Book of Jo: When bad things happen to almost good people
Parts 7 & 8: A sudden collapse
Start with Part 1. Or read a quick, spoiler-free synopsis.
September 19, 2016
Monday, 10:30 pm
“I’m sorry! It won’t happen again!”
“You’re right. It won’t happen again, because I’m going to cancel that card.”
“You can’t do that! I need it!”
“The collections agent said that you haven’t paid your bill for more than three months.”
“Three months? Who cares about three months? The universe doesn’t. It’s billions of years old.”
I emerge into the living room. It smells faintly of stale wine. Empty bottles and glasses cover almost every available surface. Plates supporting crusts of bread and half-eaten chunks of cheese rest uneasily on the kitchen bar stools. My mother and Wolf are so intent upon their argument they don’t notice me sink onto the couch. I drop my purse. They turn around, sadness and embarrassment in their eyes.
“What’s going on here?”
My mother takes a large gulp of wine. “Nothing,” she says. “It’s between Wolf and me.” I notice her hand is shaking. Red red wine stains dapple her pink sari.
“I’m going to tell her,” says Wolf. “I should never have agreed to this in the first place.”
“Tell me what?” I ask. They both ignore me.
“You promised! You gave me your word!” yells my mother. Her face is flushed, and her eyes are wide. She empties her glass, smacking her lips.
“You broke your word when you didn’t pay the credit card company.” Wolf’s voice is tense like a coiled spring.
“A few lousy missed payments and you throw me to the fucking wolves! What else can you expect from a Wolf.” What starts as a harsh laugh turns into a cackle. I’ve never seen my mother act like this, and I’m worried. I wonder if she’s drunk.
“Mom? Wolf?” They both turn towards me. “I don’t know what’s going on here. But I think we’re all really tired and not thinking straight. Let’s talk about this tomorrow, when we’ve all had a good night of sleep.”
Wolf sighs and shrugs his shoulders. “Fine,” he says. He turns away from me and starts gathering wine glasses. I realize I haven’t even thanked him for the surprise party.
My mother pours herself another glass of cabernet with an unsteady hand. She sloshes wine down the front of her sari. I rush over to her and reach for her glass. She jerks back, spilling more wine. It looks like blood.
“Mom? Are you OK?”
“I’m great! But you look tired. You should go to sleep. You! You! You!”
My mother’s eyes are glittering, and her lips are stained with wine. One side of her mouth is drooping. Something is very wrong. Her eyes roll up into her head. The wine glass drops to the floor. It shatters, and so does she.
September 20, 2016
Tuesday, 12:15 am
Two EMTs are working on my mother. One is pumping air into her lungs, and the other is rhythmically compressing her chest. An IV line trails from her arm.
My father stands beside me in his bathrobe, looking old and confused. He once was a brilliant financial analyst, a dapper introvert with a mordant sense of humor. Now he is a virtual shut-in and hopelessly dependent on my mother.
“What happened?” This is the fourth or fifth time he’s asked since the EMTs arrived.
“She just collapsed,” I say. “We’ll know more once we get her to the hospital.” I look hopefully at the EMTs, but they are grimly absorbed in their work.
I feel strangely disconnected, like an indifferent actor playing a well-worn role. I should be upset, but all I want to do are practical things. Locate the closest hospital? Done. Find my mother’s insurance card? Done. Text my brother and my two sisters? Done.
“I could hear her arguing with Wolf all night,” my father says. “She was very upset.”
“I don’t think that had anything to do with this,” I say, motioning towards my mother’s helpless form.
“Your mother has high blood pressure! He was upsetting her!” he yells, flapping his bathrobe like he wants to fly away.
Wolf is hiding in the kitchen, cleaning up from the party. I feel for him. He’s always been uncomfortable with big, emotional scenes. It’s one of the reasons I love him. We both take a calm, measured approach to life.
“Dad, just try to relax.” My father shakes his head and glares at Wolf.
“I will not relax as you say! He upset her! He made her upset! He killed her! He killed her!” He shakes his fist and then breaks into loud, hoarse sobs.
I rub his back and keep watching the EMTs. He started having mini-strokes, called Transient Ischemic Attacks or TIAs, a few years ago, just after he turned seventy. Since then, he’s been easily unbalanced. Slightly paranoid. Always afraid.
Last year, I invited him and my mother to move into the small apartment on the first floor of my townhouse. Sometimes I pay for a companion to watch him while my mother takes her yoga classes and meets her friends. But they’ve been pretty self-sufficient, all things considered.
Until now.
“We’re going to take her to the hospital,” says one of the EMTs, a short, muscular man with walnut brown skin. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but it isn’t looking good.”
“Can I go with her?” ask my father plaintively, twisting the belt of his bathrobe in his hands. The EMT looks doubtful. I understand his concern.
“I’ll drive him to the hospital.”
The EMTs, in a feat of balletic agility, strap my mother to a gurney and hustle her out the door, all while continuing what I hope will be life-sustaining treatments.
I find Wolf in the kitchen, methodically washing dishes. I touch his arm. “Are you coming with us?”
“Will your brothers and sisters be there?”
“All of them.” Jenna is driving down from Sonoma. Except she’s not really Jenna, anymore. Now she calls herself Calliope. Ashley and her husband are coming up from Carmel, and Brad and his wife are heading west from Pleasanton. They will all meet me at the hospital.
“It might be easier on everyone if I stay here. I’ll finish the cleaning, get the guest rooms made up,” murmurs Wolf.
I think of how nice it would be for Wolf to hold my hand in the waiting room. And then I remember my father’s rough, hysterical voice. He killed her. I know my husband is right.
“Love you. See you soon.”
I guide my father down the stairs, one careful step at a time. We have made it all the way to my wounded car when I notice he isn’t wearing shoes. I see him with the eyes of a stranger. Snarled, unevenly cut hair. Bloodshot eyes. Stained bathrobe and pajama pants. I consider bringing him back inside to clean up.
“What are you waiting for?” he asks. “Let’s go.”
I look down at his bare feet with the gnarled toe nails and back up at his pleading eyes. Fuck it.
We get in the car, and I rev the engine.
Book of Jo is a homeless novella that is going to crash on Medium for a few months. I will release new parts on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, until the whole story has been posted. Enjoy!
Read Part 1.
Read Part 2.
Read Parts 3 & 4.
Read Parts 5 & 6.
Read Parts 9 & 10.
Read Part 11.
Read Parts 12 & 13.
Read Parts 14 & 15.
Read Parts 16 & 17.
Read Parts 18 & 19.
Read Parts 20 & 21.
Read Parts 22 & 23.
Read Parts 24 & 25.
