Chương 10
He almost laughed.
“Anything.”
“I trust you to drive.”
“Great.”
“Most days.”
He looked at her.
She smiled.
Then she touched his wrist.
It was brief.
“I trust you more than I did six months ago.”
He nodded.
“That’s enough.”
“No,” Eleanor said. “It isn’t.”
He looked at her.
“But it’s real.”
The rain softened.
A car entered the garage and rolled past them. Its headlights swept across the windshield and disappeared.
Eleanor opened her door.
Mark got out and went around to the trunk.
Her walker was folded inside.
He lifted it out and opened it.
The green tennis balls on the rear legs were worn nearly smooth.
“I need new ones,” Eleanor said.
“I’ll get them.”
“I can get them.”
“I know.”
She looked at him.
“Would you like me to?”
Eleanor considered the question with exaggerated seriousness.
“Yes.”
He smiled.
“Okay.”
He set the walker in front of her.
She took hold of it.
They started toward the elevator.
Halfway there Eleanor stopped.
“What?”
She pointed toward the trunk.
“You left my bag.”
Mark looked back.
A small black overnight bag sat inside. She had brought it to the cardiologist because they planned to visit Laura the next morning and Eleanor was staying at their apartment overnight before the early flight.
For one strange second, the sight of the bag tightened his chest.
Eleanor noticed.
“So did I,” she said.
He looked at her.
Neither needed to explain.
Mark went back.
He lifted the bag carefully.
When he returned, Eleanor was waiting beside the elevator.
The doors opened.
Inside, she pressed the button herself.
That evening Rachel made pasta in their narrow kitchen while Eleanor sat at the table complaining about the chairs.
“They’re uncomfortable.”
“They’re dining chairs,” Rachel said. “You’re not supposed to live in them.”
“They should still respect the spine.”
Mark set Eleanor’s overnight bag beside the hallway.
Rachel glanced at it.
Then at Eleanor.
For an instant all three of them remembered the same wet garage.
Nobody said anything.
Rachel stirred the sauce.
Eleanor adjusted her cardigan.
Mark put the car keys in the bowl beside the door.
Dinner was too salty.
Eleanor said so.
Rachel told her she could cook next time.
Eleanor said she would.
Mark asked both of them whether it was possible to eat one meal without criticism.
They answered “No” at exactly the same time.
Rachel laughed first.
Eleanor followed.
Mark sat there shaking his head.
Later, after Eleanor had gone to sleep in the second bedroom, Rachel found him standing beside the overnight bag.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
She leaned against the wall.
“You’re staring again.”
“I know.”
He picked up the bag.
For six months he had thought often about the one he packed in secret: how carefully he had chosen his mother’s sweaters, how he had put her toiletries into plastic, how he had convinced himself that neat folding made betrayal into responsibility.
This bag was different.
Eleanor had packed it herself.
One night.
Her choice.
Her return already planned.
Mark carried it into the guest room and set it on the luggage stand.
Eleanor was awake.
“You forgot to knock.”
“Sorry.”
She looked at the bag.
“Thank you.”
He started toward the door.
“Mark.”
He turned.
She was holding the framed photograph she traveled with now, the small one of his father standing beside a lake in Maine, sunburned and squinting.
“Your father would’ve made a terrible mess of all this.”
Mark smiled.
“Worse than me?”
“Different.”
“That’s diplomatic.”
“I’m old. We learn tricks.”
He stood in the doorway.
Eleanor put the photograph on the nightstand.
“He loved you very much.”
“I know.”
“He worried about you.”
“I know.”
“He worried you’d spend your whole life trying to make sure nobody was angry.”
Mark looked at the floor.
“Seems he had a point.”
“Yes.”
Eleanor pulled the blanket over her knees.
“But he was wrong about one thing.”
“What?”
“He thought courage meant learning to fight.”
Mark waited.
She looked toward the bag.
“Sometimes it means letting people be angry while you tell them the truth.”
Mark nodded.
“Good night, Mom.”
“Good night.”
He closed the door most of the way.
Rachel was waiting in the hall.
“How much did you hear?”
“Enough.”
“That’s rude.”
“It’s my apartment.”
Mark looked at her.
Rachel grinned.
He followed her into the kitchen.
Rain tapped softly against the windows.
Nothing about their life had become simple.
Eleanor still needed more help each year. Laura still carried guilt from two thousand miles away and sometimes compensated by calling too often. Rachel and Eleanor could turn a harmless comment about laundry into an argument before Mark finished making coffee. Mark still caught himself smoothing facts when he feared somebody’s reaction.
The difference was that he noticed now.
Sometimes too late.
Sometimes just in time.
A week after they returned from visiting Laura, Eleanor called him at work.
“I need to tell you something.”
Mark pushed away from his computer.
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“Then what?”
“I toured a place.”
His hand stopped on the mouse.
“What place?”
“A retirement community.”
He said nothing.
Eleanor waited.
“Which one?”
“Not Cedar Glen.”
“Okay.”
“It has independent apartments. Assisted living is in another building if I need it later.”
“Okay.”
“You keep saying okay.”
“I’m trying very hard not to have an opinion before you finish.”
There was silence.
Then Eleanor said, “That sounds exhausting.”
“It is.”
She laughed.
Mark relaxed slightly.
“Did you like it?”
“I hated the carpet.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I learned from you.”
He smiled.
She continued.
“The apartment was nice. The dining room smelled like gravy. There’s a library. They have transportation. A woman named Joyce followed me for twenty minutes explaining pickleball.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“Extremely.”
“Do you want to move?”
“I don’t know.”
Mark stared at his office window.
Rain clouds were building beyond the city.
“What do you want from me?”
“I wanted to tell you.”
“That’s all?”
May you like
“That’s all.”
He sat with that.
