Where the God of Love Hangs Out - Amy Bloom [36]
Beth grinned and looked down to text someone.
“Pretty cool, right? I might become an architect. The disabled Americans thing, plus I love design. Did you see my dresser?” Her dresser was painted to look like a treasure chest, with gold coins and jewels glued all the way down the front, as if the treasure were spilling out. “That was my idea.”
Frances sat in the small, comfortable armchair and Beth chatted a little, and answered e-mail. (Oh, my God, she said. No way. No way.) She texted friends and smiled at Frances to show that she didn’t mean to be rude and went back to her laptop. Mrs. Shenker’s mother came in with a plate of peanut-butter-and-fluff sandwiches, each half topped with a strawberry slice and two glasses of milk.
“Nana, thank you,” Beth said, and her grandmother kissed her and said, “Physical therapy in an hour, young lady,” and Beth struck a strongman pose and then offered Frances a sandwich and a napkin. Beth played some music on her computer and Frances and Beth ate their sandwiches, as if they were two girls in seventh grade, taking a homework break.
Frances ate her sandwich halves and thanked Mrs. Shenker’s mother, who handed her a couple of warm cookies for the road. The Shenkers emerged arm in arm to thank Frances for coming. They told her that Beth was starting school in three weeks, and Mr. Shenker said, She’s nervous about it, but you know Beth—she always gets back on the horse.
Frances got in her car and drove around the corner and pulled over, to just sit for a while.
S.S. DISCOVERY
Dear Beth,
I saw your picture today. Everyone in America must have seen it, plastered on the cover of People magazine. You look wonderful. Everything that was just on the cusp in you, when I knew you ten years ago, has absolutely flowered. I was sorry to read that your grandmother had passed but your parents look very well and, of course, very proud. I’m sure you are an inspiration to everyone around you, just as they said in the magazine. To have done what you’ve done—the Paralympics and now the triathlon and your work with teenagers—is very impressive.
Things have been quieter, here. I’m actually still at the hospital. I’m the Assistant Director of Social Work, which sounds like more than it is. I handle the scheduling and the outpatient programs but I don’t do any hiring or firing.
My father—I think you met him the time my car broke down at your house—passed away about five years ago. I miss him. It’s weird, at least it’s weird to me, but I now spend most Friday nights with his widow, Carol Skolnick. I don’t know if I ever mentioned it (probably not—we didn’t really talk about me, which was appropriate, since my home visits were for you and to help with your post-traumatic recovery), but my father remarried during the time you and I were in contact. Anyway, Carol and I weren’t exactly close when my father was alive but since he died, she’s reached out to me, and now on Friday nights she lights a Yarsight candle (I don’t know if I’ve spelled this correctly) for my father and for all of the other people we know who have died (I don’t include patients; we just mourn the people we’ve known in our personal lives) and then we have dinner, which is usually Kentucky Fried Chicken. It’s sort of a tradition.
The other big change is that I am in touch with my sister, Sherri, who was not part of my life when you and I knew each other. Sherri lives in Indianapolis and she and her husband run a cleaning service. They clean up after storms and other natural disasters in people’s offices and homes and also just regular cleaning. They have two girls, who are almost as old as you were when I met you, and they are wonderful girls. I only wish I had known them sooner. Sherri called me after our father died and she said to me, Your only family is me, and I remember saying that it didn’t seem like she wanted me in her life and she said that that wasn’t true, that our father had just abandoned her after her religious experience (my sister is, I guess, a born-again Christian and my father and I were