Digby Beaumont
The Naming of Fruit
Not long before Daniel’s mother dies, she sits up in bed and leans close to him.
“You’re very young to be in a place like this,” she says. Everything about her
seems different, younger than he’s ever known. He flinches as she strokes his arm.
Is this flirting? he wonders.
Weeks ago the nurses told him, “Don’t be alarmed. Take one day at a time.
Tomorrow she’s just as likely to know who you are.” It made Daniel think of
that portrait by Magritte, the one of the man facing the mirror but seeing
the back of his own head.
On his next visit he brought his mother fresh fruit: strawberries,
peaches and cherries. Her favourites. She named each one. “See? Easy,” he told her,
wiping peach juice from her chin. “Why’s it so hard to remember me?”
A memory comes up, of his mother when he was a young boy. Back then she loved
to dance. Daniel would come home from school and find her in the kitchen,
singing along and swaying to the music on the radio: Glenn Miller, Peggy Lee,
Nat King Cole. Her hands would reach out for him. “Dance with me,” she’d say. Dance,
with his mother? He’d laugh and pull a face then walk away.
He plumps her pillows and sits down on the edge of the bed.
She holds him by the wrists, turns his hands over and examines the palms then sighs,
as if she can’t seem to find whatever she hoped would be there.
Later he’ll call the nurses into the room. “What was she doing out of bed?”
they’ll ask him. “You had no business getting her out of bed.” They’ll see
the red lipstick she’s wearing. “What were you thinking of?” they’ll say to him.
He’ll tell them how it was: "Moonlight Serenade" playing on the bedside radio.
Her starting to sway. The reckless smile she gave him. He’ll swear the colour rose
in her cheeks as he cradled her in his arms that last time she took the floor.
Excuses
The boy turns at the school entrance and waves, an intent look on his face,
as though he’s trying to fix me in his memory before I’ve gone. A car horn honks.
I glance in the rearview mirror. I’m double parked and a line of traffic is
backed up behind me, but I keep sitting, watching the boy.
“You know your trouble?” I told him on the drive in to school. “You’re too needy
by half. It’s time you toughened yourself up. Couples break up all the time.” He fiddled
with his iPod and stared out the window.
Though when I dropped him off, he stood, holding the passenger door open for an
eternity. “So,” he said finally, “will we see you again?”
His mother and I met last summer, at a solstice beach party. I came back with her
that night. She asked me to move in after our second date. “Mum’s had lots of
boyfriends since my dad left us,” he told me. “All younger than you.” Then he said,
“Are you planning to stay?”
I discovered he couldn’t swim. “Dad always promised to give me lessons,” he said.
“But in the end—all I got was excuses.” So I took him to the pool, tried to help
him lose his fear of that clear, blue water. Showed him how to stay afloat.
“This is cool,” he said. Our Tuesday evenings at the pool became a regular event.
The crossing patrol lady appears, wanting to know what’s happening, telling me
to move off. The boy hitches up his backpack and tosses me a last look,
a sly, over-the-shoulder one this time. He doesn’t want to catch
himself waving at an empty space. Then he’s gone, swept along
with all the other kids in their dark-blues and greys.
Horns blare. I go to take my foot off the brake, but when I do,
nothing happens. I can’t seem to move.
Someone hammers on the roof of my car. I try again. I concentrate,
picture myself releasing the pedal. But it’s no use. I’m going nowhere.
©2009 by Digby Beaumont
