“From the narrow place I called to God. From wideness I was answered.” Psalm 118.
Outside, the building was typical Miami. Stucco walls. A red-tiled roof. Pink hibiscus danced in the breeze. Palm trees bent and swayed. Inside, every sense was assaulted. Shelby gripped her briefcase with one hand and a bag of groceries with the other. Security cameras panned the hallways. Locks bolted the doors. She signed the registry and nodded at the nurses. A sign saying Spring has Sprung! festooned the walls. She tried not to inhale, inhaling was the worst possible reminder. When she inhaled her nostrils were battered by urine and worse. The instinct to bolt, to move backward instead of forward, never left. At the age of thirty, Shelby was a prisoner caught in a familial cage. She was burdened by responsibility, trapped by obligation, bound and shackled by love. Though the door was closed, she didn’t knock. It was six in the evening. Outside children were playing and dogs were barking and people were fighting traffic. But inside, Ana was lying in bed. Shelby kept her voice cheerleader perky. As if yelling would help the words penetrate, as if deafness were the problem. “It’s me,” she said. “Shelby.” Then she unpacked the food with a magician’s flourish. “Ta da! Strawberry ice cream! Ta da! Lemon lollipops! A lifetime’s supply of peppermint tea!” Years ago, people had noted a family resemblance. If only! thought Shelby. How jealous she used to be! No face was more beautiful than Ana’s. That perfect nose, those anime eyes. But Ana’s hair had grown dull and wispy, her skin sallow, her veins like lines on a map. Her face stared at the ceiling like the ceiling had the answers. Her fingers drummed on the blanket playing invisible keys. Marie, the Haitian aide, peeked in, tiptoed on her cushioned shoes, placed a tray of food on the table. “Today not a good day,” she said. “Today, our patient talks to ghosts. Today, no appetite.” Then as quickly as she entered, she left. Shelby opened the nightstand and extracted an adult-sized bib. Then she lifted the spoon and aimed for Ana’s mouth. Spoonful by spoonful, one half of the meal was consumed while the other half landed on Ana’s chin. Like a baby bird, Ana’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened. Closed. Soon the hand forgot about drumming and wrapped itself around Shelby’s. The silence grew deeper, the room darker, the two of them intent. Nothing existed but the spoon going in and going out. The hand holding Shelby’s instinctively tightened. Shelby made sure that a manicurist visited weekly, that the skin stayed soft and supple, the wrist pliant. How magical those hands used to be! They were the hands of a musician, a sculptor, a person whose hands created worlds. A nurse walked in. Then without a word, she beelined toward the table and whisked the food away. Shelby blinked. The nurse was new. How do they pick these people? Do they coat them in numbness? Do they dip them in rude? “Wait a second,” said Shelby. “She hasn’t eaten her pudding yet.” The nurse looked over her shoulder, scowled. “Your mama’s a slow eater. We’re on a schedule here. She better hurry.” Scanning the name tag on the uniform, Shelby made a mental note. Then she took the tray out of the nurse’s hands and put it back on the table. “She can take as long as she needs to,” said Shelby. “Read the chart. Ana has late-stage dementia. Her muscle memory’s failing. If you feed her faster, she’ll choke.” There was a time when Shelby was shy, tongue-tied, unable to defend herself let alone others. But now she was thrust into a role she neither sought nor wanted. Her neck tensed and her heart galloped, threatening to leap out of her chest. She took a corner of the bib and gently wiped Ana’s mouth. Then she inhaled and exhaled. In. Out. In. Out. Meanwhile the new nurse just stood there, her hands on her hips, her mouth pursed, trying to formulate, Shelby imagined, a hateful response. “Ana just turned forty. She’s not my mama,” said Shelby. “My mother’s long dead. Ana’s my sister.” *** An hour later, Shelby’s car found its way home. She parked in an underground labyrinth washed in yellow light. The elevator, perfumed like coconuts and infused with New Age music, headed straight to her apartment. Opening the door, she was greeted by a panoramic view of Biscayne Bay. Boats bobbed and weaved, lights glinted like necklaces, waves crested silver in the moonlight. It was a view she never got used to. “I’m home,” she shouted. She kicked off her shoes, parked her briefcase on the coffee table, and unclipped her earrings. Then she sat on the couch and willed her pulse to slow. “Dinner, Ms. Shelby?” Another uniform, another forced smile. This time the hair was white and wispy, a face like a waffle iron, a back as bent as a cane. Luz had worked for Shelby’s family for as long as she can remember. Her stomach knotting, Shelby braced herself for the daily report. “Today Grace no problem. Came home smiling, happy.” Her niece Grace had moved in with Shelby three years earlier. Eight-years-old, Grace barely remembered her life with Ana. Before the disease took root, there were midnight dinners, and poetry readings. Before the doctors, there were art openings, smoke-filled rooms, men who dressed like women and women who dressed and undressed whenever and however they liked. Life had been a blur of motion and color, a kaleidoscope of crazy parties, a nonstop binge. Shelby knew that life. It was the life she grew up with. She was Grace’s age when their parents died. Luz, as always, had been watching Shelby while their mother and father went out for the evening. A drunk driver front-ended their car on the expressway, and they never made it home. A lawsuit left the two sisters with plenty of money. Ana was in New York just finishing college. She came back to Miami and never left. Looking back, Shelby supposed they grew up together. But while Shelby was the eager-to-please straight A student, her sister never colored inside the lines. She flitted from job to job and obsession to obsession. A bevy of lovers. A stab at jazz. A stint in an artist’s colony. The more squirrely their lives became, the more Shelby hunkered down. She finished college with a degree in computer science, got a master’s in business, learned the website trade. Meanwhile she and her sister muddled through like war-torn refugees, embracing what they had in common, savoring the good times and burying the past. It was hard to draw a line, to pinpoint when their lives truly turned upside down. There was no aha! moment. No omigod epiphany. Her sister’s carefully cultivated eccentricity simply morphed into something else. There were misplaced keys. Forgotten meals. A neglected child. Tests revealed that Ana’s brain had become the ultimate art piece, a tangle of tau proteins, a collage of amyloid plaque. “Aunt Shelby, is that you? “ While Shelby stood in the hallway, another door begged to be opened. Most little girl rooms were laden with stuffed animals. Barbies. Unicorns. Swaths of pink. But Grace was more of a collector. Crystals. Rocks. An aquarium gurgled on her dresser. A small tub with a plastic castle housed a hermit crab. Their nightly ritual was sacrosanct. Her niece would stare at her bedside clock until Shelby turned the knob. From the distance, the child raised her voice, pleading. “I’m ready, Aunt Shelby. I’m waiting. It’s almost eight o’clock. It’ll be eight o’clock in two minutes. If you don’t hurry, you’ll be late.” A freshly shampooed head peeked out from underneath the covers. Two tiny hands held a book. “So, how is Mrs. Horowitz doing?” Shelby threw out for openers. Third grade was proving to be a minefield. “Just splendid,” said Grace. Other children either lisped like infants or talked trash like sullen teenagers. Grace spoke like a little professor. Relating the day’s events was of no interest. Instead, she preferred to recite a litany of facts. She had memorized every bit of trivia in the children’s encyclopedia on her shelf. It was like living with a computer, Shelby told her friends. In the last three years, Shelby had immersed herself in the world of autism. It was a shotgun education. She had read every book and consulted every expert she could find. The facts were painful to absorb. Neurotypical kids learn by osmosis. They adopt slang words, copy their friends’ gestures, glean street smarts along the way. But Grace wasn’t neurotypical. She was too high functioning for special needs classrooms and too quirky to be mainstreamed. In the three years Grace had lived with Shelby, Grace had been enrolled in three different private schools. And now spring has sprung. With the end of the school year approaching, Shelby dreaded each phone call from a teacher, each report card, every mother’s side-glance, every student’s sneer. “Knock knock,” said Grace. A therapist was working on Grace’s social skills. She was trying to teach the child humor, a subtlety often beyond her grasp. She read each joke from her book like it was homework. “Who’s there?” said Shelby. “Banana,” Grace replied. “Banana who?” “Knock knock,” said Grace. “Who’s there?” said Shelby. “Orange.” “Orange who?” “Orange you glad I didn’t say banana again.” “Did you get your math test back?” asked Shelby. But Grace was in a groove. Running her finger over the lines of her book, her niece completely ignored her. “Knock knock.” “Who’s there?” “Howard.” “Howard who?” “Howard you like another knock knock joke?” A half hour trudged by. Finally, Shelby tucked in the blanket and closed the light. Then she sat on the bed staring at the clock and concentrating on her heartbeat, watching the click clack of neon numbers until Grace fell asleep. *** The next morning Luz appeared, and they switched places. Shelby submerged to her car and headed to her office downtown. Another parking garage and another elevator. A conference room with a thirty-foot table. Miró and Klee covered the walls. They were working on an ad campaign for a hot new clothing designer. Shelby could care less about clothing. Every day, she wore a pair of jeans and a crisp white Oxford cloth blouse. The fondest memory she had of high school was looking through her closet at sameness. The rows of polo shirts. The starched pleated skirts. Ana, of course, was the polar opposite. Instead of normal clothes, she wore costumes. Tutus. Boas. Thrift store finds. Ana had grown up with the Star Wars movies, and her all-time heroine was Princess Leia. For holidays, she twisted their hair into bagels and pinned them to the sides. Then she’d slip a mail order version of the iconic white robe over each of their heads. In front of the room, someone was marking up a storyboard. Shelby felt her eyes grow heavy. The words congealed, merged into a wave, and washed over her. Celebrity endorsement. TikTok feeds. Influencers. “Why not go vintage?” asked Leon Wolfman. “You know. Class-act celebrities for a class-act line.” Wolfman was the token old guy. Sixtyish. Dutifully read the paper version of The New York Times. He endlessly complained about technology. Just when he got the knack of Sirius radio, everyone had moved on to Pandora. Just when he figured out the map on his dashboard, everyone else had turned to Waze. Why was life so unnecessarily complicated? He never threw out his vinyl collection. You’ll see, he told them. At the end of the day, Wolfman was usually right. “We’ll photoshop Audrey Hepburn and Myrna Loy,” said Wolfman. “Picture it. Cool people with cool clothes. We’ll need to get the appropriate permissions, of course.” Then suddenly Shelby saw the apparition. Carrie Fisher was standing on the table right in front of her with bagels on her head and that stupid white dress. “Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi.” Shelby looked around. It was obvious that no one else was seeing what she saw. She felt like one of those saints in the Bible, both horror-stricken and dumbstruck. Then Shelby’s mouth moved without volition. The idea just jumped out. “We can create holograms,” she sputtered. “Lena Horne,” said Wolfman. “Merle Oberon.” “All of them,” said Shelby, “would be wearing the label. Imagine a parade of old-time movie stars strutting down the runway like ghosts.” A dozen faces looked up. Pencils started scratching. Thumbs began punching at keys. Shelby listened from a distance as the excitement grew. She was a tech person, someone who liked numbers and connected the dots. Ana had been the creative one. But all at once her head felt like it was exploding. She grabbed the seat cushion with both hands and anchored herself. Still she felt unmoored, like she was floating, swinging from the chandelier and looking down. Voices surged. “Holograms?” “They’ve resurrected Anthony Bourdain for a documentary.” “Didn’t Ye bring back Kim Kardashian’s father?” “There’s a place in Palm Beach that’s cornering the funeral market. First, they film you. Then after you’re dead, standing in front of your family and friends, you make your own eulogy.” “Holograms!” Later, when she looked back, her decision was a confluence of factors. Ana had been declining quickly. And if Shelby carried the genes, there was a fifty-fifty chance she would be facing early onset dementia as well. She couldn’t imagine leaving Grace unprotected. If something happened to Shelby, who would teach the child? Give her advice? Point her in the right direction? The doctors urged Shelby to get tested. But why would she get tested? There was no treatment and no cure. Of course, Shelby made plans. Plans were her breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She had contacted an estate attorney. Consulted her CPA. Had a heart-to-heart with Luz. Whenever she bought clothes for Grace, she included the next two sizes up. But what kept her awake at night were the known unknowns, all the pitfalls and the trapdoors the future had in store. If only Shelby could program the advice stored in her head! If only she could download all of life’s dos and don’ts into one big file? “What’s the name of that Palm Beach company again?” she asked. Shelby could care less about eulogies, about well-worn phrases and pretentious speeches. The holograms she pictured would have something much more practical in mind. *** The first session was the easiest. They placed Shelby on a stool in the recording studio and handed her a mike. Within seconds, a geyser of information erupted. She began with lists and rules. Things to get for your first apartment: a bucket, batteries, a short ladder, a screwdriver, a hammer. Don’t forget some nails! Things to remember when buying a car: Never pay the sticker price. Never buy rust-proofing. Forget about dealer prep. Watch for hidden costs! Things to remember when buying an appliance: Go for middle-of-the-road. And never buy the extended warranty. How to pick a major in college: English Literature or History. You’ll never regret it! One recording session followed another. And as the information poured out, Shelby found herself talking slower and slower, mulling over options, becoming more and more unsure. The guidance she needed to impart was getting trickier, more subtle, harder to explain. Dating advice. Career choices. The best cities to live in! Doubts haunted every decision. Instead of sitting, she started to pace. The room grew smaller. The walls seemed to shrink. And who was Shelby to give anyone advice? She had no parenting experience. And looking back, she had never received any. Ana had only believed in three sources of knowledge: the crinkly little papers found in fortune cookies, Kung Fu reruns, and Yodaisms. Usually, she combined all three. Death is a natural part of life, Grasshopper. Mourn our parents do not. After the fifth session, Shelby was ambushed by two phone calls on the way home. One was from the director of Ana’s care unit. Marie, the newest aide, the kind soul whom Shelby had patiently trained, was being transferred to another wing. The other call was school-related. Marian was a friendly frizzy-haired lady who had sat next to Shelby in orientation. Her daughter was also in Mrs. Horowitz’s class. There had been some teasing at school, said Marian. Silliness, really. But it was the sort of teasing that kids spread on social media. Some of the kids had access to phones and computers. There was little control over what they did at home. She wanted to give Shelby a heads-up. You know. Prepare her. When she arrived at her apartment, Shelby mumbled a prayer. She had no idea what she would find. A little angel? A monster with her talons unfurled? The child could turn hot or cold in no time flat. Luz was sitting on the couch sipping a glass of wine, her feet plopped on the coffee table, her shoulders slumped, her chin on her chest. Shelby surveyed the damage. A plateful of spaghetti had been thrown on the kitchen wall. Pasta had curdled on the floor. A pile of clothes and shoes trailed the hall. Shelby sat down beside Luz. “How bad was it?” The old woman looked tattered around the edges. Worn. “She came home quiet in the car. Just picking at that scab and quiet. Then she refused to eat dinner or do her homework. All she wants is be left alone with that joke book.” Inside the bedroom, the lamps were off and Grace was sitting in darkness. The beam of a flashlight shone on the book. Shelby sat for ten minutes at the foot of the bed, taking deep breaths, watching her chest move in and move out, willing her lungs to work. Then sighing, she braved the storm. “Knock knock,” said Shelby. “Who’s there?” said Grace. “Shelby,” said Shelby. “Shelby who?” “Shelby comin’ around the mountain when she comes,” Shelby warbled. And there it was. The slightest of smiles creased Grace’s face. “Not bad for a beginner,” Grace whispered. “My turn. Knock knock.” “Who’s there?” said Shelby. “Ivana.” “Ivana who.” “Ivana hear another knock knock joke.” They took turns for another hour. Then once again Shelby sat on the bed until Grace fell asleep. Even if the holograms worked, even if she could impart every bit of wisdom she had ever gleaned, who knew if Grace would absorb it? Many of Shelby’s friends were starting to have children. They bought books, went to classes, fortified themselves. But there were no manuals for kids like Grace, no how-to guides. The next morning Shelby received the phone call she had been dreading. The principal needed to see her in person right away. *** The corridor was quiet between classes. A few kids slid in and out of restrooms. A hall monitor sat by a desk. Shelby could hear her own footsteps. The smell of lunch, of corn bread and hot dogs, wafted from the cafeteria. There was so much Shelby loved about the school. It’s commitment to diversity. Its scholarship program so kids of every color and every background had a chance. She never had to worry about Grace’s wardrobe. Identical chinos and polo shirts made dressing stress-free. She was almost at the principal’s office when the bell rung. A crush of kids instantly appeared, a cacophony of hoots and hollers, a surge of elbow jostling and hand pushing. Shelby was shoved forward and backward, left and right. Then she started looking around. Truly looking. The first thing she noticed was not the chinos and polo shirts but the accessories that made the chinos and polo shirts irrelevant. Tumi backpacks. Coach handbags. Sneakers so clean they were never worn twice. And the hair! Those highlights couldn’t be natural. Were those extensions? And this was the elementary school campus, for Pete’s sake! By the time Shelby reached the principal’s office, her stomach was in her throat, her head pounding. A receptionist flashed a grin. Five then ten minutes crawled by. Finally, Shelby was led into the inner sanctum. A large desk. A display of family photos. A wall covered with impressive diplomas. Shelby had briefly met the principal a year earlier when Grace had been accepted. She had liked her on the spot. Fiftiesh, Jane Kaufman had been dressed in a well-tailored pantsuit, no-nonsense flats, a no-nonsense style. And best of all she seemed to like Grace. Really like her. But this time Jane Kaufman was clearly not wearing her happy face. “About yesterday,” she said. Shelby blinked. Playing with the papers on her desk, Kaufman continued. “Did you know that Grace was given a demerit? Remember that chart on the wall? Instead of a star for the day, Grace was given an X.” Both Luz and Shelby had been afraid to ask Grace any questions. The child had seemed shell-shocked, exhausted to the point of numbness. Shelby gripped the armrests of her chair. “Go on,” she said. “Mrs. Horowitz is making a public apology today. To both Grace and the class. It’s my job to apologize both to you and the Gupta family.” Then a story unfolded that left Shelby speechless. A new child named Maya had just enrolled in Grace’s grade. Though her homeroom teacher had informed most of the students about her disability, others had slipped through the cracks. “Maya has a mild form of cerebral palsy,” said Kaufman. “Wears a brace on one leg. Apparently, some kids in PE called her Forrest Gump. Asked her if she wanted any chocolates. You can just imagine.” Shelby gripped the chair harder. “I certainly hope Grace wasn’t one of them.” “Grace? Grace was the only one who defended her. She didn’t leave Maya’s side. Helped her change out of her gym clothes and was ten minutes late to Horowitz’s class in the process.” Shelby sat up. “Did Grace tell Mrs. Horowitz what happened?” Kaufman wagged her head. “Grace told me this morning that she didn’t want to embarrass Maya. That bringing attention to a problem sometimes makes it worse.” Shelby’s first reaction was relief. It felt like the governor had granted her a pardon, like a death-row sentence had been reprieved. Her whole body went slack while tears streamed down. She had been expecting bad news. Her whole life was bad news. But good news? Good news happened to other people. Like rainbows, good news kept its distance and stayed out-of-reach. Kaufman slipped off her shoes, slid back her chair, and put her feet up on her desk. She looked as tired as Shelby felt. “You can teach mathematics. You can teach biology. You can teach the history of the world. But it’s nearly impossible to teach kindness. So I’m asking you this. How in the world did you manage to create such an impossibly kind child?” *** Shelby’s last recording session was that afternoon. This time, instead of her laptop, she extracted a children’s book from her purse. An over-stuffed armchair and floor lamp had been put into place. Then page by page, she read. “Knock knock.” “Who’s there?” “Anita.” “Anita who?” “Anita nap.” “Knock knock.” “Who’s there?” “Dwayne.” “Dwayne who?” “Dwayne the bathtub I’m drowning.” “Knock there.” “Who’s there?” “Luke.” “Luke who?” “Luke who’s making knock knock jokes.” She read until the last page of the book was turned, and even though there were many other books to be read, even though entire libraries begged to be explored, somehow Shelby knew it was enough.
Marlene Olin was born in Brooklyn, raised in Miami, and educated at the University of Michigan. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of The Net, Best Small Fictions, and for inclusion in Best American Short Stories.