Angels in Heaven

course the samples look pretty good in
their new cellophane wrappings, but I will tell you three things about
fake-suede jackets, or at least my three fake-suede jackets: do not get them
wet; do not get them dry-cleaned; and do not use the zippers more than twice in
any direction.
    I threw mine over a shoulder and
called my pet.
    “Guess who,” I said when she picked
up the phone at her end.
    “I guess my heartthrob, V. Daniel,”
she said. “Where are you, honey?”
    “Just got home,” I said. “Guess what
I found—no Mom.”
    “I know,” she said. “She called me.”
    “Weird,” I said. “I feel weird
without a mom.”
    “ ’Course you do, dear. It must be
pretty strange for her too.”
    “Yeah, sure. Feeb’s taking me out to
visit her, then I’ve got to sleep for a couple of hours, then can I drop by?
I’ve got the chicest little surprise for you.”
    “I’ll be counting the minutes,
precious,” she said. She blew me a kiss and hung up.
    When I got back downstairs, Feeb was
ready and waiting, a scarf tied around her blue rinse and an angora sweater
draped over her shoulders. Following her directions, I took the Ventura Freeway
all the way east till it intersected with the Foothill Freeway, then headed
north and then northwest on it, exiting at Berkshire, then doubled back into
the hills for half a mile until I found a sign by the road that read
Hilldale—Drive Slo.
    I turned in, driving slo. The joint
looked respectable enough, I had to admit. The drive wound a leisurely way
through well-kept lawns dotted with flowerbeds, in one of which an elderly
gentleman in a floppy hat was working. Two equally elderly joggers, taking it
steady, gave us a wave as we passed them. We parked in front of the central
building of a group of three. An elaborately made-up lady of a certain age and
then some, with bandaged legs, who was sitting in a rocking chair on the porch
of the main building said “Hello, dear” to me as we passed her. “Want a date
for the dance tonight?”
    “OK, but no jitterbugging,” I said.
“I don’t think I could keep up with you.”
    She grinned. We passed inside, and
Feeb led me up to the reception desk.
    “Thought you might like a word with
Doctor Don first,” Feeb said, “if he’s free.”
    He wasn’t free right then, the lady
at the desk informed us, but he should be in a few minutes; so I took a pew
while Feeb took herself off to visit a spell with Shirl’s father. A few minutes
later in bustled Doctor Don. He had a quick word with the receptionist, who
pointed in my direction, and he trotted over to me, hand outstretched.
    I arose. “Victor Daniel, Mrs.
Daniel’s little boy,” I said. “Don Fishbein, Mrs. Fishbein’s trial of
strength,” he said, and we gave each other a manly shake. Doctor Don was a man
of some six foot nothing, dressed in a baggy maroon and pink sweatsuit. He
sported a full brown beard, round tortoiseshell glasses, expensive Adidas, and
one discreet gold earring. Energy poured out of him like he was plugged into an
electricity generator at the base of Niagara Falls. He whisked me off to his office,
a small, unpretentious, cluttered room behind the receptionist’s desk, threw
himself into an old leather swivel chair, and waved me into its equally
battered mate.
    “You must have a question or two,” he
said, “so fire when ready, Gridley.”
    “How’s Mom?”
    “Mrs. Daniel is somewhere between as
well as can be expected and better than can be expected and not as well as can
be expected,” he said, “depending.”
    “On what?”
    “I only wish I knew,” he said. “No
one seems to know why patients switch so suddenly from normal to aberrant
behavior, what connections get cut. There are theories, but that’s all they are
as far as I’m concerned.” He pawed through a pile of disorganized-looking files,
found the one he wanted, looked pleased, then opened it. “You and your brother
have been taking care of her for five or six years now, that right?”
    “About that,” I said, “ever since she
was diagnosed. She would have been sixty-eight then.”
    “Young, young.” Doctor Don sighed.
“Sometimes it happens even earlier, again no one seems to know why. Hell, it
can even strike in the forties. Black, white, rich, poor, smart, dumb, anyone.
Mrs. Daniel told me you were out of the country when she moved in, what do you
think of her being here?”
    “Hell, I don’t know, Doc,” I said. “I
don’t know how I feel about