“Never needed to study charm, Momma,” he says with a Southern accent and a smirk.
It occurs to Sumac that this is the ideal moment, because everyone seems to be in a relatively good mood. “Can I do a presentation?”
“Sure,” says PapaDum. “More Mesopotamians?”
“Actually —”
“Is this going to take long?” Catalpa’s on her feet already. “Because Sheryl and Celize and Quinn and I —”
“Your friends can wait ten minutes,” says CardaMom, nudging Catalpa back into her chair with one finger.
“Are we still on for a starlight hike tonight?” Wood asks PapaDum.
He nods, finger to lips, and gestures to Sumac.
“This week I’ve been — I was curious about homes,” Sumac begins a little unevenly, and has to clear her throat.
“Oh, like cross-culturally?” asks PopCorn. “High-rises versus igloos, that sort of thing?”
She hesitates, fiddling with the projector so the first image — a sleek modern building against an orangey evening sky — hits the white wall of the Mess. The last slideshow she did, of the childhood photos, went pear-shaped, but this time she’s totally prepared. “It turns out, it just so happens, that there are some really, uh, world-class residential facilities with lots of facilities” — she said that already — “I mean, lots of stuff for people who are … not so young anymore.” Her gaze touching down on Grumps, who’s still working on his second helping of lasagna. “Right here in Toronto,” she adds, to prove that the Lotterys could easily visit Grumps. If he wanted them to. “For instance, here’s a great example called Sunset Vista Residence, where nurses come in round the clock. Only if you need something, obviously, otherwise they don’t,” she throws in his direction, remembering how much it annoys him even to hear Lotterys talking on the stairs at seven in the morning. She clicks onto the next image, a blue-tiled indoor pool. “You can swim; there’s a resistance section where the water actually pushes against your muscles to strengthen them. And here we see the, the pergola in the garden.” She’s not sure she’s pronouncing the trellis thing right.
“Sumac,” says PapaDum in an odd voice.
“Pergola, sorry,” she says, rushing on because she can’t stop for questions, she hasn’t made any of her really important points yet. “The mission statement of Sunset Vista says, uh, it’s about living your life to the fullest in a homelike environment. You get whatever help you want, like with …” Here she’s meant to read from the list that starts bathing, dressing, eating, but she falters, because she can’t imagine Grumps standing for anyone treating him like a baby. “They offer a personalized package of assistance,” Sumac quotes instead — she can’t help picturing that as a huge present with a bow on top — “which means you pick your bits, your favorite amenities,” she says, dredging up the word from her memory. “Like, you don’t have to have the deep tissue aromatherapy massage if you don’t like people pawing you.” Wasn’t that what Grumps called it the other day, pawing, when CardaMom offered to rub cream on his sunburned shoulders? “You can play euchre instead, or billiards, or you can sightsee….” Should that be see sights?
“Tsi’t-ha, let me stop you there.” That’s CardaMom.
Sumac can’t find where she is in her notes, but she knows she’s got a long way to go, so she mustn’t stop or even take a second to say why she’s not stopping. Wood’s got his hand over his eyes, she notices, and Catalpa’s mouth is twisted. Sumac just needs to reach one picture of Sunset Vista that looks so fabulously luxurious, they’ll all see what she means. “There’s lots of individual privacy and a special memory care unit for” — her nerve fails her on dementia — “what you, what lots of seniors have got in their heads,” she says in Grumps’s direction, but not meeting his gaze. It only strikes her now, wouldn’t stashing the confused oldies side by side in their own unit make them even more confused? She’s flicking through the slides too quickly, and none of these beaming, silver-haired people look anything like Grumps. Nobody’s shown with a cigarette; Sumac couldn’t find any old folks’ home that even mentioned smoking. Without looking at him directly she can see that PopCorn’s face is a mask. It’s all somehow going wrong, horribly wrong, Sumac knows, but she can’t fix it by stopping in the middle, she just has to push on to the end and use all her powers of persuasion, just like Sic. “Look, a movie theater with surround sound!” No, that’s the chapel. She flicks back two slides, desperate to find the movie theater, but all she can find is a tour bus and a picture of a cake stand.
“Sumac!” PapaDum’s voice booms.
She reads aloud the captions on the photos in a gabble. “Excursions to Niagara Falls. Enhanced retirement living. Come relax with us, because you deserve —”