Nightwork, page 4
Dana stopped, turned back. “You’re not going to spend the first night of the rest of your life with me and Mags.”
“I think I get to decide how I want to spend the first night of the rest, and I made plans.”
“What kind of plans?”
“My plans. We’ve got a couple hours, so time for that snack—make enough of whatever for all of us. Then I’m going to mow the lawn.”
Which would take, like, ten minutes, considering the size of it.
“It’s a surprise,” he continued, anticipating the questions. “What you’re wearing’s fine. You’re going to want a sweater maybe, or a jacket, but that’s it.”
“A mystery,” Mags said. “A mysterious surprise. I already like it.”
They didn’t have a clue even when they boarded the train, and he refused to give hints. But as they got closer and more people piled on wearing caps and jerseys, Mags gave Harry a quick shoulder punch.
“Wrigley. Night game against the Marlins.”
“Maybe.”
“You don’t really like baseball,” Dana began. “I’ve never understood where I went wrong, but—”
“I like it okay. But my ladies love it.”
“This is great. This is awesome. Man, I should have my bloodstone pendant for energy. No, no, the black onyx.” Mags dug through her purse. “I have to have something in here. My lucky Cubs hat’s at home, but I can visualize it. Who’s pitching? I can’t remember who’s pitching.”
“Mitre,” Harry told her.
“Okay, oh well. I’ll visualize hard.”
He loved the way they talked about the game around him, on the train, on the walk to the stadium, and under the big red sign.
He loved the buzz from them, and everyone else.
“My treat,” Dana said. “For the last day of school.”
“Too late.” Harry pulled tickets out of his back pocket. “Already done, for the women who got me through the last day of school.”
“Harry, those—those are box seats. You can’t—”
“Already done. And everybody’s getting a new lucky hat.”
“Don’t spoil the boy’s plans.” Mags gave Dana’s hand a squeeze. “Take the gift.”
“You’re right, you’re right. We didn’t even get to a game last season, and now? Box seats. Oh, Mags, look. First base side, right behind the dugout!”
He bought them caps, and one for himself.
And heard his mother’s reverent sigh as they walked into the stadium and the green grass, the rich brown mound, the white baselines filled the world back to the ivy-covered wall.
“We’re practically on the field. I can smell the grass! Mags, remember when we used to watch games from the rooftop?”
She gestured to the buildings outside the walls.
“Sure I do. Uncle Silas would take us up there, ply us with hot dogs and root beer. I’ve told you about Uncle Silas, your grandmother’s brother.”
“I got his name in the middle.”
“You sure do. He fell in love with a woman who didn’t love him back, and he pined for her until he died. Never married. He had a heart attack when you were just a baby.”
Harry knew the story. Mags and Dana’s father had taken off when Dana had still been in diapers. Their mother had worked in her brother’s butcher shop, raised her two girls.
She’d been killed by a stray bullet in a drive-by shooting when Harry’s mother had been seventeen.
The same age, he realized, he was now.
“He might’ve had a wonky heart, but it was a sweet one. Those were good times.” Mags patted Dana’s thigh. “Real good times.”
“They were.” Dana breathed deep. “This is an even better one.”
They ate hot dogs, drank beer. Though he didn’t have much of a taste for it, Harry sipped some from his mother’s cup.
Solidarity.
They cheered, they booed, argued calls.
His mother looked radiant—that was the word that came to his mind. She sprang up to watch the flight of a long ball, hooting when the center fielder caught it a few feet shy of the wall, moaned at a strikeout.
The sun went down; the lights came on.
More through accident than design, he caught a foul that lined straight at him. And that had his mother up and dancing.
“Fast hands,” Mags said, shooting him a knowing look. “Sharp reflexes.”
After he shook the feeling back into his hand, he presented it to Dana. “Your souvenir, ma’am.”
Whether it was the lucky caps, the bloodstone Mags dug out of her purse, or the Cubs’ solid night, Mitre pitched a shutout, and the boys walked off the field with fourteen runs.
Harry didn’t have his mother’s passion for the game, but he knew a purist wouldn’t rave over a fourteen-to-zip nine innings.
She leaned her head against his shoulder as they sat, as people filed out.
“You know what beats a summer night at Wrigley?”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
They got off the train a stop early, bought ice cream cones, and walked Mags to her apartment.
As they walked the few blocks to home, he put an arm around his mother’s shoulders just like she had once put hers around his.
“I bet you’re tired.”
“A little,” she admitted. “But a good tired. It was a terrific surprise. You’ve always been my very best surprise. You never ask about your father.”
“What’s to ask?” he said, and genuinely meant it. “He doesn’t matter.”
“He does, because without him I wouldn’t have you.”
She leaned against him, sighed. “I should tell you because you should know. We were young. I was so sad when we lost my mother. Mags was mad, but I couldn’t push out of the sad. Uncle Silas tried so hard, but he was grieving, too. Anyway, there was the boy and he wanted me. I wanted him. We didn’t love each other. I don’t want you to think he broke my heart, because it wasn’t like that.”
They turned to the house, and she stopped at the door. “Let’s sit a minute.”
She lowered to the stoop with the flowers blooming on either side.
“We were only together for a few weeks, had already drifted apart when I realized I was pregnant. He’d started college, Mags had gone off to be a carny, and I was working in the butcher shop. It’s going to sound odd, but I didn’t panic or wonder what to do. I was thrilled from the first moment. Young, foolish, but thrilled. And all the sad just melted away.
“I had to tell the boy, but I wasn’t surprised by his reaction. I couldn’t blame him for it, and I never have.”
She looked over at him, her eyes tired but level. “You shouldn’t either, that’s why I’m telling you. He was barely eighteen, just starting his life, like you’re about to. We didn’t love or want each other. I know I could’ve pressed him to contribute, and maybe I should have. But I didn’t want to. You were mine, and why should you have someone in your life who didn’t want you, when I did? He’d resent you, and me, the way I realized my father had come to resent my mother and Mags and me. No, I wasn’t going to take you there. That’s a painful road.”
“I wouldn’t want it any other way, if that’s what you’re asking me.”
“Good. That’s good. Anyway, Mags came back a few weeks before you were born, was right there when you made your debut. She came back again when Uncle Silas died. I wish you could remember him, Harry, but you were just a baby. He adored you. He left enough for me to put a deposit down on this house. Then we started the business, got it going pretty good once you were in school. And here we are.”
She leaned into him. “I had the best gift, the greatest love, come out of all that sad. I just want you to remember that. And?” She gave him a big, noisy kiss on the cheek. “No sad tonight.”
“I know I don’t remember him—Uncle Silas—but I know him through you and Mags. I remember all the stories you’ve told me.”
She smiled, tapped his temple. “Magic memory.”
“Yeah.”
And he knew he’d never forget sitting with her on the front stoop on a summer night with her pretty flowers beside them.
She wore her pink hair and her new dress to his graduation, and with Mags’s help threw a party for him and his friends.
But as June faded into July, the dark circles haunted her eyes. And he could see the pain above those circles far too often. When she could barely cross a room without running out of breath, it was his turn to tell her to sit down so they could talk.
“I made a decision.”
She sipped at the odd tea Mags insisted had healing properties. “About what?”
“I’m taking a gap year.”
“Harry—”
“No, you listen.” He knew she couldn’t fight him, and part of him hated that, hated knowing she’d grown too weak to fight.
“A lot of people do it, and that’s what I’m doing. Mags needs me to keep the business going. You need me. And I need to be here. I need it, Mom. Northwestern’s not going anywhere.”
“Your scholarship. You worked so hard.”
“It’ll hold over.”
“I’m sorry.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m sorry that I can’t argue with you. That I can’t make you go. I wanted to watch you walk into college the way you walked into elementary school. I wanted that. I hate this. I hate knowing I’m not going to be there for you. Listen…”
She had to take a moment. It was one of the bad days, and they both knew it.
“I talked to Anita at hospice this morning. She’s been great, and she understands I don’t want to go into the hospital. I want to stay here. You’ll need help.”
“Mags and I can take care of you.”
“Don’t I know it. But if you need help, they’re there. I’ve made arrangements. I wrote everything down. I know it’s hard for you to talk about this, but we need to.”
“Okay.” It made him feel sick and scared, but he just nodded.
“Cremation, that’s what I want. No big ceremony or anything. You and Mags, you can decide where to spread the ashes. Whatever and wherever.”
His stomach tightened into sweaty fists, and the heat slicked his body like a second skin, but he nodded again. “Okay, don’t worry.”
“I had your name added to the house, I did that months ago, so it’ll be yours. You should sell it. We’ve got some good equity in it. You should sell it to help with college. Property values are going up, and there’re a lot of buyers who want to take a place like this and gentrify it.”
She reached for his hands, and he felt the tremor in hers.
“Don’t you waste that brain of yours, my baby. You’re so crazy smart. You go to college. You find your passion. Explore. Travel—see places. All kinds of places. You’re tough, Harry. Smart and strong, and you’re kind. I did a damn good job.”
“Yeah, you did.”
“Be there for Mags. She may be your crazy aunt, but she’s never let us down.” She pushed the tea away. “Even if she does try to pour this crap into me.”
“How about a Coke?”
She smiled. “I’d love a Coke.”
As summer faded, so did her strength.
Mags moved out of her apartment and spent her nights on the air mattress beside her sister’s bed.
Harry spent his days cleaning houses with Mags and using the money from any nightwork to pay a professional aide to care for his mother when they couldn’t.
In the fall, most of his friends left for college. The pang he felt came and went at odd times. When he took out the trash or tied his shoes or hit the library for another stack of books to read to his mother.
They bought a wheelchair so they could take her out in sunlight and fresh air. But even in the glory of an Indian summer, she got chilled if they stayed out beyond an hour.
By November Dana’s world contracted to her bedroom. She ate little, slept long. They’d rented a hospital bed, and moved the old dresser into the living room so they had room for two beds, two chairs.
Friends and neighbors and clients sent flowers or food or both. He’d never forget that Will’s mother came by three or four nights a week after work to sit with her, whether or not Dana slept through the visit.
“Take your aunt out and buy her a coffee,” she told him.
So they escaped the house that smelled too much of flowers and sickness and walked in the sharp November air.
Mags took his hand. “Honey, we have to let her go.” He tried to pull his hand away, but Mags clamped down. “It’s love holding her here now, for you, and for me, too. She’s suffering. The medicine helps with the pain, but it doesn’t stop it. The pot helps with the nausea, but it’s still there. She’s drifting from minute to minute, caught between worlds now, and hanging on to this one for us.”
He wanted to curse her, shove her away. But he stared straight ahead, seeing nothing. “She said every day’s a gift. And she was asking Mrs. Forester about Will when we left. She picked out a new book to start tonight.”
“She’s got such a strong will, and such a huge love for you. It’s a crap thing for me to say to a boy who just turned eighteen. But she won’t move on until you tell her you’ll be okay.”
“So you’re ready to just let her die.”
It was Mags who let go of his hand. “No. I’m never going to be ready. But I know she is.”
They didn’t speak any more about it, or about anything as they circled the block, and the resentment inside him built like storm clouds. He had plenty more to say, and promised he’d say it all after Will’s mom left, after his own mother slept.
He’d be damned if his crazy, stupid, selfish aunt would tell him what to do, feel, think. And if she was tired of helping take care of her own sister, she could go to hell.
He’d do it all himself.
When they walked back into the house, Mags went straight to the kitchen. “I’m going to heat up some soup for Dana. Do you want some?”
“No.”
Will’s mother came out of the bedroom. “We had a nice talk.” She moved over to hug Harry. “Don’t be upset if she thinks you’re home on a college break now. She’s a little tired and confused.”
“Okay, it’s okay. Mrs. Forester, I really appreciate you coming to see her like this.”
“Your mama and I, we’ve been friends since you and Will started kindergarten.” She gave him a quick, extra squeeze. “I’m going on home, Mags,” she called out. “You let me know if you need anything.”
“I will. Thank you, Keisha.”
She gave Harry’s arm a pat. “You take care of each other now.”
He’d take care of everything, he thought. Including telling his aunt where she could stick her advice.
But first they needed to work together to get some food into his mom. He knew how to focus, how to set everything else outside the walls of that focus and get a task done.
He took off his jacket, had started to hang it up when he heard his mother talking. Not calling for him, just talking. And laughing.
Jacket still in hand, he walked to the bedroom.
She leaned against the elevated back of the bed, her eyes too bright. She wore the red sweater Mags had knitted over her pale blue nightgown. And she smiled at him.
“Hi, baby! Welcome home. I was just telling Uncle Silas you were coming for the weekend. He’s got center-cut pork chops on special, and he’ll bring some over for dinner.”
He stumbled over what to say, just stood there. And Mags breezed in with a tray. “I hope there’s mashed potatoes to go with them, and no spinach.”
“Peas. And crescent rolls.”
“I get to whap the can on the counter.”
“You always get to.”
“I’m the big sister.”
“I’m not really hungry right now,” Dana said as Mags spooned up some soup.
“For Mrs. Cardini’s minestrone? Your favorite.”
And Harry felt shame—it just washed over him in a hot flood as he watched his aunt spoon a little soup into her sister’s mouth.
“She makes the best.”
“She does. And Harry’s going to start reading your new book while you eat. What’s this one?”
“We got the story of an ordinary man’s extraordinary journey. Adventure! Redemption! Love!”
“Sex?”
“I’m not reading sex out loud to my mom and aunt.”
“Your boy’s a prude, Dane. But he knows how to give a dramatic reading.”
“He’s studying books in college, and he’ll be in the school plays again. I can’t eat any more, Mags.” She turned her head away. “I got my suitcase out, didn’t I? Did I finish packing? I need to finish packing.”
Mags set the spoon down, put the tray aside. Harry saw the tears wash over the blue of her eyes. “You’re all set.”
“Oh, good. Oh, sure, I see.” She smiled at something only she could see across the room. “All packed and ready to go. You’ll be too busy to miss me, baby, with college and everything.”
Still smiling, her eyes so bright, and sunk so deep, she reached for his hand. “I’ll send you postcards. You can make a scrapbook. I always meant to make a scrapbook. You’ll be okay, right, Harry? You’re all grown up. You’ll be okay while I’m gone on my trip.”
He took her hand while tears burned behind his eyes. “Yeah, I’ll be okay.”
“You and Mags will look out for each other.”
“Yeah, we will. You don’t have to worry.”
“I’m a little tired. I’ll finish packing later.”
She closed her eyes, and as she drifted to sleep, Mags rose and picked up the tray.
“I need a drink,” she said, and walked out.
When he came out, she’d poured two glasses.
“Crap box wine is still wine, just like crap pizza is still pizza. If you don’t want any, I’ll drink your share.”
“I’m sorry.” When she shook her head, he plowed on. “I’m sorry for how I acted, what I said, and the worse things I thought.”
“She’s your mom.”
“She’s your baby sister.”
Mags gulped down wine as tears spilled down her cheeks. “I’m so pissed off, so fucking pissed off at whoever’s in charge. What’s the point or purpose in making her go through all this? None, and I don’t care what anybody says.”
