“Didn’t you get my message?” Ginger started right in.
“I’m sorry. I was tied up. I was going to call back but . . .” Evie bit her lip and took a breath. She didn’t want to make it sound as if her time was more important than Ginger’s. “Listen, I am sorry. I should have called you right back. How’s Ben? The kids?”
“You know that’s not what I called about. It’s Mom.”
“Again,” Evie said, at the same time as Ginger.
Even though there was nothing even remotely funny about that, and even though she knew that laughing was wildly inappropriate, Evie couldn’t stop herself. A moment later, Ginger was laughing, too, and that made Evie laugh even harder until she nearly dropped the phone and had to sit down to keep from peeing in her pants.
At last, laughed out and gasping for breath, she wiped tears from her eyes. “So how bad is it?”
“She fell and dislocated her shoulder this time. And I guess it was a while before she managed to call for help. Mrs. Yetner left me a message. She’s at Bronx Metropolitan. The shoulder’s not all that serious. It’s everything else that’s the problem.”
Evie thought she had a pretty good idea what that meant. “You saw her?”
“Just for a few minutes. She was barely conscious. Stabilized is what the doctor called it.”
“Stabilized,” Evie said. Did that mean she was going to get better? Or was she going to stay as sick as she was?
“On top of everything else, the EMTs who pulled her out alerted the health department. They sent an investigator over to the house. They say the place is a health risk. If it gets condemned—”
“Condemned? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I guess it’s gotten that bad. If Mom can’t go back, she won’t have anywhere to go and, well . . .”
Evie finished the thought: then she’ll have to move in with one of us. Ginger couldn’t be thinking that Mom could move into Evie’s one-bedroom apartment. Ginger was the one with a house. A guest room.
“Evie, I can’t always be the one,” Ginger said.
“Why does it have to be either of us? She’s a grown-up.”
“She’s never been a grown-up, and you know it. And now she’s in the hospital. All alone.”
Right. Alone because one after the other she’d pissed off the friends she and their father had once had. Alone because she hadn’t been able to hold a job for years. Thinking about her mother made Evie furious and unbearably sad at the same time. Talking to her was even worse. And seeing her?
“No way.” Evie looked down at the pile of audio scripts, sitting on her desk, deadline looming. At her to-do list that only seemed to grow longer, no matter how much got checked off. “Come on, Ginger, I can’t take time off right now. This exhibit is my first. It has to be great. It’s opening in three weeks, and there is still so much to do. I promise as soon as I’m done, the very minute it opens, I will pitch in.”
“Pitch in?” There was a long silence. Then Ginger sniffed, and Evie realized she was crying.
“Ginger?”
“I don’t want you to pitch in,” Ginger said, her voice a harsh rasp. “I want you to take charge.”
“I will. I will.”
“And not in three weeks. Now.”
“But—”
“Surely you’re not the only person who works over there. No one is irreplaceable.”
“I . . . I just can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? Sorry? Sorry doesn’t cut it. I have a life, too. In case you’ve forgotten”—Ginger’s voice spiraled up—“I’m taking classes. The paralegal certification exam is in four weeks. Ben is working two jobs. Lisa’s got dance classes and soccer practice. And . . . and . . .” Ginger blew her nose. “And why is it that every time, every fucking time she crashes, I’m the one who has to drop everything?”
There was a knock at Evie’s door, and Nick stuck his head in. He pointed to his watch. The voice-over actors must have arrived, which meant the meter was ticking—they charged for their time whether the script was ready or not.
Evie put up her hand, fingers splayed. Five minutes. Nick nodded and disappeared.
Ginger was saying, “—can’t do it, Evie. Not this time. I’m tapped out. Completely tapped out. It’s your turn. I’m sorry, but this time you don’t have the luxury of cutting her off unless you’re planning to cut me off, too.”
In the silence that followed, Evie could hear the massive schoolhouse clock behind her desk tick-tick-ticking. The last time she’d seen her mother, they’d arranged to meet for brunch at Sarabeth’s in Manhattan, halfway between Evie’s Brooklyn apartment and her mother’s house at the edge of the Bronx. They were supposed to meet at noon. When Mom hadn’t shown up, and hadn’t shown up, Evie had tried calling her. No answer at home. No answer on her mother’s cell.
As minutes ticked by, Evie had gone from being furious with her mother, late as usual, to being hysterical and in tears, imagining the worst as she tried to flag a taxi to take her to Higgs Point. Good luck with that. Three cabs refused before she snagged one that would.
When she got to the house, her mother was passed out in front of the TV. “I must have lost track of time,” she said when Evie finally managed to rouse her. Later, as Evie made an omelet, she caught her mother sneaking some vodka into her orange juice. She’d tried to talk to her mother about her drinking, but her mother flat-out denied it, like she always had. Evie was the delusional one, she’d insisted, then screamed at Evie for butting in and trying to run her life.
On the bus and subway ride home, Evie had seethed with anger. That was it, she promised herself. Never again. If her mother couldn’t stop drinking long enough to get herself to Manhattan for a lunch date with her daughter, wouldn’t even admit that she drank, then to hell with her. Evie was finished. Finished taking care of her. Finished talking to her even.
After that, Evie stopped returning her mother’s calls. Screened out her e-mails. Maybe if she cut her off completely, she told herself, her mother would get serious about drying out. But the truth was, it was a huge relief to sever the cord, to allow herself to give up responsibility for caring.
That had been months ago. And now Ginger was finally fed up, too, but she couldn’t walk away. She wasn’t wired that way.
“Okay, okay.” Evie couldn’t believe she heard herself saying it. “I’ll take care of it. I’ll go up to the house tomorrow and start getting things cleaned up. I’ll go over to the hospital in the afternoon. Stay—”
“And stay? Oh, would you?”
“Just for the weekend.”
“But—”
“Then we’ll see.” Evie swallowed. “And you’re right. It is my turn.”
Chapter Four
Before she left work, Evie told everyone that she might have to take some time off. Ginger was right, of course. The exhibit would launch just fine without her. Nick could manage the final details as well if not better than she. Besides, even though it looked like an unfinished mess, the exhibit installation was nearly complete.
She left Seth a message, too. Told him she had a “family emergency.” Her mother. That she had to spend a few days sorting things out.
Early the next morning, she took the subway and then the bus from her tiny apartment near Sunset Park deep in Brooklyn to Higgs Point at the southern tip of the Bronx. She tried not to think about what she’d find when she got there.
She took her time walking to the house. The bright blue sky was streaked with mare’s-tail clouds. Leaves on the trees and bushes were still that electric green of early spring. Of course it would be the same in every neighborhood throughout the city, even Manhattan, but she rarely slowed down enough to notice.