Free Wait Until Tomorrow by Pat MacEnulty Page B

her and taking her and as many of her things as I can fit in this little car. I am commandeering her life. In Edenton, they will have parties for her. They will celebrate her. They will make a cake in the shape of a piano. They will print a huge story in the local paper about this gifted woman who came to a small historic village and played the organ for their church services, created a community chorus,
wrote music for them, and taught them to sing like angels. For her it will be like getting to attend her own funeral. It will be sad, but it will not be depressing. She will be the belle of the ball.
    While a light steady rain falls, I pack and load, pack and load. She does what I tell her to do like an obedient little girl. When I’ve finished cramming everything I can get inside the car, she lowers herself into the front seat. I fold up her walker and jam it in the backseat on top of the boxes of books and kitchen items and music manuscripts. I lean over and help her buckle her seat belt. Then I shut the door and run around to the driver’s side. Clouds hunker over the Sound. Hurricane Alex is brewing off the coast, and we are leaving it and Edenton behind. The roads are slick. I back into the busy street, put the car in drive, and go. My mother’s Edenton life disappears in the mist.
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    Later that day my mother is sitting on the bed of her new “home”—a second-floor room in an assisted-living place called the Oaks. We both suddenly feel sick. I am positive that this is the wrong thing. This has been an awful mistake. My mother smiles stiffly, trying to be brave.
    â€œThe carpet is pretty,” she says. But we both hate the place and everything about it. And mostly I hate myself. Should I have moved her in with me, I wonder? But how would I ever get any work done? Would Hank and Emmy leave me if I did? And where would we put the piano? The management here has promised that we can keep the piano in the parlor. Of course it’s not the best idea, leaving a Steinway grand out where any senile person could spill Ensure all over the keys, but at least Mom can entertain people, which is what she lives for.
    The main reason my mother cannot live in our house with us is that we are not always there. And this is the one thing I know she needs: the company of others, not just her moody daughter and
her daughter’s equally moody family. She needs friends, admirers, and co-conspirators. In a little cabinet in my heart where I keep the things that hurt me most is the memory of her telling me that, in her apartment in Edenton, she screamed sometimes at the top of her lungs just to see if anyone would hear her, to see if anyone would come. My mother has friends in Edenton, but her best friend Marion has just been moved to an assisted-living place in Long Island to be near her daughter. And her other friends have lives of their own. And a few (to my continued wonder) seem to have abandoned her altogether.
    So I stifle the anguish roiling in my chest.
    â€œI’ll come play Scrabble with you every day,” I promise. “I’ll take you out places. I won’t leave you here all the time.”
    She clutches me. I am her lifeline as she was once mine. We will do this together.

    â€œThe Alice in Wonderland was mine as a child,” I explain to my brothers. “It was a gift from someone.”
    They concede the book. We are sitting on the floor of the living room of our mother’s apartment in Edenton, divvying up her stuff. We don’t have many conflicts except a few minor skirmishes over the books.
    â€œOh, here’s the Boston School of Cooking ,” Jo says, gently opening the old relic as if it were the original Dead Sea Scrolls. I wouldn’t mind having that, but Jo is the cook.
    All three of us want the Kierkegaard. I’m sure David already has a copy. He takes the Bertrand Russell instead since it was his to begin with. I don’t know why I think I’m