having existed. After asking for another glass of water to slake his thirsty thyroid, the ward heeler grunted up from the squeaking armchair which clutched at his trousers so that it took a moment to disengage himself without excessive damage. He peeled two five-dollar bills off a damp roll he had dragged out of his pocket and gave them to Anne-Marie, who had never held that much money in her life.
After he left, I made a point of saying that we were lucky Mr Kane had decided to contact the ward heeler. Mother shrugged as she threw away Mr Kane's carefully drawn up list of names and appointment times. “We're lucky that I'm a good Democrat, that's what we're lucky about,” she said, and I realized that Mr Kane's efforts on our behalf had just lost their value.
“Well!” Mother said. “Now that I'm on a lucky streak, maybe I'd better go hit up some restaurants for work! You kids finish putting things away and cleaning up. And Jean-Luc, you go across to the cornerstore and get something for your dinner. When I get back, the three of us will take a long walk downtown. Do some window-shopping. Take a look-see at this Albany. How's that strike you?”
As offhandedly as I could, I suggested that if she was going to look for work, maybe she should change her clothes... I mean, you know, because her silky blue slacks suit was too good for everyday and... I mean, well, it was so dressy and pretty that people might not believe she really needed work... or... well... Who knows? Maybe it was just the right thing to wear. You look great in it, Mom! Just great!
It rained that afternoon, a cold diagonal rain driven on a March wind, and Mother came home with dark wet patches on her Bette Davis slacks suit and her bellhop hat a sodden mess. She was sniffling and feverish, and all through the night I could hear her hacking cough. The next morning she had a raging fever and was unable to lift her head from the pillow. “Don't call for a doctor unless I tell you,” she said in a thin, raw voice. “We don't want welfare people poking their noses around here. You know what to do, Jean-Luc. You're my good right hand.”
I did know what to do. We'd been through it three or four times every year since my grandfather skidded off the road in a snowstorm and crashed into a cement viaduct.
The front room with my iron daybed became our sick room because it was too gloomy in her bedroom with its small window giving onto the sunken back 'area'. For the next five days I nursed her. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I bathed her forehead and neck with a wrung-out washcloth when the fever was upon her, and hugged her within her Hudson Bay blanket when the bone-wracking chills came, and put my hand on her back and made comforting sounds when she was hanging off the bed, coughing and gagging and spitting phlegm into a basin that I would empty into the toilet, my face turned away from the greenish slime. I made up and applied mustard plasters to 'loosen her up'. Her bouts of lung fever were so frequent that we kept in a drawer ready for use a box of dried mustard and half a dozen squares of cotton cut from an old sheet. The thick mustard and flour paste had to be made with boiling water to be effective, but I was always afraid that I would burn her skin, and I was distressed by the bright red rectangles the mustard plasters left on her back, rectangles into which I could push a white spot with my finger.
Anne-Marie was so miserable and frightened that she retired into the back bedroom, where she walled off her fear by playing doctor and nurse with her paper dolls with desperate intensity: games in which the paper-doll doctor assured the paper-doll nurse that everything was going to be all right. The sick paper-doll mother would get well in no time, and then they'd all go out and have hot dogs and birch beer. She began to suck her fingers again, and when I tucked her into bed that night before going back to sleep in one of the creaking wicker chairs
After he left, I made a point of saying that we were lucky Mr Kane had decided to contact the ward heeler. Mother shrugged as she threw away Mr Kane's carefully drawn up list of names and appointment times. “We're lucky that I'm a good Democrat, that's what we're lucky about,” she said, and I realized that Mr Kane's efforts on our behalf had just lost their value.
“Well!” Mother said. “Now that I'm on a lucky streak, maybe I'd better go hit up some restaurants for work! You kids finish putting things away and cleaning up. And Jean-Luc, you go across to the cornerstore and get something for your dinner. When I get back, the three of us will take a long walk downtown. Do some window-shopping. Take a look-see at this Albany. How's that strike you?”
As offhandedly as I could, I suggested that if she was going to look for work, maybe she should change her clothes... I mean, you know, because her silky blue slacks suit was too good for everyday and... I mean, well, it was so dressy and pretty that people might not believe she really needed work... or... well... Who knows? Maybe it was just the right thing to wear. You look great in it, Mom! Just great!
It rained that afternoon, a cold diagonal rain driven on a March wind, and Mother came home with dark wet patches on her Bette Davis slacks suit and her bellhop hat a sodden mess. She was sniffling and feverish, and all through the night I could hear her hacking cough. The next morning she had a raging fever and was unable to lift her head from the pillow. “Don't call for a doctor unless I tell you,” she said in a thin, raw voice. “We don't want welfare people poking their noses around here. You know what to do, Jean-Luc. You're my good right hand.”
I did know what to do. We'd been through it three or four times every year since my grandfather skidded off the road in a snowstorm and crashed into a cement viaduct.
The front room with my iron daybed became our sick room because it was too gloomy in her bedroom with its small window giving onto the sunken back 'area'. For the next five days I nursed her. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I bathed her forehead and neck with a wrung-out washcloth when the fever was upon her, and hugged her within her Hudson Bay blanket when the bone-wracking chills came, and put my hand on her back and made comforting sounds when she was hanging off the bed, coughing and gagging and spitting phlegm into a basin that I would empty into the toilet, my face turned away from the greenish slime. I made up and applied mustard plasters to 'loosen her up'. Her bouts of lung fever were so frequent that we kept in a drawer ready for use a box of dried mustard and half a dozen squares of cotton cut from an old sheet. The thick mustard and flour paste had to be made with boiling water to be effective, but I was always afraid that I would burn her skin, and I was distressed by the bright red rectangles the mustard plasters left on her back, rectangles into which I could push a white spot with my finger.
Anne-Marie was so miserable and frightened that she retired into the back bedroom, where she walled off her fear by playing doctor and nurse with her paper dolls with desperate intensity: games in which the paper-doll doctor assured the paper-doll nurse that everything was going to be all right. The sick paper-doll mother would get well in no time, and then they'd all go out and have hot dogs and birch beer. She began to suck her fingers again, and when I tucked her into bed that night before going back to sleep in one of the creaking wicker chairs
Similar Books
