Caregiver

Lance Milham

People didn’t call Tommy. He didn’t have much other than Mom for obligations, so he kept his ringtone off. That’s why he missed Brenda’s call. She left a hurried message, that she was okay, and she was hoping to talk with him after work. Said she’d be working a full shift. He wondered what she wanted to talk to him about. Her voice put him back in Cali. He wondered if she was still serving at Izzy’s. He used to get the meatball on his lunch breaks, then sit in the back to get in extra time with her. He wondered where she stayed now, if she still hit the same beach. It’d only been a year, but he knew how fast things could change.

Tommy’s identical twin brother got murked the summer after Cube left NWA. He was the only body in a botched robbery. Their mother, forgetful with age, remembered him well, a sweet, loving son. She shouted for him now, Tommy looking too similar while fixing them sandwiches by the radio. The window open, the Orlando morning tasted dark, bitter like coal or gunsmoke.

She filled a small recliner, faded gold-yellow, her fingers twisted by gout tied in her lap. She wore the thin kind of jeans that they make for old people. She shouted for the window to be closed. “I’m freezing, Eric,” she told Tommy, in the mean voice. She hugged herself in the gray sweater. “I’ll freeze to death in this house.”

The window now closed, Tommy still tasted something in his mouth, like the dust deep in the shag, deep in the old woman in the small recliner. He closed his eyes and put an ear by the radio, Tupac reminding him of sunblock and bikini tops. He kept the volume low so she wouldn’t hear, simultaneously because he didn’t want to disturb her, and he didn’t want a lecture. She often forgot he was forty. Well, thirty-nine. And she often forgot he was Tommy, but that’s a whole ‘nother thing. Sometimes, like now, for instance, she said things like “I love you, Eric,” and “You always take such good care of me, Eric.” That was okay, though, because he didn’t mind being Eric, especially if he was being praised.

The taste fell away from his tongue by the time he started eating. He stared at his mother. She liked to do things for herself, feed herself. Her twisted fingers caged the sandwich like a rat trap. She bit the corners lightly, getting only crust at first. Chewed in the side of her mouth like a baby cow. “Good,” she said. “Very good, Tommy.”

He smiled and took his empty plate to the sink. He sponged off the mayonnaise and wrung his hands in the hot water. Her tongue smacked, and she mumbled “Very good” between bites, not to anyone in particular.

Tommy was balding, just a little in the back. He put a finger on the spot, and leaned against the counter to think.

He’d been back in Orlando a year. A little less, but you don’t just throw things out of your head with time. There are other factors at play, like thinking time, time to dwell, and Tommy had plenty of thinking time, or missing time, as it often was. He thought about Brenda again. The last time they spoke was the first Saturday after he got everything unpacked at Mom’s. She’d called to make sure he was getting settled well, or so she said. He figured she cared about that too, but he knew it was a diplomatic call, making sure they were on the same page. He moved back into his old room, upgraded the bed the next week, but that night, his body felt big sitting on the edge of the twin bed. He and Mom would switch rooms, soon, though, about when she started calling him Eric.

He wondered if Brenda expected him to apologize for leaving, but he sort of expected her to apologize for staying. They junked a good thing, he thought. She could’ve been the one. He could’ve started a family, been a dad. He wanted to be a dad so badly. He and Eric used to joke like having families of their own was a million years away. Then he died, and Tommy took things more seriously, life more seriously. Somehow, still, those million years came and went, and he felt like he’d waited too long.

Brenda showed up late in life, changed his mindset, but she didn’t want his problems, his mom. He felt guilty, though. Three years isn’t that long, but they were both getting old. He wanted to make something to leave behind. If you’d asked him in college, he’d say he expected to be married and on the PTO by forty. Thirty-nine. Life was sliding away now, he thought. Years start moving quicker.

Tommy touched Mom’s knee as she finished chewing the last bite. Her lips smacked, and she smiled at him with a wet white crumb in the corner of her mouth. “Delicious,” she said in the sweet voice. He took her glasses from her face and desmudged them on his shirt. She thanked him, but called him Eric.

He swept up while she eyed her book. He wasn’t sure if she actually read anymore. There was one day he noticed her flip back and forth between two pages for a half hour. Her bookmarks were often moved backward on different days too. That was something he quit checking for as it made him feel depressed. Eric liked to read too. He was an English major at UCLA when he got popped. Was taking summer classes and everything. Tommy didn’t remember the timeline that well. He spent a lot of time hammered after the cremation. He remembered returning Eric’s textbook rentals to the bookstore drunk as hell. That he did remember, because some meathead-looking guy eating a croissant saw him and must’ve realized because he said, “Whoa. How ‘bout a coffee, brother?” and Tommy lost his mind right there in the store. Scared the whole place with his hollering. He tried to slow down after that, started crying more.

He liked to remember them as kids, hanging on the balcony rail, watching pigeons and seagulls integrate and combine in the air. They were probably ten when Eric first questioned why seagulls were so far from the sea.

“You’re starting to look like your father,” Mom said from the recliner. “A handsome man.” She grinned at him.

Tommy nodded and thanked her. Made sure to call her “Mom.” He liked using that name as a constant, an anchor. He clicked the TV on for her and expected her to go quiet into the news, but she continued.

“Do you and Eric still look the same?”

He hated to play along, but he knew he was supposed to, so he played along. He told her they are still identical. At least he was Tommy for once, he thought.

“Oof,” she said. “My little mirrors running up and down. Just what I need: three of your father!” She chuckled and patted her hands together in her lap.

He considered being one of three—the only one who remained—back against the refrigerator. Soon, he noticed she had fallen asleep.

She snored with her mouth barely agape so her lip flapped back and forth against her teeth and made a suckling sound, the kind Tommy imagined piglets make on their mother.

He took to the tiny sofa with a glass of water. He wasn’t a news type of guy—the headlines always made him feel depressed—and for that reason, he must’ve dozed off, because suddenly he jumped and splashed himself when Mom walked over the creaky spot of the floor. He blinked himself awake and immediately felt guilt. How long had she tried to stand by herself? How long had she been awake by herself? He watched her waddle—looking drunk—across the living room to the hall. He said, “Are you all right?” assuming she was on her way to the bathroom. She told him she “had to go.”

At least the day wasn’t dragging.

He listened for that one thunk of her wedding band on the counter as she lowered herself onto the toilet. He nodded once, not realizing that was a quirk of his, and he stood. He pinched his temples, clicked off the TV, and glanced out the slider. The sun was dropping behind the rooftops, burning orange. Already dinnerish, he’d slept too long, so long he felt nauseous—so he started preparing dinner. He popped a lasagna into the oven and that was pretty much everything. He’d prepped the night before with double meat like Mom used to make for him and his brother.

The lasagna in the oven, Tommy tapped around his phone, looked at Brenda’s name. She’d be getting off soon. Maybe she did get out of Izzy’s, onto something new. Maybe she found someone good for her.

Mom rustled in the hallway, rapping on the wall as she slid by and bounced off down to her bedroom. He didn’t hear her flush, though, so he sighed and said, “Mom, you didn’t flush.”

From her bedroom he heard a drawer scooting open. He repeated, “You didn’t flush.” And she said, “I will. I’m not done yet.”

He stepped back in line with the hall’s doorway. In the middle of the wall hung a crucifix. He stared, not blinking, not speaking—just staring and waiting.

Jesus looked battered and frail, but his core was strong. He pictured Jesus with the Makaveli bandana like on the The 7 Day Theory cover art: Pac up on the cross. Back in 1995, ’96, he thought, he cut out of work early to roll a joint and swing through Best Buy for a copy of that record on release day. Listened in his car there in the parking lot.

Mom walked back across the doorway and blocked Jesus. She walked quickly, for her, and focused. The first thing he noticed were her legs, that they were naked and white and she clutched her jeans against her privates, covering her crotch and thigh. She had another darker pair of jeans in her other hand. Tommy didn’t feel so good all of the sudden. His stomach felt heavy. He leaned his elbows on the counter and palmed his eyes before whispering no no no and following her to the bathroom.

He could smell it. Muddy, scummy smell, sharp and sour. Of all the times, she had to have an accident now. Brenda would call any minute. The smell seemed to be quickly getting thicker, stronger, toxic. Rancid, putrid. He sighed long, then cringed when he had to inhale. “Mom,” he said, “you need help, don’t you? Don’t you?”

“No, no, no,” she repeated. “No, no.”

“Yes, you do,” he said. Then, “I’m coming in.”

She didn’t say no. If there was anything she made easy, she let him help when she was in need. Like now, pantless, one white Velcro sneaker off and in the corner, spots of shit smashed into the rug, looking helpless seated on the toilet. Her sweater was balled on the counter, gritty brown goo painted down the counter’s corner, on one of the sleeves. Her twisted hands looked dipped, nails dark. She didn’t look at him, and she said, “Oh, God. God, oh, God,” shaking her head slowly. She looked so tired, melted to the seat, back hunched with age. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Tommy gagged and said, “Mom, don’t be sorry. It’s okay,” but the words came out gooey.

“Oh, God,” she said, sounding small. The darker jeans she had grabbed were laying over the edge of the tub, already streaked brown just from her hands. They looked like eating Easter chocolate outdoors hands, and she held them up, fingers knotted together.

“Give me your hands first,” he said calmly starting to buff the brown from her skin. She twitched and he said to be still. Then, “Don't move your hands.”

“I’m not,” she yelled.

“You are. Just keep them still.”

“I’m not moving,” she said, in the mean voice.

“Mom,” he said. He looked her in the eyes. She looked sick, old. He swallowed hard, sucked in air fast, and finished wiping off her fingers.

Once her palms and wrists were clean, he had her lean forward, pulled her by the arms forward and draped them over his shoulders, like a hug. She didn’t protest this part anymore. Tommy thought that was sad: the easiest way to be wiped was a memory she always remembered.

“Ouch,” she said. “Ouch, that hurts.”

“Mom.”

“You’re hurting me,” she yelled. “Ouch!”

“Mom, come forward. Mom, lean forward,” he said. Once she had leaned completely against him, armpits around his neck, she fell silent. Wiping your mother doesn’t get easier—accidents just become a routine. He paused for much too long, preparing, squinting, furrowing, before putting his toilet paper wrapped hand under her. Would this be too much for Brenda? Could she handle cleaning up? Could she handle being a caregiver?

His mother hummed like babies do before they cry. Then she made a noise with her mouth like she was about to say “Eric.” What about him? Tommy wondered if Eric could’ve handled this. Would he have been the one to move back to Orlando? The smart one had life to slay. Tommy still would’ve been the one here.

“What a mess,” he finally said, shaking his head. That's when she started to cry.

He stopped to listen. She had never cried during past accidents. “Ouch,” she said.

Tommy felt the color drain from his face. “Mom, am I really hurting you?”

“No,” she said. “I feel sick. I’m so damn embarrassed.” He felt tears falling on his neck.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “Don’t be embarrassed. I’m almost done.”

She started trembling, wiggling restlessly. “Oh, God,” she coughed out, and he tried to calm her because she was moving. He needed her not to move.

“Mom, I really need you to be still.”

“Damn it, you!” she spat in his ear. “Shut up! Oh, God. I just want to go some days,” she cried. “He wants to take me! He should!”

Tommy was confused.

She exhaled and whimpered. “God, why are you waiting?”

The oven beeped. The lasagna was done.

Tommy wiped. He held his eyes open wide. They were filled with tears, and if he blinked, he knew, they’d fall. So that’s it, he thought. His mom, half-naked and spangled with shit, weak arms wrapped around her son’s neck, asked God to take her away. He blinked, and the tears fell just like he expected. Landed on her shoulder. Of all the times for her to give up, maybe, he thought, this felt like a reasonable one.

He wet wads of toilet paper under the faucet and wiped her, washed her. He then used some soap and wet towels and piled the soiled ones in the corner by the tub. She repeated, “God, God,” again and again, bared her teeth and breathed heavily from deep down low in her chest like she'd been running for all her life. When she was clean, he asked her to stand still in place, handing her the last clean towel from the closet to wrap herself with. She squeezed her eyes tight while he wiped down the seat and the bowl. He fetched new jeans from her room and looked around long and hard for anything tracked onto the drawers or walls. At least they were all clean. The oven beeped on and on. She had stopped crying, but she was still trembling.

“Are we done?” she asked, out of breath.

“Almost,” he said, starting her heels in the pant legs.

“What’s that noise?”

“The oven, Mom.”

“I couldn’t dream of eating.” She put the towel on the floor, not in the pile, and Tommy held the door for her to leave. She walked slowly, drained. “I’m so angry,” she said.

When his mother was seated, Tommy silenced the beeping and took the lasagna from the oven. He mashed a piece into chunks with a fork on a plate. He balanced it on the arm of the recliner and said, “It’s so hot. Do not take a bite yet.”

“I won’t eat it. I can’t,” she said, refusing to look at it. And as he slunk away she wailed: “God, I miss him. I miss Tommy so much.”

Tommy stopped. Stood still. Clenched his fists and held his eyes open wide again. Too much crying already between the two of them. He exhaled sharply and turned to face her. When he went to speak she raised a hand at him, like swatting a fly, and that’s when the phone rang.

Same song from the year before. He hadn’t realized he hadn’t changed it because he never got calls. He was reminded of the same song and same buzzing from between the driver’s seat and the door after fumbling it on the freeway.

“Oh, God, what is that now?” Mom said.

“Just my phone. Someone’s calling.”

“Well, I’ve never heard it before,” she said, sounding mean.

Tommy didn’t reply because she was right and that made him mad. She needed space. He caught the call on the last ring, and Brenda was humming something on the other end. Went on the balcony, closed the slider behind him. He said hello and she responded: “There he is.”

He tried to breathe slowly because his heart felt thick and his face felt hot. He collapsed into the folding chair. Brenda’s voice sounded about as average as he remembered, somewhere stuck dead between musical and grating.

“Brenda,” he said, like you say when you first greet someone but have nothing in particular to lead with. Short pause. “Got your message. Sorry that I missed the call.”

“Well, I got you this time,” she said. She sounded happy.

He said that was true, and she laughed. “You don’t get harassed day in and day out like the rest of us?”

“Sure, sure,” he answered, loosening up. “I suppose I get a solicitor or someone trying to get in my wallet every now and again, but typically? Nope,” he said. “Stays pretty quiet around here. Not many calls.”

“No? None from your girlfriends?”

Was that a joke? Assuming so, he faked a chuckle.

“Well,” she continued, “I just got in. Feet up. Uncapping some Seagrams in my Seagrams. Been going T instead of juice recently. Purer to the gin, I guess. Doesn’t matter much, I guess. How’s things way back east?”

He sighed, away from the receiver. His brow was sweating. “Hot, but the air is clean.”

“You got me there,” she said, laughing. “God, I’d love to be able to breathe and not worry about dying young.”

Tommy wanted to say something vague and passive aggressive like “Oh, well, you could be able to breathe just fine out here” but instead he just said, “Yep, yep. Rough out there.”

She grunted in agreement and asked again if how he was doing.

“No, yeah,” he said. “Things are fine. Taking each day an hour at a time. How are you, though?”

She told him that she was mostly the same, which she was thankful for—consistency and all—but then detailed something about Izzy’s. He let himself relax in the conversation, really take in what she was saying, or really just how she spoke. He thought about how much time he spent listening to her talk. All the different places she talked. All the things she talked about.

The sky looked red and hot. High above his head, though, everything looked cooler, and stars were starting to pop behind the night’s blues.

“What about a girl?” she asked him, when she was finished. “Girls? They all just flocking?”

She sounded serious, which made him uncomfortable. He tried to sound serious, too. “No,” he said. “I don’t have time for that.” He faked another chuckle.

“Yeah, I understand,” she said.

She wasn’t really saying anything, like they’d run into each other at the grocery store. And not that he really wanted to spill any info, but why hadn’t she asked about Mom? It was only polite, right? What was he doing all day? All day, every day. He wasn’t seeing random kids from high school, balding now, probably, somewhere hating their trapped-in-Orlando lives. And no women. No time for women. Why would she even ask? She knew what he was doing. She knew exactly what he was doing. Everything. Making sandwiches and cleaning shit off the countertops and under fingernails. Being the best Tommy he could be. Being the best Eric he could be. Being housemaid and caregiver and encyclopedia of memories Mom couldn’t keep in between her ears. That’s what he was doing. But she hadn’t asked, and wouldn’t, he realized. She wouldn’t ask because she already knew—or assumed, at least. She didn’t want to hear about that. No Florida things. No Florida Tommy. She wanted to hear about Cali Tommy.

“Brenda, what exactly did you call for?” he said.

She stuttered, emulating that vague embarrassed feeling you get when you’ve been interrupted.

“Y’know,” she said finally. “Just thought we’d chat, maybe I’d see—” Tommy was feeling impatient. “—about you, things—”

“Things?”

“Yes, things, you know. Y’know, things, just things. You, your mom?”

Finally, he thought. His mom was looking humiliated in her chair, shoulders trembling like she was crying but he couldn’t hear through the glass. “Mom’s fine,” he said.

She exhaled. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“And you?”

“What about me?”

“Are you okay?”

Tommy wanted not to respond, but he was feeling like his time was being wasted, and not responding would just waste more of it. That was the only reason he said, “I’m doing what I can,” and he said it quickly, sharply, the way people sass waiters and customer service reps.

“Tommy, you knew what you were in for when you left. I’m sorry—”

“I had to, Brenda,” he said. “Listen, I have things to take care of if you’re finished.”

Brenda was silent for a moment, and Tommy afforded her that moment. “She’s really a handful then, huh?” she said. “Can’t even spare enough time for a phone call anymore?”

“I do what I have to do, Brenda. She needs me.”

“Come on. See the Bat Signal, do ya? I’d hate to keep you from saving the day, but come on.”

“Brenda, she’s my mother.”

“I know she is. I know. I’m not trying to keep you from her. I never was,” she said. “But you made your choice.”

“We could’ve worked something out—I don’t know. We could’ve been on our way to a family by now.”

He afforded her another silent moment.

“Would you want me there?” she finally asked. “Would that solve this? What if I were there right now? If I were there and pregnant, right now, would things be better? Would you have all you wanted?”

“Would you?” he asked.

Tommy would never have wanted to burden her with days like today, and days like today would keep coming, amplifying, probably. And anyway, he didn’t know what he wanted now, if anything at all. He didn’t want much more than a moment of peace.

“We’ll catch up again, Brenda. I should probably go, really. Thanks for calling.”

She exhaled again. “She’s lucky to have you. You have my number,” she said. “Don’t lose it.”

He hung up. There were ways, he knew. Stranger things had happened to stranger people than Tommy, but Tommy didn’t care about them, here and now.

She wasn’t completely wrong. His long nights of ceiling-staring, dreaming awake of tossing the pigskin, trying—and that was trying—to help with homework. Popping a set of earphones on him and shushing “Don’t tell Mom.” The best dad things. He hugged his knees, then pawed at his bald spot. Sounds crazy, he knew, but he felt the glossy, barren spot getting bigger by the day. Felt the sun shining shorter and shorter. He wished nights felt short too.

He turned off the ringtones again. No one called him, or no one who needed him ever called him. Vibration did just fine.

He waited a while, just breathing and looking around the room. Walked here and there, adjusted some glasses in the sink, clicked the TV on, but Mom didn’t look. She still hid her face. She hadn’t eaten, and, when Tommy walked over the creaky spot, she suddenly said she’d like to go to bed. He hated when she sulked.

She tried to stand without his help, but—because of her teary eyes, he figured—her knotted hand booted the plate off the chair’s arm, straight to the carpet. The lasagna chunks bounced away from the plate and left a red sauce circle at the crash site, looking like the black marks fireworks make on asphalt. She finished standing, saying, “Oh, God. Oh, God.”

“Mom,” he said, sounding tired.

“Oh, stop it. Just leave me be, damn it!” She answered fast—mean voice again, but different. Had a backbone and sounded strong-willed, lucid. “I didn’t mean for it to fall,” she said. “I’ve gotten so embarrassed.” She was crying. “I want to go to bed. I just want to go to bed and go to sleep.”

He told her that she had fallen asleep in the chair, that she wouldn’t be able to sleep yet.

“Damn it, Tommy, I’m tired,” she yelled.

He helped her get to bed once she calmed down. She walked hunched forward with a hand against her chest. She whispered, “Oh, my God,” like she was in some pain. She tried not to look at him in the eyes, but he stared and eventually she did and repeated, “Oh, my God. Eric, please.”

She changed herself into nightclothes, slowly, while sitting on the bed, and eventually, when she was under the blanket, he said goodnight. He watched from the hallway, leaning on the doorjamb. Her glasses were smudgy again, on the nightstand. She lay on her back, glassless face looking gaunt and angular under the sharp shadows of the nightlight on the right and the moon on the left. He turned when he thought maybe she didn’t want to be looked at, maybe covering her face if she wasn’t falling asleep, but he doubted she even knew he was still there. He stood there longer than usual, staring but not seeing.

In his head, tomorrow was already here. He stood in the kitchen, cooking. She was in the recliner, saying something about what a good pair they were, Tommy and Eric, and how he’d be lucky to meet them someday. “Such fine boys,” he heard her say. “They’ll be around soon. They’re due to visit this old bird.”

He left the plate for now, looking like Excalibur in the rug. He needed to relax, out on the balcony in his folding chair. He ended up standing, instead. The chair didn’t feel comfortable.

Tommy had been rolling joints like someone who had never rolled a joint since he was in high school. Joints made him feel closer to the weed he was smoking, like smoking was a full experience. He hit them rarely, leisurely, only when she slept. He’d feel guilty smoking on duty. If she needed him, he wanted to be available. She was always there for him, for them both. He knew his turn had come.

That was what pushed Brenda away, left her behind. That look in his eye, like he’d found a purpose in life. Maybe that was why she stayed. Maybe if his mother was gone, maybe if he had a clear conscience. Maybe in another life. Because as he smoked, leaning over the metal railing, the night air rang at a certain frequency of silence that he filled with every exhale, each one sounding more like a sigh. What would he do after all was said and done, all the papers passed out among him and the two or three other people she knew? They’d ask at the funeral: “Where are you going now? Will you stay in the apartment? Do you have any big plans? You should enjoy your time. You’ve been so good to her. You’re free now. You can do anything.”

There was a green glow low on the horizon, oozing between the bottom floors of the taller buildings. He felt a thin hum beyond the headphones, a tremble in the air, like a voice calling from the house, or a phone vibrating on the table, and the smoke climbed higher and higher and dissolved like sugar in the night.