When Women Were Dragons(40)

The doctors said that there was little that could be done, aside from keeping her comfortable.

My mother stayed in the hospital until she passed away on June 5, 1961. Beatrice and I visited her every day after school, while our father was at work. We remained at her side, quietly doing our homework or reading our books or drawing, until the nurses chased us out at five, and then we walked home. I made dinner. I cleaned up. My father stayed at work later and later. Sometimes, he wouldn’t even come home until morning, already showered and dressed for the day. He paid the local grocer to deliver the groceries and stock our shelves. He didn’t make breakfast (I did that), and he didn’t pack our lunches (I did that as well). Instead he patted us each on the head as though we were a couple of Labradors, and told us to be good girls and to say our prayers and obey our teachers. And then he turned and left, whistling on his way to work.

When I asked why my father never came to see her in the hospital, my mother told me that he came every single day during his lunch breaks. But I had never seen it. As far as I know, the only time he went to the hospital was when he stayed by her side for those first five nights. And then never again. Sometimes, all these years later, I do try to be charitable. Maybe he couldn’t bear it. Maybe it hurt too much to watch her slip away. Maybe he wasn’t raised to be a strong man. Maybe he loved her too much to lose her. Maybe all those things are true, and every other characterization I have for him that is . . . more obvious and less kind . . . perhaps those are true as well. And maybe this is the same with all of us—our best selves and our worst selves and our myriad iterations of mediocre selves are all extant simultaneously within a soul containing multitudes. In any case, I noticed the way the nurses pressed their lips into a thin line whenever they heard my mother speak of my father’s supposed kindnesses. I loved my mother, but I knew better than to believe her.

For weeks, I lay next to her on the hospital bed, curled against what was left of her body—cold hands, cold feet, dark hollows where her cheeks had been. She was as light as ashes. She was blowing away. Beatrice lay between us for a while, but eventually, she pulled herself into a little ball on a chair and fell fast asleep. My sister was a tiny thing. All compact heat and potential energy and hidden possibilities, like an egg. My mother used to say the little girl could fit in her pocket. And every time she said so, it made her voice catch.

On the day she died, in those last moments, my mother asked me to read her Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem about Tithonus. This was not unusual, as she had asked me to read it to her nearly every day during her hospitalization. I didn’t know that this time would be different. I didn’t know that this would be the last time. How could I know? My mother’s hand drifted to my hand. Her eyes were two opaque clouds.

“Read it again,” she said. Her voice was small and dry and light, like the husk of a cicada after it has long ago flown away.

She didn’t have to say what to read. I already knew. A crumbling book of poems by Alfred, Lord Tennyson sat at the table next to her bed with a bookmark on the page. I opened it up. Beatrice snored in the chair next to mine, her cheeks flushed and her mouth slack. Even her snores were adorable. I cleared my throat.

“The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,” I read.

“The vapors weep their burthen to the ground.”

My mother opened her mouth in a sigh. I continued.

“Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath.” My mother groaned a bit.

“And after many a summer dies the swan.”

The poem went on. Tithonus, I felt, got a raw deal. The gods are selfish. And careless. It is a cruel thing indeed to force life onto someone who is ready to die, to rip them away from eternal rest and their supposed reward. And yet. If I could have waved a goddess’s hand and made my mother live forever—even if it meant that she would shrivel and shrink, even if it meant she would reduce to the size of a cricket? If I could have held her close for as long as I lived? If I could have kept her with me, even now? Of course I know it wouldn’t have been fair. But I would be lying if I said I wouldn’t do it.

I watched my mother. She didn’t move for a long time after I finished. I felt myself start to panic.

Breathe, I thought at her, as though my thoughts meant anything.

Breathe, Mama, please please breathe.

I watched her chest and put my hand in front of her mouth, looking for evidence of the movement of air. Suddenly, my mother took a deep, hacking gasp, and took my hand. Her fingers were ice-cold. She looked right at me, though I couldn’t tell how much she could actually see. Her eyes were cloudy smudges.

“Hey, Mom,” I said. My voice was impossibly small. A child’s voice. “Do you want me to read the poem again?”

“Stop,” my mother rasped. Her fingers lingered on the knotted cord around my wrist. She pinched the knot.

I didn’t know what I was supposed to stop. “Do you need medicine?” I asked.

“Stop,” she said again. She lifted her other hand a few inches off the bed and then let it drop onto her sheets, as though the effort was too much to bear. I picked it up myself and held both her hands between my palms. Her fingers curled around mine and held on as tight as she could, which wasn’t much.

“Okay, Mother. I’ll stop.” I still didn’t know what she meant. But just my saying so seemed to have an effect. She visibly relaxed and sighed a bit.