Some Possible Solutions (6 page)

“What if she comes back?” she said.

“Who?” he said. His breath on her eyelid. “Who are you talking about?”

 

THE MESSY JOY OF THE FINAL THROES OF THE DINNER PARTY

Eva was in the kitchen, placing a pile of dirty dishes beside the sink, when a silence fell across the dinner table in the other room, the deep silence of people waiting for someone to pull a photograph of his child out of his wallet—or, more likely, waiting for a YouTube video to load. Moments before, there had been escalating banter about the sexual indiscretions of a once-beloved politician and the dubious merits of an art-house film. Frankly, it had been a relief to escape to the kitchen, to scrape the nauseating scraps into the trash can. She hid behind the idea that she alone had carried the dirty plates into the kitchen because she alone was a gracious dinner guest—a pleasing alternative to her knowledge that she alone had carried the plates into the kitchen because she alone did not belong here, among these dazzling, merciless people.

Eva embellished her good-guesthood, rinsing the plates, lining them up in the dishwasher, all the while waiting for the silence to break, for a roar of laughter to pummel outward. Yet the silence held, and it became clear to Eva that she'd have to reenter the other room.

Stepping through the doorway, she couldn't contain her gasp of shock. What an odd, odd joke for them to play on her—all seven of them frozen in place, the host half-standing to pour cream into coffee, forks held in various positions between apple pie and mouth, a hand thrown upward in emphasis, a head thrown backward in laughter, fingers wrapped fervently around wineglasses: a flawless tableau of the messy joy of the final throes of the dinner party.

She tiptoed toward the table, waiting for them to break scene, turn toward her with faces that demanded the correct response. Yet the tableau remained utterly perfect, still, disconcerting. Eager to catch a blink, Eva stared at the eyelids—and realized that most were halfway or three-quarters open or closed, stuck at different stages of a blink.

She turned her attention to the host, the exact sort of no-nonsense All-American handsome that was never attracted to her. It was then, gazing at the cream he was pouring, that she understood: the cream, suspended in its arc, absolutely unmoving, its white tip just barely touching the dark surface of the coffee.

This was no joke, no performance. Everything was frozen. Except for her.

She lifted her hand, waggled her fingers in her host's face. No response.

At that point her terror should have overwhelmed her. But what she felt was glee.

First she walked over to her husband, her beloved unshaven husband, he whose eyes were nearly shut as he drank deep from a glass of red wine. She kissed him on the forehead, stroked his cheek; a strange place to start, perhaps, in this roomful of seven, with the one person she actually had the right to touch. But he wasn't always amenable to having his face stroked or his forehead kissed.

Next, back to the host, he who enjoyed his opinions. Eva seized this opportunity to put her lips against his, giving him and all his fraternity brothers a one-sided kiss.

Eva removed her hostess's necklace—she'd had her eye on it all evening—and slung it around her own neck. It was a large metal pendant on a black string, the kind of object that could protect you. Then, Eva removed the eyeglasses of the librarian—she who took pleasure in wearing thick eyeglasses, knowing how her sharp beauty transformed them—and placed them on the gooey plate beside her delicately bitten pie. As for the hostess's overweight but witty sister (it was easy to imagine a childhood of despair): Eva removed the woman's rubber band and reworked her ponytail, putting it at a cocky angle, helping her capitalize on her thick hair, the one thing she had over her sister. The graduate student, so young and tired-looking, merited the same treatment as Eva's own husband: the kiss on the forehead, the stroke of the cheek.

Eva paused in her labors to stick her finger into the freshly whipped cream, something she'd been desperate to do ever since her hostess placed it on the table. She wanted to eat it forever and ever—but duty called.

The two remaining men were indistinguishable from each other. They'd been egging the conversation along all night, mocking or interrogating anyone who made any kind of definitive statement about anything. What
were
their names? Fred and Ted, Tom and Ron, Tim and Jim? Yet they seemed ever so much less irritating now that they were stuck here with their mouths open to receive forkfuls of pie. Gently, she sprinkled salt.

Her work complete, Eva stepped back to admire them, this small group of immobile human beings, all of whom had traveled through life to arrive at this dinner table. All of whom felt unloved and lonely and stupid and awkward and guilty and anxious and insufficient, all of whom woke up each day and did things, tried to do the right things, brushed their teeth and attempted not to shame themselves, took pride in their little accomplishments and strove to speak with authority about a thing or two. How vulnerable they looked now, trapped in their humblest gestures, how pitiful, how dear! She found herself achingly aware of their skeletons, of the fact that just beneath their skin lay tendons and intestines and other repulsive things. She loved them, these people—the lettuce lodged in someone's tooth, the parade of acne across a forehead, the stain on the shirt, the fray of the hem.

She returned to the host, stuck in the most unnatural position of all. She knew he'd felt as out of place the whole evening as she had; she knew everyone had felt as out of place the whole evening as she had.

It was just then, as she was moving her lips once more toward his, that it broke.

Suddenly they were sipping, biting, pouring, breathing. And then they were staring at her, blinking at her, because
what
was she doing all up in the host's face when he was trying to pour the cream? And, excuse us, but why's she got the hostess's Peruvian charm around her own neck?

And then the interchangeable men spitting salty pie into their napkins, the perplexed librarian salvaging her glasses from her pie goo, the fat sister's hand searching for her relocated ponytail, the hasty return of the necklace to the hostess, someone wondering aloud who dared stick his finger into the whipped cream, the kind yet slightly ashamed gaze of her beloved husband. Serene, Eva strolled around the table and settled into her seat, from whence she had a perfect view.

 

LIFE CARE CENTER

Across the hall from the room where my sister may or may not be dying, there is a woman who moans
Help
all day long.

*   *   *

Should we help
her? I eventually ask my parents.

Help who? my father says.

The woman who keeps saying
help
, my husband says.

No, she doesn't need any help, my mother says.

*   *   *

What lovely sunflowers,
I say. What lovely orchids. How kind.

Have you sanitized your hands? my mother says. You have to sanitize your hands.

Orchids and sunflowers, I say. They look surprisingly good together, don't they.

At first we too wanted to help the woman who says help, my father says, but the nurses told us she says it all day every day.

You know, they're sort of perfect opposites, orchids and sunflowers, I say.

Are you guys hungry? my father says. There are chocolates over there.

Did you have anything on the plane? my mother says.

Isn't it hard to believe you woke up in Brooklyn this morning and now you're here in Colorado, my father says.

Hey, she smiled! my husband says. Look, she's smiling.

Oh wow, my father says. Great. Wow. Look at that.

Hi there girl, I say.

Smiley smiley girl, my mother says. You're smiling because you know your little sister and her boyf—husband flew all the way across this great big country to visit you, aren't you, girly-girl?

You had us scared, you know that, I say.

Thank you for smiling, precious, my mother says.

On the TV, the barn-raising scene in the musical
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
. Six brothers in their bright shirts dance on a sawhorse. My father and my husband crank my sister's hospital bed to the full upright position.

A confession: I have never looked into my sister's eyes and seen there anything that resembled recognition. Sometimes when we were children I would accidentally call her by the dog's name—
Hush-a-bye, Freck!
I might say when she moaned—before quickly correcting myself, hoping my parents hadn't heard.

In bed, the smiley girl smiles.

*   *   *

In the newly
opened café across the highway from the Life Care Center, there are thirteen varieties of dessert on the other side of the glass case: rhubarb bread pudding, peach pie, apple pie, chocolate cake, carrot cake, cinnamon rolls, chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, cranberry scones, lemon bars, almond croissants, chocolate croissants, chocolate cupcakes.
Everything baked on the premises! Including the ciabatta!

Awed, genuinely awed, we ask the owner:
How
do you do it all? She does it single-handedly. She has red hair and big yellow teeth. She says: Well if you want to know how I do it is for say the pie I would make a bunch of pastry dough and then freeze it and save it for when I needed to make a new pie like today I made eighteen piecrusts or if you're wondering about the scones what I do is I make a huge batch of scone batter and then save it in the fridge and then when I want fresh scones well all I do is pull some out and throw in walnuts or what have you I make ten batches of say chocolate chip cookie dough and shape it into balls and freeze them and then every morning I just throw a few on a cookie sheet so we have fresh-baked cookies basically I just rotate like this morning I made eighteen piecrusts it's all about rotating almond ganache can keep for weeks …

By the time she finishes explaining everything we have finished our mushroom soup and our ciabatta. Already we are imagining ourselves standing up, walking to the door, stepping out into the parking lot of the strip mall, getting into the car, going back across the highway, returning to the person who has not eaten anything for sixteen days. Already we are nauseous. The owner's teeth are so yellow. As we leave she forces us to sample her lemon bar—I sliced it into four pieces, one for each of you! What do you think! What do you think of my lemon bar! The tang flips around in our hot mouths, burned from the mushroom soup.

*   *   *

After lunch the
old people are lined up in the hallway of the Life Care Center. They all sit there in their wheelchairs, big around the crotches due to diapers. Some of them stand out. A woman who is bald but for a hundred white hairs. A man whose skin is so pale he looks dead. I can't believe they let a dead man sit there alongside the others! A woman strapped to her wheelchair with twelve bright orange straps. A woman with an eager smile who says to everyone walking by, Did you bring it today? Did you bring it? A man who is able to ask us, How is she doing? and to whom we are able to reply, She is finally eating again.

Yet these distinctions between the old—perhaps they are mostly imagined. In truth they are lined up there in the hallway like one enormous, indistinguishable beast that smells of urine and overcooked fish.

Passing them is like passing down a gauntlet. We cannot decide if it is better to avert our eyes or to smile. We cannot tell if they are staring at or through us. Do they know that they are old, and that they stink?

It's like something from a fairy tale: Once upon a time, in the castle of the ancient ones. At least this is what we try to tell ourselves.

*   *   *

My sister does
not exactly belong here. She is five decades younger than the others who live in the rooms lining this hall. Yet she is retarded enough to fit in. (Please don't use that word. Please don't even think it.) Yet she is (handicapped? disabled? crippled?) enough to fit in. Yet she is ________ enough to fit in. Like them, she cannot walk. Cannot feed herself. Wears diapers. Sickens easily. Is prone to fatal pneumonia. Because she cannot talk, we have nothing to await aside from her smiles. This can cause boredom, impatience.

Yet she is magical enough to fit in. Yet she is mystical enough to fit in. A beautiful anomaly in the stinking castle of the ancient ones.

Before she was quarantined in her room, the old folks fawned over her, or so the nurses tell us.

*   *   *

Once upon a
time, a beautiful young woman married a handsome young man. They had a splendid baby girl, but the baby was cursed.

Here's what happened: the baby girl was born normal—perfect, precious, flawless, adorable, charming, cute, cuddly, lovely, sweet, dear, darling, delightful, beautiful, winsome, bonny—but just before her first birthday she forgot the few words she had learned. Her legs went limp. Her eyes crossed. Her hands wrung. Her tongue lolled.

It was difficult to get excited about the offspring that followed.

(A medical explanation, please? Eventually the girl was diagnosed with Rett syndrome. Reye's syndrome? No,
Rett
syndrome. Tourette's syndrome? No,
Rett syndrome
. Like Rhett Butler? Sure, minus the
h
. I've had Rhett syndrome my whole life! So, what is it? A neurological disorder occurring in one in twenty thousand live female births. Only girls? They're born completely normal, then stop progressing. Life expectancy? Unknown. Likely causes of death? Pneumonia; compromised lung function due to scoliosis and difficulty swallowing.)

*   *   *

Now, my husband
and I are identical to what my parents were then. Just as beautiful, just as hopeful.
Newlywed
. A buoyant word.