Nora and Liz (31 page)

“True. But maybe he does or maybe when he does he’ll still be willing, if the doctors can find the right medication. So another alternative could be that your father could go live with Andrew and you could sell the house and come back to New York with me. But you don’t want to sell the house, and New York’s no place for anyone who likes solitude, quiet solitude, anyway. And gardening. And who has an outdoor cat. Maybe actually living with me wouldn’t be good for you either. So in that case maybe your father could go live with Andrew and you could stay in the house and I could get a job here and stay in the cabin.”

Nora looked at Liz in astonishment. “In the
winter?”

“
I could have the cabin insulated. There might be time, just, before it gets cold.”

“You’d do that?” Nora asked. “You’d leave your job and New York and everything to move here?”

Liz nodded. “I think so,” she said slowly. “I’d been thinking about it, anyway, but then it looked as if we—you know.”

Nora took Liz’s hand. “Or,” she said softly, “you could come and live in the farmhouse with me. We could fix it up. Plumbing, electricity. What would be the good of you living here and me living there if the point is for us to be together?”

“What indeed?” Liz said. “But you want to be alone.”

Impatiently, Nora shook her head. “Not every minute. You could come and live in the house even if Father didn’t go to Andrew’s, maybe.”

“I don’t think so. I think that would really make him crazy. Nora”—she leaned forward—“Nora, do you think maybe he should be in a nursing home or a mental hospital instead of living with you or with Andrew? I know most places like that are awful, but they aren’t all awful, and I don’t know about the money end of it, but—Nora, I don’t think it’s safe for you to be around him, for anyone to be, and it’s probably not safe for him either. We don’t know what that evaluation will find, but…”

“I know,” Nora said softly. “I know it’s not safe. Not
any more
. I think there might be enough money, especially if we sold the farm. But I don’t know what a nursing home or a mental hospital would cost either. Or what insurance would cover. Medicare. He doesn’t have anything else. And he’d hate it so, being in an institution!”

“Do you think he’s really happy where he is now?”

“No, but…”

“If he were in a nursing home or a mental hospital, a good one, he could get constant professional attention for his problems.”

“He hates doctors. He doesn’t even really trust Dr. Cantor, and he’s known him forever.” Nora shook her head, dropped Liz’s hand, and rubbed her eyes. “I know you’re right. I know I’m being foolish.”

Liz took a sip of wine. “No,” she said, “not foolish. Just stressed. You don’t have to decide now. Let’s see what the evaluation says; that’s the first step, I think. But while we’re waiting for that, Nora—Nora, forgive me, I know people have said it and said it, and I know you hate hearing it, but please consider yourself, too. You can’t go on throwing your life away! Whether or not I’m in your life, you can’t do that. Just keep in mind that as time goes on, if he stays with you, you’re going to have to be more and more at his beck and call. All that free time you love so much, it’ll diminish. He’s going to be more demanding now that your mother’s gone.”

“Yes.” Nora’s eyes filled with tears. “He is. But…”

“But you love him.” Liz hesitated a moment, then moved closer to Nora, holding her gently. “I know.”

“Thank you for understanding that.” She paused, then said, “You must think I’m weird. Weak and indecisive and—and…”

“No,” Liz interrupted, “I think you’re wonderful. And”—the words slipped out before Liz could weigh the wisdom of saying them at this moment—“and I love you very much.”

But Nora surprised her. “I love you, too,” she said, twisting around and looking into Liz’s face, her own expression mirroring Liz’s surprise. “Oh, my God!” she exclaimed. “Liz—oh, Liz, I never thought I’d say that to anyone!”

“And I never thought I’d say it to anyone again, or mean it so much. I never even knew it could mean so much. But there we are.”

“Yes.” Nora closed her eyes and put her head on Liz’s shoulder. “There we are.”

For a moment they sat there silently. Liz could feel Nora’s heart beating rapidly—or is it mine, she wondered.

“I want to kiss you,” Nora whispered. “Really kiss you. I want you to really kiss me.” She leaned back, tipping her face up to Liz, her eyes soft and shy and loving in the dim light. “I want to be as close to you as one person can be to another. Show me, Liz. Please. Show me how.”

Very gently Liz kissed her, holding her carefully, conscious of her hurt shoulder, then less conscious of it when she felt Nora’s soft lips yielding, opening, and as Nora, her hand on Liz’s back, pulled Liz closer.

“Shouldn’t we lie down?” Nora whispered a few moments later, moving away a little and smiling up at Liz.

“Probably,” Liz managed to answer, smiling back. She stood up, taking Nora’s hand. “If you’re still sure…”

“Oh, yes,” Nora said, also standing. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so sure of anything in my whole life.”

Hand in hand, and more than a little dazed, they walked to the stairs.

“We’ll just get him settled,
Mrs
…. ?”

“Miss,” Nora nervously corrected the tall psychiatric nurse. “Nora
Tillot
. I’m not married.”

It was a week later, the first day of Ralph’s evaluation, and Nora, still dazed and reeling, was standing uncertainly with an equally dazed and reeling Liz in a dim, mustard-colored hospital corridor that stretched down to the room where hired ambulance men had just deposited her father. The sound of thin,
wavery
out-of-tune singing came from a much larger room near the nurses’ station. She and Liz moved closer together as if for mutual protection in this alien place.

The nurse smiled professionally. “Miss
Tillot
. We’ll just get him settled and then you can see him. But only briefly. We find it’s best with evaluations for the patient not to have visitors for a while.”

Nora glanced at Liz, who was looking down the hall to Ralph’s room. Someone—a white-coated man with a clipboard—had just come out. He closed Ralph’s door and strode briskly along the hall, passing them with a brief nod. Automatically, Nora nodded back. But she hated it already, the place, the people, the atmosphere.

“Oh?” Liz was saying pleasantly to the nurse. “Why is that? I should think visitors would be helpful.”

“Many reasons.” The nurse extended her arm toward their backs as if she were going to herd them to the opposite end of the hall like schoolchildren, which indeed she did, except without touching them. “The reasons vary from patient to patient. But in general we find we get a more complete picture that way.”

“Some of the—his problems probably have to do with me,” Nora said.

“Yes, that’s likely in any family. And if so, you’ll tell us about them, and so will he, in good time.” The nurse led them past the room with the singing. Sunshine, Nora saw, peeking in, was coming through a wall of smudged windows; people, some of them pulling against or plucking at restraints of various kinds, were sitting around the room in wheelchairs, vinyl armchairs, metal folding chairs. A few of the more elderly ones were dribbling onto pastel-colored terrycloth bibs as they sang; others, not singing, both young and old, were staring vacantly into space. One agitated gray-haired woman was beating her hand, not in time to the music, against a highchair-like tray; another moaned “Nurse, nurse! I have to go!”

As the nurse shepherding them tried to hurry Nora and Liz past the open door, the gray-haired woman suddenly screeched, “I’ll pee in my pants then, you goddamn bitch!”

Nora held back, staring angrily at a young nurse who sat serenely in a corner, as if no one were shouting or seeming distressed. Another young woman, in everyday clothes, was thumping out the old song “Daisy, Daisy” at a scarred piano. “Come along, everyone, sing,” she shouted above the general din, her own and everyone else’s.

“Shouldn’t someone help her?” Nora couldn’t keep from asking their escort, who had stopped, too, as had Liz. Nora nodded toward the woman who had to go to the bathroom, and who was now crying.

“Help who? Oh, Mabel? No, it’s part of her therapy.”

“Part of her therapy not to be allowed to go to the bathroom?” Nora asked incredulously.

Liz put her hand on Nora’s arm. “Easy,” she said, so softly it was like a sigh.

“Miss
Tillot
,” the nurse said, facing them both, “this is a psychiatric evaluation wing. Some patients need to learn that they can’t have everything they demand. Some patients need to learn that we, not they, are in control before they’ll let us help them. I know some of our practices may seem cruel at first. But we do know best. Now”—she bustled them farther along the hall and knocked on a closed door whose nameplate read “Ruth
Farnum
, Social Services”—“why don’t you and your friend have a chat with Mrs.
Farnum
, and we’ll call you when your father is ready for visitors?” She knocked again.

“Come!” someone called cheerfully from inside the office.

The nurse opened the door. “Ruth,” she said, “this is Miss
Tillot
, Ralph
Tillot’s
daughter, and her friend. Mr.
Tillot’s
the new admission in 107.”

A small, neatly suited and coiffed woman came toward them, edging around a desk awash with
manilla
folders and a pile of loose papers held down by a large orange. “How do you do?” she said, holding out her hand—weathered, leathery skin, Liz noticed, liking her. “I’m Ruth
Farnum
, the social worker assigned to Mr.
Tillot’s
case. Come in, sit down. Thank you, Doreen,” she said as the nurse left; then she indicated two chairs in front of her desk, and closed the door. “Now,” she said, sitting back down, “which of you is which?”

***

“I hate this!” Nora whispered to Liz later when they were on their way to Ralph’s room after Mrs.
Farnum
had commiserated with Nora about her hurt shoulder and explained, pleasantly enough, but as if it was the most normal thing in the world, that Ralph would be given various psychological and medical tests over the next several weeks, would be seen many times by his psychiatrist, and would be closely observed by psychiatric nurses, “activities leaders,” and other personnel. “We’ll be watching him all the time, actually,” Mrs.
Farnum
had said, “and after today, we must ask you not to visit him for a week. You may telephone and talk to his nurse, and you may send him brief messages through her. And of course you may call me at any time, and of course the psychiatrist will share some of his findings with you, but you must remember, and I know this is hard, that he is your
father’s
psychiatrist, and much of what passes between them must remain confidential.” She’d stood up then, obviously dismissing them. “I know this is very difficult,” she’d said with, Nora was sure, genuine kindness. But then why do I hate her, she’d wondered. “And I want you to know I’m here for you. Any questions, any complaints, any concerns, please feel absolutely free to bring to me. Ah, what timing!” she had exclaimed when the nurse named Doreen had knocked and then opened the door. “Is Mr.
Tillot
ready for his family?”

“Ready,” Doreen had said, “whenever you are. Turn right,” she’d added unnecessarily as Nora and Liz had stepped out into the hall. “Room 107,” she’d reminded them, and disappeared.

***

“I know you hate it,” Liz whispered now that they were outside Ralph’s room. “I hate it, too. But it’s got to be, Nora, and it’s best for him. You know that. Just keep telling yourself that.”

“I feel like a monster.” Nora’s face crumpled, and for a moment she leaned her head on Liz’s shoulder.

“Courage,” Liz whispered into Nora’s hair. “Courage.” She gave her a little push toward the door. “I’ll wait out here.”

“No! No, Liz, please come in.”

“Not a good idea,” Liz said lightly. “I’m a murderer, remember? I’ll just explore a bit, shall I? See what’s going on in the big room, the day room, I think they called it. Reminds me of
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

Nora managed to laugh a little. “Oh, God, you’re right. It all does, doesn’t it?”

“Atta girl.” Liz patted her shoulder. “Yes, it all does. Go. Then let’s go out to lunch or something. Someplace wonderful, yes?”

Nora quickly established that the hall was empty; she stretched up and kissed Liz’s cheek. “Yes.” Then she took a deep breath and went into the room.