by Joan Barfoot
So today June will go to see the nursing home and seeing it, she will be able to picture Aggie here and there in it. It’s Aggie’s own fault, since she’s the one who insisted June face the words. Now the words bring it closer. Of all people, Aggie ought to realize the power and authority of giving names to things.
God has tested her with Aggie, but it is not His fault. It wasn’t her father’s fault, either. Aggie can say all she wants, “For heaven’s sake, June, you were just a child,” but a child knows. Those children at school, they sniff out things that are perfectly true. That’s why you have to be so careful with them.
What June remembers of Aggie from when she was a child is her footsteps clicking swiftly around the house, often almost breaking into a run. Always busy, except when she sat down abruptly to read. Racing, racing, no time to spare, and what did she do that required such fine scheduling? Washing, ironing, mending, sewing, cooking, cleaning — unskilled work that anyone could do, not like real work, not like being a teacher. Wasting energy on things that would only be dirty and crumpled and torn and eaten by tomorrow.
And then later Aggie made a living making things to be consumed. For years, the lines in her hands were white with flour, and she smelled like perspiration and raisins. Everything she did contained its own destruction. Maybe that’s why she has no faith in a permanent grace.
In the hall mirror June checks her hair, seams, and hem. It’s not only a matter of dressing properly, but of self-respect. Standards. This is something she never managed to get through Frances’s head: that keeping up appearances and standards is important. Never in all her life would June consider having breakfast in her housecoat, or checking the mailbox on the porch without combing her hair, or lounging in a chair with her feet up.
“For goodness’ sake, Frances,” she has said, seeing her daughter, in jeans and an old T-shirt, slouching on the couch, an ankle resting on a knee, like a man. Or with her legs sprawled, arms waving, a cigarette like an extra finger.
“Jesus, Mother, who cares how your legs are crossed as long as you’re comfortable? Leave me alone.”
Apart from self-respect, there is the matter of other people. Frances has been known to wear her bathing suit out in the front yard, and shorts downtown, shrugging, seeing nothing wrong with that. “I dress up when I work, Mother. Surely I don’t have to bother here. Why can’t I just be comfortable?”
What kind of person is comfortable looking like a tramp, June would like to ask, but never has. There are some things about Frances that it’s better not to know. The word tramp is no longer in vogue; that Frances might be one is unthinkable, although sometimes June has wondered, watching her, what or who may have touched her. She does not give an impression of innocence. She says things like, “Never mind, Mother, I’d rather be a woman than a lady anyway.”
Aggie’s fault. Aggie who taught Frances she could do anything, had her climbing trees when she was a child, and itching to leave home when she grew up. “Get out and do things,” Aggie advised, and never mind what June thought.
Did Aggie set out to achieve a granddaughter who thinks only of her own convenience, who refuses difficulties and makes frivolous choices? Probably. But some day Frances will crash, and what will her grandmother have to say to her then? Events even out. Or so June hopes.
Frances talks about freedom, but means only selfishness. Where would she have been if June had aimed for freedom? They would have starved, the two of them. They would have been homeless. It’s all very well for Frances, with her education and her work, her tearing around the country wearing jeans, but she judges from that perspective. She does not understand what was impossible for June. She may be in her thirties now, but she is still harsh and young that way.
June wonders what another life might have been like. There are religions, heathen ones, that offer the possibility of returning after death in other forms. Then a person could come back and try it differently, take another run at it, see it from a different point of view. Have a different mother, take a different husband, maybe bear a different daughter. One might come back unaware of consequences and lacking a sense of goodness, which in many ways might be a relief. On the other hand, there would be the terrible tedium of repetition. Imagine going through all the years of a life, and then having to do it all again.
Also, as June understands it, there is no guarantee in those faiths of a return in human form. Wouldn’t it be just her luck to come back as an insect, living in a crack, waiting to be stepped on; or as a stray kitten, wet and cold and feeding out of garbage in the middle of the night? She might return as a baby bird, the weakest one, nudged out by bigger brothers and sisters, falling to earth and lying there helpless until the hungry stray kitten she might also be came along and made a meal.
Striding along the sidewalk, June suddenly sees herself from God’s perspective, far away and looking down. To Him her life must be only a moment. He may see the little sparrow fall, but all her tribulations are fleeting, part of His purpose and His pattern, but done quite soon. She may be only briefly filling in some space for Him that has needed filling for some reason. It’s all very well for Him to be patient, but He is eternal and gets things His way. What about her? She only has a little time, and has never gotten what she might have wanted.
“Oh my God,” she prays. He might strike her down on the spot for her ingratitude. “I didn’t mean it.”
What will the nursing home be like? An institution, at any rate, along the lines of a school or a hospital. Well, it might not do Aggie any harm to live in an alien environment. Let her give up a few things, live under someone else’s rules; Aggie, who accuses June of taking pleasure from sacrifice. “Why can’t you admit you’re pleased to give things up?” she’s asked. “I see it in your face, you know. If you looked at yourself, you’d see pride and satisfaction written all over you.”
One of them has to sacrifice in this situation, and surely it’s Aggie’s turn; Aggie, who has always managed to turn events to her own advantage. Surely God does not want June martyred to other people’s selfishness. That isn’t fair.
Oh God, she’s done it again: accused Him of unfairness. “Help me,” she prays. “Help me to know Thy will.”
“Be careful what you pray for,” Aggie warned once, laughing. “You never know how you’ll get what you ask for.”
On her lunch break, June phones the nursing home and speaks with the administrator; a man named Atkinson, with a low and careful voice. There are no beds at the moment, he says, and there is a waiting list, but he would be happy to show her around.
Then she calls Aggie. “I’ll be late home. I’m going over to take a look at the nursing home. Unless you want to change your mind and come with me?”
“Oh no, thank you.”
“You know, Mother, what you imagine may be much worse than what is.”
“You may find that. What I generally find is the reverse.”
Everyone knows the nursing home from the outside. It’s big and modern and low-slung, like an extended ranch-style house, and has little patches of concrete and bits of lawn where, in warm weather, some people sit outside. People were unsure of their views toward the place when it was built a few years ago, June remembers. Certainly it would be clean and efficient, and possibly even kind, they said; but not like home. Some of the private homes that had been taking in the old may have been darker and perhaps more cavalier in their care, and even in some cases unkind, but they were regular houses, not too swift and brisk. It seemed, too, an uneasy way to make money, this shiny new building that was part of a chain, processing the old instead of hamburgers, caring for those who did not have their own homes or people to look after them.
Aggie has her own home, and her own people. Or person, rather. She has a house and June. Nevertheless.
It’s five blocks from school to the home. June wonders what it would feel like, making this journey instead of going
straight home. One thing: there’d be no guilt here. She’d see Aggie regularly, taking her whatever treats she wanted, and magazines and books. She will pay for the best possible care, just the way that, when the time comes, she will provide the best funeral she can afford, none of this cheap casket and cremation nonsense, but a proper minister and a nice plot and a headstone with some dignity. She will not be caught stinting.
She supposes regular visits would impose a certain burden. She doubts there’s any way to clear Aggie out of her mind, no matter what, so already there is a blemish on the purity of being left alone. But things are owed. They are not only owed, but are seen to be owed. She will not have people saying she has treated her mother shabbily.
In her eagerness, she is slightly early for the appointment.
The red-brick building is L-shaped, with the main entrance at the join of the L. A heavy set of glass doors leads to a second set; all the weight and effort involved must keep the old people pretty securely indoors, she supposes. She is blasted, stepping through the second doors, by heat. What on earth temperature do they keep the place at? What will Aggie, accustomed to drafts and windows on which frost forms on the inside in winter, think of this? But of course the body adjusts, to temperatures and other things.
Despite the heat, there are people sitting in a small lounge wearing sweaters, or blankets bundled around their knees. So thin they are; just bones, really. This is how June will look in ten, fifteen years: whatever spare flesh there may be hanging as loosely as an old dress or a baggy suit. She feels the kind of shiver up her spine that Aggie used to say was somebody walking over her grave.
Here are old people shrivelling. And for all that Aggie’s bulk is awful, and for all that June has wished her to age appropriately, through shrinkage, when confronted with real examples she is a bit appalled. Imagine Aggie so frail, so chilly. Imagine her not laughing and patting herself and saying, “Never mind insulation, June, I carry my own.”
Aggie won’t suit this place at all. She will be too big and boisterous, too demanding and noisy. Like putting hot mustard on porridge, moving Aggie in here. Oh, but really, she’s getting just like Aggie, transforming everything into food.
“Mrs. Benson?”
She turns to see a man much younger than she would have thought, from his voice or his position. “I’m Jim Atkinson.” Another one in his thirties, ordinary — but can he be ordinary? A strange choice of career, surely, being in charge of old bodies. Hair neatly clipped and a brown suit, tan shirt, brown tie and shoes, and no doubt brown socks. “I believe you said you’re here on behalf of your mother?”
“Yes, well, I wanted to take a look, so that we could discuss it properly. If you don’t mind.”
“Not at all, it’s a pleasure.” A pleasure? “I think I mentioned that there’s a waiting list, although it’s not terribly long and spaces, as you understand, can come up quite suddenly. Why don’t you come into my office and tell me a little about your mother? Is this a decision you’ve made or something you’re still considering?”
“I suppose we’re still only thinking about it, but I expect it’s pretty well inevitable.” She’d noticed, out in the lounge, that the furniture was plastic-covered, presumably so that accidents could easily be wiped away. But it’s plastic in here, too, in his office, and why ever would that be? “I’m a teacher and out all day, and I worry about her home alone so much. And she’s difficult for me to care for now.”
He frowns slightly at that, but aren’t the people here supposed to be difficult to care for? Isn’t that the point?
“What sort of problems does she have?”
“Mainly it’s that she’s quite heavy, and it makes it hard. I’m not that strong, you see, or young.” It is not yet the moment to mention accidents.
“Is she alert?”
“Oh, heavens, yes. Smart as a whip.”
This, she realizes, must be something like parents trying to get a badly behaved youngster into a private school: touching up sins to look like virtues. A destructive child who smashes things might be described as active. Wait till he finds out what she means by smart as a whip.
“This weight problem, how serious is it?”
“Well, it keeps her from doing some things by herself. I mean, I have to help her dress and get out of bed and have a bath, that sort of thing. It’s not that she’s immobilized, just too much for me to handle on my own.”
“And how does she feel about coming here?”
“I don’t think we’ve really come to grips with it. Neither of us having seen it. We can’t make a decision until we see.”
“Well then,” and he stands, not a very tall man really, a couple of inches more, maybe, than her five foot six, “why don’t we take the tour? What about her? Will she be coming for a look?”
“I hope so. She didn’t want to today, though.”
“When she does, just let me know. Perhaps I’ll be able to reassure her if she’s uneasy. Most people are. It’s quite an upheaval.”
This man will be breakfast for Aggie. He’ll find it quite a challenge being reassuring.
“I’ll tell her, thank you.”
“Now out here,” gesturing past his doorway, “is one of the lounges. We have several, of different sizes, for the residents and for when they have visitors. Of course, there’s visiting in the rooms, but unless a resident is bed-ridden, most people find that a little awkward. The rooms are quite large, as you’ll see, but they’re not really meant for groups of people.
“I should explain how we’ve divided the place. Down there,” gesturing left, “is pretty well set aside for people confined to their beds, or the senile. It doesn’t sound as if that would apply to your mother, so we might as well go the other direction, and actually, the rooms are all the same anyway.”
They turn right, where there is, first, a large, bright office with a board of red lights and clipboards on a counter and several young women in white.
“We have a large nursing office, and, as you see, it’s simple for a resident to get help. They each have a buzzer beside their bed that sounds in here, and the red light goes on. And aside from that, staff are in and out of rooms, so supervision is pretty well constant. I gather your main concern is that your mother might injure herself while you’re out?”
“That, and if she did, I might not be able to help her even if I were there.”
“It’s quite a burden, the worry, isn’t it?” Maybe he really is sympathetic. Has she not wished for sympathy? He sounds, however, more sanctimonious than anything else. If Aggie were here she’d put him in his place.
“I know,” he continues, “it’s really quite a heart-breaking dilemma, and a big step for everyone concerned. But we know that, and we’re here to help.”
Shut up, she would like to say; but of course one doesn’t do that.
There are two women sitting in wheelchairs in the corridor. Another, gripping a handrail, is taking a very slow walk. “We try to encourage people to exercise as much as they can.” Creeping along a wall doesn’t look like exercise, and June, who does so much brisk walking, tries to imagine the state of body that would require such slow, concentrated, and painful effort. Harder to imagine is the determination the woman must have to set out on this journey, eyes down, watching her feet, willing them steady.
As June and the administrator reach her she stops, looks up. “Supper will be on soon and you’d better get the table set. The men will be in shortly, you know.” Her sharp eyes are commanding.
June looks, bewildered, at the administrator. “She thinks you’re her daughter, I expect. Older folk sometimes get confused about time and people. Never mind.”
But the old woman is watching, waiting. “I will,” June tells her, nodding. “I’ll do it right away.”
“That’s fine then, dear.” The eyes return to the feet, and the walk continues.
�
��I thought you said the people with serious problems were at the other end?”
“Oh, well yes, but you see there’s a difference between senility and confusion. I often think it’s comforting for them, slipping into the old days occasionally. Like that old girl, sometimes she just takes a little trip into the past, that’s all. Especially when they don’t have visitors very often, sometimes they mistake other people for their family.”
Aggie would love being called an old girl.
“It’s a kindness, really, just going along with them.”
Maybe so, but what does he know? He’s not old. When she is old, June doesn’t want to be humored by strangers.
Although that’s what she just did, herself.
What would it be like if Aggie caught this disease, this confusion? What if she went off to live in some other time, maybe back to childhood, with her mother and her sisters, whom she has spoken of so fondly? What if she failed to recognize June, and mistook another woman for her daughter?
Wicked thought. But it would be something to see Aggie lose something, like her mind. If it just happened; not something wished for.
“Down here is the dining room for the people at this end, and over there’s the big television lounge.” Here is more plastic-covered furniture, including two couches and a variety of wheelchairs. Ten or eleven people are in here looking at a game show turned up too loud, although whether they are watching it is another matter. All the colors in the place, June notices, are vivid: oranges and yellows and greens. She supposes it’s intended to be cheerful, but it feels false, lacking dignity, considering this is a place for people who are, when it comes down to it, likely to die pretty soon.
But what’s the matter with her? If it were dark she would criticize that, too.
A couple of people seem to be nodding off; two or three others are knitting or crocheting. There are only two men. “It’s mostly women,” she remarks. “Are the men somewhere else?”
“Oh no, it’s mixed. But you know,” and he grins, “you women outlive us men. There simply are more old women than old men.” He speaks as if this is a point for women. How could it be, if this is what more years come to?