Not Perfect(77)

Nora nodded again. Tabitha was ready to go, she’d told all her secrets, and hopefully nobody was the wiser, since Nora thought that it was over sixty years ago and she was in the park on a picnic. As Tabitha moved to get up, Nora reached out her dry hand. Tabitha stopped and looked at her. Something changed on Nora’s face. She looked around, startled. She moved her legs, slowly, and twirled her hair back into a bun, securing it with a rubber band from her wrist.

“Oh, it happened again,” Nora said sadly.

“You’re okay now,” Tabitha said. “Let me help you get to the chair, and then I have to go.”

Nora let her grab her under the shoulders, gently—she was so light—and helped to push herself up. Tabitha got her sitting in her chair with her leg up on the ottoman.

“Good night, Nora,” Tabitha said, turning to leave, pushing the bag to her other side so Nora wouldn’t see it.

“I heard you,” Nora said. “I heard what you said about the stealing.”

Tabitha stopped but did not turn around.

“Bring me the phone, dear,” Nora said. “So I can call the police.”

Now Tabitha turned back slowly. She imagined the police storming the apartment, the man at the desk saying, “Yeah, it seemed too early. I knew something was up.” Tabitha being carted away, so she couldn’t get back to Levi in the hospital. She looked up at Nora, thinking she was just going to run. Nora would never be able to find her. And she saw Nora smiling.

“I got you!” Nora said. “It was too easy!”

“Got me?” Tabitha asked, slowly, still ready to run.

“I know about the stealing, dear,” Nora said, sounding like her old self. “I put the money there for people to take. I have so much, and so many people need it. I have one aide who can’t afford to buy her son a birthday present. He’s turning ten. Ten years old! Well, I hope she took some money. I have another who doesn’t eat much—she gives all her food to her kids and eats only what’s left over. Boy I hope she took some money. And you, well, you looked funny to me. I wasn’t sure but, I’ve been meaning to ask, are you a registered aide? You don’t dress like everyone else, and you don’t act like them either.”

At this, Tabitha relaxed a little. She had the urge to laugh, but she didn’t dare.

“There are no banks in heaven dear, or stores for that matter,” Nora said. “What am I going to do with it all?”

“Well, I plan to pay you back,” Tabitha said. “One day I will, I promise.”

“No need,” Nora said with a wave. “Take more. Just leave a little for the others. I’ll have my son go to the bank and get more cash out this week.”

“Does your son know you do this?” Tabitha asked.

“Oh yes,” Nora said. “The thing is, people don’t want to take money that is handed to them, but some don’t want to steal either. That’s why I put all the signs on the door. I should add some to the Monopoly board. But I still suspect some of the ones who need it have never taken a dollar. I worry about them. The best I can do is leave it and hope they find it. I’m going to have to come up with a new system.”

“I wouldn’t normally steal,” Tabitha said, because she felt she had to. “I’ve been . . . I guess the word would be desperate, lately.”

“We all are sometimes,” Nora said.

Tabitha felt she had to get back to Levi. She felt a physical pull.

“And dear?” Nora said.

“Yes?”

“Don’t feel guilty. Did you have a good relationship with your mother most of your life?”

“Yes, very good,” Tabitha said, surprised that Nora actually heard what she said about her mother.

“That’s what’s important. Let the rest go. That’s what she would want, I’m fairly sure of that.”

Tabitha was crying now, with inappropriate spurts of laughter escaping every few seconds.

“And that man, the one with the peanut allergy? Are you sure he died?”

“Oh, no,” Tabitha said quickly through her tears. “I’m not. I have no idea actually.”

“Well, find out,” Nora said. “You might be worrying about something that never happened.”

Tabitha nodded. She considered telling her about Levi, but she couldn’t confess any more. Plus Nora hadn’t even asked her for an excuse about why she took the money.

“I’m going to go now,” Tabitha said. “And I have money in my bag, from the jar in the bathroom, lots of it, do you want me to give it back?”

“No, dear,” Nora said.

“I’m keeping a record of it,” Tabitha said. “I’ll pay you back.”

Nora waved her off as she moved around to try to get comfortable in the chair. She reached behind her back and pulled out what looked like a bent photo that she had been sitting on, one of those old Polaroid pictures, the kind that come out the bottom of the camera. Tabitha hadn’t seen one of those in a long time. Nora worked to unbend it.

“My son threw me a birthday party,” Nora said, holding out the photo. “I have one clever son.”

Tabitha reached in to take it.

“I should explain,” Nora said, but Tabitha was barely listening, something in the picture had caught her eye. “It might seem uncouth to you if I don’t. You might be aware that it takes the planet Uranus eighty years to orbit the Sun, or is it the Earth? Well, it takes Uranus eighty years to do something important. And I just turned eighty, so my son thought, well, he thought it would be funny.”