The Virtues of Oxygen (9 page)

CHAPTER 10

H
olly dialed Desdemona’s cell phon
e number.

“I’m thinking about going to see Mom again this weekend,” H
olly said.

“Do you want me to come?” Desde
mona said.

“Do you think you could
get away?”

Holly could hear the crowd noise on the streets of the East Village, where Desdemona had a studio apartment the size of the walk-in closets in the development near Holly’s house. As Desdemona paused, Holly could hear shouts and car horns and bicycle bells in the distance—the never-ending soundtrack of
the city.

“Sorry,” Desdemona said finally. “I had to get around one of those knockoff purse vendors. They always clog up the sidewalk. I have rehearsal on Saturday, but if you go on Sunday, I can meet you there. We can look for her rin
gs again.”

Holly wanted to tell Desdemona that their mother’s rings were long gone, probably melted and turned into a new ring, maybe even an engagement ring that would stay on someone else’s finger until it withered, and the ring fell off in a nursing home fifty or sixty years from now. But she said n
one of it.

“I’ll call you tomorrow and we’ll set it up. Should I see if Henderson wants
to come?”

“Do you think he’d drive down fro
m Boston?”

“He’s not working right now, so why wou
ldn’t he?”

Holly remembered Henderson’s indigestion fiasco at the funeral home and briefly wondered what might happen this time. She pictured him needing the Heimlich maneuver in the hospital c
afeteria.

“Sure, then,” Desdemona said. “It would be nice to see how he’s getting along. Maybe he could bring Phoebe. I haven’t seen her in ages, and she’s probably changed
so much.”

“Middle school will do that to a girl. I’m not sure if he has her this weekend, but I’ll ask.
Bye, Des.”

“Bye, Holly. See
you soon.”

They entered the room in birth order—Henderson first, then Holly, then Desdemona—and each kissed Celia’s wrinkled
forehead.

“Hi, Mom,” Henderson said in a voice overly animated for the occasion. “Here we are. Your children. We came to v
isit you.”

“Why are you talking like that?” Ho
lly said.

“I’m just trying to be upbeat,” Hende
rson said.

Desdemona, who was standing on the side of the bed opposite Holly and Henderson, picked up her mother’s hand. “Still no rings,” she said. “I was kind of hoping they’d just
reappear.”

Henderson let out a string of profanities. “Somebody walked in here in broad daylight and robbed her,” he said. “Because she’s helpless. Look at her. She couldn’t do a damn thing
about it.”

“We don’t know that,” Desdemona said, still reluctant to think the worst. “Maybe there’s some other exp
lanation.”

Holly and Henderson looked at each other as if they pitied their sister’s faith in
humanity.

“Look,” Holly said, “we don’t know what happened, but we know the rings are gone, so let’s start with that and decide what to do. We’ve already reported it to the hospital, and they claim they’re not responsible. They blame us for letting her wear them in here, so we’re dead in the water there. Is it worth it to call th
e police?”

“I doubt it,” Henderson said. “We can’t prove she even came in w
ith them.”

Holly sat down in a straight-backed chair near the bed. She rubbed the fourth finger of her left hand, which still had faint indentations from the years she had worn her own weddi
ng rings.

“What about insurance?” she said. “We could file
a claim.”

“She didn’t have a jewelry rider,” Henderson said. “I already
checked.”

Desdemona picked up her mother’s left hand again. “I still think they might turn up. Remember how Dad wanted to buy her an even bigger diamond, but she refused? She said the one she had wa
s enough.”

Holly got up and rifled through the side table again but came up empty. Celia stirred and put one hand to her white throat. All three moved toward the small plastic pitcher on Celia’s bed table. Holly got there first and poured some water into a pl
astic cup.

“Here, Mom,” she said. “Here’s some water. It’s Ho
lly, Mom.”

Holly held her mother’s head and tilted it toward the cup. Celia took a small, f
eeble sip.

Henderson moved toward the bed. “It’s Henderson, Mom. I came down from Boston to
see you.”

Celia turned her head toward him, though she seemed to be looking through him, as if he were a window. Henderson let
out a sob.

“Oh, Hen, it’s all right,” Desdemona said. “She’s not
herself.”

“I can’t help it. Think of what we’ve lost. I should have videotaped her years ago so that Phoebe would remember her like she used to be. I can’t bring her to visit now. She’ll be tra
umatized.”

“Don’t say that,” Holly said. “She’s still Phoebe’s gra
ndmother.”

“But why did this happen to her?” Henderson said. He found a box of tissues and blew his nose. “Some people are fine into the triple digits. She’s only seventy-six. She could have had twenty more good years, and now there’s nothing but scraps. Scraps aren’t enough. And she could live like this for years and years. And
for what?”

While everything Henderson said was true, Holly wanted to pinch him—her weapon of choice in elementary school—for sounding like a whini
ng child.

She turned to face him. “You’re acting like she had a choice. She didn’t. She’s here, and she’s hanging on to whatever’s left, even if it doesn’t seem like much. What’s the alternat
ive, Hen?”

Henderson said nothing, only folded his arms and walked over to the window. Desdemona kissed her mother on the forehead again and smoothed back
her hair.

“Maybe I could take care of her,” Desdemona said. “I could take a leave of absence from the company. My bunion’s inflamed anyway. My podiatrist says I should
rest it.”

Henderson turned back toward them. “In that crappy little studio? It’s a fifth-floor walk-up. How would you even get her up there? That’s ri
diculous.”

“Now wait a minute. It’s not like I want to live in a ‘crappy little
studio.’”

“Don’t even think about it,” Henderson said, finishing his original statement. “Holly at least has a bedroom on the fir
st floor.”

“Hold on,” Holly said, amazed that Henderson knew so little about her life that he could suggest such a thing. “You’re not even working right now, and you have an elevator in your
building.”

“I’m not even working?” Henderson said. “Don’t you think I’m working my ass off to find a job? I’m working more than I ever have. And Phoebe’s going to live with me for a while because the bankruptcy court suspended my child-support payments. I had to take Phoebe so Wendy could go work for her father, who is the only person who would ever
hire her.”

Desdemona stroked her mother’s hair, which seemed to relax her and allow her eyes to close again. “We can’t fight about this,” she said softly. “We need to figure out what to do if they decide she doesn’t belong here
anymore.”

Holly regretted getting upset with Henderson, falling back into ancient rivalries. She knew that Henderson, like her, only wanted the mother he remembe
red back.

Holly flipped through some paperwork they had given her on the way in. “If she improves significantly, they’ll release her. Same goes for if she declines significantly. The only way she stays here—and Medicare pays for it—is if she shows very gradual improvement. Otherwise, she’ll either go to one of us or to a nurs
ing home.”

Celia’s eyes fluttered for a moment, and Desdemona moved to the bedside and patted
her hand.

“She looks agitated,” Desdemona said. “Her eyes were moving.
I saw it.”

But now that all three of them were staring at her, Celia was complet
ely still.

Maybe it would be better if she died, Holly thought, immediately reprimanding herself for letting such a thought run through her head while simultaneously recognizing it as the unfortun
ate truth.

Marveen wore a low-cut blouse with a statement necklace that featured a large enameled daisy. Holly thought she was even more overdone than usual—her hair was especially inflated—but she wasn’t going to argue, since Marveen had agreed to forgive her sixty-dollar debt in exchange for a personal introduction to Racine. Marveen had learned all about Holly’s second job through Vivian, and it seemed not to bother h
er at all.

They walked over from the newspaper office, where they had met on a Saturday, with Marveen stopping every thirty or forty feet to adjust her toes in the strappy stiletto sandals that held her feet like the strained casings of overfilled kno
ckwursts.

“I don’t know why you wore those shoes,” Holly said. “You’ll tower over him. Men don’t like to fe
el short.”

“Oh, you’re right,” Marveen said, stopping to pull at one of the straps. “But it’s too late now. I’ll just have to make the bes
t of it.”

As they moved on, Holly caught Marveen looking at her reflection in the plate-glass window of an empty storefront. The next three storefronts were empty as well, which left Holly wondering if Bertram Corners’ downtown would ever bounce back from the devastating effects of the outlet mall. The outlets attracted shoppers from as far away as Syracuse, but they never seemed to venture beyond the pale gray moat of its vast pa
rking lot.

“We should do another update on the downtown development committee,” Holly said. “I don’t think they’ve had a meeting for a year. We could shame them into doing something, even if it’s just repainting these trash
barrels.”

“You can do all the stories you want about this miserable downtown,” Marveen said. “The ad revenue has dried up. If it wasn’t for the outlets, the paper would have no income at all. I say we admit defeat and move Town Hall into the outlet fo
od court.”

Holly couldn’t argue with Marveen’s logic, but it seemed sad that the town’s former economic engine had been usurped by the insatiable desire for cheap tube socks and discount leather goods. She liked a bargain as much as the next person, but the unintended consequences of the “buy cheap” mentality were in front of her every day. As the downtown shops floundered because they didn’t have the economies of scale or the access to second-quality goods, their owners and families couldn’t even afford to support each other anymore. Now everyone needed cheap t
ube socks.

Marveen looked at her reflection again as they passed Dunkin’ Donuts, and Holly wondered if they should stop and get coffee so that her hands had a job to do when they stopped in to The Gold Depot. When Holly’s hands were empty, they tended to travel through space in ways that she herself did not expect, especially around a nice-looking man. But Marveen had charged ahead and held the door to the shop open
for Holly.

“You first,” she said, smiling broadly. “Remember what you’re suppose
d to say.”

Holly edged around Marveen and walked into the gold shop, which had two customers. One was looking in the cases that held old rings, watches, and bracelets, while the other sat at the back with one of the visor-wearing gold appraisers. Both looked up when Holly and Marveen entered, and the woman selling her gold registered a flash of embarrassment at being fo
und there.

“Where is he?” Marveen said. “I thought you said he’d
be here.”

Holly peeked around the display case but saw no one. “He’s got to be around. The boys met him here this morning to work on putting up som
e flyers.”