of the nurse he was addressing: “Paisans.” “Confrères.” “Homies.”
Not to say he was ignoring me. Quite the opposite. He helped in the manner of a boyfriend of the hostess. He stomped on trash, refilled glasses, wiped up spills, chatted with the friendless, who would have been me but for the refuge offered by a kitchen and hors d’oeuvres – related tasks. Ray may have watched too many situation comedies in which suburban husbands steal time from their guests to peck the cheek of their aproned hostess/wife. I had to say repeatedly, “Why are you doing that?” disengaging him in the exact manner that my mother swatted away my father. It hardly discouraged him; if anything he was inspired to discuss what he perceived as my discomfort with/suspicion of intimacy.
I said, “I know men have very strong drives, and I know you’ve been lonely, but I think you’re being overly familiar.”
Happily, guests were interrupting us. Leo poked his head in every so often to remind me that there was a party going on in the other rooms and that I should leave the dishes for the morning.
“Let’s go see how our guests are faring,” Ray said cheerfully.
Leo had indeed dipped into his supply of brothers for the occasion, which was of great genetic interest to all observers. One had black hair and the fairest, pinkest skin you’d ever see on a male old enough to have facial hair; another had Leo’s build and Leo’s ruddy complexion, but an angular face and brown eyes that seemed to come from another gene pool. The Frawleys were mixing warily with the Ray Russo contingent. One red-haired brother asked a cousin, “So, how do you know Leo?”
“My cousin’s going out with his roommate,” he answered. I corrected the misapprehension. Ray and I were acquaintances, I said.
The cousin grinned. “If you say so.”
I explained to the brother that Ray had lost his wife a year ago and only now was getting out socially.
Cousin George said, “He was really faithful to her memory. He didn’t do a thing until she was legally pronounced dead.”
I told him what Ray had told me: the accident, the head trauma, the coma, the life support, the horrible decision. I asked if any of her organs were donated and George said, “Um. You’d have to ask Ray.”
I asked if she’d been wearing a seat belt.
George said, “I doubt it.”
Leo was now doing what he had threatened to do during our planning phase if things didn’t coalesce on their own—dance. He was taking turns with a flock of nursing students, all undergraduates from the same baccalaureate nursing program, and all friends. They looked alike, too: Their hairdos were the ballerina knots, streaked with blond, that were popular with pretty teenagers. I didn’t think we should invite anyone under twenty-one because we were serving beer and wine, but Leo had prevailed. Now they were taking turns being twirled, and each one’s raised hand revealed a few inches of bare midriff and a pierced navel.
“Wanna dance, Doc?” Ray asked.
I shook my head resolutely.
“Would it make a difference if it was a slow dance? You must have learned a few steps of ballroom dancing for those teas at that fancy college.”
I didn’t remember telling him where I’d gone to college, but I must have mentioned it over dinner. I said, “Okay, a slow dance.”
“I’ll talk to the deejay,” said Ray. He turned to his cousin. “Georgie—put something on that the doc might enjoy dancing to.”
“Will do,” said George.
A little human warmth generated from a clean-shaven jaw can go a long way. I may have exaggerated my ineptitude on the dance floor; any able-bodied person can follow another’s lead when his technique constitutes nothing more than swaying in place. It helped that he didn’t talk or sing, and that his cologne had a citric and astringent quality that I found pleasing.
If Ray said anything at all, it was an occasional entreaty to relax. “You’re not so bad, Doc,” he said when the first song ended. “In fact I think you might like another whirl.”
He hadn’t let go of my hand. I looked around the room to see if we had an audience. Leo was consolidating trays of hors d’oeuvres, but watching. He arched his eyebrows, which I interpreted to mean, Need to be rescued?
I shrugged.
A nurse with closely cropped hair dyed at least two primary colors took Leo’s hand and led him out to the patch of hardwood that was serving as the dance floor. “Having a good time?” Leo asked me.
“You better believe it,” Ray answered, flashing a thumbs-up with my hand in his.
A PHONE CALL woke me. Was I in my own bed or in the on-call cot? It took a few seconds to orient myself in the dark before remembering: I had the weekend off. Good. This would be the hospital calling the wrong resident.
But it wasn’t. It was my mother, her voice choked.
“Is it Daddy?” I whispered.
“It’s Nana,” she managed, discharging the two syllables between sobs.
“What about Nana?”
“Gone! One minute she was alive and the next minute, gone! Pneumonia! As if that wasn’t curable!”
My grandmother was ninety-four and had been in congestive heart failure for three months and on dialysis for nine. I said, “The elderly don’t do well with pneumonia.”
I looked at my bedside clock: 3:52 A.M.
“My heart stopped when the phone rang because I knew without even answering,” my mother continued. “Here it was, the phone call I’ve been dreading my whole life.”
“Is Daddy there?” I asked.
My father came on and said, “I told her not to wake you. What were you going to do at four in the morning except lose a night’s sleep?”
“Ninety-four years old,” I said quietly. “Maybe in the morning she’ll realize that it’s a blessing.”
“I tried that,” he said. “Believe me.”
“Tried what?” my mother asked.
“To point out to you, Joyce, that your mother lived to a ripe old age, was healthy for the first ninety-three of them, and any daughter who has a mother by her side at her sixtieth birthday party is a pretty lucky woman.”
“It’s not the time to count my blessings,” I heard. “I’m crying because she’s gone, okay? Do I have to defend myself?”
“Be nice to her,” I said.
“I am,” he said. Then to my mother, “I know, honey. I know. No one’s mother can live long enough to suit her children. It’s always too early.”
My mother raised her voice so I could hear distinctly, “Some daughters hate their mothers. Some mothers hear from their daughters once a week if they’re lucky. I talked to mine every day. Twice a day. She was my best friend.”
“When’s the funeral?” I asked.
“We haven’t gotten that far yet,” said my father. “She still has to call her sisters.”
“I called you first!” I heard from the far side of their bed.
“Sorry to wake you,” my father said. “I couldn’t stop her. You’re on her auto dial.”
“I have to get up in two hours anyway,” I said.
I BRING UP this relatively untraumatic and foreseen death because Ray counted my grandmother’s funeral as our third date. He was a genius at being there for me when I didn’t want or need him. He called the Monday after the party and got Leo. “Her grandmother