The New Yorker Stories

dreaming he’s a man. Maybe you were confused after your stroke, or it came to you in a dream and it seemed real, the way dreams sometimes linger. Maybe you couldn’t understand how we’d all aged, so you invented us again as young people. And for some reason Tim got frozen in time. You said the other wife looked like you. Well, maybe she was you.”

“I don’t know,” my mother says slowly. “I think your father was just attracted to the same type of woman.”

“But nobody ever met these people. There’s no marriage license. He was married to you for almost fifty years. Don’t you see that what I’m saying is a more likely explanation?”

“You really do remind me of that detective, Desperate Mason. You get an idea, and your eyes get big, just the way his do. I feel like you’re about to lean into the witness stand.”

Jack Milrus, a towel around his neck, stands in the doorway. “In a million years, you’ll never guess why I’m late,” he says. “A wheel came off a truck and knocked my car off the road, into a pond. I had to get out through the window and wade back to the highway.”

A nurse comes up behind him with more towels and some dry clothes.

“Maybe it’s just raining out, but it feels to him like he was in a pond,” my mother says, winking at me.

“You understand!” I say.

“Everybody has his little embellishments,” my mother says. “There wouldn’t be any books to read to children and there would be precious few to read to adults if storytellers weren’t allowed a few embellishments.”

“Ma! That is absolutely true.”

“Excuse me while I step into the bathroom and change my clothes.”

“Humor him,” my mother whispers to me behind her hand. “When he comes out, he’ll think he’s a doctor, but you and I will know that Jack is only hoping to go to medical school.”

You think you understand the problem you’re facing, only to find out there is another, totally unexpected problem.

There is much consternation and confusion among the nurses when Tim disappears and has not reappeared after nearly an hour. Jack Milrus weighs in: Tim is immature and irresponsible, he says. Quite possibly a much more severe problem than anyone suspected. My mother suggests slyly that Tim decided to fall down a rabbit hole and have an adventure. She says, “The rabbit hole’s a more likely explanation,” smiling smugly.

Stretched out in bed, her tennis shoes neatly arranged on the floor, my mother says, “He always ran away from difficult situations. Look at you and Jack, with those astonished expressions on your faces! Mr. Mason will find him,” she adds. Then she closes her eyes.

“You see?” Jack Milrus whispers, guiding me out of the room. “She’s adjusted beautifully. And it’s hardly a terrible place, is it?” He answers his own question: “No, it isn’t.”

“What happened to the truck?” I ask.

“Driver apologized. Stood on the shoulder talking on his cell phone. Three cop cars were there in about three seconds. I got away by pointing to my MD plates.”

“Did Tim tell you he just got married?”

“I heard that. During visiting hours, his wife took Donna aside to give her the happy news and to say that we weren’t to slight him in any way, because he was ready, willing, and able—that was the way she said it to Donna —to assume responsibility for his mother’s well-being. She also went to the hospital this morning just after you left and caused a commotion because they’d thrown away her wedding bouquet.”

The phone call the next morning comes as a surprise. Like a telemarketer, Tim seems to be reading from a script: “Our relationship may be strained beyond redemption. When I went to the nurses’ desk and saw that you had included personal information about me on a form you had apparently already filled out elsewhere, in collusion with your doctor friend, I realized that you were yet again condescending to me and subjecting me to humiliation. I was very hurt that you had written both of our names as ‘Person to be notified in an emergency,’ but then undercut that by affixing a Post-it note saying, ‘Call me first. He’s hard to find.’ How would you know? How would you know what my teaching schedule is when you have never expressed the slightest interest? How do you know when I leave my house in the morning and when I return at night? You’ve always wanted to come first. It is also my personal opinion that you okayed the throwing out of my wife’s nosegay, which was on loan to Mom. So go ahead and okay everything. Have her euthanized, if that’s what you want to do, and see if I care. Do you realize that you barely took an insincere second to congratulate me and my wife? If you have no respect for me, I nevertheless expect a modicum of respect for my wife.”

Of course, he does not know that I’m joking when I respond, “No, thanks. I’m very happy with my AT&T service.”

When he slams down the phone, I consider returning to bed and curling into a fetal position, though at the same time I realize that I cannot miss one more day of work. I walk into the bathroom, wearing Vic’s old bathrobe, which I hang on the back of the door. I shower and brush my teeth. I call the Oaks, to see if my mother slept through the night. She did, and is playing bingo. I dress quickly, comb my hair, pick up my purse and keys, and open the front door. A FedEx letter leans against the railing, with Cora’s name and return address on it. I take a step back, walk inside, and open it. There is a sealed envelope with my name on it. I stare at it.

The phone rings. It is Mariah Roberts, 2003 Virginia Teacher of the Year for Grade Three, calling to say that she is embarrassed but it has been pointed out to her that children dressed as starfish and sea horses, dancing in front of dangling nets, represent species that are endangered, and often “collected” or otherwise “preyed upon,” and that she wants to reimburse me for materials, but she most certainly does not want me to sew starfish costumes. I look across the bedroom, to the pointy costumes piled on a chair, only the top one still awaiting its zipper. They suddenly look sad—deflated, more than slightly absurd. I can’t think what to say, and am surprised to realize that I’m too choked up to speak. “Not to worry,” I finally say. “Is the whole performance canceled?” “It’s being reconceived,” she says. “We want sea life that is empowered.” “Barracuda?” I say. “I’ll run that by them,” she says.

When we hang up, I continue to examine the sealed envelope. Then I pick up the phone and dial. To my surprise, Vic answers on the second ring.

“Hey, I’ve been thinking about you,” he says. “Really. I was going to call and see how you were doing. How’s your mother?”