The Honey Bus. Meredith May

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СКАЧАТЬ and a low-flow showerhead that misted weakly.

      Granny led us to the spare bedroom that used to be Mom’s when she was a girl. It had since been painted a cantaloupe color. I stepped inside and immediately saw my world shrink: Matthew would sleep in a cot in the corner, and I would share the double bed with Mom. We would put our clothes into a Victorian marble-topped vanity with two lavender-scented drawers. My room in Rhode Island suddenly seemed like a castle in comparison to this small box, so crowded by beds there was no space to play.

      Mom immediately closed the curtains to the sun, sending a shadow over the walls. Granny steered Matthew and me back into the hallway.

      “Your mother needs some peace and quiet,” she whispered. “Go on and play outside.”

      Granny had a voice that never suggested, but always instructed. We immediately understood the first unspoken rule of our new home—Granny was in charge. She would be the one to set our daily routine, plan the meals and make decisions for Mom, Grandpa, us.

      Mom didn’t join us for dinner that night, so Granny put a bowl of tomato soup and toast on a tray for her instead. She set a crystal vase with a rose next to the bowl, like hotel service.

      “Someone get the door,” Granny said, standing before Mom’s bedroom.

      I twisted the doorknob and pushed, sending a wedge of yellow light into the darkened room, and a plume of cigarette smoke billowed out. The air was so thick I could feel it pour into my lungs as I inhaled. I took a step back and let Granny go in first. She gently approached the bed, where Mom was curled in a fetal position, crying softly. A glass ashtray the color of amber rested on the headboard, filled with a cone of ash.

      “Sally?”

      Mom moaned by way of answer.

      “You should eat something.”

      Mom uncurled herself and sat up. She winced and squeezed her temples.

      “Migraine,” she whispered. Her voice was so thin, it sounded like it might tear. Granny flicked on the light, and I could see Mom’s face was flushed and her eyes were puffy.

      “Tylenol?” Granny offered, fishing the plastic bottle out of her pocket and rattling it.

      Mom extended her arm, and Granny dropped two pills in her palm. Granny held out a water glass and Mom gulped twice, handed it back, then flopped back down into the pillows.

      “The light,” she said.

      I reached up and turned it back off.

      Mom seemed so weak, like she couldn’t even hold her head up. I thought of that time I found a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest. It was pink, and I could see the blue of its bulging eyes that had yet to open. The poor thing’s head lolled to the side when I tried to pick it up.

      “I’ll just leave this here,” Granny said, setting the tray at the foot of the bed. Mom waved it away. Granny stood over the bed for a few seconds, waiting for Mom to change her mind. She bent down and adjusted the pillows to make Mom more comfortable, then Mom closed her eyes again and turned away from us. Granny picked up the tray and we shuffled out.

      That first night Matthew slept in his new cot, while I crawled into the big bed where Mom was burrowed into the middle, the sheets tightly wound around her like a burrito. I carefully tugged on the sheet, trying not to wake her. She mumbled in her sleep and half-heartedly tugged back, then scooted aside to make room for me. She sniffled and fell into a light snore.

      I moved to the edge of the mattress, as far as I could possibly be from Mom without falling out of the bed. I faced the window, which ran the length of the wall, tracing the moonlight that leaked in around the perimeter of the curtains with my finger. I didn’t want our bodies to touch, as if her tears were contagious.

      I felt twitchy and sleep wouldn’t come. I wondered what Dad was doing at that moment, if he was walking through the empty rooms of our house, changing his mind and deciding to come to California after all. I hoped that whatever had just happened to our family was temporary, but I didn’t understand what had broken, so I couldn’t imagine how to fix it. I had a new uneasiness in the pit of my stomach because I now knew the injustice of random bad luck, that it was possible to have a family one day and lose it the next. I wanted to know why I was being singled out for punishment, and tried to retrace my steps to pinpoint what I had done wrong to have my life upended this way. It was baffling, but I had the sense that going forward, I had to choose my words, and my steps, more carefully, so I could do my part to comfort my mother and slowly, craftily, coax her happiness back. I had to be good, and patient, and maybe my luck would turn around.

      Mom’s and Matthew’s snores settled into a syncopated rhythm, and I tried to match my breathing to theirs so I could relax into sleep. I lay motionless and fell into a self-induced trance, humming “Yellow Submarine” quietly until I receded somewhere deep inside my skull and blinked out.

      Over the next few weeks, Mom remained bedridden. Granny tried various strategies to cheer her up and brought her all sorts of bedside meals, trying to find something she could stomach. But Mom refused most of it, accepting only sugary coffee, canned soda and the occasional bowl of cottage cheese. Granny fetched hot pads for her back, cold compresses for her forehead and murder mysteries from the library. Still Mom’s migraines wouldn’t go away. When she complained of sore muscles, Granny dug around in the hall closet and produced a gadget that looked like a handheld electric mixer; only this thing had one stem protruding from it that ended in a flat metal disc. Granny plugged it in and the disc heated up and vibrated. She sat on the bed and moved the vibrator across Mom’s back in lazy arcs, loosening the tension while Mom sighed with relief.

      My brother and I were not allowed in the bedroom during daytime because Mom needed to recuperate, but Granny would sit at her bedside for hours in deep conversation, and despite my eavesdropping I caught only snatches of it. Mostly I heard Granny reassuring Mom that it wasn’t her fault, that she could put this behind her, that men were worthless when you really get right down to it, and not worth this much fussing over. I’d hear Mom sniffling and asking wounded questions. Why me? What am I supposed to do now? What did I ever do to deserve this? Her questions were similar to my own, and I strained to hear an answer from Granny that would explain. One never came, and eventually I grew weary of spying and gave up.

      Spring came, and the almond tree in the front yard erupted in white flowers. Mom entered her third month of bed rest, yet her despondency only grew. Mom’s bad luck invoked in Granny an inexhaustible pity. While Granny gave Mom a safe haven and unlimited time to regain her strength, she worked double-time to hold up appearances that my younger brother and I weren’t really semiorphans. She never spoke to us about what was happening to our mother, instead forging ahead as if nothing was amiss. Granny bought and washed our clothes, took us to the doctor for checkups, made us brush our teeth before bed and wrote scathing letters to our father demanding he send more money to support us. Granny adapted to her second motherhood with a sense of family duty, which gave Mom permission to carve out a new identity as a woman scorned. Granny looked after Matthew and me in an obligatory way, without the affection she reserved for her daughter. Mom was her child, and we were more like unexpected foster kids. In her most frustrated moments, she blamed Matthew and me for ruining her life plans, letting us know that if it weren’t for that no-good father of ours, she could have been enjoying her retirement.

      Her suggestion to go outside and play became a refrain. Granny now had more laundry to do, more food to make, more dirt tracked in the house to clean up and she couldn’t keep up with it if we were constantly underfoot.

      Outside there СКАЧАТЬ