Although, truth be told (if only to herself ), she hadn’t felt quite so fine this summer. This summer things had been . . . difficult.
When the pain finally did abate—a bit—she began crawling down the short hall toward the kitchen, which was now filling up with dawn. She found it was harder to appreciate that lovely rose light from floor level. Each time the pain became too great, she stopped with her head laid on one bony arm, panting. During these rest stops she reflected on the seven ages of man, and how they described a perfect (and perfectly stupid) circle. This had been her mode of locomotion long ago, during the fourth year of World War I, also known as—how funny—the War to End All Wars. Then she had been Concetta Abruzzi, crawling across the dooryard of her parents’ farm in Davoli, intent on capturing chickens that easily outpaced her. From those dusty beginnings she had gone on to lead a fruitful and interesting life. She had published twenty books of poetry, taken tea with Graham Greene, dined with two presidents, and—best of all—had been gifted with a lovely, brilliant, and strangely talented great-granddaughter. And what did all those wonderful things lead to?
More crawling, that was what. Back to the beginning. Dio mi benedica.
She reached the kitchen and eeled her way through an oblong of sun to the little table where she took most of her meals. Her cell phone was on it. Chetta grabbed one leg of the table and shook it until her phone slid to the edge and dropped off. And, meno male, landed unbroken. She punched in the number they told you to call when shit like this happened, then waited while a recorded voice summed up all the absurdity of the twenty-first century by telling her that her call was being recorded.
And finally, praise Mary, an actual human voice.
“This is 911, what is your emergency?”
The woman on the floor who had once crawled after the chickens in southern Italy spoke clearly and coherently in spite of the pain. “My name is Concetta Reynolds, and I live on the third floor of a condominium at Two nineteen Marlborough Street. I seem to have broken my hip. Can you send an ambulance?”
“Is there anyone with you, Mrs. Reynolds?”
“For my sins, no. You’re speaking to a stupid old lady who insisted she was fine to live alone. And by the way, these days I prefer Ms.”
2
Lucy got the call from her grandmother shortly before Concetta was wheeled into surgery. “I’ve broken my hip, but they can fix it,” she told Lucy. “I believe they put in pins and such.”
“Momo, did you fall?” Lucy’s first thought was for Abra, who was away at summer camp for another week.
“Oh yes, but the break that caused the fall was completely spontaneous. Apparently this is quite common in people my age, and since there are ever so many more people my age than there used to be, the doctors see a lot of it. There’s no need for you to come immediately, but I think you’ll want to come quite soon. It seems that we’ll need to have a talk about various arrangements.”
Lucy felt a coldness in the pit of her stomach. “What sort of arrangements?”
Now that she was loaded with Valium or morphine or whatever it was they’d given her, Concetta felt quite serene. “It seems that a broken hip is the least of my problems.” She explained. It didn’t take long. She finished by saying, “Don’t tell Abra, cara. I’ve had dozens of emails from her, even an actual letter, and it sounds like she’s enjoying her summer camp a great deal. Time enough later for her to find her old momo’s circling the drain.”
Lucy thought, If you really believe I’ll have to tell her—
“I can guess what you’re thinking without being psychic, amore, but maybe this time bad news will give her a miss.”
“Maybe,” Lucy said.
She had barely hung up when the phone rang. “Mom? Mommy?” It was Abra, and she was crying. “I want to come home. Momo’s got cancer and I want to come home.”
3
Following her early return from Camp Tapawingo in Maine, Abra got an idea of what it would be like to shuttle between divorced parents. She and her mother spent the last two weeks of August and the first week of September in Chetta’s Marlborough Street condo. The old woman had come through her hip surgery quite nicely, and had decided against a longer hospital stay, or any sort of treatment for the pancreatic cancer the doctors had discovered.
“No pills, no chemotherapy. Ninety-seven years are enough. As for you, Lucia, I refuse to allow you to spend the next six months bringing me meals and pills and the bedpan. You have a family, and I can afford round-the-clock care.”