"Are you very sure of this, Edward?” Mama said, her gray eyebrows rushing together over her pointy-rimmed 1950s eyeglasses. Edward remembered the eyebrows, auburn back in those years when world affairs hinged on a German shepherd launched into outer space.
“Mama,” Edward said, looking across the room from the metal chair where he sat to the steel bed where his mother lay, “we’ve talked about this for weeks now. The time has come for you to be in Palo Alto. Since Daddy died, there’s nothing left for you in Modesto. Shady Pines is a perfectly lovely facility.”
She relaxed her eyebrows and the blank expression came back into her eyes. “Very well, I’m certain you know best.” Mama nodded at the chinless social worker who stood by the door, who walked over to the bed and motioned for Mama to sign the forms.
“Edward,” Mama said, once Miss Van Buren walked away, “be sure to bring my dresser, and your grandfather’s watercolors. My jewelry is in the box on the bed, and I need to have my address book. You’ll have to send notecards to all of my friends, and arrange with the new facility to have HBO and Showtime added to my cable package. And what’s their library like? We need to make sure I have access to a good library.”
I stared at her. Her friends had died, I’d sold her jewelry, and she couldn’t even hold a book upright any longer. All she could do was watch television, and even that was restricted to soap operas and Joan Rivers reality shows.
“Don’t dawdle, Edward,” Mama said. “Do as I say. And remember, I’ll be expecting you to feed me dinner every evening at the new place.”
Perhaps the weekly drive from San Francisco to Modesto wasn’t as bad as I had made it out to be. And perhaps I could speak to Miss Van Buren.
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