“What the-aren’t you worried about him hearing you?”
“He didn’t follow us and this hall isn’t monitored. You know I love you, right?”
“Yeah…?”
“And you know I don’t say or do anything without a damn good reason, right?”
“Yeah…?”
“Good.” She blinked, then gave a weak, unreadable smile. “You need to leave right now and go home and not come around here or the house for a little while, a couple of weeks, at least, okay?”
“Where’s Marty? He didn’t… didn’t-”
“-Mr. Weis is no longer with us. That’s all I can tell you.” Then she silently mouthed the words He’s fine while slowly shaking her head. “Please do this for me, will you? Go home and stay away for a couple of weeks.”
“But… but what’s… I mean-”
“Do it for me, please?” This wasn’t just out of concern for her job-there was hard, raw, genuine fear in her voice. Before I could say anything else she pushed me outside, closed and locked the door, then spun around and returned to the unit, not giving me so much as a brief backward glance. I was just some schlub off the street.
Back home in the kitchen I put all of Mom’s morning medications in their compartment and then went to bed, where I lay weeping for another hour or so before there was a soft knock on my door and Mom stuck her head inside.
“Is everything all right?”
“Fine,” I said in the same clipped, melodramatic way we’ve all said it when we’re upset and don’t want to say Everything is awful and I just want to die so leave me the hell alone, please.
She held the collar of her tattered blue housecoat closed as she looked out in the hall toward the stairs. “Well, try to keep it down, will you? Your dad will be upset something terrible if he comes home and finds you this way.”
I stared at her; she stood silhouetted in the doorway like some wisp of a dream that lingers in the eyes for a moment upon waking. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize, hon, it’s all right. We just don’t want to upset him. He works so hard.”
“I know.”
She started to close the door, then said: “Is it time for my medicine?”
“Not yet, you take it in the morning.”
“Well, it is the morning. It’s after midnight, isn’t it?”
“Go back to bed, Mom. Take it when you get up again.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a good boy, you know that?”
“Thanks, Mom.”
She looked at me for a few more moments, then closed the door.
After another half hour I got up and put on my headphones and listened to records until a little past eight-thirty. The songs-some of them were old even back then-wove a curious kind of safety cocoon; this one came out when I was in sixth grade; this one was playing the first time I told so-and-so that I liked her in the eighth grade and she didn’t laugh at me-didn’t kiss me, either, but at least didn’t laugh; and this one, this one I always listened to by myself because it struck at something deep inside me that I didn’t want anyone else to know about because they might make fun of it or find a way to use it against me when they were mad or just feeling mean and needed to take it out on someone.
Around nine I took off the headphones and called the Cedar Hill Healthcare Center, asking to speak to someone in Admissions. As soon as they answered I gave them the same bullshit story about being Marty Weis’s nephew and how I’d tried to visit him last night, cha-cha-cha. It wasn’t hard to sound scared and confused.
“Mr. Weis is no longer with us,” said the Admissions person.
“I know that, ma’am, I was just wondering if you could tell me where he’s gone.”
“Mr. Weis was checked out of our facility two days ago.” Was checked out, not Checked himself out.
“Can you tell me who checked him out? Was it his daughter from Los Angeles?”
“I can’t give out that information, sir, and no forwarding address was provided.”
This went on for about ten minutes, I was transferred to three different people, all of whom gave me the same story, word for word: Mr. Weis is no longer with us.
I hung up while being transferred yet again, paced my room for a few minutes, then lay back down on my bed and listened to some more music.
Then I fell asleep, and dreamed of Mom standing over her medicine in the kitchen.
I jolted awake, snapping up my head so fast I heard the bones in my neck crack and felt a sharp stab of pain.
Something had happened.
Something was wrong.
I had no idea how I knew this, but the feeling was too strong to be ignored.
Yanking off the headphones, I headed downstairs. If I remembered filling the compartment and replacing the lids on the bottles, then I must have put the meds back in their hiding place as I usually did; even half-awake, your body more times than not will remember certain physical routines even if your brain doesn’t.
She was sitting at the table, face-down, her nose pressed against the Local section of The Cedar Hill Ally. One hand was still clutching the newspaper, the other held the cup of now-cold coffee she’d taken the pills with.
The radio was tuned to the local classical music station. It was playing something from some opera, Mom being the opera fan.
On the counter, five bottles of prescription medications sat where I’d left them last night. The “Morning” compartment was unopened, as were all the bottles except one-the sedatives; that bottle lay on its side, displaying the depth of the nothing it contained.
Oh, hon, I didn’t think it would hurt anything, I’ve just been real jumpy.
I knew she was dead before I even touched her. I sat there, holding her hand and saying over and over again: “You rest now, Mom, you’ve earned it. You rest now, Mom…”
I wondered what song I’d been listening to when she’d died. I wondered if she’d tried calling up to me but I didn’t hear her because of the headphones. I wondered if she’d died thinking that her life had been wasted and no one would remember her. “… you’ve earned it. You can rest now…”
I wondered if her hands had ever held blossoms.
I made the necessary calls, I waited with her body until the coroner’s wagon and police arrived; I answered all their questions, let the police collect the items they requested, and agreed to come down to the station later that day and let them take my prints. (“A formality,” said the officer. “It will help us make a determination.”) After they left, I called Criss Brothers Funeral Home and told them what happened and, yes, I could come over in a little while and make the arrangements; then it was only a matter of gathering together all the necessary papers (insurance information, etc., which Mom kept in the same metal filing box with everything relating to Dad’s death), calling what few relatives Mom still had in the area, and going about the rest of the awful business.
A lot of the next several days is something of a blur, so I’ll skip around and just hit the high points, if you don’t mind: her death was ruled accidental, I was not charged with gross negligence or anything else, her doctor was quick to mention her depression and confused state of mind, and the fact that she’d lost her husband only four weeks before confirmed for everyone that the entire incident was a terrible tragedy. Her obituary ran three short paragraphs and read more like a job resume than the summation of a life. Her remains were cremated (she’d been very specific about this for as long as I’d been alive) and placed in the finest urn Criss Brothers had to offer. There was a brief and bleak memorial service held in the chapel at the funeral home with about thirteen people, myself included, in attendance. When all was said and done, I was left sole owner of an empty, paid-for house, and had a respectable amount of money left from their insurance policies. At twenty-one, I was “set” for a good while, provided I used my resources intelligently.
The memorial service was held the Friday morning Beth’s show was scheduled to open. The night before she called at eight-thirty from a phone at the theater. I hung up as soon as I heard her voice. Less than a minute later the phone rang again and I let the answering machine pick up.