Free Close to Hugh by Marina Endicott Page A

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    Even Ruth can hear her own incalculable wrongness, and it bulldogs her jaw. “These people—”
    “Please, please, stop,” Hugh says. Not sure if he has said it out loud or not.
    She stops, adjusting the front blind: “Look, here’s Newell, with his friend!”
    Funny that she doesn’t have the same trouble accepting gay people. Ruth adores Newell. She has DVD sets of all his series. Of all her part-time kids, Newell’s her baby.
    There they go. Newell and Burton ranging down the street to FairGrounds, Burton’s arm tucked into Newell’s bent elbow, his head up, catching the breeze of a cool morning. They trot up the steps in unison, almost a shuffle-off-to-Buffalo; musical theatre being much on their minds of late. Newell sports a goofball grin and Burton an eyepatch and a slouch hat. And what looks like concealer and foundation.
    You realize he’s going to sue you, Hugh tells himself.
    He leaves Ruth in charge and walks round to the hospice. The son, as required, going to sit by the deathbed of the mother.
    Stairs stretch endlessly upward like a video game or (back to his own childhood) the Sorcerer’s Apprentice . Mop and pail, mop and pail, endless stairs and water, all out of his control.
    The hall, the quiet corridor. No bodies laid out there today. Nolie is just coming out of her room. Always better when she’s on duty.
    From the bed, eyes open, Mimi smiles for him. About the eyelids, much sweetness. Still eighteen, at seventy-eight. Hard to believe some days that she is dying. Her face is peaceful. The drug cocktail mutes or translates pain, makes it unintelligible.
    “You, did you, busy. Have you have, Hugh?” The darling husky voice is hazy these days—hurry, answer before she realizes that she is not making sense.
    “Phew, busy, yes, I had some running around to do. I can’t remember—” Hugh runs his fingers through his hair, a thing he got from her. “Oh, I went to Della’s. I found her playing your piano—she loves it.” That was days ago, but it doesn’t matter. Days and nights have no more meaning here.
    “ Her piano,” she says, and seems to know what she’s approving of.
    “Yes, she loves it. It means a lot to her that you gave it to her. She’s coming to see you this afternoon.”
    Mimi’s eyes light up. “Ken?” Always a man’s woman. She likes Newell best, though. Like Ruth does.
    “Ken’s away,” he says. Her eyes close, she is drifting. Keep on, a mild gossiping tone will ease her way.
    “He’s having a mid-life thing. Wants to quit his job, or take some kind of a leave from the firm. Not good timing, though. I think money may be—” No. Don’t talk about money. Background, not foreground. “They put the piano against an inner wall, as you suggested. It sounds great.”
    “I’m sorry,” she says, eyes up, open, searching. For him?
    “I don’t play. No sense me having it.”
    But that is not it. She is shaking her head, fitful on the propped-up pillow. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry—sorry, sorry—” Half sobbing, “I’m so sorry,” in a child’s voice that pierces him to the quick. She puts her hand on his. Papery, pale, silky with sickness and age. She looks at him, looks, looks.
    Sometimes forgive me forgive me forgive me is in everything she says. Sometimes, it’s all your fault . Remembered from her violent childhood, things she has let slip or that he guessed.
    It kills Hugh. You can’t do anything about it; she could never set it aside. In a long, privileged life, she only ever felt betrayed and beaten and bad. How long life, how long childhood lasts. Mops and pails, water everywhere.
    He wipes her eyes, careful with the cobweb skin, and slides an arm behind her shoulders. But she turns away, maybe pretending that he is one of those who hurt her. Maybe thinking it, or knowing it.

(DELLA)
    he’s in a fugue state
    he smashed into a tree               rapelling in Elora Gorge
    and they don’t