“Harold, come here.” My mother beckoned. She knew my name! Astounded and happy, I moved my chair to the head of her bed. She said, “Yesterday I saw something on the wall, wonderful, you wouldn’t believe how wonderful. I saw a cockroach.” “In your room a cockroach?” “Right over there, close to the ceiling. At first I think he’s just standing there. But I watch him and after a while I realize. He’s actually sleeping.” Not a hallucination probably. Clean as this nursing home was, I was disposed to believe in her cockroach. “On the wall he sleeps for a long time and then, while I’m looking, he wakes up. And this is the part that gets me. He behaved like Murray.” “Like Daddy?” I was startled. “How?” “Well, when he woke up, he sort of stretched himself. First he stretched, then he opened his eyes. Isn’t that fascinating?” “Yes.” “Yes, just like Murray. Then he packed his bags and left.” Uh oh. “Where did he go?” “That I don’t know. But before he left he went around the wall gathering up everything that belonged to him. He put it all in two tiny suitcases. He didn’t leave a thing behind. Every last thing he owned he took with him, one suitcase on each side, and he walked away.” It left me breathless, I couldn’t take it, this combination of battiness and accusation. Oh, I was sure she didn’t, couldn’t, understand the precision of what she was saying. But that didn’t matter, since I understood. And who had helped my father pack everything and leave? I rushed to say, “Would you like to talk to Murray right now? On the phone? I could push her in a wheelchair to the telephone at the nurse’s station and place a credit card call to my father. She said, “No, what’s left to say? Same old boring thing.” I said, “Always something strange happening here.” “You can say that again. I’m a valetudinarian.” “Mom!” I nearly shouted in surprise. Only a vocabulary item, but still! With Alzheimer’s? “Do you know what that means?” “Yes,” she said. “He’s gone. And left me an invalid at thirty six. How old are you?” At least she knew she was an invalid. A nurse could have explained her condition to her, but could any of the nurses have spoken the word valetudinarian? I said, “I’m sixty four, isn’t that funny, mom? How can your son be older than his mother?” “What’s so funny, buster? Happens all the time. And I’m stuck here,” she said, “I can’t go anywhere.” “Pretty nice place for an invalid to be stuck.” “Says you. The nurses talk to me as if I’m a baby. But I understand everything. Harold, don’t you ever get stuck here.” “I’ll try not to,” I said, wondering whether to stop using aluminum foil. Aluminum deposits had been found by autopsy in brains affected by Alzheimer’s. And what about all our aluminum pots and pans? Throw them out? “Good,” she said. “Stay away. But I don’t, I don’t want.” “What, mom. What don’t you want?” She only shook her head. “Look at me, I can’t walk.” The bedsores on her heels had been wrapped in egg crate styrofoam. Her feet were the size of ski boots. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Harold.” She hesitated. “I want to go away from here.” “Where would you like to go?” “Home.” I asked, “To your house in the country?” “Anywhere,” she said. “Home.” “Do you remember your country house?” “No,” she said. And closed her eyes. “Harold, please, I want to go home! I want to be through with all this!” I was struck silent. Did she mean home to God? I, too, wanted her to be through with all this. I couldn’t say anything. Then she explained herself and I felt like a damn fool. She opened her eyes, jabbed me with a stare, and said, “I want to go home with you, to your home.” That was simple to understand. “But mom,” I said. “Don’t you like it here? The nurses all love you.” She said, “The nurses give me bandages! But I want you.” The final gasp of suppressed incest? Or had she begun to confuse me with Murray? Wouldn’t a psychoanalyst smile at that distinction? I wanted to smile, too, but it made me uneasy. Not her desire, but the fact that I loved taking care of my mother. Once, long ago, my mother had taken care of me, now I took care of her. I was the caretaker of a ruin that used to be my mother. Making light of her desire, I said, “Too bad you can’t have me, mom. I’m already taken. Got a wife and a baby, remember?” “Yes, but I forget their names.” The sag of her face made her look like the Wise Old Woman of legend. I pretended to consult her. “Mom, tell me what you think. Should Hanna and I have another baby?” “No.” “Why not?” “Too young. You, you.” “I was too young to have Nick,” I said. “And you can’t stand noise.” I said, “That’s true, but one of these days I won’t be around anymore. Hanna’s going to be a widow. She’ll be lots happier if she has two children to look after, not just one.” Was I making any more sense than my mother? “Don’t do it,” she said. “Why not?” “Next time you feel like doing it, just get out of the house. Take a walk.” “I’ll remember that.” “But,” she said in afterthought, “if you do decide to have a child, could I have it for you?” “You want to have our child! You, instead of Hanna?” “Yes, please,” she said. “I want to have a baby with you.” “But you’re an invalid,” I reminded her, “you couldn’t take care of a baby. And besides that, mom, you’re my mother.” “Never mind!” she rebuked me. “I want to sleep with you.”
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