After I'm Buried Alive Read online

  Sacramento was traveling soccer and my mother’s perpetual and enduring disappointment that I had not been blessed with a real family. Venice was that blessing, something my family never understood. That made it better, that they couldn’t understand the allure, the magic.

  Muscle memory helped me negotiate the airport crowds. I passed hollow-eyed tourists obediently lined up for buses and jams of guided tours grouped around bulky luggage eyeing the new name tags that would identify them for the next two weeks as aliens. Stay with the class, hold your partner’s hand. We are walking, walking, walking.

  I skirted around an elderly couple arguing over which vaporetto would take them directly across the lagoon. The woman looked like my twin: gray permed hair, practical tan polyester slacks, blue sweatshirt pulled over a blue and yellow flowered shirt. I quickly glanced down at my attire, my sweatshirt was black. I veered away, dragging my single carry-on, the wheels banging on the divots in the cobblestone walkway shudderingly enough to knock your dentures loose.

  I headed straight for the water bus and loaded in, happy to be traveling light. I was trained to carry much more: precious photographic equipment loaded into equally expensive rolling bags. I often packed my own clothes into the light bag, using socks and underwear to cushion the bulbs and filters against any travel disaster. Just rolling one bag along was a complete joy.

  I passed the tourists who did not get the memo, nor watched a single YouTube video on how to pack. Public transportation was not for the faint of heart in the best of times, but it can be an unmitigated nightmare if you travel with luggage the size of the average Italian car.

  Perched safely on my moral high ground, I watched the same elderly couple struggle towards the boat dragging two purple cases that must have weighed as much as they. The woman hauled a stuffed handbag as well as a duffle-size carry-on. Her husband tried to negotiate the teetering cases; the wheels shrieked in protest. Or at least I interpreted it as protest.

  It took two crew members to haul the suitcases on board.

  I assumed that the man had not changed his money and so did not have enough euros for an adequate tip. But I was raised to not judge. Unless someone deserves it.

  The woman walked up and down the narrow aisle leaving her husband in back to guard the monolithic luggage. She saw ten inches of space next to me and gave me that look.

  I sighed and scooted my bag and carry-on two more inches to the left. She took the offered space with alacrity.

  “Those flights are so exhausting. What time is it at home do you know?”

  I glanced at my watch; I had already changed it to local time. It was 6:00 P.M.—Italian time. Which is relatively meaningless as far as appointments, dinner, or store openings go, but at least it gave me a general idea of how to manage the jet lag threatening even now to take over. I knew, from my former days of travel, that the best way to deal with jet lag is to ignore it. It was evening here. And if I could eat dinner, and last until about 9:00 tonight, I would sleep well and wake pretty much on time and ready to face Miranda’s daughter, Tiffany. The other daughter, Lucy, was with her children and couldn’t possibly fly out. Tiffany was not happy, which meant I was soon to be unhappy as well.

  “You get in at 5:00 P.M. that’s plenty of time,” Tiffany had protested.

  “I will be tired.” I pointed out.

  “I just flew in from New York, and I’m not tired.”

  I did not point out that I covered another continent, which doubled the distance and doubled the flight time. I wasn’t interested in delivering a geography lesson. Kids don’t listen anyway, expect my nephew Chris who, bless his heart, would listen to anything I explained as long as it was convoluted and complicated.

  I was about to say, of course, I could come to Miranda’s apartment right away. I needed to get this all over with and back to the family. But then I stopped myself. Why rush Venice?

  I also recalled that when dealing with Tiffany and Lucy, agreeing with them immediately stopped any argument along with the pouting and protests. It was a terrible way to raise children, but since I was not responsible for their moral upbringing or even for their well-being, I was happy to take the road most traveled. I let Miranda deal with her love children. I was out.

  “Tiffany, I just got in.” I said as gently as I could.

  “Oh, all right. Ten o’clock tomorrow and don’t be late. You know where the apartment is?”

  “I’ll be at the apartment at 10:00.” I promised.

  “Fine.” She clicked off.

  The woman next to me was waiting for her answer. “Six o’clock,” I offered.

  She frowned. I gave in.

  “Is this your first visit to Venice?”

  “Oh yes, I’ve always wanted to see Italy, and Henry, that’s my husband back there, finally retired, he was in electronics. I still can’t believe he actually agreed to a European tour. We are here for two weeks.”

  “Not with a tour group?”

  “We will meet up with the group in three days. We wanted a romantic.” She nudged me in the ribs with a well-padded elbow. “Getaway.”

  “You came to the right city.” I assured her.

  I closed my eyes. The boat pulled away from the dock and headed across the lagoon.

  She did not take the hint. Whatever it was she took on the plane to get through the flight, it wasn’t a sedative.

  “It’s like the Grand Tour, you know the kind where they take care of everything, our luggage, the hotel rooms, the flights. It’s quite a luxury affair, five-star hotels, only the best restaurants. We dress for dinner every night.”

  I nodded.

  “Italy, France, Spain, Switzerland, Hungary, Germany, and we fly out of Amsterdam.”

  Two weeks. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

  “That will be interesting.” I offered. The rocking boat was a natural relaxant. I closed my eyes again, confident that the woman would nudge me when we landed, if only to ask if this was the place.

  I wasn’t too far off. She nattered on about the relative merits of each country. She read in Rick Steves that they should visit the Basilica first thing in the morning.

  “You know, before all those cruise ships dock.”

  “I know.”

  “Terrible what the crowds are doing to Venice.”

  Terrible what the King Tide did too. Terrible about taxes. Terrible about bureaucracy, something the Italians helped invent. I hadn’t even heard if Max’s estate was ever settled, and it had been three years. Miranda’s would not be any easier, or faster. I tried to remember if this was the season for the King Tides or if I would miss them. Some evenings the tide was so strong it inundated St. Mark’s Square as if it were in the middle of the Nile. A person could, if they tried, swim from one end of the square to the other. Not something I recommend. The water looks clean enough, but don’t swim in it.

  The vaporetto docked, knocking my companion against me. I rose slowly so my new BFF could scramble and get out of the way. She rose slowly and stepped into the aisle blocking three people behind her. She then bent over her commodious bag and searched for the hotel reservation. I couldn’t walk around her. The backup was five people, six people, seven people deep.

  “Paula!” A voice from the back of the boat bellowed out. “Get off the boat, woman!”

  She looked up and waved to her romantic partner, gathered up the bag and her duffle and slowly shuffled down the aisle, the rest of the passengers shuffling in her painfully slow wake.

  I waited my turn and carried my bag up the gangplank and stepped into the city of dreams.

  We looked alike, Paula and me. I struggled with the notion that I could be anything like her, but I was too honest to fool even myself. Retirees. Finally seeing Europe. Badly dressed, sloppily packed and loaded with euros. Why would anyone, looking at the two of us, think any different?

  I pulled my small roller and it clattered across the stones. At each of the three bridges between me and the hotel, I picked up my bag with one ha
nd and, without missing a step, carried it up and over. Once at St. Mark’s Square I checked my phone that listed walking directions, which in Venice were more a platonic ideal than an actual measure of distance.

  I passed Paula and her husband at the first bridge. They were arguing about the best way to haul the luggage up the bridge steps. A few people waited patiently behind them. I hesitated. They were new, they didn’t know anything, they were elderly, I really should help them.

  A family group, similarly burdened, bumped past me and slowly made their way up the bridge. I glanced down at my own small suitcase, I couldn’t carry theirs and mine. I passed them, but not without a considerable amount of nagging guilt.

  Their voices floated over the bridge, him, “What did you pack?”

  Her, “No more than you. We are having dinner every night. We need to look nice!”

  I would have liked to stay at a hotel on the Grand Canal, or even in Miranda’s apartment. Both were impossible. I wasn’t sure that Tiffany would welcome me back into her mother’s apartment, especially since Tiffany was probably staying there herself.

  But the hotel I found was just fine, and apparently, popular with readers of Rick Steves. I stood in line behind three middle-aged couples, all holding the blue-covered guides. All dressed in indescribably depressing khaki travel ensembles.

  I checked in, accepted my plain hotel room card, not even a logo to help distinguish it from any other credit-card-size key, and dragged my bag up three flights of stairs—no elevator. I passed the three sets of Rick Steves tourists, complaining loudly about the absent elevator.

  The room was clean. There was a bed. That sums up the decor. I sighed, at least two more hours before I could fall—I tested the mattress, it was firm, damn—into the queen-size bed.

  I couldn’t bear my outfit, but I had nothing else in my suitcase; all I had was tee shirts and old-lady blouses, practical, fire-proof polyester. Not a single item of my former wardrobe fit. I changed into a tee shirt with a modicum of style and a sweater against the evening air. I descended into the lobby just as Paula’s husband wrestled in the last of their purple suitcases through the entrance. He looked on the verge of a stroke. Paula was more ravaged than an eleven- hours flight could explain and, despite the cool evening, they were both sweating. They were also growling at one another. As she rustled through her carry-on bag for the reservations, he plopped down on the largest case and scanned the lobby. I already knew what he was searching for, but I didn’t want to crush his brief seconds of hope.

  I hesitated. The concierge warily watched the couple as if eyeing rabid dogs.

  Paula slapped down the printed reservation with a gesture of triumph. The young man handed over the key cards.

  “We’re in room 406.” She announced.

  The husband nodded wearily. They were a floor above me.

  “Oh hi!” Paula finally noticed me and tried to smile. “Those streets are just murder on your feet, and all those canals and bridges!”

  I smiled and nodded. Four large hard-sided check-in bags. I had carried worse, heavier, more precious if it comes to that.

  The words were out before I could stop myself. “Let me help you.”

  Miranda would have not approved.

  To their credit, Paula and Hank (by the third flight of stairs, we were all on a first-name basis. They were from Iowa. First time in Europe. Should they drink the water? Why is the bathroom so small? Why are there no elevators in this country? The usual) did invite me to dinner, but I declined and suggested they rest a bit before venturing out.

  Unburdened, I skipped down the stairs and headed out. I did not even bother hunting down the “best” restaurant. I walked out of the hotel, turned left and walked into the first local trattoria I encountered.

  The tablecloths were white, I was offered a window table, I was offered wine. Ah, the glorious Italian food and fabulous, inexpensive Italian wine. Everything a woman with a healthy appetite could want.

  Full of a fine Primitivo and celebratory Alfredo, I sailed back to the hotel and collapsed into my bed. After a ten-minute rest, I managed to remove my shoes. It was as far as I got. I had stayed awake until nine, I could sleep as long as I liked. And I did.

  Chapter 4

  I woke at 7:00 feeling that something was very wrong. First of all, I was fully dressed, my bra wires dug into my ribs, my right shoulder ached. Second, was the noise. Heavy metallic sounds vibrated up from the street and into the open windows. Workers banged on wood and tile, trading insults over their hammers. A dolly heavy with an enormous keg rattled over the cobblestones. A cascade of broken glass fell into an empty bin, the shattered sound vibrating back and forth in the tiny alley.

  Yet it was completely quiet.

  No news cast, no talking heads. No canned laughter. No obligatory applause (cue the spontaneity of the live audience). No TV. I listened again. Two men argued over how best to work the jackhammer, the keg was the wrong one causing more shouting and, I assume, gesturing. I blinked back tears.

  For three years, the TV was never not on. By 9:00 every morning, Mother was in the thrall of her morning programs. She did not move from the couch until lunch. That gave me time to clean, fix the meals, ostensibly have time to myself, but after Vance bought my parents the largest flat screen on the market, there was no escape from the chatter, the swell of music telegraphing alarm and danger, the commercials kicked up ten decibels louder than the show.

  “It’s like Dr. Phil is right here in the room!” Mom exclaimed with delight the first day she spent a whole afternoon in front of the new screen. It was very much like Dr. Phil was in the room. It was the world writ large, and that world was scary indeed.

  Good Morning America—Bunk Beds, are they endangering your child?

  FOX News—The President tweeted again to confirm that he is incapable of irony.

  Dr. Phil—Next, more platitudes and clichés dispensed calmly to screaming accusatory guests.

  In all those years of listening to Jerry Springer, sorry, Dr. Phil, not once did I overhear a TV show about what watching unregulated amounts of daytime television will do to a person’s psyche. What was my eighty-three-year-old mother supposed to do with all this information? There were no actionable suggestions, no number to call, just wave after wave of free-floating anxiety.

  She certainly took it all in. She worried about border security, she worried about asteroids.

  Every fifteen minutes, Mother’s thin, querulous voice cut through the TV noise.

  Was I was giving her enough Metamucil so she wouldn’t feel so weighed down? Do we need metal straws? Should she buy an alert necklace, in case she fell?

  “No,” I yelled over the opening credits of Dr. Phil, “No you don’t need an alert necklace, I will hear you when you fall.”

  Why couldn’t we watch PBS? Brought to us by a cruise company or large corporate insurance group—AIG—still in business. I wouldn’t have minded a Mr. Rogers re-run or two. I loved Mr. Rogers because his was one of the few TV shows that did not upset Chris; in fact, the show was calming. Chris watches Mr. Rogers even now, just to get centered.

  I stretched in the hard bed. Miranda had insisted, almost from the day I left Venice, that I needed to return, to take a break from the incessant stress of caregiving. But what could I do? I couldn’t leave my parents for a mere vacation; I couldn’t even leave them to pee. I was on hyper alert, conscious of every sound, every breath, every catch in the oxygen machine. I’d anxiously wait for the beep, the sigh, the call, the fall.

  I aged exponentially with every one of their last breaths.

  I ran my hands through my hair. The last bottle crashed into the metal trash bin. The beer keg was accepted and bounced over the threshold. The workers took a smoking break.

  I was determined to enjoy my unexpected reprieve.

  The shower was tiny, little more than a drain and an accordion pleated vinyl door to prevent the shower water from drenching the toilet paper jammed up under the single
sink.

  But it did the job.

  I pawed through my luggage. My keys rattled. I pulled them out. They were shiny from use, which is an odd thing to say about keys. They were my worry beads, a mnemonic device. Here was the key to my parents' house, the key to their safe deposit box, the key to Vince’s house, Vance’s house. The key to a storage facility, the heavy key fob to my car. I studied it. Key to Miranda’s? I had a couple of mystery keys; it was a possibility. Vance always teased me about keys; apparently when I was a young, I loved carrying around an oversized key ring filled with useless keys donated by my parents. When I saw my first school janitor, I admired his heavy key ring, clipped onto his belt. That Christmas, I asked for a belt clip.

  “Why you need all those keys?” Vince would taunt.

  “They don’t open anything.” Vance would chime in.

  “Maybe I just haven’t found the right door.” I would always answer. At five.

  I tossed the keys back into the suitcase. Tiffany would meet me at the apartment. She had a key because years ago I had mailed her one.

  I squeezed into jeans and a shirt that used to be “oversized” but now just fit like a shirt. I was too distracted to worry about my appearance. I was old, I was clearly a tourist. Didn’t need to pretend anything else.

  The hotel stay included access to a breakfast bar in a small room just off the lobby. I eyed the offerings laid out on three cloth-covered tables pushed against the walls. The far buffet table was decorated with stale pastries and a single bowl of apples. I didn’t need food, I needed real coffee, with a real kick.

  “The breakfast is included.” Paula and Hank were up and on the move. The decision was easy, I ducked out and made my way to Miranda’s apartment.

  I stopped at an espresso bar. Two older men pushed against me at the counter, but I held my own and ordered a second small cup of straight up espresso while drinking down the first. As I knocked back my drink, the two men, startled, eased back and gave me more room.