Stuart put down the knife. Apparently, he was finding me trying, and I wasn’t quite in the mood to humor him. Margo said, “Let’s not—” but Stuart put up his hand. He took a deep breath. “I’m just saying, if you posted your schedule, maybe we wouldn’t all end up in your kitchen at the same time, fighting for space.”
“Young man,” said Gloria. She continued to section lemons as she spoke. “I’m not sure that tone is necessary.”
He turned back to the cutting board. “I apologize.”
“You don’t have to be here,” I said to him. “Why don’t you go home?”
“Mother!” said Margo.
“I didn’t ask for a full house. I did not ask for—” I stopped. My voice was shaking.
“I’m just saying, a schedule would make things easier,” said Stuart.
“Goddamn it,” I said.
Gloria stepped toward me and, in an uncharacteristic gesture, put both arms around my shoulders. I shook inside the circle of her thin arms. “I’ll make a goddamn schedule,” I said. I realized even then, even while on the verge of throwing my son-in-law out of my house, that this was a practical idea.
“All right,” said Gloria.
Stuart left the room. Margo went after him, patting my back as she went. When I’d composed myself, Gloria let me go. We stood at the counter, looking out toward where Dennis stood in the swimming pool with Lola, lifting the water-filled weights above his head one at a time. I saw him struggling with each movement. I saw his muscles trembling. “I would have thought I’d be stronger,” I said.
“You’re plenty strong,” she said.
“I’ll stop feeling sorry for myself now.” And as if something had jarred loose inside me, I felt suddenly that I could do it. I could stop mourning what I’d thought I would have.
“No one blames you,” she said. “Except the boy, of course.”
I laughed a little and she joined me. Then she picked up the pitcher of lemonade and headed outside. When she reached the door, she paused. “It would be a shame if you left,” she said.
In August, almost a year after Dennis’s diagnosis, Dr. Auerbach’s nurse fitted him for a palatal lift, which made speaking easier by keeping air from escaping from his nose while he talked. We also bought a voice box, which Dennis held up to his mouth when speaking, to amplify and save his voice. The palatal lift was covered by insurance, but the amplifier was not; it cost $350. That same week, my car engine started knocking. I took the car in and was told in no uncertain terms that I needed either a new car or a new engine. Dennis and I debated—we would get nothing for the car if we sold it without a new engine, but there was no reason to keep both cars at that point. At the end of that week, Paul took Dennis’s car to a friend’s lot and sold it for $3,500, and we used the money to buy a new engine for my car. Then, the following week, Paul and Marse stopped by for dinner, and during dessert, Paul said to Dennis, “I hate to be the one to tell you, buddy, but I think you have termites.”
Dennis brought his voice box to his mouth. “Where?”
“I saw some loose wood on your garage door, then more in the baseboards in the living room. I did some digging—you’re infested.”
I could see Dennis tensing up. “No problem,” I said. “We’ll tent the house. We’ll vacation at the Biltmore for a few days. You and Lola can exercise in that gorgeous pool.” I tried to keep my voice light, but I was thinking: How much does a termite treatment cost? Was it hundreds or thousands? Was it ten thousand? There was the possibility of getting a line of credit against the house, but that presented a new problem, one to which I’d scarcely given any thought: When Dennis died, would I sell the house? The house that had been given to us? Would I ever feel right profiting from Dennis’s parents’ investment? But if I didn’t sell, what then? No home loan could ever be repaid, so no loan could ever be taken. By accepting the house, we’d put ourselves in this position: no real equity, no real assets. If our positions were reversed, Dennis could certainly sell the house—it was his birthright. But it wasn’t mine.
“You’ll stay at my condo,” said Marse. “I’ll stay at Paul’s.”
“There’s a guy at my church who can cut you a deal,” said Paul.
That week, I volunteered for more weekend shifts at work, and from then on Stuart and Margo came almost every weekend day, and when I arrived home in mid-afternoon, I found them—and usually Gloria and Grady or Marse and Paul—either on the back deck, or in the pool, or in the living room playing a board game. Or I’d find the house empty and a note stuck to the refrigerator: OUT FOR A RIDE (BOAT), or OUT FOR A RIDE (CAR). I had taken up the habit of posting a calendar of my schedule on the refrigerator. Dennis had rolled into the kitchen after I’d posted it the first time. I’d seen him take it in, then turn away.
One Sunday, Grady approached me in the kitchen while I made a pitcher of iced tea. “I come as an emissary,” he said, “for Gloria and myself.” He covered my hand with his. “We want to give you some money.”
I sat down at the kitchen table and sipped from my water glass. “I can’t, I’m sorry.”
“This is not something one prepares for,” he said. He sat down across from me. “Marse told us about the termites—we should have had the place tented years ago. I knew it when we left. We did it once—let’s see, it was ’seventy-five—but honestly, you have to do it every decade with these old houses. It’s my responsibility.”
“You’re very kind.”
“I mean to be convincing.” He pulled a checkbook from his back pocket. “Do you have a pen?” he said. And this was the most humiliating part—not the weakness of my protest, not the relief that must have been obvious on my face, but the act of getting up and crossing the room to fish a pen out of the junk drawer, and walking back to him and handing it over. He gave me the check and I folded it without looking.
“I don’t think I know how to thank you. I wish we’d—” I stopped. “I wish we didn’t have to accept this.”
“This is what you do for your children. You’ll do it for Margo.”
We left unsaid the fact that, given the present situation, I would probably not be able to do it for Margo. I hugged him before we left the kitchen. “Thank you very much,” I said.
“Dennis is my son,” he said, as if this were all the explanation required. He added, “And you are my daughter. If you need more, you tell me.”
That evening, Marse and Dennis sat in the living room with magazines, and I told them I had forgotten to fill one of Dennis’s prescriptions, and needed to run out. I went to the bank and used the drive-through machine to deposit Grady’s check. I didn’t look at it until I filled out the deposit envelope: it was for $20,000. I cried out when I saw it. I covered my mouth with my hand as relief pulsed through me. Even after we paid for the tenting—the estimate we’d gotten from Paul’s friend was $1,500—this would last for months. If we were frugal, it might last a year. From time to time, even now, I think about Grady’s words—This is not something one prepares for—and about how we might have better anticipated this wrinkle in our lives. We had not saved enough, I suppose. We’d planned for retirement, of course, but not for emergencies. We’d figured we had the house for collateral if we needed it—but this eventuality, Dennis’s early demise, made our retirement funds seem insignificant. Selling the house or even taking a loan seemed suddenly impossible. Looking back, I think that I should have started drawing against our retirement accounts. There would have been penalties, of course, and the money would have needed to last much longer than we’d planned; but after all, it would have had to be only enough for one.
Looking back, too, I realized that this money from Grady and Gloria was probably not difficult for them to give—not only because, unlike my mother, they had it to give, but also because they were advancing in age and thinking about what they would leave behind, and realizing there would be one less person to whom to leave it. This had not been in their plans, either. Dennis’s illness was sabotage, for all of us.