Granny’s Tumor

I couldn’t understand the Indian doctor.  ‘Eat opera bubbles,’ it sounded like he’d said.  My mind was still struggling with the words—his accent thick as chutney—when it came to me like a slap in the face: Inoperable.  That was what he’d been telling us.

It was springtime, the season of renewal, but it sure didn’t feel that way.  As we drove home from the hospital in the pouring rain, and I peered out through the thick gray haze at the willows, drooping sadly from their own sodden weight, like war-weary soldiers retreating in defeat, it seemed that a drenching, bone-chilling rain was my only memory, that it had always rained, and that it would rain forevermore.  

          I dragged my eyes around to the road, or what I could see of it, the windshield dull as an unwashed glass.  “Slow down, Claude,” I said to my husband, but there was no reply.  His hearing was fading fast these days, even with the electronic aid we’d purchased with the last of our credit.  I almost envied him.  No more would he have to lie awake nights listening to our daughter Eugenia sobbing over the dissolution of her marriage; nor would he hear the workmen bringing up their equipment to demolish the Great Barn, standing proudly on Sloughington land since 1780, and slated to be sold off now along with the rest, but for a single acre under the house. 

          “When will we be home, May?” Rose asked, with surprising coherence.

          Checking my watch, I found it had stopped.  I turned around to face her in the back seat.  “Not long, dear.  We’re almost there.”

She smiled at me sweetly with her lopsided grin.  Claude said that she looked just like W. C. Fields since the stroke, but I wasn’t having it.  Imagine, his own mother.  The poor thing; all that she’d suffered in life, and now this.  It simply wasn’t fair.  Arthritis, bursitis, sciatica, gout—they said that her gallstones were unrelated to the ulcers, but who could tell.  Scabies, shingles, ringworm, hives—and those complications from the colostomy would have been a trial for anyone.  Yet, in spite of her afflictions, she had remained our fundament, our mainstay, our emotional anchor, always involved, always caring, always quick with a joke or a bit of wisdom—until the Alzheimer’s, of course.  And now, to look into those crossed and star-crossed eyes, and to know that only inches behind them lurked a silent, voracious predator, devouring her hideously from within, well, I suppose it was more than I could bear.  “Oh, Rose,” I cried, lunging to embrace her, and striking Claude’s arm in the process.  We veered into traffic and he jerked the wheel back—sending us straight for a palisade of oaks.  “Nyahhhh!” we screamed together as he continued to overreact, describing a sine wave over the double-yellow line.  Then we were off the road entirely and jouncing through the weeds; Rose hit the roof with a thump, we ran over something, and the Mercedes skidded to a sloshing stop.

Claude and I stared at one another dazedly until we remembered our charge.  She was alright, thank goodness—still smiling even, bless her heart, though the eyes did seem a tad more convergent.  My husband climbed out and headed around back.  Rose mumbled something as I tried to see past her through the window.  Claude was looking down at the ground, and then he had his face in his hands.  “I’ll be back, dear,” I told my mother-in-law, and tried to open my own door, but it wedged solidly in the muck.  I slid across the seat, and emerged on the driver’s side instead.  My feet sank instantly; I felt the cool damp oozing into my pumps.  When I reached him, Claude was weeping—blubbering even—and unresponsive to every query.  Then I saw what he saw: it was Smiles, our beloved terrier.  We’d been closer to home than I thought.

*   *   *

          The pork chops were raw, the asparagus stringy and the scalloped potatoes cold and dry, but I supposed we were lucky to get even that.  Beatrice, our maid and cook, was tipsy again—concerned, no doubt, about her future.  She was right to be.  We intended to let her go on April 1st, for no other reason (that date I mean) than consistency.  We’d fired the chauffeur on New Year’s, the butler a month on, and March had kicked off with a double-sacking of houseboy and gardener.  Soon I’d be wrecking the meals myself, though nobody had much appetite these days.  The very thought of food—of mastication, actually—was repugnant to me, to all of us, since the Avalanche.  I don’t recall who first dubbed it that, but it was certainly apt.  It had descended like a raging white monster to wipe away everything: fortune, future, peace of mind...

Deputy executive vice-president, that had been his title.  Of the Beechtree Corporation, makers of fine food and beverages since 1924.  The folks who’d brought you those famous hard candies shaped like lifeboats, YummyGum, and of course, Lushess: the one and only indistinguishable sugar substitute—and watched their stock skyrocket from just under nine dollars to more than a hundred in six months.            

Then the teeth fell out.  By the truckload.  All over the country.  But they weren’t rotting, oh, no, we had that going for us; it was nerve-death, from an acute reaction to the sweetener.  An effect which hadn’t shown up during testing, it transpired, because the chosen consultant had spent his research funds on phony graphs, off-shore bank accounts, and a sumptuous beach house in Rio—to which he’d retired, right around the time of the Tooth Fairy’s windfall.

            Never much for sweets, I had consumed no more of the toxic marvel than a single, obligatory Lifeboat.  Claude, however, and Eugenia, her new husband Todd, and a goodly number of our friends and neighbors, had partaken heartily of the free samples of gum and candy laced with the dental defoliant.  Our daughter was the first person in a century to appear at the country club with a full set of dentures.  The latest sheaf of lawsuits, delivered that morning by a smirking, Fed Ex messenger, was thick as the Brooklyn phone book.

Conversation at dinner was nil; the clink of silver on china the only counterpoint to the relentless wash of rain.  Soon our napkins would be made of paper, and the settings straight from Sears—

          “You know, Claude,” Rose uttered, “I’ve been thinking.”

          “What?” he replied, a hand cupped to his ear.

          As usual, I acted as interpreter.  “Rose says she’s been thinking,” I told him, exaggerating the syllables and pointing at my head.

“Ah,” he said to me, then called back.  “About soiling your bloomers in Kindergarten?  You told us that story yesterday, love, in exquisite detail.”

          “Claude,” I reproached.  “Mind your manners.  It’s Elseviere’s kittens.  She wants to give one to the reverend Jones.”

          “Ah, yes, those cute little fuzz-balls.  Father drowned them, love, remember?”

          “Claude,” I hissed.

          “In the toilet.”

          “Claude!”

          “While the two of us stood there bawling.  Good old Dad, what a card.  And the reverend’s passed on, love.  Years ago, in the war.  Head lopped off by an eighty-eight.  Didn’t even explode, they said.”

          Eugenia began whimpering.  “What is it, honey?” I inquired, knowing full well what it was.  Her marriage to Todd, only a year out of port, was already on the rocks.

          “Oh, Mummy,” she snuffled, “I don’t know what to do.  He seems so distant.”

          “He’s in Kyrgyzstan, dear.”  Todd was a geologist with Noble Oil.

          “No, I mean on the phone.  Last night.  I hardly recognized his voice.”

          “It was probably the line,” I assured her.  “Who knows about the reception in those Third World burgs—”

          “Todd’s a eunuch,” declared my husband.  “You’re better off without him.”  This sent her into a fresh round of hysterics.

          I rounded on him sharply.  “Now look what you’ve done.  And might I remind you that Todd Slivers happens to be the only member of this household who is currently earning a living?”

          Claude had me favored with his good bad ear.  “A living?” he mocked.  “Daddy gave me more than that for pocket change.” 

“Well Daddy’s dead!” I snarled.  “And so is his legacy, thanks to you clods at Beechtree!”  I drew a hand to my mouth; Claude stiffened and turned away.  The door to the pantry opened then and Beatrice came in with the rolling cart.  There was a collective gasp: the front of her apron was soaked with blood.  But no, not blood—it was juice from the strawberries she’d sliced (or pulverized).  She was humming the theme song from Jeopardy as she began to serve dessert.

          “La, la, la, la, la, la, la…there yuggo Miss ’Geenie,” she slurred.  Some nyshe shor-cake.” 

          Eugenia’s expression changed from alarm to revulsion as she regarded her dish.  Beatrice lost her balance now and the cart went up on two wheels, hung there for a pregnant instant, then righted itself with a frightful clatter.  This couldn’t go on.  I pushed my chair back just as the phone rang. 

          “I’ll get it,” Claude announced, rising to his feet.  A look of amazement had come over Rose; she was searching in wonder for the cause of the strange sound.  I circled the table one way as Claude went around the other.  Beatrice was wobbling like a top that had finished spinning and was ready to keel over; Rose found the telephone then and picked it up.

          “Please, Mother,” said Claude, walking faster and extending an arm.  “That’s important.  It’s Bloomberg, the lawyer—”

          “We don’t want any,” asserted Rose, and she hung up the receiver.

          “No!” shrieked Claude, at the same instant that lightning struck, plunging the room into darkness.  My last sight was of Rose’s beaming countenance (clearly proud of her accomplishment) and I had to concede it was true: she looked just like W. C. Fields.

*   *   *

The view from the patio was more or less accurate—a vast expanse of flawless green—except that where the fountain should have been was a lectern with chevrons of red and blue, and a wavy-haired gentleman in a dark suit.  And then, in the manner of dreams, instead of being at a distance I was right up close, examining the side of his face.  It was ruddy and pockmarked and caked with makeup, and a canine of solid gold sparkled in the sunlight.  He began to laugh, a resonant cackling like a maniac, and the tooth shook free, plinked off a panel and landed in my palm.  He gave me a wink now as his other teeth began popping out like champagne corks, and I recognized his dreadful, leering countenance as a nightmare version of Alex Trebek, the game-show host. 

Suddenly a cloud blotted out the sun, and a downpour commenced that was instantly blinding.  But when I tried to jog for the house, my feet became leaden and unresponsive.  My attention was drawn to a billboard ad for beach houses in Rio, and in front of it—out of the rain somehow—was a row of podiums occupied by people I knew.  Here was the Indian doctor, sporting a turban, and W. C. Fields in a bright blonde wig, and then Eugenia, crying into a linen napkin, and finally Beatrice, who reached out to hammer a mushroom-shaped buzzer.

          “Beatrith?” queried the toothless host.

          “What ish—hic—un’ployment ‘shurance?”

          Now something hairy skittered along the ground.  “Smiles!” I shouted, glad to see my old friend again.  He was trotting toward me happily, pink tongue a-loll, when the grill of a Mercedes burst from the mist.  The dog made a heroic effort—short legs churning in the slop—but it was too late; the front bumper caught him and hurled him skyward, and as I followed his trajectory, I saw that the rain was turning to hail.  On to the house I flew in a panic, gaining the patio and heading for the French doors, ice balls clacking everywhere like a typing class on No Doz.  But my shoes were dragging through dunes of white, and as I looked closer, I saw that they weren’t hailstones at all, but mounds of human teeth…

          Sitting up in bed with a start, I reached for my husband—but he wasn’t there beside me.  The sound was horrendous: the rain, pounding the roof like an endless drumroll, was accompanied by a howling wind even louder than before.  I turned to the clock out of habit, but without electricity it was a mute black cube.  I arose in the darkness and slipped on my bathrobe.  Fortunately, there was lightning aplenty to show me down the stairs.

          Claude stood at the dining room window in a velvet smoking jacket, gazing up at the Great Barn.  He had lit a single candle in the candleabra, which cast huge, flickering shadows onto the walls.  Not wanting to frighten, I spoke as I crossed the room.  “I thought I’d find you here,” I said, but there was no response.  When I was nearly upon him, he noticed my reflection in the glass and jumped, slamming into a table.  I grabbed for the crystal decanter and caught it; he went for the Tiffany lamp and missed.  It crashed to pieces on the carpet.

          “Ha, ha!” he chortled, reeking of brandy.  “Forget about it, May!  I have good news!  Good news!”

          I looked up at his face in the candlelight.  His exuberance was a joy to behold; I hadn’t seen him this happy in months.

          “I got hold of Bloomberg,” he said, taking me in his arms (another experience long denied) “after you turned in.  We’ve won our appeal, May!  Our appeal!  That means we won’t lose everything after all!  Ninety-seven, ninety-eight per cent of it, yes, but not everything.  We’ll still hold onto the house, and maybe a dozen acres.  And the barn,” he gushed, peering deeply into my eyes.  Lightning seared the room around us, and thunder shook the floorboards.

          “Oh, Claude,” I moaned, reveling in the strength of his grip.  “Oh, Claude…  Claude…

CLAUDE!  The barn!  It’s on fire!”  My husband spun to look, and for several seconds we stood there transfixed, watching the flames as they crept along its shingles.

          “Quick, Claude, it’s not too late to save it!  Call the fire department!”  He didn’t seem to hear me.  I grabbed the lapels of his jacket and gave him a shake.  “Claude!  Snap out of it!”  

          He turned to face me.  “The fire department!” he said.  “We’ve got to call them!”

          “Yes!  Hurry!” I pointed him at the sideboard and gave him a shove. 

          “The telephone,” he said, as if in a trance, and started across the room.  His second bare

footstep found the glass.  “Yeowww!” came the cry, and then I was moving to help him, protected by my slippers.  I tripped over the phone wire, grabbed his jacket, and pulled us both to the floor, the telephone clanging down nearby.

          “Now Claude, get on that phone this instant and call the fire department.”

          “Yes—yes,” he muttered, fanning his arms out in the gloom, and at last he had hold of it.  “The numbers, May!  I can’t see the numbers!”

          I struggled to my feet, panting, lurched to the diningroom table and returned with the candleabra.  I watched him dial 911, then clamp the receiver to his ear. 

          “It’s on fire!” he told the dispatcher.  “The Great Barn!  You have to save it!  Oh, hurry, 

please hurry!”

          “The address, Claude!  Tell them the address!”  Even as I spoke, the glow from the

burning building had intensified. 

          “Sixteen fifty—I mean, fifteen sixty—”  A flash and a bang, then a terrible rending noise as a tree uprooted just outside the house.  My husband glared at me wide-eyed until he remembered the phone in his hand.  “Hello?  Hello?  Is anyone there?”

This story appeared first in the Bryant Literary Review.