A Month of Summer (7 page)

Resentment swelled inside me as I rolled up the driveway, then parked and turned off the engine. How dare Hanna Beth allow the house,
my grandparents’
house, to disintegrate into this condition. If my father was no longer able to attend to things, she should have hired people. My father had investments, royalties in various oil and gas wells, undoubtedly a healthy pension from a lifetime of corporate employment. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t afford to hire help. Stepping onto the driveway, I felt oddly possessive of the house, as if it were my duty to set the place to rights.

In the wake of that impulse came the cool grip of reality. I had no idea what awaited me inside. My only information came from a short phone conversation with a Dallas police officer. According to him, Teddy had been found at a DART station, lost and out of money after wandering on and off buses and light rail trains all day, trying to navigate his way to the hospital to find his mother. When the police brought him home, they found my father, half dressed, asleep in a cold, dark house with the stove burners on full blast because he couldn’t remember how to turn on the heat.

After spending some time sorting out the situation, the officer had tracked down my contact information in Hanna Beth’s address book. He called, somewhat impatient by then, and told me they’d had complaints more than once about my father and Teddy wandering lost in the neighborhood, and if something wasn’t done, Social Services would be forced to take over.

The complexity, the impossibility of the problem struck me as I walked toward the front porch, where all those years ago Hanna Beth had stood in her yellow dress. Why was I here? What was I going to do? What
could
I do?

Around me, the day was dimming, which seemed appropriate. The shadow of the house overtook me as I climbed the steps, gathered my courage, then knocked on the door. No one answered, so I rang the bell. I could hear movement inside, see a shadow through the glass, but still the door did not open. The form in the darkness behind the frosted window was brown-haired and broad-shouldered, not my father’s.

“Teddy?” I leaned close to the door, closed my fingers over the knob. “Teddy, it’s Rebecca . . . Rebecca Macklin. Open the door. . . ."

CHAPTER 4

I’d been a coward, pretending to be asleep when Rebecca came into the room. I knew it was wrong, and wouldn’t solve anything, but still I couldn’t force myself to open my eyes and greet her. Perhaps it was pride. After all these years, I did not want her to see me this way. I was much like a little child, like Teddy when he was young, thinking that if he put his hand over his eyes I wouldn’t be able to see him. Foolish notion, but somewhere in me there was the thought that I couldn’t let her know how bad off I was—that if she knew she would close up the house, pack Edward and Teddy off to some sort of facility—perhaps even this one—and then return to her life in California.

The thought of Teddy in a place like this, languishing with the infirm, unable to enjoy our walks, to feed the fish in the creek and the stray cats, to spend hours in the garden, was unbearable. A change of location would destroy what was left of Edward. The familiarity of the house on Blue Sky Hill Court, the consistency of our routines, was the thread that kept him from slipping off into a place so vast, and dark, and deep that neither of us wanted to consider its bottom. It was impossible to imagine the day when this strong, handsome man, this beautiful soul I’d loved since I was a child, wouldn’t know me. It was impossible to picture my life without his witty jokes, our home without his shoes by the front door (even though he knew I would complain about it), my bedroom without the flowers he sometimes spirited from the garden and left on my pillow. Being ten years younger than he, I always supposed there would be a day when I would experience, once again, life without him. I always knew vaguely that something would eventually have to be done for Teddy. But not yet. Not so soon. It wasn’t time.

My mind cast a net into the sea of despair. Why was this happening? How could God, whom I’d faithfully worshipped in church until Edward became too ill to go, whom I’d trusted when it grew clear that Teddy was not like other children, to whom I’d poured out my prayers for my son, allow this to happen now? How could He leave me at the mercy of the one person who resented my very existence, who had no way of understanding the events that had transpired those many years ago? How could Rebecca return now, when I lay here unable to move or speak, unable to accomplish the most basic human functions, unable to tell her the truth?

I pulled up my net before it could become too heavy, before the catch of impossible questions could drag me under. I could hear Claude Fisher’s voice again outside the door. I thought of him telling Mary and Rebecca that the key to every situation was to keep facing toward the light, to look for the possible good. I’d always found that to be true, but now the darkness seemed too vast for such an optimistic notion.

In the hall, Claude was saying good-bye to Mary and the boys, promising that tomorrow he would tell them more about the trains.

My door swished open, and Mary’s quiet footsteps followed. Poor thing. She was probably worn to a thread by now. I wondered about the problem with her husband and the car.

She stopped by my bed, picked up my arm, which I didn’t know was dangling, and tucked it back in beside me. She was wearing the old blue button-up sweater she always put on when she was on her way out. She looked too weary for a girl in her early twenties.

“That’s better, huh?” she said, folding back the sheet and pulling it up under my chin. “I hope the boys didn’t make too much racket out there.”

“No-ooo.” The word was surprisingly clear.

Mary smiled. “Being quiet isn’t exactly their best thing.”

“Baaa-shin.” This time I managed little more than an unintelligible groan. I’d wanted to ask her to bring the boys in, just for a minute, so I could see them. I felt the usual pang of frustration at not being able to communicate something so simple.

Mary didn’t seem to notice. “Your daughter was here while you were sleeping. She seems nice.”

I didn’t answer. Perhaps it was best that I couldn’t. Someone as sweet as Mary could never understand the kind of family strife that separated us, or the anxiety I felt at our coming back together.

Mary gazed down at me, her thoughts seeming to drift. “They’ve reduced your medications some, so you might not sleep quite as soundly at night.”

I blinked, because I didn’t have the energy to attempt another word.

Mary hovered a moment, seeming reluctant to leave, even though her eyes were drifting shut. She gave the covers a final check and patted my arm through the blanket. I hoped she and the boys didn’t have far to travel home. I closed my eyes so she wouldn’t feel as though she had to remain at my bedside.

There was a faint, familiar scent on her hands—baby lotion, perhaps, or powder-scented wipes. A childhood smell, the link to a memory, a happier time. I drank it in, grabbed the line and pulled it closer, imagined that it remained after Mary left. I imagined that I was cuddled on the sofa with Teddy when he was tiny. I’d almost conjured the feel of his little body curled so perfectly against my chest, when something clanged in the hall, pulling me from my reverie.

Outside in the corridor, two nurses were talking about the new incontinence therapy program.

“Okay, no,” one was saying. “The probe looks kind of like a tampon, only it’s metal and it has a wire attached to it. The one end of the wire has the probe, and the other has the little connector that plugs into the computer. You know, like your digital camera plugs in with.”

“Ohhhhhh . . . ,’’ the other nurse answered. “Well, then what happens?”

“The patient goes into the bathroom and inserts the probe, then you plug it into the computer and try to make the little birdie fly by squeezing the Kegel muscles. The harder you tighten the pelvic floor, the higher the birdie flies.”

“You’re kidding,” the other nurse said.

I groaned to myself, hoping that my pelvic muscles came back on their own as I recovered. If Gretchen arrived tomorrow with a metal probe and a laptop computer, I was going to rise from my bed by sheer force of will and walk home.

“If you don’t like birds, you can use a fish,” the first nurse added. “You make the fish swim faster on the screen.”

“That’s just weird.”

“It’s really pretty cool, and it works. All of us in PT had to use it during training. Rosie and I are good. I can make that fish swim a hundred miles an hour.”

The response was a moan. “Oh, stop. This is what y’all are doing during those lunchtime training sessions? Sitting around making the birdie fly?”

“We’re thinking of putting some money in a pool and hosting the incontinence Olympics.”

“You people in PT have waaaay too much time on your hands.”

“Hey, if you can’t have fun with incontinence training, what can you have fun with?” The two of them laughed together. “Oh. Oh, I’ve got to tell you this one. The other day we had our first set of test patients. So we give them the probes, explain everything, and send them into the bathroom to insert. This one poor little lady stays in there forever, and when she finally comes out, she has the
wrong end
in.”

“The part with the computer plug on it?”

“Yeah. Poor thing.”

“All right. That’s it,” the second nurse said. “I’ve had all the retention and elimination I can stand. I’m going to get something to eat.”

They parted ways in the hall, and I lay there wanting to laugh. I imagined flying birds and animated fish, metal probes and rows of nurses competing in the incontinence Olympics. Gretchen took the field, towering over all the other competitors. She was wearing a fishing hat, carrying a lug wrench in one hand and a glistening stainless steel probe in the other. Just before the gold medal ceremony, a door slammed down the hall.

I listened to the rhythmic beep of an oximeter; the occasional clang of metal on metal; the rattle of a gurney passing by as a patient was transferred, probably back to the hospital; the wailing of the moaning woman, who cried out repeatedly that she was dying and needed help. The ones with dementia seemed more restless late in the day, as if they were anticipating the night ahead, when the lights would dim and the hallways would empty of visitors. When night fell, it was easy to feel vulnerable, lost in this large, cold place. At night, I was like a child in a dark bedroom, afraid to close my eyes, sensing hidden threats in the shadows.

I didn’t want to die in a place like this, and I didn’t want to live in a place like this. I didn’t want to be alone.

Evening light crept in around the edges of the window blind. I focused on that, listened as ambulatory patients moved down the hall for game night, and thought of an old poem:

I wanted to let sleep carry me away, back to the days when we children from the houses off the hill rode our bicycles to the park in Blue Sky—back to the days when I stood by the old iron fence and watched a tall, broad boy with striking hazel eyes and thick, dark hair. He smiled at me, and I fell in love, but I was just a girl, and he a teenager, practically a young man. My father worked with his father. I made it a point to see him again. . . .

A phantom pain in my legs pulled me from the memory. The sensation was akin to a charley horse, but throughout my legs, dozens of charley horses, a thundering herd, running at top speed.

My teeth chattered and my breath came short with the pain.
It means something,
I thought.
It means I’m getting better.
One wish in a long line of wishes that began when I fell to the laundry room floor and lay crumpled there with something dripping into my mouth. I didn’t know where I was, or what was happening. The liquid tasted salty and thick. I thought it might be blood.

I prayed as I was fading away.
God, please, don’t let Teddy or Edward find me here dead. Not now. We’re not ready.

When I finally came to in the hospital, I gathered that days had passed, and the doctors had been waiting for me to regain awareness. After that, it was anybody’s guess. I heard words like “coma,” “brain stem,” “subarachnoid bleed,” “impaired function,” “aphasia,” but in my mind I was back in the little hospital in College Station, forty-eight years ago, when, after fainting behind the wheel of my car on my way to freshman classes, I hit a telephone pole and was taken to the hospital, where my parents were informed of two things: I’d lost a great deal of blood, and I was pregnant. The doctor discussed the pregnancy with my family, and the fact that, if the fetus did survive, there was no way to predict what effect the trauma, blood loss, and medications would have. There was also no way to know how the pregnancy might hamper my recovery. There were treatments and medications they couldn’t use because of the fetus. He intimated that a loss of the pregnancy might be for the best. I was young, unmarried. Children should be years in the future for me.

As the doctor left the room, my mother stood in the corner, weeping. My sister, Ann, agreed with the doctor. My father was silent. He only looked at me in a scornful, disappointed way that hurt more than anything he could have said. Eventually, he would want to know, of course, who the father was—how, when my parents had worked so hard to provide a college education for me, I could have done such a thing, why I hadn’t told them.

My mind was a fog that had nothing to do with the accident. I pretended that, with all the stresses of spring semester, I hadn’t known I was pregnant. But the truth was that I had. The truth was that I’d been stalling for time since just after winter break. I’d been hoping, praying, waiting for an answer that had finally come just before the accident. The letter had been brief, to the point, communicated through his family lawyer, and unmistakably clear. He denied responsibility for this pregnancy, and I should not attempt to contact him again. If I had a baby, I would be having it on my own. If I chose to raise it, I would be raising it on my own. That idea would trouble my stern, old-fashioned Catholic parents as much as anything. Errant Catholic girls were occasionally known to quietly go off to
special places
, disappear for six, seven, eight months, then return as if nothing had happened, rejoin normal life with little more than an occasional backhanded whisper to mark the passing of those months, the creation of a life.