Em Garner - Contaminated

When we get to washing her hair, though, Opal says, offhandedly, “It’s like when we used to wash Jody.”

Jody, our golden Lab. Unlike a lot of dogs, Jody loved baths. She’d let us scrub her for an hour if we wanted.

“It’s nothing like that.” My voice comes out short and sharp, low and not like my own.

Opal shrugs and fills up the oversized plastic cup we’re using to rinse Mom’s hair. “Hold the cloth over her eyes so the soap doesn’t get in them.”

We don’t really talk for the next few minutes, until it’s time to help her dry off and get dressed again. Both Opal and I are soaked, too, so it’s changes of clothes for us. I hang the wet things on the backs of chairs next to the radiators. In the past we’d have tossed everything we’re wearing into the laundry and not worried about it, but I want to get at least another day’s wear out of them.

All of this has taken hours and hours of time. I’m glad I took the day off. I’d never have made it on time. I’m glad, too, I let Opal stay home from school. She’s been a big help.

“I’m hungry,” she says. “Mama, are you hungry?”

I don’t bother to point out that she’s not going to answer. I just go to the kitchen and open the fridge. It’s pretty bare.

“Grilled cheese and tomato soup?” I say.

Opal nods and leads Mom to the table to sit her down. “Mama likes that.”

She does, I remember that. She used to make fancy grilled cheese sandwiches, with blue cheese or mozzarella and herbed garlic butter. We’ll have to make do with stale tortillas, since the bread’s all gone, and plain old American cheese. The tomato soup’s made with water, since we finished the milk, but we have some golden cheese crackers shaped like fish to put in it.

It’s our first real meal together as a family in a long, long time. Opal sets the table with the plates. Only a couple of them match, and they’re the ones that were here when we moved in. The rest I picked up one or two at a time from the Jubilee shop. It’s the same with the silverware and glasses, too. We don’t have any napkins, so Opal folds a square of paper towel at each plate.

“All right, everything’s ready—” I turn, a plate of grilled cheese in my hands, and stop short.

My mom has a knife in her hand. She’s turning it from side to side, catching the light from the overhead fixture. It’s not a sharp knife, and she’s not holding it like she’s trying to cut anything. She’s looking.

I think of the list of instructions in the packet they gave me. It specifically said to keep knives, scissors, all sharp things from the Contaminated. Even with the collars, they could be “incited to action.” My mom doesn’t look incited, just confused.

“Here, Mom, let me have that.” I put down the plate of sandwiches and gently take the knife. I give her a spoon, instead. “Use this for your soup.”

“Put an ice cube in it,” Opal says. “Mama always put ice cubes in the soup when it was too hot.”

“Good idea.” I ladle soup—there’s exactly enough for three bowls, and I make sure to take a little less so they both have more. I add an ice cube or two to each bowl and break my mom’s sandwich in half before putting it on her plate.

“Like this, Mama.” Opal snaps her fingers to get my mom’s attention, and surprisingly, Mom looks up. Opal pushes the spoon through her soup, away from herself, then purses her lips and sips daintily. “Like in Heidi , remember?”

She demonstrates again, crooking her pinky finger. “Fancy. Remember, Mama?”

Heidi was a movie about a little Swiss girl who’d been raised by her grandpa, then taken to live with rich people. She’d had to learn new manners. My mom has more than that to learn.

“Away from yourself,” Opal says in a high, hoity-toity voice, and does it again. She sips her soup. “And no slurping!”

“Like this?” I follow her lead, but make sure to slurp my soup extra loud, to tease her.

Opal giggles, then forces her expression to be serious. “No slurping!”

I try again, slurping louder, then talk with my mouth full of soup. “Like this?” Mom pushes her spoon through the soup and lifts it, spilling most of it, to her mouth.

She slurps.

So does Opal.

So do I.

I want to sing and dance—she’s feeding herself. She reacted again to us, something Jean and the instructional videos had warned would be unlikely to ever happen unless it was a negative reaction, like what had happened with Jerry. Yes, she’s sloppy and uncoordinated. Yes, she has a hard time with the sandwich until I break it into bite-sized pieces for her, but she feeds them to herself.

“She likes it,” Opal says. “See, Velvet? I told you Mama liked grilled cheese and tomato soup!”

After dinner, Mom watches TV while Opal and I do the dishes. We have a dishwasher, but it’s broken, and getting the landlord to fix anything around here is ridiculous. Besides, I don’t mind, really. We don’t have a lot of dishes, and we’ve sort of made a game out of it, me seeing if I can wash and rinse a dish before she’s dried and put away the last one. Opal doesn’t know it, but I go extra slow sometimes to make sure she doesn’t fall behind.

We’re almost finished when the floor squeaks behind us. Opal and I both turn. The apartment’s not big, one big room, basically. Mom’s come around the back of the couch to stand at the line where the carpet of the living room area meets the vinyl flooring of the kitchen. She’s standing there, watching us, her head tilted the smallest bit.

“Mom?” I say.

She doesn’t answer. She just looks. I’m tempted to tell Opal to take her back to the TV, but I think about how she’s been behaving differently from what they told me to expect. If she doesn’t want to watch television, she shouldn’t have to.

Opal and I finish the dishes a couple of minutes later. Mom’s still watching us. She hasn’t moved, except to bring her hands together in front of her. Her fingers link and unlink, twist and turn.

“What’s she doing?” Opal says.

“She’s wringing her hands.” I’ve never actually seen anyone do that, but it’s a good description.

“Like… a bell?”

“No. Not ringing like a bell.” I demonstrate, imitating the motion my mom’s making with my hands. “It’s like this. Like you’re worried about something.”

Opal goes to her at once and puts her arms around her. “Are you worried about something, Mama?”

It would be the perfect time for my mom to put her arms around Opal and hug her for real, but just like everything else, this isn’t a movie. My mom simply stands there until Opal steps back. Then she shuffles again toward the couch, where she sits and faces the television as though she really cares what’s on it.

I think we’ve all had enough for one day, so though it’s not late, I tell Opal to make sure her homework’s finished and to go take a shower so she’ll be ready for school the next day. She makes a face, and I’m pretty sure she intends to fight me about going to school tomorrow, but there’s nothing she can do about it. I have to go to work. Mom will have to be alone. I’ll think about that tomorrow, too.

I’M EXPECTING ANOTHER SLEEPLESS NIGHT, but Mom seems to have adapted to her bed. Maybe it’s the restraints, which I apologized for before putting them on her, but she doesn’t make a noise all night long. What I’m not expecting is someone pounding on the door at 5 o’clock in the morning, an hour before I’m usually up.

I’m dreaming about watching a marching band when the pounding starts, so I don’t get out of bed for at least a few minutes. By the time my brain figures out the noise isn’t the drums but a fist on my front door, I’m totally disoriented. I stumble out of bed and to the door, which I have to open without benefit of the chain lock, since Jerry broke it.