“I sold the house,” Mom says. “Do you want to tell your father?”
I drive to New Jersey to tell my father.
“That’s good. Good for her,” Dad says, the look on his face all blanked out. I’m reminded of an Etch-A-Sketch. That toy from my childhood - a little screen filled with sand where you could make simple line drawings. When you were done drawing, you could shake it and the screen reset - back to blank. That’s what Dad’s face looks like to me. An Etch A Sketch, vigorously shaken.
Two days later, Katie and I pick up a fruit and custard tart at Didier Dumas, the French bakery in Nyack, and set off on the one hour drive to Mom’s house. It’s her birthday weekend and we’re going to gather with Jen and Cerulean to help her celebrate — and get started packing up the house.
When we get there, Mom’s a wreck. The meal isn’t even started. She hasn’t got nearly enough boxes or packing tape. “Hey,” I say. “It’s okay.” I sit her down and warm up her coffee. Katie helps me set out a light breakfast. She makes the toast. I scramble some eggs. “This is only the beginning, Mom,” I say. “You’ve got a couple of months to pack before the closing.”
When the phone rings, I pick up my keys and run to the train station to collect Jen and Cerulean. By the time we’re back, Katie and Mom have set up packing stations in each room. Stacks of newspaper and tape. “We’ll need markers,” Jen says and searches Mom’s drawers until she finds them.
As we pack, Mom walks by. “What’s in that one? Are you sure you wrapped it carefully? Are you sure you haven’t packed anything I wanted to sell at the yard sale?”
We won’t live here anymore. I look around the room - my mother’s studio, filled with her belongings. Every object has a story - every corner, a memory.
Mom hands me a pack of Post-it notes and another one to Jen. “Stick one on anything you don’t want me to sell,” she says.
Jen and I walk through the living room, the dining room, sticking our notes on chests and storage cabinets. As we do, Mom follows us, removing the notes. “You can’t have that. It’s moving with me.” “That chair is going to Joyce.” “Oh, you don’t want that...”
Jen and I exchange glances as Mom peels off every note we’ve placed. “It’s the fucking house of Sisyphus,” Jen quips, and we laugh, because it is.
My cell phone rings.
“Hey.” My son’s gravelly voice. Calling from his first month of college.
“Hey, yourself! Happy Birthday!” Max, the first grandson, was born on my mother’s birthday.
“It’s not such a happy one, Mommy,” his voice cracks. “Jackie broke up with me. One of us had to do it but I’m really pissed she did it this weekend. It really sucks.”
“I’m at Grandma’s,” I tell him. “You’re only half an hour away. Want me to pick you up?”
“Yes,” he says. “I really do.”
I pick up my keys.
Two hours later, we gather around the table for pizza Jen convinced Mom to order instead of the fancy meal she’d planned. “We’re here to help you,” she says. “To celebrate. Lets make it easy.”
Max downs three slices and falls profoundly asleep on the living room sofa. Katie reads to us from her journal and Cerulean — five years old and very serious — sings us a new and very long song that he makes up as he goes along. As he is singing the fourth verse, Mom’s phone rings.
“It’s Nora,” I say, reading the caller ID.
“I’ve been calling your cell phone all day,” Nora says. “There’s been… an incident.”
I step into the next room. Mom follows me, gripping a newspaper-wrapped plate. “What’s wrong?” Mom asks.
“It’s Dad,” I whisper. “He’s been taken to the hospital.” I repeat the details as Nora gives them to me. “He woke up with a sharp pain in his eye. The eye was clouded with blood. She didn’t think it was an allergy. It could have been a stroke symptom. She didn’t want to take any chances. When it hadn’t cleared up in an hour, she called 911.”
“Oh, of course!” Mom snaps. Disgusted, she turns her back.
“Mom?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Amy,” she says. “Maybe it’s real. It’s just that all of my life, whenever anything starts moving forward for me, your father creates a crisis. I don’t know why he does it. But he always does. You told him I sold the house, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“See?” she says. “He always does this.” She falls into a chair. Then, “Oh dear,” she says, as if realizing it for the first time. “Your father’s in the hospital. Oh, dear.” Her whole body starts to shake.
“Grandma,” Katie coos. She pulls her chair closer to my mother, cuddles against her.
I bring Mom a glass of water and Jen wraps an arm around Mom’s shoulders. Cerulean, understanding only that his grandmother is sad, wraps his arms around Mom’s knees. “He’ll be okay, Mom,” Jen says.
“I knew this would happen,” Mom sighs. “It’s just that you’re never prepared. We tried to get your father to make this choice for himself. He is so resistant. So impossible to help. I didn’t want this for him. Now he has no choice.”
“There’s always some choice,” I say. “Now that he’s in the system, we’ll actually have a better chance at choosing the nursing home we want — the leverage of the emergency, I guess.”
“That’s good to know.” Mom sits quietly, folding and unfolding a linen napkin. “I just feel so sad for your father.”
—
Later, Katie and I drive Max back to school. As we part, I give him a long hug — so long that I think, he should push me away now, but he doesn’t. Katie falls asleep as we’re approaching the bridge home. In the dark silence, I return to the events of this day.
I imagine Dad being carried down the stairs and into the sunshine — the first time he’s been out of doors since June. At Mom’s house, the garden was in full end-of-summer flower, the phlox bending to the ground with the weight of their blossoms — white, dusty rose, purple. At Nora’s, the roses would be wide and shedding petals, the heavy-headed hydrangea hanging low. Maybe, as Dad was carried to the parking lot, he’d noticed them. More likely, he’d simply enjoyed the fresh air, the bright blue of the cloudless end-of-summer sky.
This is a scene from The End of Men, a memoir I started years ago. The previous chapter, Bear, is here. If you’re new to the project, read the first chapter here: Keys. The full list of scenes, in order, is here. Want to support the work? Leave a comment. Share a chapter with a friend.
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