“Just visiting.”
“I live here. This is my home.” She lifted her shoulders, straightening her posture as she beamed with pride. “I have a job and my own room, two doctors and my own TV. Danny gave it to me for my birthday. I take medicine twice a day. We eat a lot of pizza. I like the garlic bread best.”
As she spoke, she seemed childlike and innocent, but that was Hallmark-Movie-of-the-Week crap. Schizophrenics were rarely dangerous, I knew that much, but no matter how much medication, there were always issues. How much hell had she been through before she’d found her way back to Uncle Dan? Enough to lose an arm, and probably worse. The world could be abundant in its cruelty and neglect, and I felt a sudden urge not to add to it.
“Maybe…before I leave…if you’d like to…”
“Yes,” she said, as if anything I might suggest was the best idea ever. “I would like that.”
“Okay,” I said, and added, “That’s great!”
Now I was the Hallmark-Movie-of-The-Week. Would we walk together in the park feeding birds from a little brown bag of seeds? Was there a warm embrace scheduled right before the last commercial break? Fade out: mother and son, long separated, finally reunited, hand in hand strolling the boardwalk at sunset, a light piano medley tinkling in the background.
“I have a scrapbook,” Nancy said. “Danny made it. It has pictures of you, and facts. Before I go to bed, I study the facts.” She closed her eyes, like a third grader in a spelling bee trying to spell kookaburra. “May 14, 1999—Confessions of the Mid-Time Chair debuts off-Broadway.” She opened her eyes, nodding. “I study every night. It makes me feel better. I know all about my son.”
My son.
I pictured her sitting in bed, flipping the pages of her scrapbook, trying to memorize all the moments of my life she had missed. It makes me feel better, she had said, meaning a bond existed between her and the idea of a son, whether or not the actual son ever showed up; meaning that I was important and that she cared about me; meaning that if I pushed her away it might hurt, a responsibility I didn’t want but one that had latched onto me anyway. Moral obligations rarely asked permission.
“That’s great,” I said. “You got the date right.”
“I can show you the scrapbook,” she said. “Maybe you could sign it. Like an autograph.”
At the counter, Uncle Dan slid the pizza wheel across a large plain cheese, dissecting it into the standard eight slices, his head cocked toward our booth, trying to listen.
“Sure,” I told her. “That would be nice.”
“When?”
“Um, soon.” My feet shifted under the table. “But I have to go now.”
Her lips, turned upward, dropped to a frown.
“My friends are waiting for dinner.”
“Kelly Price,” Nancy said. “I met her at the house when you fell asleep. I don’t have her picture yet, but we wrote her name in the book. Maybe she’ll give me a picture.”
“Maybe,” I said, and her face bloomed with pride.
“Well, it was nice talking to you,” I said, exiting the booth. She adjusted her body and leaned toward me, offering her cheek, and for a moment my instincts drove me toward her. Another milestone for the scrapbook, perhaps—first kiss between mother and son. She sat waiting, cheek turned up, a placid smile etched on her face, just like I’d seen her two mornings ago when Uncle Dan had kissed her goodbye. I leaned toward her and almost did it—I almost kissed her cheek—but I couldn’t do it. I reached over to pat her shoulder, but my hand landed instead on her empty sleeve, my fingers brushing the hanging fabric and its strange phantom limb before jerking away. Nancy, still waiting for her kiss, sat perfectly still, her big dreamy eyes aimed toward the ceiling as I scooted away.
. . . . .
During my tenure as an unattached struggling playwright in New York, those what-the-hell-am-I-doing years after Amy married Clyde, I briefly dated an actress who never broke character—whatever her role, Brianna pretended to be that character in every aspect of her life. Though sometimes fun, it was mostly exhausting, and we broke up after she landed the lead in The Sound of Music at the Bucks County Playhouse and started yodeling “The Lonely Goatherd” at 6:00 AM.
Amy’s daughter Jill wasn’t that bad, not yet, but when I arrived at the house she was already in character, standing on the porch with a sly grin, an empty champagne glass wobbling in her hand.
“Yes, I have tricks in my pocket; I have things up my sleeve,” she said, stepping toward me as I exited the car, her voice strong and confident. “But I am the opposite of a stage magician. She gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.”
She closed her eyes, pursing her lips before kissing the night air, her bare legs crossed as she leaned back against the porch railing, the hem of her dress climbing her thighs as she cocked her hip, inviting me forward with a graceful sweep of her arm. Her silhouette painted the wooden planks, her shadow stretching from the front door to the edge of the top step, luring me toward her as I walked up the driveway carrying the lasagna. It was impossible to ignore the tight slope of her dress, a short sleeveless pink jersey with an open back and gold beaded trim.
I knew that dress well.
Twenty years earlier in a motel room in Wildwood Crest, free HBO and a continental breakfast for $79 bucks per night, I’d unhooked the back button of that dress and watched Amy shimmy out of it, The Cure’s “Just like Heaven” playing over the radio, 106.3 FM, our favorite station; I remembered falling to my knees, like I’d seen someone once do in a bad movie, my hands grabbing Amy’s hips as I kissed between her legs, my
