The Things We Keep(64)

“I do know that I’m happy now,” I say. “So if we keep doing this, we’ll be okay.”

He pulls me tighter and I hear what he is no longer able to tell me: Yes. We will.

*

There’s a new guy at Rosalind House. Old, obviously. Mostly bald. Wearing a bow tie with a short-sleeved shirt. He’s tall and skinny at the head and shoulders and wider around the middle and legs. Mr. Pin, I dub him, because he reminds me of a bowling pin. He obviously isn’t happy to be here, but I think we can all sympathize with that.

He noses his pushy-wheeler into the big front room, muttering as he goes. The woman who follows him bears a striking resemblance, only with more hair and fewer liver spots. Probably his daughter or granddaughter. Maybe even a young wife. Once, I was pretty good at telling people’s ages at a glance. These days, well … Take this woman, for example. She could be thirty-five or sixty-five. Together, they head for the floral armchair by the bookcase.

“Can’t sit there,” Baldy says, before Mr. Pin even gets close. He taps his head in the direction of the chair without so much as lifting his eyes from his book. “That,” he says, “is Myrna’s chair.”

“Excuse me?” Mr. Pin says.

Baldy repeats himself.

“Well, as Myrna isn’t currently sitting in it, I’m sure she won’t mind.” Mr. Pin rotates with his walker, ready to plant his bony butt right on Myrna. The room silently goes on full-alert.

“Are you blind?” Baldy splutters. “She’s right there.”

Mr. Pin looks at the empty seat and then at Baldy. Finally, he looks at his young look-alike. “Louisa,” he says, “do something.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Louisa says to Baldy in an over-the-top polite voice. “You must be mistaken. There’s no one sitting here.”

“There is,” Baldy says. His voice is typically grumpy, but there’s a waver to it. “Myrna’s sitting there. And she’d appreciate not being sat on.”

In a place like this where nothing ever happens, this sort of confrontation is as good as a Fourth of July fireworks display. People appear from all over the place, coming to check out the action. Even I feel a little thrilled. But also worried. Like something bad is about to happen.

“It’s the only seat available,” Mr. Pin says. He starts to remove his outer-shirt thingy, and the color leaches out of Baldy’s face. “So unless you can—”

Before I know it, I’m out of my chair and standing beside Baldy. I may not love the guy, and I definitely think he’s bonkers, but Mr. Pin is new, and I can’t help feel a certain loyalty.

“Roast night tonight, Myrna,” I hear myself say. I stare at the empty chair, trying to bring up an image of an old lady in my mind’s eye. “Your favorite.”

The entire room is silent. Mr. Pin freezes with one arm out of his outer-shirt thingy.

Baldy stares at me, then gives me a slight nod. Mr. Pin looks at us for a moment, then starts to lower himself into the chair.

“P-Pet therapy t-today, Myrna,” Young Guy says suddenly. “You can hold a h-h-hamster!”

All the heads in the room spin toward Young Guy. Baldy finally starts to crack a smile. Mr. Pin stands and squints at the chair, confused.

“It’s all right, love,” Baldy says to Myrna. “No kitchen mice at pet therapy.” He shakes his head and laughs. “When we were first married, I came home one day to find her standing on the kitchen bench after seeing a mouse. She was white as a sheet. Been there for hours, she said. They didn’t have cell phones in those days, of course.”

“That happened to Clara once, didn’t it, love?” Southern Lady’s husband says. “She said it was the size of a cat! I came racing home from work, and it was no bigger than my thumb.”

Southern Lady—Clara—crosses the room and, elbowing Mr. Pin out of the way, she perches on the arm of Myrna’s chair. “It was the size of a cat, Myrna,” she whispers, elbowing Myrna’s nonexistent shoulder. “These men have no idea what we put up with.”

We form a little circle around Myrna’s chair, and I can’t keep the grin off my face. Baldy, I notice, is also grinning, and so is Young Guy. He offers me a wink.

Mr. Pin and the young woman shuffle away from the chair. Away from me, probably. Away from the lot of us.

*

The “solution,” apparently, is to have Young Guy and me followed. Since our meeting with Mustache Man, every time I so much as look at Young Guy, he is whisked away. At mealtimes, Skinny goes into passive-aggressive overdrive. “There’s a lovely view of the garden from this seat, Anna,” she’ll say if I sit next to Luke. “Why don’t you pop over here?” I politely decline, of course, and generally she won’t force it, but it’s a small win. We have no time alone together. At night, the nurses roam the halls, which limits our meetings. When it’s the nice nurse—Blondie—she looks the other way for a few minutes before moving us along. Anyone else, and we’re practically mown down before we crack open the door.

I had it out with Jack, of course. I don’t remember the details, but I do remember shouting until he threatened to request a sedative. Jack worked in a court as one of the arguing people, but up until recently, I could argue him under the table. Not anymore. He was fast—really fast—ready with a reply before I’d even thought of the question. He also knew how to work the emotions. He didn’t just yell at me—no, that would have made it too easy to hate him—he cried, the son of a bitch. Real streaming tears. Told me this was killing him. “Funny that,” I’d told him, “because this memory-disease is killing me. And for the first time in forever, I wish it would hurry up and get it over with.”