“It’s cancer,” I asked the ER doctor, “isn’t it?”
“It’s a very odd thing,” says the doctor, “family members always have a premonition. They’re usually right.”
. . .
“Are you her health care proxy?” asked one of the faces floating past me that afternoon.
“My mother makes her own decisions,” I replied.
“Does she have a signed copy of a living will?”
“Isn’t it a little soon for that?” I asked.
“It’s standard procedure.”
“I’ll bring it tomorrow,” I told her, but decided not to.
. . .
I sat by her bedside for a few hours, feeding her orange sherbet from the pantry.
“People can live without both kidneys,” I told her.
“Veda Berry had just one kidney,” she said. “She drank water all the time. I thought she was going to burst.”
“Your hands are so cold,” I told her.
“Cold hands, dirty feet, no sweetheart,” she said, laughing a bit.
It wasn’t until she finally lost consciousness that I looked out the window, noticed it was dark, and realized the day was gone. I hated to leave her, but our new puppy, Raj, was waiting in the car. He needed food, water, attention. I hadn’t left him in his crate because I thought we might not get back that night.
I thought she might not get back at all.
I thought I would return to an empty house where those sandals by the bed would make me sadder than I had ever been.
When I opened the car door, Raj jumped into my arms, and I sat holding him because I did not want to return to the hospital and because he is scared of strange places. I was scared of watching her die. I hoped she would be carried off quickly without suffering after seeing something of spring, a few jonquils. I would drive her through town where the rosebud trees were blossoming.
. . .
Betty once threw a shoe at a tramp who dared intrude when she was alone in the sanctuary of the church in Madison practicing the organ. I think she went there to get away from me and my dad. Not long after this, on the way home from school on an extraordinary day, I caught her in a rare mood, relaxed and sitting on the front steps of the church with her sheet music, eating some sherbet from a plastic cup.
“Missouri in the springtime is pretty hard to beat, little boy,” she told me as she reached to take my hand.
. . .
Everything revolved around Raj in the months before her illness. Maybe I wanted to make her jealous. All through fall, I cruised the humane societies of north-central Missouri, holding puppies, almost committing, but never quite committing. Then, just before Christmas, I saw Raj, pictured on the Web site with a plaintive look on his face. He had spent half of his eight months on the planet in confinement. No one wants black dogs, and he was also “extremely submissive and shy,” not the type to make a Christmas present. At the shelter, he would not approach me for the longest time.
When I told Betty about him, she threw a fit that dissipated as I described his troubles and long wait to be adopted. “He’s been abused,” I said, revving up the story a bit. Finally, she nodded. I told her that he reminded me of John’s dog, Bob. “You loved Bob,” I said.
“Did not.”
“You look like you have a lot of love to give,” the woman at the shelter told me.
“Are you saying that because I’m fat?” I asked.
For two nights, I had pored over a booklet called Super Puppy, which detailed hundreds of confusing instructions for puppy parenthood. The booklet advised potential masters to establish themselves immediately as pack leader. It sounded a little like the Cub Scouts. I hated the Cub Scouts.
Driving across town after we left the shelter, I kept one hand on Raj’s scrawny back as he adjusted to the car. He yelped. So did I. In the parking lot at PetSmart, where I had scheduled a bath and nail clipping before his introduction to Betty, Raj tentatively descended from the car. At the desk, the woman asked, “Do you want his anal glands expressed?” I was astonished. “I don’t know,” I answered. “Do they have something to say?”
. . .
On Sunday, the morning after Betty was admitted, I arrived at the hospital at 5 a.m. with Raj riding along again. He looked woebegone when I left him, but I plied him with treats. “My mother is very sick,” I said. “Don’t be a dick.”
Betty was groggy from a pill. My cousin Lucinda was there. In an hour there would be a procedure to explore Betty’s kidney blockage.
As they wheeled her out the door, Betty waved a tissue she had balled up in her palm. The nurses were too cheerful, as if she were being taken off to join a big parade.
All her fears were in that tissue. Watching as the procession headed off, I saw it fall to the floor.
. . .
On Raj’s first night in Paris, Betty eyed him. “He has a long tail. Is it too late to cut it off?”