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capsule form, to be taken with food, and my mother had somehow gotten it into her
head that this meant the capsules needed to be ground up in her food, which she then
proceeded to do over my grandmother’s tearful objections. When my aunt discovered
what was going on and confronted her sister, explaining that the medication simply
should be taken with meals, she became unhinged, screaming that if anything happened
to their mother, it would be my aunt’s fault. She had shouldered the entire burden of my
grandmother’s deteriorating health for years, she claimed, expected to make every single
decision, but if her judgment was going to be questioned, now or ever, then she wanted
nothing more to do with it. My aunt could take over all those duties and see how well
she liked them. Apparently this fracas had precipitated the call to Carbondale. My aunt
knew and was very fond of my wife, and knew we had our hands full with new jobs and
two small daughters, but I could tell she was also worried sick for my grandmother, and
when I asked if I should come get my mother, she reluctantly agreed it might be for the
best.
By the time I got to Gloversville, she’d calmed down some. The knowledge that I was
coming, that I’d be there by week’s end, allowed her to step back from the precipice, but
she was clearly in terrible shape, far worse than when she’d come to live with us in
Tucson. At the time I owned a pickup truck into which we loaded her things, mostly
books. What didn’t t was left behind. I’d borrowed a camper shell so we could lock
everything up at night when we checked into motels. Together, we drove back across the
country on the same route we’d taken twenty years before. The truck had airconditioning,
but my mother suered one panic attack after another, and she swore she
couldn’t breathe, so we had to drive with the windows open to the August heat. Between
these ts she regaled me with stories about how awful the last few years had been,
detailing every single responsibility that was hers and hers alone, how abusive her sister
and mother had been. “You have no idea how cruel they were,” she said, over and over.
“I kept it all a secret.”
As we made our slow journey west, my wife was busy trying to nd a place for her to
live. Before I headed to Gloversville, we’d negotiated as best we could the terms for how
all this would go. Assuming she wasn’t a danger, my mother would stay with us until
September. She was retired now, on Social Security, so she didn’t need to work, and she
qualied for elderly housing, if we could nd it. Halfway to Illinois I called Barbara,
who said there was an opening at the senior-citizen tower, exactly the sort of place I
knew my mother would veto. The next day I explained patiently that the apartment
would only be temporary until we could nd something better, that it was ve minutes
from our house, and she’d have the rest of August with us to get back on her feet and
orient herself to her new environment before moving in. Since her only other option
was returning to Gloversville, she had to go along with this, though she had a
stipulation. The tower had to be only for the elderly, with no Section 8 residents. She
refused to live with crazy people.
She also wanted to know if my driver’s-side window was rolled down all the way,
because she couldn’t breathe. I knew how she felt. I couldn’t either.