by Mike Barnes
8:50. Nothing takes long enough. By 9:05 I’ve got the sign made. Front and back panels cut from someone’s flatscreen box left outside the garbage room. A steady supply of cardboard and styrofoam, all sizes. Folks will scrimp on food and clothes before they deny themselves electro-fun. Collar from some plastic strapping. Upstairs, the words are waiting for me. Written on the air in front of my eyes. I take them down in black magic marker.
§
Over on Laird, the sign carrier’s in position outside Five Guys. Not shuffling with his sign, though. Sitting cross-legged on the curb, slumped and dishevelled. Collapsed Buddha needing a shave. Topknot wild and woolly, unenlightened frizz.
“They said 9:00. 9:00 to 2:00… five hours. Now they say… 11:30. 11:30, 1:30. Maybe that.”
His speech glomps like cold ketchup.
“There’s no minimum shift?”
“Minimum?”
“I’ll pick you up here when you’re done. 1:45, say. I’ve got a one-hour job for you. One hour tops. But you get paid for four, no matter what. Forty bucks minimum.”
No way to tell what gets through the glaze of his eyes. Gray-green gel, like aquarium build-up.
“New rules?” he says finally, squinting up at me.
“Old ones. You’ll like them better than the new.”
§
“This is nice. I can picture her here, I think.”
“Good, good. Visualizing them in the new space is always the first step.” Nicole sounds bored, sleepy even on the verge of a sale. “Take your time. I’ll just be over here if you have any questions.”
She moves halfway down the corridor and stands with her head lowered, hands flat out in front of her, thumbs almost touching. Blonde hair falling forward as she checks her nails. Then swivels one hand out to the side and, with a deft ankle turn, cocks a high-heeled pump below it. Same shade exactly. Creamy purple, lilac stirred with milk. Shapes of people moving about Reception in the space beyond the door. A central location, as promised. They tend to go fast.
At seven grand a month to start—the bottom of the rate schedule she slid across in the office—probably not so fast. It’s the Basic Rooms in government-regulated homes that get snapped up, that have three-year waiting lists. And no need for saleswomen.
Turn back to the window. Bird feeder on a nearly leafless sapling. Sparrows and finches darting between it and a large blue spruce. Stocking up under a pewter sky. Blue carpet, stains driven deep. Cream walls, the nail holes gone. A bigger, cleaner room than Maude’s upstairs. But same basic layout.
Single bed. Pine table and chair. Water glass, coffee mug. No pictures.
Vivera’s Mad Monk. A strange case, but our easiest resident ever, no question. Seldom speaks. No, not a vow of silence exactly, but yeah, mostly mute. Don’t knock except for meals.
Right. With Jordan’s payoff lasting what, two years? Ken screaming holy ass-rape with each month’s auto-withdrawal. Doing his blue-suited best to prevent nest-egg suicide.
Closing window thoughts, chum. Hear them and pick up the pace.
“I think it’s time to see upstairs. The… secure ward, I think you called it.”
Opens and closes her eyes two times, slowly, like someone roused from sleep. Lashes coated black and knobbed like tulip anthers. “Our Memory Gardens, the second floor, is always part of the tour. But, I’m sorry, didn’t you say your mother—”
“My wife.”
“I’m sorry, your wife.” Touching my arm. “Didn’t you say your wife was still living with you? For someone still capable of semi-independent living, it would be very unusual to graduate directly to Memory Gardens. Unless she’s…”
“She’s very advanced, yes. Very far gone.”
Another touch on the arm, this time lingering. “In that case you must be a saint.”
“Maybe a slow-moving sinner.”
“Oh! Right! Ha ha. You definitely need a sense of humour, that’s for sure.”
“Use it or lose it.”
She doesn’t do a Face-fuck, I’ll give her that. Stays vaguely on my eyes, no flicks to the scar map they’re sunk in.
“Let’s go and make our visit.”
1112.
Someone must have slipped out. Probably by accident. Four pushes on the 1.
Down the corridor opposite Maude’s. Opens into an alcove with three sofas around a coffee table. Nobody. Against the wall opposite, a creepy big black rocking cradle, slatted sides, baby blankets and clothes, stuffed animals. “…of our Life Stations.” Near it, on a wooden table, two old black typewriters and a Burroughs adding machine. William Burroughs? Wasn’t he a remit man from an ancestor’s invention? Old Bill of The Western Lands and The Ticket That Exploded right at home here. Less so—or else just differently—the three Hopper-esque paintings on the wall. Like someone trying in watercolour to give a Hallmark glow to empty streets and solitary diners, a gas station with cracked asphalt. A bizarre project. The more so given how well they’re executed. Like staring down tubes of lunacy.
“We call it the ever-forgiving.”
“What?”
“Here. Where we are. The Memory Gardens neighbourhood.”
Beautiful heft and clunkiness of the machines. Big round keys, solid for striking. Raised numbers and letters in plain, no-nonsense fonts. That sense, in old movies, that the rotary dial phone, the clacking typewriter are of a piece, can hold their own, with the decanters on the sideboard, the oak desk, the heavy pulled drapes. And the utter visual collapse whenever someone whips out a cellphone in a modern movie, which directors, aping verisimilitude, have them do constantly. The weightless thing: pure function, free of gravity. Gravity of form, of beauty. The sense of being racked during close-ups on computer screens. Pixel dance torment. Why we hunger to get back to the serial guy. Real steel. Real throats.
“I assume there are sign-in, sign-out protocols. For residents and visitors.”
“Oh, yes, of course. For safety and for security. Both. There’s a book on this floor and one down on Assisted.”
“And you keep the pages, I guess?”
“Keep?” She cocks her head, smiles sweetly. “Honestly, I’ve never been asked that. But it’s a good question.”
“But you see the previous pages if you flip back through.”
Glance down the hall, then back. She doesn’t have a clue. “I’m pretty sure it’s just the day’s page. Keep it simple for everybody.”
“Where do the old records go?”
She frowns, perplexed by my persistence on this niggle. “Let’s start back, shall we?” Good idea. Rosemary’s Baby and Burroughs and Hopper Lite and the vaporized cocktail party aren’t helping either of us. “They must go somewhere. To the Director of Care, I assume. Or maybe to the Executive Director, since they’re not really a care issue. It’s a good question. I’ll find out for you. I’m glad you asked, actually.” Liar.
Halfway back, we pass a caregiver pushing a woman in a wheelchair. The resident cranes up at me. “Would you come here, please?” In a high, pained voice. I do. She’s got a doll in her lap, a blanket tucked around it. “Give me your hand, will you?” I do. She presses it against her cheek—cool and soft, like her hand—and then brings it to her lips and kisses my palm, slowly. “I love you,” she says. A smell of soiled diapers surrounds the words. They bloom in the stink, swamp lily. “Who’s this little one?” I say. “That’s my Jackie.” Lifting him by the hair to stand on her thigh. “Don’t go,” she whines as I withdraw my hand.
Behind me, I catch a look on Nicole’s face like she’s opened her refrigerator door and seen earthworms crawling her lettuce. She’ll never make it in sales. Or maybe will shoot straight to the top. I know more about Mars.
“What do you do if you can’t forgive?”
“Excuse me?”
“You said ever-forgiving. I know you meant because
they forget so quickly. But as long as there’s mental activity at all, there may be things you can’t forget and can’t forgive.”
“Join them on the journey,” she says tonelessly. Looks behind her at a loud voice near Reception. We’re back in the first floor room. “Whatever journey they’re on, join them on it,” she recites.
I can’t blame her. A shit start to her week. Grief-addled husband parsing straws, when she could have drawn a couple of well-lubed offspring eager to offload Dad and just needing the dotted line. I’m sagging too. I’m not going to find out anything more about Maude here. Gone is gone, and gone here is gone quick. Two days ago—Saturday—might as well be two years. All I’ve really learned is that Vivera—maybe any private care home—works like a kind of processing plant. Intake is downstairs, where you can still walk outside. From there you “graduate” to the locked unit, where vacancies are as brief as possible. Maude’s room is already taken. Final graduation as per Maude’s.
The owner of the loud voice outside comes into the room. Walks past Nicole, past me, without a greeting. Square, mannish shape, broad shoulders. Short brown hair. Sensible navy slacks, cream shirt. Like Jade, she claims the space too naturally to offend, asserting herself in it like a rock. Stands with her hands on her hips and her back to us, looking out the window.
“Is this your wife? Or another family member?” Poor Nicole. I hope she brought a good lunch.
The woman turns without haste. A gaze strong and direct, this side steely. Could tear up, but she won’t let it happen. Not here, not with us.
“She was my friend. I looked after her.”
“Who? Where?”
A hint of condescension in the smile. A capable person, used to handling fumblers.
“Lots of places. This room was the last.”
As I realize with a shock that this room, too, was Maude’s. Her first at Vivera, before she got shipped upstairs.
§
The woman, whose name is Danika, shrugs when I invite her to lunch. Doesn’t ask for details when I tell her Judy’s my connection to the family. Saying I want to talk about Maude enough for her, it seems.
Danika was with Maude seven years. Working more hours each year, doing more for her. Like helping someone down a very long staircase into the dark, giving them more of your arm with each flight, taking more of the weight as their legs weaken. First, Rosewell Retirement Residence for three years. Then Rosewell’s Enrichment Floor for two years, as Maude became more disoriented and, increasingly, incontinent. When Rosewell couldn’t meet her escalating needs, the move to Vivera’s Assisted Living, the first floor room we met in. Six months ago, the move upstairs.
“And after that she didn’t need your help?”
“She needs more than ever. And I keep helping. I told you, we are friends. I work for her and she’s my friend. But… we run into a problem. Lots of problems, of course. All the time. We always find a way to solve. This time a big one, though. She starts to think I’m someone who wants to hurt her. Very upset when she sees me. This happens. Lots of times, it happens. Maybe she thinks I’m a stranger, a bad person. Or maybe someone she knows. We try it for a while, try different things, different times of day, see if it changes again. Then I talk it over with the nursing director, we agree I should stay away. I call two, three times a week, see how she’s doing. This morning I called.”
We’re sitting in the food court at Markville Mall. At a table tucked against a divider near the elevator. There’s hardly an empty seat. Just after noon. Somewhere, Judy just took a pill. Each of us has Amaya’s samosa platter—warmed and chopped open with hot sauce drizzled over, chick pea salad on the side—and a mango lassi. Danika’s treat. And she insisted on driving me over in her new Ford Escape. She’s proud of what she’s made of herself in twenty years in Canada. Works three-quarter time at a care facility, plus for several private clients, a waiting list just from word-of-mouth. Her second day in Canada, she sat down with pen and paper and figured out how many work hours there are in a week, minus six hours for sleeping each night and an allowance for travel time and unavoidable physical necessities. Later, with her private list growing, she found she could cut back sleep to four hours. “Hard at first, then not so hard. The body adjusts.” That big-shouldered shrug.
“What do you think Maude died of?” We’re sitting over coffees now. Danika’s treat again, though I cleared our table and fetched them.
She looks around at the people eating, sitting down, leaving. “She has it six years almost. Some people last a little longer, not too many. Lots of people not so long.”
Back at Vivera, standing by Danika’s car, I show her one of the photos of Maude by the autumn flowers, the water behind. I put it in my coat pocket this morning.
“Did you take this?”
“I don’t take pictures. That’s what this is for.” Tapping her head hard, like a woodpecker’s knock. “To look and keep.”
An odd comment from someone so versed in dementia. Or maybe not. What use is a picture if there’s nothing in your head to match it with?
She studies the photo. “I know where it is, though. Toogood Pond. Ten minutes from here. Just west of Kennedy, in Unionville. We used to go sometimes. Nature she likes very much. Plants, birds. She remembered some of the names a long time. Me, I’m a city person. Cars, stores, lots of jobs. My family lived outside a village in my country. That’s enough. But Maude—she always talks about the farm. Even when she can’t remember anything else. Feeding the chickens. She was afraid of the cows, even when she’s big. Made her dad laugh. Eating peas in the garden. Before she came here and got married.”
“Who do you think took it? Judy?”
“The daughter? If the camera’s pointing at herself, maybe.”
“You don’t like Judy?”
“Like, don’t like. What’s the difference? I never see.”
“Max, then, I guess. He’s the POA.”
She gives me a look. Seriously? Max? Goes back to looking at the photo.
“Sandor, it must be.” She shrugs, but her eyes soften. She smiles at something. Sandor and the ladies. Even the toughest ready to cut him slack.
“So Sandor hired you?”
The quit-jiving look again. “Max hires everyone. POA, like you said. But Sandor brings my pay. Or mails it, the last year. When he couldn’t come. I give him a receipt, or send it.”
“Why couldn’t he come last year?”
She answers without taking her eyes off the picture. “Taking care’s like this.” She puts a hand up by her head and makes a rapid series of gestures with it: fluttering her fingers, shaking them in a fine quiver, spreading them out straight and stiff, then closing them into an abrupt fist and tugging down, like someone yanking an alarm or stop lever. “It’s hard. Hard for anybody. Too hard sometimes.”
“You’ve done it for twenty years.”
“I’m strong. And they’re my friends. Not my mother. Not my father.”
She starts to give me the picture, then pulls it back. Brings it close to her face and looks at it a few long moments—the eye-seal to lock something in place. She hands it to me and, as I’m snapping the pocket shut over it, she wraps me in a hug, hard. It’s hard to breathe inside her iron arms, my ribs still sore from Saturday’s kicking. Looking down, I see the top of her head, tight against my chest. When she steps back, there’s no sign in her face of what just happened. It’s as if I dreamed it.
We head up the walk together, I’m not sure why. Little pumpkins are beside the other gourds in the urns, tucked like large coloured eggs below the dried grasses.
“Danika, you said Maude had Alzheimer’s for six years. But you said you were with her for seven. From when she started living at Rosewell.”
She nods. “I was with her when the doctor told her. I drove her to the appointment. Went for dinner afterwards. My treat, I said, but she won’t let me pa
y. She said she felt relieved. She knew something was wrong in her head a long time, many years. Not Alzheimer’s, something else—bad ideas, pictures—dark things, but she can’t say. ‘At least this has a name,’ she said. Brave lady.”
“Why was she already living in Rosewell then?”
Even as I ask the question, a cold oozy sense comes over me that I’m beginning to recognize as Wyvern slime. Things under rocks that eat each other in the dark.
Danika stops. Seems to take her first good look at me. “She tried to kill herself.” If you don’t know that, who are you? “Stepped in front of a car on Bloor Street.”
“And her injuries were that…”
“Broken arm, broken pelvis. Physically, she healed all right. Little limp, but okay. But after, the family decided she can’t live at home anymore.”
“Meaning Max?” The hard-on I’m getting for this guy.
“Max was already POA. But even Maude agrees. Most of the time anyway. Gets mad about it sometimes. Mad and sad.”
Just inside the doors, on a shelf opposite the sign-in book, a memorial’s gone up while we were at lunch. A circle of Inukshuks an inch high. Each with a clear tapered bulb on top, a light inside, like the mini-bulbs on Christmas strings. Little wooden easel in the center, a silver-framed photo on it. Maude in a straw hat, yellow gloves with dirt on them. Big smile. A planting activity. In Memoriam Maude Wyvern.
We stand in front of it a few moments.
Without saying goodbye, Danika walks across the lobby and lounge, hugs a caregiver she meets just outside Maude’s old door, enters the vacant room, and shuts the door behind her.
I take a few steps into the lobby, not knowing why. You’re done here. And then I see it, on the corner of the bistro counter. A white slow-cooker with the top off. I go over to it, though I know, more or less, what I’ll find. Onions, cloves, cinnamon sticks in taffy-coloured water. A brownish ball that might be an apple. The spicy smell strong close-up. Vivera’s command of details. Why pipe in the fake when the real’s so easy? Cheaper, too.