“I’ll wait here,” Lily said, staring out the window.
“No, you have to come in with me,” Iris said. “Don’t make me go alone.”
Iris got out of car, walked up to the door, and waited for Lily to join her. When she did, Iris forced a weak smile and said, “Thanks.” She placed an index finger on the bell, but could not seem to press it. When the door opened, both women let out a startled gasp.
“Good morning, ladies!” A grey-haired man wearing jeans and a sweatshirt smiled at them, gesturing an invitation to enter. His kind face had a calming effect on Iris. “I heard you pull in. Something tells me you’re Capotostis. There’s been all kinds of brothers and sisters coming and going.”
“Yes,” Iris said, smiling and extending her hand. “I’m Iris, and this is my sister, Lily.”
“Ah, the missing flowers! I think I’ve met the whole bouquet now, but it’s hard to keep track. My name’s Andrew,” he said, pumping Iris’s hand. “I’m one of the volunteers. Please, come right on in.” Stepping into the foyer, Iris was immediately enveloped in the comforting aroma of freshly brewed coffee and toasty, sugary breakfast foods wafting from the kitchen. There was an undertone of lemon scented furniture polish, and another familiar perfume lingering in the hallway, smelling vaguely out of place.
“Lily’s a pretty name,” Andrew said, placing a hand on Lily’s shoulder. “I don’t think I’ve heard anyone mention you, but I do recall a few things about Iris. The one who lives over in Italy, right? The one everyone has been waiting for.”
“Yes.” Though it never quite stopped embarrassing her, Iris had grown accustomed to having anyone remotely acquainted with Auntie Rosa know all about her alleged virtues and glamorous Italian life without ever having met her personally. She wondered whether Auntie Rosa would have continued regaling anyone who would listen with stories about her fairytale romance had she been aware of the botched editing job Iris had performed on the ending.
“I’ve even seen your picture,” the man said, pointing a finger at Iris. “In your aunt’s room.”
Standing there with her damp hair and rumpled clothes, her eyes so puffy and bloodshot it hurt to blink, Iris doubted she looked remotely like any picture ever taken of her.
“Can I interest you in some coffee?” the man said. “I just made a fresh pot.”
Iris would have loved to go hide out in that cozy kitchen she caught a peek of, guzzle down a whole pot of strong coffee, and stuff herself with glazed doughnuts and bagels with cream cheese and English muffins with strawberry jam. Her mouth salivated at the thought. “I think we should go see our aunt first,” she said, swallowing.
“Marianne - she’s the nurse here - is with her now,” Andrew said. “I’ll show you to the room, and bring you your coffee there.”
“That would be wonderful,” Iris said. “Thank you.” She walked down the hall with him, glancing over her shoulder at Lily. She was slow and unsteady on her feet, but she was following.
“Marianne, Iris and Lily are here to see their Aunt Rosa,” Andrew said when they reached the front room.
Iris wanted to correct him, tell him everyone knew it was “Auntie” Rosa, and not “Aunt,” but her thoughts were sidetracked, overpowered by the perfume she had sniffed in the entrance hall. It struck her with its full force here; it was Youth Dew, the unmistakable scent of Auntie Rosa.
“You’ve come at the right time.” Marianne said. “The priest just left; he comes first thing every morning, just like your aunt requested.”
The nurse, probably around Iris’s age, was dressed in a cheerful floral print top and yellow slacks; her smile radiated warmth and empathy. She took Iris’s hand and squeezed it, just like Auntie Rosa used to do. Iris coughed, struggling to disentangle her voice from the four decades of memories rising up in her breast, jamming her throat. Her eyes roamed the room nervously, searching for something to look at, anything that wasn’t Auntie Rosa.
“As you can see, we like to surround our residents with the objects they cherish,” Marianne said, following her gaze. “Your family brought these things over.” Iris spotted pieces of furniture that had accompanied Auntie Rosa’s orderly existence in each of the three homes that had coincided with various stages of her life: the cherry wood chest of drawers, the lacquer end table, the green and pink Tiffany lamp, Uncle Alfred’s old ukulele, Auntie Rosa’s glow-in-the-dark rosary beads and worn prayer book held together by a thick yellow rubber band, the framed portrait of Iris in a wedding gown, standing between Gregorio and Auntie Rosa, their three sets of eyes twinkling. There was something wrong about seeing these items here; something confusing, destabilizing, like the feeling she got when running into her gynecologist at the restaurant, or her hairdresser at the mechanic’s.
But the oddest sight of all was the green velvet recliner on which was propped a wizened woman with Auntie Rosa’s snow white hair, wearing Auntie Rosa’s red jacket with an embroidered hanky in the pocket and Auntie Rosa’s lily of the valley brooch on the lapel and Auntie Rosa’s wire-rimmed glasses and even Auntie Rosa’s latest set of hearing aids. The woman listed slightly to one side, a sturdy, finely crafted vessel that had sailed a century of seas, now adrift, with no one at the helm, waiting for the benevolent breeze that would take her home.
“Your sister Violet called to say you were on your way. I knew she’d want to be dressed for the occasion,” the nurse said.
“Thank you, she looks nice.” Auntie Rosa had always been meticulous about her appearance, and favored bright colors. But was she really still there, inside that inert form?
“How wonderful that you could both make it,” the nurse added, turning to smile at Lily, who had wandered in and sat in a chair by the window.
Andrew the volunteer returned, bearing a reassuring smile and two sorely needed mugs of steaming coffee, which he set on the table by Lily, then left.
“Don’t be afraid,” the nurse said, placing a hand on Iris’s shoulder. “She’s been waiting for you.”
Iris knelt on the floor in front of the armchair, resting her buttocks on her heels. She took her aunt’s hands in her own.
“They’re so hot!” she said, dropping the knobby arthritic hands back onto the shawl draped across her aunt’s lap. Iris had crocheted that shawl for her one Christmas. Isabella had taught her how.
“She’s running a bit of a fever,” Marianne said. “That’s normal.”
“Can she hear me?” Iris asked, timidly touching the hands again.
“Hearing is usually the last of the senses to go,” Marianne said. “That’s why we leave her hearing aids in.” She looked over at Lily, then back at Iris, and said, “I’ll let you two visit with her now. Call me if you need anything.”
“You’re so kind, thank you.”
“Your aunt worked as a nurse for sixty years. It’s an honor to give something back to her.” Marianne smiled and left the room, closing the door gently behind her.
“Drink your coffee,” Iris said to Lily, when they were alone. Lily stared out the window; Iris turned her attention to their aunt.
As she regarded the body that was preparing to relinquish Auntie Rosa’s spirit, she recalled the events that had shaped this woman’s life, as told in the stories Iris had first listened to as a child, and many times again as an adult. Iris envisioned little Rosa, the underprivileged and overburdened firstborn daughter of Italian immigrants, toiling in the muck farms during the Depression. She felt the burden of the little girl saddled with the responsibilities of a woman, who dared indulge in a moment of carefree frolic with her little sister along the banks of the Barge Canal. She felt her helplessness when little Teresa slipped into the murky water, and her horror when Teresa sunk to the muddy bottom before Rosa’s eyes, taking both their childhoods with her.
She recalled Auntie Rosa’s favorite photo album, the one bound between covers of plain black cardboard, and the ornate paper tabs glued at the corners of the faded photographs holding them in place and in time. She reca
lled how Auntie Rosa always wanted Iris to look at the pictures with her every time she visited, and how Auntie Rosa always lingered over the class portrait taken down in New Jersey, and how she always acted surprised when Iris recognized the dark-haired young woman in the front row proudly showing off her starched white nurse’s cap and candy-striped uniform, as her father’s big sister.
“Auntie Rosa,” Iris said. She took a breath, cleared her throat. Thinking was so much easier than talking; it had always been that way for Iris.
“It’s me. Iris.” She searched her aunt’s face for a flutter of the eyelids, a turn of the lips. “I told you I’d come home soon, didn’t I? Well, here I am.”
A rattling noise issued from Auntie Rosa’s throat, followed by a trickle of foul-looking fluid that seeped from the corner of her crooked mouth. She couldn’t be going already, could she? Not when Iris still had so much to say. Her hands shook as she grabbed a handful of tissues from a box on the nightstand, and mopped up the liquid before it could drip down her chin and stain her red jacket. Auntie Rosa detested stains. Iris hurried to call Marianne, who was in the sweet-smelling kitchen, reviewing the residents’ conditions with the volunteers who had just come on duty.
“It’s OK, Iris,” she said. “It’s only natural to be alarmed if you’ve never had this experience. Let me explain a little bit about what you can expect in the coming hours.” She led Iris back into the room, showed her how to use a little sponge on a stick to swab her aunt’s mouth, then motioned for her to follow her back out into the hallway.
“Your aunt’s heart and lungs are slowing down, and she’s too weak to cough up the fluid as it accumulates,” Marianne said in a soft voice, proof of her belief in that the dying could hear until the end. Iris shivered at the thought of lying in bed, unable to speak or move, and hearing people chat about her death as if she were already gone. “We’re giving her a little medication to dry up the secretions, but they’ll subside gradually as her body dehydrates. When you swab her mouth, don’t use too much water. She can’t handle it.”
“But she looks so parched,” Iris said. The idea of swabbing away the gunk made her cringe, but she would do it if she had to. “Shouldn’t she at least have fluids?”
“Iris, our mission here is to help terminal patients leave us painlessly and peacefully, not to prolong their suffering. Dehydration is actually a blessing at this stage. It will keep her drowsy, and probably less aware of any pain or discomfort. The human body is a beautiful machine, and so is its natural way of shutting down.”
“It’s just so hard to watch,” Iris said. Tears filled her eyes.
“I know it is. Remember, we don’t know how much she feels or hears. Her senses are growing dull, gradually severing her contact with the outside world in order to make the separation less painful. Dying is hard enough work as it is.”
“How much time does she have left?” Iris asked.
“She’s been at this stage for longer than anyone I’ve seen. She’s been fighting, as if she wasn’t ready. I think she’ll progress more quickly, now that you’re here. You go be with her, Iris. Talk to her.”
Iris nodded, her throat tight, her chest heavy, and went back into the room. She mustn’t let Auntie Rosa hear her cry. Auntie Rosa could never bear it when her Lover-dover cried. As she knelt down again, Iris did not feel the need to raise her voice or repeat things to make sure her aunt understood. She would hear what she could hear, Iris decided, as she began her story at the place where Iris felt the most comfortable talking about, and where Auntie Rosa had always been the happiest: The Past.
Iris spoke of getting up early to attend six o’clock Mass together, and of the buttery Italian toast dunked in coffee sweetened with anisette that was her immediate earthly reward. She spoke of tomatoes bubbling in a massive kettle with meatballs and sausages, until the sauce became thick enough and the meat tender enough to meet with the approval of Grandma Capotosti, and the expectations of the Sunday spaghetti dinner crowd. She spoke of the Saturdays helping out at Uncle Alfred’s guitar studio, and of the Hawaiian music that drifted from his bedroom late at night as his fingers surfed over the strings of his steel guitar, filling the house with moonlit skies and sandy beaches, while on the other side of the storm windows the snow swirled to the tune of the howling winter wind.
After several minutes, Iris paused to drink some coffee. She looked at Lily, still sitting silently by the window, blinking as though she could not bear the weight of her own eyelids, as though they relied upon the swells of sadness from some inner ocean to occasionally push them open. The coffee had cooled, but it was a tonic for Iris, and the mug warmed her hands; after a few sips, she turned her attention back to Auntie Rosa.
Iris thanked her for being in the delivery room to cuddle her just minutes after she was born, and for the new nighties and undies she snuck under the Christmas tree each year, sparing Iris’s most intimate parts from hand-me-downs. She thanked her for outfitting her with her first bra, and for showing her how to rig up her first sanitary belt with a napkin. She thanked her for nursing her through peritonitis, and for accompanying her to Italy. And she thanked her for waiting. But now Auntie Rosa had waited long enough, and heard enough about the past. Iris owed it to her to tell her the truth. Before speaking, she glanced over at Lily, silent and still in her chair.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been home to see you in so long, Auntie Rosa,” she said. “Every time I called, you asked me when I would come, and every time I told you I was too busy with work. But there was another reason, Auntie Rosa.” Iris paused, half-expecting her aunt’s eyes to pop open, wide with interest, like they always did when Iris had news of any kind, no matter how trivial.
“You see, things have been a little strange for me lately. You know Gregorio, and what a good man he is. An honest, reliable, family man, a good provider. Remember all the fun we had when we went to Italy together the first time, and I met him? And how tickled you were when you saw he was interested in me? And that huge bouquet of red roses he sent when I said yes to his proposal?” There was a wistful look in Iris’s eyes as she stared for a moment at the framed photograph taken on her wedding day. She looked at that Auntie Rosa, plump and smiling, then at the one before her. Again, she searched her face for a twitch, a tic – some sign that would encourage her to continue. But not even Auntie Rosa’s lips moved as they sipped the air in such small breaths that any rising or falling movement of the deflated chest was imperceptible.
“Well, there’s something you should know, something I should have told you a long time ago, but couldn’t.” Iris dropped her eyes to the floor, just in case Auntie Rosa should suddenly open hers. “I just couldn’t. You see, we’ve had some trouble. I should say, I’ve had some trouble. Trouble being happy. Trouble trying to live up to everyone else’s expectations. I would never want to say anything against Gregorio, you know? But I felt like he was suffocating me, that his whole family was sucking the life out of me. I knew I would wither up and die if I didn’t do something.” Iris studied her aunt’s feet, so small and defenseless in their crocheted booties. Could those feet, now so deformed by bunions and arthritis, be the same feet that had spent a lifetime hurrying back and forth along hospital corridors, running up and down the stairs of the family home, as she tended to the needs of others?
“Well, I finally did something,” Iris said, glancing up. “I left. I had to do it, you see, or I would have gone crazy.” There, she’d said it. Part of it, anyway. “That’s why I couldn’t come home, because I knew I couldn’t hide what I was going through if I did. I knew you would see right through me, and I didn’t want to make you worry. I didn’t want to disappoint you.” She’d thought that talking about her separation would relieve the heaviness in her chest, but it seemed to make it worse. It seemed as though her heart would be crushed under the weight.
“But things are better now, so I want you to be happy for me. I met a really nice man.” Her head throbbed as she struggled to decide how much she
should say about how and when they met, about how their relationship had progressed. Maybe it would be a waste of precious time, maybe there was no need to disclose too many details, when her aunt might not even hear.
“His name is Massimiliano,” she continued, “Isn’t that a nice name? But he likes people to call him Max. It’s easier. You’d be surprised at all the exciting things we do together.” Iris’s cheeks were burning; she picked up Auntie Rosa’s prayer book, and used it to fan her face for a moment before going on. “For example, we get to travel all over Italy. All expenses paid, imagine that! That’s because Max is so talented, everyone wants to work with him. I’m working with him too, and it’s so much fun!”
When Iris stopped talking, an eerie hush fell over the room; in the silence Iris heard the unspoken question rattling behind Auntie Rosa’s raspy breath.
“No, he hasn’t asked me to marry him yet, Auntie Rosa. But don’t worry, I can tell he will. He just has a few problems to work through first. He hasn’t had an easy life. You know what that’s like, right?”
Her words rang hollow and inconsequential in this room gravid with the stark truth and holiness of death. She prayed for Auntie Rosa to utter some sound of approval, to show some sign of understanding, to offer her some hint of the unwavering and heavily biased support with which she had accepted all of Iris’s decisions, and overlooked all of her flaws.
“Even if you don’t say anything, I know you think it was wrong for me to leave Gregorio. I vowed to make him happy, and I broke that promise. I’m so sorry, Auntie Rosa. You always said I was just like you, but I’m not. You took care of Grandma and Grandpa and Dolores and Uncle Alfred, and me, and all of us. You used to say that making other people happy was what made you happy. You used to say, ‘the greater the love, the greater the sacrifice.’ Why couldn’t I be more like you? Why wasn’t making Gregorio happy enough to make me happy?” Kneeling on the floor at her aunt’s feet, Iris was swallowed by a doubt so deep, she had never been able to put it into words, not even in her most private thoughts. “Did I make a mistake, Auntie Rosa?” she blurted out. “Will I regret what I did? Will I?”
The Complete Series Page 130