Michael Tolliver Lives (26 page)

“What would I do if you weren’t here?”

“You’d manage,” Ben said, smiling. He was straddling my leg like a koala climbing a tree. He’s only an inch shorter than me but he feels much smaller in bed. The weight difference has something to do with that (I’m not in denial here), but it’s also about the sense of purpose I feel when we’re together. I feel like his protector.

“My daddy,” he said with a sigh. “My man.” (He often adds the man part to the daddy part, for fear, I guess, that I’ll find him too hung up on roles. He needn’t worry. I love being his daddy—it seems to be the role I was born for.)

“You’ve been so patient,” I told him.

“About what?”

“All this death and dying shit. You didn’t sign on for that.”

“I didn’t sign on at all. I was drafted. And she made you do it, thank God.”

He meant Anna, of course—the way she’d brought us together at the Caffe Sport.

I smiled. “We owe her one, don’t we?”

“More than one, I’d say.”

We lay quiet for a while. A light drizzle was shellacking the leaves in the garden. I felt the warm rise and fall of Ben’s chest against my side.

This is my harbor,
I thought.
This is where I’ve been heading all along.

He stroked my arm deliberately, as if about to say something, but changed his mind.

“What, sweetie?”

“I was just wondering…say, assuming she doesn’t come out of the coma…”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know what we’d do.”

“Do you know what she’d want?”

I swallowed hard. “Probably…yes.”

“Same as your mother?”

I couldn’t answer that directly. “The doctor said it sometimes takes three or four days for them to come out of it.”

“Sure.” He patted my stomach as if to say that he’d leave that alone for now. “Let’s get some sleep.”

I slept solidly for a little over four hours. I was awakened by my cell phone—an unidentified caller.

“Hello.” My voice was still froggy with sleep.

“I’m sorry,” said the caller. “I’m not sure who I am calling. This is Mary Ann Caruthers from Darien, Connecticut.”

I noticed, perversely, that she pronounced the town’s name the way I’ve been told the locals do: Dairy Ann. Mary Ann from Dairy Ann. Singleton no more.

“Hey,” I said evenly. “It’s Michael.”

“Oh…Michael…hi.”

“Hi.”

Pleasant but stiff, both of us. Like the day we’d met back in 1976. She’d just found the man of her dreams at the Marina Safeway only to discover that he was there with the man of
his
dreams—me. What else could we be but pleasant and stiff?

“One of the posties just called me at Pilates.”

“I’m sorry…What?”

“The Explorer Post. The place you called?”

“Right. Of course.”

“She dates my stepson, Robbie, so…” She caught her breath, stopped herself. “It was something about Mrs. Madrigal?”

She sounded so young at that moment, framing the difficult as a hopeful question. Those of us who’d grown old with Anna had dropped the “Mrs.” years ago. Mary Ann had to summon a younger version of herself to function in this moment.

“She had a heart attack,” I said. “She’s in a coma.”

“Fuck.” She spoke the word softly, like an Episcopal prayer.

“We couldn’t
not
tell you.”

“No…thank you. Thank you for that.”

“Brian asked me to call you. Brian and Shawna.” (I wanted her to know this; she had to be wondering.)

“Is she likely to…”

“We don’t know. She’s just…you know, sleeping.”

A long silence, and then: “She didn’t ask for me, did she?”

“No…it happened pretty quick.” I had a terrible sinking feeling. Why had I even bothered with this? “You don’t have to be here or anything…we just wanted you to know.”

“I appreciate the effort, Michael.”

“Hey,” I said, a little too brightly. “Thank the Explorers.”

“I’ll be at the Four Seasons. I’ll call you when I get in.”

I really didn’t get what she meant. “The Four Seasons where?”

“The Four Seasons there.”

“You were already planning to come?”

“No,” she replied, “but…my husband has a plane.”

That slight hesitation redeemed her; she had the good taste to be embarrassed.

Ben and I were slated for the night watch at the hospital, so we decided to take a walk down at Chrissy Field. The rain had stopped by early afternoon, but there were a few sodden clouds loitering above the bay. We followed the path through the marshes and inlets that had been—not that long ago—a derelict military airstrip. Now there were herons and sandy beaches and children romping at the water’s edge. A new ecosystem was forming where once there had only been asphalt.

We sat on a bench, holding hands, gazing out at the kindly blue of the bay. There were sailboats even today, a rainbow of sails catching the fickle wind. I remembered what Anna had said about bringing Sumter here and realized how right she had been.
I will do that,
I promised her,
no matter what happens
.
I will sit here and show him this miracle and tell him he’s loved for exactly the boy he’s becoming.

The wind shifted and blew toward us, sweet with rain and the sagey smell of the wetlands. It seemed to blow
through
me, in fact, soothing every cell in my body. It was like that moment in
Poltergeist
when JoBeth Williams feels the spirit of her daughter passing through her. “I can smell her,” she says, laughing with relief, and that’s just how it was with me. Not a remembered perfume or even the scent of her skin, but her essence, a condensation of her spirit. She was passing through me like sunlight through water, on her way to somewhere else. I looked at my watch.

“Should we be going?” asked Ben.

“I think so,” I told him.

Ben was driving the Prius up Noe Hill when the call came. I remember looking at Carlotta’s navigational map and seeing the Home icon appear on the screen.

Perfect,
I thought.
Perfect.

And the perfect messenger was bringing the news.

“Patreese,” I said quietly.

“Wassup, my brother?” (Shawna says that, too, sometimes, but I’ve never gotten used to it. A greeting offered as a question seems to lay the burden on the person being called, when the caller, by all rights, should be telling
you
what’s up.)

“Hangin’ in there,” I said.

“Listen, Michael—”

“It’s Mama, right?”

“Yeah. She passed about twenty minutes ago. I was talkin’ to Mohammed and saw your folks come in. I hope you don’t mind hearin’ it from me first.”

“I’d rather it be you,” I told him.

Ben looked over at me and laid his hand on my leg.

“She went peaceful,” said Patreese. “I was workin’ on her this morning, and she was…you know…fixin’ to leave already.”

“I’m sure,” I said.

“She wanted you to have something. You at your computer?”

“I will be in a little while.”

“Check your email, my man.”

Ten minutes later I did that. It was a photograph of Mama and Patreese, both grinning like kids at a prom as they posed for the camera. Patreese was sitting on her bed in a red T-shirt, his big mahogany arm lying gently on her frail shoulders.

Mama was holding the photograph of me and Ben at Big Sur.

27

Gibberish

M
ary Ann hadn’t changed dramatically since the days of her adjustable-bed commercials. You could still see that person, at any rate. She was just as slim, just as naturally elegant as the mid-forties version of herself. Her hair was the big difference; short and silvery and feathered against her well-shaped head in Judi Dench fashion. As she sat on my sofa that morning, looking pretty in slacks and a sea-foam silk blouse, I wondered if the new hairdo had been the result of boredom or chemotherapy. That’s just how I think these days. Catastrophes are to be expected.

She seemed to read my mind. “Was it a mistake?” she asked, touching the side of her head. “It’s fairly new.”

“I like it,” I said.

“I’m not so sure.” She rolled her eyes in self-punishment. “Why am I talking about my hair?”

“Nerves,” I said, smiling. “In a minute I’ll be talking about mine.”

She smiled back. “You really do look good, Michael.”

“Thanks,” I said, shifting my extra weight in my Morris chair. She didn’t call me Mouse, I noticed. The name was an artifact now, part of who we used to be.

“Where are Brian and Shawna?” she asked.

“They’re already at Anna’s. I told them we’d meet them there.”

“Great…she’s home now, then?”

“Oh…no…I meant the hospital, actually.” I paused for a moment, choosing my words. “You should know…she’s still not awake. She may never be.”

Mary Ann nodded. “I understand.”

I had just begun to face this myself, but I’d already resolved, after lengthy discussions with Brian and Marguerite, to help create the sort of send-off that Anna would want: one without panic or regret or excessive sadness on the part of the survivors. We had that opportunity, after all. We had to make the most of it.

“I hope I didn’t put you on the spot,” I told Mary Ann. “Brian asked me to call you, but, frankly, I wasn’t sure if I even had the right to—”

“No. He was absolutely right. I’m glad you called.” She looked around the living room, taking it in. “This place just gets cozier and cozier.”

“Thanks. Eighteen years will do that.”

“And Thack’s…not around anymore?”

I shook my head. “He took off ten years ago.”

“Oh…I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. I mean…it was awful at the time, but it brought me to where I am now. If you know what I mean,”

“I do…actually.” As she fiddled with the piping on the slipcover I could see that her hands were the only place where her age was evident. I’ve noticed this about myself as well. We can fool ourselves about our changing faces, but our hands creep up on us. One day we look down at them and realize they belong to our grandparents.

“Still,” she said, “you guys seemed happy. I was a little bit envious, to tell you the truth.”

“It
was
good,” I told her. “For a few years, at any rate. He just got more and more angry.”

“At you, you mean?”

“At the world mostly…but I was there. I had to live with it. You remember how he was sometimes. It just got worse.”

Mary Ann smiled in remembrance. “You called him your little Shiite.”

“Well, that’s what you do, don’t you? Put a cute name on the shit that really bothers you…so it looks like you knew what you were getting.”

“You’re right,” she said ruefully. I wondered if she was thinking of Brian (hadn’t she called him Mr. Mellow?) or the current husband, the retired CEO who flies his own jet and wears patchwork madras. She was clearly thinking of
someone
.

“The thing is,” I said, “Thack did me a favor by leaving. I might never have noticed how little I was getting if he hadn’t taken it away.”

She nodded slowly, arranging her hands carefully in her lap. “So…you’re single these days?”

I did something I’ve never done with another living soul: I held up my left hand and wiggled my wedding band at her. The gesture was straight out of Cleveland, tailor-made for Mary Ann. Or at least the Mary Ann I used to know.

She cooed appreciatively. “You went the whole route, eh?”

I nodded. “Down at City Hall.”

She smiled. “I thought about you when that happened.”

“Same here. I wanted you to meet him.”

“Really?” She widened her eyes. “So where is he?”

“Down at the hospital with the others.”

“How sweet that he cares about her so much.”

I went to the mantel and grabbed the Big Sur photo—the same shot I’d sent to my mother. “His name is Benjamin McKenna.”

“Well,” she said, perusing the photo, “he’s adorable.”

“Yeah.”

“And young.”

I nodded solemnly. “He was in the Explorers with your stepson. That’s how I found you.”

Her mouth went completely oval—like little Shirley Temple.

“Kidding,” I assured her.

“Oh, God…Mouse.” She giggled like the girl I used to know. “Why do you do that to me?”

“I dunno,” I said. “You’ve just always been so…easy. Where’s yours, by the way?”

“Where’s my what?”

“Husband.”

“Oh…back in the hotel. He’s having a gym day.”

“Well, that’s good…I mean, a good thing to do.”

“He’s kind of a…you know…straight-ahead guy, but…I’m really happy with him, Mouse.”

I nodded. “You seem to be.”

“And guess what…we were married the same week you were.”

Now
I
was the one playing Shirley Temple. “How did you know when Ben and I were…? Oh, right…the news.”

“Isn’t that amazing? It’s not like we could have planned it.”

“No…you’re right. We couldn’t have.”

There was a melancholy note in my reply, but she didn’t seem to notice. She just kept chattering away cheerfully—almost hysterically.

“And Robbie is the sweetest kid. He’s already certified as an EMT, and he’ll be driving the ambulance next year. And I like being a mom, you know…even at this advanced age. There’s something wonderful about passing on what you know to someone younger…even if it’s dumb stuff they have no use for whatsoever.”

As you might imagine, I was thinking of Ben now, but Mary Ann was already in the process of shifting gears. “I know you all hated me after I left…and you had every right to, Mouse, but I just couldn’t keep—”

“Look, Mary Ann, there’s no point in—”

“Yes there is. There
is
a point. Brian and I weren’t right for each other, and both of us knew it, and…I couldn’t keep pretending that everything was fine. I made it about my career…and to some extent it was…but I just couldn’t do it anymore. And I knew he’d always have Shawna. I knew he wouldn’t be alone.”

“He hasn’t been,” I said quietly.

“And there was something else I couldn’t admit…even to myself: you were gonna die, Mouse, and I couldn’t…this is so awful….” She was pressing her fingertips under her eyes, the way well-bred ladies do to stop their tears. “I couldn’t bear the thought of watching you die the way Jon did. I couldn’t do that again. Not with you, Mouse. I couldn’t bear the thought of…that horror.”