Part 10 (2/2)

Fortunately, Hank's brother Steve has been there to help her. He reconnoiters with us at the house, and we pile into his Blazer to visit Beth. Beth is tall and gaunt. She hugs us fiercely. I've noticed that the dying tend to express love with reckless abandon. Hank is aghast at the sight of his bald sister with a black line of st.i.tches across her skull.

”Ya look like Beetlejuice,” he says.

Hank's family is not renowned for tenderness, but they're a loyal bunch. Steve has shown his true mettle, captaining the s.h.i.+p of this beleaguered family. Generous and handsome, with a big laugh almost as infectious as Hank's, Steve is now figuring out the next step for Beth. He thinks she's ready to come home, and he's also found a hospice down the street from his parents' house for that inevitable step.

Hank notices a pretty nurse and whispers to Steve, ”You should ask that nurse out. She could take care of the whole family. I think she's hot for you.”

But Hank doesn't know how to whisper, and I'm sure the nurse has heard him, so I look at him wide-eyed and Emmy joins me, and soon we're all cracking up there in the hospital room at Hank's faux pas.

The next day Beth comes home. She needs help getting her long white compression hose on, and since this is something I'm fairly experienced at, I go in to help her. In order to have something to say other than how awful her situation is, I b.i.t.c.h about Hank.

”He didn't even want Emmy to go to that arts school,” I complain.

She sucks her teeth in disgust. We're the same age, and ragging on Hank has been one thing we can agree on, as if we're both the younger siblings. She doesn't sleep well. Neither do I, and in the early morning the two of us are alone in the quiet light of the living room enjoying the hush before everyone else wakes up. She eats a donut and drinks her coffee. Since the return of her cancer, she loves sweets. She's not exactly watching her weight. In some ways she reminds me of my mother. A lot of things don't matter when you're on the precipice. She can't remember much. She's not interested in much. She's become an aficionado of silence.

When we leave there's still a miniscule thread of hope, but in December Beth dies. Hank Senior has lung cancer and a brain tumor. We stay home that Christmas.

FOUR.

ANTHEM.

What need have you of further demons?

Figures from your own h.e.l.ls are enough.

(Save us from our minds!).

Dry papers flutter about your feet,

Lifted by poisonous dust.

(Save us from our words!)

Your monsters devour the hills,

The forests are laid low.

The oceans are slowly dying.

(Save us from our works!)

Traced deep in each man's being

Are the tracks of his transgressions.

For as soon as the wind goeth over it, It is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more.

Rosalind MacEnulty.

An American Requiem.

ONE.

WINTER 2008.

The year 2008 came down on my little family like the Four Hors.e.m.e.n on a rampage. It started all right. I was in my second year of a full-time teaching job. My third novel had just been published, and it was getting good reviews, though, of course, not raking in the big bucks. All my life my dream had been to publish a novel. Now I had three of them and a short story collection. This was the time of my life I needed to be doing whatever it was that writers do to promote their work. I needed to ”get out there” and do readings and workshops-something I hadn't really done for my previous books. So I had two trips scheduled for the spring-one to a conference in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico and another to New England.

In the back of my head I knew that it was risky-planning these trips-but I'd received a local grant to fund both, and I was determined to go. I let my brothers know that I had made my plans and that nothing would stop me from going. Nothing, I insisted. Even if Mom wound up on her deathbed (which I was sure was exactly what was going to happen) I would not alter my plans. I had sacrificed enough. So I bought my airline tickets and waited for the inevitable disaster to strike.

It did, of course. In February.

Mother's belly had blown up to the size of a basketball, and she constantly complained of constipation. Over the years, I had given her enemas and plied her with laxatives recommended by the doctor, but her large intestine simply didn't have the power to do its job. This time she was backed up so badly that Roto-Rooter couldn't have helped us out. And the doctor wasn't sure what was going on with that enormous pregnant-looking belly. So it was time to go back to the hospital.

At first she charms everyone there. One of the doctors, an elderly Jamaican man, is smitten and tells me what an intelligent woman she is, how much he enjoys chatting with her. But this little honeymoon ends soon.

They are going to flush my mother out. They need me to stay there and make sure she drinks several gallons of Drano. Already my mother's fabled intelligence is getting murky. Hospitals have that effect on old people, I am told. I sit at her side and say, ”Drink up, Mom.” Mother balks, of course. Who wouldn't? But she has to drink it all, and I keep after her for several hours till it's all gone. Then we wait for the inevitable eruption.

I won't go into the details. Suffice to say the toilet is never as close as it needs to be, and not only do I become a medical professional, but I also serve as janitor.

That should be the end, right? But it isn't. My mother makes the mistake of letting the nurses know that she is in pain. Well, she's always in pain. Because the doctor nicked a nerve in her back during her spinal operation, now her brain has gotten locked onto the idea of pain. This is a trick that brains do though I won't fully understand this till later when a friend explains that the same thing happened to her sister. So my mother is in constant pain. In hospitals they don't like pain. I understand this. Why should anyone be in pain if it's unnecessary? We have the technology to get rid of it. A little visit from Sister Morphine and all your cares slide under the table to sing about dead roses. And they always think they're doing you a favor by giving you just a little extra b.u.mp. Oh, wouldn't the junkie I once was have loved these folks?

So they start to give her morphine, which does not put her to sleep. Instead my mother goes from being an outspoken witty old woman to a deranged madwoman. I must be loony myself because I actually go home one night to try to get some sleep.

The phone rings at two thirty in the morning.

”Will you come do something about your mother? We can't handle her,” the nurse says.

”Yeah, I'll be there in twenty minutes.” I roll out of bed, put on my jeans and s.h.i.+rt and head out the door.

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