The Journey Home (3 page)

“I mentioned that, but she's taking this very hard. But get this. Do you know what she said? She said if it came down to it, she'd choose you.”

Warren's eyes flew open. “She said that?”

“You don't have to sound so elated, you know. You didn't just win the lottery here. And yes, she did say that. If she didn't have the kids and the most perfect husband ever invented, I'd say she was planning to make a move on you.”

“Not everything comes down to sexual dynamics, Crystal.”

“I'm not saying that everything does. Just most things. We've had that conversation already; many times. The conversation we need to have right now is about the Fidelity fund.”

Warren had been walking toward the door of the facility. Now he pivoted to sit on a bench. He didn't want to be in the middle of this conversation in front of his mother or the staff. “I don't understand how this is a negotiating point. I started that fund long before we were married.”

“And in the last few years, I've contributed much more to it than you have. Especially in the last year. Have you even put a penny in there recently?”

Warren's eyes narrowed. “We both know why I haven't put any money in there recently. In fact, you even agreed that it was the right decision.”

“It
was
the right decision. Especially after you moved out. That doesn't change the fact that I have at least as much right to that account as you have.”

Warren's shoulders slackened. “I'm going to be living off of that account soon if I don't find something.”

“Then you should find something. Look, I'm willing to compromise. We liquidate the account and each take a share commensurate with the amount we originally invested.”

It wasn't that simple, and Crystal knew it. When they had been a team, they apportioned their salaries to different functions. In their flushest years, a chunk of his paycheck went toward the down payment for the bigger house, while a slice of hers went into the Fidelity account for a rainy day. They contributed equally to their retirement account. The rest went into their joint account to pay bills, save for vacations, and for the occasional impulsive expense. It wouldn't be simple, or even appropriate, to sift
through this to learn how much of the Fidelity money was his, though he knew if they really did the math, it would turn out that he'd contributed at least eighty percent in one way or another.

“I'm gonna have to sleep on this,” he said.

“Don't sleep too long. It's time, Warren.”

“You'll get no argument from me there.”

“Call me about this tomorrow.”

“I will.”

Warren ended the call and sat on the bench a minute longer. The sound of Crystal's voice had once energized him. She could literally speed his metabolism just by talking to him. Now any conversation with her left him feeling as though he'd like to lie down for a while. Either that, or huddle in a corner. He felt genuinely weaker sitting here. Every conversation about the divorce sapped him just a little bit more. She was sapping the life force from him, one negotiation at a time. He wasn't even forty yet, but he felt like a hundred and ten.

He took a deep breath and tried to push the enervating details of an unanticipated legal wrangle out of his head. He had to get his spirits up again before going to see his mother.

Treetops Senior Living Center had been her home for the past three years. She'd stayed in the house she shared with Dad, the house in which Warren had been born, for a little more than two years after he died. Her moving here wasn't about her capacities. At seventy-seven, she was still sharp and surprisingly mobile. Rather, it was about her reach. Dad's death had isolated her. Warren couldn't
remember a time when his mother and father hadn't seemed utterly integrated into each other's lives, and she seemed baffled over what to do without him, as though she were a car suddenly attempting to drive without an engine. When her next-closest friend Frances moved to Florida, Mom became even less mobile. She left the house infrequently and rarely for more than an hour or so.

It took Warren a few months to convince Mom to look at assisted living facilities with him. She had no interest in going into an “old age home,” and she made Warren feel as though he were attempting to put her out to pasture by simply broaching the conversation. She was completely petulant during their first few tours, leaving him feeling guilty even though he knew what he was doing was necessary.

When they visited Treetops, though, she started talking to one of the residents, a woman whose husband had died the year before, and they spent several minutes commiserating. When the woman told Mom that she needed to run because her weekly poker match was starting, Mom watched her walk away as though she desperately wanted to go out to play. She signed the lease the next week, and for the next two years, she seemed revived and social. Warren had a tough time reaching her on the phone because she always seemed to be elsewhere in the complex with her friends.

Then about a year ago, it started to change. She started spending more time in her room. She was sequestering herself again, though this time the outside world was so close to her. Warren had no doubt that
he'd find her in her apartment this afternoon. That wasn't the only issue, though. She was closing herself off for a reason, one that Warren struggled to acknowledge. When Mom had allowed loneliness to master her, Warren had a good solution to offer. He had no such solution this time.

Keisha, the boisterous woman at the reception desk, greeted him when he entered.

“Well, aren't you the handsomest thing I've seen all day,” she said, handing Warren a visitor's badge.

Warren slipped the nylon-stringed badge over his head. “You're only saying that because I'm the first ‘thing' under eighty you've seen all day.”

Keisha shook her head in an exaggerated way. “Not true. Not true at all. Mrs. Phelps's grandson was here this morning. Lovely man, but God didn't give him a lot of physical gifts, if you know what I mean. You, on the other hand, are a
specimen.
”

Warren leaned closer to the reception desk. “Keisha, you know if you keep flattering me I'm going to fall in love with you. Then your husband will pummel me, and none of us will come out ahead.”

Keisha put a hand to her lips as though she'd been chastened by her transgression. “Too true, Warren. He is a very big and very jealous man.” Her eyes sparkled. “You do look very nice today, though.”

Warren smiled at the receptionist and then headed down the hallway to his mother's apartment. As he did, he ran into Jan, one of the nurses.

“How's she doing today?” Warren said, nodding in the direction of his mother's room.

Jan tossed her head from side to side, causing
her blond bangs to shift back and forth. He guessed that Jan was in her early thirties, though this gesture made her seem a decade younger. “Same as yesterday, really. She almost agreed to come to the ice cream social. I tried to bribe her with extra hot fudge. She didn't go for it, though.”

“I can't help but think that shutting herself off makes what's going on in her head that much worse.”

“There's no medical reason to think that, but I know what you're saying. She doesn't seem to have much fight.”

Warren took a deep breath and looked down the hall. “She's never given in easily before. Even when she was shutting herself off in her house, she still seemed to have a little fight in her.”

“Maybe she'll bounce back. I've seen it happen.”

Warren's eyes flashed toward Jan's. She didn't withdraw in the slightest, which he appreciated. So many people shrunk away from these conversations, even professionals. “Yeah. Thanks.”

Jan touched him lightly on the arm. “I need to go see Mr. Humboldt. Come by after you see her if you want to talk some more.”

With that, Jan headed down the hall and Warren continued to his mother's place. He knocked on the door and waited the requisite thirty seconds for her to answer it. When Mom saw it was him, her face opened up and she drew the door wide.

“Warren, honey, how are you? I was just about to make some tea. Would you like some?”

Warren walked into the apartment and kissed his mother's cheek. “Go sit. I'll make it for you.”

The apartment came with a two-burner electric stove and a microwave. They were essentially props, since Treetops prepared every meal for the residents, but it made the living space seem more like a home and less like a hotel suite. Warren filled the teapot sitting on the stove with water and put the burner on. Then he sat in a chair next to his mother.

“So, no ice cream for you today?”

Mom's face creased. “I didn't feel like going out today. Maybe tomorrow.”

“It's good to get out with your friends. There are a lot of people you like out there.”

“I'm good in here.”

The teapot whistled a few minutes later and Warren rose to get the tea for them. He opened the cupboard above the stove and found it empty.

“Mom, there's no tea here.”

“There must be. I made myself a cup this morning.”

On a hunch, Warren looked into the trash for a discarded teabag. As he anticipated, none was there.

“Do you want me to go down to the kitchen to get some teabags?”

“No tea for me, thanks.”

Closing his eyes for a second, Warren poured the steaming water into the sink and returned to his seat.

“It's so nice to see you, honey,” she said, reaching over to pat him on the knee. Then she pointed to the wall over his right shoulder. “Did you see that I put up that picture of your father and me from the cruise?”

The picture had been up at least six months, his
mother having pulled it from the closet filled with pictures she'd had hanging in the house. Warren glanced in that direction and said, “The two of you had a great time on that cruise.”

“Your father gained seven pounds on that trip. He would have gained more if I didn't make him take me dancing every night.”

“Yeah, that was good thinking on your part.”

Mom sat regarding him for a minute, her hands in her lap. “So how's Crystal?”

“I think she's doing fine, Mom. Remember, we're getting a divorce.”

Mom's brows knit, as though she were trying to process this information. Then she brightened. “It's so nice to see you, honey. It's the middle of the day, though. Is it okay that you come to visit now? Don't your bosses want you at work?”

Warren grimaced. “They don't want me at work at all, Mom. They let me go a few months ago. That's how I'm able to come here every day.”

Mom leaned back on the sofa, her eyelids dropping. “You've told me this before, haven't you?”

This part of the conversation always clutched at Warren's heart. “I have, Mom.”

Mom looked down at the arm of the sofa and then at the wall behind Warren. “I'm sorry, honey.”

“It's okay, Mom. We can talk about this as many times as you want. It certainly took me long enough to get it through my head.”

His mother smiled at him sadly and Warren wished he could take back that last sentence. “Hey, I saw Mrs. Greenwich on the way in. I guess the hip
replacement went well because she's looking pretty spry. She tried to pinch my butt, but I managed to sidestep her.”

Mom grinned and waved a hand at him. “Don't trust her, honey. She's a man-eater.”

“I believe it. Hey, are you sure you don't want to go to the ice cream social? I'll take you. If Mrs. Greenwich tries to make a move on me you can protect me and I'll beat up any of the guys who try to get fresh with you.”

“Nah, I'd really rather not. How about a little TV? Ellen is coming on in a few minutes.”

Mom reached for the remote and flicked the television to life. Warren sat next to her on the sofa and she looped an arm around his, leaning in his direction. At least he could offer her this comfort. She seemed absorbed in the show immediately.

Watching daytime television had scary implications for Warren. As he glanced down at his mother's placid face, though, juxtaposing it with the expression of consternation she'd shown just minutes before when she realized that he was repeating details for her, he reminded himself that this wasn't about him.

Ellen came dancing through the audience to start her show and Warren shifted his body a little in his mother's direction. A little TV in the afternoon wouldn't hurt.

Joseph awoke the next morning feeling remarkably refreshed. It was hard for him to believe that he could feel this good only a day after some strangers had found him unconscious on the street. Whatever physical malady had led him to that curb, it hadn't lasted very long. His muscles felt loose and his head felt clear.

Too bad he had no idea where he was or how to get home. Joseph had hoped that a night of sleeping it off would help. He'd even harbored silly, soap-opera fantasies of awakening to discover he'd dreamed the entire thing. That was it; just a trick his mind was playing on him. He'd tell his wife about it when he got up and they'd spend all of breakfast trying to figure out what it meant.

When he got out of bed, though, he found Carmela baking cinnamon rolls in the kitchen, and Ralph, Sal, Maggie, and the others drinking coffee. This was most definitely not a dream, though it was still impossible for him to believe it was real. He also found that his memory had not improved in any way that mattered. The “feel” of his wife was still there,
but her identity and location continued to elude him. Everything else was even weaker than that. He had no idea of his last name, what he did for a living, whether or not he had kids, friends, a dog, or even if he lived in the city or the suburbs. Strangely, he knew that all of these things existed in the world, but he couldn't identify anything more specifically. It was as though he'd been plopped down in a foreign land with the kind of training that came from a book, but not a single bit of practical knowledge.