The choral response

The postlude

I arrived at her place at 9:40, and had to go and find her. She was in her room, dressed, but in a state of stasis, seeming not to know what to do. I had to help her put her coat on, not just with one arm, as usual, but both. She was slower and more frail than ever, and all morning I wondered how long it would be before they would move her to skilled nursing.

We got there, found a handicapped parking spot near the entry, and found our seats. The quarterback was in his usual seat, one row ahead of us, near the far aisle, and she pointed him out. The service, the music, the words, the benediction, the choral response, and then she says, "Now where is my football player?"

"Let's not bother him today," I say.

I find her a seat in the lounge, and go to get us some snacks. When I return, she is impatient with the snacks and says, "I think I see the football player's wife!" She gets up to investigate. I try to dissuade her, but Julie arrives and says, no, the football player's wife, a choir member, is away today.

I suggest we leave, and fetch her coat. I help her put both arms through, and, walking with her down the hallway, we see the football player, still in the narthex, chatting. Mom glances over, but I steer her firmly out the door. In the car she says, frostily, "Well, I'm sorry. I embarrassed you, I guess."

"It's not that," I say, though it is. "It's just that you and he have nothing to say to each other, and to talk to him every week is too much."

She denies that she has talked to him every week, and she's right. But she has a no-boundaries, no-holds-barred social method that has only grown bolder in this new environment, and it aggravates me, and I just don't know how to handle it.

At brunch, she said the quiche was tasteless, and didn't even eat all her bacon.