“Fantastic,” I say.
“I was always a very physical person,” my mother says. “I’m not sure your father knew that.”
When we get to the door of the dining room, she signals to one of the aides as though he’s a maître d’ in a fancy restaurant. “Table for three,” she says.
“Anywhere you see a vacancy,” he says.
“Do you want iced green tea or bug juice?” my mother asks Ashley.
“Bug juice?”
“Fruity punch,” my mother says, “only here it’s laced with vitamin C and Metamucil.”
“Just water,” Ashley says. “Is the water plain?”
“As far as I know,” my mother says, and then she gazes into Ashley’s eyes and says, “I’m so glad to see you.”
“Me too, Grandma,” Ashley says.
“How’s college?”
“I’m in fifth grade, Grandma,” Ashley says.
“Well, don’t be discouraged,” my mother says.
“So where’s your friend?” I ask, unsure what exactly to call him.
“What do you mean where — he’s right there across the room, with his people. That’s why I didn’t want to come to lunch. Didn’t you see them glare at us?”
“I missed it.”
“You’re a moron,” she says to me.
“Did you two have a falling out?” I ask.
“Of course not,” she says, defensive.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“His people hate me, they actually ignore me. If we’re sitting next to each other, they speak only to him, never to me.”
“That doesn’t sound right,” I say.
“Are you saying I’m lying? That’s why I never tell you anything, because you never think I’m telling the truth. I never should have married you.”
“Ma, it’s me, Harold, not Dad.”
“Well, then, you’re just like your father.”
“Grandma, what was Pop-Pop like? When did he die? Did I ever know him?”
“Why are you trying to distract me with all this talk about the past when what I care about is that my man, my living and breathing man, is being kept from me by his ungrateful little bitches?”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Those are his daughters,” she says.
“Should I go over and break the ice?” I ask.
“Between him and me there is no ice. We knew each other before.”
“Before what?” Ashley says.
“We went to the same junior high,” my mother says. “I was friendly with his sister, a lovely woman, who died on a cruise ship. She was thrown overboard and eaten by sharks, and they never figured out who did it.”
“Her husband?” I suggest.
“She never married,” my mother says.
As the dishes are cleared, Ashley pulls out the cookie tin and is wrestling the top open when nursing-home staff surround us. “You can’t open that here — no outside food,” they say.
“It has no nuts or seeds,” Ashley says.
“It was made at home with love,” one of the attendants says.
“Yes,” Ashley says.
“Can’t allow it — everyone here has to be treated the same. We can’t have people who have no visitors getting depressed just because your mama has someone who cares about her.”
“How about if we share?” Ashley says.
“How many cookies you got?” the worker asks skeptically.
“How many patients do you have?” Ashley asks.
The worker checks with another aide. “The lunch census is thirty-eight, and that doesn’t include folks eating in their rooms.”
Ashley puts the cookie tin down and starts dutifully counting. “I have forty cookies.”
“You go, girl,” the worker says.
Ashley goes from table to table, person to person, offering her cookies. Some people don’t want any, others try to take two, and Ashley has to stop them: “One per customer,” she says.
After the cookies are distributed, I urge my mother to go and say hello to her boyfriend and his family.
“No,” she says, shaking her head and making a face. “They don’t like me.”
“Well, I’m going to introduce myself; if he’s someone you care about, we should be polite.”
“I’ll stay here with Grandma,” Ashley says, and then she whispers to my mother, “They wouldn’t let him have a cookie.”
His family is not polite.
“I thought I would just say hello,” I say, extending a hand. Only the man in question reaches for my hand.
“Nice to see you, son,” he says.
We exchange small talk until one of the daughters pulls me aside.
“We’re not happy,” she says.
“Why not?”
“Your mother is a nursing-home slut. She persuaded him to cheat on our mother, who took care of him night and day for fifty-three years.”
“I didn’t realize,” I say.
“Of course you ‘didn’t realize.’ We know who you are. … I repeat, your mother seduced our father. We heard that happens in places like this — so few men, so many women.”
“I think my mother knew your father from before,” I venture.
“She tried to steal my father from my mother,” the girl says.
“That was in junior high,” my mother calls across the room. “These new hearing aids are really good. At the time I didn’t think their relationship was so serious — excuse me, it was junior high.”
“If I may ask, where is your mother now?”
“She’s at Mount Sinai — that’s what landed him here. They went out for dinner, she fell, knocked him down — he broke a hip, she hit her head. She’s been in a coma, and we’re trying to make some decisions.”
“I didn’t realize.”
“Do us all a favor — keep your hooker mother away from our father.”
“Look,” I say, “I don’t think name calling is useful here.”
“There you go, being all ‘reasonable,’” his daughter says. “What part of ‘stay the fuck away’ are you not hearing?” she shouts at me.
“I think everyone has heard you now,” one of the aides says, shooting the daughter a look.
I excuse myself and go back to my mother and Ashley. “Did you know his wife is still alive?”
“Of course,” my mother says. “I know her from before also — we used to play pinochle. He talks about her constantly. He tries to call the hospital. I dial the phone for him. She’s a vegetable,” my mother says. “The nurse holds the phone to her ear, or at least says that’s what she does, and he talks to her. He tells her stories about what they used to do. He remembers what they ate on their honeymoon.” She shrugs. “And then, when he hangs up, he sobs, he just wants to go home. And those girls, they’re the worst — you’d think they’d take him in, take care of him, take him to see his wife. Selfish little bitches they are, but I don’t say that to him, no, I tell him they have lives of their own, they must be so busy.” She shakes her head. “But look at you, you make time to see me. That’s the way it goes — if you were doing well, you’d have no time for your mother. You’re a shlep, you show up, you can be counted on — but you’re so boring.”
“He’s actually very nice,” Ashley says, coming to my defense.
“It’s fine,” I tell Ashley. “We’ve always had a complicated relationship.”
“Grandma, could we take you out sometime?” Ashley asks. “Take you out somewhere?”
“Like where?” my mother wants to know.
“I don’t know, like maybe to our house for dinner?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t think so. I’ve been to your house before — the food is lousy.”
“Well,” Ashley says, not the least bit fazed, “I’ve been doing a lot of cooking; my whole science class is about the kitchen as a laboratory.”