Chapter 2
He didn't make it down the last three steps so much as he slid down them. I heard his dress shoes hit the marble too hard and then he was in front of me, his body between my wheelchair and her hands.
I hadn't lowered my hand. My right arm was still out, pointing, and it was shaking. I couldn't tell if I was pointing at her or at the door or just trying to keep my balance in the chair. The chandelier above us threw that warm light straight down onto the white floor and I could see all of us reflected there, wavy and broken up by the black inlay.
"Stop," my son said. It wasn't loud. He put one hand on the newel post of the staircase to catch himself and the other hand right on the grip of my chair, just above where she was still holding it.
She didn't let go right away. The blonde woman — my son's wife — had both hands on the back of my chair, her gold dress catching every bit of light. She was breathing hard and her smile was already back on, that practiced one she used when someone important was watching.
"I was just trying to help her," she said to him, quick and smooth. "She wanted to get up and I didn't want her to fall. I said give me that cane so she wouldn't trip."
My cane was between us. She had been pulling at the top of it and I had been pulling it back toward my chest. When my son stepped in, he closed his hand around the dark wood for a second, just to stop the tug. His palm brushed mine. His hand was warm and I realized how cold mine was.
"Stay back from her a second," he said to his wife, not looking at her. He looked at me. "Mom. Are you okay?"
I tried to answer and couldn't. My eyes were still full and I blinked and felt tears run down. I didn't wipe them. If I let go of the cane to wipe my face, someone would take it.
Behind me, the maid hadn't moved either. She was still leaning over the other handle of the wheelchair, her black dress neat, her white bow a little crooked from where she'd been holding on. She wasn't gripping me anymore. Her hands were just resting there, steadying.
"She wasn't trying to get up," she said. Her voice was quiet and even. She didn't look at the blonde woman when she said it. She looked at my son. "She was trying to stay where she was. Mrs. asked me not to move her toward the back hall."
That sat there in the foyer air. The blonde woman's fingers tightened once on the chair and then she let go all at once, like she'd decided to be the one who let go first.
"That's not what happened," she said, and she smoothed the front of her gold gown with both hands. "I told you, I'm handling her care tonight. You're finished here. I'll throw you out myself if I have to. My husband will back me on this."
She said it the same way she'd said it before, but now my son was right there to hear it and her tone went flat. She stepped back half a step, not far, just enough that there was space between her and my chair.
My son's hand was still on my cane. He looked down at it where our hands overlapped.
"You don't need to hold that so tight, Mom," he said softly. "Nobody's taking it."
I didn't know if that was true. Earlier, when she had reached for it, I had felt what it would mean to not have it. Without it I couldn't stand from this chair by myself. Without it I couldn't brace myself to get to the bathroom or to the bedroom door. It was the one thing that let me move even a few feet without asking her for help, and she'd been asking for it all evening as if she was doing me a favor.
I made a choice then. I wasn't sure it was brave, but it was mine.
I pulled the cane in toward me with both hands and laid it flat across my lap. I folded my hands over it, one over the other, and pressed down. I kept my elbows close to my sides so it wouldn't slide. I didn't hold it out to my son and I didn't hold it out to her. I kept it.
He saw me do it. He let his hand fall away from the wood and he nodded once, like I had answered a question he hadn't asked out loud.
"Okay," he said. "Okay, keep it there."
He didn't move away though. He stayed planted with one hand on the staircase newel, his body angled so I was a little behind him and the two women were in front of him. The chandelier light caught the gold buttons on his black suit. Under that warm light the rest of the foyer was that cool blue, and I could hear the soft hum of the house, the air system, nothing else.
The blonde woman crossed her arms. "Are you going to let her speak for you now?" she said to him, nodding at the maid. "She's staff. She doesn't get to contradict me in my own house."
The maid didn't answer back. She just kept her hands lightly on the handles of my chair and kept her eyes down. She didn't leave, even after being told she was finished. She stayed.
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My son didn't tell her to go. He didn't tell his wife to go either. He just stood there, breathing a little hard from coming down the stairs so fast, looking from my face to the cane on my lap and back again.
Nobody moved us. For a long second the four of us stayed exactly like that, under the chandelier with its reflection spreading across the marble, and I held onto my cane with everything I had.
