442
other, in silence. We
will
never be
free
of each other. She can stare at me
all
she wants and she will never make me
leave. "I want to ask you something,"
1 say, after a while, my voice low so
that the nurse won't hear. My mother
looks tired. At her age women look
tired unless they smile, and it is too
difficult to smile.
"What?" she says.
"When are you coming home?"
She stares at me.
We have no home.
"The doctor doesn't think 1 can leave
yet ... not right now...."
"How long do you intend to stay
here?"
She looks frightened. -She will tell the
doctor how her daughter frightens her,
how 1 bring the noisy broken-up world
in here, into her safety, and threaten her
with it! She wants to lie in bed
all
day,
1 know her. She wants to chatter and
gossip with those other women. She
will
do laundry work here, and wait on
tables here, and slave away in the
kitchen here, but when she had a
"home" with me she wouldn't do any–
thing, she hid down in the basement
and cri,ed. 1 could smell the panic on
her, then. She didn't want to be my
mother! Now she pretends to be my
mother and she says to me,
Yau should
get
married, you should
be
happy.
"You can't hide in here forever," 1
tell my mother. 1 am speaking quickly.
"They won't let you stay, it's the law.
Dr. van Geel told me himself."
JOYCE CARO L OATES
