Ring of Light

by Isobel Bird

  Besides, she was going to get to spend some real quality time with her aunt. That alone was enough to make her whole summer. Added to everything else, it made her feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

  She looked around for her aunt and was surprised to discover that she wasn’t there. The chair she’d been sitting in was empty. Then she looked around and saw a figure standing in the kitchen, her outline silhouetted in the window.

  “I’ll be right back,” Kate whispered to Tyler, and slipped off the table.

  She walked to the back door and went inside. Her aunt was leaning against the sink. She held a glass of water in her hand, and she had just put something into her mouth. She took a sip of water and threw her head back, swallowing. When she looked up and saw Kate there, she quickly put down the glass, picked up a small bottle from the counter, and tucked the bottle into her pocket.

  “Hey there,” she said. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “I just wanted to tell you that you’re missing the best part of the show,” Kate said.

  “I was just coming out,” Aunt Netty said. “I just needed to take some aspirin.”

  “Are you okay?” Kate asked, concerned. “You look a little tired.”

  “I’m fine,” her aunt said. “I just have a headache from being in the sun so long. I’ll be okay in a minute. Why don’t we go back outside? I bet that boyfriend of yours is missing you.”

  She put her arm around her niece. Then, suddenly, she hugged Kate tightly. “I’m so glad I get to see you again,” she said.

  “Me, too,” Kate answered, hugging her aunt back.

  Netty pulled away. “Now, let’s go,” she said. “I don’t want to miss another minute of this night.”

  CHAPTER 2

  “This is where the dirty sheets go,” the nurse said to Annie, showing her the large wheeled hamper that sat in the hallway. “You strip them off the beds and put them in here. Replace the old sheets with new ones from this shelf. When you’ve done a floor you wheel the whole thing down to the laundry room. It’s not exactly rocket science.”

  Annie laughed nervously. She’d only spent two hours inside Shady Hills and already she wanted to leave. Partly it was the smell—the peculiar combination of antiseptic floor wash and overly sweet perfume. The smell was overwhelming. But mostly it was the sadness. Everywhere she went she saw old people. Their lined faces stared at her as she walked past, and she hated seeing them sitting in their wheelchairs or propped up in their uncomfortable-looking mechanical beds, their eyes staring blankly at the fuzzy pictures on their blaring television sets.

  Why did you ever volunteer for this? she asked herself for perhaps the hundredth time that morning. But she had volunteered, and she was determined to see her commitment through, so she listened to what the nurse, Mrs. Abercrombie, was telling her.

  “Mostly they won’t talk to you,” the older woman said as she walked down the hallway, her white shoes making soft whap-whap sounds on the tile floor. “I don’t think most of them even know where they are anymore. Your job is just to clean their rooms, straighten things up, and make sure they have what they need. Usually you’ll be doing these rounds while they’re at physical therapy or in the common room, so you probably won’t see many of them anyway.”

  That’s one good thing, Annie thought silently. She really didn’t want to see any of the residents. She tried not to peer through the doorways of the rooms they were passing. But she couldn’t help it. The figures in the doorways and on the beds were people, not puppets or mannequins. She found herself wondering how they had ended up in Shady Hills. It wasn’t like it was a prison or anything. In fact, it seemed pretty nice. But she couldn’t help but see the nursing home as a kind of prison. She knew she would never want to have to live in it, or in anyplace like it.

  “How long have you been working here?” she asked Mrs. Abercrombie.

  “Seventeen years,” the nurse answered. “Before you were born, right?”

  Annie nodded, and the nurse sighed. “You girls make me feel old,” she said. “Pretty soon I’ll be sitting in one of these rooms.”

  “Don’t you find it a little depressing?” asked Annie. “I mean, being around this all day and everything.”

  Mrs. Abercrombie nodded. “Sometimes,” she said. “Holidays are particularly bad. But I look at it this way—we’re all going to get old, right? One of these days it really could be me in one of these beds. If I ever am, I want someone to treat me nicely. So I try to do the same for the guests here.”

  Guests, Annie thought. It was a strange word to use for people who were basically waiting to die. But Mrs. Abercrombie spoke about the patients as if they were at some kind of hotel where everything they might want would be provided for them. Annie imagined her leading the old people in games or encouraging them to take advantage of the all-you-can-eat buffet.

  “Let me ask you something,” Mrs. Abercrombie said. “Why are you here? You could be doing a lot of other things with your summer, so why this?”

  Annie paused. Should she tell the nurse the real reason she was at Shady Hills? She wanted to, but she didn’t think it was a good idea.

  “I think it will look good on my college applications,” she said, hoping the nurse wouldn’t ask her too much more about it.

  Mrs. Abercrombie grunted. “I get it,” she said. “Charity work always looks good. Well, I don’t really care why you’re here as long as you do your work. Promise me you won’t skip out after two weeks and that’s good enough for me.”

  “I won’t skip out,” Annie said. “I promise.”

  “Okay then,” the nurse replied. “Why don’t you finish changing the beds on this floor. When you’re done, come find me and I’ll show you the rest of your exciting duties.”

  “Sure,” said Annie. “Where should I start?”

  “This room is as good as any,” Mrs. Abercrombie said. “Work your way down this side and then back up the other.”

  The nurse walked away, leaving Annie outside the room. Annie turned and looked through the doorway. The blinds on the window were down, and the room was dimly lit by the sunlight coming through the slats. But still it was hard to see.

  “Hello?” Annie called. “Is anyone there?”

  There was no answer. She tried again, but still no one responded. Good, she thought as she went inside. At least I won’t have to talk to anyone.

  She flipped on the light and looked around. Like all of the rooms at Shady Hills, the one she was in was small. The walls had been painted a pale yellow, and on the floor beside the bed was a small yellow rug. Even the curtains were yellow, as if someone thought that surrounding the room’s owner with the cheerful color would make the place seem more comforting. It reminded Annie of the classroom she’d had in kindergarten. I guess they think old people and children both like bright colors, she mused as she went to the bed and pulled off the bedspread, which was the same shade as everything else.

  She pulled the sheets from the bed, wadded them up, and carried them back into the hallway, where she dumped them into the waiting hamper. Taking fresh sheets from the shelf on the side of the cart, she went back and spread the bottom sheet over the mattress. Then came the top sheet, the corners of which she tucked in like her aunt had taught her to do to make them nice and neat. The whole process took only a couple of minutes, and then she was putting the bedspread back over the top.

  She started to leave, anxious to get on to the next room. But as she passed the dresser that sat at the foot of the bed, she happened to glance at the items sitting on top of it. There, next to a container of powder and several little vials of medications, was a picture. It showed an old woman surrounded by four smiling young people. The woman was holding a balloon, and behind her there was a big banner reading “Happy Birthday, Grandma!” in big red letters.

  Annie looked at the woman’s face. Was this her room? Were those her grandchildren? She looked more closely at the picture. While the children were laughing and happy, the
woman seemed sad. The hand holding the balloon sat limply in her lap, almost as if the woman didn’t know she was holding anything. She looked tired, and Annie felt bad for her.

  Annie picked up one of the plastic bottles of pills that sat beside the photograph and looked at the label. “Addie Miller,” she read. Was that the woman’s name? She figured it must be. Part of her liked knowing that. But another part of her didn’t like knowing the real person who lived in that room, who spent every day of her life surrounded by yellow things, looking at a picture of herself holding a balloon.

  Annie put down the pills and left the room before she saw anything else. She didn’t want to know too much about the people in the home. But isn’t that why you really came here? she asked herself as she pushed the hamper toward the next room and went inside. Don’t you want to see what it means to grow old? Didn’t you decide to do this after your night with the Oak King and the Holly King? Didn’t you promise the Oak King you would face your fear of death head-on?

  She ignored the voice in her head, concentrating on her work. She stripped the bed without looking at it, tugging the sheets off and replacing them with fresh ones. She blocked out the scent of the room and forced herself not to look at any of the personal items sitting on the bureau or the little table next to the bed. When she left the room, she remembered so little about it that, if asked, she wouldn’t have been able to confidently answer a question about what color the walls were.

  She went down one entire side of the hallway that way, not looking around the rooms, doing only what was necessary. It’s only your first day, she reminded herself again and again. You don’t have to do everything all at once.

  When she reached the end of the hall she turned and made her way back up the other side, the wheels of the hamper squeaking as she pushed it. By now she knew exactly what to do, and she was able to get in and out of the rooms quickly. She was anxious to have this part of her day over with as soon as possible. She didn’t like being in the empty rooms, surrounded by the scattered belongings of their inhabitants. I need time to work up to it, she reassured herself.

  At least she was becoming used to the smell. She hardly noticed it now that she had surrounded herself with it. She wondered if the people who lived there ever noticed it, or if it just smelled like home to them. She thought about her own home, and how good it felt to come in the door and smell food cooking in the kitchen or catch the scent of a fire crackling in the big fireplace. She closed her eyes and recalled the smell of the freshly washed sheets on her bed when she snuggled into them at night, and the way the summer breeze carried the perfume of the garden into her window.

  What did the people who lived in Shady Hills think of when they thought about the smells of home? she wondered. Did they think of the antiseptic smell of floor cleaners and the harsh bleach that was used to clean their sheets? Annie hoped they had more pleasant associations with the place they lived in, but if they did she had no idea what they were. To her the whole place smelled like it needed someone to open all the windows and let the fresh air in.

  She was thinking about this as she entered the last room on the floor. Unlike the other rooms, this one was totally dark because the blinds were completely closed. No light at all came in, and Annie had to turn on the harsh electric light so that she could see what she was doing.

  When the light came on she saw that the room was painted a dreary shade of blue. The color had faded to a washed-out gray, and there was no hint of color anywhere to make the place more appealing. The bedspread was the same dull shade, almost like cloudy water, and there weren’t any curtains at all on the windows. This room is about as appealing as a jail cell, Annie thought as she moved to the bed and began to pull off the sheets.

  Trying to hurry, she made the bed in record time, smoothing out the sheets and tucking everything in. She replaced the worn bedspread and gathered up the old sheets in preparation for leaving. She was anxious to get the dirty linen to the laundry room, find Mrs. Abercrombie, and see what was next for her to do. Cleaning rooms that didn’t have people in them was starting to feel like tidying up a graveyard.

  As she moved to switch off the light, she happened to notice that there was a picture in a frame standing on the battered dresser. Normally the picture wouldn’t have drawn her attention, but it was the only thing breaking the otherwise clean surface of the dresser’s top, and she thought it was odd that there was nothing else there—no bottles of pills, no comb or brush, nothing to indicate that anyone actually lived in the room.

  Annie found herself picking up the picture to look at it. It was an old one, printed in black and white, and the surface of it was creased and wrinkled, as if it had been carried for many years in someone’s pocket. It showed two men standing next to each other with their arms around one another’s shoulders. They were both dressed in some kind of military uniforms, and they were smiling. They look a lot alike, Annie thought as she peered more closely at the image.

  As she was looking at the photo the frame suddenly came apart. The back slipped off and fell to the floor, and Annie was left holding the glass and the photograph in her hand. Great, she thought, now I’ve broken the only thing this person owns.

  She laid the picture carefully on the dresser, glass side down, and bent to retrieve the fallen back. As she did, she noticed that something was written on the back of the photograph. She paused and picked it up again, trying to make out the small, cramped handwriting.

  “To Ben,” it said. “A guy couldn’t ask for a better brother or a better friend. Sorry about the fender. All the best, Tad.”

  Sorry about the fender? Annie repeated to herself as she put the photo down again, puzzled. What was that supposed to mean? It seemed like a weird thing to write on a photo for someone. Apparently, the men in the picture were brothers. Was one of them the person who lived in the room now?

  She reached down and picked up the piece of the frame that was still on the floor. When she stood up again she let out a little shriek—there was a face reflected in the mirror attached to the wall behind the dresser. It was a man’s face, and it was angry.

  Annie turned and saw an elderly man standing in the doorway, watching her. He was dressed in a blue cardigan and brown pants, and his gray hair was parted neatly on one side and slicked back. One hand rested on the handle of a silver cane, and the other was raised, one finger pointing at Annie.

  “What did you do?” the man asked, his voice shaking.

  Annie looked at the pieces of the picture frame in her hands. “Oh,” she said. “I picked this up and the back accidentally fell off.”

  “You broke it!” the man said, stepping forward into the room. “You were touching my things and you broke it.”

  “No,” said Annie. “I mean, yes, I touched it. But it isn’t broken. See, the back just slides on.”

  She started to put the frame back together, but the old man started waving his hand at her. “Just go,” he said. “Go on, get out of here. Don’t touch that.”

  He limped over to where Annie stood and made a feeble attempt at grabbing the picture from her. When he did, he knocked both pieces out of her hand. The glass landed on the floor and shattered, sending tiny pieces scattering over the tile. The old man let out a wail.

  “It’s okay,” Annie said, starting to kneel and clean up the mess. “The picture isn’t damaged.”

  “Get out!” the man yelled, shaking his cane. “Leave me alone!”

  Annie had never heard someone sound so angry. The old man’s voice shook with rage, and she could see his whole body trembling. She wanted to help him, to make things right, but she knew he just wanted her out of his room. Standing up, she tried once more to apologize. “I’m really sorry—” she began.

  “Go!” he bellowed. “And don’t come back here again.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, thought better of it, and ran out of the room, leaving the angry old man staring down at the pieces of broken glass. She didn’t know what to do. Should she cal
l a janitor or someone to help him clean up the glass? Should she just leave him alone? She wasn’t sure. He’d been so angry at her that part of her didn’t want to help him at all. But he looked so sad, she thought as she hurriedly pushed the laundry cart down the hall away from his room.

  She turned the corner and almost ran right over Mrs. Abercrombie, who was walking in the other direction, a clipboard in her hand.

  “Whoa there,” the nurse said. “Are you in that big of a hurry to get to the next job?”

  “I’m sorry,” Annie said. “I just had sort of a run-in with one of the patients. I mean, guests,” she added, remembering that she’d been instructed never to refer to the residents of Shady Hills in any way that made it sound like they were in a hospital.

  “Run-in?” Mrs. Abercrombie said. “What happened?”

  Annie explained what had occurred in the room down the hall. When she was finished, she was surprised to hear Mrs. Abercrombie laugh. “That was old Ben Rowe,” she said. “Don’t mind him. He’s the terror of Shady Hills.”

  “I thought you’d be angry,” Annie said. “He sure was.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t have touched anything that belongs to a guest,” said the nurse. “But you didn’t mean any harm. I’ll send someone to help Ben clean up the glass.”

  “I should probably go apologize,” Annie commented.

  Mrs. Abercrombie shook her head. “It won’t do any good,” she said. “Ben hates everyone. We all gave up a long time ago trying to make friends with him. Now we just stay out of his way. Just forget about him. Come on, I’ll introduce you to the joys of feeding Jell-O to people with no teeth.”

  Annie walked away with Mrs. Abercrombie, relieved to be getting as far away as she could from old Ben. That must have been him in the photo, she thought as they walked. Him and his brother. He’d been so handsome in the picture. She wondered what had happened to make him so miserable and unpleasant. It was hard to imagine the old man who had shaken his cane at her and told her to get out of his room ever being a young, smiling man.