Dry Your Smile Read Online Free Page B

whirled faster and began to break surface in small and then larger bubbles—like the circular-conversation battle with Larry the previous night, the duel with Paulie that morning, the millionth non-encounter exchange here with Hope. I began to get angry. A healthy, “empowering” emotion, all the shrinks said, but an emotion that somehow felt self-indulgent and counterproductive, one small step on the well-intentioned path toward nuclear warfare. Still, the kettle lid began to hiccup with contained pressure, and I decided Okay, Julian, Let’s Get Angry Constructively. Let’s go in there and say … what? Momma, you’ve got to see a doctor again. Momma, you have Parkinson’s, face it. Momma, one defense against getting sicker faster is to move about, try to live life as usual, hard as that is. Momma, you have to let me clean up this place and get somebody to help keep it decent. Momma, life is not just the Dow Jones Index and the constant television you claim not to watch. To hell with restraint and control , I told myself. You are a grown woman, Julian. How about firm?
    She was lying back on her pillows, eyes closed, when I brought the tea in and cleared away proxy notices from the cardtable in order to put the tray down. Then poured two cups and brought her one, with extra sugar, just as she liked it. I cleared my throat, nervous because I was sure what her reaction would be (no difficulty in expressing anger, not her), and because I was equally un sure of what actors always call “the motivation.” Elements of loving concern, common sense, and sadism were woven through any decision of mine to talk to her about The Illness. An especially treacherous ethical ground when one knew one could pull off an act of revenge via a gesture of ostensible caritas . Truth as a bludgeon. How expert Laurence and I now were at using that against each other.
    â€œHope,” I began.
    â€œYou know I don’t like that,” she said wearily, her eyes still closed. “I’m your mother, not a name.”
    â€œMomma, then. Look, we really—”
    â€œYou remember that story? Way back from some book? I was thinking about that story. Something about a mole making tunnels. He was scared a fox or whatever would get into one of his tunnels. He kept on making more and more of them but then he had to keep the ones he’d already made from crumbling and be sure the entrances were kept unblocked for air but still kept small enough so no bigger animal could get in but he could get out if he had to. And he kept running around to all his tunnels all the time, checking and fixing them up and rechecking. Remember? What story was that?”
    I set the cup down gently in a small diamond of space on her bedside table, and stood there feeling the rug being whisked from under my feet. Where had this come from? Beyond pain, beyond fury, beyond fear or love or even renewable amazement, the awe of her struck me again. An unerring virtuoso at coincidence, a maestro of emotional derring-do, of the disarming statement, the shocking insight that threw all one’s tactical troops, however well marshaled, into disarray.
    She opened her eyes and looked at me, mildly accusing, as if she’d caught me not knowing my next line in answer to the cue she’d just fed me.
    â€œWhat story was that, Baby?”
    I cleared my throat again. “It was ‘The Burrow,’ Momma. One of Kafka’s greatest parable stories.” Could it be pushed further? “It’s—it’s about terror and denial and hoarding—”
    â€œYeah, yeah. Poor little animal.” She sighed.
    â€œWhat made you think about that, Momma?”
    She wheeled in her tunnel and glared at me.
    â€œNothing. I just happened to remember it, that’s all. I have to give reasons?”
    That entrance blocked. No numbskull fox was going to get in that way.
    â€œI saw the Kafka stories on the bookshelf just now.