The Sweet by and By (30 page)

“Don’t worry so much. We’ll keep everything straightened up for you.” I tuck a napkin into the neck of her pajama top.

I have learned after many years that being truthful isn’t as impor- tant as being present. I could tell her there ain’t no strings, that she’s imagining or dreaming, but that’s only gon agitate her. She’s not gon remember any of it in thirty minutes or less, so why should I upset her? I know that some doctors say we ought to tell them the truth all the way to the end, don’t ever let up on the truth. That’s not my opinion. I think the truth matters a whole lot less than the value of something. What’s goin on right now is eatin; strings are not worth talkin about. I have mashed up some meat loaf and reach to put it in her mouth. I can see she’s not happy from the frown that wrinkles her top lip.

“You want me to give you the fork?” I say, and she doesn’t answer but takes it from my hand and guides it into her mouth by herself.

She chews mighty quick for someone who has no teeth except full plates. “This is real good. I know you didn’t make it.” She’s smiling, she can’t help herself.

“I wouldn’t cook for you if you paid me.” “Lorraine, I love you, but damn you.”

“That’s all right,” I say and I mix some mashed potatoes and meat loaf onto the fork and hand it to her. We repeat this a few times, not speaking at all.

She looks past me towards the door. “Let’s find him a chair.”

I look back at the door, even though I’ve learned that there will prob- ably be nobody there. This is the hard part for me. I wish she’d argue with me, fight me, lash out, anything she needs to do to stay with me.

“Who?” I ask.

“Daddy will be back anytime. He’s got a box for me. It’s not a kitten, but that’s what I want.”

The Sweet By and By
247

“Where are you now?” I try to bring her back. She doesn’t answer. “Where are you, Margaret?”

“The same place,” she says softly, still staring at the door. “It’s all right that it’s not a kitten. Maybe next year?”

“That’s right, maybe next year, you never know,” I say. “You never know what might happen next year.” I focus back on the tray of food. “I know you want some of this yellow cake.”

“Yes ma’am I do.” She sounds like she could cry. “All right then. Let’s have us some cake.”

Her hands are folded in her lap. She doesn’t try to take the fork. I almost believe someone was there who’s gone now, the room is filled up with a sad blue fog. I put a forkful of cake in her mouth. She chews but stops before swallowing. “Have some,” she says. Cake crumbs spill out onto her breast when she tries to say more.

“I b’lieve I will.” I take a bite of yellow cake. It’s soft and good.

She swallows again and can talk better. “How long are you going to stay here, Lorraine?”

“I don’t know. I’m not gon leave ’til you finish eatin, I know that.”

“No, no, no, how long are you going to stay at this job?” “I been working here more than twenty years.”

“A lot of people would be sick of it by now.” “Is that what I said?”

“No, it’s not, but are you?’

I hear myself sigh. “I don’t know. No, I’m not. You can get tired of anything, but I’m not ready to leave. And when I get ready, you nor nobody else will stop me.”

She is silent. I think we’re through talking and she’s gon doze off again, like she always does after eating a big meal. She lowers her head.

“Don’t leave here before I do. Give me that.”

“I’m not leaving you.” Our eyes settle on one another. I feel like I’m gon choke. “I’m not leaving,” I tell her.

“I’m tired. I wish you’d turn off that blame TV. Nobody around here does a thing I tell them.”

I take the remote and switch off the set. “Nobody around here but me will put up with your mouth.”

“Is that right?” she says. “Go on and let me rest. I’ll make another appointment with you later on.”

I take my sweater off the back of an armchair. “I might not be available, you better check my calendar.”

“I
am
your calendar!” she calls out, and I laugh in the hall. I know she can hear me and she’s laughing too. That’s all right for today. That’s fine.

c h a p t e r tw e n ty- n i n e

Margaret

T

here’s either too much light or not enough light. I’m tired, I think I sleep too much, but everybody tells me that it’s normal at my age, so I’ve given into it. There’s a woman in my room. I think it’s that black-headed waitress back in my room. Why are there stools along the wall again? There’s not enough room for all those stools in my room, I could have told her that. She’s opening curtains, letting in too much light. It’s already too bright. I’m taking a headache. I’m going to ask her for some aspi- rin. She is moving tables around. This is the same dining room, but she has put up new curtains. There’s a menu on the table in front of me. Well they’ve gotten themselves all fancy haven’t they? New curtains and a menu. We never got a choice about anything before. That woman is not a nurse. She probably doesn’t

have any aspirin. Why am I the only one here?

She sees me looking at her and speaks. “You’re a little bit early, but just give me one minute and I’ll take your order.”

“You act like we’re in a restaurant.” I laugh. “I think it’s more of a diner.”

“Are you new? I’m sleepy.”

“Honey, you look wide awake to me. And no, I’m not new, you know me. I’ve been here forever.” She nods at the menu. “Have you made up your mind yet? Everything’s good, I prom- ise. Make it all myself.”

I open the menu. It hadn’t occurred to me that I was hungry but when I start looking at all the choices, I am starving. “Are you a cook?” I ask.

“Cook, waitress, and owner. I’m here to serve. Lot of people don’t see it that way since I own the place and all, but that’s what it is, pure service twenty-four hours a day.”

“You don’t work twenty-four hours; no one does.”

“It feels like it’s constant. I’m not good at keeping track of time. I suppose it’s a good thing.”

“Maybe you ought to slow down,” I offer her and glance back down to the menu a second time.

“My customers would lose their minds if I did that. They’ve come to depend on me even for simple things, not only full meals. Not to mention that I created all of this, so now should I step back and let other folks run it however they want to? No ma’am, I’ve got to keep my hand in it.”

“Is my daughter Ann in the ladies’ room?” This must be someplace she knows about. I do fall asleep in the car a lot.

“Nobody’s here except you, it’s early.”

“If she’s not here then who’s going to take me back?”

“I expect
you
will since you’re the one who drove yourself in, pretty as you please, in a big Plymouth.”

“What’s my car doing out there? Ann told me it didn’t even run. I sure as hell didn’t drive it here.”

“I don’t mean to be contrary, but I saw you with my own eyes.” “They don’t let me drive, I’m ninety-one years old.”

“You’ve lived a long time, haven’t you?” “How far away from the rest home are we?”

She is wiping countertops with a damp rag that smells slightly of lemon and ammonia mixed.

“I don’t think we’re too far, sometimes it seems far. It didn’t take you long to get here, did it?”

The Sweet By and By
251

“I don’t know.”

She stops wiping. “Honey, you look all agitated. Calm down and let me serve you something. You won’t be disappointed.”

“I don’t think I’ve got time right now.”

“Well come on back anytime you want. I don’t ever close.” “I couldn’t find my way here if I wanted to.”

Lorraine is talking, but her voice sounds like it’s in a tunnel. “Now you know I take you everywhere you need to go. You’re not gon get lost in here. No need to want to stay in your room all the time.”

“Where did you say we are?”

The waitress is walking to the kitchen. “It’s only a crossroads. There hasn’t been a town here for a long time, and I feel like I’ve been here forever.”

She picks up a tray and goes through swinging doors into what looks like a big silver kitchen.

“Are you coming back?”

“I’m listening to you, give me time. Now what’s all this?” Lorraine is close to my ear. She picks up shreds of torn paper from my lap.

“Lorraine, please pull those curtains. I’m going blind in that sun.” She doesn’t answer me. “Why are y’all moving things around?”

“Nobody’s moved one thing. Were you dreamin?” She throws the paper shreds in the trashcan by the bed. “You’ve had yourself a good old time in here with this paper. I’m gon bring you somethin to eat.”

“I already looked at the menu.”

“Did you?” Lorraine sounds surprised. “Well tell me what’s on it because all I saw was pork chops on those trays in the kitchen.” I can feel Lorraine’s hands around my shoulders, she is putting something like a blanket around me.

“She said she would take my order.”

“Honey, ain’t but one waitress and that’s me.” “I was taking the headache with all that light.” “You usually like sun in the afternoon.”

“I told her to close the curtains. She seemed nice but she kept right on with what she was doing.”

“I’ll be back with your tray. Do pork chops sound good to you?” “That’s all right. And a Co-Cola. I want to stay awake, I’m

groggy.”

“We’ll sit and have us a good talk when I get back. Sit up straight now, I’ll be back directly.”

c h a p te r th i r t y

Lorraine

I

been putting lilies in vases with some sprigs of green and then tying them up with pink, blue, and yellow ribbons, one of each color. They’re gon dye some eggs later on and we’ll spread em around on the tables. I told Ada Everett I didn’t think that was a good idea because people will be trying to crack and eat em and they might get sick, but she said we just have to watch everybody and make sure they don’t. She ain’t gon be watching, you can bet on it, so that means me and whoever else is in here at dinnertime. She also said she didn’t want the decorations to be too religious. I do understand what she means, everybody’s different, but then I think it’s Easter Day and with an Easter dinner, and I don’t see no way around that. Either you’re doin it or you’re not. The lilies are as far as we’ll go, everything else on the walls is about all kind of f lowers and spring bunnies, and little yellow chicks. That’s all

right, it looks real pretty. Cheers me up and I ain’t even sad.

Miss Margaret don’t want to come down here and eat, Lord knows she already told me in what words she could, half asleep as she is. They changed some of her arthritis medication too and it’s not doing her any good, so it might have been the medicine talk- ing. Ann came first thing in the morning, before church, and said she would have skipped that if it wasn’t Easter Sunday. She said she was sad she had to miss this dinner here, but she’d be back in the afternoon. Even if I can get Miss Margaret down here to the

dining room, I’m probably gon have to feed her every bite she puts in her mouth. That’s all right. I know what she likes. She hasn’t had good luck holding a fork for a few weeks. Trembles all the time. Ann said the doctor says it’s natural, not a palsy disease or anything, just gettin old. Gettin old. She knows she’s old.

I finish up with the napkins and plates. Mean-tilda offered to help me but I told her not to mind, that I was about finished. If I wanted it to look like a bulldozer decorated the room I would have taken her up on her offer. She was trying to do something nice, and sometime I need to let her. Maybe she’ll help with the clean-up. I take me a short break, the one I’m allowed to have, and have a cold soda and a dough- nut. I get both out of the machine in the break room. April asks me why I eat this mess for snacks when I could have fruit or yogurt right there in the kitchen. I tell her I eat it because I want it. A banana is not the same as a doughnut, and I’d rather eat a Krispy Kreme any day.

“I don’t drink and I don’t smoke,” I said, “so if some sugar is gon kill me, then go on and buy the casket. Make it a nice one. Metal, not wood, I don’t want nothin rotting with me inside it.”

April asked, “Have you been shopping for a funeral or some- thing?”

“When I do, I’m gon take you with me,” I said. Truth is, I had looked at a brochure I found in the trashcan. About a month ago, there was a young man in here, real suntanned like he was livin at the beach. He got himself past reception saying he was on pastoral calls, then started makin rounds room to room, one by one. If the person inside was awake, in he went and opened up a satchel and showed color pictures of all kind of caskets, inside and out, and he had scraps of material taped to paper so you could touch em if you wanted to. He also said that the latest trend was to do away with a display room full of big caskets, and instead, line the walls of the funeral home with little cross sections. That way the customer could see the wood, the lining, hardware, and whatever else a person might want to look at in

a casket without ever havin to open up a full-sized one. He said it was also better for the family because it wasn’t like they were looking at
real
caskets, so the whole experience might be a little bit more pleas- ant. He would take an order right there for anybody that could give a cash or check deposit, nonrefundable by the way. After a few stops at rooms where people weren’t alert enough to give him the time of day, he made it into Miss Margaret’s room and started by introducing himself and reading some scripture. She was all right with that, she liked a little Bible reading as long as it didn’t turn into hellfire and damnation talk. But he bit off more than he could chew cause when he tried to slip from scripture reading to showing funeral pictures, she told him to get the hell out right then and buzzed the nurse sta- tion. There couldn’t have been any better time for Mean-tilda to be on duty, and down the hall she come f lying. Course he had done left Margaret’s room but she found him and said if he didn’t leave the premises, she would call the police and hold him ’til they got here. He didn’t move fast enough for her, so she slammed her medicine cart up against the wall and took a step towards him when I think he saw for the first time that he was outsized by a long shot. He turned tail and went straight out the emergency exit with her right behind him as fast as she could go. I had to go to the administration office to get a key to turn off the alarm.