Circle of Stones

by Suzanne Alyssa Andrew

  “Hello, I’m here to see Agnes Moreland,” I say. My voice wobbles. “I’m her daughter.”

  “Sure, you go on up.” The nurse pauses, waiting for me to move. I stand there until she realizes I need the room number. She consults a clipboard list and smiles. “Three oh five.”

  There’s a stooped, white-haired woman with a walker in the elevator. She doesn’t look up at me and I’m not sure she can. On the third floor I clear my throat and listen to it echo in the empty halls. The air is heavy with disinfectant. Beside each room is a photo of the inhabitant inside. Every door has a name plaque and I delight in the Modernist-era monikers: Myrna, Eloise, Lydia, Edmond. Agnes.

  I knock. When I put my ear to the door I hear TV, a faint “hello,” and a cough. I press down on the cold metal lever and push. The room is bathed in sunlight. My mother is propped up into a seated position in her hospital bed, surrounded by pillows. She holds a white teddy bear in the bend of one arm and nods her head up and down. She’s wearing a pink cotton nightgown and a green velour bathrobe that’s at least three decades old. It still has all of its pink plastic flower buttons intact.

  “Hi, Mom,” I say, standing over her. I turn and fake cough over my shoulder, stopping myself from the horrible thing that sounds like choking. Then I put my trembling hand on top of her idle one.

  She looks up at me and her eyes are still the same blue. “Hello,” she says, without a flicker of recognition. “Is it time for dinner?”

  Disappointment is the worst emotion.

  “It’s breakfast time, Mom,” I say. “Did you have breakfast, Mom?” I repeat the name, hoping it will trigger her memory.

  My mother presses random buttons on the TV remote control and the channel changes to sports. She’s always disliked sports. She stares at a soccer game with a content expression.

  “Look at that nice young man,” she says of one or all of the Italian players running around the field. “Isn’t he handsome?”

  I sit down on the guest chair beside the bed and study mother’s puffy face. I want to trace each new line and crevice with my fingers. The map of old age. Her white hair has thinned. I should not have to see my mother’s scalp. I grasp to remember her with lustrous, long dark curls, in a flowered sundress that floated as she walked. I wait for her to tease me about my dark, wrinkled suit, the grey in my hair. But Mom lies inert and silent. She is small and thin, and the velour housecoat is too big. I reach over to straighten her collar, like she used to fix me, and notice the rickrack trim is coming unstitched. I am already too frayed. I fumble in my bag for my phone.

  Anne: 9:57 a.m. The child is the father of the man.

  Anne: 9:58 a.m. Sorry. I want to tell you I am here.

  Anne: 10:02 a.m. Mom doesn’t remember me.

  I hover, uncertain. I hear footsteps and turn, expecting to see Sondra. But it’s a middle-aged nurse wearing a yellow cardigan over blue scrubs. She’s holding a cardboard cup of medication. I don’t know how to talk to medical professionals. Where is my sister?

  “Hello,” the nurse says to me. “You must be the other daughter. Sondra’s told me all about you.”

  I step back while she pours a cupful of water from a blue plastic jug at the nightstand. “I’m visiting from Toronto today,” I say.

  The nurse nods, then places her hand on my mother’s shoulder.

  “Hi, Agnes,” she says loudly, leaning in close to my mother’s face. “It’s time for more medication.”

  “Well, is it time for supper?” my mother asks in an exasperated voice.

  “No, Agnes, you just had breakfast. We’ll be serving lunch soon, though. Here are your meds, dear.”

  My mother swallows the pills and water obediently.

  “When are we going to the market?” she asks the nurse. “I have to get a good roast and some potatoes for Sunday supper or your father will be all out of sorts.”

  “We don’t need to go shopping today, Agnes,” the nurse says. “Just relax and visit with your daughter. She’s here to see you all the way from Toronto.”

  “I hate Toronto,” my mother says. “But you’re very nice,” she adds, patting the nurse’s hand.

  “She’s been having problems with her eyes and she won’t wear her glasses,” the nurse says to me. “That’s why she seems a little more confused than usual. She can’t see very well. So sit close and she’ll know you’re here. It’ll be fine.”

  Sondra: 10:11 a.m. She doesn’t remember much of anything.

  The nurse fluffs my mother’s pillows and steps out of the room. Her white running shoes squeak down the hall. I look at my mom again. She doesn’t see me. She can’t see. I watch her eyelids droop closed as she falls asleep. I look around her room and remember how the red Ukrainian embroidery picture used to hang above the kitchen table in our house. The painting of the woods with the path leading to a lake used to be in the dining room. I wonder who lives in our old house now.

  Sondra wasn’t at all sentimental about selling it. We fought and I grieved like someone had died. I still miss my father’s study. Stuffed full of books and neatly organized papers, it smelled like leather and dust and felt like information. I thought I could become smarter just by making an appearance there. I have fond memories of sitting in the big chair and reading. And asking my dad the answers to perplexing questions. His mind was a computer until the end.

  If I had visited more, would my mother still recognize me? I close my eyes and press my fingers against my temples. When my dad died he left Mom alone with all of our family memories. Within a half-dozen years she began scrambling them all, serving up non sequiturs as regularly as she used to whip up bacon and eggs. Sondra found her addled sayings and muddled sentences hilarious.

  I don’t think memory loss is funny.

  I sit and wait and listen. Eventually I hear high heels clacking down the corridor. I immediately straighten. Sondra appears in the doorway. Tidy hair, predictable cardigan. There are wrinkles in her slacks.

  In books this is the turning point of the narrative arc when the sisters tearfully hug and cling to each other in mutual adoration and forgiveness.

  Sondra freezes. I fail to smile.

  “It’s almost easier to text you,” she says. “One of us is going to have to sign the form.”

  “What form?” I ask, unsure why we’re discussing paperwork.

  “DNR.”

  My sister’s efficiency is exhausting. I want Mom to open her eyes now. I need to know if she still recognizes my sister. I need to compare, compete, work toward something. I want more time. But my mother sleeps. Sondra stands and I sit. I stand, then Sondra sits. Neither of us notice when my mother awakes.

  “Bernie?” she shouts. “Bernie! Teakettle tooth wig! Aaaaahhhh!”

  I’m startled. Scared. But when I look at Sondra, she shrugs.

  “She gets agitated,” Sondra says, handing me a Kit Kat bar. “This is what she likes now. She’ll probably eat the whole thing and calm down.”

  Our father’s name was Leonard.

  “It’s okay, Mom. It’s okay,” I say. I stand up and pat her hand. “I have some chocolate for you, Mom.” I open the package, break off the first piece and offer it to her. She picks it up and examines it closely before popping it into her mouth. Her dentures move up and down, liquid chocolate beading at the corner of her lip.

  I move to sit down, but she puts a hand over mine on the pink chenille bedspread. “I don’t know who you are,” she says, her voice booming in the stillness of the room, “but I sure do like you.”

  We spend an hour suspended together in this simple choreography. She is delighted anew with each piece of chocolate. Sondra leans against the window, clicking buttons on her BlackBerry.

  I’m startled by voices in the hall. More shouting. I release Mom’s hand to go take a look. Mom’s nurse is standing, arms crossed, lips pursed, glaring at a teenaged girl with an impossibly thick black ponytail.

  “You had no right!” the girl sputters.

 
“Shhhh,” her mother says sharply.

  “Half the stuff I wrote in that journal is made up!” the girl shrieks.

  “Lhia —”

  “It’s mostly not true. I make things up!”

  “Lhia,” her mother says, “we’ll talk about it later. Go do your homework.”

  “But Mom —”

  “Go.” The nurse gives her daughter a stern push toward a door marked Employees Only. I duck back into my mother’s room.

  Oh, fantasies. And youthful daydreams. And make-believe. I used to fight with my mother, too. I remember standing in the kitchen after school. I must have been in grade eight or nine. There’s the Ukrainian embroidery hanging on the sand-coloured wall. There’s my mother’s big red kettle chugging to a boil on the stove. I’m leaning against the old white Formica countertop, banging the back of my heel against the bevelled cupboard door.

  “Mom, why don’t you just tell me how to solve these math problems so I can get my homework done?”

  “Because you have to figure it out for yourself, Anne.” Mom is fussing over a coffee cake she’s about to put in the oven.

  “But Dad helps me all the time!”

  “Anne, can’t you see I’m busy? I’ve got to get some baking and cooking done or we won’t be eating tonight. You’re a smart girl. You go do your own homework.”

  I remember stomping up the stairs to my room to solve my own math problems. I must have flung myself across the soft surface of my bed and struggled through it by myself. My dad may have helped me with my university and scholarship applications, but it was my mom who pushed me and challenged me. She gave me the fight to get there.

  “Thanks, Mom,” I say.

  “Do you know when Anne is coming home?” My mom’s eyes flutter open as she says it. “She’s been studying for so long.”

  Sondra looks up from her screen.

  I gaze into my mother’s bleary face. I miss her.

  Tina

  I usually wake up to political news. I like hearing about the latest games in the House of Commons, and when you live in Ottawa you have to keep up. It’s what people talk about. The top story on CBC Radio this morning is gruesome, though: all about an unidentified body found floating face down in the canal. A reporter speculates about how and why it ended up there. I listen to a clip from an officer asking witnesses to come forward. Why don’t they ever come forward? I turn my clock radio off, get up, stand by Lhia’s door, and open it slowly. Long tangles of hair on the pillow, Lhia softly snoring under the covers. Snug and secure. I watch my daughter sleep and press two fingers to my wrist, counting my pulse until it slows. I assure myself everything is fine and will continue to be. It’s been years. We’re safe now. And it’s time to get ready for work. I don’t want to miss the bus.

  My shoes squeak on the clean, shiny floor. I want to throw myself into my work, but the ward is quiet. After ten years of geriatic nursing I’ve grown used to noisy mornings. Old folks wake up early, confused and in pain. Little old ladies like to chat, but without their hearing aids in yet they shout. Or they turn their TVs on and crank the volume. I’d rather hear moaning and griping than my steps echoing across the muted and empty hallways. I want to hear signs of life from each room as I walk by.

  Nurses talk. But when the head nurse hands off the charts she doesn’t say anything about the sudden silence. I double-check my charts and nothing is different. Rounds have all been reported. No significant changes or new conditions listed. Everything filled out just the way it should be. Night shift is getting more efficient. Or my hearing isn’t as sensitive as it used to be because I’m raising a teenager. Or something.

  I start my rounds. Every morning I administer meds and make sure everyone on the floor is fed. I help a handful of patients into their chairs and wheel them to the dining room. I shuffle along with the stubborn, independent ones struggling with walkers. I bring trays to the really old, infirm, or confused ones. This morning I have to wake most of my patients up. That’s unusual. It makes me feel like I’m interrupting, startling them. But then I get busy and there’s no more time to speculate. There are hands to hold and stories to listen to, pulses to check, breathing to regulate, and oxygen to be administered. By mid-morning I’m already exhausted and we’re just getting started. I head to the nurses’ lounge to have a cup of coffee and put my feet up. When I get there, Faye, an older nurse and recent transfer from a nearby facility, is sitting in my spot. She’s settled in: eyes closed, hands folded on her round, wobbling gut, breathing in a slow rhythm.

  Kim is already sitting at the table with a big mug of coffee in her tiny, French-manicured hands. She’s been working here as long as I have.

  “Morning, Tina. Come have a seat over here!”

  Kim is perpetually upbeat. When I first met her it drove me crazy. I also thought she was a bit stupid. Her hairsprayed and bleached-blonde hair tends to reinforce that impression. But for her, being chipper is like wearing makeup every day. I’ve worked with her long enough to see her angry and in tears. I know all about her husband and kids. Sometimes she feels like my family. Not like a sibling, though. More like a cousin.

  “What’s with Sleeping Beauty?” I nod toward Faye, whose chin is now slick with drool.

  “Don’t know. She was on night shift.” Kim blows on the surface of her coffee and then slurps it. “Guess she needed a nap before getting in her car and driving home.”

  “It was sure quiet on the floor when I got in this morning.” I wipe a handful of cookie crumbs off the counter and help myself to the last dredges from the coffee pot. I start setting up the basket to make more. Nobody else will. “Must have been a rowdy night.”

  “Yeah.” Kim thinks for a minute, stares at her hands, and picks at a cuticle. “Well, it’s probably just the change of season. Time for some extra vitamin D, maybe.”

  “Oh, don’t tell me winter’s coming,” I say, plunking down into a chair beside Kim and sighing. “You’re the harbinger of frost and snow every year.”

  “Ooh, snow! I can’t wait.” Kim’s eyes bulge when she grins. She could have mild hyperthyroidism. “I’m getting brand-new ski boots this year. Hot pink, I think. I’m done with the powder-blue ones.”

  I haven’t been skiing since high school. We went cross-country across frozen farm fields in beat-up boots and hand-me-down wool sweaters. Kim’s ski trips are something else entirely. I look at my watch and gulp my coffee. It’s bitter and strong. Faye shifts in the comfy chair and opens her eyes.

  “Timeisit?” She slurs the words and wipes the drool from her mouth with the back of her hand, like a teenager.

  “Time to get the skis out!” Kim laughs, as though this is funny.

  “Day shift coffee time,” I say. I chug more coffee and plunk the cup down on the table. “You must have been run ragged last night, Faye.”

  “Naaahh. Folks were pretty quiet,” Faye says. “The way I like it. Less work for me.”

  Kim and I exchange a look.

  “Oh, we never run out of work here, Faye,” Kim says, getting up to rinse her mug. She lets the hot water run and warms her hands under it.

  “And we’ll never have a shortage of patients.” I peer at the bottom of my empty cup. “People don’t stop getting old.”

  Faye shrugs and picks a couple of crumbs off her blue scrub shirt. It’s stained down the front. I consider offering her one of my extras, but she’s several sizes bigger than me. She’ll be heading home soon and it’s nothing a good wash and a bit of bleach won’t fix. I look away. Kim’s doing her shoulder and neck stretches. She’s probably a dozen sizes smaller than Faye. Weighs no more than a hundred pounds and can hoist around patients as good as anyone. She’s like Mighty Mouse. Must be something to all that expensive skiing. I stand up and rinse my cup out. Then we’re both ready to get back to work. Faye still has her feet up.

  “See ya later, Faye!” Kim pushes the door open to the ward.

  “Have a good one.” I’m right behind Kim, rubbing sanitizer into my
palms. Neither of us wait to hear Faye’s reply.

  The afternoon is a blur of lunches, meds, pulses, and temperatures. Kim and I decide to call an ambulance for Mr. McCreally because his temperature is up and his nose is tinged with blue. Could be a chest infection. Or water on the lung. Kim assists the EMT staffers and transfers his charts while I call his son and his daughter. Their daytime numbers both have extensions, which means they’re at work. That’s usually the worst time to tell people. It’s even worse than calling at night, because when they’re at work they’re already stressed. At least both of them answer. I hate to leave messages.

  I relay the news in the calm, detailed way I’ve been taught, controlling my voice and taking my time so they don’t panic. Both of them say they’re heading straight for the hospital. I like families like that: people who make themselves available and play a role in a loved one’s care. So many of our patients don’t have anybody left. Or their families are far away. Or worse, too busy. And sometimes families get complacent. For some reason, the longer someone lives in long-term care, the more their families get used to it. They can start thinking they still have plenty of time left with a loved one. That’s hardly ever the case.

  An ER nurse calls with the test results at the end of the day. McCreally has pneumonia. He’s ninety-six and suffers from at least half a dozen health concerns so I know it’s unlikely I’ll ever see him again. Kim’s eyes go misty when I tell her, but I don’t cry about patients. Crying is one of those self-indulgent things I’ve gotten used to not having, like party drugs or alcohol. Don’t get me started crying because I won’t stop.

  I stay late to finish my charts and the evening shift staffers are all on the floor by the time I leave. When I walk past the storage closet Faye is sorting bandages. She’s still here, still wearing the same stained scrub shirt. She turns and I look away. If I were the head nurse I’d have something to say about that, but how she presents herself is none of my business and I’ve got a bus to catch.