Amy Bloom - A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You

Jack had come back to my house after we painted the synagogue. There are a million wonderful things about living alone, but the only one that mattered then was Jack in my bed, Jack in my shower, Jack in my kitchen. His eyes were closing.

“D.M., I have to rest before I drive home.”

“Do you want to clean up?”

“No, I’m supposed to be painty. I’ve been working. I’m not supposed to go home smelling of banana-honey soap and looking …”

His head snapped forward, and I put a pillow under it, on top of my kitchen table. He slept for about twenty minutes, and I watched him. Once, early on, I washed his hair. His right side was tired, and I offered to give him a shampoo and a shave. I leaned his head back over my kitchen sink and grazed his cheeks with my breasts and massaged his scalp until his face took on that wonderful, stupid look we all have in the midst of deep pleasure. I dried his gray curly hair and I buffed up his little bald spot and then I shaved him with my father’s thick badger brush and old-fashioned shaving soap. My father was a dim, whining memory for me, but I put my fingers through the handle of the porcelain cup and I thought, Good, Papa, this is why you lived, so that I could grow up and love this man.

People came in and out of Naomi’s kitchen, and Jack and I passed trays and bowls and washed some more dairy silver and put bundles of it into cloth napkins. I set them out on the dining room table.

Naomi put her hand on my shoulder. “He looks tired.”

“I think so,” I said.

“Will he lie down?”

I shrugged.

“Everyone’s got enough food. My God, you’d think they hadn’t eaten for days. Half of them don’t even fast, the trombeniks.”

I started picking up dirty plates and silverware, and Naomi patted me again.

“Tell him we’re done with the pasta. I’m serving the coffee now. He could lie down.”

“He’ll lie down when they go home.”

Naomi looked like she wanted to punch me in the face. “Fine. Then we’ll just send them all home. Good yontif, see you Friday night, they can just go home.”

I dragged Naomi into the kitchen.

“Jack, Naomi’s dying here. They’re eating the house-plants, for God’s sake. The bookshelves. Can’t we send these people home? She’s beat. You look a little pooped yourself.”

Jack smiled at Naomi, and she put her head on his shoulder.

“You’re full of shit. Naomi, are you tired?”

“I am, actually. I didn’t sleep last night.”

I am grateful for sunny days, and for good libraries and camel’s-hair brushes and Hirschel’s burnt umber, and I was very grateful to stand in their kitchen and bear the sight of Jack’s hand around Naomi’s fat waist and hear that Jack didn’t know how his wife slept.

We threw six plates of rugelach around and sent everyone home. I left in the middle of the last wave, after they promised they wouldn’t even try to clean up until the next day.

There was a message from my mother on my machine.

“Darling, are you home? No? All right. It’s me. Are you there? All right. Well, I lit a candle for Daddy and Grandpa. Your brother was very nice, he helped. It’s pouring here. I hope you’re not driving around unnecessarily. Are you there? Call me. I’ll be up until maybe eleven. Call me.”

My mother never, ever, fell asleep before two a.m., and then only in her living room armchair. She considered this behavior vulgar and neurotic, and so she pretended she went to sleep at a moderately late hour, in her own pretty, pillowed, queen-size bed, with a cup of tea and a ginger-snap, like a normal seventy-eight-year-old woman.

“Hi, Meme. I wasn’t driving around looking for an accident. I came right home from Jack and Naomi’s.” My mother had met them at an opening.

“Aren’t you funny. It happens to be terrible weather here. That Jack. Such a nice man. Is he feeling better?”

“He’s fine. He’s not really going to get better.”

“I know. You told me. Then I guess his wife will nurse him when he can’t manage?”

“I don’t know. That’s a long way off.”

“I’m sure it is. But when he can’t get about, I’m saying when he’s no longer independent, you’ll go and visit him. And Naomi. You know what I mean, darling. You’ll be a comfort to both of them then.”

I sometimes think that my mother’s true purpose in life, the thing that gives her days meaning and her heart ease, is her ability to torture me in a manner as ancient and genteelly elaborate as lace making.

“Let’s jump off that bridge when we come to it. So, you’re fine? Louis is fine? He’s okay?” I don’t know what fine would be for my brother. He’s not violent, he’s not drooling, he’s not walking into town buck naked, I guess he’s fine.

“We’re both in good health. We watched a program on Mozart. It was very well done.”

“That’s great.” I opened my mail and sorted it into junk, bills, and real letters. “Well, I’m pretty tired. I’m going to crawl into bed, I think.”

“Oh, me too. Good night, darling. Sleep well.”

“Good night, Meme. Happy Day of Atonement.”

Ididn’t hear from Jack for five days. I called his house and got Jennifer.

“My dad’s taking it easy,” she said.

“Could you tell him — could you just bring the phone to him?”

I heard Jack say, “Thanks, Jellybean.” And then, “D.M.? I’m glad you called. It’s been a lousy couple of days. My legs are just Jell-O. And my brain’s turning to mush. Goodbye, substantia nigra.”

“I could bring over some soup. I could bring some rosemary balm. I could make some ginkgo tea.”

“I don’t think so. Naomi’s nursing up a storm. Anyway, you minister to me and cry your eyes out and Naomi will what? Make dinner for us both? I don’t think so.”

“Are you going to the auction on Sunday?” The synagogue was auctioning off the usual — tennis lessons, romantic getaways, kosher chocolates, and a small painting of mine.

“I’m not going anywhere soon. I’m not walking. Being the object of all that pity is not what I have in mind. I don’t want you to see me like this.”

“Jack, if I don’t see you like this and you’re down for a while, I won’t see you, period.”

“That’s right. That’s what I meant.”

I cry easily. Tears were all over the phone.

“You’re supposed to be brave,” he said.

“Fuck you. You be brave.”

“I have to go. Call me tomorrow to see how I’m doing.”

I called every few days and got Jennifer or Naomi, and they would hand the phone to Jack and we would have short, obvious conversations, and then he’d hand the phone back to his wife or his daughter and they’d hang up for him.

After two weeks Naomi called and invited me to visit.

“You’re so thin,” she said when she opened the door.

My thinness and the ugly little ghost face I saw in the mirror were the same as Naomi’s damp, puffy eyes and the faded dress pulling at her hips.

“I thought Jack would enjoy a visit, just to lift his spirits.” She didn’t look at me. “I didn’t say you were coming. Just go up and surprise him.”

I stood at the bottom of the stairs. “Jack? It’s me, Andrea. I’m coming up.”

He looked like himself, more or less. His face seemed a little loose, his mouth hanging heavier, his lips hardly moving as he spoke. The skin on his right hand was shiny and full, swollen with whatever flowed through him and pooled in each reddened fingertip.

“I can’t believe she called you.”

“Jack, she thought it would be nice for you. She thinks I am your most entertaining friend.”