Len — Chapter 2
At first you pretend not to notice. Or maybe it’s more that you learn not to see what you’re looking at. You walk into someone’s living room enough times where there’s an eight-foot-tall mounted black bear in the corner standing claws-out next to a treadmill being used as a dish rack and eventually you learn to not even turn your head. You just smile and move on to wherever they point you. I think in most cases the manner one organizes his belongings doesn’t necessarily say anything more about his character than how he prefers to organize his belongings. This is almost certainly true in the situations I tend to meet people in, which makes it relatively easy to ignore peculiarities. A couple months ago there was a man who’d rearranged all the furniture in his house so that it was facing southeast. Every chair, bookcase, end table, even the ottoman he’d pulled up beside his wife’s hospital bed in the dining room. He said it made him feel warmer. I knew enough not to ask.
When Gerald called me about this place, he’d warned me the rooms were a little unkempt. That’s the word he used: unkempt. “Hello, Ms. Horovitz. This is Gerald Johnson calling from Dr. Leach’s office.” He said it every time, as though caller ID doesn’t exist. Or even if it didn’t, like I wouldn’t just know his voice. We’ve been talking once, twice a week for five years. I’ve interviewed him, I’ve been to their office Christmas party and witnessed his karaoke version of “Santa Baby” (he makes a convincing Eartha Kitt after a few drinks), and I’ve even politely turned down a fumbled request for dinner.
“You know you can call me Althea, Gerald.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Althea, Gerald. Now how are you?”
“I’m well, Ms. Horovitz. Thank you for asking. I’ve called because we have another candidate if you’re interested.”
I moved the cat from my lap and found a notebook. “I’m always interested, Gerald.”
“Her name is Agnes. She lives with her son. We’ve spoken to him about your work and have his initial consent. Shall I continue?”
He continued. I got the information. Gerald mentioned the boxes, in his way. Later that afternoon I spoke briefly with Len on the telephone. I explained I research end-of-life care and that I was hoping to ask him and his mother some questions. I left out that I’d been working on my dissertation for six years and while my advisor was continually impressed with the amount of data I’d collected at the bedsides of the soon-departed, all I felt I’d accomplished was a lingering minor depression, an immunity to certain smells, and the ability to turn a live-in boyfriend into an ex-boyfriend who lives in Berkeley. (“People die in California, too,” he said before he left. “I don’t know why you have to stay here. People die everywhere.”) Len gave me the address and now here I was.
I look down at the bed, where this sad woman furtively burrowed herself away. “Agnes,” I say. “Agnes, did I hear you right?”
“Nessie.”
I look over at the doorway and there he is. He has the dog tucked under one arm like a newspaper. There’s a bit of pus in the corner of its eye that Len wipes off without looking away from my face. “Nessie?” I ask.
“Her name,” he says. “Nobody calls her Agnes. Not even my grandma called her Agnes. It’s Nessie. But she won’t answer you anyway.” He looks at the hillock of blanket and crumpled tissue suggesting his mother. Nothing registers on his face, no new emotion tightening the skin around his eyes, no whirring of thought visible in the way his lips open, nothing. But he holds his gaze there, like it might mean something. “Nope,” he finally says, “she won’t hardly ever wake up at all anymore.”
Family do weird things at the end. Who can blame them? More often than not they’ve been working hard for too long in order to ensure there’s never a time when a woman like me or the Hospice nurses comes to tell them it’s the end. When that time does arrive, they’re left with a strange mix of relief and sadness. Nine times out ten that little bit of relief mixed in there makes them either temporarily lose their minds or hate themselves. Neither’s a good option when fueled with grief. Last year I watched a mother go out and buy her teenage daughter a prom dress less than a day before she died. She got the dress on her, too, so the girl was just lying there in bed wrapped in satin and the cords from a heart monitor. When I asked the woman why, she told me she just wanted her daughter to feel pretty, to feel like a normal girl one last time. Then she locked herself in the bathroom and I showed myself out.
I’ve seen all sorts of weird things from family members. And I’ve forgiven them all. It isn’t my position to judge. But this situation is different. I just want to get my interviews done, get some good songs on the radio to sing along with on the way home, and enjoy a nice breeze through the open windows as I drive. I don’t want this. I’ll hold Nessie’s hand as I record her experiences that led to being in that bed. I’ll push a Kleenex box toward Len when he starts to cry while talking about his childhood. But I don’t want to be an advocate. I’m not supposed to be an advocate. The Hospice nurses are advocates. Gerald and Dr. Leach are advocates. I’m meant to be impartial, an observer, witness.
And now I’m not even sure this woman is actually dying.
I can feel Len staring at me. Here I am, standing in his mother’s bedroom, a stranger loitering among the debris of their lives, and I don’t even show the courtesy of responding when he speaks to me. I put my bag down on top of some boxes beside me and pull out a notebook. I flip through the notes I’d made in preparation, my standard questions, then put the papers back. I turn so I’m facing the door, but remain where I’m standing.
“Len,” I say, “do you love your mother?”
