Free Wait Until Tomorrow by Pat MacEnulty

that in reality, in my reality, she is an exciting, funloving person with a terrific sense of humor. They, however, see someone who cries and is no fun at all. To them she’s like the worrywart fish in The Cat and the Hat.
    One night we decide to watch one of Hank’s favorite movies, Shrek . I think Hank secretly identifies with the large green ogre, a softhearted grouch. It is not an unreasonable comparison.
    We love watching movies together, and we mistakenly assume that my mother will enjoy this family ritual of ours: the popcorn, the pillows piled in front of the TV, the dog nosing his way into the circle. We place Mom in her portable recliner and turn the television up loud enough for her to hear it, and we proceed to enjoy the movie, Hank chuckling at the witty banter between Shrek and Donkey. But we are not even halfway through when my mother grows frantic. She frets and moans and says, “Oh, this is terrible. This is terrible.”
    Hank and I look at each other. My lips tighten over my teeth. Emmy is silent.
    â€œWhat is it, Mom?” I ask. “What’s wrong?”
    But she can’t tell me what’s wrong. She can only moan and flail about. Hank and Emmy disperse. I turn off the movie. The night is ruined. (In fact, we never watch that movie again.) My mother doesn’t seem to notice. All she knows is that now my attention has turned to her, and there are no distractions.
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    With my helpless mother in the house, I sigh constantly. I have never before understood the emotional significance of the sigh. But now I get it. A sigh is your very spirit crying its quiet distress. A sigh is your futile prayer to whatever gods might overhear it. You understand you are beyond help. There is no answer. So you sigh.

    Then my brother David shows up. David is the hero in any narrative. He’s the one who goes into a poverty-ridden school where the children are looking forward to a life of gang violence and prison and teaches them to play chess and takes them to the White House and shows them the world and the children grow up and get scholarships to Ivy League schools, and if perchance they still get in trouble, he goes to court and convinces the judge to give them another chance. He’s the one who came to find me when I was holed up with another junkie in the Battery and took me back to the drug program in the 1970s. He’s the one who will chase down a purse snatcher for twenty blocks until finally the perpetrator throws the purse down in frustration and keeps going.
    I wrap my arms around him in relief.
    David and I take a tour of an assisted-living place near my house. He agrees that it’s a decent enough place. The price is somewhat daunting, but right now Mother has enough savings that we can get her in there and pay for a few months. And at this point we’re not able to look much further than that. Perhaps it’s a failure of imagination, or that annoying habit I have (as Hank loves to point out) of believing that everything will just work out. “God will take care of it,” Hank says in a mincing voice even though I’ve never said that (out loud).
    Even as he’s nearing sixty, David still bears a strong resemblance to the muscular weight lifter he was in high school. He has a newscaster’s deep voice and he brings a Spockian logic to problems. After we look at the assisted-living place, we take Mother to an outdoor café near my house. David and I discuss her options: Should Mom go into the assisted-living facility? Should we try a little harder to find someone to stay with her in Edenton?
    Mom then puts her hand out and says, “But where will I be sleeping tonight?”

    â€œYou’ll be at my house, Mom, with us. Just like you have been all week,” I tell her. I don’t cry. I don’t bang my head on the metal table. I don’t rip open my blouse and beat my chest. But I want to.
    Later these lapses won’t bother me so