Now Emily went over to the sandbox and sat down in the middle. She picked up a trowel and began to smooth the sand idly. Eliza got up, walked along the fence, and, when she got to a certain spot in the honeysuckle, slipped through. Emily hadn’t realized a hole was there, but when she went over and pushed aside the honeysuckle, she could see it. Emily stood very still and watched Eliza, who crept along the fence line until she came to the chicken house. She pushed on the door with her nose. The first time it didn’t move, but the second time it did. Eliza went in.
Emily thought that maybe she should shout for Mom, because someone was about to get in trouble. There was noise in the chicken house — the chickens were squawking. Emily got a little afraid. Just then, here came Eliza, out the door. She did not have a chicken in her mouth, and so Emily felt a little less afraid. Even so, she ran back to the swing set and started to swing, pumping. She held tight to the chains, leaned way back, and stuck her legs out as far as they could go, then whipped them back and fell forward. In four strokes, she was pretty high, but she saw Eliza as she came through the fence and headed toward the back of the yard, where the garage was. Emily stopped pumping, let go, and flew out of the swing. She liked doing that.
Eliza had disappeared. Emily looked at the house. No sign of Mom. Emily went very slowly toward the garage, almost tiptoeing. She went around the corner, and there was Eliza, digging with her claws in the dirt. She was digging carefully, using both front feet. Emily watched. The hole she dug was pretty deep, but the ground was soft, so she didn’t have to try very hard. She paused and looked in the hole. Then she went over to something she had set to one side and, very gently, picked it up. She put it in the hole. All this time, Emily had been edging closer and closer, and finally, just before Eliza started filling the hole, Emily was close enough to see what it was. It was an egg, white and perfect. The dirt landed lightly on it and then covered it. When she was finished covering the egg, Eliza turned in a circle and lay down. She stared at Emily with her ears pricked. Emily went over and petted her, and Eliza licked her chin. Emily said, “Okay, Lizie. I won’t tell.”
1984
ON TUESDAY, Lillian had called Debbie and told her about driving herself to the doctor — she sneaked out when Arthur was down at the bottom of the property, digging up bulbs, and went by herself, and felt fine. Didn’t Debbie think that was a good joke? Debbie did, in a way, but then, on Wednesday, her father called her and said that she had better come, and bring Carlie and Kevvie, and Debbie kept saying, almost yelling, that she couldn’t believe this, she couldn’t believe this, and her father was horribly patient, and said that Dean would pick her up at the airport, and Tina was coming Saturday. But she got herself together by dinnertime — she told Hugh quietly enough so that he wouldn’t think she was going crazy, and then she sat with the kids on the couch in the living room, and said that she had something to tell them. Carlie understood — she nodded, and she tightened her grip on Debbie’s hand, but Kevvie just stared at her, his arm looped around his Funshine Bear and his thumb in his mouth. Hugh, standing in the doorway, said, “That’s why they have to go, Deb; they have to see it.”
And so they did, and because it was Lillian Langdon Manning who was counting out her last hours, it wasn’t that bad, and Debbie did not have to take over, which was always her instinct. She could sit in the kitchen and chat with anyone who passed through, give and accept hugs, offer everyone the food that people brought over because they couldn’t think of anything else to do. The weather was beautiful for January. The kids relaxed and played with the other kids; Carlie was solicitous and maternal with Eric, Dean’s two-year-old. She read him an old Raggedy Ann book she found in Tina’s room, and she was willing to read it over and over, which made Debbie proud in a melancholy sort of way.
Yes, Lillian had driven herself to the doctor on Tuesday, but then, Tuesday night, something broke, some little membrane or wire or bolt (depending on how you imagined the brain), and the hallucinations began. She woke up Wednesday morning, turned to Arthur, and said, “Have you seen Arthur?” Arthur had patiently reminded her over and over that he was right there, and now, as she lay in her bed, looking at the windows or at the sunlight on the ceiling, she would say, “Is that a lake?” or “Did you hear that Henry my brother died?”
Her father would pat her mother’s hand and gently say, “No, darling, that’s the ceiling; I’m right here; Henry is fine, you’ll see him tomorrow.” And her mother would nod and say, “I suppose you’re right.”
Allegedly, there was little if any pain, and if pain should begin, there were painkillers, but her mother had told her father weeks ago that she wanted to be conscious as long as she could be.
She had greeted Debbie with a kiss and asked if Carlie and Kevvie were hers and what their names were. Debbie had made a strenuous effort not to compare how her mother processed her presence with how she processed Dean’s presence, or with the number of times she asked if anyone had seen Tim. Her mother had been precisely and exactly herself for Debbie’s entire life, thirty-six years now, and Debbie had found her too disorganized, too yielding, too wrapped up in her husband, too focused on Tim, too affectionate with Janet for most of that time. But since Carlie’s birth, she had liked her better (liked her — she had always loved her to pieces) and had talked to her almost daily, sometimes asking advice, but mostly just listening to the soothing sound of her voice. In fact, it was the sound of her own voice that Debbie heard most when she made those phone calls, but she could not help checking in, seeking the how-are-you’s, the yes-honey’s, the that’s-a-good-idea’s, the love-you’s.
The calls were over, dead as of Tuesday. Now, every couple of hours, Debbie slipped into the bedroom and listened to the strange conversation between her parents, knowing that she would never forget it and maybe she should not let this be her last indelible memory.
The rest of the time, she arranged the funeral, because someone had to. She called the funeral home, chose the dress and the shoes, wrote the notice for The Washington Post and the local McLean paper. She went through Lillian’s address book, trying to judge who would need to know. She cooked, she washed dishes, washed more dishes.
Her father was perfect — endlessly kind, loving, and reassuring — and her mother seemed to take this for granted (and even as Debbie had this thought, she knew it was stupid). Dean and Linda did the driving-around errands. Linda was nice. Debbie could not object to her in any way, except when she went into Lillian’s room, and Lillian said, “Linda. I would know you anywhere. You are very pretty, do you know that?”
She, Debbie, was the girl who had had the perfect mother — kind, indulgent, organized, and capable — and therefore, if you could still feel that spark of resentment toward the perfect mother, then there were no perfect mothers, and best not to try to be one.
Debbie was in the room when it happened. Her father, who was sitting on the bed, had kissed her mother’s hand and gotten up to stretch and walk around. When he did, her mother cried out — just “Oh! Oh!”—and then she lay back, and her eyes were open and her jaw was slack. Debbie took a step toward the bed, and her father was just ahead of her. He said, “Lily Pons? Darling?”