They May Not Mean To, But They Do(21)

Molly had just asked the resident how long her father had to live. The resident said he could die tomorrow. Or not. He could live for a year. Or not. Or more. Or not.

“New York pastrami!” the resident said. “Good sign. A man with an appetite.”

In fact, Aaron had eaten nothing but a spoonful of ice cream in days, and when Molly arrived with the sandwich, he said there was a disgusting smell in the room, waved his big hand at her, and made her take it away.

She took the pastrami sandwich, which she had gone all the way to Zabar’s to get, to the cafeteria and split it with her mother and brother.

“It shouldn’t go to waste,” Joy said.

“That doctor said Daddy could come home in a day or two,” Molly said.

Joy wagged her head noncommittally.

“So we have to think about that.”

“You do need some help, Mom,” Daniel said. “Maybe someone to live in. Just for a while.”

“Molly’s here.”

Molly said slowly, clearly, “‘Help’ as in ‘You can’t get good help these days,’ not help as in ‘My daughter is a great help.’”

“And Molly has to leave on Friday.”

“I’ll cope,” Joy said. “I always have.”

“And when you’re at work? Do you want Daddy crawling down Park Avenue with no pants on? He needs someone to watch him.”

Joy sensed that Molly was right, but she wondered if it was necessary for Molly to bark at her like that. It was certainly expeditious, that bark, for even when Molly was not right, people tended to listen to her. But not this time, Joy thought. “I’m not sending him to a home,” she said. “Period.”

“Maybe we can get a nurse’s aide to come in,” Daniel said.

“I don’t want those people in my house. A different person every day … strangers snooping around.”

“But it would be so ‘cosmopolitan,’” Molly said, her voice full of sarcasm.

“What are you, sixteen years old, Molly? Give me a break.”

Molly did not give her a break, how could she? “You have to hire someone, whatever it costs. What have you been saving for all these years? A rainy day? This is the rainy day.”

Daniel said, “If it’s the money—”

“Of course it’s the money.”

“—then we can help you out, right, Molly? I mean as long as Ruby gets into a good public high school and Cora gets into a charter school for middle school and…”

“Take from my children?” Joy made a disgusted, dismissive sound. “Out of the question.”

“Well, then you could always sell Upstate,” Daniel said.

A horrified silence.

Then, “Never.”

Joy had inherited the little house Upstate when her mother died. She had fought to keep it safe from … well, from Aaron. There was no other way to put it, though she had tried at the time. We’re putting it in a trust, she had declared. A trust in my name. To keep it safe from creditors, she’d said repeatedly. But they all knew what she meant. Safe from Aaron. The house sat on a hill above a stream in Columbia County, New York. Upstate, Joy’s mother used to say. We’re going Upstate this weekend. Upstate was where the noise and worry of the city disappeared and the stream gurgled, where the birds sang. Upstate was the fruit of her father’s labors, that’s what he used to say when he stood on the porch and looked out at the maple tree and the three birch trees and the weeping willow by the stream. It was also the fruit of his frugality, and finally of his generosity. He had worked so hard, supporting every stray uncle or aunt or cousin who wandered through his door, and there had been a mob of them. Then the Depression ended and he was a manager, and then the war ended and he was a vice president. Spend a dollar, save a dollar, he said. And one day he announced that he had a surprise, and they drove out of town and into the country to the white-shingled house. He had saved and he had invested. Upstate was his reward, a reward he left to his wife and she left to Joy.

“I am not selling Upstate. It’s all I have. Do you want me to have nothing? Nothing?”

“Yeah, Daniel. Do you want her to have nothing?” Molly said.

“Of course I don’t want her to have nothing. I just want her to hire some help.”

“So do I. But we can’t sell the house. It’s our family house.”

Daniel noticed that Molly said “we” can’t sell the house. But it was their mother’s house, not theirs. Molly spent ten days a year in the house, if that. What difference did it make to her? Daniel spent every summer there with his wife and children. He loved the house. But love and sentimentality were two different things, or they ought to be.

“It’s part of who we are,” Molly was saying. It was true she no longer spent any time there, but she thought about the house all the time. It was an anchor of some kind, an East Coast anchor. It was there, stable and firm, even if she was not.

“Why are you fetishizing this house? Mom and Dad need help, they need money to pay for the help, the house is an asset that can be liquidated. Do you want them to live in squalor so you can idealize a house you never use?”

“Children! Stop it right now.”

Molly and Daniel were quiet. They looked at her sheepishly.