2…Lost Words
I did pretty well on the last flight, partially because, by some miracle, I had a row to myself, which was a godsend. But mostly it's that I took quite a lot of comfort from the airport visit with my professors, even in spite of having this dreaded diploma, which I pointedly do not think about further.
Now I'm sprinting down the LaGuardia airport terminal to baggage claim where Emory is meeting me, impeded only by the two bags I've put around my neck. They are banging against my hips with each stride.
I see her across the way—seeming like a beacon of sunshine in a yellow skirt suit that somehow does not clash with her perfect blonde hair—standing near a carousel. I feel a profound relief to finally be here, followed by a profound fear, then a profound sense of powerlessness. I jerk to a stop because my legs won't go forward anymore. I stare at Em, until she starts walking toward me. She goes to hugs me, but I stop her.
"No! Let's just go." I can't wait another second. "We need to go!" My legs start working again and I move toward the exit door. Em tugs my arm, stopping me in my tracks and turns me to face her.
"Elle?" she says gently, like I'm some cornered wild animal. I probably look like one.
"Can we just go? Please!"
She is looking at me so strangely. "I'm not sure what language you're speaking, but it's definitely not English. I'm pretty sure it's not Chinese or any of the other languages I've heard you speak."
I don't know what she's talking about. What's wrong with her? I look toward the exit doors.
"Now…" she waits until I'm looking at her again, speaking slowly. "We'll get your suitcase when it comes in and we'll go directly to Henry. I've got a car circling outside." From somewhere in the back of my brain, even through my panic, I notice she is using her soothing Georgia accent. This accent comes and goes at her will.
"I don't care about my bag!" I'm practically shouting. This time I hear myself and she's right, I'm not speaking English. I have no idea what language I am speaking, though, but I can't find English in my brain. I just…can't find it. Instead, I grab her arm and start pulling her toward the exit.
"Honey, it's just a few minutes, okay?" she says stopping again. "Let's wait for your suitcase. Things get stolen here all the time. I just came from Henry's and he's doing just fine. Aunt Bea was with him when I left."
I don't care about my stupid suitcase, but I can't find the words to say that. "Taxi," is all I say to her before I walk out the exit, leaving her.
"You don't even know where you're going!" she calls after me, following. "And there's so much I need to explain to you."
I whip around toward her and something in my eyes finally convinces her.
"Alright, alright." A black town car pulls up just then and the driver gets out opening the rear door. "You take the car and I'll wait for your bag and follow you in a cab, okay?" I jump inside as she says to the driver, "Marco, go ahead and take Miss Ellis back to the medical center."
"Yes, Miss Buchanan," he nods.
Em turns back to me. "It's that green wheeled backpack thing, right? Give me your baggage check info."
I quickly reach into the side pocket of my messenger bag and pull it out, thrusting it at her. "Chillax," she says smiling ruefully and I know it's because we both hate that word. "Go to the fifth floor, room 511. I'll see you in a few." She shuts the door and the car pulls out into the evening traffic.
I don't notice our route, really, until we exit the Queens tunnel and head south into the Midtown traffic. I jiggle impatiently until we pull up in front of a hospital. The driver stops the car in a drop off zone and before he even puts it in park, I've wrenched open the door and stumble out of the car, both the carryon bags still around my shoulders.
Now I hesitate in the gloomy twilight on the walkway in front of the automatic doors.
My entire being's purpose for the last…What is it? Almost two days now?...has been Get to Henry, Get to Henry, Get to Henry. And now that I'm here, I've gone fuzzy and don't know what to do next. I wish Em were here. Why isn't she? Then a vague memory comes with a stab of guilt that I left her to get my checked luggage, but I couldn't wait.
And now I can't move.
Just go, just go, just go, I mentally tell myself, but my legs won't work again. I've not been to a hospital in a year and a half—since my grandmother died. I look back to the town car, but it's already gone.
I hear a voice next to me and my head swings slowly toward it. A lady in pink scrubs is moving her mouth, but it's like she's talking underwater and I can't hear what she's saying. I become mesmerized by the cartoon medical instruments dancing on her top. She looks at me quizzically. Her mouth is moving again.
Slowly her words come through the water, "Can I help you with something?"
One bit of information comes back to me—fifth floor—and I hold up my hand indicating five. She must understand because she takes my elbow and leads me through the doors and over to a bank of elevators. When an elevator car arrives, she ushers me in and holds me up when I stumble over the threshold, then presses the five button, not letting go of my arm. When the doors open, she leads me out and asks who I am here to see. I hold up one finger twice to indicate room 11 and her face brightens.
"Oh! Mr. Ellis!" she exclaims. "You must be his granddaughter in from overseas. Your Aunt added you to the visitors' list earlier today. I work the desk of this floor." Her words are clear now, like I've breached the surface of the water and I gasp as the quiet hallway we're heading down comes into focus.
"Mr. Ellis has already come a long way in the week or so since he's been here at the rehab center. We're only really just starting his rehabilitation here in earnest today."
Wait. What?
He's been here a week? I surely didn't hear her correctly. She must read the question in my expression because she chirps, "Yes, he was transferred here after his hospital stay."
After his hospital stay? Transferred? What? This isn't a hospital? I am so confused, but can't find the words to ask. We stop in front of a half-closed door and she lets go of my arm to open it, peeking in.
"Looks like he's asleep now, but go ahead in. How about I'll give you some time first and then send Nurse Becker who can give you more details."
When I don't move, she nods toward the room, urging me in. "It's okay. Go ahead," she smiles kindly, then glances at her watch. "You've got awhile until visiting hours are over, but honestly, we're loose with them here, so don't worry overmuch." She turns and walks back down the hall.
I take a deep breath then step into the room, shutting the door behind me, before slowly walking toward the sleeping figure in the bed.
My mouth drops open in shock.
I almost do not recognize him.
I move toward the foot of the bed. The overhead lights are off, but there's a lamp near the bed that spills light onto his face. He looks ancient. His former sandy grey curls, are more white than they were just months ago. I stand there watching him, trying to rectify this man with the Henry Ellis.
This is the man who was…is…was, before he retired, known as a kind of State Department fixer. The master translator who speaks nineteen languages well, not even counting the ones he has a sort of pidgin knowledge of—knowledge enough to get by in whatever country he's in. This is a man who makes a spectacle when he dances, which he does any chance he gets. This is the man who is enamored of music and art and food and people; people everywhere. He has friends, admirers on nearly every continent. He has quite literally dined with kings! And Presidents! And Premiers and Tribal Leaders and Prime Ministers and Dictators and Ambassadors and Religious Leaders and Nobel Prize winners and Tribal Lords and Generals and…everyone!
This is the man who can't walk a block down this city's streets—heck, any city's streets—without running into someone he knows. This is the man who is so alive, so big; not in physical stature so much as in personality, in wisdom, in kindness, in love.
He is huge!
He is supposed to be invincible. This sleeping man, though, seems so…so…diminished.
I become aware of wetness on my jaw that I don't understand at all. It's collecting in the scarf around my neck. I've not taken the two bags off my shoulders yet. They are strangling me. I remove them both and quietly as I can, put them on one of the chairs in the corner, then return to my sentinel at the foot of the bed. I reach out and slowly place my hands on the top of his feet through the sheets, curling my fingers around his ankles which feel so thin.
I will not let you go, Father, Grandfather. I will not let you go. I repeat this in my head, over and over again.
Henry's eyes blink open and slowly find mine. I do not move, just clutch his ankles tighter. There is confusion in his eyes. He opens his mouth and a gnarled sound escapes what I see are slack lips.
"Grandfather. Henry. It's Ellawyn."
He blinks rapidly and I see his eyes gain focus. He lifts one arm, reaching for me, and I quickly move around to the side of the bed, not letting go of his ankle until I can take his hand in one of mine.
"Yes, it's Elle. I'm here." I squeeze his hand, leaning down to kiss his cheek. "Your Little Bird." This is one of my longtime nicknames from Grandmother and him.
Another croaking sentence I can't make out at all. His eyes fill with tears. More unintelligible words.
"I'm here. I'm not going anywhere," I say, trying to paste a comforting smile on my face. I think he tries to smile back, but I can't tell for sure before he closes his eyes, going back to sleep. I make sure he is breathing and then I just stand, clutching his hand, for an eternity.
I feel something on the back of my knees "Sit, Elle." It's Emory. I didn't even hear her come in. She has scooted a chair directly behind me. "We should talk. There are some things you should know."
I practically fall into the chair, but don't let go of Henry's hand. I shake my head. "Not now, Em. Not yet."
Other than muttering, "Finally, you're speaking English," Emory, thankfully and unusually, does not argue, but pulls up a chair beside me and sits silently. I've got a lot of questions for her, but…just…not yet.
She takes my other hand in hers and we stay like that. Quiet.
We hear a voice behind us and both turn around. This must be that nurse.
"Hi! You're Mr. Ellis's granddaughter, right?" She says this to Em, rather loudly, as she makes her way to the opposite side of Henry's bed. I quickly look to see if she woke him up, but his eyes are still closed. "I'm Nurse Jenner, who monitors him during his afternoon rehab exercises."
"She is his granddaughter," Em whispers motioning to me. "And we should move to the hallway so we don't wake up Henry."
"Oh, we don't have to worry about that," she chirps. "He sleeps like the dead!" As one, both our heads swivel to the nurse, who looks between Emory and me, blanching. "He's…um…he's, you know…a good sleeper."
I turn back to Henry, but I know this nurse is probably withering under one of Em's Oh-No-You-Didn't stares. Those stares are somehow ladylike and menacing at the same time.
The nurse finds her voice again, but quieter this time. "He needs his rest, but I know he'll sleep through and wake on the dot of…"
"Seven a.m." the nurse and I say at the same time, mine barely a whisper. Well, that's one thing that hasn't changed with Henry. His internal clock is so strong that no matter what time he went to bed, in any time zone, he always woke precisely at seven. This is heartening and gives me courage to find out more, but I don't want to talk over him. It feels unseemly.
Em must be reading my mind. "The hallway," she says, brooking no argument. She stands up, pulling me with her. I give Henry's hand a squeeze and release it, letting Em lead me out with the nurse following.
When we get outside, Nurse Jenner says, in a lower voice this time, "It's past visiting hours now, so we're going to have to be quiet out here so we don't disturb the other patients."
I don't look at Em, but can imagine she's got another one of those looks on her face. "Why don't you tell Miss Ellis a little about what you all do here," she says in a clipped voice.
The nurse says this is a rehab facility that's affiliated with the university medical center, working on stroke patients, among other types of infirmities. After a stroke patient is stabilized in the hospital, and then released, they can come here to relearn the things they lost. The nurse cannot remember precisely when Henry got here but thinks it was late last week and that he was in the hospital for about a week prior to that. When the nurse says this, Em clutches my hand tighter.
Nearly two weeks! Two weeks? I am flooded with a jumble of emotions at this news and I can't think.
They are primarily going to work on Henry's motor skills first and speaking skills. My legs nearly give out when the nurse says, "Right now, Mr. Ellis cannot speak at all. We should start his language therapy this week." Em is the only thing that keeps me upright. The nurse talks some more, but I don't hear her any longer.
Henry can't speak? At all? The man who knows multiple foreign languages can't speak?
He. Can't. Speak. At. All?
The nurse offers to leave a note with his medical doctor to stop by tomorrow when he gets in. When she leaves, I notice that she has spoken only to Em. My eyes follow her down the hallway until Em leads me back into the room.
"You spend a few minutes with Henry and then I'll take you home. I'll stay with you tonight and we'll come here fresh tomorrow and meet with the doctor."
I don't say anything as I sit back in the chair by the bed and gently take Grandfather's hand. Em puts her hand over both Henry's and mine. He doesn't wake again.
We sit like this until Em says, "You know I love him, too."
I whisper, "I know. He knows. And he loves you right back." When her eyes fill with tears, my throat burns and I have to look away. We are quiet again.
"Elles, I'm going to take you home now. Henry is okay and he's going to sleep through the night. I'll wait outside while you say goodnight to him." I watch her go.
It feels strange to spend so much time and energy to get to my grandfather only to leave him after a relatively short time. But the nurse is right, he is a good sleeper and I've got things to think about, things to figure out. I've got to get my mind around all this.
I stand up and lean over my favorite person in the world. Grandfather. I place his hand gently back on the bed and move to clutch both his shoulders, pouring all the love I have into my hands, my words.
"I am right here, right now. I am going just a couple miles away for the rest of the night. You will stay right here until I am back before you wake, understand?" His closed eyes twitch slightly and I take that as an answer. "You are not to leave." It is not that I'm afraid he's going to wake up and walk out; it's a different kind of leaving that I am thinking about. I kiss his cheek and try not to notice how papery and dry his skin feels.
The words the Mediterranean Man said on the plane come back to me as I grab my ancient messenger bag and the new one from my professors, putting them over my shoulders.
"Allah yoofithook," I whisper as I walk out the door. May God be with you.
And even though I don't know what it means, I add the other thing that kind man on the plane said to me. "Hoowa mocktoob."
The town car is waiting outside the hospital. No, I mentally correct myself…rehabilitation center, it says so clearly on the sign that I didn't notice when I came in. As soon as the driver has pulled away from the curb, I turn to Em.
"When did you find out?"
"This is what I wanted to warn you about in the car from the airport," she looks contrite. "So you wouldn't be so shocked when one of the staff mentioned it.
More emphatically, "When did you find out, Em?"
"Sheesh! About five seconds before I called you in China, Elle! You know I wouldn't keep anything like this from you."
I stare at her before nodding. I know she wouldn't. "How did you find out?"
"Aunt Bea called me Saturday night."
This is what I already knew subconsciously—that Bea was somehow behind keeping me in the dark. Aunt Bea is not really my aunt, but was married to a second cousin of my grandmother's for a short time many years ago. Everyone calls her Aunt Bea, although she is no one's aunt. She lives across the hall from us.
"What else do you know?"
"Bea found him after he had come home from a dinner party. She called an ambulance that took him to the hospital where it was determined he'd had a stroke. He was stabilized and was deemed to be out of immediate danger. A few days later when a place opened up, he was moved to the rehabilitation center." Her voice has a clipped just-the-facts-ma'am tone.
"Why was I not told immediately?"
"I don't know exactly other than Henry didn't want Bea to tell you."
These words…ugh…these words are yet another stab through the heart. The pain is nearly unbearable. I wrap my arms around my middle and start with the rocking back and forth again. When my beloved grandmother died of uterine cancer, I wasn't told until the very end, when I was home for Christmas break and the evidence of her ill health was irrefutable. I had barely two weeks with her once I knew. The heartbreak of that is mixed in with this new horror.
"Hey, sweetie. Hey…" Em wraps her arms around my moving torso and for once, my best friend is not comforting. This is suffocating. "Don't worry. I'll stay with you tonight and we'll take care of Henry together." I notice from somewhere in the back of my brain that Em has reverted to her uber-Southern accent. "Elles, it's okay," she coos and I just want her to shut up.
I shrug out of her embrace and do my best to shrug out of the pain. It helps that right now I'm feeling…what? Maybe a little angry. I'm not at all sure what I'm mad at, though. It's not at Emory. I look out the window to see we are barreling down 2nd Avenue. There isn't much traffic at this hour.
"After you drop me off, I want you to go back to your apartment," I say, staring out the window. We're getting close, we're crossing Delancey and I recognize the mostly closed shops near our building on the edge of both Chinatown and Little Italy.
"I don't want you alone in The Rambler tonight, honey." The Rambler is the very apt nickname of our apartment because it is a huge rambling space.
I turn to her, my face impassive. "Em, no."
"But I have so many other things to tell you and…"
I cut her off. "Right now there is nothing else." I feel a little guilty, but I can't hear anything else, this is not the time to catch up. "I need to think. I need to sleep." She is used to getting her way, but I am determined. "I'll call you tomorrow," I say definitively.
She is my best friend and I know her well. I can see her sharp-as-a-tack mind working; the wheels turning behind those big blue doe eyes.
"I'll pick you up in the morning then. What time?"
"Don't you have work?"
Em is interning at Vogue magazine as some kind of assistant to an editor. It was a real coup to get this job and it is this internship that she will use as research to write her senior thesis for her business degree. She's been there for about a month, leaving for New York around the time I went to China.
"This is more important. Henry is more important," she says.
And in this moment, I know I don't want her to come to the center tomorrow although I can't come up with a reason in my jumbled mind. I'm spared from thinking about it further because we've stopped in front of our building.
"We'll talk tomorrow," I say again as Marco opens my door, holding out his hand to help me from the car. Emory scoots over toward the door. I lean in to block her. "No. You don't have to get out." I put my arms around her in a hug. "Thank you so much for getting my bag at the airport. And coordinating everything, in your usual style." I release her and step back, adding softly, "But most of all, for calling me in China."
"As if I would do anything else," she sniffs.
"Now go home and get some sleep. We'll talk tomorrow."
"Do you have your keys, Elle?"
Oh. I shrug. "Somewhere, but I can just use the codes. Thank you so much." I shut the door. I hear her roll down the window, but thankfully she doesn't open the car door. If she got out, she'd probably come in and I'm not sure any machinations could stop her. All I want is to be alone.
I sag against the wall of the elevator as it inches up toward the top floor. It is now I think Em has probably texted Aunt Bea to tell her I'm home. "Crap!" I mutter out loud. I should've thought of that and told her not to. I don't want to deal with Bea right now. The elevator pings to a stop and the doors open. I roll the bag down the hallway, seeing Bea's closed apartment door. Maybe I'm safe.
Or rather, she is.
No, of course not. I hear her door open and decide then to ignore her and continue on to The Rambler.
"You got a new word for me?"
I come to a dead stop at this question, not ten feet past her door. Her mellifluous voice makes my spine crawl. Because this is always the first thing she asks me when I get home from some far-flung foreign land or another. I teach her a new word, usually a foreign cuss word, sometimes just a word that's funny or unusual, and have done so since she moved here.
This is our thing.
But right now, right now her question crawls right under my skin. Because…because As If this is just a normal return from some foreign jaunt with my grandparents or a quarter in Japan for school! As if I didn't just find out that Henry can't speak! Can't communicate at all! As if everyone is not keeping things from me like I'm some baby! As if I didn't know she had a hand in this.
AS IF!
I turn around slowly to see her door opened only enough for her eyes to peer out behind her thick nerdy eyeglasses. "Oh. I've got a word for you. Several, in fact," I say, deathly quiet, gladdened to see she looks a little scared.
She blinks, waiting. Yeah, she should be scared.
All the frustration, terror, sleeplessness and powerlessness I've repressed in these days of trying to get to Henry rises up in me, overtakes me. I am shaking with these emotions. I focus on her eyes, all my fury directed at those two blinking brown orbs.
"YEAH! HERE'S A WORD…" I scream, but I can't come up with any of the curses I know in any language, and I know a lot of them. But…nothing. This just makes me more frustrated. More angry. It overwhelms me, rendering me almost mute.
Finally I find one word in my brain and I yell, "STUPID!"
Bea waits a beat then shrugs her eyebrows, "I already know that word."
This just incenses me further. I open my mouth again and all that comes out is some strangled sound from the back of my throat… "Ghhh…" I get a brief flash back to Henry's beside—this is what he sounded like—before I take another breath and find…"EXTRA STUPID!"
I am so furious at my own lame invective that I scream it again.
"YOU'RE EXTRA STUPID!"
We stare at each other down the hallway for a long moment. I hear scratching from behind her door. Bea opens it another couple feet and Petal, our elderly white and tan and black dog comes scrabbling out to greet me, butt wiggling. I glare at Bea before leaning my bags against the wall and get down on my knees to greet Petal back. I am plied with slobbering kisses.
My grandmother Rosamunde showed up at the apartment with her late one Saturday afternoon in September a couple years ago when I was back in New York on a school break. We were about to go out to dinner to celebrate Grandmother's birthday early since I couldn't be here for the actual day.
"This beautiful girl is my birthday present to me," I remember her saying like it was yesterday. "Her name is Petal." She had a look of studied nonchalance as Grandfather and I stood in the living room, gaping at her, at them both. We hadn't had a dog since Leo, when we lived in London. This new dog looked a bit like him—same stocky body and blocky head.
"You can't name a dog your own nickname," was all Granddad had said. "It's not right." Henry had, has, a host of constantly changing nicknaming rules.
Grandmother pulled out her imperious and very patrician countenance that Henry had nicknamed—yes, he nicknames everything—her Main Line Philadelphia look. And right then, new dog leash in hand, she went straight up Main Line Philly, holding up her hand in a stop-right-there gesture.
"That is her name," Grandmother said haughtily, daring him to argue. When he didn't, wisely, she turned on her heel to the kitchen, new dog and us all following. We watched her fill an antique china bowl with water to give to the new dog. As far as I know, not another word was said about it and Petal joined our family right then.
I flew back to Palo Alto to start a new quarter the next day. Grandma died when I was home a few months later for Christmas break.
I get a pang in my heart remembering Petal's first day with us as I'm in the hallway hugging and kissing her, ignoring Bea—who has shared both care and custody of this dog since the beginning—still standing in her doorway.
I whisper to Petal loudly, "Sweetie girl, I'm not mad at you. No, I'm not." I scratch all her favorite places as she wiggles around and around in circles, pausing to lick my entire face. "You're not the stupid one," I coo. "You're a good dog, yes you are. A good dog who would never keep vitally important things from me."
My anger dissipates in the midst of Petal's welcome home love fest, which just makes me mad all over again because I'm sure that was Bea's plan.
"Petal won't save you," I say quietly, pointedly not looking at Bea, but I can't muster much anger. All I really feel now is a profound and absolute fatigue.
"Petal saved Henry."
I go stock still, but for my eyes whipping up to meet hers.
"Yeah," Bea nods. "Petal saved Henry." She opens the door all the way, saying, "Come on, girl,"—I don't know which girl she's referring to—before disappearing into her apartment. Petal walks out of my grasp, following.
Of course my burning curiosity makes me scramble to my feet, drawing me to the open doorway where the smell of baking makes my stomach rumble. I realize I've not eaten one thing since a breakfast of rice in Wuhan, which was Saturday night New York time. I hadn't noticed until right now, but suddenly I am almost wild with hunger.
I peer into the huge living room, which really looks more like a radio station-slash-record store than a living space. There is one sitting area with two mid-century modern sofas, some chairs, a coffee table, and a big screen TV. Another area has a series of desks and tables with microphones, banks of computers, turntables, and other electronic equipment on them. But mostly this room, and the interior hallway leading to the two small bedrooms beyond, and the bedrooms themselves, hold thousands upon thousands of vinyl albums and CDs, along with some movies and books, mainly rock anthologies. There are filled-to-bursting shelves of every kind against just about every available wall space. The stretch of wall above the shelves is filled with rock posters, music-themed movie posters and gold and platinum records awarded to Bea, all the way to the high ceiling. But for the media, equipment, and colorful artwork, nearly all of the rest of it is white—white walls, white furniture, white curtains, bleached wood floors, with only a smattering of color on the rugs and pillows and a soft, metallic, sky blue ceiling.
And all of it is meticulously and scrupulously and fastidiously clean. You could not find one stinking dust mote in this entire space if you tried.
Bea was a long time and top-rated radio DJ and then program director in a host of cities across the country before she moved here four years ago. She left her traditional radio station job and started broadcasting on the internet, streaming a series of different-themed music shows several times a week. She has a cult following around the world. Every now and again I would overhear some fellow Stanford students talking about her podcasts, which would make me feel a swell of pride in her.
But I don't want to think about that now; I want to hold onto whatever thread of anger I can find.
Bea calls from the kitchen, "I made blintzes. Cheese ones."
Damn her! Those are my favorite, as she well knows. She is an expert in two things; music and cooking—okay, and maybe cleaning, too. I stay in the doorway even though my empty stomach is urging me inside.
"Blintzes won't save you either!" I call back.
"Fresh from the oven." Bea breezes in from the kitchen holding a plate brimming with manipulative mini blintzes and sets it on the coffee table before collapsing on the white sofa in a swirl of silver-blue silk from the elaborately embroidered caftan she's wearing. Petal sits next to her knees, voodoo-staring at the plate.
Bea has engaged both my mind and my stomach; I'm not sure which is taking precedence right now. I pause, not ready to give in to either. My mouth waters.
"I don't want any of your stupid blintzes," I lie. "But I want you to tell me everything about Henry. And I mean ev-er-y-thing," I say imperiously from the doorway, trying out my own Main Line Philly look. "But…But," I add, a tiny bit juvenile, like the qingshaonian I am, "I am not talking to you."
Bea both nods and shrugs, "Fair enough."
I wait a beat, then walk in, leaving my bags out in the hall. We're the only two apartments on this floor and you need an elevator or stair code or key to get up here anyway. I leave the door open, which is how it usually stays unless Bea's in the midst of taping a show.
I purposefully do not take off my shoes, as is the rule, daring her to admonish me. Bea, very judiciously, does not say a word about it, although I see her eyes flit down to my oxfords and I know she's thinking that these shoes have walked through several airports in several cities since I've put them on. I imagine she'll get out the mop and disinfectant as soon as I leave.
Ha! Serves her right.
I sit on the sofa next to her, my eyes on that plate, not unlike our dog's. I wrest them away to meet Bea's eyes and say again, "Ev-er-y-thing. Go!"
"Have a blintz," she says.
"Start talking," I reply, but my traitor eyes move back to the plate on the coffee table. I am practically drooling, again, just like Petal, but I will not lose this admittedly tiny and pointless battle of wills.
I hear Bea take a deep breath and then let it out slowly, "We were here alone, doing some cleaning," by "we," I know she means Petal and her. "She'd already been out for her last walk of the night. It was about eleven or so."
Of its own accord, my hand has reached out to grab a blintz. I bring it to my mouth and am about to bite into it when I notice Bea has paused with a small smile on her face. Instead, I blow on it for a few seconds until it's cool enough and then put it in front of Petal's nose. She scarfs it up. I know she will have gas all night from this. When I see Bea's smile dissolve, I feel a pang of guilt, which annoys me.
"Go on," I say, reaching over to grab three more blintzes, which I immediately stuff in my mouth, one right after the other.
Another deep breath. "Petal was acting squirrely. She kept running in and out of the apartment; the door was open, of course. It took me awhile to notice it for what it was because I was vacuuming, but I finally did. I followed her out to the hallway and she was scratching at the door to the stairs." Bea generally won't use the elevator, only the stairs.
"I figured she needed to go out again," Bea looks pointedly at the plate, "maybe because she ate something she shouldn't have."
I refuse to feel guilty, but I do grab another blintze and stuff it in my mouth.
"So I ran inside and got her leash and my phone, punched in the buttons for 911, like usual, but didn't hit send, of course." This is always what she does on the rare times when she goes outside—has 911 ready to call—which mostly now, is only to walk Petal. She's never had to actually use it.
"We went down the stairs, Petal running ahead, and when we got to the lobby she runs to the front door. I see Henry had just come through the outer door and was using his keys to open the inner door. He was having trouble—you know that lock sticks sometimes—so I hurried over to open it for him. When I did, he just stood there. He didn't come inside. He just stood there. He stood there like he didn't see me."
Bea's faraway eyes are somewhere at a point above my head, but I don't think she sees her living room. Her mind is in that lobby on that night.
"Petal was circling around him. Over and over again. Just circling." She stops and closes her eyes. "And then he went down. Petal cushioned his fall. Just inside the door. And I must've let go of it, the door, and it would've slammed into him, into his face, but Petal caught that, too. That door is heavy glass. And I just stood there, shocked, I guess."
Bea is breathing hard, her eyes closed now, still in that lobby. I am right there with her. The vision of Grandfather collapsing on that hard, old, chipped marble floor makes me shudder.
"And I'm on my knees when I hear something. Kept hearing something. A woman's voice. For some weird second I think it's Petal talking, but she's licking Henry's face and you know…I mean…she's a dog." She shrugs. "But for a second there…for a second there..."
"Finally I realize it's my phone. I must've accidentally hit the button to call 911 and what the woman was saying was, 'What's the nature of your emergency. Hello? What's your emergency? Hello. Can you hear me?'
"And I lifted the phone to my ear and said, 'Ambulance.' She asked for the address first and said she was sending one now and then asked other questions. Like…who's hurt and what's wrong and I started to say that I didn't know, but what came out of my mouth was 'Stroke.' Like I knew it. And she asked if he's breathing and I put my hand on his back and I can't tell and was in the process of turning him over and they were there—the paramedics.
"They were there so fast. Like, in a blink. I had to step over Henry, with Petal still keeping the inner door open, to let them in. And they took over. And got him out of there and into the ambulance. It was a matter of minutes, maybe even seconds. All of it was just no time at all."
Bea blinks her eyes open and she's back in her living room.
"Do you know where they were?" she asks.
I look at her blankly.
"The ambulance people. The paramedics," she explains. "Do you know where they were?" She pauses. "They were at the dumpling shop."
Which one? I think. We're on the edge of Chinatown and there are dumpling shops all over.
"The one on our block." Bea answers my unspoken question. "The one just down the street, like, ten shop fronts down the street. They didn't even have to circle the block to come up on our one-way street. I talked to them at the hospital when I followed in a cab after running Petal back up to the apartment." That's Mr. and Mrs. Lui's restaurant and is the absolute closest dumpling shop to our building, and the best.
"It was a man and a woman, the paramedics, and they said they mostly worked Lower Manhattan and were on a mission to find the best dumplings in the city and they randomly came up on that one because it was one of the few open so late."
I stare at her letting this coincidence sink in.
"They never even got to try their dumplings. The call came in just after they'd ordered," she says mournfully. Someone not getting their food is probably abhorrent to her.
This brings me right to a question I'd not asked yet. A question I know Bea would want to avoid.
"What night was it?" I ask, quietly.
Bea doesn't answer, doesn't look at me, but reaches down to scratch Petal's head.
"Bea," more adamant this time, "What. Night. Was. It." I wait.
Finally, she glances up from Petal, her eyes meeting mine and I see she has the grace to look penitent. "Thursday," she whispers. "Thursday night." She sits back on the sofa, her eyes cast downward.
And I know she doesn't mean last Thursday, four days ago. She means Thursday the week before that; more than a week and a half ago. I let this sink in, while Bea has turned back to petting Petal, avoiding the accusation in my eyes.
That was Friday Wuhan time. I had spent that day teaching and that night as I did every Friday since I'd been there, at the neighborhood market with Dragon, practicing my Chinese—he loves to correct my pronunciation, maybe a little too gleefully—and looking for gifts to bring home. Oblivious. And the following week, going about my days, teaching English, taking walks. Oblivious.
The thought makes me feel sick. All of those blintzes I ate are now curdling in my stomach. It was all chance. Just chance—Petal scratching at the door, that they got to Henry so quickly. Chance that he's…
Before I know it, I've said it aloud, "What if he had…" But I stop, shuddering. I can't finish the sentence. "He's the only family I have left."
Bea looks a little hurt. "What am I? Chopped liver?"
I nod, petulantly, not quite ready to alleviate her guilt.
"Alright. I guess I deserve that."
We sit silently, each lost in our thoughts. My eyes rove around her pristine apartment, landing on what I think is some new equipment. For someone who rarely leaves her house, she is super-connected to the world; twittering, facebooking, emailing her radio show fans around the world. Which brings my thoughts to…
"You sent that text." Bea won't look at me. "To me. In China. Canceling Henry's phone call."
"Possibly."
"Henry doesn't text," I muse aloud, looking up at her ceiling. My grandmother helped choose that soft blue color. "I've gotten one text from him since I left for school and it was just to say that he didn't like texting. I should've known."
"Don't blame yourself," Bea says, sincerely.
"Oh, don't worry about that. I don't." My eyes leave the ceiling to meet her concerned brown ones. "I fully blame you."
"Fine, be mad at me," She sighs. "Just don't be mad at Henry."
"Were you ever going to tell me? Or would you have just left me to rot in China for months, not knowing."
"I did tell you."
"Uh, I hate to state the obvious, but it was Emory who called me."
"Yeah, but I told Em knowing she would call you, so technically, I could let you know, but still keep my promise to Henry."
I've been facing front, my feet on the floor next to Petal, whose eyes have not left that plate, but now I turn facing Bea directly, curling my shoe-clad feet under me on the sofa as punishment, daring her to say anything.
"Why? Why, Bea? Why not just tell me immediately and let me come home to be with my grandfather? Why?"
A long pause. "Henry didn't want you to know." A cocktail of emotions flits across her face.
"I still don't understand, though," and now I almost feel close to crying and I don't cry. "Why?"
"He didn't want you to leave school and have to take care of him." Bea is near tears, too, her voice rising with every word. "He didn't want that burden on your shoulders. He didn't want you to worry. He wanted you to be a kid for as long as possible!" And then, "He didn't want you hurt again!"
Oh. I feel a glimmer of understanding. As if that's even possible. I watch the tears drip down her face and fall onto the silk of her caftan, darkening the silver blue to navy.
"Bea." She won't look at me, her eyes screwed shut against the tears. I say more forcefully, "Bea, I'm not seven any more, you know. I'm not seven!"
She meets my eyes, alarmed, because we, none of us, ever talk about that time. The full understanding drops like a lead weight onto my head. That was exactly what Henry was thinking about, what he was trying to protect me from—more hurt. More loss. As if that's even possible.
"I'm not seven anymore. I'm not seven." God, I'm so tired. That's the last thing I remember saying, over and over again. "I'm not seven. I'm not seven anymore."
Oblivion.
I clamber up my dad's back, shrieking, laughing, pulling at his blonde curls, wrapping my arms around his neck. I point in front of him toward the left, toward a small brown figure clinging to a low-hanging branch. "Closer, Dad. Get closer!"
He moves us two steps toward it.
"Closer." He takes two more steps.
"Closer, Dad. She's beautiful."
He takes another couple steps and we are only a few feet from the brave little monkey, who is watching us, head tilted.
Dad whispers, "See, she's one of your kind. Mono ardilla." Squirrel Monkey.
"I thought I was a mono aullador," I whisper back. Howler monkey.
"You are all kinds of monkeys, Little Monkey," he chuckles. "Depending on the day. On the moment."
I hear my mom behind us, "Not too close, John!"
I turn toward her; she's come out of our little house, brown hair gleaming in the sun streaming through the clearing, brown eyes twinkling. "Do you see it, mama? Do you see it?"
There is a bad smell. A really bad smell.
I turn back to the monkey, but it has changed. Grown. Has black hair. Looks human. It opens its mouth to scream in Chinese, "Ai xiao de houzi!"
Little Monkey.
My eyes fly open. I am looking up at a clear blue sunlit sky. I blink. No, a ceiling with a disco ball. Aunt Bea's! My breathing slows down.
The dream fades, but not the awful smell; that just gets worse. I am stretched out on Bea's sofa, my head on a pillow in her lap. She is sitting upright, asleep; her head slumped over on her shoulder above me, mouth open. I watch her breathing.
I don't know how old she is, she won't tell me, says she is "ageless," but she's probably around the age my parents would be now, if they were alive—in her forties. She's sort of pretty, with an uncommon face. I've known her for as long as I can remember; we used to visit her before she came here to live, but I have no idea why she is the way she is—why she's almost a shut-in. Aunt Bea doesn't like to talk about her past, that much I do know.
Maybe it's because I just dreamed of my parents, but I get another memory of us visiting Bea at a radio station and I swear I know it's Austin. Bea let me talk into a big microphone and I chattered away while my mom and dad looked on, smiling. The weirdest thing is that she's wearing jeans, not the caftans I always tease her about now. Strange.
She opens her eyes, lifts her head from her shoulders and looks down at me. "Why are you smiling?"
I didn't know I was. It was thinking of my mom and dad, and for once, this didn't hurt, but I don't say that. "I just had a memory of you in Texas, I'm pretty sure, at a radio station. You were wearing jeans. And cowboy boots."
"How in the world do you remember that? You were so young!"
"So it was Texas? Austin? I was right?"
She doesn't answer, but she sniffs at the air as her face screws up, "You smell!"
"No, you smell," I parry back. This is familiar territory. I notice a comforting warmth along my right side and look over to see Petal is wedged between me and the sofa back, asleep. "There's your smell," I say as I swivel to put my sock-clad feet on the floor—of course Bea took my shoes off in my sleep. I notice the plate on the coffee table where there were at least four or five blintzes left. It's empty. Petal must've scarfed them up and now has the gas to prove it.
"I will leave you with Petal's noxious fumes," I say as I get to my feet, padding over to pick up my shoes on the rug by the door, next to Bea's shrine to legendary DJ John Peel. The vintage starburst wall clock says it's four in the morning, plenty of time before I have to leave to get to Henry when he wakes.
"Do you want me to come with you to the rehab center tomorrow? Or I guess it's actually later today?" Bea asks, yawning.
"No, I don't. You'll have to be here to take care of the diarrhea Petal's going to have all day from those blintzes." But I know deep down that that's not really the reason I don't want her to go. "Serves you right."
I start to leave when I hear her whisper, "Am I forgiven?"
I want to ignore her because the fact is, I don't know. All I do know is I need a shower and to get out of these clothes.
She asks again, softly, "Am I forgiven?"
The plea in her voice tugs at my heart, just a little. I turn to face her. Despite the entreaty in her doleful eyes, despite the fact that I cannot ever seem to hold grudges long, I'm not ready to let her off the hook outright just yet. This is all too big and I've got to get my mind around it first.
Instead, with all the sarcasm I can muster, looking her right in the eye with a mock sneer on my face, I say, "Nice housedress."
Before I leave I see her hopeful smile. Because in our language, Bea knows that, creatively translated, this means, "We'll see."
