John held my hand for most of the five-hour flight.
I watched the in-flight news broadcasts, which were alternately focused on the market meltdown and the presidential election taking place in only three weeks. The day of our flight, the market dropped nine hundred points. By the time of our return flight ten days later, we were officially in the worst “market adjustment” since the Great Depression. The taxi ride, the airport, the gates, and the plane—all seemed so remarkably familiar. I had to remind myself that, only two days ago, I’d been back for a visit with Mama at my childhood home.
By the grace of God, as the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer would say, I had spent a week with Mama the week before she fell. The visit underscored the fact that Mama, after what had seemed to be decades of delay, was in decline.
*
A good many of her bridge and golfing partners had died, and Mama, both a sentimentalist and a realist, had mourned the loss of true friends and cultivated new acquaintances who, over time, became new friends. It didn’t hurt that Mama was an excellent organizer who could pull together a golf foursome in under an hour. She could also find a fourth for bridge in a hurry if an ailment claimed one of the regulars at the last minute.
By the time of our last visit, Mama was on the far side of ninety-two and was yielding to the fact that, in the past two years, she was feeling the onset of the physical decline she had eluded for so long. She had finally relinquished her golf locker at the club, almost two years after the last time she had swung her driver. When I asked if she’d like me to clean out her locker and retrieve her clubs, she waved me off: “Clifton’s got all my stuff out and is storing in the back of the pro shop. I told him I’ll drop by and collect it.” Adding wistfully, “Before too long.”
Clifton, the golf pro, had proved to be a kind and necessary ally for my mother who, according to club bylaws, had played several years beyond what was considered “physically able to navigate” the course. With careful scheduling away from congested start times, as well as strategic placement of golf carts near her parking space, Mama’s gradual physical decline was accommodated. All was well, and would have continued, at least for a short while longer, had it not been for Muriel Meadows. Aunt Cam called Muriel “a mean little bird-like bitch, who has envied your mama’s beauty since 1935.”
In the briefest moment of humiliation, Mama had taken her usual shot from the tenth tee when her backswing (and her blood pressure meds) threw her off balance. According to her caregiver, Deb, who retrieved Mama from the club, she wasn’t down for more than a brief second, stood up on her own, brushed off her golf shorts, and proceeded down the fairway on foot, without incident.
Muriel, however, complained to the Golf Board that for “Elizabeth’s good and in the interest of others who could be held up by ‘older players,’” Mama should be asked to give up her golfing privileges. Clifton intervened, and Mama was allowed to play out the season. When winter weather hit, Mama announced, on her own terms, that the weather conditions were just too precarious for her. “I can’t take the risk anymore. I’m done.” She played her last round, walking eighteen holes, at the age of eighty-nine. She shot a respectable one-fourteen.
It was a full three years later that I visited her in September. John stayed in San Francisco for work, fully expecting to see Mama at Christmas, as we had for the previous fourteen Christmases. Mama and I had beautiful weather that week, which lent itself to a number of walks, usually in the morning after our coffee and before the daily heat arrived. I took Mama on several drives that week, some with destinations, and others just to “go out and see what we can see,” a phrase Mama had used since I was a child.
Prior to coming East, I had made Mama promise not to cancel her two standing bridge games at the club. Her three regulars were all several years younger than Mama and were always up for a game. This particular week, I had the good fortune to fill in for Midge Granby, who had recently had a “minor procedure” and wasn’t up for four hours of cards. At least that’s what Mama said.
Initially, I had been intimidated to play with Mama or any of her bridge buddies. These sharp women had been playing for at least forty years each, versus my meager and lackluster ten. I was still wobbly when it came to bidding conventions, and after a hand or two, they all knew my limitations and kindly refrained from more complicated bids or wildcat tactics.
As Mama often said, my bridge was “respectable,” kind and Southern code for “limited.” But, despite the fact that I was far from a kid anymore, I think she just wanted to show me off—not my bridge skills--to her friends.
Midge had told me in previous fill-in games, “My son would rather die than sit around playing bridge with three little old ladies.” I assured her that I had no wish to be anywhere else. And it was true.
As my visit home was winding down, Mama seemed to tire more easily. And yet, in a spontaneous move on the last full day of my visit, Mama rounded up two of her “standby” players for a few hands of bridge at home. They arrived after lunch.
It soon became clear to me why Melissa and Deedee were standbys rather than regulars. Each was a respectable bridge player in her own right. But Mama, smiling broadly and casually as they approached our front walk, cautioned, “Deedee is a lovely person, but she plays a little slow. And one other thing: she talks.”
As the afternoon moved toward the dinner hour, I fully understood what Mama meant. Deedee would not be rushed. She considered her bids with the concentration of a master jeweler cleaving the Hope Diamond. Her velocity during actual play was even slower. My mother, mostly a model of patience, was tiring quickly when she diplomatically announced the last hand, claiming that I would need time to pack for my trip home.
With remarkable dexterity, Mama dealt our final cards. We gathered them, counted our points, looked up from the table, and waited. Deedee paused and absent-mindedly pulled a cigarette from her purse.
“Dee Dee, you don’t smoke any more. None of us do.” Melissa exchanged a look with Mama.
“Just for concentration.” Dee Dee furrowed her brow. “Where’s my lighter?” Then redirected her attention to her cards. More furrows. Cards reconsidered. Finally, she looked up and was ready to play. Her unlit cigarette dangled from her Maybelline Jungle Red lips.
Mama hesitated. “Dee Dee?”
“What? It’s your bid.”
Mama gestured to Dee Dee’s cigarette.
“Oh, that. I don’t smoke anymore. Just for concentration,” she said, tapping her head with a long, red-shellacked fingernail. “Are you going to bid, Elizabeth?”
Mama imperceptibly shook her head started the bidding, which stalled with Deedee, who began to talk to herself, seemingly oblivious to the fact that both her partner and her opponents were sitting within earshot. Looking earnestly at the thirteen cards facing her, she began her whispered monolog: “Now if I bid that, then Elizabeth is going to go to two spades, and if I bid these, then Melissa will say hearts and Drew will raise it to diamonds.” She continued, out loud, playing out a strategy that never really gave anything away. It was, as Mama would explain over dinner, “just a way to hold court.” Whatever the reason, by the fourth hour of these intermittent little dramas, Mama was not just irritated, she was exhausted.
In the end, I won the bid. Mama took the first trick and led a spade. Melissa followed suit, I overtrumped Mama’s Jack, and she smiled, as I had played precisely as she must have predicted in her head.
Deedee pondered and puffed, unlit, but intent.
After a brief talk with herself, she threw away a small spade. It was all Mama needed as she preempted play and invited us to “lay down” or show our hands. A perfectly allowable move in social bridge, it was also a risky one. If the sequence of play you were about to claim was validated by how the cards would have actually fallen, then you won the hand. If not, you and your partner faced a heavy point penalty and loss of the hand. I had seen both Mama and Daddy pull this move before, and it was pure fun to watch.
Deedee looked confused.
Mama proceeded. “I have the spades, Ace, King, Queen, nine, and four. I just led with
the eight. My hunch is that Drew, you’ve only got one, maybe two spades left and I have winners left in my hand. Melissa, I’ll give you the Ace of Diamonds, and will trump the rest. Deedee you must have either the King or Ace of Clubs, so I’ll give you that, but I’ve got the Queen and a throwaway club, so you’ll be stopped. I claim ten tricks. That gives us the rubber. Who wants a drink?”
Deedee, gesturing with her unlit Kent, was still marveling at what had just happened, Mama had summoned me to the kitchen to make drinks for our guests.
“Told ya,” she said, smiling.
“Is she gonna smoke that thing?” I stifled a laugh.
“Not in this house,” she said. “Besides, remember. She’s harmless. It’s part of the show.”
I was proud of my mother. Her physical prowess may have waned, but her mental dexterity was intact. I think she was savoring this, too, even more than the two-rubber slam. Alone with me in the kitchen, with a sheepish grin, she leaned down and carefully reached into a lower cabinet for her hidden stash of salted mixed nuts. Before I could admonish her, she said, “Don’t tell Deb. She’ll fuss at me for the salt and then eat the rest of the jar after I’ve gone to bed.”
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