Free Turn of Mind by Alice Laplante Page A

mother died. I am not crying, it was her time. So it goes. So it always goes.
    Oh Mary! My father would say when my mother did something outrageous—danced the cancan on top of a chair at a formal dinner party, stoned a pigeon to death in front of horrified passersby. Oh Mary! Their love duet.
    Such a lovely man, my father. He had a quiet mind, as Thoreau would say. How did he end up with my mother? She flirted with homosexual priests, told audacious lies, uncorked the whiskey at four o’clock every day. And now, finally, gone.
    My flight to Philadelphia is delayed, and so when I arrive at the hospice the bed is already empty—someone failed to pass on the news that I was coming. I sit on the stripped bed. Does it matter? No. I don’t know if she would have known me in any case.
    She wandered at the end. A devout Catholic always, in the last months of her life she forsook Christ and the Blessed Mother for the virgin martyrs. Theresa of Avila, Catherine of Siena, and Lucy were her constant companions. She would giggle, swat at the air with a Kleenex, offer them bits of food. A hungry, witty lot, to judge from the constant feeding they required and my mother’s constant laughing at their repartee.
    She retained her mischievousness. She never lost that. Once, she secreted a ketchup package from her lunch tray and dotted it on her wrists at the lunocapitate joints, on her ankles at the talonaviculars. Bitter, vinegary stigmata. The nurse’s assistant screamed, to my mother’s obvious delight. She gave a high five to an invisible coconspirator.
    Ultimately what did her in was a fall. An innocuous one. Her knees buckled as she hobbled from her bed to the toilet. She collapsed onto the floor, was helped up, and that was the end of her.
    That evening, she was running a high fever. Throughout the night she remained deep in conversation with her saints. It was a different kind of delirium than usual: She was saying her good-byes. She kissed the virgins good-bye, gave them long, loving embraces. She waved goodbye to the doctors, the nurses, the orderlies. She waved to the hospice visitors passing by in the hall. She asked for, and received, a large glass of Scotch whiskey. She was given her last rites. Good-bye, good-bye.
    My father wasn’t mentioned. I wasn’t either.
    She was a lover of practical jokes until the end. When the orderlies came to remove her body, one noticed an oddly shaped lump between her breasts. Gingerly fishing his hand down the front of her hospital gown, he gave a shriek, jumped back, and shook his hand. Something bite you? his coworker said, grinning. Yes, indeed: my mother’s false teeth. A beautiful woman when younger, she had never stopped believing in her allure. So one of her last acts was to spring a trap where she apparently still believed someone would want to go.
    The nurse told me all this, and I smiled. I wonder what will remain in my mind, at the end. What basic truths will I return to? What tricks will I play and on whom?
    Jennifer.
    Someone is shaking me. The nurse.
    Jennifer, it’s time for your pills.
    No. I must call the funeral home. Make arrangements for the cremation. Because I cannot bear the thought of a funeral. Ashes to ashes, that is all that is required. The plot is paid for. My father is already there. Beloved husband and father. All that is necessary is to finish carving the double headstone. I can arrange for that tomorrow and be on an evening plane. Back to my surgery, to James and the children.
    Jennifer, you are in Chicago. You are home.
    No. I am in Philadelphia. At Mercy Hospice. With the body of my mother.
    No, Jennifer, your mother died a long time ago. Years and years.
    No, not possible.
    Yes. Now take your pills. Here’s your water. Good. Now. How about a walk? She holds out her hand. I take it. I study it. When I cannot sleep, when I am confused, I label things. I try to remember what matters. And I use their right names. Names