DEAR MA

 

By Christopher Meeks

 

                                                                             

 

            Blue eagles glide down and race together across the sand back and forth from the waves, and those skinny young men in Mexico jump into the air and screech in delight.  The arms of the bay rise and the water flashes like watch bands, don't fall, don't fall, how glorious, let's do it.  Water's warm.  Warm.  What? 

            “Some beets, Dear Ma?”

            Dear Ma considered the blue eyes of the young woman.  Like the sky.

            “I think you hear me, don't you?”

            “Beets?”  She looked down.  “Oh.”

            “Can you understand me?  What I'm saying?”

            “Yes,” she said with a nod.

            The young woman's high-cheekboned face, smooth and Scandinavian, gleamed like new fruit.  She hugged Dear Ma around the shoulders.  “You're back!”

            “Sounds like I was at it a while.”  She glanced around her salmon-colored bedroom, a room her husband always considered pink.

            “Two days.”

            “A long one.”

            “Yes.”

            “Did Teddy call the doctor?”

            “Max did.  He—”

            “My son worries too much.”

            “I was worried!  You didn't eat.  You'd keep your eyes shut and say things I couldn’t understand.  The doctor gave you some glucose, and I was to give you more.”

            “Thank you, Pia.  Teddy gone?”  Pia nodded.  Dear Ma yanked the blanket out from the spokes in her wheelchair—a device she needed only within the last year—and tucked the spread tighter around her legs.   “I was back in Mexico with Max and Teddy, and I was trying to talk them into strapping on a parachute.  You should have seen their expressions!  Max wanted it so, but Teddy—”

            “Skydiving?  I would never—”

            “No no.  On almost any beach down there you can find some enterprising boys who've connected a parachute to the back of a motorboat.  You float all over the bay like a whisper.  Teddy didn't like the idea.”

            “He probably couldn't do it in a coat and tie,” said Pia.

            Dear Ma laughed at the implication.  She wheeled herself out from behind the card table, a setup that allowed her to eat in her bedroom, and leaned forward as if telling a secret.  “We once had a fire in the laundry room.  I yelled to the kids to grab their robes, run outside!  The fire department thundered here in minutes, and we all stood outside like toy soldiers, when I noticed my husband missing.  I ran back in.  There's Teddy in the bathroom adjusting his tie.  Goddamn it, I said, get outside!  But he told me, ‘Jen, we're far from the flames, and I need to look proper.  The firemen have their uniform, and so do I.’”

            Pia laughed but turned away.  “An unusual man,” she said.

            “A true Virgo.  To this day, before he goes to bed, he chooses what he'll wear the next day and hangs it in the bathroom.  Where is Teddy, anyway?”

            “The post office.”

            “Mailing bills, no doubt.  Here I am, hardly cognizant half the time, and he treats me as if I'm the woman he married.”

            Pia set a plate of food in front of her.

            Dear Ma glared at the beets.  “I detest any vegetable that's redder than my lipstick.”

            “You've got to get stronger,” Pia said, and she served one more beet from a silver tray.  The crimson juice oozed around the mashed potatoes. 

            “Beets will give me hemorrhoids.”

            “Come now.”

            “They will.  They're filled with iron.  And because I sit all day, the iron will zip right to my derrière.”

            “What would you like instead?”

            “An artichoke.”

            Pia nodded as if that were not difficult.  Dear Ma stared at the young woman, then quickly looked about the room.  Something was out of balance here.  Despite day-to-day changes, a room has a certain harmony to it, like a garden.  Teddy's open, half-read mystery story rested next to her chaise longue, his socks lay under his twin bed, and her desk appeared quite tidy with no papers showing.  None of these things seemed out of place.  It was Pia's “yes.”

            “An artichoke'll take an hour to cook,” Dear Ma said slowly.

            “That's all right.”

            There had to be something new and wrong with her condition that Pia wasn’t telling her.  Dear Ma felt a fist rise in her stomach, a hand yank on her insides.

            “Dear Ma!”  Pia rushed over.  Dear Ma's eyes fluttered and her arms shook.  “Stop,” Pia shouted.  “Focus on my face!”  Too late.

                                                                          * * *

            I don't love him I just can't.  Hand hits table and spoons dance like leaves Paris in the spring I won't marry him.

            “Jeannine, you're being ridiculous.  Gerald has a future, and talk about a fine family, you can't get more respect than the Marklethiels.  You'll live in Kenwood,” her mother said.  They sat at a white round table at an outdoor café.  A new 1920 Model-T was trying to park as a horse-drawn carriage swept past it.

            Jeannine purposely paused, not only for effect, but also to pull in the rich, earthy smells of her café au lait.  She drank it too quickly.  The coffee burnt her tongue, but she didn't let her mother take note.  Instead, she gathered the many folds of her skirt and swung them and herself around so she faced the Champs Elysee. 

            “Jeannine, sometimes you can be so theatrical.”  Her mother, resplendent in a lacy, yet stiffly pressed blouse and a long skirt, nodded to the mustached waiter for the bill. “Honestly, how can we shop for your trousseau if you're not going to marry the man?  I'm sorry, but at this point you have no say in the matter.”

            “I can't.  I don't love him.”  

            “Then why're we here?  Why did you come?”

            “I was tricked.”

            Her mother slapped the table and was going to say something when Jeannine continued:  “Do you think I had any chance with Father and the Marklethiels pushing so hard?”

            “What's wrong with Gerald?”

            “First, I don't think he has a sense of humor.  Second, he always calls me Sis, and if he says it one more time, I'm going to bash him.  Third, Gerald T. Marklethiel, is named Gerald T. Marklethiel.  And fourth, he affects a Boston accent that simply nauseates me!”

            “He’s from Boston!”

            Jeannine tilted her head back and became her fiancé. “Shall we mota ova to the club?  Ah, Mrs. Pinopscott, what a jaunty muffla you ah spahting.”

            Her mother, despite herself, released a smile.

            “And Mrs. Rose, I shall have Sis—I mean Jahnine—home at the appointed owwa.  And may I say, you have the same beautiful eyes as your lovely daughtah.”

             “I do?”

             “Ah, Mrs. Rose, they spahcle with vibrance.”

             The two women laughed and held each other.

            “But most of all,” said Jeannine, taking advantage of the moment, “I can't marry that man because he's not part of my soul.  When I saw the couples walking in the Tuilleries last night, I knew then: nothing's in me for him.  If and when I marry, it'll be to someone who's handsome, witty, extremely sharp.  He'll know how to ride horses and laugh and stay calm and listen and maybe fence.”

            “Anything else?”

            “He won't make the wrong comments at the wrong time.  We'll be like two matches who always burn for each other.”

            “Darling, there's no such person in the universe.”

            “I have to think so—otherwise I may as well marry anyone.  Even Gerald T. Marklethiel.”

            “Exactly.”

            “Forget it.”

            “Jeannine, I should've never let you go to Bryn Mawr.”

            “Mother, I have my beliefs.”

            Her mother shook her head and buttered a croissant.  “I know Gerald,” she stressed. “He's a very sweet man.  Athletic.  Intelligent.  Sensitive.  I know you'll love him.”

            “The way he looks at me so lovingly gives me the willies.”

            “Everything is set.  You'll marry Gerald.”

            Sit here Jeannine next to Teddy.  Thank you I liked Paris very much, I finished it all and we'll see how it works.  Butter?

                                                                          * * *

            A moon face drooled.  Baby Jake’s eyes wandered to the wall.

            “Say Hi to your great granny, Jake.  We call her Dear Ma. Come on, wave hello.”  David, her twenty-five-year-old grandchild, tall as a telephone pole, took Jake's little hand and waved it at Dear Ma while David's short wife Sandra wiped the wire of spittle that led from Jake’s mouth to Dear Ma’s knee.

            “Jake apologizes, Dear Ma,” Sandra said.

            Dear Ma raised her head for the first time in four days.  Pia, embroidering yellow mums onto a pillow, moved forward, her senses tuning in.  “Are you—can you see me?”

            “Yes.”

            “It's me, David,” said David.

            Dear Ma didn't say anything more.  She locked onto the baby's eyes, and the baby pushed back behind its mask and declared I have the years and you haven't but you can breathe me in if you want to.

            Pia knelt next to Dear Ma, took her hand.  “David here was just telling us that Jake's starting to stand.  He can almost walk.”

            Have I fallen onto a dock?  Why are they glaring their stares into me?  I'm not drowning.

            “Should I get Max, Dear Ma?”

            Dear Ma felt her own face.  She remembered.  This is the place where things were happening now.  Why was she getting worse? 

            “I think she's saying something,” said Pia.

            “What?” asked Sandra.

            “Teddy,” said Dear Ma.

                                                                          * * *

            “Teddy, over here!” cried Jeannine from the shore.  1944.

            As if a starting gun had gone off, the broad-shouldered man bolted up from his prone position on the beach, and immediately he rose and sprinted in the direction of the water.  His feet tore into the hot beach, producing a swooshing sound.  Shots of sand arched behind him.  Jeannine watched her husband in motion as he ran toward the water, not to her.  He looked wonderful—almost ageless.  He didn't see her sitting near the shore to his right.  When he did, he stopped abruptly.  “Jen, I thought you were drowning.”

            “I've found a treasure in the sky,” she said.  “It's El Dorado!”

            “Ma, where!” shouted Max, a bronze stick who leaped out of his sand pit faster than any nine-year-old in Mexico.  Only Max had joined them on this trip, as his older sisters were already out of the house, either in college or married.

            “Out in the bay.  Look,” Jeannine said.  The wind blew some of her shoulder-length hair across her eyes.  She pulled the hair away as she pointed.

            “I don't see it,” said Max, legging past his father.  “Where?”

             Teddy slapped the sand off his well-muscled body and moved his mouth as if exaggerating the hint of saltiness that he tasted from the air.  He looked to the red bubble tied to the speedboat.  “Jen, that's a parachute.”

            “Isn't it something!  We can ride it.”

            “No we can't.”

            “Please, Pop,” shouted Max.

            “I'm not Pop, I'm Father.  And she's your Mother, not Ma.  You've been seeing too many Shirley Temple movies.”

            “Well?” said Jeannine.

            “Absolutely, positively not,” said Teddy.  “I've only got a week's leave.  I'm not about to see my family gadding about in the sky.” 

            “Oh, Teddy.”

            “I worry enough as is about you.  You want to give me nightmares when I'm back at sea?”

            The speedboat approached but soon turned sharply away.  “Sure would be fun,” said Max, watching.

            “High tide's coming soon, Max,” said Teddy.  “And you haven't built the walls to your sand castle yet.”

            “The dungeon's not done!”

            “Better hurry.”

            The boy, instantly charged, scooted off.  Jeannine moved closer to Teddy.  He took her around the waist.  She curled her fingers softly into his stomach, his damp-from-sweat skin.  Through the scent of aftershave, she smelled a wonderful muskiness, reminding her of their morning's lovemaking—far better than any six months of letters.  She looked up into her husband's blue eyes.

            He opened his mouth as if to say something, but didn't.  Instead, he moved in.  They kissed.  When they pulled apart, he tucked a strand of her brown hair around her ear.  “I love you,” he said.

              She drew her finger along his neck up to his mouth.  “Even if I said I'd still like to go up?”

            He shook his head, growing a grin.  “Sometimes I can't believe you!  But yes, I love you even if you want to grab onto that fool parachute.”

            He hugged her.  And then looked at the boat again.

                                                                          * * *

            Jeannine, aloft, could barely hear the drone of the motor below her.  Teddy and Max—in the boat—waved, and she waved back.  The rope drew up from them and, like an electric wire plugging her into the wind, pulled her along.

            “Excelsior!” she screamed.  “Teddy, Max, you'll have to try this!”  She imagined Max hearing her and pointing and jumping.

            There was a slight jerk.

            It took her a moment to realize she was going down while the boat was going out.  The rope had snapped.  This wasn't supposed to happen.  Was it?  She could see the frantic dot of Teddy racing to the two T-shirted spots at the wheel.  The bay came closer, closer, and she looked up.  The boat curved back toward her.  Just before her plunge.

            Jeannine knifed down and down into the sea, and she hoped she'd stop soon because she didn't have that much breath left, and she opened her eyes and saw strings of bubbles rubbing past so she closed her eyes and the rope curled at her legs while the warm water wound around her.

            Her stomach clutched, such a vile taste.  Acid.  Salt.  And she wrenched.

            A voice.  A soft, concerned sound.

            “Teddy?”

            “Yes.”  She focused.  Water danced on his forehead in the sunlight.  She lay at the bottom of the boat, bouncing on the waves at full speed.  Max stuck his face in and smiled, and a Mexican boy kept saying, “La cuerda fue nueva,” displaying the break in the frayed rope.

            “Ma, it's me, Max.  Pop dove in and got you!”

            She looked up to her husband and saw his wet hair and trembling face.  “Jen, thank God you're alive!”  Teddy held her, his skin with her skin.  His hug felt warm, warm as if he'd never leave.

                                                                          * * *

            Max stood before her, not a little boy, but a tall thin man in a white suit.  Looked like a cigarette ad.

            “Ma, it’s me.  Are you okay?  The doctor says you're all right.  Heart like a teenager.  Can you hear me?”

            “You always built the biggest sand castles.  Remember that time in Mexico?”

            “I know, Ma, but that's not the point.  You're phasing out on me.”

            “Phasing out?”  She looked about the room.  Her bed was unmade, Teddy's book closed, and Pia was on the phone, probably to her boyfriend.

            “Yes, sleeping in your chair.  You were never a sleeper.”

            She straightened.  “You're right.  I wasn't a sleeper.”  She stared at her aging son.  “I'd like coffee.”

            “You know you can't have that.”  He leaned in.  “But how about if I sneak you some coffee ice cream?”

            “You've always been a charmer.”

            His face brightened.  “You're right.”

            “Where's Teddy?”

            “He's off.  Post Office I think.”

            “He's writing a lot of letters lately.”

            “What?”  He looked to Pia who, listening in, gestured back to him.  “Oh, that was days ago.  Now he's probably paying a bill.  If you stay awake, you'll see him.”

            “Is he paying the taxes?  Before you said he was working on the taxes.”

            “That was last month, and we got an accountant for that.”

            “Last month?”  She stared at her son, at his patient, paternal look.  It was as if he were humoring her.  “You think of me as helpless.”

            “I didn't say—”

            “I may be in a wheel chair, and I may ‘phase out’ occasionally, but I'm not helpless.”

            “No, you're getting better, stronger.  Maybe we can take a trip soon.”

            “I feel grimy.  I want to wash my face.”

            “Paris, we can go to Paris—you went there once, right?”

            Max reached for her chair, but she slapped him away.  “I can wheel myself.”  She grabbed the rubbered wheels and shoved.

            “Let me help you.”  Max adjusted the blanket in her lap, then pushed her through the doorway and up to the sink.  Her legs fit underneath the sink and her chin barely cleared the rim.  Dear Ma was too low in the chair to see her face in the mirror, but she could see Max's.  It looked unbalanced.  His hair was parted on the wrong side, and his lips and eyebrows seemed thicker on one side than the other.  “Contrary” was the word she thought.

            “Let me get you a fresh bar of soap,” Max said.

            She saw in the mirror.

            “And a washrag?  You like washrags, don't you?” 

            She was transfixed by the mirror, for she saw in the mirror, backwards in the mirror, marked by the mirror, Teddy's clothes on a hanger on a hook on the door.

            “Ma, what is it?  I thought you wanted to wash your face?”  Max pulled his head down next to hers and saw what she saw.

            She pushed out from the sink and stared into her son's eyes.  “Why didn't you tell me?”

            He saw that he saw the clothes.  “It's cold out there today—he's wearing different stuff, besides galoshes and things.”

            “No underwear?  No tie?  Even if he were sick, he’d insist you bring him clothes.”

            Max, head down, picked at a hangnail on his thumb as if that'd give reason for silence.  He had had the same hang-dog posture as a child.  “It happened a couple of days ago, actually.”

            “He died?”

            He nodded.  “Peacefully.  In his sleep.”

            “And you weren't going to tell me?  You kept planning to say he was at the post office?”

            “You're in and out so much, we didn't know how it'd affect you.  We were afraid you might never come back.”

            “Don't you think I deserved to know?”  To breathe felt like swallowing foam.  Max became a blur.  She tried to steady herself, but the momentum carried her, and she tumbled toward the floor.  Max reacted, but too late.  She broke her own fall.  Curling into a ball, she cried.

            “Ma, I'm sorry.”  His fingers were delicate on her shoulders—he didn't know how to touch her.  When she stopped, Max lifted her back into the chair.

            “Ma?”

            “Yes?”

            “He always loved you.”

            She nodded.  “I wonder if he was dreaming.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “I'm fine,” she said.  “Take me back into the other room.”

            Max did so.  He held her hands for the next hour and spoke of taking her away once she got better.  “What do you think of that?” he said.

            “Yes,” said Dear Ma.

                                                                          * * *

            Un autre café, s'il vous plait.  Je vous en prie.

            Jeannine purposely paused, not only for effect, but also to smell the roast in her café au lait.  She gathered the many folds of her skirt and swung them and herself around so she faced the Champs Elysee.

            “Everything is set, you'll marry Gerald.”

            “I feel... hollow, like my voice and my thoughts have separated.”

            “I’m not saying you have to marry him, but everything is set.” 

            Jeannine looked down and shook her head slightly, as if she were a trapeze artist having doubts.

            “Why did you go out with Gerald so often?  Don't you like him?”

            “I like his middle name better than his first.”

            “Middle?  Theodore? Are we going to buy your trousseau today or not?  Are you going to marry him?”  Jeanine said nothing, so her mother continued, “Shall we finish all the shopping?  If you’re scared of marriage, everyone gets nervous.  You’ll see how it works.  Marriage is quite wonderful.”

            Jeannine paused and watched two red birds glide down from a wire.  They landed on the ground two tables over.

            “He prefers to be called Teddy,” Jeannine said.  “Yes, I'll marry Teddy.”

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