said, and got up and went into the office behind the desk.
While I was waiting, a tall, thin man with a thick head of light brown hair came in. He was dressed in an expensive-looking dark blue suit and a light blue tie. He smiled at me and went directly to the elevator. Immediately, I wondered if he was going up to see Roxy. If so, this was certainly bad timing.
The desk clerk came out. “Just sit there,” he said, nodding at the settee across from the desk.
“Is she coming?”
“Just sit there,” he emphasized.
I did what he said. He went back to his racing form, and I kept my eyes on the elevator. It opened, but an elderly lady stepped out, glanced at me, and went outside to a waiting limousine. I looked at the desk clerk, but he was very involved in his racing form now and no longer paid any attention to me. At least another fifteen minutes passed. I almost gave up, but the elevator opened again, and Roxy came out. She had her hair down and was wearing a long raincoat and a pair of sandals. I sensed that she wasn’t wearing much underneath the raincoat. The desk clerk looked up at her, but her stern expression chased him back to his racing form. I stood up.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, obviously very annoyed.
“Mama’s very sick,” I said.
She didn’t speak for a moment, but I saw her face soften. “What do you mean, very sick? What’s wrong with her?”
“She has a cyst. She’s having a hysterectomy done, or at least that is what she’s telling me, but I think it might be more serious than she says.”
“Are you a doctor already?”
“I know how to read Mama,” I said. “She wanted me to go stay with Uncle Orman and Aunt Lucy.”
“Orman and Lucy? You might as well be sent to Leavenworth prison.” She paused and looked at the desk clerk again. He didn’t look our way. “When is all this happening?”
“Monday,” I said. “She goes into Sloan-Kettering. We have a ten-day break at my school beginning this weekend.”
“Great. You’ll be able to play nurse,” she said. “Look, I’m busy right now. I can’t stand around and chat. Take care of yourself, and don’t go to Uncle Orman’s.” She turned to go to the elevator.
“Don’t you care at all?” I cried.
She pushed the button and looked back at me when the door opened. “Once,” she said. “A long time ago.”
She got into the elevator and fixed her eyes on me as the doors closed. Her eyes were empty. They were like unlit bulbs. I stood there for a few moments and then looked at the desk clerk. He was staring at me now. I turned and headed out of the hotel, my feet pounding the sidewalk. I was so full of anger and turmoil that I almost went in the wrong direction. A heavyset man bumped into me as if I didn’t exist. He nearly spun me around, but he kept walking. I caught my breath, realized where I was going, and crossed the street, walking even faster now.
I shouldn’t be so surprised by what had just happened, I thought, or even upset. I didn’t really know Roxy or who she had become. It was almost the same as talking to a complete stranger. Love, or the deep feeling we have for each other, is really a very fragile thing. Once it’s damaged as much as it was for Roxy, it probably floats down like a leaking balloon and settles under our feet. We step over the memories, even trample them, and go on, hardening ourselves, maybe even hating ourselves for being this way, but it’s probably what Roxy had to do to survive. I wanted to hate her, too, but I couldn’t. Despite how terrible things were for Mama and me right now, we still had each other, loved each other. What did Roxy have?
A man waiting upstairs, someone paying for her attention and affection?
And when he was gone, what did she have? What were her thoughts just before she fell asleep? What were her prayers? Had she grown so comfortable and indifferent to the darkness and the loneliness that it no longer bothered her or even mattered?
She was traveling alone through her life now, gazing occasionally at those who weren’t alone. Maybe she still longed for family, for someone to love and someone to love her, but if she did, she kept it under lock and key, a secret so tightly folded it was as hard as her heart.
I didn’t want to waste any more time feeling sorry for her. Yes, I had gone to her in the hope that she would join me, be at my side, worrying and praying for Mama. That she would return to being the sister I once had. That she would embrace both Mama and me. I was doing it for her as much as I was doing it for myself and for Mama.
But she didn’t see that, or she didn’t want to see that.
When those elevator doors closed between us, it was like closing the lid of a coffin. She wasn’t going up; she was going down.
But I wasn’t going up, either. I was just hovering like some cloud unsure of which way the wind was to take it, hanging up there alone and afraid, especially of the rumbling on the horizon and the darkness that was seeping over the blue daylight, oozing like oil toward it and threatening to wash it under forever.
14
I didn’t sleep much Sunday night. No one from school called me over the weekend. I hadn’t told Chastity or Richard about Mama’s health problem. Richard had finally overcome his shyness and wanted to do something with me over the weekend, but I made excuses, telling him we had relatives visiting. It wasn’t a good time for me to develop a relationship with anyone new, anyway. As nice as he was, I didn’t have any warm emotions to spare, and I didn’t want to drag him into my difficulties. Chastity had remained aloof, and I continued to avoid her, especially now. Once she got wind of all of this, I was sure she would pounce, hoping that I needed her more than she needed me.
Maybe I did, but I wouldn’t admit that to anyone, especially myself. I knew that Aunt Lucy had called one more time to offer her services. Mama mentioned it as casually as she could, hoping that I had somehow changed my mind.
“I’ll be fine,” I insisted.