Happy Days

I pull into the parking lot. It's been raining buckets, all day, but the sun's finally coming out. The wet pavement shines. Scattered oil spots make rainbows, like bubbles popped all over the black. As I turn off the key, the car does a quick rumble and shudder. And then it's quiet and still.

I usually forget to grab this little piece of silence; seems I'm in so much of a damn hurry these days. The boss has been pushing me to get that marketing plan on the new project completed. Hubby's been out of the country for over a week now, in China.  I picture him sitting under a cypress tree somewhere, sipping green tea, from a delicate porcelain cup. 

My son, Alexander, is away at college.  I get the occasional email from him.  He's got some new girlfriend, now, wreaking lovely havoc on his life. An ugly frost of jealousy fingers at my heart, ready to grab hold and squeeze. Me here-and they, away from here.

But here, now...there is this bit of silence. I grab it with both hands. Close my eyes. There's a tick,tick,tick sound as the engine cools. And then it stops and there's this lovely calm all around me. A stillness so sudden and thick, I can almost hear the blood whooshing in my ears. It's warm here, too- insulated. I want to stay, sit a while. Hide from the craziness that seems to be my life, even if just for two lousy minutes.

I crack the window open, hear the trees whispering. I lean my head to either side to stretch the long bands of muscle.  My shoulders are tense and taut, angled like the top of a kite.  There's a string of clicking sounds, like knuckles cracking. I straighten up and stare ahead, through the pinkish orange of my closed eyelids. I will my shoulders to melt a little, to come down from where they are, up there around my ears somewhere.

I inhale deep, break my own silence. "Oh well. Here goes." I say on the exhale. I open the car door. Let the world rush in again. Put one foot in front of the other. Paste on a smile.

Shirley's there, outside the door, her wheelchair parked up close to the ash can, having her five o'clock smoke. She's mid- way through a drag when I compliment her on how well her hair looks. Light blue, that it is. Her grey eyes scan me for sincerity. I'm never quite sure why. Shirley seems to drop this curtain of doubt whenever someone says something nice to her. Like maybe she doesn't believe it, or doesn't want pleasantries cast her way. Hell, she might have to smile. Or maybe she thinks she's being patronized and it's pissing her off. She was once an ER nurse, a real take charge sort. Maybe that's it.

As much as I want to empathize, this is just starting to feel like too much work after my own long day. I look through the glass door, smile and wave at the ladies within, trying to navigate that uncomfortable piece of time when you don't really want to talk a person anymore, but you can't just walk off.  Just as I'm about to move on, Shirley softens a bit.

"Thanks, Pat." She pads at her hair with her free hand. "Vicki comes in every other Tuesday, and it's a fight to the finish to get there first before all the other old broads! Had my nails done, too." She holds out her too- red tipped fingers, and drops her wrist, all speckled with age. "Don't know where the hell I think I'm going, but I'll look good when I get there!"

"You go, Shirley girl." I throw a quick smile over my shoulder and haul open the heavy glass door.  Berta and Jane sit there at their posts. Berta is 102 but still finds the time to sit here and smile at every passer by, wave her wan little hand.

"Well hello, sweetie! Do I know you?" I see her daily.

"Hi, Berta. Yes, you know me. I know you!" I tease. "Remember? You told me, just last week, how your Aunt Theresa was on the Titanic and how she survived? You told me that story. What a great story." I lean in to touch Berta's hand; her skin is so soft I am afraid it might tear, like a piece of wet tissue.

Berta is perplexed. "Oh. Now who are you again? Theresa? I had an Aunt Theresa."

I make my getaway from this who's on first conversation. "And hello to you, Mizz Jane! Any tall, dark and handsomes around here today?"

Jane is feisty, flirts with all the husbands coming to visit their dying wives.

"Don't hurt to look, does it? What was your name again, honey?"

"Pat."

"Well, of course! Of course! And how are you today? Is it very hot outside? I haven't been out today. Thought my son was coming but, well, I don't know.  It's getting pretty close to supper time..." She peers out at the parking lot. Disappointment covers her face like a veil.

"It's been rainy, least it was. But the sun's coming out now. It's cooled things off. Well, I hope Charlie gets here soon enough. Gotta go, ladies!" 

My voice is all sing song, elevated. It happens every time I see these lost faces.

There are three nurses at the nurses' station. One seems busy, studiously logging the day's details into a chart that spans half the counter space.  The other two are chatting, about some movie one had seen- and the part when this or that happened-and how good George Clooney looks these days- or something.

All around this nurses' island, old souls float by, suspended in slow motion, like too many fish in a too small aquarium. Some sit still, staring at a blaring TV. Some sleep with their heads flopped to their chests.  Some sit in chairs that seem too big, plant their slippered feet and gently rock. I see my Mom's roomie over there, off in the corner of the day room, by the window. She's doing a crossword puzzle.  She catches my eye and I wave a quick hello. She smiles and puts her pencil down, but I just wave again and head down the hall. Makes me feel bad to do that.

First door on the left, 102: I see Judy. She's here every single day, all day, sitting by her Mom's bed. Today, I can only see the top of her blonde pixie. She's snoozing, with her head resting on her hands, her elbows spread out to the sides like an angel's wings. Her Mom spies me, as I pause at the door, and puts her finger to her thin lips, "Shhhh!" and then smiles. I wave, mimic her shushing finger to my own lips, and tiptoe on by. 

Barbara, in 103, sees me pausing there and hollers out in a gravelly voice, "Hey there, stranger!" She starts to wheel toward the door to snag me, take me hostage, steal a little talk time.  I see that her oxygen tube is getting mashed under the wheel of her chair. I glance back at the station.  They are laughing out loud, while at least three room lights flash.

"Oh, Babs, now look at what you're doing here!"  I scold. I place my hands on the arms of her chair, lean in and touch my nose to hers in greeting, and quickly roll her back, so she can breathe again. She's so tickled, she doesn't even seem to notice the whole tube situation.

"Oh, how are you today, lovely girl?" I feel a little lovelier, somehow. She gives me her rapt attention, as I drone on about my long day at work, my son and my husband-how he's probably sipping tea under that cypress tree.

"I've got some pictures that he sent me-of the Great Wall. I'll bring them in tomorrow so you can have a look at him- half way across the world! Lucky dog!"

"Lucky old dog, indeed! Hope he doesn't find himself a geisha! Ha! Only foolin'. Don't you forget those photographs now, will ya?"

"Not a chance, Barbara. But I really gotta scoot." I don't tell her that geishas are from Japan. I peck her cheek and head into the fluorescent glare.

These damn lights make us all look half alive.

I'm almost to Mom's room, but have to stop when I see John. He's sitting there, in his room, in front of the TV. It's turned off. To make matters worse, he's wearing an old wool hat, on this 80 degree day. His squarish jaw is covered in white bristle. This strikes me as odd-he's usually clean shaven- flirting with Jane in the dinner hall. He also smells of urine. I stop in the doorway, and see that his whole lap is soaked with pee. He seems unaware.

"Hey, John! What's up?" I try to keep my eyes on his, avoid the look at his lap, a discovery that would no doubt bring him embarrassment and shame. "The Red Sox are playing tonight. Are you going to watch?"

His eyes look cloudy and he seems confused about who the hell I am.

"John! It's me. Pat. Anne's daughter."

"Oh! Pat? Anne's girl! Hello." I can tell he is meeting me for the very first time. I ask him about the Latin book laid on his bed. I know that he was a Latin professor at a prep school, somewhere in Massachusetts, too long ago.

"Veni, vidi, vici!" I say, attempting to turn over a stone-there- in his poor old head.

"What?" He looks slightly annoyed.

"Well, John," I sense his confusion, and agitation rising. "...make sure you watch those Red Sox tonight. They need all the help they can get, right?"

"Huh?" He looks bewildered, again.

"Bye, now." As I leave, he turns back and stares at his own reflection on the dusty TV screen.

I finally get to Mom's door. The lights are down, and I can hear Hawaiian music wafting out of the room, the notes all curled up at the ends. Dad must've gone home for a quick snack. He likes to leave quietly, while Mom naps, so she won't miss him or feel lonely. He always puts the music on low, in case she wakes up.

"Hi Mommy."

"Sleeping, Mom?" She lies so still. Too paralyzed to move. Her "bad arm" has slid off of her chest and hangs off the side of the bed, like a pendulum, but she can't feel it. I wince, thinking of that drag on her shoulder.

"Mom?" Again, she doesn't answer. Doesn't talk much at all anymore. Where has she gone?So I just sit here in the chair. There's a song playing, I recognize it. It's called 'Aloha Oye'.

"Mom! Remember this song?" Her eyebrows flicker but she doesn't speak. "It's Alfred Apaca, right? Oh my, God. I love this song. We sang this over and over-too many times a day. Remember? When we all went to Hawaii on our trip? It was your 60^th anniversary. Remember, Mom? My twentieth?"

I hope to God she remembers. It's all I have to give. Every day, I feed her her memories and hope they fill the void of not making new ones. Of lying here-- hostage--in this bed.

"Remember, Mom? That big pole house that we stayed at-- out there on the North Shore? Near Haliewa?  I found it on the internet... and we all just crossed our fingers and got on that plane."

I wait for her smile, to affirm my memories. She opens her eyes and stares at the ceiling with an odd intensity. Mom is blind, from multiple strokes. She seems to strain to see something there on the ceiling.

I keep trying to take her there. "We drove miles and miles--through all those pineapple fields. The sun seemed to shine differently there, didn't it, Mom? It slanted through the mountains in big yellow shafts over those green fields....they looked like they were lit from underneath. I don't know...."

I try to paint the day on a huge canvas--one she can see under the lids of her blind eyes.

"The tourist traps dropped away, the deeper we drove into the countryside. And then we started to see old cars abandoned at the roadside. Weird...kind of felt like an old western when the guys are lost in the desert, seeing old bone piles along the way, you know...bad omens. I was really feeling a little queasy about the rental about then!"

This is wearing. One-sided conversation. Hard to generate excitement without the give and take. Without her smile, without her eyes widening and dancing along as I talk. But I drive on. This room -too quiet.

"Oh, and remember? That stand? That little piece of civilization out there in the fields? I can still see that little Hawaiian girl. Her hair was blue black. And she was wearing old jean cut-offs... and a pink tee shirt, with 'Jakes Finger Lickin' Ribs', or something like that, scrawled across her chest.  And here I was hoping for the whole grass skirt and lei get-up. She was selling fresh pineapple in little plastic tubs. She chopped it up, right there in front of us, her little brown hands moving so quickly; slicing away the spiky shell in long fluid slices, cutting out the core. We watched her as though she were performing some magic act. Oh and that pineapple. So fresh! We kept repeating that, 'so fresh!' She must have thought we were a little wacked. She gave us all white plastic forks and napkins. But I wanted to eat it with my fingers, let the warm juice drip down my forearms. Never tasted anything better than that pineapple, warm from the fields. We knew, right then, that we'd landed in heaven. Right, Mom?"

Still. No response. I know she's not sleeping. I can tell by the way she's pursing her lips.

"The longer we drove, the more anxious I got. This house rental, could it be some internet scam? But we had no choice, at that point.  We could just follow the directions I had from the lady's emails to me...

I remember we started to see the ocean as the road led us closer to the shore, away from the fields. We started to see road signs, leading us toward Haliewa. Haliewa was neat...a funky little surfer town, chock full of burger joints and surfboard shops. It's close to Sunset Beach, where the big waves roll, we found that out...

After what seemed about a million years, following my scribbled directions, we finally reached Mokuleia, the tiny town where the house was. Remember how we all had to practice saying that? Mo-koo-lay-ee-yah. We all felt a little Hawaiian when we mastered that little song, huh Mom? We drove down that narrow dirt road cut through a thicket of hibiscus. The houses were hunkered so close to the shore we could hear the waves crashing. Our hearts beat faster.  We nervously watched the house numbers, and then stopped there in front of that weather-beaten boarded gate.

I remember, Chris got out, lifted the latch, and pushed the doors open. It was like when Dorothy opened the door on Oz. The house sat up high and we could see through it's legs clear out to the ocean! There were avocado trees!  With real avocados growing on them! I remember thinking that...real avocados.  So crazy...so cool! And plumeria trees, growing all over the yard, bursting with those spicy white flowers! Oh, man, I can still smell them!"

Somehow, here in this dark little room, with its walls plastered with pictures and cards--I really can. How delicate and white and impossibly sweet they smelled. I remember that I pulled the branch really close; let the cool white face of the flower smother mine.

I catch myself staring blankly. I feel an odd sensation: a smile visiting my mouth.

There's a huge picture of Mom and Dad on the beach, in Oahu, right there on the wall near her bed. It was taken over sixty years ago. It's grainy. Black and white. My brother had it blown up, poster size. Mom can't see it, but Dad can. In these long days and nights, here at her side, Dad can get away to that beach.

Mom is dressed in shorts and one of Dad's white shirts, tied up at the waist. She's holding a beer, the bottle tipped playfully in her cocked wrist. There's white sand on her feet and ankles. And she's looking at Dad like she's trying to memorize his face.

I almost forget where I am, so happily lost.

"Oh. Yeah. And I ran up the stairs and got the key, right where the lady said she'd leave it--in the flower box! We thought that was funny, remember, Mom? That she'd just leave the damn key right there in the flower box! The house was beautiful...we couldn't believe our luck!  It sat up so high on those poles. Those stairs were a little hard on you and Dad, but remember that view, Mom?"

I hope she can. The house was named, Hale Lokahi: 'Place of Peace'. That place...ours...for a whole week...right there on the ocean. 

"I loved that deck. So high up, we were even with the tops of the palm trees. They'd swish in the breeze like a grass skirt. And at night, the stars....so close you could almost put your finger out and touch one. Remember? How the turtles came in so close to shore, every night. And we'd toss them bread? The Hawaiians call them 'honu'. We fools out there, every night, calling to them, Ho-Noooo, Ho-Noooo! Especially after a few homemade mai tais..." I laugh. It just bubbles out of me. "That place was magic."

Apaca croons, 'Goodbye, Goodbye, oh why must we say goodbye...'

I sing along. "Farewell, dear friend, we'll meet another day..."

Mom looks peaceful.

But I want so much to hear her talk, to see her smile, to feel her touch. I miss that. I lay my head across her chest. The song lingers there above our heads. 'And Vienna's old refrain, is a sad auf wiedersehen..... Oh I wish, they didn't mean, goodbye...'

"Here I am, Mom." I take her hand and place it on my head. I move it for her. If she feels me, will she remember me?

"Here's my hair. Here's my bulbous nose.....thank you for that!" I move her hand to follow my facial itinerary, make her touch each part. "Here are my eyes." I stroke her hand across my lashes, "and my ears." I feel her finger wiggle as she caresses the hollows of my ear; maybe to tell me, she's listening. Still the sad steel guitar sings.  Apaca finishes, long and lingering, 'Aloha, Oye. I hear them sigh. Oh I wish.... they didn't mean.... good bye."

Out in the hallway, the residents are stirring, getting ready for the dinner hour. There's a crackly little voice, rising over the fading steel guitar. It's Ruth. Her daughter is pushing her, in her chair. She's singing, and bouncing a little white teddy bear aloft, as she rolls to dinner.

"Happy days are here again! Happy days are here again!"

She's stuck there on that line, like an old broken record. Blissfully unaware.

Mom clears her throat. I lift my head and cock it toward her face, there just under her chin. So close to her.

Her voice is slurred, slow. But her message clear, "Those were happy days, Pat. Happy days."

I close my eyes tight. Rest my head again, there across her chest. Breathe deep. Smile.