STORY: Howard

     "Come on, Howard!" urged Helen, pausing to look back at the small, stooped man with the vacant smile. She glanced at her son and sighed.
     Todd shook his head with amusement. "I can't walk that slow even if I try." His eyes were on his father as he spoke to her. Erin said nothing. The three watched Howard approach, passing a bank. When he was still several yards from them, they turned away and began walking again, resuming the conversation they had interrupted. After a few minutes, Erin glanced back. Howard had stopped completely in the middle of the sidewalk, his head down as if listening to or waiting for something.
     Helen glanced back too and again they all stopped walking. "I've taken him to doctor after doctor," she said. "He keeps saying he doesn't feel well, but they never find anything wrong. There's no reason why he can't walk this far."
     This time they waited interminably until he caught up with them, although he seemed to walk even slower when they waited than when they walked ahead of him.
     "Where are we going?" he asked in a small voice.
     "Down to the shops. It's just a couple more blocks."
     "I don't think--" His voice barely carried over the sound of a passing car. Todd cupped his ear and leaned toward him to hear better, but Howard had stopped talking.
     "Would you like to go back to the hotel?" asked Helen.
     He smiled apologetically, his kind eyes catching Erin's. She thought he said, "--that would be better." She wasn't sure.
     "Here's the key, if you need it," Helen said matter-of-factly. "Remember to push it all the way in and turn the doorknob to the right at the same time. Why don't you just buy a newspaper and wait for us in the lobby-- Do you know how to get back?"
     It was hard to tell from his vague gesture and inaudible response whether he had said yes or no.
     "Just go straight back along this street," she told him. "It'll be on your right. The Surf and Sand."
    He took little steps, revolving in a tight, stiff circle, until he was facing the way they'd come. The hotel was not in sight.
     "Wait for us in the lobby. Don't have your lunch until we get back. We'll eat when we get back."
     He held the room key up and looked at her inquiringly.
     "You won't need the key. Just keep it in your pocket." She had already taken it from him and dropped it into his shirt pocket. Then she turned. They were standing beside a bakery.
     "Don't those cinnamon rolls smell good!" she said. "You'll be all right, Howard," she told him and started walking away. Todd and Erin fell into place beside her.
     Erin's eyes sought him out when they reached the corner. Howard was standing where they had left him, feeling his pocket uncertainly and gazing down the sidewalk toward the unseen goal.  By the time they reached the next corner, where the road bent, Howard was taking an experimental step in the direction they'd come from.
     Helen glanced back at her. "I have to make him do things for himself or he'd let himself become totally helpless," she explained, though no one had asked.
                                                            --
     "Dad," Todd said after lunch, drawing his father aside, "we found something Mom would like for her birthday. It's a painting." He paused but there was no answer. "A painting," he repeated. "She really wants it."
     Erin watched for her father-in-law's reaction, but the pale face was impassive.
     Then, "How would I--" The man struggled to birth his thoughts in words. "How--?"
     "Yes?"
     Howard seemed to be searching mentally. His hands fluttered, then drifted to his sides. He smiled humbly and shrugged. "I forgot what I was going to say."
     "You can just write on the card that that's what you're giving her, okay?"
     Howard didn't say anything.
     "Okay, Dad?" Todd's voice was louder, more insistent.
     "Okay," said Howard.
                                                            --
     "Well, it's all set," Todd told Erin, as they let themselves into their room. "He'll tell her on the card at the party tonight."
     "Does he even have a card?"   
     "I didn't think of that. He has to have a card!"
     "I could take him to buy one. I wouldn't mind."
                                                            --
     As the two of them started out, the aged, shrunken man and the daughter-in-law half his age, she matched her pace to his. She didn't know what to say to him. He has always been so self-assured, the classic self-made millionaire. She hadn't know what to say then and she still didn't, but she felt closer to him now, protective. Besides, now he wasn't any bigger than she was.
     They inched from the elevator, across the hall, through the lobby.
     "This way," she said, indicating. "Down these stairs."
     They were wide stairs and there was no railing. He teetered unsteadily as he placed all his weight on one foot so he could lower the other to the top step.
     She reached out and slipped her hand into his. This is the first time I've touched him, she thought, in the 20 years I've known him, unless you count the hug I gave him after Todd announced we wanted to get married.
     "You mean you want to get engaged," Todd's mother had clarified firmly. Erin had hugged her, too, after Helen had dabbed her eyes and Howard had said, with genuine pleasure, "Welcome to the family!" Erin hadn't known back then that Todd's family never hugged except on certain very set occasions. At the airport, after long separations. At funerals, maybe. On Christmas morning.
     The hand was dry and cool, like a leaf on some shady tree in summer. Erin took the steps slowly, pausing as her father-in-law extended a cautious shoe from one to the next, his free hand still feeling vaguely for the railing that wasn't there.
     At the bottom she released his hand a little self-consciously and they resumed walking. Across the sidewalk, around the lamppost, to the curb. Should she point out that the light was red and they couldn't cross yet or would that be patronizing? Instead of speaking, she tried to herd him with the merest touch on his sleeve, then, when the light changed, on the small of his back. The light was red again before they got across.
     He stepped up onto the curb without help and she said again, "It's this way." They walked past a dentist's office and a yogurt place; seagulls mewed overhead. Erin smiled at a little boy going the other way with his mother; the boy's shirt read, "I get chocolate and nobody gets hurt." She started to point it out to Howard and changed her mind. He hadn't noticed the boy, the shirt, or the fact that she had opened her mouth to speak. Should she speak--about something else? About anything? It seemed up to her to make conversation.
     She tried to steer him with her presence, to will him around people in their path. Groups parted and flowed around them. They passed a restaurant, a toy store. The town seemed endless and there were endless blocks still ahead of them. Two, maybe even three, she couldn't remember.
     Still they trudged together without speaking and though Howard did not seem to feel awkward in the silence, she burst out, "So, you're going to buy Helen that painting for her birthday!"
     His answer confused her. "She'd just take it back." Or is that what he had said? Had she heard wrong?
     "I'm sure she'll like it," she ventured. She had never disagreed with him before and she did so now obsequiously. "She seems to like it a lot."
     They were passing a pizza parlor. From inside came the aroma of warm dough, the clinking of glasses. In the middle of the sidewalk a young girl on a high stool, like a lifeguard's chair, reached down to hand them a discount coupon for a large cheese pizza.
     Howard hadn't answered her. From his silence, Erin found herself thinking, He doesn't want to buy her the painting. Aloud she said, "Was there something else you'd rather get her?"
     "I usually get her clothes," he said. His voice trailed off. "She likes clothes."
     "Would you like me to help you pick out some clothes?"
     "Yes," he said. He sounded relieved. "She likes clothes." 
     There was a store on the corner with casual women's suits in the window. White suits with gold braid outlining the blazer, navy suits with gold braid. Docilely, Howard let Erin steer him to a rack.
     "How about this?"
     He didn't respond as she held up the white suit, and she sensed the same something, a hesitation, that said no. She understood. His wife's birthday wasn't broadcloth and buttons with anchors on them. it was femininity and elegance. She led him to another rack.
     "Or this?" She held up a pink silk blouse.
     "I think--" He reached out jerkily as if to touch it and his head bobbed imperceptibly.
     "With a skirt? Or pants? A jacket?"
     It was too many choices at once. She backed off.
     "Would you like to buy something else with it?"
     He nodded mutely.
     "A skirt?" She held one up. His hands fluttered, indicating, she thought, that she should hold the outfit against herself so he could evaluate it. That's how he always shopped for Helen, Erin remembered now. The family joked about how Howard would always pick out a salesgirl who seemed about Helen's size to hold up the clothes and let him consider them.
     As the clerk rang up the purchase, Howard reached behind him--so slowly Erin found herself holding her breath and had to let it out several times--and drew a fat wallet from his pocket. He opened it with both hands and stared at its contents.
     "Two hundred twenty-three dollars and thirty-nine cents," the clerk said, for the second time.
     Howard's fingers hovered over the bills, trembling.
     "Two hundred," repeated Erin. "You can give her four fifties."
     He began to extract the bills one at a time with little tugs, examining each one as he drew it out and again as he laid it on the counter. The clerk didn't seem impatient; Erin threw her a grateful glance.
     When there were four fifties on the counter Erin prodded, "A twenty and three ones-- Make it four ones," she amended hastily. "She'll give you change." She resisted the desire to reach into his wallet and help him.
     He's a little child, she thought. A lost, bewildered child, losing his sight, his hearing, his memory--everything familiar. The thick wallet made him seem all the more vulnerable.
     The clerk rang up the order and handed Erin the change, which she passed on to Howard, and the box, in a paper bag with handles. She handed that to Howard, too.
     "Shall we buy a card?"
     "Where?" His voice faltered a little.
     "It's about a block from here," she said, thinking that a block seemed an incredible distance away and might take the rest of the day to reach. If only she could plant him somewhere and run on ahead to get it for him!
     "We can go slowly."
     He didn't have to stop in the middle of the street to rest when she let him set the pace. Todd was right; Howard didn't pick up his feet when he walked. "He slides his feet along," Todd had complained to her privately. "He shuffles--like an old man!"
     At the stationers, she moved through the kaleidoscope of stationery and calendars and stuffed toys to the cards and through the cards to the birthday cards. She picked out one inscribed, "To my wife," glanced inside and handed it to Howard. He took it from her and studied it silently, first the picture on the front, then the sentiment inside.
     "That might do," he said. But he looked at the rack. Erin handed him another. "This has a nice verse," she offered. But when he had worked his way through it, he said, "I don't think-- it isn't--" She had to tip her head to hear him.
     "How about this one?" He was already holding a card in each hand. Gently she took from him the second one and replaced it with a third. She pretended to be absorbed in something else as he read the front and the inside and then the front again. His lips moved as he concentrated over and over on the sentiment inside.
     "I think this one--" he said.
     When they got back to the hotel, she took him to his door across the hall from hers and just before she unlocked it for him, she said, "It must be scary to be forgetting things." She squeezed the dry, cool hand.
                                                            --
     "WHAT!" Todd burst out. "A skirt and blouse? But she wants the painting!"   
     "He didn't want to get her the painting," said Erin, her stomach contracting.
     "Why did you even bring the subject up? We had it all arranged. He told me he'd get her the painting."
     Erin didn't speak. Why had she brought it up? She tried to remember. Because she had to say something. Because it was taking them so long to get to the card shop and they had been side by side and she had to say something.
     Todd was still speaking. "He just doesn't want to spend the money, that's all. It's selfishness, plain and simple."
     "He wanted to buy her clothes," said Erin. It was all vanishing, the delight she had felt, being in sync with Howard. Her defense sounded weak in her own ears. "He chose them." There was no way Todd could understand, not in this mood.
     "You should never have brought the subject up," he said. "We had it all arranged."
     "We had a good time together." She knew he wouldn't consider that relevant, but somehow it mattered to her. "He-- He made his own decisions. I only gave him two things at a time and he knew what he wanted." But it was spoiled.
     He sighed then. "It's not your fault."
                                                            --
  They walked to dinner, all four of them. Erin dropped behind to walk with Howard, pausing when he paused. Couples in jeans surged around them, happy, their arms around each other. Young men called to each other over their heads.
     At the restaurant, their server slid large menus down in front of each of them, cutting them off from each other.
     "I'll have tortellini," Todd said after a minute.
     "What do you want, Howard?" asked Helen from behind her menu.
     Beyond her, Howard lowered his menu and looked at her meekly. "Do you understand what this says?" he asked her.
     "How about lasagna?" said Helen. "You like lasagna."
     Howard didn't respond. After a minute, he closed the menu and offered it to a passing busboy.
     "The server will come get it," said Helen.
     Erin thought about the present Helen would be opening later. She hoped Helen wouldn't be disappointed. I guess I ruined everything, she thought. I should have kept my mouth shut. But she didn't feel sorry. Helen could buy herself any painting she wanted.
     The server was there, pencil poised.
     "Tell her what you want, Howard."
     "What are you getting?"
     "You don't have to get what I'm getting. What do you want?"
     "What do I want?" he echoed. He held the menu, still open.
     "He'll have the lasagna," she told the server briskly. "You want wine, Howard?"
     "You mean to drink?"
     "Yes. Or do you want a soft drink?"
     "A Coke." His voice was faint.
     "You don't want caffeine this late in the day," Helen said. "How about a 7-Up?"
     Howard didn't answer.
     When they had all ordered, Todd held up his wine. "To your birthday, Mom!" Erin lifted her glass and waited until Howard realized something was expected of him and raised his 7-Up. They clinked glasses with Helen and drank.
     "Tomorrow," Helen said to Todd and Erin, "we should try to visit the art festival. If we get there early, it won't be so hot."
     "Or crowded," put in Todd.
     Howard didn't look at them. He stared blankly at the floor beside their booth.
     "We'll have to get around early. Where do you want to have breakfast?"
     "We could eat at the hotel again," said Todd. "They're having that special buffet tomorrow."
     "How about that little bakery we saw?" Helen asked them.
     Howard roused himself and his head swiveled toward them. "What are you talking about?"
     "Breakfast, Howard. We're talking about where to have breakfast." Howard's "Oh" was lost as Helen went on to the others, "They had those big cinnamon rolls that smelled so good, remember?"
     "Where were they?" asked Howard.
     "At that bakery we passed this morning, Howard. Don't you remember? Great big ones." She stretched the manicured fingers of both hands into a circle.
     He gazed at her. "Not exactly," he said with a sheepish smile. He let his gaze sink to the floor again until the food came. Then he concentrated on carefully cutting his pasta, his broccoli, even his roll, spearing each piece with deliberation and raising it mechanically to his mouth. When Helen turned to speak to her son, Erin saw Howard over Helen's shoulder. He had paused, butter knife raised in one hand, fork in the other. He was looking at his glass. She wanted to reach across Helen and help him; instead she watched painfully, losing track of Helen's words.
     At last Howard looked at the fork, started to put it down, looked at the knife, did put it down. Then he put down the fork, too, and reached for the 7-Up with both hands. His shoulders slumped and his head tilted so the edges of his mouth could feel tremblingly for the top of the straw.
     They had paid the bill and were starting out the door when they realized he was not with them. He was consulting the maitre d', who showed him to the restroom door. They waited out on the sidewalk, occasionally glancing back through the window. Three minutes, five, eight, ten--
     "Is he lost?" his son asked irritably.
     His wife said with amusement, "The other day he got up to go to the bathroom at home--and couldn't find it."
     "That's sad," said his daughter-in-law. "There must be some Alzheimer's association that could help--"
     "It's not Alzheimer's," said Helen, straightening up as Howard finally emerged from the restroom and began looking around for them. "He doesn't have Alzheimer's."