Goodbye for Now (19 page)

“I’m sorry the place is a bit of a mess,” Penny apologized, waving vaguely at the air around her. She was wearing one tennis shoe, one slipper, and a raincoat and didn’t look like she’d had a bath anytime recently. “I wasn’t expecting company.” Like it was just a little cluttered. Like it just needed picking up a touch. Was it that the place had fallen into such disarray while she’d been taking care of her dying husband? Or was it that she hadn’t had the energy—or inclination—to do anything since he died? How could it be that no one had noticed?

Meredith told Penny they’d be right back and pulled Sam out into the hallway. “Should we call an ambulance, do you think?”

“She seems okay,” said Sam. “I mean, she seems confused and in need of a live-in maid, but she doesn’t seem like she needs an emergency room.”

“No,” agreed Meredith. “Maybe a change of scenery would help. I’ll take her out to get some groceries and supplies. Maybe even to lunch and the ball game if she feels up to it. You start cleaning up here.”

“How?”

“Clorox. Trash bags. Toss and organize.”

“I don’t even know her, Merde.”

“She was my grandmother’s best friend. She’s got kids, but they don’t live nearby. I forget where, and she’s in no state to … We can’t just leave her like this.”

“No,” agreed Sam.

“So do you want to stay here and clean, or do you want to take her out to the ball game?”

“Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,” said Sam. He fetched trash bags and cleaning supplies and got to work—head down, feet grounded, in for the long haul, work.

It’s hard to go through other people’s stuff. Sam found it dizzying like anything else without perspective. Was this envelope on the floor because it was trash, or was it precious but mislaid? Sam could look, but he didn’t want to read her mail, and that wouldn’t really tell him anyway—maybe it would clearly be a love letter, or maybe it would clearly be a credit card offer, but anything in between and he’d be lost, and hell, what did he know? Maybe she desperately needed a credit card. Multiplied by an entire apartment’s worth of stuff. An ancient-looking address book, a stapled packet of poetry, a seven-year-old flyer for a talent show at an elementary school, a faded baseball cap missing half its plastic closure—were these treasured memories or wandering possessions or trash begging to be culled? No way to know. Looking through someone else’s things also seemed invasive and embarrassing to Sam. Actual stuff felt different from electronic stuff. Much more real. Much more present. People’s e-mails spoke for themselves, were those people speaking for themselves. Their books and T-shirts and board games and posters and old souvenirs and decks of cards and stashed photos and half boxes of crayons and silverware and towels and old reading glasses and back magazine issues? Not so much.

Penny was happy to go to the ball game with Meredith and then out for an early dinner and then to the grocery store to restock the house. She was happy to go wherever Meredith led. By the time they got home, Sam had filled fifteen trash bags and made mountains of everything else. Mt. Clothespile in the living room was all of Albert’s clothes. Mt. Clothespileette in the bedroom was all of Penny’s. Near the kitchen, he had Mt. Miscellaneous Paperwork next to Mt. Seemingly Sentimental Stuff. Just outside the bathroom was Mt. Probably Trash But Maybe Not, really more of an active volcano than a dormant peak. It was better, but it was still a mess.

Sam had also found a change of everything in the bottom of the linen closet and put new sheets on the bed and new towels in the bath and in the kitchen. This proved most useful of all because Penny came home and looked around, smiled pleasantly at Sam, and said, “Oh my, you didn’t have to do that,” and crawled immediately into bed—in her clothes, including shoes and coat, with the lights still on, and with Sam and Meredith still standing bewildered in her living room. Meredith put away groceries, Sam stabilized his mountains, and they left a note that they’d be back to check on her in the morning.

Upstairs, Meredith scoured Livvie’s address book to see if she could find Penny’s kids, and when that yielded nothing, she tried Livvie herself. “I’m sorry,” said Livvie. “I don’t understand.” Then Meredith left a message with the building manager to see whether Penny maybe had a next of kin on file and one with her own GP to see if she could make Penny an appointment for the morning. When the building manager hadn’t called back within the hour, she went downstairs and started pounding on his door.

“Don’t be mad,” said Sam when she came back upstairs with no new information, just as restless as she’d been when she left, “but maybe we should just chill out for tonight. We’ll go back tomorrow and see how she is. Maybe she knows her kids’ names and phone numbers. Maybe she knows her own doctor. It seems premature to panic.”

“You saw that place,” Meredith said shrilly. “That wasn’t the apartment of someone having a bad day. That was the apartment of someone having a bad day every day for the last six months. I’m so … I can’t believe I haven’t even checked on her since my grandmother died. What the hell is wrong with me?”

“She’s got kids, Merde. And she’s an adult. She’s not your responsibility.”

“Of course she is.”

“Why? Just because she was Livvie’s friend?”

“That and I’m here. We’re here. Who else did you have in mind?”

“Don’t be mad,” Sam said again, “and I’m happy to help her, of course. You know I am. I just worry about barging in like we own the place.”

“Her apartment?”

“Her apartment. Herself. Her dementia. Her kids. Her health issues. She’s eighty-some years old. She probably doesn’t want a babysitter.”

“For a guy who goes through people’s e-mails and private conversations for a living, you’re pretty worried about boundaries here.”

“I am only suggesting that we foray with caution into someone else’s life.”

“That’s not really my thing,” said Meredith.

“I noticed.”

“Is that bad?”

“It’s what I love most about you,” Sam said then reflected, “Well, it’s a long list. But it is one of the things I love most about you. You see people
hurting and you want to fix them. It’s sweet and generous, but it’s also hard. Where does that come from?”

“Congenital butting in?” she said.

“Faith that you can help,” said Sam.

She shrugged. “Who knows? Too much time spent on my own maybe. Too much time with wood glue instead of other little girls. My first job was at a vet’s. Did I ever tell you this?” Sam shook his head. “The vet was a friend of my folks. He basically made up a job for me as a favor to them: pet petter. My job was to sit with the animals when they were prepped for surgery or coming out of anesthesia or waiting for their owners to come back for them. I petted them, kept them calm, comforted them. Dogs especially always come out of anesthesia crying. Animals are much more stoic than people, but somehow that just makes it more heartbreaking when they’re scared or in pain. It was a hard job because how can you really comfort a hurting or sick or frightened animal? What do they really want? I had no idea.

“My second job was waiting tables, and that was so much easier. What do people want? Ask them and they’ll tell you. They want a Coke, so they say they want a Coke, so you bring them a Coke, and they’re happy. They’re mad that their burger is undercooked, so you take it back and cook it some more. When people are in restaurants, their deepest desire isn’t usually much more complex than ranch dressing or an extra scoop of ice cream with their pie. And I could do that. It was so easy to make them happy, and it was so great to have clients who had desires that could be both expressed and fulfilled. It’s nice when people have needs you can meet.”

“You think Penny has needs we can meet?” said Sam.

“Sure. I don’t know what they are exactly, but it’s not like she’s a poodle.”

In the morning, Penny seemed new-made. Her house was still a wreck, yes, but she was much more embarrassed about it, about everything from the day before, and that comforted Sam immensely. He did not care about the state of her apartment, but he was very concerned about the state of
her head. She was showered and clean and wearing reasonable clothes and an expression that managed to combine mortification with gratitude. Sam was relieved. Meredith was down to business.

“We can go through the piles together today. Figure out what you’re still using, what you want to keep, what we can take somewhere. We donated a lot of Grandma’s things to a shelter downtown. They do hard work for a good cause, and it would free up some space for you. Then we can start getting things put away. What’s in your other bedroom?” Penny’s place, like Livvie’s, had two bedrooms. Her second one had been locked the day before.

“Oh, that’s the computer room,” said Penny. “I guess there’s some storage space in the there.”

“You have a computer?” Sam and Meredith said together.

“Of course. Everyone has a computer. I’m not
that
old.”

“What do you use it for?” Sam condescended.

“You know. E-mailing the grandkids. Video chatting with Livvie when she abandoned me for Florida every year. Online banking. Ordering groceries, clothes, books, gifts. Facebook. The usual.”

“But you’re …” Meredith began.

“A thousand years old?”

“That’s not what I was going to say. I was going to say you seem so … alone here.”

“Yeah. Maybe that’s why,” said Penny. “My kids e-mail. They call. It looks clean right behind the camera. I tell them all is well. I look well … I don’t want them to worry. They don’t want to worry.…” She trailed off.

“How many kids and where?” asked Meredith. Her grandmother had always said Penny had a horde, but she’d never had clear details.

“Katie’s in San Francisco. Kent is in New Jersey. Kaleb’s in Chicago. Kendra’s in Vermont. And Kyra’s outside Atlanta. I don’t know. Maybe if we hadn’t named them all Ks, they’d have stayed closer.” She smiled to show them she was joking, not delusional.

“I’ll call them,” said Meredith. “Or e-mail them if you prefer. Just a gentle heads-up. Nothing alarming, but your kids would want to know what’s going on, I think.”

“Did Albert use the computer too?” asked Sam. Meredith shot him too-soon daggers from her eyeballs.

“Not really. Not as much as me. But a little.” Penny thought. “Why?”

“Just wondering,” said Sam. “Can I see?”

She got a key and opened up the second bedroom. The contrast was breathtaking—Meredith actually gasped. Blinds wide-open to the sound. Bookshelves of rich, bright wood polished to a shine, full to overflowing but carefully organized with spines all aligned. Pristine white walls and cedar floors. Antique binoculars on a string hanging from a hook near the bookshelves. And a gorgeous, gleaming desk entirely empty on its surface but for the promised computer. In one corner was a love seat with a small table and a reading lamp. “Albert was a bit of a neat freak”—Penny smiled sheepishly—“and he was in charge of this room. He liked to read in here. I’d come in to use the computer, and he’d sit and read, and then I’d come over to snuggle with him. It’s why we traded the recliner for a love seat. We spent a lot of lovely, quiet hours together in here.”

“Why do you keep it locked?” Meredith asked.

“So it would stay clean.” Penny shrugged. “So it would stay, I don’t know, his.”

ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE

P
enny made Sam feel claustrophobic. He was used to spending months on a project, weeks on a single problem, days indoors, hours and hours on end in a chair and never feeling antsy or even like he needed to get up and stretch. But Penny made him want to move to Wyoming or Colorado or somewhere with wide-open spaces and lots of sunlight.

“Let’s go to Wyoming for the weekend,” said Sam.

“What’s in Wyoming?” said Meredith.

“Big skies.”

“That’s Montana.”

“Apartments free of piles of crap. Brains free of piles of dust.”

“We have that here.”

“No Merde, let’s go away. For the weekend. You know, like a couple.”

She sat up to look at him. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Don’t screw with me, Sam.”