“It’s nice of you to make hers separate,” he said.
Marjorie snorted a laugh that seemed critical. Not of him, he didn’t figure.
“What would really be nice is if Eastbridge would buy their eggs from you, because they’re better. Then everybody could have fresh ones that taste better and are better for ’em. But it’s all about the bottom line to them.”
“I don’t know what that is,” Stewie said, ducking out of the way as a rack of fresh bread came rolling through, pushed by another member of the kitchen staff who liked him.
Everybody here liked him.
“Money. The bottom line is money. If they can save a dollar, they will.”
“Oh. Well, I couldn’t bring enough eggs for everybody here anyway. I don’t have enough hens. We don’t have any roosters, so no new hens ever get born. And a lot of the older girls have stopped laying. More all the time. All my gam’s hens are starting to get old. Even the young ones are starting to get old.”
“Couldn’t you just go out and buy more?”
Oddly, he realized, the idea had never occurred to him. Now that it had been presented, he immediately disliked it.
“I’m not sure I’d want to go out and get hens that weren’t Gam’s hens. The whole idea was just to take care of them after she died. My sister wanted to sell them. But I didn’t want them sold, because most people eat them the minute they stop laying.”
“I know Mrs. Clements will miss these if they’re ever not around. But I’ll make sure she gets this dozen on her breakfast plate this week.”
“Thanks, Marjorie,” he said.
Then he ran up to the second floor, taking the stairs two at a time.
When Stewie walked down the hall to Marilyn’s room, there was a man there. Sitting on the wooden bench outside her door. A man Stewie had never seen before. He was fiftyish, and balding, wearing a short-sleeved shirt even though it was cold outside. His forearms and the backs of his hands were strangely hairy. He was sitting with both palms over his eyes.
Stewie tried to walk right by, but the man stopped him with a word.
“Wait.”
He had a deep voice, and Stewie thought it sounded sorrowful. Even though it was hard to judge by only one word. Or maybe it wasn’t the voice. Maybe sorrow just surrounded the man, hung in the hall all around him like a misty cloud, and Stewie could feel it. It was hard, sometimes, to find your way around in the difference between what you saw and heard, and what was there to be felt. For Stewie it was, anyway.
“What?” Stewie said.
He stopped, even though he very much wanted to walk in and see Marilyn. The man moved his hands and looked Stewie over.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Stewie,” he said. “Who are you?”
“Oh, you’re that boy. The one she decided is her grandson now.”
“Yeah,” Stewie said. He was thinking it was just like a grown-up to insist you answer their question, and then ignore yours. But of course he didn’t say so out loud. “You didn’t say who you are.”
“Gerald,” he said. “Her son.”
“Oh. I never see you here. I’ve never once seen you here in all these months.”
“I come out. I come see her.”
“I didn’t say you never did. Just that I never saw you.”
“Well,” he said, and then stopped talking for several seconds. Even though that clearly hadn’t been a complete thought. “I guess not as often as I should.”
“Why don’t you go in?”
“I was in.”
“Why didn’t you stay in?”
“She’s having a bad day. Brace yourself. She won’t know you. If she didn’t even know her own son, she won’t know you. I told her I was her son, and do you know what she said? She said, ‘Don’t be absurd. You can’t be Gerald. You’re a grown man.’”
“Oh,” Stewie said. “That is a bad day.”
“Plus they just gave her a new roommate. It’s not pretty in there, son. She’s totally up in arms about it. She thinks that room is her old house. She thinks she owns it, and nobody else gets to live there unless she says they can. And she’s not about to say they can.”
“Uh-oh.”
“You don’t have to go in,” Gerald said. “You can go home. You can save yourself.”
“No, thanks,” Stewie said. “I’d rather go in.”
When he stepped inside, Marilyn was pacing. She was fully dressed in a blouse and yellow slacks, with nylons showing at her ankles, but she wore loose white slippers on her feet. They shifted around and made a shuffling noise as she walked. Especially when she turned to pace in an opposite direction. Then she almost left the floppy things behind.
When she saw him, she looked up suddenly, and stopped moving. It was a relief to Stewie, who tended to catch nervous energy the way other people caught a cold.
“Oh. Stewart,” she said. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
Stewie heard a little noise behind him. Something breathy, like a sigh. He glanced over his shoulder to see Gerald standing in the doorway. Then the older man ducked away again.
Stewie wanted to say something to Gerald. Maybe some kind of apology, because his mother had recognized the wrong one of them, and that was hurtful. But the man was gone, and anyway it had all happened too fast.
“Tell this maddening woman that she can’t live in my house, Stewart.”
The woman in question sat on the edge of the bed, rolling her eyes and gesturing broadly with her hands, as if to make a counterargument. She was younger than Marilyn, but not young. She had a wild shock of gray hair, and big, loose upper arms that Stewie could see flapping as she moved them around, even though she wore a thick brown sweater.
“Maddening woman,” she said in a gravelly, deep voice. Actually damaged-sounding, rather than naturally deep. “If that’s not the pot calling the kettle black. This is just about the most disagreeable woman it’s ever been my misfortune to meet. Tell this difficult woman, young man, that this is a nursing home. This is not her privately owned house.”
Stewie just stood a moment, overwhelmed, his thoughts swirling. He remembered Gerald giving him the option to save himself by not stepping into this fray. But he couldn’t have done that, regardless. Marilyn needed him.
“Maybe . . . ,” he said, “. . . they could put you in a different room. Since you two don’t seem to get along.”
“I tried that,” the woman said. “Twice. They are . . . all. Full. Up. Now tell her.”
“Okay,” Stewie said. “Okay. I’ll try. But everybody needs to stop yelling at everybody else. And especially everybody needs to stop yelling at me. It gets me all muddled up and confused. Marilyn and I can go down and look over the pond like we do. And I’ll see if there’s anything I can say to help.”
“Too cold out there, honey,” the woman said.
“Oh. Well. There’s that nice sunporch. With the big windows and the fireplace. That room looks over the pond, too. Come on, Marilyn. Let’s go.”
He took her by the hand and tugged lightly, but she didn’t budge.
“I’m not sure about leaving this . . . person alone with all my things. Why, I don’t even know her.”
“And now she just called me a thief,” the woman said.
“Please, Marilyn. Everything will be fine here. I promise you. Let’s just go someplace quiet where we can talk.”
“Remember when there were ducks?” Marilyn asked.
She was sitting in a rocking chair on the glassed-in sunporch, an afghan draped around her shoulders. One of the ladies on the staff had brought her a cup of herbal tea, and she was sipping on it.
“Sure I remember them,” Stewie said.
“They all flew south for the winter.”
“I guess.”
“But they’ll be back next season. And I’ll still be right here. Because I’m always right here. Where would I go? I’m not a good flier the way they are.”
“People can’t fly,” Stewie said.
“I was speaking metaphorically.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
She never told him. She took the conversation in an entirely different direction instead.
“I know that room is not the house where I raised my children.”