They May Not Mean To, But They Do

53

Joy was dressed and packed. The garbage bags, undisturbed since their arrival, could stay and rot for all she cared. She had stuffed her clothes and pills and creams into her California roller bag. She had called Mr. Bailey and he said he and Mother would be right over to drive her to the station.

She waited on the porch swing and pictured her apartment, dim, stuffy, mail piled high, Ben’s dirty dishes in the sink, though he had not even stayed there yet. It didn’t matter. It had to be better than staying here, where no one wanted her, where no one made room for her, and where, she now realized, no one trusted her.

“This is ridiculous, Joy,” Coco said. “You don’t have to go, and you certainly don’t have to take a car service. If you insist on leaving, let me drive you. I’m driving Molly to the station anyway.”

Molly was going back to California to be with Freddie, whose father was in pretty bad shape in the hospital.

“That’s quite all right.”

Coco stood in the doorway. Danny appeared behind her.

“Mom, come on. You’re acting crazy.”

Joy narrowed her eyes. “Don’t you dare call me crazy. The first step to sending the elderly to a home is saying they’re crazy. Well, just forget it. I’m not going to a home. I’m going to my home in New York. Since you’ve taken over this one.”

“Now you’re being paranoid.”

“Me? You’re the one who is paranoid, all this fuss about a simple invitation to a bat mitzvah.”

“She has a point,” Coco said. “What is the big deal?”

Danny stormed back inside, followed by Coco saying, “Well, really, Daniel, you’re being silly…”

“I have choices,” Joy yelled after them.

“She’s moving in with him,” Danny was shouting inside. “You didn’t believe me, but you hear her.”

“Oh, so what?” Coco said.

Joy dreaded the arrival of Mr. Bailey and his car. Her heart was hammering and her vertigo was sweeping in like nauseous fog. She was arguing with Danny, her dear sweet Danny. Why? Over Karl? I don’t want to live with him, she wanted to call out. I just want to invite him to my granddaughter’s celebration. I want someone there I can lean on, literally lean on the red walker that is just like Daddy’s walker; I want to smile at someone and be proud and have him see how proud I am instead of seeing a problem who has to be taken to the ladies’ room, who has to be helped down the stairs to the street, who has to be transported the three blocks from the synagogue to the restaurant.

Cora and Ruby came outside and settled themselves on the swing, one on either side.

“You can invite whoever you want,” Ruby said.

“I’m inviting a friend,” Cora said, “so I don’t see why you shouldn’t.”

“Yeah, Daddy’s being silly.” Ruby sounded like Coco, dismissive; even her gesture, hands held up in mock surrender, reminded Joy of Coco. Without thinking, Joy said, “He is not.”

Molly was the next to perch on the swing to try to talk her out of going back to the city.

“You’re one to talk,” Joy said. “You’re leaving. I don’t see why. You’re not a doctor. It’s not as if you can do anything for the old goat.”

Molly gave her a baleful look.

“Oh, I didn’t mean that. Of course you have to go back to be with Freddie. I’m selfish, I admit it, but I look forward all year to spending this time with you, Molly.”

“But if you’re not even going to be here, what difference does it make if I go home to L.A.?”

“I have to be honest,” Joy said.

* * *

Ben climbed into Mr. Bailey’s old limo next to his grandmother and Gatto.

“Stay here, Bennie. You have a whole day before you have to be back. I don’t want to cut your time in the country short.”

He shrugged. “Mom’s leaving, you’re leaving, it’s awkward now anyway. Everyone is so upset.”

He carried her bag up the steps to the platform.

“You’re a good boy,” she said, but she might have been talking to the dog.

She was silent then, until they were on the train. “I was having a temper tantrum,” she said. “That’s all.”

“So was Uncle Daniel. And Mom, too.”

Ben thought back to his own temper tantrums.

“Do you see red when you get angry?” he asked.

“I think that expression has to do with bulls and the red cape the toreador swishes around.”

“But I see red. I always saw red when I had temper tantrums when I was little.” A soft dark red screen, behind it the grown-ups above him talking and talking, hollering, but no sound coming through, just the rush of blood in his ears, red blood — that’s how he remembered his childhood tantrums. And he’d had quite a few of them.

“At least your father and I don’t kick,” his grandmother was saying. “You were a kicker.”

He sensed that she had started to cry and he turned away, staring out the window at the weedy cliffs rushing by. Then he turned back and wrapped her in his arms and let her weep against his chest. He wondered if this was what it meant to be an adult, to be on the other side of the tantrum.