Hung Out to Die (16 page)

“I'll do anything I can if that is what this is about—fund-raisers, a fund drive, organizing a march in Columbus, even if it means leaving my job . . .” Nellie's eyes watered. She lived up in Detroit, working as an insurance agent, supporting two young grandchildren, whose parents—Nellie's daughter and son-in-law—had died in a car crash. That meant visits for her were rarer and harder to organize. And, like me with Guy, she was the sole guardian of Stuart. Her husband had passed away several years ago and Stuart was their only child besides her daughter. I guessed she'd missed Thanksgiving with her grandchildren, who visited their dad's parents in Chicago on some holidays, to come down to Stillwater just for that meeting.

I smiled, trying to look comforting. “I know you would, and I'll be with you. But let's wait and see. I haven't heard anything about budget concerns.”

I visited Guy at Stillwater regularly on Sunday afternoons, and sometimes in between, and often stayed after dinner Sunday nights to help the laundry staff with particularly difficult laundry issues. Sometimes from Edna, one of the laundry room workers, I picked up tidbits of gossip. Stillwater always welcomed donations, of course, but I didn't think that this particular meeting was about budgets.

The room quieted as Don Richmond entered and went up to a podium that had been moved into the cafeteria for the occasion. My stomach and my throat both tightened.

“Thank you all for taking time out of your Thanksgiving holiday to come here,” Don said. He sounded both sad and nervous. I tensed some more. “I wanted to make my announcement to as many people here in person as I could, rather than just by letter, and I knew many of you would be here for the holidays, especially people from farther away.

“I'm not sure how to say what I need to say, except . . . I've loved every minute of my past ten years here.”

Oh no, I thought. Surely Don couldn't be about to announce what it sounded like he was going to announce. Nellie and I looked at each other. I could see in her eyes that she sensed, too, what was coming.

“As some of you already know, I have long been interested in studying neuropsychiatry. I have an opportunity to go to Pennsylvania to study, and this would place me closer to my parents as well.” There were murmurs and nods of understanding throughout the cafeteria. We all knew Don's dad had suffered a debilitating stroke a year before, and that Don's mom could use some help, and that Don was close to both of his parents.

“So, it is with both sadness and joy that I announce my resignation as director, effective the end of this year,” Don said. There was a collective murmuring and I felt tears prick my eyes. “But Assistant Director Mary Rossbergen will take over at that point. We've already started working on the transition. The board of directors and a search committee that will include guardians of residents and our psychiatric and medical consultants will be formed early in December.”

As he said this, he looked toward me. His gaze crossed the room and our eyes met briefly.

Me? He thought I should be on the search committee? Nah—that had to be wishful thinking on my part. I was sure the Stillwater board would want more educated guardians on the committee—people like Nellie.

I reached over and patted her arm. She had pulled a tissue out of her purse and was dabbing at her eyes. Don was taking questions, and I would have loved to stay, but I wanted to get back to Mama. I felt uneasy that I'd left her alone in my van—and not for her sake.

“It'll be okay,” I whispered to Nellie.

“I know,” she whispered back. “It's just that . . .” she stopped, her voice catching. I knew just how she felt. I gave her another pat, and stood up, working my way quietly out of the room. I'd find out more the following week, when I'd go up for another visit.

I slipped out of the cafeteria and into the lobby—really just the front parlor of the old, big rambling farmhouse that had been converted over and added on to, to create Stillwater Farms. I was just about to the front door when the door to the activity room opened. Mary Rossbergen came out.

“Josie! You're leaving the meeting already?” she looked confused, knowing that wasn't like me.

“I have . . . out-of-town guests,” I said, stretching the truth just a little. “I know you'll do a great job, but—”

Mary patted my arm, as my voice caught, just as I'd patted Nellie's only moments before. Maybe I wasn't taking this as well as I thought.

“Things will work out just fine,” she said, glancing at the door to the cafeteria. “How did everyone seem to take Don's announcement?”

“Definitely surprised. I'm sure everyone is sad to see him go, but understands. This move sounds like the right one for him and his family.” Who among us couldn't understand the call to take care of a loved one? “Is everything okay? I was surprised that you weren't in there.”

“I meant to be. We had a surprise visitor show up.” She looked at me curiously. “But of course, you knew that.”

My heart clenched. I glanced at the exit door. Oh no . . .

“Your mother is really quite charming. I can understand her eagerness to see her nephew after all of these years. But I'm a little surprised you didn't call ahead—”

There was just the faintest bit of admonition in her voice. Of course I knew not to spring surprise guests on the Stillwater staff or residents.

I put a smile on my face and said carefully, “My mother was a surprise guest this weekend. I told her to wait in my van. I'm sorry she didn't listen to me. Where is she?”

Mary smiled reassuringly, mollified that I'd at least tried to keep my mother in control, but she still looked a bit confused. No wonder. Everyone knew my parents hadn't been part of my life since my early childhood and just accepted my Uncle Horace and Aunt Clara as my parents, as I had.

“She's in the activity room—and don't look so worried. Stephanie and Robert are in there, too, and they have her working alongside Guy on a project.” Mary looked thoughtful for a moment. “She's actually quite good with him.”

We said our good-byes. I took a long, deep breath to steady myself. As much as I might want to dash into the activity room and yell at Mama for ignoring my plea to just wait in the van, I knew how upsetting that would be to Guy and the other residents.

So I entered the room, quietly.

Stephanie and Robert had Guy and several residents working on a craft—in this case, mosaic trays. The trays would be sold at the craft fair in a few months.

For Guy, this was a perfect wintertime activity. One of the things he liked about the greenhouse work was the careful handling of small seeds.

For the mosaics, I knew, there wasn't a set pattern or design. The residents who liked working on the mosaics were given a collection of tiny tiles and the trays and the glue, and created their own patterns or just glued them down abstractly.

For Guy, of course, there were no red tiles. He seemed to like working in pale blue and green and cream. And he always placed the tiles one right next to another, starting in the upper right hand corner, working row by row, never working out a design ahead of time. And yet, his trays always ended up looking like an enlargement of a wave or swirl.

Guy stood at the work table—he liked to stand and found sitting often uncomfortable, and the staff didn't force him to sit if he didn't want to—rocking from foot to foot. He liked rocking, too. A rocking chair was one of the only ways he would sit. He wasn't very verbal—just talked in brief phrases, usually repeating what he said several times, sometimes reversing the words of the phrase.

Mama sat on the chair that was for Guy, if he had wanted to use it.

Carmine, one of the few female residents of Stillwater (autism occurs more often in men than in women), was brushing my mother's hair. Mama didn't seem to mind, and I knew this was a treat for Carmine, who would brush hair all the time if she could. It was one of the few ways she would relate to others. Usually, she was aloof and preferred to be alone.

In fact, Mama didn't even seem to notice Carmine's brushing of her hair. She just stared up at Guy, fascinated with him, her eyes filled with wonder. He didn't seem to even be aware of her presence.

And I saw two things in Mama's face. One was wonder. And the other was sadness.

As much as I wanted to hang on to it, I felt my anger draining away—at least, most of it.

“You're mad at me,” Mama said for the third time on our drive from Stillwater Farms back to Paradise.

“No, I'm not,” I answered for the third time—this time through gritted teeth. “Just annoyed.”

Then we lapsed into silence—well, our own silence. I had the radio on the Masonville country station—WHEE. Dolly Parton was singing about love, loss, and hope. Mama started humming along and stared out her window, taking in the stubbled, snow-draped fields and farmhouses and grain silos and patches of trees as if she were visiting a foreign land, all new to her.

I tried to take pleasure in the swirl of snow as I drove—and couldn't. I was fuming.

“Damn it, Mama, why didn't you listen to me and sit in the van and read, like I told you to?” I burst out, and then winced. I sounded like I was berating a small child. Which, in attitude at least, was how she was acting.

“See, I knew you were mad at me.”

I groaned. “You don't understand. You can't just walk into a home like that the way you walk into, say, a restaurant or hotel lobby. Adults with autism . . .”

“No one seemed upset, at least, after that nice Mary

Rossbergen and I chatted. And I had a nice time seeing Guy again . . .”

“Yes, it worked out okay this time, but . . .”

“. . . he looks just like Horace did at that age,” Mama said. She wasn't listening to me. Her voice had taken on a different quality—a little wistful, a little distant. “Same beefy build. Square jawline. I remember how excited Horace and Clara were when they found out they were finally going to have a child—they'd had a hard time trying, just like Mama did. I was eight when Guy was born. And about eleven or twelve when they realized something was really, really wrong—that Guy didn't relate to other people the way other kids did, that he rarely talked and when he did, he repeated phrases over and over or mimicked what other people said.

“My parents—especially Daddy—wanted Horace and Clara to put Guy in a home far away, an institution. The doctor . . . Daddy . . . all said it was because Clara was a bad mama that Guy had autism. People believed stuff like that then. But Clara didn't let them get to her. And Horace stopped talking to our parents, rather than letting his wife hear such nonsense.

“I was proud of them, but I missed Horace. They knew that, and one day, when Guy was eight, I went over to visit, anyway. I told them our parents said it was okay, which was a lie, but I knew Horace would send me back home if he knew I wasn't supposed to be there.

“And I could tell they needed a little time to themselves. I told them, hey, why not go get a cup of coffee and pie, over at Sandy's? Guy had finally settled down for a nap.”

My stomach clenched. I grasped the steering wheel harder. I had a feeling that I wasn't going to like what was coming, that something terrible—from the lilt in Mama's voice—was about to happen in her story.

“But he woke up when some friends of mine came by. They saw me hanging out on the porch. I heard Guy inside, starting to cry and scream. I reckon that was how he always woke up. I ran in and my friends followed me.

“I guess his behavior made them nervous—and they started laughing and making jokes. That made him cry and scream more and start banging his head against the wall.

“I should have held him. Or called over to Sandy's, which is what Horace and Clara told me to do if there was a problem. But I panicked. And I didn't want my friends to drop me. So . . . I ran off with them.”

I gasped. “You left Guy all alone?”

“Yes, Josie, I did,” Mama said. “Horace and Clara didn't talk to me after that.” Her voice was thick with anger—whether at me, Aunt Clara and Uncle Horace, herself, or even Guy, I wasn't sure. “I never saw Guy again until today.”

Our silence again. Dolly was done with her song. A truck commercial—with a man screaming “deals for wheels!”—came on. I turned the radio down.

“I always admired Horace and Clara for how they took care of Guy,” Mama said. The anger was suddenly gone from her voice. She just sounded weary. “And I admire what you're doing for Guy. Some folks, Josie . . . some folks just aren't cut out for taking care of kids.” Her voice got a little softer. “Not just challenging kids like Guy, but . . .”

Go on, say it, I thought. Say you weren't cut out for staying around, that it wasn't anything I did, that I could have been as easygoing as Guy was challenging and you still would have taken off . . .

“When you had me take those coins to the wishing well, what were you wishing for, Mama?”

All the questions I had, and that's what popped out? But it was the same question that had haunted me the night before, too.

“Coins? I don't remember any coins.” I could tell she was lying.

“I know you must,” I said. “Whenever you'd get mad about Papa leaving, you'd say, that damned man, ran off and left us with a bag of worthless coins, can't even use them at the laundromat, and then you'd . . .”

My cell phone rang. “Oops, there's your phone,” Mama chirped brightly.

“It's in my purse by your feet. Just fish it out and hand it to me—”

“No, too dangerous to drive and talk,” she said, pulling my cell phone out of my purse. She flipped it open. “Hello. Josie's cell phone, Josie's mama speaking.”

“Mama! Give me my phone—”

She shushed me and swatted my hand away. “Sorry. Josie was babbling and driving dangerously, but she has both hands back on the steering wheel now. Who did you say this was?”