Free They May Not Mean To, but They Do: A Novel by Cathleen Schine

ten minutes later. She swept in, looking harassed, windblown. She always looked harassed and windblown, he thought, even when she was reading a magazine on the sofa or sitting in a restaurant at dinner. Her clothes were always pressed and tucked in and perfectly, overly, coordinated; yet she always appeared to be weathering a great storm. Maybe it was the way she moved—big, jumpy gestures.
    “Mom is going to have a nervous breakdown and die,” she said.
    “Hello to you, too!” He stood up and kissed her. She rested her head on his shoulder for a moment, relaxed and soft. Then he felt her pull herself up. Back on duty.
    “Those two are killing each other. What are you eating? I want a panino.”
    He laughed. A panino, singular. She did like to be correct, Molly did. “I already had a sandwich at the hospital that was prepared in 1958,” he said. He ordered an espresso. “A good espresso place in our old neighborhood. Imagine that.”
    “Imagine that. You sound like Daddy.”
    Daddy. He liked it when she said that. It made everything seem softer, kinder than it was. “He’s in agony one minute, and then the next minute he forgets he was in agony. It’s like a backward curse. Or a Greek myth: Dad-alus.”
    They talked about Coco and his kids for a few minutes. Ruby had turned twelve a couple of months before. Many of her friends were studying for bar and bat mitzvahs. She was not interested. Even the lure of a party and gifts did not entice her. Religions caused wars. Religion was mass hysteria. Like soccer fans, but worse. Cora, on the other hand, was already planning her party, five years to plan it, that ought to be enough, Daniel said, laughing. Then he remembered he should probably ask Molly about Freddie. “How’s Freddie?” Molly started to tell him how Freddie was, and he nodded, not listening. Molly said, “Are you even listening? You never listen, Daniel.” Molly always told him he didn’t listen, and it was true. How else did people get through the day? Daniel’s notion of a perfect afternoon was to sit in a garden in the warm sun with bees buzzing lazily around him, his eyes half closed, a battered Panama hat comfortably situated on his drooping head, like the scene in The Godfather with an ancient Marlon Brando. Daniel had no interest in being ancient just yet. He just didn’t like to rush. He gazed idly at the glass display case and wondered if the cookies were any good. He held his hand up to summon the waiter.
    Molly thought, He moves like an old Chinese man on a hill doing tai chi, dignified in the dawn. His expression was serene, self-possessed. But Molly knew he was merely distracted, constantly distracted.
    “Wake up,” she said. “What are we going to do, Daniel? About Them?”
    He shook his head. What, indeed? “I do come up to the apartment every Saturday,” he said. “And I bring the girls, too, sometimes. We go to a museum first and then come for dinner. Mom never wants to come with us to any of the museums, though. She doesn’t like to leave Dad, although all he does is sleep in front of the TV. I’ve tried to get him to go in a taxi and then a wheelchair, but he never wants to. Neither of them is very cooperative. They would have such a good time, watching Ruby sketch—she loves Picasso.”
    “She would love Picasso,” Molly said, laughing. “But walking around museums at this point…”
    “Cora is so into the minerals at the Museum of Natural History. Not just the ones that look like jewels. I think she has a scientific bent…”
    “Come on, Daniel. She’s eight. She likes rocks. Which I think is fantastic, I like rocks, too. But what are we going to do when they let Dad out of the hospital? Mommy can’t take care of him anymore.”
    “I don’t want them to be old,” Daniel said.
    “The alternative and all that…”
    “Maybe.”
    “We can’t put pillows over their faces.”
    “No,” Daniel said. “We would miss them too much.”

 
    11
    Joy went to