99 Stories of God

17. Dresser

Our mother was an alcoholic, though she’d stopped drinking twelve years before, but once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. She’d had all those cakes. She moved around a lot, but wherever she was when the anniversary rolled around she’d get the cake.

Now she was dying. She’d stopped eating and was skin and bones, lying on a bed in her house, a house she’d said more than once she’d bequeathed to me. The house was the last thing I wanted.

I’m there with my sister, who is useless in situations like this, though for both of us it was a unique situation, one’s mother dying only once.

Our mother’s eyes were dark, black almost. Earlier that morning the skin on her arms was bleeding, but then it stopped.

She’d been quiet for hours, but then she said in this surprisingly strong voice, “Where is the refuge for my bewildered heart?”

It made me shudder. It was beautiful.

“Guide me, Good Shepherd,” she said. “Walk with me.”

My sister had to leave the room. I could hear her crying into the telephone. Who on earth could she be calling, I wondered, and why, at this moment? We know nothing about one another really, though we’re only a year apart.

Then our mother said in that same strong voice, like a singer’s voice:

“Tony, I’d like a martini. Make me a martini, honey.”

But I didn’t, I wouldn’t. I felt she’d regret it. I felt it just wasn’t right.