Dad’s voice sounds stronger, and he starts scrabbling at the floor, trying to push himself up to a sitting position.
“I think it’s fine,” Tony says, and helps Dad sit up there on the floor. “Do you think you could drink a little water, Mr. Addington? Maybe take an aspirin? Just in case it is a stroke.” He looks at me. “Are there any aspirin in the house?”
“I don’t know. I just got here.”
“I’ll go look!” Elle says, and dashes off toward the kitchen. There’s a sound of running water, of slamming cupboard doors, and then she’s back with a small bottle and a glass of water.
Dad looks at the outstretched hand holding the pill with a frown of concentration. His bleary eyes follow the hand up the arm to Elle’s shoulder and finally to her face.
“Hey, there,” he says. “What are you doing here?”
Elle is unfazed. “Getting you aspirin, Grandpa.”
“You all think this little pill is going to fix what’s wrong with me?” He surveys our faces, and then his shoulders start to shake with dry, nails-on-a-chalkboard laughter. “That’s the first funny thing I’ve heard all week.”
But he reaches for the pill, and we all wait patiently while his stiff, old-man fingers fumble to grasp it. Finally it’s in his mouth, and he’s swallowed half of the water in the glass.
More sirens in the distance, drawing ever closer. More uniformed bodies stomping all over my mother’s floor with their boots on.
Dad, who has always been a marshmallow in my mother’s hands, decides to reveal a latent streak of obstinacy.
“You can all go home and go back to bed,” he says, with great dignity. “You are not putting me in that ambulance.”
“Daddy . . . please.” My voice wobbles a little, a small betrayal that surprises me. I’m not given to tears. My hand goes to my throat, covering the lump that has been quietly accumulating since I walked into this house.
He shakes his head. “You’re here. You can keep an eye on me.”
I want to tell him I don’t have a caretaking bone in my body. I want to tell him I need to go see Mom. I want to tell him that parents are for leaning on, not the other way around. Not a single word is going to fit past the obstruction that has replaced my voice box.
Tony, crouched on the floor, still supporting my father, takes off his fireman’s hat and lays it on the floor beside him. “Tell you what,” he says. “We let you off the hook with the ambulance, but you agree to let your daughter drive you up to the ER, just to get looked over. Can we make it a deal?”
By the time Dad finally nods agreement, I’m dizzy and realize I’ve been holding my breath.
The ambulance team turns around and tracks out of the house.
So much for leaving Elle to sleep, but she doesn’t look like she needs it. She’s bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and ready for action, as my mother would say. The thought that my mother might not say anything ever again flits through my consciousness, and I swat it away. I can’t go on functioning if I’m having those kinds of thoughts.
The self-righteous fireman goes out to wait in the truck while Tony helps get Dad into a coat and shoes. We support him between the two of us and walk him out to the car, Elle opening and closing doors and acting as gofer.
When we’re all settled in the rental, Tony knocks on my window.
“You’ve got your hands full,” he says, when I roll it down. He hands me a phone number, scribbled on the back of a Walmart receipt. “If you need anything, unofficially, buzz me.”
I nod. My smile muscles are in a state of paralysis and refuse to make even a token effort.
As I turn the key and start the engine, my mind runs through a list of disorders that might be causing my facial paralysis.
Bell’s palsy.
MS.
Lou Gehrig’s.
Parkinson’s.
Brain cancer.
How about grief and shock, Maisey? Have you considered these as possibilities? Questions start bubbling to the surface, and the first one spills out, even though Dad’s face is a blank that should have warned me off.
“What really happened to Mom?” I ask him.
His head turns toward me, slow and creaky, like an automaton in need of new batteries. His eyes are blank. He doesn’t answer.
“Dad. What happened to Mom?”
He blinks three times, rapidly, his electronic wiring on the fritz, and then his eyes light, and he sees me—me—again.
“She fell.”
“Three days ago, the police said.”
I wait for him to contradict the absurdity of this, to clearly and unequivocally tell me that Edna Carlton is full of bull hockey and the police have lost their minds.
But he just swallows and doesn’t answer.
“Dad!”
“She didn’t want to go to the hospital.” His eyes go dark again, and he stares not at me, but past me, out into the night.
It takes Elle and me both to get him out of the car and into the ER reception area. Fortunately, the staff are not only expecting us, but know the story already. We don’t even have time to sit in registration before the doors open and a tech comes out to get us.
Somebody fetches snacks for Elle and me from the staff room. Homemade cookies. Crackers and cheese. A cup of real coffee with half-and-half. I can’t choke down food, but the coffee is a lifesaver.
“I heard your mom is up in ICU,” the tech says, his voice comfortingly matter-of-fact. “If you want to go see her, we’ll start working up Walter here. It will take a bit, and we can call you when we know anything.”
Dad doesn’t seem to even hear. He lies on the exam table where they put him, staring up at the ceiling. His expression is blank. He looks old and fragile, and my heart feels swollen and sick. Feverish.
“I’ll stay with Grandpa,” Elle says.
At the sound of her voice, he turns his head, and the blankness in his eyes dissipates a little. “What are you doing here?” he asks, as he did at the house. As if he’s only just seen her for the first time.
“Waiting,” Elle tells him. I hesitate. She’s only a child, and he’s so terribly lost. Elle makes a shooing gesture at me with her hands, and I step out of the door and head upstairs, leaving pieces of myself behind all the way, like a trail of breadcrumbs.
Chapter Five
A curtain is drawn around my mother’s bed.
At first glance she seems to be sleeping. But I’ve seen her sleep before, and this is different, a terrible absence rather than slumber. She looks smaller than I remember. Her body, always thin, seems insubstantial, barely a bolster-size bump beneath the hospital blanket and sheets. One arm lies on top of the covers. An IV tube connects to the back of her hand. On the inside of her elbow a bruise blossoms, probably from a blood draw. I find myself wanting to cover it. A sleeve. A Band-Aid.
Lacking that, I cover the blemish with my own hand, startled at the heat of her skin.
The room smells like disinfectant. It reminds me of scraped knees and the sting of hydrogen peroxide and my mother’s voice telling me I am brave, I am strong, I can handle this temporary pain.
But I am not brave, and I have never been strong enough to carry the weight of my mother’s ambitions and expectations, to bear the brunt of her obsessive love.
Since my earliest memories, Mom was in control of everything. She ran the house with precision. Calendars, schedules, lists, and more lists. Routine was her religion. When I came home from school, she allowed me a half hour of homemade cookies and milk to sweeten what I came to think of as interrogation about the school day. What did I learn? Who were my friends? What could I do better or smarter tomorrow? This was followed by homework, from first grade on up. If I had no homework, she gave me some.
“You’re smart, Maisey. You have opportunities. But that will get you nowhere without discipline.”