaque and filled with chunks of crunchy stuff that tasted the same—only instead of apples and celery, these chunks were made up of having my blood pressure checked, being helped to bathroom, and feeling a stranger’s hands bathe me in the shower.
It was humbling, being on the receiving end of bathing and bathroom care. I’d performed the tasks for Charlie when he was first injured, but getting the help myself... well, I knew it had been hard on Charlie, but I had a new appreciation of just how hard. I think it must have been worse to get help from a spouse than from a stranger—especially knowing that the spouse had been about to leave you.
One thing I do remember clearly about my stay in the hospital—it stands out, as sure as nuts in Jell-O—was that visit with Mother. If I didn’t want to spend eternity getting tongue-lashed, I had to tellHope everything and take care of that piece of business I’d put off for decades. The thought made my breakfast turn sour in my stomach.
I must have closed my eyes and dozed for a moment, because the next thing I knew, Hope was pulling up in front of the house. Time has become uneven. It slides by unnoticed, as if nothing is changing, and then all of a sudden, I look around and everything’s different.
“Sit tight, and I’ll get your walker out of the trunk,” Hope said.
My walker? I didn’t need a walker, like an old lady! Or did I? Maybe so. I couldn’t risk falling again until I finished following Mother’s instructions.
The sun was shining, and the tulips in the yard were in full bloom—bright bursts of brilliant yellow and white, blinding as a flashbulb. A handsome officer’s face floated into my memory, and my mind started to go down a rabbit hole, but then my eye caught the hot pink flash of azaleas, just starting to bud, and my thoughts zoomed even further backward, back to childhood.
I was five years old, crouched beside the azalea bed with my mother. She wore her brown-checked housedress, flowered cotton gloves, and her floppy straw gardening hat. I had a gardening hat and a pair of gloves, too, but I’d taken them off after about two minutes. I’d never liked the feel of things on my hands or head.
“Your skin is going to turn as brown and rough as leather,” Mother had fussed. She’d always been after me for unladylike behavior, but I didn’t think that ladies seemed to have much fun. Gardening was the one ladylike activity I loved, because it involved digging in the dirt. On this particular day, Mother and I were mixing old coffee grounds into the soil under the azaleas. She said it made them bloom longer. I remember dipping the grounds out of a big Crisco can, and inhaling deeply. I’d loved the mingled scent of coffee and dirt and growing things.
So odd, how I could remember long-ago things like they happened yesterday, yet yesterday’s events seemed covered with moss.
Eddie and Ralph pulled their car into the drive behind us, and I used that infernal walker to get to the porch. Eddie helped me upthe steps—the steps were a nice, clean gray, as if they’d been newly painted—and then I was in the house, and Snowball was bouncing around my feet, dancing as if it were Christmas, New Year’s, and every other holiday all rolled into one big, fat, joyful, beefy bone.
Hope picked him up so I didn’t trip over him, while Eddie led me into the living room and got me settled in a chair. Hope set Snowball in my lap, where he licked my face and wagged his tail as I talked to him and petted him, and it was only after he calmed down and curled into a soft, strokable ball that I realized I was sitting in the floral chair where my mother used do her hand sewing when she listened to the radio. Of course, that was back when the chair was in her house, and the radio was a piece of furniture.
I closed my eyes and it was like I was transported back to my childhood home. I could practically feel the itchy wool sofa. Daddy’s leather chair was angled beside it, the armrest worn and cracked, and...
“Okay, Mom?”
Eddie’s question made me jerk my eyes open. He was sitting on the sofa in my living room and I believe he’d been talking for quite a while, but I hadn’t been paying attention. Oh dear. How rude of me!
“Okay?” he asked again.
