Wexler wasn’t senile. A bizarre sense of empowerment derived from outfoxing a caregiver she’d given birth to thirty-two years ago. On some levels, Dina understood and sympathized. On most, the pharmaceutical roulette drove her nuts.
Her mother glowered up at her, snapped a cracker in half, then shoved the whole thing into her mouth. “There,” she mumbled around it. “Are you happy now?”
“One more, and I will be.” Dina shook the appropriate pills from their amber bottles. The cost of each equaled a month’s rent and utilities. “Clean your plate and I’ll applaud.”
Sips of water, fake choking, a bit of breast-beating and voilà, the medicine went down. “I hope you’re proud of yourself, Dina Jeanne. You’re nothing but a bully.”
Dina recited in unison, “Thank heaven your father isn’t alive to see how you treat your poor old sick mother.” Leaning over, she kissed a prematurely white head that smelled of waterless shampoo and hairspray. “Daddy’s definitely rolling in his grave knowing I’ll bring your lunch, test your blood sugar, hook up the nebulizer, change your sheets, tuck you in for a nap, do the laundry, fix a snack, give you a shot, poke down three more pills, walk you twenty-five laps up and down the hall, then start dinner.”
As she straightened, her mother’s never warm fingers circled her wrist. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry.” Tears glistened in eyes once as blue as a summer sky. “I don’t know why I say such awful things to you.”
Because now I’m the parent and you’re the child and you hate needing the snot-nosed kid you potty-trained to help you to and from the bathroom sometimes.
“It’s okay, Mom.” Dina swallowed audibly, then cleared her throat to mask it. Aged ears dulled to soap opera dialogue and the radio remain subsonically attuned to the slightest emotional nuance. “Besides—” she forced out a chuckle “—when have I ever listened to a word you say?”
“Humph. If you ever did, you never let on.” Harriet plucked at the sheet draping her legs, as though the air conditioner was set at sixty-two instead of eighty-two. “I thought Earl Wexler was the stubbornnest critter that ever walked on two legs. You bested him from the day you were born.”
Dina tapped her toe, waiting for the upshot. It came right on cue. “I don’t know what I’d have done if Randy hadn’t been such a happy, sweet-natured little fella. Hasn’t changed a bit, either, in spite of all the disappointment and heartache he’s suffered.”
“Uh-huh.” Dina turned and started for the kitchen. “Life doesn’t get any tougher than playing drums for a wanna-be rock band for ten freakin’ years.”
Her younger brother was everything she wasn’t: tall, blond, charming, funny, gifted and as irresponsible as a golden retriever puppy. Harriet outwardly adored the child who’d needed it more, thinking the daughter who denied being anything like her would be stronger for being pushed away. Earl Wexler had spoiled Dina, loved Randy inwardly and didn’t notice which child never laughed at his joke about the hospital switching Randy with his real son.
Politics isn’t just local or exclusive to public office. Before children can feed themselves, instinct discerns the balance of power and how to work it. The Wexlers’ parental duopoly should have triggered sibling rivalry on a biblical scale. Rather than fight each other, Dina and Randy had joined forces to sandbag the adults.
And the little shit still is, she thought. Except now I’m the adult, I’m flying solo and it sucks. Drummer Boy’s sporadic twenty-five or fifty-dollar money orders mailed from towns Dina had to squint to locate in an atlas were so not like being here.
The doorbell rang, startling her. The prodigal’s return? Dina glanced around, as though a Lifetime channel camera crew might have sneaked in when she wasn’t looking. Torn between water spitting on the stove burners and rescue fantasies, Dina threw open the door. “Randy, oh my—”
The two men on the stoop recoiled. The shorter one retreated to the concrete walk. Feeling her face flush scarlet, Dina stammered, “Th-thanks anyway, but we don’t need to be saved. We’re Jewish. Orthodox.”
She used to tell roving God squads they were Catholic, but some well-meaning missionaries took it as a challenge. While Dina’s knowledge of Judaism was gleaned from Seinfeld reruns, the tack had effectively decimated any hope of conversion.
“Are you Mrs. Wexler?” the taller man inquired. He consulted the clipboard in the crook of his arm. “Mrs. Harriet Wexler?”
Dina eyed the medical-supply-company insignia above his shirt pocket. The doctor-prescribed oxygen machine was scheduled for delivery on Monday, July 11, between 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. This, however, was Sunday. The tenth. She was absolutely almost certain of it.
Thinking back to the previous evening for confirmation, she realized that it had been Sunday, therefore this was Monday and a good chunk of it was gone. Small comfort, knowing time warps were the purview of mothers with young children and the housebound by choice.
Behind her, Harriet inquired, “Is that the Avon lady? Get me a bottle of that lotion I like. A big one. That skimpy thing you bought before didn’t last a month.”
The deliverymen—both named Bob, by their lanyards’ photo IDs—gave Dina the tight smiles she’d dubbed “Oh, but for the grace of God go I.” They probably had sisters to tend the sick, too.
Dina let them in, then excused herself to ward off a kitchen disaster. Leaving the nearly dry saucepan in the sink to cool, she wiped peanut butter across a few more crackers, poured her mother a glass of milk and grabbed a banana.
A diabetic diet’s food exchanges and substitutions weren’t that complicated. Meal timing was as crucial as the menu. The object was balancing calories and carbs to maintain blood-sugar levels. Lunch included a vegetable serving, as well, but it’d be a miracle if Harriet ate a bite of anything.
Dina returned to the living room as her mother was saying, “Y’ all go on about your business and leave me be. I signed a paper way back saying I don’t want a machine breathing for me.”
“That’s a ventilator, Mom.” Dina’s elbow evicted the tissue box to make room for the milk and fruit on the tray table. “They brought the oxygen machine Dr. Greenspan ordered to lessen the strain on your heart.”
The cardiologist had also scripted a portable tank to trundle along when Harriet left the house. Which she didn’t, other than for doctors’ appointments and lab tests. Harriet had nodded amiably during Greenspan’s treatise on blood oxygenation, simultaneously blocking out parts she chose not to hear.
“But there’s nothing wrong with my heart.” Her mother stuck out a bony wrist. “Feel that pulse. Strong as an ox, I tell you.”
Everything was wrong with her heart, but Dina replied, “And the doctor wants you on oxygen full-time to keep it that way.” She waved the men toward the hallway. “So while you finish lunch, Bob and Bob and I will move enough furniture in here to make room for the machine.”
“Oh, no you won’t.”
The Bobs halted midstride.
“I’ll go to a nursing home before you’ll shut me up back there all by my lonesome.”
“Mom, please. Don’t fight me on—”
“What
