The Mother-in-Law(58)

I think about all my conversations with Jan and Liz and Kathy about daughters-in-law. We’d always focused on how different they are from us, how their mothering is different, their attitudes are different. We’ve never once focused on our similarities. As women. As wives. As mothers. It occurs to me suddenly that there are a lot more of them.

“Let’s go,” I say to Tom.

He looks as though he’s going to protest, but I pull him out of the doorway before he can. Lucy won’t want us here today. And today, I’m thinking about her.

Tom and I drive home in silence. I assume the quiet is to allow me to process my thoughts about what happened with Lucy, but when we pull up in front of the house and Tom doesn’t get out of the car straightaway . . . I realize I’d assumed wrong.

“This was all my fault,” he says. “I’m the one who dropped Harriet.”

“Nonsense.” I release my seat belt and pivot in my seat. “It was an accident.”

“Accidents have been happening for a while. My grip strength has been getting worse and worse.”

I roll my eyes. “We’re getting older, Tom. Nothing works as well as it used to.”

“I went to the doctor about it, a couple of months ago.”

I pause. “You did?”

“Dr. Paisley ordered some tests and told me I should see a specialist. A neurologist. So I did.”

“You did what? Saw a specialist?” I’m stunned. How could this have been going on without my knowing? Tom doesn’t have secrets. (Once, when the kids were little, he told them on Christmas Eve that Santa had told him he was going to bring them bikes the next day. “I just couldn’t wait to see their little faces,” he’d said.)

Tom stares straight ahead, his hands on the wheel at ten and two. “I haven’t seen the specialist yet. But I have an appointment tomorrow. It’s with a guy who specializes in motor neuron disease. It’s also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease.”

I stare at him.

“I didn’t want to tell you until I had more information, but . . . after what happened . . . it’s my fault what happened to Harriet. I should never have agreed to hold her.”

My throat is dry. I try to swallow but there’s nothing there. I stare at the side of Tom’s face. His large, craggy face.

“I’d like you to come with me to my appointment tomorrow.”

“Of course I’ll come. I wish I had been there for all your appointments.”

“I know you do,” he says, and he lets go of the steering wheel and lays one hand, palm up, in my lap. We sit like that in the car for nearly an hour, staring at the windshield.

The next day, Tom and I go to the neurologist’s office. We enter the waiting room, announce our arrival, and take our seats on a couple of chairs. In the space beside me, a man sits in a wheelchair, head lolling, his chin supported by a white pad, a purple travel pillow horseshoe-ing his neck. He is, at a glance, at least ten years younger than Tom. The woman beside him, his wife presumably, flicks through a magazine, glancing up at him every so often and smiling, or leaning forward with a tissue to wipe the corner of his mouth. Even after the lady sees me looking, I’m unable to look away.

“Tom Goodwin?” says the doctor.

“Yes,” Tom says.

I keep looking at the woman. She gives me a slight frown but then her gaze slithers to Tom and understanding dawns. She gives me a small, almost indistinct nod.

“Diana? Are you coming?”

“Oh . . . yes.” I break gazes with the woman and Tom and I walk into the room.

I drive home. It is one of only a handful of times I’ve driven while Tom was in the car. Most times have been when he’s had had too much to drink—a lot too much, because often he drove anyway, we weren’t as vigilant about drunk driving in our day. But there were a couple of other times. Once, when we were newly married and on a road trip to visit his cousin in Bright in the Victorian countryside. Ollie was in the backseat of the car, just a toddler, and Tom was driving far too fast for my liking so I demanded he slow down. Finally he pulled over onto the dusty side of the road, wrenched up the hand brake and said: “Fine. If you never want to get there, you drive.” He could be dreadfully hot-headed, Tom. I’d taken the wheel, and despite Tom’s lack of faith, we did make it there and in good time. He’d muttered and moaned about it for an hour or so, then calmed down like he always did. By the time we arrived we were chuckling about it. I wonder if, soon, the rest of my memories of Tom will be catalogued like this. Memories of him as a father, memories of him as a grandfather. Memories of fights, memories of joy. All of them memories, because he is gone.

“When we get home, I’ll get on the phone about a second opinion,” I say, my voice full of authority. And I will get a second opinion, a third one too. We’ll go through the process and exhaust all the avenues. But in the end, Tom will die, somehow I know this. He won’t be in his nineties, he won’t even be in his seventies. He will die, and I will have to live.

“When we get home,” Tom replies, “I want to go to bed.”

We pull to a stop at a red traffic light and I turn to look at him properly. His eyes are shiny, the bottom lid heavy, threatening to spill. “Okay,” I say. “We’ll go to bed.”

The tears spill as I pull out of the intersection. I leave him to it, his own personal grieving process. He doesn’t need me telling him everything will be okay when we both know it won’t. Instead I give his hand a firm squeeze. My role is clear to me now. I will be the strong one. I’ll be good at this. I am aware of my limitations. I’m not warm, I’m not especially kind. But I can be strong. I can allow Tom to slip away knowing I will be all right. This, I can give him.