“?‘This separation is killing me. I long for the days when I am with you again. The memory of the last time I held you in my arms is such sweet torture. It sustains my darkest days, yet makes me long for you all the more. I loathe the world that keeps us apart and the miles that separate our hearts. I do not despair, knowing that you and my pretty little Patricia await my return,’?” I fudge a bit more. “?‘Give her a kiss every night for me and tell her that Daddy loves her.
“?‘Yet, dearest love, if anything should happen to me, know that I shall call to you unafraid. Know that your name is a whisper on my lips. Listen for it and know that I died loving you and my little girl. Love, Louis.’?”
“I never knew.” There are tears in the corners of Mom’s eyes and I’m glad I embellished. “That’s even better than Earl’s card.”
“I guess some men save up their feelings and write about them all at once.”
“I miss Earl,” she says through a sigh. “I liked when he took me to dinner, but I’m glad I don’t have to eat stuffed peppers at that place anymore. I hate goddamn stuffed peppers.”
I smile. “You and me both.”
“I’m glad I don’t have to listen to crazy people.” She looks at me; her eyes are getting droopy. “Except for you.”
I laugh and shake my head. I’m not so certain that she’s kidding. “You made me crazy.”
She yawns and closes her eyes. “I’m glad I don’t have to end up like the others. Shriveled up and carted out and folks asking if I passed peaceful. I don’t have to get my insides taken out at no hospital.” Her voice fades and her chest gently rises as she inhales. We had a good day together. We had a good day yesterday too. She turns on her side, and her mouth gapes open. Her breath catches in the back of her throat and she lets out her first snore of the night. Mom could live for several more years. We have a lot of good days ahead. Someday she’ll be too sick, and all our good days will be gone, but she’s not there yet. Not when I look into her eyes and I can see her. There are parts of Mom that have faded away forever, but the part of her that brushes her hair a hundred times and puts on her lipstick every morning, the part that loves men and game shows, and the part that loves me, is still there. For all my mother’s Alzheimer rages, I know that she loves me.
Shriveled up and carted out like the others.
My vision blurs, and I feel a hard pinch in my chest. I think I’m having a heart attack… but I don’t fall over or pass out. I just keep standing here by the side of my mom’s bed, watching her.
She’s going to get sicker. She’s worse than when we first moved to Sutton Hall. Most of the time she acts like she isn’t aware of her illness, but she must be, or she wouldn’t have stashed her pills.
I take a deep breath and let it out. I love her. I don’t want her to take her life, but it’s not up to me. It’s not my choice. I walk from the room and return a few minutes later.
My hand shakes as I open the first drawer in her bedside chest and reach for the jewelry box. It is weightless in my shaky palm, and I spring the top open with my thumb. The ugly earrings are still inside, and I dump them out. I look at Mom, cozy beneath silky gold bedding, snoring like a hibernating bear.
My fist tightens around the little pills I’ve kept hidden from her.
A sob clogs my throat, and I open my hand, giving her back the right to make the choice.
21
July 25
Snips and snails and gruesome tales.
WHEN I told Lindsey we had twelve Little Peanut place settings, I guess she took it to mean that she should fill them all. Precisely at 1 p.m. on the last Saturday in July, Jim rolls up in his Malibu, followed closely by a maroon minivan. The doors to the van slide open and out pour his two aunts, his mother, and three sisters:
Mindy Lee.
Margaret Ann.
Mary Sue.
Jenny Kay.
Janet Lyn.
Jessica.
“Just Jessica?” I ask as I welcome her inside.
“Momma ran out of middle names.”
“She has one; she just don’ like it,” corrects her mother, Mary Sue. “It’s Don, like a man spells it. Her daddy was cassed and spelled it wrong on the birt’ certificate. It’s a long story.”
Mary Sue is a more hardened version of her three daughters, with their blue eyes and hair pulled back in varying lengths of brown ponytails. I can’t tell the aunts apart and assume they’re twins. Curly gray hair frames round faces, and thick glasses rest on their short noses. The only difference I can detect is the color of their Mardi Gras T-shirts.