The Rumble-Seat Ride

Bea remains awake until 6 p.m, a record of sorts, two nights and three days without sleep.

Our weekend health aide Alison Wonderland tended Bea today. Alison wears crocheted shawls and long flowing skirts with little bells that jingle when she moves. Her aura still warms the barren landscape Bea’s bedroom has become. Were my mother not at the end of her life, I know how much she would appreciate Alison’s persona. Bea has always loved artists. She had affairs with more than one and exchanged letters with abstract artist Charles Biederman until the end of the century. It was with Biederman that she first rode in a rumble seat. I can just see them motoring along, off for a weekend with Dwight and Nancy Macdonald:

“June 6, 1980

When we got off the elevator at the Borgenicht Galley on the afternoon of March first and I saw you, silhouetted there with your pipe in your mouth, in conversation with someone, what a joy it was, and I knew that the part of me that has always cared for you, ever since the ride to Brookfield in Dwight’s rumble-seat, was again called into being …”