Tales of the City 07 - Michael Tolliver Lives

you.”
    “No…thank you. Thank you for that.”
    “Brian asked me to call you. Brian and Shawna.” (I wanted her to know this; she had to be wondering.)
    “Is she likely to…”
    “We don’t know. She’s just…you know, sleeping.”
    A long silence, and then: “She didn’t ask for me, did she?”
    “No…it happened pretty quick.” I had a terrible sinking feeling. Why had I even bothered with this? “You don’t have to be here or anything…we just wanted you to know.”
    “I appreciate the effort, Michael.”
    “Hey,” I said, a little too brightly. “Thank the Explorers.”
    “I’ll be at the Four Seasons. I’ll call you when I get in.”
    I really didn’t get what she meant. “The Four Seasons where?”
    “The Four Seasons there.”
    “You were already planning to come?”
    “No,” she replied, “but…my husband has a plane.”
    That slight hesitation redeemed her; she had the good taste to be embarrassed.

    Ben and I were slated for the night watch at the hospital, so we decided to take a walk down at Chrissy Field. The rain had stopped by early afternoon, but there were a few sodden clouds loitering above the bay. We followed the path through the marshes and inlets that had been—not that long ago—a derelict military airstrip. Now there were herons and sandy beaches and children romping at the water’s edge. A new ecosystem was forming where once there had only been asphalt.
    We sat on a bench, holding hands, gazing out at the kindly blue of the bay. There were sailboats even today, a rainbow of sails catching the fickle wind. I remembered what Anna had said about bringing Sumter here and realized how right she had been. I will do that, I promised her, no matter what happens . I will sit here and show him this miracle and tell him he’s loved for exactly the boy he’s becoming.
    The wind shifted and blew toward us, sweet with rain and the sagey smell of the wetlands. It seemed to blow through me, in fact, soothing every cell in my body. It was like that moment in Poltergeist when JoBeth Williams feels the spirit of her daughter passing through her. “I can smell her,” she says, laughing with relief, and that’s just how it was with me. Not a remembered perfume or even the scent of her skin, but her essence, a condensation of her spirit. She was passing through me like sunlight through water, on her way to somewhere else. I looked at my watch.
    “Should we be going?” asked Ben.
    “I think so,” I told him.

    Ben was driving the Prius up Noe Hill when the call came. I remember looking at Carlotta’s navigational map and seeing the Home icon appear on the screen.
    Perfect, I thought. Perfect.
    And the perfect messenger was bringing the news.
    “Patreese,” I said quietly.
    “Wassup, my brother?” (Shawna says that, too, sometimes, but I’ve never gotten used to it. A greeting offered as a question seems to lay the burden on the person being called, when the caller, by all rights, should be telling you what’s up.) “Hangin’ in there,” I said.
    “Listen, Michael—”
    “It’s Mama, right?”
    “Yeah. She passed about twenty minutes ago. I was talkin’ to Mohammed and saw your folks come in. I hope you don’t mind hearin’ it from me first.”
    “I’d rather it be you,” I told him.
    Ben looked over at me and laid his hand on my leg.
    “She went peaceful,” said Patreese. “I was workin’ on her this morning, and she was…you know…fixin’ to leave already.”
    “I’m sure,” I said.
    “She wanted you to have something. You at your computer?”
    “I will be in a little while.”
    “Check your email, my man.”
    Ten minutes later I did that. It was a photograph of Mama and Patreese, both grinning like kids at a prom as they posed for the camera. Patreese was sitting on her bed in a red T-shirt, his big mahogany arm lying gently on her frail shoulders.
    Mama was holding the photograph of me and Ben at Big Sur.

27
    Gibberish
    M ary Ann hadn’t changed dramatically since the days of her adjustable-bed commercials. You could still see that person, at any rate. She was just as slim, just as naturally elegant as the mid-forties version of herself. Her hair was the big difference; short and silvery and feathered against her well-shaped head in Judi Dench fashion. As she sat on my sofa that morning, looking pretty in slacks and a sea-foam silk blouse, I wondered if the new hairdo had been the result of boredom or chemotherapy. That’s just