“At least we can say the end is in sight,” Willa told Peter. “It won’t be long before she can manage on her own.”
“So why not call Rona right now and make your plane reservation?”
“Oh, well,” Willa said, “I’ll just wait a bit for that.”
* * *
—
The next evening while Willa was fixing supper, Richard and Barry rang the doorbell. Cheryl was the one who answered—calling “I’ll get it! I’ll get it!” and racing off to the front of the house with Airplane close behind. She brought the two men back to the kitchen, where Willa was slicing bread and Denise was setting the table.
“Look at you!” Richard told Denise. “Walking around big as life!”
“Staggering around is more like it,” she said.
Richard was dressed casually, for once, in jeans and a polo shirt, but a clipboard hung from one hand and he had a businesslike air. Barry, wearing his baggy drawstring pants, came ambling in behind him with a giant tape measure.
“We’re on a mission,” Richard said. “Like to check out your powder room.”
“Why’s that?” Denise asked.
“Mrs. Minton is selling her house and I’m going to handle it for her. I told her she’ll get a lot better price if she puts in a powder room first.”
“Mrs. Mitten is moving?” Cheryl asked.
“Right. Can you believe her place has no downstairs bathroom?”
Willa said, “My goodness, how has she been managing?”
“I have no idea,” Richard said. “So Barry would like to see what you’ve got here; yours is the same house plan.”
“Go ahead,” Denise said, and Barry trudged back out to the foyer. They heard him open a door, close it again, and open another. “Interesting,” he called. “It’s in that alcove across from the stairs instead of underneath them.”
“Underneath the stairs is my coat closet,” Denise said.
“So I just found out,” he said. His voice was muffled; they heard the zipping sound of his tape measure.
“Where’s Mrs. Minton moving to?” Denise asked Richard.
“New Jersey, I believe.”
“You’d’ve had a good two more feet if you had put it under the stairs,” Barry called.
Denise said, “I didn’t put it anywhere. My landlady must have done that; it was here when we moved in.”
She was limping out to the foyer now, so the others followed. She peered over Barry’s shoulder into the powder room. “What’s this space used for in Mrs. Minton’s house?” she asked.
“Just a big old bureau, I think,” Barry said. “Right, Richard?”
“Right, with about six doilies on top.”
Barry snapped the tape measure shut and told Denise, “I’d love to know where your landlady got that itty-bitty sink from.”
“Come over with us and take a look,” Richard told everyone. “The space beneath her stairs is what I would vote for, but I guess it depends on the plumbing connections.”
“Cheryl’s going to miss her,” Denise said. They were all moving toward the front of the house now; evidently the whole group was headed next door. “Aren’t you, honey? You know how she is,” she told Willa. “Always looking for a grandma.”
Willa felt a pang, but she smiled noncommittally.
They walked out to the porch and down the front steps, Denise hanging on to Barry’s arm as they descended. Airplane led them toward Mrs. Minton’s house as unhesitatingly as if he understood their mission. “I’m thinking new shrubbery, too,” Richard told Willa. “Give it some curb appeal.”
The existing shrubs were nondescript little scratchy things choked by weeds. The front walk was so cracked and broken that it yielded beneath their feet.
“Some young married couple might be interested,” Barry said. “Maybe for their starter house.”
It was sad, Willa thought, that an elderly woman’s longtime home should be merely the starter house for a young couple.
Mrs. Minton was standing just inside her screen door, as it happened, talking with Ben. “You’re back,” she said to Richard and Barry. “You didn’t notice Ben’s cat out there, did you? Oh, Denise! You’ve ditched your crutches!”
“Denise’s powder room is in that alcove to the left of the kitchen,” Richard told her. “Not under the stairs after all; under the stairs is a coat closet.”
“Well, I have just made do without a coat closet,” Mrs. Minton said. “When my husband and I had guests, they draped their coats over the newel post.”
She turned to lead them into the dimness of the house, clomping ahead with her walker. It was strange to see the empty space beneath the stairs. The foyer itself had a felted feeling because of the thick maroon carpet, and there was a stuffy woolen smell that made Willa want to sneeze.
Richard said, “If we could find a miniature sink like Denise’s, we could do the same thing here—put your powder room in the alcove and make this space below the stairs a closet. Buyers like a ground-floor closet.”
“What’s in New Jersey, Mrs. Minton?” Willa asked.
She was half dreading the answer, fearing a nursing home or some such, but Mrs. Minton brightened and said, “My daughter, Marie. She’s got this darling little guest cottage in her backyard, entirely separate from her house but just a few steps away.”
“Oh, how nice!” Willa said. “I wish I had a daughter.” The words popped forth without her planning them, almost without her thinking them.
Denise said, “Why, Willa, I’ll be your daughter any old time!”
Willa felt touched, and all the more so when Cheryl snuggled against her and wrapped both arms around her waist.
“Mine just thinks the world of me,” Mrs. Minton said with some pride. “She’s been after me forever to come up there.”
“Well, aren’t you lucky,” Willa said.
“But your children feel the same way, I imagine.”
“Oh, well…”
Cheryl said, “Willa, are you rich?”
“What? No, not really.”
Denise said, “Cheryl Carlyle, what on earth would make you ask that?”
“I was thinking she might could afford to build a guest cottage in our backyard.”
Willa gave her a grateful squeeze, but Ben muttered, “Little matter of what Paul would have to say about that.”
Denise and Willa, together, said, “Who?”
“Paul, Peter…you know. Her husband,” Ben said, and the dismissive tone of his voice made Willa flick a curious glance at him.
“For a long time I resisted,” Mrs. Minton told Willa. “I valued my independence, you see. And I worried the move would distress my poor dog; he’s old now and set in his ways. But then one day I thought, Why not? Why not go live near Marie? Things have been getting somewhat more difficult lately.”
“I can imagine,” Willa said. “It’s hard to believe you’ve been climbing those stairs to the bathroom on your own.”
“Oh, that’s no trouble. I just hang on to the railing with both hands and kind of haul myself along. And then I’ve got a second walker waiting at the top—my little luxury. Insurance only pays for the one, they told me. No, it’s more a question of…you know. Figuring out what to live for. That’s the great problem at my age.”
There was an odd little silence. Then Willa said—she couldn’t help herself—“What do you live for?”
“Well, one thing is that when you’re old, everything takes more time. Bathing, counting out my pills, putting in my eye drops…You’d be amazed at how much of the day a person can fill that way.”
“Ah,” Willa said.
Although this was not much use to Willa. She was still very quick on her feet.
“But sometimes it feels so repetitive. You know? Like when I’m getting dressed, I’ll t
hink, These same old, same old colors; I wish I had some new ones. But there aren’t any new ones, anywhere on earth. Or vegetables: same old vegetables. Come suppertime and there’s spinach, or there’s tomatoes, or there’s corn…Why can’t they invent some new vegetables? It seems I’ve used everything up.”
“There’s broccolini,” Cheryl said suddenly, dropping her arms from Willa’s waist.
“What, honey?”
“That’s a new vegetable.”
“Oh. Well.”
Ben turned to Willa and said, “What do you live for, Willa?”
“Me!” Willa said.
“It’s worse now that Henry is gone,” Mrs. Minton said in a thoughtful tone. “Men give a purpose to things, have you noticed?” she asked Willa.
“Yes,” Willa said, “I have noticed.”
“Now, here’s what I’m going to do,” Barry told Mrs. Minton. “I’ve got this professional plumber friend, and me and him are going to come back tomorrow and figure out your pipes.”
“Well, if you think you can,” Mrs. Minton said dubiously.
They were heading to the front of the house now. Airplane, who had not been allowed inside, stood silhouetted on the porch with his nose pressed to the screen. When he saw them coming, he wheeled and raced down the front steps and then pivoted to watch them approach, wagging his tail encouragingly.
The outdoors felt refreshingly airy after the stuffiness of the foyer. Denise hooked her arms through Richard’s and Barry’s and hobbled between them; Cheryl threw a stick for Airplane, who dashed off after it, ears flapping joyously. Ben told Willa, “You haven’t answered my question.”
“What question is that?” she asked, putting on a look of puzzlement.
Instead of repeating it, he said, “I’ve been thinking about your father’s advice. About breaking your days into moments. Do you suppose that might be going at it the wrong way?”
She wrinkled her forehead.
“I mean, sometimes when I’m feeling sorry for myself, I try the opposite approach: I widen out my angle of vision till I’m only a speck on the globe.”
“Well,” Willa said, “but doesn’t that make you feel kind of…puny?”
“I am puny,” he said. “We all are. We’re all just infinitesimal organisms floating through a vast universe, and whether we remembered to turn the oven off doesn’t make a bit of difference.”
That he considered this to be comforting made Willa laugh, and he smiled at her without appearing to take offense. Then he said “There he is!” and off he shambled toward the street. “Come here, you devil,” he called. He returned carrying Robert looped over his forearm like a shawl, and that was the end of their conversation.
* * *
—
Willa was playing I Doubt It with Cheryl and Denise after supper when Peter phoned on the landline. Cheryl was the one who went to answer. She said, “Hello?” and “Oh, hey, Peter!” and “Let me see,” and then she pressed the receiver to her chest and told Willa, “He wants to know can you talk.”
“Thank you,” Willa said. She dislodged Airplane, who was lying on top of her feet, and went out to the foyer.
“She’s coming,” Cheryl told Peter. “We’re in the middle of a game, though.” And then, holding the phone out to Willa, “It’s your turn next, don’t forget.”
Willa said, “Hello?”
“Where are you?” Peter said. “I’ve been calling and calling your cell phone.”
“Oh, I must have left it up in my room. I’m sorry. How is everything there? Have you been having a nice day?”
“Not really,” he said.
“What’s wrong?”
“What do you think is wrong? I’m rattling around this house all on my own; I supposedly have a wife but I’m forgetting what she looks like; I can’t find anyone to go to supper with tonight and there’s nothing in the house I feel like eating.”
“Don’t we still have some of that seafood stew in the freezer?”
“Nothing I feel like eating, I said.”
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. She laced her fingers through the coils of the telephone cord and looked toward the living room. Cheryl and Denise were watching her with identical crinkled expressions, waiting for her to come back.
“Is that all you have to say?” he asked.
“What?”
“Willa, are you paying attention, here?”
“Of course I am,” she said, although in fact she was only half listening. But then, when she went back to the others, only half attending the card game.
11
They’d had very pleasant weather lately, everyone agreed: hot but not unbearably so, and a bit less humid than usual. They did need rain, though. The grass—what there was of it, in the little yards lining Dorcas Road—hadn’t had a good soaking since Willa’s arrival. In fact, when a gentle shower began before dawn on Thursday, the sound was such a novelty that she woke imagining it was the automatic sprinkler system watering the golf greens back in Tucson. For one anxious moment she tried to recall just when and under what circumstances she had made the flight home.
At breakfast, Denise announced that she was skipping work on account of the rain. And Cheryl just assumed that she and Willa would not be taking their usual walk with Airplane. When Willa set out anyway, having borrowed an umbrella from the coat closet, it emerged that Airplane had been assuming the same thing. He lifted a leg beside the hedge in a desultory fashion and then turned and looked at her expectantly, plainly hoping they could go back indoors now. “What a sissy,” she told him. She had begun counting on their morning walk. It made a kind of entranceway to her day. But she gave in and let him scamper back up the porch steps.
Even when the weather cleared, in the early afternoon, Denise didn’t propose going in to work. Instead she said, “Maybe this would be the time to have me try my hand at driving. Don’t you think?”
“Oh, good idea,” Willa said.
Although she felt a little jog of resistance, to be honest.
So they tied a plastic grocery bag around Denise’s boot to protect it from the damp ground, and the two of them went out to the car. First Denise had to reposition her seat and all the mirrors, which were adjusted for Willa. Then she made a production of where to place her injured leg. There was plenty of space for it, but she said, “It just feels so clumsy! Like it might be going to get in my way if I suddenly stomped on the brakes.”
Eventually, though, she inched the car out into the street and they proceeded at a stately pace to the end of the block. They took a painfully slow right turn and then three more right turns and finished up back at the house, at which point Denise said “Phew!” and yanked the keys from the ignition and held them out to Willa. “That’s enough for now,” she said. “You’re just going to have to keep on being my chauffeur a while longer, Willa.”
Willa was amused to think she could be anybody’s notion of a chauffeur, but it was true that she was a good deal more comfortable behind the wheel these days. She knew her way to the accustomed destinations—the supermarket and the school and the ATM and such—and she had mastered the quirks of Denise’s elderly car. In fact she almost enjoyed her trips.
The next day, same as always, she drove Denise to work, but it was dawning on her now that she wouldn’t be doing it for much longer. She began to look at everyone here with an eye to losing them, the way she used to look at her sons when they were about to go off to college. Denise’s dark-blond hair, shining like bands of satin even when she shoved it unbecomingly behind her ears; Cheryl’s dear, soft, pudgy cheeks; the elegant whorls of fuzz on Airplane’s nose—she dwelt on them, committing them to memory. She felt some prophetic nostalgia even for Erland’s elf hat, and for Hal’s hound-dog gazes at Denise, and for Ben Gold’s bushy white eyebrows poking out like two antennae in the direction of whomever
he was speaking to.
But still she made no move to reserve her flight home, and when Peter offered to call Rona for her, she countered with transparent excuses. Denise was not really driving yet, she said for openers; and Peter said, “So? She can get a neighbor to drive her. I’m sure your doctor pal would be willing.”
“My doctor pal,” Willa repeated.
“What’s-his-name.”
Willa sighed.
“It’s not only the driving,” she told him. “She can’t do heavy housework. She can’t get down the basement steps.”
“Why would she need to?” Peter asked, and Willa said, “That’s where the washer and dryer are, remember?”
“Which Cheryl is fully capable of operating herself, remember?” Peter asked.
“Well, yes, but—”
“Little one. Today’s Friday. If you come in over the weekend, I can pick you up at the airport.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that.”
“I want to,” he said. “Besides, that way I can be sure you won’t take it into your head to turn around and fly back again once you land.”
“Ha ha,” Willa said. “How are things at the house?”
“Lonesome,” he said. “Even your saguaro is lonesome. It hasn’t been looking so good.”
“Oh, no! What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s kind of, I don’t know; kind of pale.”
“Pale? What do you mean, pale? It’s always pale.”
“There’s this wrinkly look to its skin.”
He was making it up. Willa was just about positive that slow-growing creatures like cacti didn’t go downhill as rapidly as all that. “Oh, well, too bad,” she said heartlessly, calling his bluff.
“Huh,” he said. “So what do I tell Rona: Saturday, or Sunday?”
“You talk like someone who still goes to work,” she said. “What does it matter to you if it’s a weekend or not?”
It was late afternoon by now and her thoughts were turning toward what to serve for supper, so she hadn’t chosen her words as carefully as she might have. Peter let a significant silence develop—an iciness in the air that she could feel almost physically. Then he said, “Right. Well, don’t let me keep you,” and he hung up.