They May Not Mean To, But They Do(25)

“So you really have to take it easy, Mom. Will you be able to do that? Just rest and let your strength come back?”

“Danny, you’re so good to me. You and your sister are so good to me.”

“Molly will be back in a few weeks.”

“She’s a good daughter. I am so lucky.”

Daniel smiled. She reminded him of his daughters when they had a low-grade fever. How sweet they became.

“You’re okay with not touching the pouch? Molly and I were a little worried. We know you like to take care of everything, especially about Dad, which is admirable, completely understandable. But this is really important. No pouch.”

“Lovely,” Joy said, closing her eyes. “Lovely.”

She could remember, in a soft, foggy way, the motions of taking care of Aaron, gathering his pills, counting them, explaining what each one was, then explaining again, helping him out of his wet pajamas, squatting down to get each of his enormous feet into his pant legs … And then the pouch, removing it, emptying it, washing Aaron, drying the hole, affixing the new pouch …

*

Each night Walter helped her to the bathroom. He brought her things to eat and helped her move the spoon from the bowl to her mouth. What a kind, kind man. When he appeared in the room carrying a tray or a basin of water, she was always pleasantly surprised. There was that kind man again.

When it was not night, there were the other kind people. Elvira, wiry and fast as a greyhound, whisking into the room and whisking out again. She had worked for Aaron and Joy for many years, coming every other week for a few hours. But now, Danny explained, she was coming in three mornings a week. She had insisted, he said. She didn’t trust the others. Joy smiled when he said this. She smiled when he said anything. She really did not care what he said or what anyone else said as long as she did not have to move, as long as she could lie on the couch and rest. Never had fatigue been this heavy, never had it been this welcome. Lovely, she said when someone spoke to her. Thank you, she said. How kind of you.

“So kind,” she said. “Everyone is so kind.”





14

Could Molly have ever convinced Freddie to move to New York? Of course she could have. Even though Freddie had a tenured position teaching English at UCLA while Molly had been an adjunct at a community college in New York. Even though Molly had a better position here and was paid more, too. Even though her new Catalina Island investigations, unlike the work she’d been doing in Syria, were not likely to get her kidnapped or beheaded. But she did not want to convince Freddie to move to New York.

She thought guiltily of her mother and father trapped in their apartment. Freddie’s father, Duncan, was old, too, as Freddie sometimes had to remind her, but that had not entered into Molly’s decision. He did not weigh on Molly’s mind as he should have, meaning she often forgot he existed.

But he did exist, he was old, and now he had fallen.

Freddie spoke to the paramedics, who said they’d thought at first that Duncan’s hip was broken, but he was standing on it, so it couldn’t possibly be broken. “The pain would be unbearable,” they said. “Take him to the doctor, though, just to make sure there are no sprains.”

The assisted-living facility where Duncan lived was called Green Garden, so Freddie and Molly naturally called it Grey Gardens. When they arrived, Molly waited in the car while Freddie went upstairs and got her father into a wheelchair.

“We going to the track?” Duncan said.

“No. We’re going to the doctor. Because you fell.”

“I’d rather go to the track.”

It turned out you could stand up with a broken hip, after all. Duncan Hughes could, anyway. After the doctor saw his X-rays, Duncan was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. Freddie and Molly followed in the car. Freddie was too shocked to say much. A broken hip for a man in his late eighties. That was pretty much it for her father. Pneumonia would come next, and he would die. That’s what always happened.

“He’s not like other people,” Molly said, as if she’d read Freddie’s thoughts. “He’ll walk out of there, Freddie. You’ll see.”

Freddie called her brothers and sisters. One brother lived in Melbourne, one in Hong Kong. Both sisters lived in Rio. They ran a boutique together.

“They all said the exact same thing,” Freddie told Molly. “‘Keep me informed.’”

“They came for his eighty-fifth birthday. I guess they think that’s enough.”

“So then they’ll end up coming for his funeral, and it won’t make any difference because he’ll be dead. People should have pre-funerals.”

But Molly turned out to be right: Duncan was not like other people, there was no funeral, and he returned to his room at Green Garden.

“He seems happy to be back. Although he thought the name was Green Goddess. And he still wants to go to the track.”

“We should take him. Maybe his luck will hold out. We’ll win some money.”





15

Daniel took Ruby and Cora to the Museum of the City of New York. He thought they would like the Victorian dollhouse, but they preferred an exhibit on graffiti. Then they walked down Fifth Avenue, past the hospital, toward his parents’ apartment, and the girls insisted on getting ice cream from a vendor although it was windy and cold.