Wait Until Tomorrow Part 10

So here I am, two days into my visit, with two teenage girls and not a whole lot of money. What recreation we choose will have to be easy. And fun. And different. Then I find the ideal thing in the Village Voice: the Siren Music Festival, free, on Coney Island. In all my trips to New York, I've never been to Coney Island, and Emmy hasn't even heard of it.

"It's famous," I tell her. "There's a hot dog named after it."

It's not hard to convince the girls. The previous year Emmy and I and her friend Evan went to the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee. By the time we left, I'd lost so much water I looked like a mummy. It was devastatingly hot, especially for a menopausal woman; it didn't help that I was in Rottweiler mode so that two sixteen-year-old girls could enjoy the music unmolested. No one bothered them much in the daytime, so I let them wander around while I hunkered down in the shade of the smaller field, digging on Buddy Guy or Ziggy Marley and observing the mating rituals of the species. But at night I kept a tight rein. When we wandered the fringes of the main concert, more than one valiant young drunkard spotted my two wards, advanced, and then backed off quickly, saying, "Oh, wow. And this is your mom. What a cool mom." When they started hitting on me, we knew it was time to listen to the music from the comfort of our lounge chairs at the tent.

But Bonnaroo had been worth it, worth the seven-hour drive, the heat, the money, the horrible macaroni I had tried to make on a borrowed Coleman stove, the moments of panic when the cell phones wouldn't work and I was standing in a heaving throng of eighty thousand half-naked, totally drunk or stoned partiers, clueless as to where the girls were. It was worth suffering through Death Cab for Cutie so that Emmy could hear Conor Oberst, and so she'd have some bragging rights like I did (and still do) from seeing Jimi Hendrix play at the Atlanta Pop Festival in Byron, Georgia, on July 4, 1971, when I was fourteen years old. I had, in fact, been trying to relive those halcyon days with this journey-minus the purple microdot, of course. But it hadn't been the same. Not at all. I wanted that sense of peace and blissed-out freedom that I'd gotten a taste of when I was fourteen. I didn't find it at Bonnaroo.

But today I get more than a taste of it. For this one day my mystic thirst is quenched.

It starts out with breakfast at a sidewalk cafe by Union Square: eggs Florentine for me and French toast for the girls. Then we head to the subway station. The swaying motion of the train lulls us as if we are newborn babies. We chug out of the dark underground world into the warm light. Other people dressed in beach attire join us on the way. Then at some point the train stops and we figure this must be our stop.

The ocean, a bright azure beacon, calls. Soon we are crossing the wide yellow beach, making our way through a maze of blankets like a giant patchwork quilt. Children splash in the meager waves. The water looks inviting. I take off my flip-flops and stick my feet in the water. At this point the screeching violins from Hitchc.o.c.k's Psycho suddenly erupt in my brain and I leap out of the freezing water.

"Refreshing," I say to the girls. "Now where's the festival?"

Following a thread of ba.s.s beats, we work our way through the boardwalk area and along a fenced-off street. A stage has been set up at the end of the street nearest the boardwalk. We listen to a band called White Rabbit, and I love them. I can hear a little Island influence, and a breeze seems to have floated up from the Caribbean, darting in and out to cool off the swaying crowd. A crystal-blue sky shimmers above us.

In between bands we stroll through the sleazy carnival atmosphere. I don't know if it's the music, the seductive weather, or the fact that I am 643 miles from my mother and my husband, but I can barely keep from levitating as I partake of the communal moment.

The last act we see before we leave is Lavender Diamond. Becky Stark comes flouncing out in a 1950s dress with her thick straight hair hanging down her shoulders, pulled back from her face with a wide headband. She is wholesomely quirky.

"Woo hoo," she yells, "let's hear it for world peace!"

Emmy and I lock eyes.

"I love her," Emmy says.

"Me, too," I say.

Any more perfection and we'd dissolve. Somehow all the good feelings of a past era are resurrected inside me. And this time I can be high as a puffy white cloud without having to ingest anything other than my dollar bottle of cold water. The odd thing is that the ubiquitous blanket of sweet smoke combined with the smell of spilled beer is absent here. I wonder if everyone is as happy as I am.

The mystics tell us that we're all filled with the same light. Most of the time, I'm blind to it. Sometimes I can barely muster contempt for my fellow humans. But today, with Becky Stark singing like ambrosia, the sun heaving a sigh of contentment above us, and my laughing daughter and her friend dancing around me, I can feel those invisible connecting threads thrumming with life.

If only I could hold onto this, lock it into my heart forever. But I cannot.

TEN.

FALL 2007.

Hank and I drive Emmy to her new school. We stock her room with a microwave and bags of snacks. We linger, not wanting to leave. Hank was vociferously against this idea last summer, but now he has become reconciled to it.

The dreaded "gone child grief" doesn't attack me like I thought it would. My mother needs more care than ever, and I'm excited about the Isha Yoga cla.s.s I'm going to take in late September. Excited and worried. The cla.s.s is seven days long and in Atlanta, and I don't know how my mother is going to survive without me, but Cheryl keeps pushing me. If I take the cla.s.s in September, then I can take the next cla.s.s with Sadhguru himself in October. I will finally get to meet a real-life realized being. I've been waiting my whole life for that experience.

I was curious about the world beyond my senses from a young age. When I was five years old, we lived in a small brick house in Jacksonville. One afternoon there was a terrible thunderstorm, a Wizard of Oz-type wind with cows and bicycles flying by. The entire Atlantic Ocean had been sucked up into the clouds and was now falling down on us.

I'd had enough, so I went outside with my little twirling baton, stood on the porch waving the baton, and called out in my booming child's voice: "Oh, wind! Oh, rain! I command you to stop. Stop! Stop now!" Nothing happened, so I commanded once again, "Stop, rain! Right this instant!"

The rain continued to tumble down. The wind laughed at me, wrapped my hair around my face, and sloshed a bucketful of water all over me. Drenched, I went back inside and turned on Let's Make a Deal. I had thought I was G.o.d until that day.

And yet life so often seemed to have a magical quality. It was as if there were a constant whisper that I could almost hear but not quite. I suppose that I was searching for that magic when I started taking drugs at the age of fourteen. Those adventures took me to another realm. But what at first seemed like heaven fairly quickly turned into h.e.l.l. Even so, I was amazed at the way we junkies could connect with each other with that extra sense we had that kept us out of jail up until it didn't.

I guess I always figured that, in jail, I'd read the Bible and finally discover that peace which pa.s.seth all understanding. That didn't happen. The Bible part anyway. Instead I read literature and found G.o.d was there, of all places-incognito, of course. But I could discern Him or Her or It, whatever you want to call it, in Dostoyevsky's words and Gra.s.s's images, even hiding in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. And then, one Easter Sunday, the choir members got to take a field trip to a church in Ocala, Florida. The congregation held our hands, and the preacher called on Jesus and something happened. I'm sure scientists could come along and offer some chemical explanation, but that something was like the big bang right in my own body. Drugs could never replicate this feeling. I'd been ruined.

After that I was on the prowl. I wanted Nirvana, Samadhi, Heaven, G.o.dhead. But no matter what books I read or how much I meditated, I only got tiny moments of grace. Slowly I began to slough off lifetimes of pain. And still there was more. More sadness, more judgment, more unforgiveness.

In preparation for the yoga program, I watch videos of Sadhguru on YouTube, and am hypnotized by his laughter. I want to see him for myself; I want to see if I can see in his eyes what I once felt. I can't let the chance pa.s.s me by.

So in September I go to Atlanta, leaving my mother in Sylvia's care. I've hired a caregiver to come in the mornings, and the girl who lives next door to us to visit her a couple of times.

In Atlanta I stay with an Indian family. I go to the local library and work on my computer during the day. I go to the cla.s.s every night. I learn the practice, called Shambhavi Maha Mudra, that the teacher says comes from an ancient science. It entails some breathing, chanting, and exercises. One day they feed us a banquet of raw foods. The other partic.i.p.ants and I gobble it down. We have homework, we watch videos of Sadhguru, we sit crosslegged, our backs aching, and listen. One day we play games like a bunch of kids. I'm not a great athlete, but an odd thing happens during a game of dodgeball. I have the sudden sure sense that I am going to win the game. I will be the last one in the circle. It's like I'm invincible. And that's exactly what happens.

A week or so after the first program, I leave home again for three days to take another more advanced program at the ashram in Tennessee. Whenever possible I sit right up front and stare at the Master as he speaks. He laughs, he cries, he is certainly brilliant. Is he enlightened? I cannot say. All I know for sure is that I've found an adventure that I've been waiting for, for a long time. And I've gained a spiritual practice that will be helpful in the face of the brutal days that are charging fast at me like a pack of rabid dogs.

We have to miss Parents' Weekend at Emmy's school because we are going to California for the weekend. Beth's cancer has moved into her brain. And Hank's dad also has a brain tumor. Jean is not sure Beth will be around for Thanksgiving so there is no time to lose.

In the airport we sit together, Emmy between Hank and me. I'm explaining to Emmy the meaning of the word zeitgeist when Hank says to her, "Babe, that woman's pants are so tight, I bet her farts have to squeeze out the bottom like c.o.c.kroaches under the kitchen door." Hank is a connoisseur of fart lore, and of course, there's someone sitting right behind us who can hear him; Emmy and I are mortified and laughing in embarra.s.sment at the same time.

"Sir, please don't talk to my daughter," I lean over and say in a loud voice. He laughs his wicked little-boy laugh.

On the airplane, a man sitting in the row in front of us has a snore like a buzz saw, and Hank periodically jolts the man's seat to get him to stop, giggling maniacally every time he does it. Again, Emmy and I can't help but laugh when he does. It's viral.

When we get to Hank's parents' house, Jean is waiting for us as she always is. But she has been diminished by half. Taking care of her dying daughter and her sick husband has carved up her soul. Her strength in the face of this adversity makes me feel like a welterweight. I know antidepressants are helping her deal with it all, but for G.o.d's sake, she's eighty years old, and she's got rheumatoid arthritis. Yet, she's ever stalwart.

"One time we were at the hospital to see about Beth, and I turned around and Hank Senior had pa.s.sed out," she says to me. "They had to check him in right then and there. So there I was with both of them in the hospital, running from one floor to the other."

"How do you do it?" I ask.

"I don't have a choice, Pat," she says. "What else can I do?"

She could turn into a raving lunatic, I think. But she doesn't. She finds whatever helps her, whether it's the serenity prayer or a bridge game with friends, and she copes.

Fortunately, Hank's brother Steve has been there to help her. He reconnoiters with us at the house, and we pile into his Blazer to visit Beth. Beth is tall and gaunt. She hugs us fiercely. I've noticed that the dying tend to express love with reckless abandon. Hank is aghast at the sight of his bald sister with a black line of st.i.tches across her skull.

"Ya look like Beetlejuice," he says.

Hank's family is not renowned for tenderness, but they're a loyal bunch. Steve has shown his true mettle, captaining the ship of this beleaguered family. Generous and handsome, with a big laugh almost as infectious as Hank's, Steve is now figuring out the next step for Beth. He thinks she's ready to come home, and he's also found a hospice down the street from his parents' house for that inevitable step.

Hank notices a pretty nurse and whispers to Steve, "You should ask that nurse out. She could take care of the whole family. I think she's hot for you."

But Hank doesn't know how to whisper, and I'm sure the nurse has heard him, so I look at him wide-eyed and Emmy joins me, and soon we're all cracking up there in the hospital room at Hank's faux pas.

The next day Beth comes home. She needs help getting her long white compression hose on, and since this is something I'm fairly experienced at, I go in to help her. In order to have something to say other than how awful her situation is, I b.i.t.c.h about Hank.

"He didn't even want Emmy to go to that arts school," I complain.

She sucks her teeth in disgust. We're the same age, and ragging on Hank has been one thing we can agree on, as if we're both the younger siblings. She doesn't sleep well. Neither do I, and in the early morning the two of us are alone in the quiet light of the living room enjoying the hush before everyone else wakes up. She eats a donut and drinks her coffee. Since the return of her cancer, she loves sweets. She's not exactly watching her weight. In some ways she reminds me of my mother. A lot of things don't matter when you're on the precipice. She can't remember much. She's not interested in much. She's become an aficionado of silence.

When we leave there's still a miniscule thread of hope, but in December Beth dies. Hank Senior has lung cancer and a brain tumor. We stay home that Christmas.

FOUR.

ANTHEM.

What need have you of further demons?

Figures from your own h.e.l.ls are enough.

(Save us from our minds!).

Dry papers flutter about your feet,

Lifted by poisonous dust.

(Save us from our words!)

Your monsters devour the hills,

The forests are laid low.

The oceans are slowly dying.

(Save us from our works!)

Traced deep in each man's being

Are the tracks of his transgressions.

For as soon as the wind goeth over it, It is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more.

Rosalind MacEnulty.

An American Requiem.

ONE.

WINTER 2008.

The year 2008 came down on my little family like the Four Hors.e.m.e.n on a rampage. It started all right. I was in my second year of a full-time teaching job. My third novel had just been published, and it was getting good reviews, though, of course, not raking in the big bucks. All my life my dream had been to publish a novel. Now I had three of them and a short story collection. This was the time of my life I needed to be doing whatever it was that writers do to promote their work. I needed to "get out there" and do readings and workshops-something I hadn't really done for my previous books. So I had two trips scheduled for the spring-one to a conference in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico and another to New England.

In the back of my head I knew that it was risky-planning these trips-but I'd received a local grant to fund both, and I was determined to go. I let my brothers know that I had made my plans and that nothing would stop me from going. Nothing, I insisted. Even if Mom wound up on her deathbed (which I was sure was exactly what was going to happen) I would not alter my plans. I had sacrificed enough. So I bought my airline tickets and waited for the inevitable disaster to strike.

It did, of course. In February.

Mother's belly had blown up to the size of a basketball, and she constantly complained of constipation. Over the years, I had given her enemas and plied her with laxatives recommended by the doctor, but her large intestine simply didn't have the power to do its job. This time she was backed up so badly that Roto-Rooter couldn't have helped us out. And the doctor wasn't sure what was going on with that enormous pregnant-looking belly. So it was time to go back to the hospital.

At first she charms everyone there. One of the doctors, an elderly Jamaican man, is smitten and tells me what an intelligent woman she is, how much he enjoys chatting with her. But this little honeymoon ends soon.

They are going to flush my mother out. They need me to stay there and make sure she drinks several gallons of Drano. Already my mother's fabled intelligence is getting murky. Hospitals have that effect on old people, I am told. I sit at her side and say, "Drink up, Mom." Mother balks, of course. Who wouldn't? But she has to drink it all, and I keep after her for several hours till it's all gone. Then we wait for the inevitable eruption.

I won't go into the details. Suffice to say the toilet is never as close as it needs to be, and not only do I become a medical professional, but I also serve as janitor.

That should be the end, right? But it isn't. My mother makes the mistake of letting the nurses know that she is in pain. Well, she's always in pain. Because the doctor nicked a nerve in her back during her spinal operation, now her brain has gotten locked onto the idea of pain. This is a trick that brains do though I won't fully understand this till later when a friend explains that the same thing happened to her sister. So my mother is in constant pain. In hospitals they don't like pain. I understand this. Why should anyone be in pain if it's unnecessary? We have the technology to get rid of it. A little visit from Sister Morphine and all your cares slide under the table to sing about dead roses. And they always think they're doing you a favor by giving you just a little extra b.u.mp. Oh, wouldn't the junkie I once was have loved these folks?

So they start to give her morphine, which does not put her to sleep. Instead my mother goes from being an outspoken witty old woman to a deranged madwoman. I must be loony myself because I actually go home one night to try to get some sleep.

The phone rings at two thirty in the morning.

"Will you come do something about your mother? We can't handle her," the nurse says.

"Yeah, I'll be there in twenty minutes." I roll out of bed, put on my jeans and shirt and head out the door.