The Middlesteins: A Novel(46)

Right now, though, the night before her first surgery, her only consideration was the potato chips and the onion dip, party food, a mere appetizer, but this was no party. Tomorrow a tiny metal tube would be inserted into her leg. It was not a big deal as far as surgeries went, although no one was happy with the idea of her being cut open in the first place. But she would be able to walk the same as always, even the same day. There would be some pain and some painkillers. She was going to be okay, though. She came from sturdy Russian stock, she kept telling herself, even though her father had died before he turned sixty. If only he hadn’t smoked, if only he hadn’t drank. If only she didn’t eat.

She rose from her bed, and traveled along the same floorboards she had been traveling on for thirty-five years, the only ones that didn’t creak beneath her, the only ones that would not wake her husband. She had worn a slight path in the carpeting above the floor, but they had never bothered to replace it. It was a room they spent little time in, lights out, good night, that’s it. The carpeting was blue and nubby and stained with who-knows-what. The diamond-checked wallpaper curling at the ends. The curtains hadn’t been opened in decades. The room was sealed from the outside world.

With her eyes shut, she could walk the path from her bed, down the hallway past Benny’s and Robin’s old bedrooms, their high-school graduation photos hanging on the wall outside each, their bathroom that had become hers, a place for her to hide her naked self, down the stairs, all of which creaked, but by then she was home free in her own home—Richard would never hear a thing; then through the living room, where the carpeting was newer though not new, a sky-gray plush frieze purchased when the grandchildren were younger, somewhere soft for them to play, and it had always felt nice under her feet when she made this nightly journey to the kitchen, the last stop before the linoleum, washed-out orange daisies on scuffed yellow-and-brown tile. Thirty-five years ago that tile had cheered her up every morning, and now, like everything else, it was just another surface to cross until she reached the food she desired.

She pushed through the swinging doorway to the kitchen and choked out a cry: There sat Benny, a book in front of him, a cup of coffee, a chocolate chip cookie on a plate, a stale, pained look on his face. He had been waiting awhile for her. He could not rest until she did.

“What’s up, Mom?” he said. “You thirsty?”

“I was… yes, thirsty.” Dazed, she went to a cabinet and pulled out a glass, walked to the refrigerator and pressed the glass up into the built-in ice dispenser, then leaned against the refrigerator. “Should I go back to bed?”

“It’s your house, you can do whatever you want,” he said. He closed the book in front of him. It was a Harry Potter book. He pointed to it, a little embarrassed. “The kids like them, I wanted to see what it was all about.”

“Any good?” she said. She poured some water into the glass from a Brita on the counter, and then sat down at the table with him.

Benny, not as tall as his father, but better looking, smoother skin, tamer eyebrows, a warmer heart, he had turned out so well, considered the book with a back-and-forth of his head. “Goes quick,” he said. “They like things that move fast, those two.”

“They’re both so bright,” said Edie. “And good-looking. And funny.”

“All right, all right, Grandma, we know you’re crazy about them. Don’t go giving them a big head.” He had been a jokey, sweet kid, and he had grown into a jokey, sweet man.

She took a big gulp of her water, and restrained herself from pushing her lie too far and letting out a satisfied Ahhh. She tapped her fingers on the table, her paltry wedding ring barely giving off a shimmer. “So why are you up? Are you having trouble sleeping?”

“One hundred percent I don’t want to be sitting down here,” he said. “But the doctor told me that it was important for a number of reasons you have an empty stomach before the surgery.” Your weight, he didn’t say. Your heart, he didn’t say. Your health, your life, your death. “I just wanted to remind you about that. In case you had forgotten.”

“I’m just getting some water,” she said.

“And I’m just reading a book,” he said.

Six months later, he sat in the kitchen the night before another surgery. And again she rose from her bed in hopes he would not be there, and again he stopped her from eating. It was something good he could do for this person even though it was hard because it made him feel powerful in a way he never wanted. He respected his mother, because she had raised him with love, and because she was a smart woman, even though she was also so incredibly stupid. Also, he respected humanity in general. He respected a person’s right to weakness. For all these reasons, he never told anyone he stayed up late waiting for his mother, not even his wife. What happened in that kitchen was between Benny and Edie. With grace he offered her his love and protection, and she accepted it, tepidly, warily. It did not bring them closer together, but it did not tear them apart.