I buzz the door at the end of the corridor, the red light flashes, the door opens, I check in at the nursing station, ask how Susan’s doing, the same the nurse says. I don’t see her pacing, so I go to her room. Susan’s wearing a purple blouse over her nightgown, tan panty hose, one house slipper. She tells me to sit on the edge of her bed while she goes out to get her hourly allotted cigarette. I wait a little while for her to come back before going to the dayroom. I put her dirty clothes in the plastic bag that I brought to take them home in.
Jimmy Ray is in the day room. He’s waiting for us to get started. Already he’s laid out the Scrabble board, having turned the tiles face down in the box. I’m conscious of Susan close to me, a cigarette ash on a silk scarf, cigarette smoke in my lungs. Then Susan puts out her cigarette. She has smoked it down to the filter. She sets the filter next to the Scrabble board. When I put it in one of the ashtrays, she puts it back next to the Scrabble board.
Jimmy isn’t much of a Scrabble player, and sometimes he doesn’t follow the rules. He will play contractions and brand name words. I watch him edge in the D tile in ford. He has already played the O and the R, playing vertically off the F in buffs. But Jimmy hasn’t a brand name in mind. He has a ford in a river in mind. Susan’s holding a glazed doughnut that she hadn’t gotten around to eating yet. I play two O’s and a D off ford, carefully putting each tile in its square. I get triple word points off dodo. Jimmy plays hearts off the S in buffs.
We’re getting the weather on Channel Four. The weather woman is forecasting rain. There is this black man, Big Tim, with his coffee, smoking a cigarette. I’ve been keeping Big Tim in cigarettes. I leave the cigarettes at the nursing station with instructions to give them to Big Tim because I know he would take care of Susan, look out for her in the corridor. Big Tim is in charge of the refreshment room; he hands out coffee and soft drinks. One time I lined up for a soft drink but he shook his head, not for visitors.
I play two tiles vertically, an S and an E, off the A in hearts. I do the adding up, write down the score. Susan is back in the dayroom with her uneaten glazed doughnut. I am about to play shut off the H. Susan puts her hands on the card table, rocking the tiles loose on the board. Jimmy hooks his thumbs in his belt. I put the tiles back in the box, the tiles first, then the board, trying not to listen to Susan. She wants me to go to her room. She doesn’t want me with Jimmy. I tell Jimmy we’ll play again next time.
“I said let’s go to my room,” Susan says.
Susan is tapping her right foot. I have seen her tap her right foot before when she wanted to get money out of me. It would always be her right foot until I say something, yes or no. Today I say yes; we will go to her room.
My wife, Peggy, turns on the washing machine. She waits for the level of water to rise before putting in the detergent. She has the dial set for warm/cold, for Susan’s blouses and washable sweaters. The camisoles, panties, and T-shirts are on high-to-low heat, in the dryer. Water trickles into the washing machine. Peggy waits with a scoop of detergent. I am holding Susan’s wash basket, the one she used while she was living with us, in the garage apartment behind the house. Peggy is watching the level rise. She puts in half a cup of detergent. This is my signal to move away so Peggy can put in Susan’s clothes.
Peggy lowers the lid and and spreads her arms, palms flattened on the washer. She looks past me at the stairs, through the window across from the washing machine, running up past Susan’s window. Neither one of us wants to climb these stairs. We haven’t cleaned up Susan’s apartment yet. This is something we will do together, put Susan’s apartment in order. Peggy won’t do this without me. We will pry loose candles and clotted wax from saucers and paperback books. There are the cigarettes Susan smoked. They are standing in rows on a window sill, on her vanity, in the bathroom. Peggy will leave the cigarettes to me. She will do the dusting and vacuuming.
Peggy moves to the door of the laundry room. She stands in the door, she wants to keep me inside. Then I realize she isn’t blocking my way. She is asking me to bring the ironing board, folded up next to the water heater. The iron is in Susan’s apartment. One of us will have to get it.
I haven’t seen Shirley Ray in the store before. Shirley Ray is wearing the pants suit that she usually wears in the ward. She would watch us sometimes, playing Scrabble, but never for very long. Shirley hands me a prescription, for an antidepressant, Elevil.
“Remember me. I’m Jimmy’s mother,” she says. “I’ve seen you two playing Scrabble.”
I ask her how Jimmy is doing before I go to fill the prescription. About the same, she tells me. When I come back with the prescription, Shirley touches one teardrop earring with the edge of a painted fingernail. The plastic container she holds up to the light so the capsules show through its apricot haze. Shirley rummages in her pocketbook. She has a checkbook and a ballpoint pen. I tell her we can’t take her check because she doesn’t have an account here. She asks me if we take credit cards. I tell her to go to the tobacco counter. Someone there will take her credit card. Shirley’s eyes narrow like Jimmy’s when he is about to make his play. She is moving the checkbook slightly, tapping an edge on the ball of her thumb. Then she comes out with it, about Jimmy.
“There’s something I think you should know. My son Jimmy tried to kill me. Jimmy pointed a shotgun at me. I was lucky, my brother was there. Next time he might not be there.”
I don’t tell Shirley I know about that. I’ve heard about it, from Big Tim. I look away from her, at aisle 6-A, toothpaste, dental floss, shaving cream. I know Shirley has things to say to me. I look at my row of prescriptions, lined up in their plastic containers. Witch doctor’s mumbo jumbo, voodoo incantations might work better, but I am a pharmacist. I have to stick to what I know.
Shirley pulls out her billfold, spreads it out on the prescription counter. She shows me a family photograph of Jimmy and Shirley together, in the backyard in front of a gas grill. Jimmy is wearing a barbecue apron. He has his arm around Shirley. Beside Jimmy, Shirley looks small and frail.
“That’s Jimmy when he was fourteen. Jimmy’s Dad took that picture.”
I tell Shirley Jimmy looks good, and she shows me a second photograph. Jimmy is riding a bicycle. I think of Susan on her first bicycle, with a nice little smile for her father.
“Jimmy was okay before Jack left. You can tell that in the picture.”
“Maybe he’ll be okay again.”
“That’s never going to happen. I can’t trust Jimmy anymore. I don’t know what he’ll do next.”
Another customer is approaching, an old man, one of the regulars here. Shirley moves aside to let him in. He waves a prescription at me, and I take it and go to fill it. I measure out the loaf-shaped pills, put the cap on the container. I put the prescription in the computer. Shirley watches me stick the label on. She puts the billfold back in her pocketbook, and I wait for Shirley to leave the store.
Susan has not gotten better. The insurance will pay for thirty days. In eight days we will either have to bring her home or go to the probate judge and petition to have her committed to Stockton. We have to decide what to do next, how long we think we can have Susan here if she isn’t better in nine days. Peggy sees no alternative; Susan will have to be taken to Stockton.
Peggy sips on her iced tea, looking up from her pinochle hand. We are sitting out on our screened-in porch. The melds are laid out on the tiles. It is Peggy’s turn to lead. She leads a ten of diamonds, trumps. I play the jack from a meld. Then I lead from the melds, king of clubs. Peggy plays the nine of clubs. She draws from the stock and leads from a meld. Susan’s window over the garage is shut; the venetian blind is closed. We finish, add up our tricks. Peggy shuffles the cards with authority, riffling the interlocked cards off her thumbs. I have seen her do this at her bridge club, with her friends, without looking down. I’ve heard her keep up a conversation, shuffling the cards,