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"I wouldn't go to yoga with you because I'm not bendy, not because I'm not spiritual. "
They'd gotten to the door, and when Charlie pulled it open it made the same sound a refrigerator door makes. When they stepped out onto the front porch he realized why, as a wave of hundred-and-ten-degree heat hit them.
"Jeez, did you accidentally open the door to hell?" Jane said. "I don't need to smoke this badly. Get inside, get inside, get inside. " She shoved him inside and closed the door. "That's heinous. Why would someone live in this climate?"
"I'm confused," Charlie said. "Did you start smoking again or not?"
"I didn't really," Jane said. "I just have one when I'm really stressed out. It's lik
e thumbing your nose at Death. Haven't you ever felt like doing that?"
"You have no idea," Charlie said.
With Charlie and Jane there, they sent the hospice nurse home at night and watched Lois in four-hour shifts. Charlie gave his mother her medication, wiped her mouth, fed her what little she would take in, but by now she was mostly having sips of water or apple juice, and he listened as she lamented losing her looks and her things, as she remembered being a great beauty, the belle of the ball at parties before he was born, an object of desire, which clearly she loved more than being a wife or a mother or any of the dozen other faces she had worn in her life. Sometimes she would actually turn her attention to her son. . .
"I loved you as a little boy. I would take you to caf??s in North Beach and everyone would just dote on you. You were so sweet. Beautiful. Both of us were. "
"I know. "
"Remember when we dumped all of the cereal out of the boxes so you could get the prize out? A little submarine, I think? Do you remember?"
"I remember, Mom. "
"We were close then. "
"Yeah, we were. "
Charlie would take her hand then and let her remember great times that they had never really had. The time had long passed for correcting facts and changing impressions.
When she exhausted herself he let her sleep, and read by a flashlight sitting in the chair at her bedside. He was there, in the middle of the night, reading a crime novel, when the door opened and a slight man of about fifty crept into the room, stopped by the door, and looked around. He wore sneakers and black jeans, a long-sleeved black T-shirt - but for the oversized wire-frame glasses, he was just short a hand grenade and a survival knife from looking like someone on a commando mission.
"Just be quiet," Charlie said softly. "She's sleeping. "
The little man jumped straight up about two feet and came down in a crouch. He was breathing hard and Charlie was afraid he might faint if he didn't relax.
"It's okay. It's in the top drawer of that dresser over there - it's a squash-blossom necklace. Take it. "
The little man ducked behind the door, then peeked around the edge. "You can see me?"
"Yes. " Charlie put his book down and got up from the chair, and went to the dresser.
"Oh, this is bad. This is really, really bad. "
"It's not that bad," Charlie said.
The little man shook his head violently. "No, it's really bad. Look away. Look over there. I'm not here. I'm not here. You can't see me. "
"Here it is," Charlie said. He took the squash-blossom necklace from its velvet case in the drawer and held it up.
"What is?"
"What you're looking for. "
"How did you know?"
"Because I do what you do. I'm a Death Merchant. "
"A what?"
