The Smart One (25 page)

Martha wrote everything down. It was a lot of information, but she felt like she could get a handle on it if she could just write it down. The nurses came at night, and as soon as she let them in at six o’clock, she was free to go.

“Don’t take it personal if he gets crabby,” Jaz told her. “He’s an old man and he’s used to having things his way. And now his body’s failing him and that’s hard for him to handle.”

“Okay,” Martha said. “That’s so sad.”

“It’s sad, sure. But it’s just life. We’re here, we live, and we die. Not much you can do about it, so we might as well enjoy it while we can. No use worrying about that.”

Martha couldn’t believe that Jaz really thought this. Who in their right mind wasn’t afraid of dying? She was probably just putting on a brave face so that Martha would feel better about the whole thing. She must be.

Jaz moved around the house with so much purpose. Martha watched as she informed Mr. Cranston that it was time for lunch, suggested that he’d like to take a rest, announced that it was time for a walk. Martha walked behind her, afraid of what Mr. Cranston was going to say, her feet following Jaz’s, stepping right where she had stepped, hoping that this would give her some sort of strength.

When she got home at night, she was so tired she could barely move. The first week, she was in bed by nine each night. She resolved every night as she went to bed that the next day she would act just like Jaz. She would be firm and purposeful. But each morning she woke up and she was still herself—nervous and unsure, following behind Jaz, afraid of upsetting Mr. Cranston.

“IT’S SAD,”
MARTHA TOLD HER FAMILY
at dinner. “It’s like everyone is just waiting for him to die, including him! Like they’re just killing time. Literally.”

“Well, what did you expect?” Claire asked. “You knew you were going to be a caretaker for an elderly person. It’s not like there’s a lot of different endings to that story.”

“I know, I was just saying that it’s hard. That’s all.”

If Martha was being honest, she missed J.Crew. She missed bossing people around the ribboned shirts and sparkly scarves. She missed her work smelling like new clothes. It had been so clean at the store. There’d been an order to the polos, a calmness to the khakis.

Every night, Weezy asked her how her day had gone as soon as she walked in the door. She asked it nervously, like she was waiting for bad news.

“I think people are waiting for me to fail,” Martha told Dr. Baer.

“Are you waiting for yourself to fail?” Dr. Baer asked. “Do you think you want to fail?”

“No, I don’t want to fail,” Martha said. “Of course I don’t want to fail.” Sometimes Dr. Baer was an idiot.

Martha found herself losing patience during her sessions.
I’m a patient losing patience
, she often thought when this happened. Dr. Baer didn’t seem all that impressed that she had a new job, that she was practically back to nursing.

“Well, I don’t think that people are waiting for you to fail,” Dr. Baer said. “I think you have a good support system around you, and when people ask you how things are going, they’re really asking just that and nothing more.”

“I guess so.”

“So, how do you feel at the end of the day with Mr. Cranston?”

“Good, I guess.” The truth was that sometimes it was very, very boring. Martha sat still and watched the clock during the days, just waiting for the next activity.

“That’s great,” Dr. Baer said. “It sounds like this job was the right move for you then, something to challenge you a little more.”

“Retail is very challenging,” Martha said. She tried not to sound too offended. “People don’t understand that, but it’s not easy. You don’t just show up and sell things. Plus, I was a manager, which entailed a lot of responsibility. So actually, I don’t think that this job is more challenging in that sense. Not at all.”

“That’s a good point,” Dr. Baer said. “I guess what I meant was that it’s different and new. And new things are always challenging, especially when you’ve gotten comfortable somewhere.”

“Right, I guess that’s true. New jobs are hard,” Martha said. “Actually my sister just got a new job too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, she’s temping for an agency, and they already placed her somewhere for a few months.”

“You sound impressed.”

“With Claire? No. I mean, not that I’m not impressed, but I’m not surprised, I guess.”

“No?”

“No. She wanted a job and so she got one.”

“That’s all there was to it?”

“Pretty much.
Things come pretty easily for her.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I’ve told you that before.”

“You have,” Dr. Baer said. “I just find it interesting that you’re still so sure of that. She’s had a tough year, hasn’t she?”

“Yeah, but still. It’s not like things have happened to her … She’s made the decisions. She ended her engagement, she quit her job, she moved back home. I mean, it’s a lot of changes, but it’s all stuff she wanted to do.”

“But haven’t you made your decisions too?”

“Well, yeah, but it’s different.”

“Different how?”

“Claire has more choices?”

“How so?”

“She just does, she always has.”

“Okay.”

“It’s true.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t true. I just think you can’t be so quick to be so sure of other people’s situations. Examine your own situation. You also have a lot of choices. It’s not always easier for other people. It doesn’t work like that.”

“Sure it does. A lot of times it does work like that.”

“Well, sometimes, I’ll admit it might seem that way. But things aren’t always what they seem.”

After that session, Martha thought about her choices. She thought that maybe she should have been a therapist, so that she could say things like, “Your life isn’t so hard,” and “I see,” over and over again. Now that seemed like an easy life.

NOW THAT CLAIRE WAS TEMPING
and she was at the Cranstons’, they were getting up and getting ready at the same time each morning, which they hadn’t done since high school. Sometimes Martha knocked on the bathroom door, pretending to be in a hurry, so that Claire would let her in and they could brush their teeth together, put on makeup side by side.

MARTHA LOVED WHEN RUBY CAME
to the Cranston house. She was the prettiest person Martha had ever seen in real life—she always looked a little bit tan, her hair was always shiny. Once, when Martha commented on how glamorous Ruby was, Jaz said, “She should be. She works at it like it’s a job.”

Sometimes, Ruby would sit in the kitchen with Martha and have some tea. Martha always made it, but she didn’t mind. Ruby sort of seemed like a little kid that needed things done for her. The first day that she came, she kept staring at the teapot and saying, “I’d love some tea,” like it was a puzzle she couldn’t figure out. Finally, Martha got up to make the tea, and Ruby smiled at her like she was relieved.

Now Martha offered as soon as Ruby walked into the kitchen, setting out cookies and starting the water boiling. Then, Martha would sit and wait for Ruby to start talking—Ruby loved to talk—hoping that she was going to spill some family secrets.

“We’re not speaking,” Ruby said one day. “My brother and me, I
mean. We’re on upsetting terms.” Ruby had a strange way of talking, of putting words together, almost like English wasn’t her first language, or like she wanted people to think that. She dotted her sentences with random phrases, arranged verbs and nouns in odd places, throwing them wherever she pleased.

“Oh really?” Martha asked. She didn’t want to sound too eager, but she was dying to know about Billy.

Ruby sighed. “He’s impossible, if you must know, my brother. He thinks of himself as the most important person in the world. Or rather, he thinks he’s more important than he is, in truth.” Ruby paused to think this over. “I don’t know which one it is, or if there’s even a difference. I’m just telling this to you, so that you understand why we won’t be in the house at the same time. This is why the schedule exists.”

“Of course,” Martha said. “I mean, I understand. Has this been going on for a long time?”

“Forever, it seems like. But in actual time, only a few years. Since my mom died, really. Billy thinks he’s in charge of everything.”

“Families are tricky,” Martha said.

“Isn’t that the truest thing,” Ruby said, and Martha felt like the cleverest person in the world.

MARTHA LOVED SENDING HER COUSIN CATHY
long e-mails about her job and the Cranstons. She told her about Jaz and Ruby, and talked about how degrading it must be for Mr. Cranston to basically need a babysitter at this point in his life. Cathy loved hearing about her work, always responded by telling her how funny and insightful she was, sometimes suggesting that Martha should be a writer, which always thrilled Martha.

Martha and Cathy had always gotten along well, mostly because they found each other entertaining. Martha always said how lucky she was that her best friend was her cousin too. And the fact that she was a lesbian was just an added bonus. Martha thought it made her sound very cool and accepting when she said things like, “I’m going to visit my cousin Cathy and her partner, Ruth. She’s great, Ruth is. They’ve been together for a while now, my cousin and her partner.”

She used to talk about Cathy all the time at J.Crew, partly because
she wanted Wally to know that she was not only accepting of his lifestyle, but that she too had gay friends and family. She made references to Cathy a lot, until one day Wally said, “You don’t have to call her
Cathy my cousin who’s a lesbian
every time you talk about her. We get it, sweetie. You’re related to a dyke.”

Martha wanted to tell him that she didn’t like that term, that she found it offensive, but she wasn’t sure she was allowed to, since Wally was gay himself. She just cut back on her talk about Cathy at work.

Cathy had come out via e-mail to the family during her freshman year in college. Martha had read the note, and then called home immediately, knowing that Weezy wouldn’t have checked her e-mail yet. She was excited to be the one to break the news, basically yelled it out as soon as Weezy answered the phone.

“Oh,” Weezy had said. “Well, honey, you aren’t surprised, are you?”

Martha actually was surprised, but not because she couldn’t imagine that Cathy was a lesbian—she actually could, now that she thought about it. But she just hadn’t thought about it one way or the other before. Cathy was just her cousin, who was sometimes bossy and always knew the most scandalous information growing up, like what French kissing really entailed, and what the definition of third base was.

“No,” Martha had said. “I guess I’m not surprised.” She was, however, sad that she wasn’t able to shock Weezy with this information. Martha loved a good piece of gossip and this one was a doozy.

Cathy was very excited about Martha’s new job, and even more excited at the idea that Martha might get a place of her own. Martha had mentioned this idea briefly one time, and now Cathy wouldn’t let it drop.

“Things are cheaper in Ohio,” she reminded Cathy one night on the phone. “I can’t afford a place just yet.”

“Martha, you’re thirty. You can’t afford not to afford your own place.”

AFTER TWO WEEKS, JAZ STARTED
leaving Martha alone with Mr. Cranston. First, she just ran little errands, but with each day she left for longer stretches of time. “I need to run to the store,” she’d say. Martha knew that she was being tested during this time, to see if she
could handle it and also to see if Mr. Cranston was okay with her being there.

“I get the feeling that if he doesn’t like me, they’ll just fire me,” Martha told her family one night.

“Of course he’ll like you,” Weezy said. And Will had nodded in agreement, and that was that.

Most of her time with Mr. Cranston was quiet, sometimes just sitting together and reading. Martha learned to bring a book with her, so that if Mr. Cranston wanted to read all afternoon, she could do the same. At first, she would walk around the house, trying to find something to do, refolding blankets and hanging them over the edge of the couch, or getting Mr. Cranston a fresh glass of water.

Eventually, Jaz told her to settle down. “There are people that come to this house to do all of these jobs. All your job is, all you have to worry about, is keeping him company and making sure he gets what he needs. Most of the time it’s not too hard, right? So just settle down and enjoy the quiet time.”

Martha had nodded, although her feelings had been a little hurt. She was a doer. She couldn’t help it. That’s why she’d been so great at J.Crew. She loved moving around and keeping busy, making things look pretty.

But after a few days, Martha realized that Jaz had been trying to help her. She could see that it annoyed Mr. Cranston when she moved around too much, that it disturbed his reading when she walked in and out of the room. He didn’t like to call for help, would never shout to the next room that he needed something. He liked someone to be right there, so that he could just turn his head and Martha could say, “Did you need to go to the restroom?” or “Are you thirsty?”