The Rabbit Hole
as Likely Explanation
My mother does not remember being invited to my first wedding. This comes up in conversation when I pick her up from the lab, where blood has been drawn to see how sheâs doing on her medication. Sheâs sitting in an orange plastic chair, giving the man next to her advice Iâm not sure he asked for about how to fill out forms on a clipboard. Apparently, before I arrived, she told him that she had not been invited to either of my weddings.
âI donât know why you sent me to have my blood drawn,â she says.
âThe doctor asked me to make an appointment. I did not send you.â
âWell, you were late. I sat there waiting and waiting.â
âYou showed up an hour before your appointment, Ma. Thatâs why you were there so long. I arrived fifteen minutes after the nurse called me.â Itâs my authoritative but cajoling voice. One tone negates the other and nothing much gets communicated.
âYou sound like Perry Mason,â she says.
âMa, thereâs a person trying to get around you.â
âWell, Iâm very sorry if Iâm holding anyone up. They can just honk and get into the other lane.â
A woman hurries around my mother in the hospital corridor, narrowly missing an oncoming wheelchair brigade: four chairs, taking up most of the hallway.
âShe drives a sports car, that one,â my mother says. âYou can always tell. But look at the size of her. How does she fit in the car?â
I decide to ignore her. She has on dangling hoop earrings, and thereâs a scratch on her forehead and a Band-Aid on her cheekbone. Her face looks a little like an obstacle course. âWho is going to get our car for us?â she asks.
âWho do you think? Sit in the lobby, and Iâll turn in to the driveway.â
âA car makes you think about the future all the time, doesnât it?â she says. âYou have to do all that imagining: how youâll get out of the garage and into your lane and how youâll deal with all the traffic, and then one time, remember, just as you got to the driveway a man and a woman stood smack in the center, arguing, and they wouldnât move so you could pull in.â
âMy life is a delight,â I say.
âI donât think your new job agrees with you. Youâre such a beautiful seamstressâa real, old-fashioned talentâand what do you do but work on computers and leave that lovely house in the country and drive into this . . . this crap five days a week.â
âThank you, Ma, for expressing even more eloquently than Iââ
âDid you finish those swordfish costumes?â
âStarfish. I was tired, and I watched TV last night. Now, if you sit in that chair over there youâll see me pull in. Itâs windy. I donât want you standing outside.â
âYou always have some reason why I canât be outside. Youâre afraid of the bees, arenât you? After that bee stung your toe when you were raking, you got desperate about yellow jacketsâthatâs what theyâre called. You shouldnât have had on sandals when you were raking. Wear your hiking boots when you rake leaves, if you canât find another husband to do it for you.â
âPlease stop lecturing me andââ
âGet your car! Whatâs the worst that can happen? I have to stand up for a few minutes? Itâs not like Iâm one of those guards outside Buckingham Palace who has to look straight ahead until he loses consciousness.â
âOkay. You can stand here and Iâll pull in.â
âWhat car do you have?â
âThe same car I always have.â
âIf I donât come out, come in for me.â
âWell, of course, Ma. But why wouldnât you come out?â
âSUVs can block your view. They drive right up, like they own the curb. Theyâve got those tinted windows like Liz Taylor might be inside, or a gangster. That lovely man from Bruneiâwhy did I say that? I must have been thinking of the Sultan of Brunei. Anyway, that man I was talking to said that in New York City he was getting out of a cab at a hotel at the same exact moment that Elizabeth Taylor got out of a limousine. He said she just kept handing little dogs out the door to everybody. The doorman. The bellhop. Her hairdresser had one under each arm. But they werenât hersâthey were his own dogs! He didnât have a free hand to help Elizabeth Taylor. So that desperate manââ
âMa, weâve got to get going.â
âIâll come with you.â
âYou hate elevators. The last time we tried that, you wouldnât walkââ
âWell, the stairs didnât kill me, did they?â
âI wasnât parked five flights up. Look, just stand by the window andââ
âI know whatâs happening. Youâre telling me over and over!â
I raise my hands and drop them. âSee you soon,â I say.
âIs it the green car? The black car that I always think is green?â
âYes, Ma. My only car.â
âWell, you donât have to say it like that. I hope you never know what itâs like to have small confusions about things. I understand that your car is black. Itâs when itâs in strong sun that it looks a little green.â
âBack in five,â I say, and enter the revolving door. A man ahead of me, with both arms in casts, pushes on the glass with his forehead. Weâre out in a few seconds. Then he turns and looks at me, his face crimson.
âI didnât know if I pushed, whether it might make the door go too fast,â I say.
âI figured there was an explanation,â he says dully, and walks away.
The fat woman who passed us in the hallway is waiting on the sidewalk for the light to change, chatting on her cell phone. When the light blinks green, she moves forward with her head turned to the side, as if the phone clamped to her ear were leading her. She has on an ill-fitting blazer and one of those long skirts that everybody wears, with sensible shoes and a teeny purse dangling over her shoulder. âRight behind you,â my mother says distinctly, catching up with me halfway to the opposite curb.
âMa, thereâs an elevator.â
âYou do enough things for your mother! Itâs desperate of you to do this on your lunch hour. Does picking me up mean you wonât get any food? Now that you can see Iâm fine, you could send me home in a cab.â
âNo, no, itâs no problem. But last night you asked me to drop you at the hairdresser. Wasnât that where you wanted to go?â
âOh, I donât think thatâs today.â
âYes. The appointment is in fifteen minutes. With Eloise.â
âI wouldnât want to be named for somebody who caused a commotion at the Plaza. Would you?â
âNo. Ma, why donât you wait by the ticket booth, and when I driveââ
âYouâre full of ideas! Why wonât you just let me go to the car with you?â
âIn an elevator? Youâre going to get in an elevator? All right. Fine with me.â
âIt isnât one of those glass ones, is it?â
âIt does have one glass wall.â
âIâll be like those other women, then. The ones whoâve hit the glass ceiling.â
âHere we are.â
âIt has a funny smell. Iâll sit in a chair and wait for you.â
âMa, thatâs back across the street. Youâre here now. I can introduce you to the guy over there in the booth, who collects the money. Or you can just take a deep breath and ride up with me. Okay?â
A man inside the elevator, wearing a suit, holds the door open. âThank you,â I say. âMa?â
âI like your suggestion about going to that chapel,â she says. âPick me up there.â
The man continues to hold the door with his shoulder, his eyes cast down.
âNot a chapel, a booth. Right there? Thatâs where youâll be?â
âYes. Over there with that man.â
âYou see the manââ I step off the elevator and the doors close behind me.
âI did see him. He said that his son was getting married in Las Vegas. And I said, âI never got to go to my daughterâs weddings.â And he said, âHow many weddings did she have?â and of course I answered honestly. So he said, âHow did that make you feel?â and I said that a dog was at one of them.â
âThat was the wedding you came to. My first wedding. You donât remember putting a bow on Ebeneezerâs neck? It was your idea.â I take her arm and guide her toward the elevator.
âYes, I took it off a beautiful floral display that was meant to be inside the church, but you and that man wouldnât go inside. There was no flat place to stand. If you were a woman wearing heels, there was no place to stand anywhere, and it was going to rain.â
âIt was a sunny day.â
âI donât remember that. Did Grandma make your dress?â
âNo. She offered, but I wore a dress we bought in London.â
âThat was just desperate. It must have broken her heart.â
âHer arthritis was so bad she could hardly hold a pen, let alone a needle.â
âYou must have broken her heart.â
âWell, Ma, this isnât getting us to the car. Whatâs the plan?â
âThe Marshall Plan.â
âWhat?â
âThe Marshall Plan. People of my generation donât scoff at that.â
âMa, maybe weâd better give standing by the booth another try. You donât even have to speak to the man. Will you do it?â
âDo you have some objection if I get on the elevator with you?â
âNo, but this time if you say youâre going to do it you have to do it. We canât have people holding doors open all day. People need to get where theyâre going.â
âListen to the things you say! Theyâre so obvious, I donât know why you say them.â
She is looking through her purse. Just below the top of her head, I can see her scalp through her hair. âMa,â I say.
âYes, yes, coming,â she says. âI thought I might have the card with that hairstylistâs name.â
âItâs Eloise.â
âThank you, dear. Why didnât you say so before?â
I call my brother, Tim. âSheâs worse,â I say. âIf you want to visit her while sheâs still more or less with it, Iâd suggest you book a flight.â
âYou donât know,â he says. âThe fight for tenure. How much rides on this one article.â
âTim. As your sister. Iâm not talking about your problems, Iâmââ
âSheâs been going downhill for some time. And God bless you for taking care of her! Sheâs a wonderful woman. And I give you all the credit. Youâre a patient person.â
âTim. Sheâs losing it by the day. If you careâif you care, see her now.â
âLetâs be honest: I donât have deep feelings, and I wasnât her favorite. That was the problem with RenĂ©: Did I have any deep feelings? I mean, kudos! Kudos to you! Do you have any understanding of why Mom and Dad got together? He was a recluse, and she was such a party animal. She never understood a person turning to books for serious study, did she? Did she? Maybe Iâd be the last to know.â
âTim, I suggest you visit before Christmas.â
âThat sounds more than a little ominous. May I say that? You call when Iâve just gotten home from a day I couldnât paraphrase, and you tell meâas you have so many timesâthat sheâs about to die, or lose her marbles entirely, and then you sayââ
âTake care, Tim,â I say, and hang up.
I drive to my motherâs apartment to kill time while she gets her hair done, and go into the living room and see that the plants need watering. Two are new arrivals, plants that friends brought her when she was in the hospital, having her foot operated on: a kalanchoe and a miniature chrysanthemum. I rinse out the mug she probably had her morning coffee in and fill it under the faucet. I douse the plants, refilling the mug twice. My brother is rethinking Wordsworth at a university in Ohio, and for years I have been back in this small town in Virginia where we grew up, looking out for our mother. Kudos, as he would say.
âOkay,â the doctor says. âWeâve known the time was coming. It will be much better if sheâs in an environment where her needs are met. Iâm only talking about assisted living. If it will help, Iâm happy to meet with her and explain that things have reached a point where she needs a more comprehensive support system.â
âSheâll say no.â
âRegardless,â he says. âYou and I know that if there was a fire she wouldnât be capable of processing the necessity of getting out. Does she eat dinner? We canât say for sure that she eats, now, can we? She needs to maintain her caloric intake. We want to allow her to avail herself of resources structured so that she can best meet her own needs.â
âSheâll say no,â I say again.
âMay I suggest that you let Tim operate as a support system?â
âForget him. Heâs already been denied tenure twice.â
âB...