The Silents

25

CHAPTER 25 SETTLED IN the new place, Mama ran her hands over her new furniture again and again to familiarize herself with its fabric. She smoothed her hands over the new refrigerator and felt the knobs on her stove. Throughout the rooms she marked her way with the measurement ofher feet and began to call this place home. Whatever she did in her house alone, she did it without harming herself, she assured me. But I was filled with doubt. I looked for telltale bruises on her body or panic in her eyes when I came to visit. But there was nothing of the sort. She was cheerful, neatly dressed with a smear of company lipstick on her mouth, her hair pulled back and pinned in a simple hairdo, her hand ready for conversation. But her words were empty. "Yes, Sarah came to visit," she said, gathering the crumbs from her half-eaten coffee cake into the palm of her hand. "Yes, I'm feeling fine," she said, as she dumped them into the trash can. "Yes, the stove works well," she said, sitting back in her dining chair. "And how are you, Sha?" I was pleased to hear that Sarah had come. I had misjudged her and wondered if her renewed support came about because she could talk freely with Mama, away from my prying eyes. The kind of talk that I had with Shirley and Hannah, talk that only close friends would have. "I'm fine, Mama. And what about Aunt Marian and Aunt Selma?" 214- "They came, too. When Papa was home." It had to be that way. What else could Marian and Selma have done alone with her except to drink tea and pat her on the hand? The apartment was clean and orderly. Adelaide and Papa had picked the furniture, visiting one store after the other. Papa wanted a sofa, chairs, and tables that were reasonably priced. "Mter all," Papa told her, "how much longer are we going to live? Whatever we buy today will outlast us, I'm sure. Do you want a pattern, Ruthie?" "I'd like burgundy, maybe like the flowered burgundy we had in the old house. Do they still have it, Joe?" They searched the store. Adelaide finally convinced her that her preference was old-fashioned; nothing came close to her wishes. Mama acquiesced, and their choice was a modern beige affair with no arms to it. "We sat up and down like jack-in-theboxes ," Adelaide told me, "until we found a sofa and chair that fit Mama's body." For in the end, it was comfort Mama wanted, something that felt soft to her skin. Behind her back, with Papa's approval, Adelaide and I held conferences with the bureaucrats at Social Services. Someone had to be found who could communicate with Mama through her hands, someone who knew sign language. I'd grown tired of the search, discouraged and untrusting of their promises, but Adelaide hung on, unwilling to give up. I left it to her. One day, Adelaide called to say they had found the right person . Thrilled that her months of detective work had turned up something promising, her voice bubbled over with excitement. "Meet me at the front door of their apartment building, but don't go into the house," she cautioned. "Why?" I asked, thinking this was a peculiar request. "She wants to meet you, talk to you before she meets Mama." "She could have called me." "Don't get smart." "All right. I'll be there." 215 I arranged for a babysitter and caught the ten o'clock bus. What was there to talk about? Hadn't Adelaide told her everything ? I was beginning to feel this whole thing was a mistake. Mama already had enough to adjust to. Just getting her to accept her neighbor's offer to call me if necessary met with obstinacy. But I insisted, and the neighbor tacked my phone number on her wall. She knew that if Mama knocked on the door and waved a C against her cheek or said "Sha," she was to phone me. Adelaide, too. We'd found another Mrs. Goldberg, who listened for every bump coming from my parents' house. She assured all of us that she was watching over Mama, and I breathed easier. It had been six months since they moved in. Now we were going to...