Mohawk

backsliding. As a result, the entire burden had fallen on her. He never smoked in the house, but she suspected Mather Grouse of lighting up whenever he went outside to work in the garden or walk around the block “for exercise.” Mrs. Grouse faithfully reported her husband’s cheating, hoping that Dr. Walters could be induced to deliver a stiff lecture, but the more she detailed the lengths her husband would go to to sneak a cigarette, the more the old fool would smile and nod at her. And so Mrs. Grouse gradually took to sharing her husband’s previously solitary walks through Choir Park and to poking her head outside every few minutes when he was gardening, to make sure he was all right. Insuring that he was never alone was no easy task, because Mather Grouse was slippery where smoking was concerned, and Mrs. Grouse estimated thatdespite her vigilance, he probably managed at least four cigarettes a day.
    All along it was Mrs. Grouse who had looked after her husband’s health, and for that reason she had no intention of allowing her daughter to claim credit for saving his life. They’d exchanged no words on the subject, but clearly Anne felt not even a twinge of remorse. And while her daughter would never dare say so, it was equally clear to Mrs. Grouse that Anne was critical of Mrs. Grouse’s calm, responsible posture in waiting patiently for the ambulance, just as she had been instructed to do. Actually, Mrs. Grouse was a little foggy about what she was told on the telephone when she had called the emergency number. But she was pretty certain that she had not been instructed to do anything and, as anyone could see, that was practically the same as being instructed to do nothing. She was assured that the ambulance would be right there and imagined the vehicle rounding the corner onto their street even as she hung up the phone. And while it took longer than she had anticipated, the white-jacketed medics who threw the oxygen mask over Mather Grouse’s mouth were responsible for her husband’s salvation. Or, if not the ambulance people, then she herself, who had calmly dialed the number and explained the situation and given the address without the slightest hysteria. Had she not practiced that drill every night for nearly three years, and responded with skill and courage? All her daughter had succeeded in doing was fracturing Mather Grouse’s jaw.
    Now, with Mather in the hospital again, things were bitterly civil between Mrs. Grouse and Anne, who stayed strictly in the upstairs flat where she and Randall lived.They took turns visiting him and could not agree on his condition when they compared notes.
    “I think he’s going to be
just
fine,” said Mrs. Grouse when her daughter stopped downstairs on her way to work.
    “Not fine, Mother. Just out of immediate danger. Have you made arrangements for the oxygen yet?”
    “That’s for your father to decide, dear,” Mrs. Grouse said, her lips thinning perceptibly, as they did whenever Anne stepped across the invisible line. “But I can tell you right now he won’t have one of those big tanks sitting in the middle of the room for everyone to see. He’s a proud man.”
    “As long as he’s alive.”
    Mrs. Grouse set her jaw firmly. “Don’t start worrying him as soon as he gets home. You know what upsets do to him.”
    “I know what not being able to breathe does to him. I don’t understand what you have against the idea.”
    “Me?” Mrs. Grouse pretended surprise, though she hated the prospect of an oxygen tank in the house. They were not only huge and ugly, but dangerous, too, or so Mrs. Grouse suspected. She knew the tanks were filled under enormous pressure, and she was unable to dispel from her imagination the possibility that the cap might come off one day and the tank fly around the room like a leaking balloon, bouncing off the walls, killing them all in the process before crashing through the front window and coming to rest in the middle of the street. “It hasn’t a thing in the world to do with me,” Mrs. Grouse said. “I just won’t have your father killed with all these upsets.”
    Anne stopped at the door and turned to face her.“We both know what he’s going to die of, Mother.”
    Confronted with this obvious truth, Mrs. Grouse did what worked best in such situations. She changed the subject. “I think I’ll have a pot roast for his first supper home. And banana cream pie for dessert.”
    “Whatever,” Anne said. “Do you