They May Not Mean To, But They Do(43)

The memories did not comfort her. They made her feel the years that had passed and that, like Aaron, would never return. They made her old. Sometimes, when she got up to go to the bathroom, she caught sight of herself in the mirror and thought it was her grandfather. All she had to do was spit some tobacco. The smell of her grandfather and his chewing tobacco came back to her, and she got back into bed, sleepless and sick to her stomach.

When Danny came to dinner, he always said, “I’ll bring a roast chicken from Gourmet Garage so you won’t have to cook.”

Cook? She could barely recall when she had last cooked. She did make toast. She sometimes boiled an egg. But she would not be cooking Danny a nice dinner like a proper mother, like a proper hostess, she didn’t have the strength, he was right about that. She decided she would make the table look pretty. She would use the silver. She would light candles.

She bent down and pulled out the bottom drawer in the kitchen cabinet, where the tablecloths were kept, then stood up holding a fresh bright white embroidered cloth and banged her head on a cabinet door she’d left open. She cried from pain and frustration, but forced herself on, into the dining room, to spread the cloth. But how could she spread the beautiful white cloth? The dining-room table was covered with mail and file folders; there was a tray with an egg-stained plate and a pink jammy crust of bread; large bottles of pills dozed on their sides like sea lions; magazines and catalogues and unread newspapers had slithered out from piles that had then collapsed and fanned across yet another egg-stained plate. A pile of bills, three piles of bills, each topped with a yellow Post-it that said Urgent. Joy sat at the table crying and trying to decipher the bills. They made no sense. She began to dial Molly’s number to tell her the dining-room table was a mess, as if Molly should fly in from California to straighten it up, then caught herself and hung up.

*

She choked when Danny came to dinner. A piece of chicken flew out of her throat and landed on her plate, slimy and colorless.

The sounds were hideous, like a crow’s, like a gasping dying crow’s. KEH-KEH-KEH. She tried to drink water. No air came in, no air went out, her throat was closed and squeezing and pushing, and out came the piece of chicken in a gush of unswallowed liquid. It lay there in a pool of water like a tiny dead baby.

Danny had been pounding her on the back. Now he stood beside her staring at the lump of flesh in its little pond. “Jesus.”

Joy patted her mouth with her napkin, then spread it over her plate, covering the chicken.

“Jesus,” he said again. He stroked her hair. “Mom, can you talk?”

Joy put her head in her hands. She could talk. But what was there to say?

*

“So how’s Mom?” Molly asked Daniel later that night.

“She says she’s okay. She got a piece of chicken stuck in her throat. It was disgusting. And scary.”

“But she’s okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. You know her. She’s a trooper.”

*

“Daniel said you seemed pretty good,” Molly said to her mother the next day.

“We had chicken.”

“Are you getting out at all? You need to get out, see your friends.”

“Oh no. Not in this weather.”

“Aren’t you going stir-crazy?”

“You know, I’m a very busy person, Molly.” Joy gazed at the datebooks splayed in front of her on the dining-room table, one of them so old the cover hung off like an empty sleeve, an amputee’s empty sleeve. “Between losing things and looking for things I’ve lost and going to the bathroom,” she said, “well, the day just isn’t long enough.”

“You’re funny.”

“I’m not trying to be.”

Molly laughed. “You really are funny. Now make a date with a friend. With Natalie. Go to the 92nd Street Y the minute it gets warm enough, okay? I’m so proud of you, Mom! Daniel’s right. You really are a trooper.”

“She’s so strong,” Molly and Daniel told each other.

“Of course she misses Dad,” they added, “we all do, but what a terrible weight she’s been carrying all these years. Now, finally, she can have some time for herself.”

“I can talk to her now, really talk to her,” they said. “About me.”

She seemed to need them more than ever, which was gratifying, but she didn’t seem to need them too much, which was more gratifying still.

*

When the weather warmed up and the ice turned to broad rivers of slush, Joy did try going to the 92nd Street Y, to a poetry reading.

“Count me out,” said Natalie. “Poetry is depressing at our age.”

“Why at our age particularly?”

“Because everything is depressing at our age.”

The Y was dark and frequented by women who did not bother about their hair. The screaming children running in and out, who should have cheered her (that had always been one of her theories, that the generations should mix), were unsettling. She could feel her irregular heart beating more irregularly than usual and she went home.

*

When Daphne got back from Florida, Joy went out again to meet her at the coffee shop. They had not seen each other since Aaron’s funeral.

Joy said, “I miss Aaron. And I don’t like being alone.”

“The first year is the worst. Then it calms down to a dull roar.”