This is Your Life, Harriet Chance! (11 page)

H
ere you are at seventy-seven, Harriet, still kicking, still marking your days with Bernard, though you haven’t had movie night in four months. Indeed, overnight, your life has once again become what you’ve been fearing: cloistered. You’re desperate for diversion, restless to leave the house, but that means taking Bernard, the 140-pound infant, along. And if you thought baby Caroline was a terror, think again.

Probably not a good time to remind you that it’s Valentine’s Day as you spoon-feed Bernard Cream of Wheat. No big surprise that Bernard has forgotten the feast of St. Valentine, seeing as how he’s forgotten his address, his middle name, and apparently how to swallow, as evidenced by the dollop of gruel oozing its way down his stubbled chin. A few things he
hasn’t forgotten, a few useful platitudes upon which he leans all too heavily in his new version of conversation: “Speed will kill a bearing faster than an increased load.” “You wanna prevent rust? Vinegar.” And of course: “They used to call Okinawa the gray pork chop.”

It’s enough to drive you crazy, Harriet, literally.

You understand that caring for someone can be a thankless job. You were a parent, after all. You don’t expect gratitude. But the least he could do is cooperate. The least he could do is not rap you on the side of the head when you attempt to wrestle his pants on, or bite you when you’re trying to feed him.

Let’s talk about the ugly truth, Harriet: There are mornings, and this is one of them, when you want to smother Bernard with a pillow, mornings when you’re sure you’re capable. There are moments when your hatred for him is a blind red impulse you can neither control or contain. You scold him viciously when he fouls his pants, throws food, rails against your every kindness. Times like these, you can no more sympathize with Bernard than you could sympathize with an egg salad sandwich. He’s a thing. You have no earthly idea what, if anything, you are to him.

It doesn’t matter that his condition isn’t his fault. It doesn’t matter that the hellish degeneration worming its way through his brain is in itself punishment enough for a dozen men. It doesn’t matter what water has passed beneath your bridges the past half century. Living with him, caring for him, sleeping with one eye open, is a torture worse than physical abuse.
Half the time he doesn’t recognize you. The other half he’s erratic, often hateful, sometimes violent.

And it’s not just pillows. Oh no, Harriet. You fantasize about clubbing Bernard senseless like a harp seal. Pushing him down stairs, in front of UPS trucks, off of cliffs. Only halfheartedly do you fantasize, of course. It doesn’t matter that you’ll never act on these impulses, it doesn’t matter that they’re just aberrant manifestations of extreme frustration and grief, the sort of thing that any caregiving manual would caution you against, they are sick and unforgivable, and you hate yourself for these thoughts.

Face it, you’re out of patience, Harriet, out of pity, out of will, out of gas. Totally without the desire to go on living like this. And yet you keep going. Is it your unflagging sense of duty? Your unwavering commitment to service? Or is it just instinct? Surely, it’s not your love of Bernard, because this is not Bernard we’re talking about here. Bernard, as you once and always knew him, has been replaced by a human Brussels sprout.

What you ought to do, Harriet Chance, is strap Bernard into bed by the armpits, as your father once strapped you, then retire to the bathroom and soak your feet. What you ought to do is ask for help. Self-care, Harriet—they talk about it at the Partners of Alzheimer’s support group in the basement of the Calvary Chapel. The one you don’t go to.

A
ll of which, in retrospect, Harriet, begs the question (and apologies for bringing up a sore subject), but where the hell is Mildred Honeycutt now that her lover of forty years is sitting before the television in a loaded diaper, with tapioca running down his chin, convinced that weatherman Steve Pool is hatching a plot to kill him?

As it turns out, Bernard would also like to know the whereabouts of Mildred. “Darling, you’re confused,” you say. “It’s me, Harriet, your wife.”

“You’re not Mildred.”

“No, I’m Harriet.”

“Where the hell’s Mildred?”

“I have no idea. Probably at home.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m your wife. I’m Harriet.”

And using one of the few tools in your belt (not that it ever works), you reach for the wedding picture (must be the twentieth time in two days) and hold it out to him, pointing out Bernard in his two-button tuxedo and you in your mother’s wedding dress.

“Who the hell is this?”

“That’s us, on our wedding day.”

“Whose wedding?”

“Ours—yours and mine. See.”

He blinks at the picture, uncomprehendingly. Blinks again, still nothing.

“Where the hell’s Mildred?”

A
nd speaking of Mildred, now that we’re starting to put it all together, do you happen to remember where your husband was on April 14, 1973? I’ll give you a hint: he’ll still be there in two days, when you celebrate your fourteenth anniversary alone.

Yup, Bernard is in Philadelphia instead of at home for the occasion of his daughter’s birthday.

No, you didn’t have any help with the arrangements, it’s true. But c’mon, Harriet, it was a kid’s birthday party, not the inaugural ball. Since we’re being honest with ourselves, just admit it, you practically phoned in your daughter’s birthday party. Not to say, you weren’t harried throughout the debacle.

Half drunk on white wine, you burned the cake, then frosted the damn thing with your hands as though you were slathering grease on a ball joint. You forgot to invite half the class. You even forgot to tell Skip, who was at a baseball game. The paper napkins didn’t suit the occasion. You accidentally bought diet soda.

And that’s before the party even started.

Look at you, Harriet: your tank is two-thirds full by the time guests start arriving, and that’s when you begin calling them all by the wrong names.

You forgot to put out the snacks.

The living room is a mess.

There are no beanbags for the Toss-Across, no pins for the donkey.

And your replacement donkey tail is—
ahem
—rather obscene-looking.

Not your best work, Harriet.

But it gets worse. After the cake has been eaten, at least those portions that are edible, after the oversized, distinctly elliptical tail with its bell-like tip has been pinned on the donkey (thankfully, not between its hind legs), you come up three candles short in the end.

You knew you forgot something at Food Giant!

Epic fail, Harriet. But before you go too hard on yourself again, just remember who Bernard was with that moment when Caroline finally blew out those three candles. That’s right, he was with your future best friend, Mildred
Honeycutt, eating pie, and for all you knew, stroking her hairy leg under the table.

Now that we’re starting to put it all together, now that we’re really starting to see things as they were, how about a big “Fuck you, Mildred Honeycutt”?

A
nd since we’re on the subject of sixth birthday parties, let’s talk about your own, Harriet, what the heck? Not to compare, but your mother doesn’t drop any balls in making the arrangements, oh no. This party actually looks like an inaugural ball. Tropical fruit punch in the crystal bowl (and no, that’s
not
canned pineapple), a two-tiered German chocolate cake from Borracchini’s, gift bags with tin whistles, rubber elephants, and homemade brittle wrapped in cellophane, and nothing that looks even remotely like a donkey dick.

Twenty-one children and forty adults attend, including your best friend, Miriam Addleman. Unlike Bernard, your
father is not in Philadelphia. He’s right there, lighting the candles, snapping the pictures, smiling at his pride and joy, if not checking his watch occasionally.

But for all the pomp and circumstance, for all the little frilly details upon which your father spared no expense, your sixth birthday party, for lack of a better word, sucks, Harriet.

Though you’ve come out of your shell considerably and are developing something resembling a confident voice, you are not a social animal. If given the choice, you still lean toward invisibility.

Not gonna happen, not today. After the games and the gifts and the singing, after you’ve blown out exactly six candles, and your father has cut the cake, and you hunch greedily over your towering wedge of layered chocolate and coconut, your mother renders you all too visible.

“For heaven’s sake, Harriet, don’t take such big bites,” she says in front of practically everyone. “You think you might’ve learned your lesson by now, Little Piggy.” Then, turning to Miriam’s mother, she explains: “The child has a weakness for food. She nearly choked to death when she was a toddler, you know.”

You still feel the familiar heat of shame coloring your cheeks as you swallow your last big bite of birthday cake, which tastes less like German chocolate and more like an act of defiance.

A little later in the party, as the kids are ramping up for
sugar-induced chaos, and the parents, just beginning to show their liquor, stop caring, the whiz kid, Charlie Fitzsimmons, takes you aside.

“That wasn’t very nice of your mom,” he observes.

“Daddy calls you the whiz kid,” you say.

He smiles. Twirls a few locks of your hair between his fingers. “That’s right,” he says. “The whiz kid. He’s always got your back.”

And then he tells you the story about how he was big and awkward as a kid, in someplace called Quincy, and his friends called him Charlie Fatzsimmons, and his father called him Fatz, and the lady from the Chinese grocery called him
Ju,
which meant “pig” in Chinese.

“You know Chinese?”

“Only a little.”

“Could you teach me?”

“What I know, I suppose.”

After talking to Charlie, you feel better—a lot better, actually. He even smuggles you an extra piece of German chocolate cake and sits with you while you eat it by the water heater.

B
y the time Harriet is shipboard again in Juneau, the worst of her hangover has passed. She’s exhausted, but pleasantly so, as she surrenders her boarding card at the checkpoint without a hitch.

“Welcome back, Ms. Chance. Did you enjoy Juneau?”

“I did, dear.”

“Excellent. Watch your step.”

Such is her state of fatigue that even the thought of Mildred cannot arouse Harriet’s ire as she progresses turtlelike down the carpeted corridor, clutching her Tlingit mask and her tiny totems. She can’t wait to get to her cabin. That footbath never sounded better. A cup of herbal tea from room service. Maybe the other half of that Vicodin. For the first time, this cruise is beginning to sound restful.

In spite of a shaky hand, Harriet wields her card key with aplomb and pushes through the door. She nearly jumps out of her orthopedics when she sees who’s waiting there. Perched on the love seat, hunched over Mildred’s letter, Caroline looks up, flush with excitement.

“Jesus, Mom,” she says, setting aside the letter. “This is seriously fucked up in like a really big way.”

“Put that down. And please don’t talk like that.”

“I mean, I knew Dad was a creep, but this takes the cake.”

Harriet snatches the letter off the coffee table. “You might have warned me you were coming. Why are you here?”

“I never left Vancouver. You just seemed, I dunno, just . . . the whole thing made me nervous. I was worried. So was Dwight.”

“Dwight? What does Dwight have to do with anything?”

“So I got a flight.”

“How did you manage that?”

“My phone.”

“Dear, I appreciate your concern, but you can’t afford that, can you?”

She averts her eyes toward the yogurt container on the dresser. “Skip had miles.”

“And how did you get aboard? How did you get into my cabin?”

“I made some calls.”

Harriet looks at her doubtfully.

“Skip made some calls.”

“To whom?”

“The cruise line, I guess. And Dr. Ritchie. He faxed a note.” “What could Dr. Ritchie possibly have to do with any of this?”

“Never mind that. Mom, this is nuts. Dad was fucking Mildred for like half his life. Jesus, no wonder he was never home.”

“Stop talking like that, please.”

“Well, shit, Mom. This is seriously screwed up.”

“Do you think I need you to tell me that? I know screwed up when I see it, Caroline. My goodness, I’m looking right at it.” Harriet regrets the statement, immediately.

Caroline stands, turns toward the veranda. “I see. Fine.”

“I’m sorry,” says Harriet, setting her bag down. “I didn’t mean that. Sit down, sweetheart. It’s been a shock, that’s all.”

“Fuck, I guess so,” she says, resuming her seat. “You’re telling me you had no clue?”

“Caroline,
please,
stop using that language.”

“Oh get over it, Mom. You’re not that old-fashioned. You really had no idea? All those years?”

“I didn’t. My God, Caroline. Don’t you think if I . . . of course I didn’t.”

“How is that even possible?”

“Do you think I don’t feel like an idiot? Just imagine.”

“Well, I’m not a bit surprised, actually.”

“Good for you. As it happens, I was, Caroline. And quit being so hard on him. We’re all ‘fucked up,’ as you like to put it.”

“Why are you defending him?”

“I’m not.”

“Unbelievable. After all you did for him.”

“He did his share for me, you know. And for you, too.”

“See, you’re doing it again. It’s like a habit with you, Mom.”

“You’re right, it is. And a tough one to break. Oh, but please darling, I’m so tired. I apologize, it was a terrible thing to say. You’re not screwed up. I’m the screwed-up one.”

Harriet takes her coat off and throws it on the bed. “So, I take it you’re coming along?”

“Yeah. That’s okay, right?”

Harriet looks at Caroline’s measly purse. “What will you wear?”

Once again, Caroline averts her eyes. “I’ll figure it out in Skagamalack or wherever. I’ll buy a sweatshirt with a moose on it. And a bathing suit. This will be fun, Mom, you watch.”

“Do you have money?”

“Skip’s wiring some.”

“You could always ask me, you know.”

“No, thanks.”

“Caroline, things are different now. You’re in a different place. If you need money, I can always—”

“Mom, I appreciate it. But you’ve done enough. Really, I don’t want your money.”

“Why won’t you ever let me help you, dear?”

“Won’t I?” Caroline stands and walks to the sliding door. She’s about to step out onto the veranda when she turns back to Harriet.

“Honestly, I don’t get it, Mom. You find out your husband was cheating on you for like . . . fuck, half your life, and you don’t seem that upset about it. Christ, not only do you forgive him, you defend him. You never went that easy on me, that’s for sure.”

“I know, I know. I made you go to summer camp. We’ve been over that. I apologize, Caroline. My God, if I could have possibly known that I’d be hearing about it forty years later, I would never have made you go.”

“Oh, please. Like this has anything to do with summer camp.”

Suddenly the room is beginning to sway, and it’s not the
Zuiderdam.
Harriet tries to ease herself backward onto the bed, and misjudges the distance, just enough that she nearly loses her balance.

“Jesus, Mom, are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Just worn out. Dear, could you hand me the water bottle on the coffee table, please.”

Caroline uncaps the water and hands it to her, looking genuinely concerned. “Are you sure you’re okay? How’s your back?”

“Fine,” says Harriet.

“You look pale. Should I call someone?”

“Heavens, no. Thank you,” says Harriet, kicking off her shoes. “I think I’ll just rest my eyes. Make yourself at home, dear.”

And no sooner has Harriet swung her legs onto the bed,
rolled over onto her side, and closed her eyes than sleep begins to seep heavily into her bones.

“Just holler if you need me,” she hears Caroline say.

“Yes, dear.” She can barely get the words out.

She hears Caroline walk to the bathroom, shut the door, and turn on the shower. Within seconds, Harriet is sleeping like iron.