Rebecca Tiger

Dick Van Dyke is Not Dead

You look like my daughter, she tells me. She has beautiful curls like yours. I am Rebecca, I say. She widens her eyes. That’s my daughter’s name too! I am your daughter. Oh yes, of course. I knew that. 

She sits waiting for me in Menorah Village Memory Care Center’s café. I just knew you were coming. I could sense it. She is there every day, Yuri at the front desk tells me. She watches the entrance for you.

If I come two days in row, she asks me why I haven’t visited. I was just here! I point to the evidence: her newly polished nails. “Mind-full Meditation” by Essie. Painted by me. How did you get so good at manicures? You should volunteer to do them in a women’s prison. What made you say that, Mom? I feel like I’m locked in here. I want to get out. 

My brother, sister-in-law and I go to dinner to celebrate the clearing out and selling of my parents’ house. We drink Manhattans and red wine. I eat steak. At the end of the meal, the server surprises us with a complimentary piece of cake with a candle in it. I could tell this was a special dinner, so I figured it was a birthday! We grab our forks, stab pieces of four-layered chocolate cake and shove them into our mouths.

When can I go home? When you’re better, Mom. Is the house okay? Yes, of course, we check on it regularly. How’s your father? Just remind her he’s dead, my brother says. He’s fine, mom. The same. 

I agonize at the grocery store, picking out a birthday cake for my mother. How do I not know what kind of dessert this woman likes who made so many of my favorites - banana cream pie with toasted coconut, vanilla with chocolate buttermilk icing? We bring her a bouquet of flowers, purple, pink and yellow. We sing to her in room 105. Are you engaged yet? My brother points at my sister-in-law. In fact, Mom, we’ve been married 27 years. My mother smiles, like a mischievous child, and shrugs. She will later ask only me: What is happening to my mind?  

I have a banana a day, they’re good for the bones. They keep a basket of them out for us. I sneak into my mother’s room while she is getting settled in her favorite seat for lunch. There is a white trash bag in the bottom drawer of her refrigerator. I pick it up; it has the weight of a large infant, the feel of raw chicken wrapped in plastic. I open it and see blackened bananas, rotted into an undefinable soft mass. I put them in the trash can. There is shit on her sheets. I change them. I throw away the dirty diapers she stuffs under her pillows. 

Dick Van Dyke died! Rhea is sitting at lunch with me and my mom, looking at her phone. Did you know that? That’s so sad. I don’t think he’s dead yet, Rhea, but he did have a car accident. Who? Dick Van Dyke! He’s still alive? Rhea looks up from her phone. He’s 97! That’s too old, my mother decides. His wife is 51. Your dad has probably run off with a younger woman too while I’m locked in here. 

Men! I was married to one for 6 months, just to make my mother happy. Did it, Rhea? Yes, but I was miserable, I’m a lesbian for god’s sake! I’ve never been married. I haven’t either, my mother says. Rhea looks at me confused, then down at her phone. Dick Van Dyke died!

Are you engaged yet? No, Mom. I don’t think I’m the marrying kind. Is there someone special? Only you. The men here adore you; they ask me all the time about the woman with the gorgeous curls. I tell them: that’s my baby. I could introduce you. I think that ship has sailed, Mom, I like living alone too much. You and me both, Rebecca. You and me both.