Cecilia and I entered a coffee shop and brought our coffees to a window seat.
“How are you, Isabelle?”
How was I. Not bad. Not good. “Holding. In a holding pattern. Like a jet that’s not headed in a nosedive to the ground, but one that’s thinking about it.”
She didn’t like that answer. She cleared her throat. “How did it go there?”
“Fine. It was splendid.”
“No, tell me the truth.”
I drank my coffee. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I tell you everything.”
“And I tell you everything I think you need to know. I’m better. That’s it.”
“That’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair? That you choose to share your life tidbits with me, but I don’t want to analyze to death each detail of my life?”
“Shit. You shut me out.”
“Live with it, Cecilia. I am.”
Sometimes things are so insanely private, you don’t even want to talk about them with yourself. Don’t talk about them, don’t wrestle with them, don’t let them run you over. Let it be.
I thought Cecilia was going to fight it out, strangle it out of me, but, surprisingly, she didn’t. We had enough stress in this family. How much stress and tension can one family hold before it explodes or implodes? Must all problems be dissected? What does that help?
Cecilia nodded and placed her hand over mine.
Cecilia is not given to a lot of affection, so I was surprised.
And touched.
I thought I was going to choke and bawl and coffee would spurt out of my nose.
She squeezed my hand and I squeezed back.
And there we sat, in the window seat of a coffee shop, off a funky street in Portland, holding hands with a little plastic horse attached to a steel ring on the sidewalk.
Sometimes that’s all you can do, I think. Hold hands. Because life gets so scary sometimes, so bleak, so cold, that you are beyond being able to be comforted by mere words.
People probably thought we were gay, but I’d stopped worrying a long time ago what people thought of me, and so had Cecilia. Childhood had beat that right out of us.
We held hands. We did not let go.
“She’ll eventually be fine, back to her dancin’ and high kickin’ ways,” the doctor told us after the operation.
It was the Hispanic doctor, Dr. Janns. When Momma had first met him she had asked him if he had had to spend his childhood picking berries in farmers’ fields.
“No, I didn’t.” He had shaken his head, gracious enough to let Momma’s inflammatory comment go. “My ol’ man was a career military man, tougher than nails, so we grew up all over the world. Like vagabonds. We didn’t ever pick berries. Too busy learning German or Spanish or Korean. New country, new language. My mom was a battle-ax.” He swung his hand like an ax. “When we weren’t learning how to squawk and swear in the native tongue, hell if our mom wasn’t haulin’ us around by the ears to the opera and ballet. I prefer the ballet, myself. You?”
Momma seemed surprised by this. “Oh. Well. Hmm.”
I waited for her to change the subject. This man didn’t fit her profile, so she was stuck.
“You look too young to be a doctor,” she accused him. “Almost a child. Are you a child?”
He grinned at her. He had a lot of perfect white teeth. “You look too young to have heart surgery, ma’am, you gorgeous queen, you movie star, you, so we’re gonna fix the ticker on up and kick ya right on outta here.”
I saw the corners of Momma’s smile tip up.
Dr. Janns now grinned at us with those white teeth. “Your mom came through fine. She already told one of the male nurses that nursing wasn’t for men and asked if he was a sissy.”
“Obviously the operation did not soften her disposition,” I drawled.
The doctor grinned. “Difficult operation, hard on the body. But then, we’re rippin’ people open, pumping the ol’ hearts for ’em and clampin’ ’em back up again. What can ya expect?”
Sheesh.
“I understand that her mother has dementia and you have a special-needs brother at home. She’ll stay here for a while, chill, relax, she’ll dig it, then we’ll send her to that movin’ and groovin’ retirement center in Portland to recover and get back swingin’ again.”
Janie snuffled. Cecilia got all teary but didn’t let a tear drop, not a one. She is not into weakness. Finds it appalling. I was relieved Momma was okay and relieved that I felt relieved. It made me feel more human to myself, as if I could still love a mother like Momma.
“We’ve tried to get the dragon to go to the retirement center, but she’s refused,” I said.
“The dragon will go,” the doctor almost sang out.
“Huh. You don’t know our dragon.”
He hummed a happy song. “I told her that there were many healthy people there. Many healthy men. And there’s dancing and trips. I had no idea your mother was a dancer in her youth.”
I cleared my throat, Cecilia made a sound between a whistle and a gasp, and Janie hummed.
Yes, Momma had been a dancer. Of sorts.
“So she agreed to go?”
“Yes. Definitely. She’s a character. A free spirit. A warrior.” He clenched his fist and raised it. “Awesome!”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Cecilia said.
“Any chance, doctor, that you sewed her mouth shut?” I raised my eyebrows.
Momma was still out cold when we went in to visit. For once in her life, she seemed tiny, barely a bump under the white sheets, the machines humming, the nurses and doctors in and out, the IV line a clear snake above her.
We stared at our petite, silent momma, lost in our own thoughts.
“She’s gonna be raving when she realizes she’s not in her pink robe,” I observed.
“She’s going to have a fit because her makeup is smudged,” Janie said, with worry.
“She’s not going to like the food here,” Cecilia said tiredly.
I didn’t hesitate. “I’m thinking it’s time we returned to Trillium River.”
“Shit, yes,” Cecilia said. “I’m with you.”
“Oh yes. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,” Janie breathed. “The nurses can handle her and I know she’ll upset my spiritual balance if I’m here when she wakes up.”
“Out we go,” I said, turning.
Janie was out the door first and into the hallway before I could say, “Escape, ladies, before the volcano wakes up and explodes.”
She didn’t even bother smiling.
Soon we were sailing by the gorge, our hair flying with the wind, like pinwheels, for once not trying to talk, our thoughts our own as they tilted and spun and finally settled into a pattern of peace as we headed back to Trillium River. Janie pulled out a Yo-Yo Ma CD from her bag and we floated along