Alligator - Lisa Moore [34]
He couldn’t reach the buzzer but the woman in the bed near the window had already buzzed for the nurse. The woman, who had come to Newfoundland from Britain long ago, and who was bald and had no visitors, raised her fist in the air and called, Steady on, young man.
Then the coughing subsided. His mother let go of his arm and her fingers had left white marks. He felt a line of sweat trickle down his temple.
Frank picked up the glass of water on the meal tray and bent the straw with the accordion pleats toward her mouth and she drew the water halfway up the straw, but didn’t have the strength to get the water to her mouth. She had hurt his arm, actually hurt his arm. But now she could not drink from a straw. The choking had ravaged her.
She tried again and still couldn’t get the water all the way up the straw. Frank saw himself looking on, saw his frantic attention to the straw, how earnestly he watched the rise and fall of liquid in the straw, never quite reaching his mother’s pursing and slackening lips.
Frank giggled. It started as a quiver and spread a chill over his skin as he tried to suppress it, but he was giggling. Then he erupted with laughter. His mother was startled, but it was as though she had the same vision he did, how intent they were on the straw and some sort of palsy took over her face, the muscles stretching weirdly, her shoulders heaving, and then, because of a familiar look around her eyes he knew she was laughing.
He felt tremendous relief and shock. His nearly dead mother was laughing with him.
They were both soundlessly racked with laughter.
He could not breathe, nor could she, they were laughing so hard. He watched tears come to her eyes and move quickly down her cheeks and this made him cry too. His stomach was clenched. She waved her hand, the weakest kind of move, begging him to stop, but he wouldn’t, and this struck them both as even more funny. He couldn’t get enough breath and she put her finger to her lips to tell him to be quiet.
He leaned forward and whispered in her ear, Steady on. It made them laugh even more.
Just as abruptly she stopped laughing and he gave her the straw again and this time they were focused. She got the water to her mouth, three fast strawfuls of water. He got a face cloth and ran the water in the bathroom until it was as cold as it got and wet the cloth and folded it.
He thought about their apartment and how he would get rid of it, but not before she died.
They both knew he couldn’t afford it, but they had never discussed it. He put the cloth on her forehead and told her to rest. She closed her eyes, and she said, That’s nice. What a nice boy.
She was silent for a half-hour. He was watching the clock because he wanted to get out into the sunshine now. He wanted a sandwich before he went to work. He took the face cloth off her forehead slowly so as not to wake her.
Then she said, No one in my family has ever had a degree, and I want you to have one, Frank. I want you to go to university.
MADELEINE
WHAT SHE REALLY wants right now is to spend an afternoon with Marty. Some hotel restaurant somewhere with a threadbare Persian rug and waiters in pressed jackets and the tea comes in a stainless-steel pot with a leaky spout and they have all the time in the world to discuss her film, that’s what she wants.
Lately, she’s been thinking about hitting him up for a loan. There have been unforeseen expenses. She misses him fiercely. She finds herself arguing with him in her head. He’s in the room and he’s cantankerous. She asks him what he thinks about this or that shot: the girl in bed, her red hair spread over the white nightdress, how pale and possessed she looks, and the surf smashing against the cliffs and the four white horses galloping over the road at night.
Archbishop Fleming’s cape, the scarlet lining in the moonlight, the cracking whip. Newfoundland has never looked so beautiful and dangerous, she wants to tell him.
They’d just got married and had figured out the cities in Europe that were nine hours