“Oh, I get that all the time. I’m older than I look.”
So what, maybe sixteen?
“You are Mrs. Emerson’s daughter?”
“Yes.”
“I have your mother’s medication. We’ll need to wake her up, I’m afraid.”
“She doesn’t take pills,” Eden said. “Except sometimes crushed in chocolate milk.”
“Mrs. Emerson?” She shook Eleanor lightly by the shoulder.
“She doesn’t take pills,” Eden repeated.
The child smiled, and then with a confident professional air she said, “She will for me.”
When Eleanor refused to be roused awake, the child nurse picked up the medication, informing Eden that she would return in thirty minutes. She scribbled something on the chart that hung from the bottom of the bed and left.
“Mom?” Eden said to Eleanor’s sleeping form. “I must be getting old. You and I together, we’re getting old.”
Now that Eden had spoken out loud she dare for a bit more one-sided conversation.
“Cade came yesterday. I was so glad to see him. He looks good. Oh, my gosh. I had to keep myself from drooling. And it’s been so long, well you know, I haven’t been loved for a long time… like you… with Dad gone. I miss Dad.”
She felt a lump form in her throat, and she rifled through her purse for a tissue. “And I miss you. I miss the way you used to be. Oh, how I wish we could turn back the clock sometimes. You know? Go to the beach again: you, me and Daddy. Run along the sand, fall into the waves, make sand castles.”
She blew her nose in a fashion that would’ve made Mrs. Turkoff proud. Man, she was so emotional these days.
“I know you don’t remember this, but we used to bake cookies together, and when they were done, we’d eat a bunch, while they were still fresh and warm, with a tall glass of cold milk. You always let me eat the best ones, and you never got upset about the mess. You made the best cookies, Mom. I never did get as good as you.
“You were a good mother to me. I wish I would’ve told you that before. I always knew that you and Dad loved me.”
Eleanor began to stir.
“Mom?”
Eden offered the plastic cup of water to her mother. Eleanor tilted her head up far enough to take a sip through the straw, then let it fall back onto the pillow.
Eleanor began mumbling and Eden could just barely make out what she said.
“I’m sorry I forgot today, Ma. I’ll get you some fresh flowers, okay?”
“Mom?” Eden said. “Are you awake?”
“Here we go. Roses. Aren’t they beautiful?” Eleanor’s lips stopped moving and the shallow breathing of restless sleep returned.
Eden lowered the bar next to her, leaned forward and rested her head on her mother’s arm, stroking her almost-white hair.
“You got a second chance with Dad. Do you think I’ll be so fortunate as to get a second chance, too? He’s here, Mom, without her, just with me and Sophie the way it used to be. Well, no, not the way it used to be. That was bad. And it was mostly my fault, Mom. I didn’t want him anymore. I was such an idiot. But now he’s here, and if I just don’t screw up again, maybe…”
Tap, tap. “Eden?”
“Cade !” Oh my goodness. How much had he heard? Eden scrambled to regain her composure, but it was hard to shove her heart back down into position without someone noticing. She cleared her throat and pulled a hand through her hair.
“I brought Sophie. I hope it’s okay. She wanted to see her grandma.” Cade was dressed in black jeans and a grey shirt under a denim jacket. Very nice. Eden on the other hand instantly regretted her choice of faded jeans with knobby knees apparent through ragged holes, and the washed out sweatshirt she had thrown on in her hurry.
“Mommy.” Sophie ran to her side, frightened by the sight of her grandma in a hospital bed with bars.
“I didn’t know children were allowed to visit?” Eden said. She glanced away fearing the heat in her cheeks would start something on fire.
Cade grinned slyly. “They’re not, but I snuck her in.” Then with a nod towards the window. “Your neighbour needs her adenoids removed.”
Eden smiled. To Sophie she said, “So, what have you done today so far?”
“We went to the park.”
“That’s nice.”
“Is Grandma going to die?” Sophie said, her eyes wide as saucers.
“Of course not, honey,” Eden said, pulling her closer.
“Well,” Cade interjected. “She’s not going to die today. But Sophie, honey, death is a part of life. Everybody dies sometime.”
Eden both admired and resented his honesty. He had contradicted her, sort of, but he was right. Sophie deserved the truth.
“Will she go to heaven, Daddy?”
“Absolutely. Your grandma knows the Boss.”
“You mean God?”
“Yeah, I mean God.”
Sophie seemed satisfied with that. “Here Sophie,” Eden said. “You can hold Grandma’s hand. She’d like that even though she’s sleeping.”
Sophie was hesitant at first, but holding her grandmother’s hand seemed to reassure her that her grandma was still alive. After a few moments, she asked, “Can we go eat now, Daddy?”
“Sure, Pumpkin. Those burgers and fries can’t be kept waiting.”
She sprung away from Eden’s side. “Bye, Mommy.”
“Bye, sweetie.”
When Sophie and Cade left, Eden felt small and alone. She had no one to blame but herself. She had created this division in her family. She blew into another tissue and sighed with resignation.
Then his dark head popped back into the room. “Wanna join us?”
“Really? I mean, I don’t want to get in the way.”
“Hey, someone needs to rescue you from the adenoid queen.”
He didn’t have to ask twice. Eden was more than ready to be rescued, especially if Cade was the one doing the rescuing.
To her astonishment, Cade drove them to the burger stand they frequented as teenagers. New paint did little to hide the antiquity and large mature willow trees almost blocked the view of it from the road.
“I didn’t know you still ate at this place,” she said.
“It doesn’t look like much, but it’s still the best place for burgers in town.”
Cade pulled his truck into a spot in the back. They tumbled out, and Eden chose a table outside close to a play area that looked fairly new.
Cade took their orders and returned to the table with a tray filled with burgers fries and soft drinks. Eden’s stomach jumped for joy. She hadn’t realised how hungry she was.
They munched through half their meal before saying one word of conversation. Sophie, suddenly full, skipped over to the play area, leaving Cade to enjoy the remainder of her meal.
“You’re right,” Eden said, wiping burger sauce off her mouth with a napkin. “This is the best place for burgers in town.”
Her attention was captured by a group of teens huddling at a nearby table. One awfully young-looking couple started making out.
Cade watched them, too. “Some things never change,” he said.
“No,” Eden said deliberately. “It seems like a world ago, doesn’t it?”
“Yep,” he said with terse lips.
“Cade! Eden!”
Eden jumped as someone blasted aloud their names.
“Grady?” Cade said.
Brad let out an obnoxious, boisterous laugh. Eden remembered him now from their high school days. As Brad continued his gregarious greeting, Eden understood why she had blocked the memory of him from her mind. He was bald and heavier now, likely due to frequent meals similar to the one stacked on his tray.
“I thought I was the only one who still ate here,” he bellowed. “But, anyhow, sure is good to see you guys. Not too many of the old couples still together. Pam and me only lasted two years.”
Eden watched him stuff his face, and she fumed inwardly with embarrassment.
She could see the comments had angered Cade, too. He stood abruptly. Apparently, they were leaving. Cade mumbled polite departing words to Brad, then marched to the park to retrieve Sophie.
Eden felt she should say something, but for the life of her, couldn’t think of what.
46
Eleanor
“MRS. INCH? Are you finished with your pudding?” Ellie raised her voice for the benefit of the matronly lady in front of her.
“Pardon me?” Mrs. Inch leaned forward. “Please remember Mrs. Emerson, to speak into my right ear. The left one’s not so good.”
“Your pudding, Mrs. Inch. Should I take it?”
“Oh yes, please do. I’m a stuffed pig now after that lovely dinner.”
Ellie cleared the tray as Mrs. Inch returned her attention to the black and white television Cherrywood Nursing Home had recently acquired. She stopped with a tray in hand to hear the latest about the new theme park opening up in California. They called it Disneyland. That Walter Disney fellow was a brilliant man, but Ellie had to wonder if something like that could hope to be a success in the long run.
“Did you see that, Mrs. Emerson?” Mrs. Inch motioned for Ellie to sit beside her on the sofa when she returned. “What will they think of next? I thought I’d seen it all and believe me I have seen a great many things in my day, but this theme park? I am of the opinion that we have enough things to waste our money on nowadays, but oh, well. I shan’t complain.”
“It is something. I’ll give you that much, Mrs. Inch.”
“Now take this new television, here,” Mrs. Inch continued. “Before you know it, every home in North America will have one, but perhaps that will be a good thing. Much more efficient than the radio. And of course my eyes are much better than my ears, so if I can’t hear it that well, at least I can see it.” Mrs. Inch laughed at herself and then refocused on the program. Ellie and Mrs. Inch had become good companions over the last couple of years. Ellie remembered clearly how difficult it was to accept this job and that it was only because Lillian stubbornly insisted upon it that she even dared to cross the threshold of the nursing home.
“You need to get out,” Lillian had said. “You’re dying a slow death and it would do you good to focus on the needs of others for a while.” She had been right, and Ellie was thankful for the tough love her friend had shown her. Her job was simple enough—to assist the elderly residents with basic everyday needs: getting around the home, eating, running errands—,and also to aid the nurses if they needed an extra hand. Ellie was comforted by Lillian’s presence in the building, too. She didn’t know how she would have made it through the last many years without her.
“I just love this movie,” Mrs. Inch said, “though that young lady, Marilyn? She’s a bit of a flirt isn’t she?”
The little old lady must have shrivelled with age, Ellie thought, she being no more than four and a half feet tall, if that. The name Inch was appropriate. Her grey hair was pulled into a neat little bun on the top of her head and added an extra inch to her stature, and her face was a collection of folded skin, the lines stamping a perpetual smile on her face. Though she moved very slowly with a walker, her mind was as sharp as a pin. Her grey eyes twinkled with amusement as if she achieved a quirky secret pleasure from the idiosyncrasies of the others around her.
And she had read Ellie like a book. When Ellie first arrived, Mrs. Inch had zeroed in on her like a prize-winning homing pigeon, and in that friendly yet somewhat intrusive manner of hers, she’d gently prodded Ellie until she unloaded the burdens of her heart.
Mrs. Inch validated the friendship by sharing parts of her life, too. Ellie learned that Mrs. Inch had lost two husbands: one to the Great War and one to cancer. Ellie just had to ask what her first husband’s last name was. “Jones,” she had said. Ellie felt that “Inch” was a more suitable name for such an interesting personality.
Mrs. Inch gave birth to two sons. The eldest died of polio in his early twenties and the younger, still very much alive, was a successful businessman, and much too busy to visit his own mother it seemed. Mrs. Inch proudly displayed photos of her two grandsons, but also explained that they lived across the country in Toronto with their mother who was separated from her husband and refused to pursue a relationship with anyone on his side of the family.
Yet, despite her hardships, Mrs. Inch was still a sweet, gentle, caring and enjoyable person. She was a pillar of strength with a determined faith in God. Ellie had anchored herself to her.
Then there was Mr. Albert. “Hey, Missy, turn it up, eh? Cain’t hear the dratted TV!”
“Mr. Albert, it’s very loud as it is,” Ellie responded. Her patience with Mr. Albert was tested on a daily basis.
“The hell it is!” He wheeled his chair around in an agitated manner. “Why can’t I get no respect around here?”
“Respect is earned, Mr. Albert,” Ellie admonished.
“In my day, ya only had to be old to get respect. Young people like you don’t know nothin’. Ya think ya know it all. Where’s the boss nurse? I want that TV turned up!”
“Mr. Albert,” Ellie shouted, barely keeping a lid on her anger. “You really ought to get a hearing aid.” She turned the knob slightly just to appease her irritated companion.
“Don’t need no hearing aid. My ears work just fine.” Ellie doubted he could hear the TV any better now. He was just too proud to admit to his hearing loss.
“Oh, poor Mr. Albert,” Mrs. Inch had explained one day. “The way he sits there in that dreadful corner pouting like a small child. It all started with that foot, you know.”
She referred to the foot that was missing.
“He never got over the loss of that foot. It was a farming accident. What a shame it was, but a foot’s just a foot, am I right? And there’s a lot you can do without a foot, I suspect, but not to his thinking.”
Mrs. Inch had known Mr. Albert since childhood. “Though we never much got along,” she had said. “It’s a funny thing, isn’t it, that after all these years, we would be thrown back together again in a place like this.” She sipped her tea, and slowly set it down on the saucer with a faint rattle.
“He didn’t think a real man could get on without a foot. I don’t know what it was that he thought a real man did, but he ended up being an accountant. Do you know any accountants, Mrs. Emerson?”
Ellie nodded.
“Are they real men?”
“I would have to assume, Mrs. Inch.”
Mrs. Inch’s eyes danced with laughter. “Well, he did have some troubles. I’ll give him that much. But most he brought upon himself. He married a girl, I knew her, named Ida O’Donell. He always insisted she had married him out of pity, even though I know she loved him. She told me so herself. They had a boy and a girl and everything seemed smooth enough until the boy was drafted into the Great War. He was killed in the first year.
“Poor Mr. Albert, he just never got over it. That boy was his pride and joy. After he passed on, Mr. Albert just about forgot that his wife and daughter still existed and soon his marriage failed. The last I heard his daughter won’t even say two words to him.”
She looked over at Ellie with tenderness. “Life isn’t always kind, is it Mrs. Emerson?”
Ellie shook her head.
Mrs. Inch reached for her tea cup. “It’s how we respond to our troubles that makes the difference.”
When another staff member joined the TV watchers, Ellie took the opportunity to go on her break. The noise was starting to get to her and she looked forward to a few quiet minutes in the staff room.
Lillian joined her shortly afterwards. Ellie thought she looked so professional and efficient in her nursing uniform. She was tall and attractive even without her long hair, although Ellie almost died when Lillian cut it. But Lillian’s countenance had a subtle hard edge to it that a stranger wouldn’t notice. Ellie noticed.
“Mrs. Jacobs could use some help getting back to her bedroom. Would you mind doing that before your break? By then
I’ll be free to join you.”
“Sure,” Ellie said. She left to find the lady in question. “Hello, Mrs. Jacobs. Can I give you a hand?”
Mrs. Jacobs seemed to be one with her wheel chair. Her cane emerged from between legs that were clothed with thick tights and covered with a wool blanket that she held on to with crooked fingers. Ellie led her down the bland hallways of the nursing home to room 116. Mrs. Jacobs preferred to be left there facing the window, with a view of her family photographs that rested on a dresser nearby.
“I’ll come back to check on you in twenty minutes. Okay, Mrs. Jacobs? Perhaps you’ll enjoy an afternoon nap? I can help you into your bed if you like.”
Ellie followed the worn tiles to the little room just off the kitchen area that, furnished with two sofas and a table with four chairs, was the designated staff room. Lillian had Ellie’s coffee ready for her.
Ellie recounted the last conversation she had with Mrs. Inch, explaining how she thought Marilyn Monroe was a bit of a flirt. “That Mrs. Inch is a dear. I can’t but laugh when I’m around her.”
“You look almost happy again, Ellie.”
“Sometimes. You know, Lillian, working here has taught me something. All these people have had long full lives. You and I, we’ve just begun compared to them. When I get to the end of my life I want to be like Mrs. Inch. Definitely not like Mr. Albert.”
Lillian took a sip of coffee and said nothing.
“I don’t want to live with this rock in my gut for the rest of my life. I need to let myself off the hook, and Joshua, too. I’m even willing to forgive God to get peace again.”
“Even God?” Lillian responded with a raised eyebrow.
“Yeah, even God.”
They coasted through a lull that would make lesser friends shift uncomfortably.
“Dr. Taite has asked about you, Lillian.”
Lillian puffed. “Not interested.”
“Why not? He’s young, intelligent, handsome.”
“I’m too busy to date.”
Ellie arched a brow. “Too busy doing what?”
East of the Sun: a 20th century inspirational romance. Page 16