Douglas Kennedy: The Pursuit of Happiness

So I simply sat on the bed, and took Mom's still-warm hand, and gripped it tightly, and tried to remember my first recollection of her, and suddenly saw her as an animated, pretty young woman holding my four-year-old hand as we walked to the playground in Riverside Park, and thought how this wasn't a significant or crucial memory, just something ordinary, and how back then she was fifteen years younger than I am now, and how we forget all those walks to the park, and the emergency trips to the pediatrician with tonsillitis, and getting picked up after school, and being schlepped around town for shoes or clothes or Girl Scout meetings, and all the other scheduling minutiae that comes with being a parent, and how my mom always tried so hard with me, and how I could never really see that, and how I hated my neediness towards her, and wished that I could have somehow made her happier, and how, back when I was four, she would always go on the slide with me, always sit in the adjoining swing, rocking back and forth, and how, suddenly, there we were, mother and daughter swinging higher into the sky, an autumn day in '59, the sun shining, my world cozy, secure, loving, my mother laughing, and...

She took three sharp intakes of breath. Then there was silence. I must have sat there for another fifteen minutes, still holding her hand, feeling a gradual chill drift into her fingers. Eventually, Rozella gently took me by the shoulders and stood me upright. There were tears in her eyes, but none in mine. Perhaps because I was just too paralyzed to cry.

Rozella leaned over and shut Mom's eyes. Then she crossed herself and said a Hail Mary. I engaged in a different sort of ritual: I went into the living room, poured myself a large Scotch, threw it back, then picked up the phone and dialed 911.

'What kind of emergency do you want to report?' asked the operator.

'It's not an emergency', I said. 'Just a death'.

'What sort of death?'

'Natural'. But I could have added: 'A very quiet death. Dignified. Stoic. Borne without complaint'

My mother died the way she lived.

I stood by the bed, listening to Rozella wash up the dishes from the wake. Just three days ago Mom lay here. Out of nowhere I suddenly remembered something that a guy named Dave Schroeder recently told me. He was a freelance magazine writer: smart as hell, well-traveled, but still trying to make a name for himself at forty. I'd gone out with him twice. He dropped me when I wouldn't sleep with him after the second date. Had he waited until the third date, he might have gotten lucky. But anyway... he did tell me one great story: about being in Berlin on the night the Wall was breached, then coming back a year later to find that that monstrous structure - the defining, bloodstained rampart of the Cold War - had simply vanished from view. Even the famous Customs Shed at Checkpoint Charlie had been dismantled, and the old Bulgarian Trade Mission on the eastern side of the Checkpoint had been replaced by an outlet of Benetton.

'It was like this terrible thing, this crucial cornerstone of twentieth-century history, never existed', Dave told me. 'And it got me thinking: the moment we end an argument is the moment we obliterate any history of that argument. It's a basic human trait: to sanitize the past, in order to move on'.

I looked down again at my mother's bed. And remembered the soiled sheets, the sodden pillows, the way she would almost claw the mattress before the morphine kicked in. Now it was neatly remade, with laundered sheets and a bedspread that had just come back from the dry cleaner's. The idea that she died right here already seemed surreal, impossible. A week from now - after Rozella and I packed up the apartment, and the Goodwill Industries people hauled off all the furniture I planned to give away - what tangible evidence would be left of my mom's time on the planet? A few material possessions (her engagement ring, a brooch or two), a few photographs, and...

Nothing else - except, of course, the space she would permanently occupy inside my head. A space she now shared with the dad I never knew.

And when Charlie and I both died... ping. That would be it for Dorothy and Jack Malone. Their impact on human life rubbed right out. Just as my lasting imprint will be Ethan. For as long as he's here...

I shuddered, and suddenly felt very cold, and in need of another Scotch. I walked into the kitchen. Rozella was at the sink, dealing with the final dishes. Meg was at the little formica kitchen table, a cigarette smouldering in a saucer (my mom had no ashtrays in the house), a bottle of Scotch next to a half-filled glass.

'Don't look so disapproving', Meg said. 'I did offer to help Rozella'.

'I was thinking more about the cigarette', I said.

'It doesn't bother me', Rozella said.

'My mom hated smoking', I said. Pulling back a chair, I sat down, then reached for Meg's packet of Merits, fished one out, and lit up. Meg looked stunned.

'Should I alert Reuters?' she said. 'Or maybe CNN?'

As I laughed, I exhaled a lung full of smoke.

'I treat myself to one or two a year. On special occasions. Like when Matt announced he was leaving. Or when Mom rang me up in April to say that she had to go into hospital for tests, but she was sure it was nothing...'

Meg poured me a large slug of whiskey, and pushed the glass towards me.

'Down the hatch, honey'.

I did as ordered.

'Why don't you go off with your aunt', Rozella said. 'I'll finish up here'.

'I'm staying', I said.

'That's dumb', Meg said. 'Anyway, my Social Security check just cleared yesterday, so I'm feeling flush, and in the mood for something high in cholesterol... like a steak. So how about I book us a table at Smith and Wollensky's? Have you ever seen the martinis they serve there? They're the size of a goldfish bowl'.

'Save your money. I'm staying here tonight'.

Meg and Rozella exchanged a worried look.

'What do you mean, tonight?' Meg asked.

'I mean - I'm planning to sleep here tonight'.

'You really shouldn't do that', Rozella said.

'Understatement of the goddamn year', Meg added.

'My mind's made up. I'm sleeping here'.

'Well, if you're staying, I'm staying', Meg said.

'No, you're not. I want to be here by myself'.

'Now, that's nuts', Meg said.

'Please listen to your aunt', Rozella said. 'Being by yourself here tonight... it is not a good idea'.

'I can handle it'.

'Don't be so sure about that', Meg said.

But I wasn't going to be talked out of this. After paying off Rozella (she didn't want to accept any additional money from me, but I shoved a hundred dollars into her hand and refused to take it back), I finally managed to dislodge Aunt Meg from the kitchen table around five. We were both just a little bit tipsy, as I had matched Meg Scotch for Scotch... and lost track somewhere after the fourth shot.

'You know, Katie', she said as I helped her into her coat, 'I really do think you are a glutton for punishment'.

'Thank you for such a frank assessment of my shortcomings'.

'You know what I'm talking about here. The last thing you should do tonight is be alone in your dead mother's apartment. But that's exactly what you're doing. And it baffles the hell out of me'.

'I just want some time by myself. Here. Before I clear the place out. Can't you understand that?'

'Sure I can. Just like I can understand self-flagellation'.

'You sound like Matt. He always said I had a real talent for unhappiness'.

'Well, fuck that social-climbing bozo. Especially as he has a proven talent for creating unhappiness'.

'Maybe he has a point. Sometimes I think...'

I trailed off, not really wanting to finish the sentence. But Meg said, 'Go on, spill it'.

'I don't know. Sometimes I think I get things really wrong'.