A. Homes - Things You Should Know

“What did you use?” she asks, horrified.

“Kiwi,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” she says to Soledad, mortified that she is having to watch. Luckily, Soledad is from the islands and doesn’t quite understand how horrible it is.

At eleven, Philip puts the rail on his side of the bed up, turns on the motion detector pad on the floor, tucks him in, and they call down to the gatehouse and tell them that the package is down for the night.

“Good night,” she says.

“See you in the morning,” Soledad says.

She stays up for a while, sitting next to him reading while he sleeps. This is her favorite part of the night. He sleeps and she can pretend that everything isn’t as it is, she can pretend this is a dream, a nightmare, and in the morning it will all be fine.

She could remove herself, live in another part of the house and receive reports of his progress, but she remains in love with him, profoundly attached. She doesn’t know how to be without him, and without her, he is nothing.

The motion detector goes off, turning on the light by her side of the bed. It is six-thirty in the morning.

“Is this conversation being taped?” He speaks directly into the roses, tapping his finger on the open flower as if testing the microphone. Petals fall to the floor. “Who’s there? Is someone hiding over there?” He picks up the remote control and throws it into the billowing curtains.

“Hey, hey,” she says, pushing up her eye mask, blinking. “No throwing.”

“Go away, leave us alone,” he says.

She takes his hand and holds it over the vent.

“It’s the air,” she says, “the air is moving the curtains.”

He picks up the red toy telephone that he carries around everywhere—“just in case.”

“I can’t get a goddamned dial tone. How can I launch the missiles if I can’t get a dial tone?”

“It’s early,” she says. “Come back to bed.” She turns the television on to the morning cartoons, pulls her eye mask down, and crawls back into bed.

He is in the bathroom with the water running. “There’s someone around here who looks familiar.”

She pops her head in. “Are you talking to me?”

“Yes,” he whispers. “That man, I can’t remember that man’s name.” He points at the mirror.

“That’s you,” she says.

“Look, he waves and I’m waving back.”

“You’re the one waving.”

“I just said that.”

She notices an empty bottle of mouthwash on the sink.

“Did you spill your mouthwash?”

“I drank it,” he belches. Hot, minty-fresh air fills the bathroom.

In the morning, she has to locate him in time and space. To figure out when and where he is, she runs through a list of possible names.

“Honey, Sweetheart, Running Bear, Chief, Captain, Mr. President.”

He stands before her, empty, nonreactive. She sticks a finger first into one ear and then the other, feeling for his hearing aid, they’re both in, she plucks one out, cranks up the volume until it squeals.

“I’m checking the battery,” she yells. “Can you hear me?”

“Of course I can. I’m not deaf.” He takes the hearing aid from her and stuffs it back into his ear, putting it into the ear that already has one.

“Wrong ear,” she says, fishing it out. She starts again. “Mr. President, Sir, Rough Rider, Rick, Daddy, Dutch.” There is a flicker of recognition.

“Now that sounds familiar.”

“Do you know who you are?”

“Give me a clue.”

She continues. “Mr. P. Junior, Jelly Bean.”

“Rings a bell.”

“Jelly Bean?”

“That’s me.”

“Oh. Jelly Bean,” she says, relieved to have found him. “What’s new?” She hands him his clothing one piece at a time, in order, from under to outer.

Soledad rings a bell.

“Your breakfast is ready.” She urges him down the hall. “Send the gardener in when he gets here,” she instructs Soledad as she steps into a morning meeting with Philip and the agents.

“Don’t call him Mr. President anymore — it’s too confusing. It’s best not to use any particular name; he’s played so many roles, it’s hard to know where he is at any given moment. This morning he’s responding to Jelly Bean and talking about things from 1984.”

“We’re not always sure what to do,” the head agent says, “how far to go. Yesterday he cleaned the pool for a couple of hours, he kept taking the leaves out, and whenever he looked away we just kept dumping them back, the same leaves over and over.”

She nods.

“And then there were the holly berries. He was chewing on the bushes,” the agent says.

“Halle Berry? George and Barbara?” Philip asks.

“The shrubbery — like a giraffe he was going around eating—” The agent stops in mid-sentence.

Jorge, the gardener, is standing in the doorway. He has taken off his shoes and holds them in his hand. He curtsies when he enters.

“Thank you,” she says. She takes out a map and lays it on the table for everyone to see. “We need a safer garden; this is a list of the plants — they’re all nontoxic, edible.”

In the distance there is a heavy thump. The phone rings. She pushes the speakerphone button.

“Yes?”

“The President has banged into the sliding glass door.”

“Is he hurt?

“He’s all right — but he’s got a bump on his head.”

She sends Philip to check on him and she, Jorge, and the agents go into the yard and pace off where the wandering garden will be.

“Everything poisonous has to come out,” she says. “Azaleas, birds of paradise, calla lilies, and daffodils. No more holly berries, hydrangea, tulips, poppies. No wisteria. No star-of-Bethlehem.”

Jorge gets down on his knees, ready to begin.

She stops him. “Before you get dirty. I need you to put a lock on my dressing room door.”

He is in the sunroom with a bag of ice on his face.

“Are you in pain?” she asks. He doesn’t answer. “Did you have a nice breakfast?”

Again he belches, mint mouthwash.

“It won’t happen again,” Philip says, using masking tape to make a grid pattern on the sliding glass door, like a hurricane warning, like an Amish stencil in a cornfield, like the bars of a cattle crossing. “For some reason it works — they see it as a barrier and they don’t cross it.”

“Soledad, may I have a word?” She refrains from saying more until they are out of the room. “We need to make a few changes.”

“I will miss you very much,” Soledad says.

“It’s time to get the house ready,” she says, ignoring the comment, taking Soledad from room to room, pointing out what’s not needed, what has to go in order to make life simpler, less confusing, safer.

“Put it away, send it to storage, keep that for yourself, this goes and this goes and this goes. Up with the rug, out with the chair.”

They put safety plugs in every outlet, toddler latches on every cabinet. She moves quickly, as though time is limited, as though preparing for a disaster, a storm front of some sort.

“Send someone to one of the thrift shops and get a couple of Naugahyde sofas and some chairs.”

“But you have such nice furniture,” Soledad says.

“Exactly.”

“Are we expecting a hurricane?” he asks, passing through. “I saw the boy taping up the window.”

He knows and he doesn’t know.

Jorge is in the bedroom, putting a huge combination lock on the dressing room door.

“Do we have any white paint?” She asks Jorge.

“No, Señora.”

“We’ll need some,” she says. “Until then use this.” She hands Soledad a bottle of Maalox. “Paint his mirror with it. Use a sponge if there isn’t a brush. Put it on thick, so he can’t see himself. It may take a couple of coats.”