Suzann Ledbetter - Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

Her younger brother was everything she wasn’t: tall, blond, charming, funny, gifted and as irresponsible as a golden retriever puppy. Harriet outwardly adored the child who’d needed it more, thinking the daughter who denied being anything like her would be stronger for being pushed away. Earl Wexler had spoiled Dina, loved Randy inwardly and didn’t notice which child never laughed at his joke about the hospital switching Randy with his real son.

Politics isn’t just local or exclusive to public office. Before children can feed themselves, instinct discerns the balance of power and how to work it. The Wexlers’ parental duopoly should have triggered sibling rivalry on a biblical scale. Rather than fight each other, Dina and Randy had joined forces to sandbag the adults.

And the little shit still is, she thought. Except now I’m the adult, I’m flying solo and it sucks. Drummer Boy’s sporadic twenty-five or fifty-dollar money orders mailed from towns Dina had to squint to locate in an atlas were so not like being here.

The doorbell rang, startling her. The prodigal’s return? Dina glanced around, as though a Lifetime channel camera crew might have sneaked in when she wasn’t looking. Torn between water spitting on the stove burners and rescue fantasies, Dina threw open the door. “Randy, oh my—”

The two men on the stoop recoiled. The shorter one retreated to the concrete walk. Feeling her face flush scarlet, Dina stammered, “Th-thanks anyway, but we don’t need to be saved. We’re Jewish. Orthodox.”

She used to tell roving God squads they were Catholic, but some well-meaning missionaries took it as a challenge. While Dina’s knowledge of Judaism was gleaned from Seinfeld reruns, the tack had effectively decimated any hope of conversion.

“Are you Mrs. Wexler?” the taller man inquired. He consulted the clipboard in the crook of his arm. “Mrs. Harriet Wexler?”

Dina eyed the medical-supply-company insignia above his shirt pocket. The doctor-prescribed oxygen machine was scheduled for delivery on Monday, July 11, between 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. This, however, was Sunday. The tenth. She was absolutely almost certain of it.

Thinking back to the previous evening for confirmation, she realized that it had been Sunday, therefore this was Monday and a good chunk of it was gone. Small comfort, knowing time warps were the purview of mothers with young children and the housebound by choice.

Behind her, Harriet inquired, “Is that the Avon lady? Get me a bottle of that lotion I like. A big one. That skimpy thing you bought before didn’t last a month.”

The deliverymen—both named Bob, by their lanyards’ photo IDs—gave Dina the tight smiles she’d dubbed “Oh, but for the grace of God go I.” They probably had sisters to tend the sick, too.

Dina let them in, then excused herself to ward off a kitchen disaster. Leaving the nearly dry saucepan in the sink to cool, she wiped peanut butter across a few more crackers, poured her mother a glass of milk and grabbed a banana.

A diabetic diet’s food exchanges and substitutions weren’t that complicated. Meal timing was as crucial as the menu. The object was balancing calories and carbs to maintain blood-sugar levels. Lunch included a vegetable serving, as well, but it’d be a miracle if Harriet ate a bite of anything.

Dina returned to the living room as her mother was saying, “Y’ all go on about your business and leave me be. I signed a paper way back saying I don’t want a machine breathing for me.”

“That’s a ventilator, Mom.” Dina’s elbow evicted the tissue box to make room for the milk and fruit on the tray table. “They brought the oxygen machine Dr. Greenspan ordered to lessen the strain on your heart.”

The cardiologist had also scripted a portable tank to trundle along when Harriet left the house. Which she didn’t, other than for doctors’ appointments and lab tests. Harriet had nodded amiably during Greenspan’s treatise on blood oxygenation, simultaneously blocking out parts she chose not to hear.

“But there’s nothing wrong with my heart.” Her mother stuck out a bony wrist. “Feel that pulse. Strong as an ox, I tell you.”

Everything was wrong with her heart, but Dina replied, “And the doctor wants you on oxygen full-time to keep it that way.” She waved the men toward the hallway. “So while you finish lunch, Bob and Bob and I will move enough furniture in here to make room for the machine.”

“Oh, no you won’t.”

The Bobs halted midstride.

“I’ll go to a nursing home before you’ll shut me up back there all by my lonesome.”

“Mom, please. Don’t fight me on—”

“What in Sam Hill am I s’posed to do all day? Time and again, I asked you for a cable gizmo in my room.” Harriet grabbed the remote and clasped it to her bosom. “Stick that machine on the roof for all I care. I ain’t budgin’ from this chair till the undertaker peels me out of it.”

Dina scrunched her hair in a wad, battling the urge to scream. To run out the goddamn door. To call the constant bluff and pack her demanding brat of a mother off to whatever nursing home would have her.

She hadn’t given the TV a second thought. Why, she couldn’t fathom, other than life-sustaining oxygen taking priority over Golden Girls reruns. The excuse for a single cable outlet was that Harriet needed rest and wouldn’t, with a TV blaring in her room all night. In truth, Dina couldn’t afford the extra installation fee or monthly charges.

“Uh, ma’am?” Taller Bob said. “We can—”

“It’s not a problem, really.” Dina’s arm dropped to her side. “Don’t worry, Mom. You’ll have your TV. Everybody just relax and give me a minute to think.”

She crossed to the patio door on the far side of the room and looked back to the dining area. Taking stock and mental measurements, she said, “Okay. What we’ll do is shove the couch around over there, then move Mom’s bed in here. The oxygen machine can go between it and her chair. Easy access, whether she’s lying down or sitting up.”

Tall Bob and Other Bob exchanged weary, all-in-a-day’s-work looks. Like carpet cleaners, home-health-care equipment employees’ job descriptions entailed a lot of heavy lifting.

Wait till they got a load of—literally—Harriet’s monster, dark-stained pine cannonball bed. And the matching hutch-top dresser and highboy they’d have to finesse the mattress and box springs past without disturbing a jillion dusty knicknacks and framed photographs.

Harriet whipped back the sheet. Pushing upright, she grabbed her cane and hobbled off down the hall. Dina guessed she wanted to hide the personal, even intimate items that age and illness remanded to plain sight on the nightstand.

Dina continued, “The coffee table, end tables, bookcases—crap in general—we’ll dump in Mom’s room.” To herself, she added, And when Mom isn’t looking, I’ll sneak Randy’s crap out of the second bedroom in there, too.

Thumps in the hall preceded Harriet’s reappearance. Clutched in a quaking, blue-veined fist was Earl Wexler’s long-barreled revolver. “You boys lay one hand on my things and I’ll blow it clean off.” Her glare and the gun wobbled to Dina. “That goes for you, too, missy. I’m not an invalid like your daddy was. I’ll be damned if you’ll make me into one.”

Having lost the argument about pawning the gun, Dina had removed the bullets on the sly. The garbage seemed the obvious disposal method, until she pictured city sanitary landfill workers running from a hail of exploding shells. Safer, she decided, to bury them in the backyard.

A subtle head shake informed the Bobs that the revolver wasn’t loaded. Evidently aware of the number of people who die every year from “unloaded” guns, both men faded back behind the TV stand.