I have reached a moment in which I might be almost pure. I don’t wish for things. I think I finally see life: how nature is, what it means to live and die, how there is nothing at all, nothing, except in what one might do for someone else.
I’ve reached this place at a time when I am something like an old dog. My fur is pocked with bald spots, my skin spotted with twisty disturbing growths, my teeth smell of rot; there is always a whiff of urine or feces about me. In short, I live to do something for others, and the people around me are busy steeling themselves, summoning the courage, to do for me. Marshall tries so hard to be loving, and I know the effort it costs him, now that I am slow and dribbly and unreliable and more or less mute. It’s ironic, of course. A divine sort of joke. Almost, but not quite, I even see the reason why it should be so.
“I thought you ought to know my heart’s on fire.”
“Singing again? You sound happy.”
“The flame it just leaps higher.”
“Oh, June, you’re wet. You know where the bathroom is. Why’d you do that?”
“I’ve got my love to keep me warm.”
“You have to try to keep up. It’s not nice.”
Helen is a lovely person, very competent. Del would have hired her in an instant. She’s not as much fun as Jessy, though. Jessy will put on a record and dance with me, or bring me a bit of the dessert she made the night before. When we walk, she doesn’t seem to care that I am slow, and she brings along a little vase, with water, and collects a nosegay as we go. I can’t tell you how this pleases me. (Actually, I really can’t tell you. Isn’t that funny?) I sing and sing as we walk along, I can’t stop myself; it makes me so happy when she finds a flower, especially if I have spotted it first and am hoping she will see it.
“Today’s physical therapy. Matt will be here in ten minutes, and now you have to change your clothes. Come on.”
“I can’t give you anything but love, baby.”
“All right. I’ll just bring your clothes in here. And then you change, okay? You have to hurry, June.”
“Scheme awhile, dream awhile.”
I’m not trying to frustrate Helen, though she thinks I am. If I wanted to make her mad, I couldn’t. I can’t seem to make things work the way I intend. Words are the worst, and eating is hard, but even getting dressed. I’m thinking about putting my pants on. Fifteen minutes ago, I was thinking about getting up and going to the bathroom. There’s nothing wrong with my legs. I’m slow, but I can get up, I can move. It’s just that if I try to do one thing, something else happens. And then when I feel something about that, a different feeling comes out.
It’s caused a lot of misunderstandings.
Marshall comes to dinner when he is in town, and begs me to eat. He cuts my food smaller, and talks about how tasty it is, how it came from this restaurant or that chef, what the ingredients are, and I sit and look at him with a silly grin on my face, but my hand doesn’t go to the fork, my mouth doesn’t open. When he tries to feed me, I tighten my lips and shake my chin, and the food falls on to my lap.
“Mom,” he says. “Please try. Just eat one bite.”
And I remember saying the same words to him when he was too small to talk, and I wonder if he was thinking something other than what I thought he was. Probably he just wanted to play, probably peas tasted bitter to him, but now I see everything differently. I see all the moments of my life differently now that I am actually trying to open my mouth, trying to neatly take the food my son offers, trying not to make him feel mocked by my mysterious grin. And purse go my lips, and shake goes my chin, and twinkle go my eyes, as if I have annoyed him for fun.
“That’s good,” says Helen. “Thank you for getting dressed. And you wrapped up your wet clothes. I’ll take them.”
That’s how it works. If my mind is distracted, if I’m thinking about Marshall, then I am also putting on clean pants and neatly wrapping up the dirty ones. Only I didn’t know I was doing it. I’m more surprised than Helen to see that I’m ready for Matt.
“Howdy, Mrs. Dibb. How are you today?”
Matt always says howdy, but he doesn’t look like a cowboy. More like a dancer. I smile at him, and apparently I really do, because he smiles back.
“Ready to work hard?”
“Nine little miles from ten-ten-Tennessee.”
“Okay, sounds like a yes.”
It is a yes! I feel good today. Matt asks me to stay standing, so my knees buckle and he catches me under the elbow so that I don’t fall. I want to laugh about this with him, but of course I can’t, so I try to get my mind to rest. My trick is that I think about nothing, that I pretend there is nothing around me, there is nothing for me to do, and then, sometimes, my body will be a little less of a rebel.
“Matt,” I say. “Nice day.”
“It is a nice day. That’s really good, June. Thank you.”
My eyes water, I am so pleased with myself.
He keeps me firmly by my elbow, and without telling me what to do, he walks me slowly down the hall and toward the back door. I like to have my exercises outside, even if it’s hot. I’ve always loved the sun. Just before we walk outside, my legs lock. I push back against him, as if I don’t want to go.
“She’s in a mood today, Matt. I think she wants to stay inside.”
Matt doesn’t listen to Helen. He hums a little tune, something I don’t recognize, but I try to get it. What is he humming? And just like that, we are out the door and in the sun. I love Matt.
“That’s probably enough for today. Are you tired?”
I’m not tired. I want to keep going. I don’t want to go in the house. I don’t want to watch television. I don’t want to take a rest. But Matt is already leading me back to the door. I, of course, am walking along as fast as I have all year.
“So here I am, very glad to be unhappy.”
When I sing, the words I want come out. Sometimes, anyway. I don’t know how it works. I can sing the lyrics to songs I don’t even remember knowing. I never know what I will sing until I hear my own voice. But a lot of times, the lyrics make sense. Isn’t that crazy? Believe me, it makes me a lot crazier than anyone else. One thing I can’t control, though, is how I sing them, so right now I sound as cheery as a little bird. But I don’t want to go inside.
Matt grins. “Do you still believe the rumor that romance is simply grand,” he sings. Matt sings in a trio at the Venetian. He’d like to be a musician full-time, but it hasn’t worked out yet. Isn’t that amazing? That I would get a physical therapist who sings? It’s not, really. It’s how the world works. If we could just see it.
“Since you took it right on the chin, you have lost that bright toothpaste grin,” I sing back. I know I’m smiling now.
“I did it my . . . way!” Matt belts out.
And I laugh.
Which is exactly what I wanted to do, and sometimes happens, especially with Matt. He leads me inside, so our session is done, but I am happy. I look at the ground and think as little as I can, so that I feel this.
“You tired her out.” Helen comes over and touches her palm to my cheek. She does things like that when someone else is around.