Being at the mercy of one’s own child is a terrible thing.
Matt blows out my candles. Nadine nudges a little cake past my lips—scoop, push, scrape, and wipe—and then returns me to Ginger’s and my room with Matt and Ginger hard on our heels. Nadine hums the birthday song to me as she pushes; she has a sweet voice. She pulls out my Velcro bow, along with a few more of my remaining hairs. I wince.
“Sorry,” Nadine says, and gently rubs my scalp.
“She’s a veg. Why apologize?” Matt asks.
Nadine reaches behind me and releases my head strap, supporting my chin as my head droops down. “Just because she doesn’t talk or move so good doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel pain. And we don’t know what she can hear, so try to be a little nicer, okay?”
I sense Matt studying me. I picture his shaggy head cocked to one side like a curious Golden Retriever, and I keep my eyes fastened on the calcified fingers curled in my lap.
“Okay, I’ll be nicer,” he says at last. His shoes turn away, and I can breathe again. He helps Nadine hoist Ginger into her bed beside the window; Ginger giggles and calls him her hero.
“Here, Matt,” she says. “Would you please go in the top drawer of my bureau? There’s a present in there from me.”
“You know she doesn’t know what’s going on, right?” Matt asks.
“Maybe so, but she is my roomie. I asked my daughter-in-law to pick out something she would really like.”
“How could you tell?” Matt says under his breath.
“Hush, Matt,” Nadine says sharply over the sound of paper rustling. “What a beautiful scarf.”
“Isn’t it? I wasn’t sure, because you can’t see her eyes very often, but I think it will really bring out their color. Put it on.” Ginger pushes the button to raise the head of her bed.
Nadine lifts my head and gently loops the scarf around my neck. She fiddles with the knot, trying to get it just right, then holds my head up, so everyone can see. I keep my eyes unfocused.
“There, I was right,” Ginger says. “Look at those pretty brown eyes.”
“Yep, those are pretty brown, all right,” Matt says. I’d like to rip the scarf off my neck and choke him with it.
Nadine slips the scarf from my neck and folds it carefully. She helps me into my bed and plumps my pillows, then kisses my forehead. “Happy Birthday,” she whispers before leaving.
Please, God, let this be the last.
EXPRESS CHECKOUT
Matt is in flagrante delicto when the Code Blue sounds. He leaps off Ginger, or at least he tries to, but the string of his scrub pants catches on her bed railing. There he is, half in and half out, hopping around like a hyperactive monkey tied to a grinder’s organ. He gives the string a vicious yank and it rips loose just as our door swings open.
Renaldo does the tiniest of double takes when he sees Matt, standing beside Ginger’s bed, retying his scrubs, but only says, “Yo, man, it’s Big Mickey. All hands on deck. You all right?”
Matt brushes past him, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah, these shitty scrubs never stay tied.” Their voices fade as they hurry down the hall.
Emboldened by a guaranteed staff-free twenty minutes, I lift my head from the pillow. My neck feels weak as a newborn’s.
In the flashing Code Blue light, Ginger lies flat on her back, her knees splayed open against the bed railings and gleaming a sickly baby blue in the light from the alarm. The grotesque slackness of her jaw wallops me in the chest like a juddering fist, and goosebumps erupt all over my body.
Something on the table between our beds winks in the light. My muscles jerk and tremble as I lean closer on my elbow, watching Ginger and listening for the door. I recognize Miss Carmen’s scissors.
I check the door and Ginger again. I begin rocking my body back and forth, thrusting my withered hand out as far as it will go, trying to build up enough momentum to reach the scissors. At last my fingers brush the cold metal; I grab the scissors and slip them into my pillowcase. Exhausted, I lie down again and wait, wait for someone, anyone, to come in and find Ginger Exposed, Ginger Violated, but no one comes. My tears dry on my cheeks, and I fall asleep thinking of Ginger, of Charles, and of Big Mickey. I wonder where they will find a big enough coffin.
PARTY LINE
Nadine comes in early the next morning. The moment she grasps the nature of the sticky residue on Ginger’s inner thighs is violent and audible. She opens the door and yells for Matt.
“Hey, I was just leaving. I pulled a double and I’m beat,” he says, sticking his head in the door.
“Look at this,” Nadine says. She steps back from the bed so Matt can see Ginger, who is just coming around. “Did you see anything last night?”
“Whoa, what happened?” Matt asks. His gaze flits over to me and I go rigid. “No, man, we were busy last night. Mickey went, we needed everyone for that big elephant.”
“Nice, Matt. Go get Dr. Lewis.”
He bumps the foot of my bed hard on the way out. Inside my pillowcase, my fingertips seek out the handle of the scissors.
Guests and Staff start whispering almost immediately, and a parade of the concerned and the outraged, beginning with the Director, marches in and out of our room all day. I can’t make out everything they say, but I pick up enough. One advantage of being a stone is they think you can’t hear, so they don’t realize you’re always listening.
Nadine talks to Carmen, Carmen talks to Renaldo, Renaldo talks to Matt, Matt talks to Nadine, they all talk to Dr. Lewis, Dr. Lewis talks to Ginger’s family, and everyone talks to the detective, who comes to visit directly after lunch. He looks like Columbo. Ginger, the fruity center of this entire mess, remains, incomprehensibly, her garrulously oblivious self, firing her undiluted charms point-blank at him as soon as he enters the room.
Everyone is talking, everyone except me; I know better. All the same, Matt’s eyes, quick and sharp, grow warier by the hour.
GONE WITH THE WIND
Nadine squats down in front of my wheelchair. She leans way over so she can look up into my vacant eyes.
“You must’ve seen something, heard something. I wish you could tell us,” she says, kneading my hand gently, her kind eyes imploring me to speak, speak. Waves of uncertainty wash over me. I think Nadine would believe me, but I’d be a pretty big damned fool to think she could protect me. The door opens, and my stomach turns over. The waves subside.
“Dr. Lewis is looking for you, Nadine,” Matt says, coming to stand behind my chair. His breath heats the back of my neck, and I let my eyelids flutter close and noisily release my bowels, filling my diaper. Nadine jerks back at the sound.
“Jesus,” Matt says.
“Yep, that’s going to be a messy one,” Nadine says. “I’ll tell Dr. Lewis you said hi.”
Before he can protest further, Nadine leaves. Matt makes a gagging noise, then leans down to begin cleaning me.
“Lucky for me you can’t talk, I guess,” he whispers in my ear. He lifts my gown and begins to whistle.
“AULD LANG SYNE”
Ted the Piano Man will be here tonight for a Special New Year’s Eve (four to six p.m.) Gala. I gorge myself at lunch, flapping my open gums like a baby fulmar in the nest, taking every spoonful Nadine offers of creamed chipped beef, the finest culinary emetic, hoping not to attend due to illness, but no luck. Family members are invited, and some attend, but for most of the Guests, it’s a night for remembering how alone we really are.
Ginger’s family arrives early so her daughter-in-law can doll her up: a red, sequined top sporting a plunging neckline (Nadine calls it a Crumb Catcher); crimson lipstick; a fake poinsettia bloom pinned to her wig; and enough rhinestones to make a cowboy cry uncle. They bring me a red-sequined cap, too, which Nadine perches atop my strapped-up head and pronounces “festive.”
When we enter the Walnut Room—which the staff magically transforms into a Winter Wonderland by adding a cardboard fireplace; strings of paper snowflakes sent to us by local
schoolchildren (Community Service Project); and an Old Timey Popcorn Machine!—Ted the Piano Man is already in full swing, and, possibly, drunk. Nadine parks my chair close to the restroom. She hasn’t trusted me as much since Columbo’s last visit two months ago; when he couldn’t ID the culprit, he eventually stopped coming around.
It’s been quieter since then, though. Ginger must’ve stopped taking her Happy Pills, because she’s started sleeping a lot less, and when she can’t sleep at all, she reads trashy novels to herself in a stage whisper (I almost enjoy them). If she’s awake when Matt sticks his head in, he just smiles and blows “his best girl” a good night kiss and leaves. I’m almost starting to feel safe again.
PILLOW TALK
The festivities finally end, the visitors leave, and we are put to bed early by a skeleton staff of broke volunteers and grumpy short-stick winners. I breathe a sigh of relief when everyone settles down and the floor is peaceful at last.
Shortly after lights-out, however, our door opens; the hall light silhouettes Matt briefly as he hurries past the foot of my bed to Ginger. The creamed chipped beef curdling in my gut suddenly decides to do its job as I envision him straddling her; I close my eyes and steel myself in preparation.
But something’s different tonight in the sly rustling of the sheets, the flustered soughs of the mattress. I wait for the familiar catch-and-release of Matt’s boozy breath when he finishes. Long moments pass, warped and silent. I tilt my head up a fraction of an inch, because I realize Matt is whispering.
“Hopefully you go faster than O’Brien did.” He grunts in a way I haven’t heard before. Ginger’s bed frame rattles, making it harder for me to hear. I lift my head a titch more. “And Mrs. Rosenburg, shit.” Another grunt. “Bitch nailed me in the nuts before she finally died—”
I can’t stop my gasp, banshee-loud in this room. My mind races. Mrs. Margaret O’Brien? Judy Moody? Does he mean he—
Matt stops whispering and I freeze.
I am a stone, I am a stone, I am a—
“I knew you were in there.”
I jump at the words so close to my ear, then the pillow slams down on my face. Matt’s fingers dig into my nose through the pillow’s thin spots, and his body presses me into the mattress. My wasted legs and twisted hands flutter up like broken birds. Bright stars erupt behind my eyes, a fiery galaxy of pain and infirmity, betrayal and abandonment, loneliness and degradation; my dying stars cool and harden, the vast black hole of me coming at last to swallow the world whole.
Hello, my baby, hello, my honey
Charles
I am a stone
I am a—
The pillow vanishes. Something strikes the bed hard and thuds to the floor, but I’m coughing and gasping and crying too hard to think what. My bright stars dim and flicker, blurring and diminishing until they coalesce into the form of Ginger, who is standing beside my bed, holding Carmen’s scissors.
“Hello, there,” she says, panting, a dark smear down the front of her pink nightgown.
I look around the room; there is a Matt-shaped lump on the floor between our beds. I can’t see if it’s still breathing.
“Are you okay?” she asks. She lowers herself onto my bed and whooshes out a Chanel No. 5-scented breath. The scissors dangling from her hand gleam stickily, drawing my eyes like a greedy fly to a honey pot. I lick my lips.
“They fell out when he grabbed your pillow. I snatched them,” Ginger says. She drops the scissors on the table between our beds and wipes her hands on my blanket. Still confused, I glance down at her bare feet.
“Yeah, I’m stronger than I let on, just like you,” she says. “Are you kidding? These legs?” She stretches them out before her and slaps them hard. “I could still dance all day,” she says defensively. “What can I say? It gets me a little extra attention from my family. We do what we’ve got to do to survive, right?” The sudden hardness in her voice embraces me like an old friend.
We both look at the lump on the floor, which is stirring slightly. “You think a former Rockette doesn’t know when someone’s been after her? I’m old, but I’m no nun,” she continues. She nudges Matt with her toes, and he groans. “Bastard. I suspected it was him, but I wasn’t sure—too groggy. I started skipping pills, trying to catch him, since no one else would. I thought he might be in tonight for a little auld lang syne.” I am stunned. On the Mohs’ Scale of Hardness, I realize, this woman would score an eleven.
“But Jesus, when he put that pillow over your face—well, I took care of it,” she says, and that hardness turns to brittle pride. “All my life, I took care of myself. Good to know I still can.” She winks, and I grab for her hands.
“Thank you,” I say. My voice crackles like fresh exam-table paper.
A slow grin shimmies across her face. “I knew you were in there,” she says. She leans closer, and her voice deepens to a fierce whisper. “Look, I don’t blame you for checking out, for staying quiet. Being stuck in here is no easy thing.”
Her eyes glitter like cracked-open geodes as she takes in our room: the matching hospital beds and wheelchairs and potty chairs; the gray walls festooned with monitors and tubing and cuffs; the bilious curtains hiding our view of the concrete parking lot and rusting dumpster outside. Her eyes come back to rest on Matthew, who is beginning to moan.
“Well.” She reaches over me, pushes my call button, and returns to her own bed to wait for the help that will finally come. The rush of disappointment I feel at this surprises me; I lie back down and turn away from her to face the door.
“If you don’t want me to tell anyone, I won’t. I’ll leave you out of it,” Ginger says to my back. “But this is a tough place, especially alone. If you ever do feel like checking back in—” She leaves the invitation there.
I don’t reply; instead, I use the seconds before the staff comes in and finds Matt the CNA (Cruise Director, Rapist) bleeding on our floor to weigh my options, such as they are in this hard, hard place. By the time the volunteer and the short-sticker, whose names I don’t know, come running into the room, out of habit or out of fear, I am a stone once again.
Well, mostly.
GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY
KATIA D. ULYSSE
As I waited at the altar for you to walk down the aisle, the palms of my hands moistened, and my entire being trembled. I prayed that you had not had a change of heart, and my deepest wish would materialize before a hundred expectant witnesses. There was music. Soft. Fleeting. Piano? Maybe. I am not good at remembering details; you are the one who stores them like a baobab tree keeps water in its immense trunk.
Your brown skin shone under the Caribbean sun that never pretends to be forgiving. The bridesmaids smiled. The groomsmen hid their emotions behind stoic faces, but the tenderness in their eyes betrayed them. I was twenty-six. You were twenty-five. We were both full of life and ready to embark on our journey.
When at last I slipped the ring around your finger, I was transformed. Angels carried my breath on their wings during our first kiss as husband and wife, keeping me from drowning in bliss. There was applause when we danced our first of many dances. I whispered in your ears that on the day of our golden anniversary, we would dance like this—to the same melody.
You whispered, “This moment is all we have. Tomorrow is but a fantasy.” I should have believed you.
When family members and friends tacitly boasted about their new cars, the house they lived in, and seaside residences with panoramic views of the distant horizon, I wanted you to have more. But you delighted in lacking ephemeral things, which tend to own people instead of the other way around. “We have each other,” you said. “Our love is all the currency we really need.”
You were not miserly, just sensible. You cautioned me never to float above my means. You predicted that the future—if such a time came—may be fraught with the unexpected. We would be prepared to face hard times bravely. As long as we stayed together, every battle would end in victory. There would be no regrets, only mu
sings of extraordinary moments together.
I never imagined that on our golden anniversary rain would pour out of the sky, and catch us without shelter. For half a century, we weathered life’s storms. We survived and even thrived. We were well-prepared, but we could not have known a nightmare like this would befall us.
The disease began slowly, almost imperceptibly. The doctors said it is not uncommon among people in their autumnal years. He said that at first you will not recall where you put the keys, and where you parked the car in the parking lot. But I was always the forgetful one. You were the one who would remind me to call my own parents on their birthdays long ago when they were still alive. You were the one who wrote textbooks and helped me organize my scattered thoughts. You were the one born an old soul—sensible and wise.
Now, you put the carton of milk under the kitchen sink. The eggs are on the bookshelf, and the cell phone is in the refrigerator. When we’re supposed to go to bed, you open the front door—ready to wander into the night. You lose your way around the home we shared for fifty splendid years. And even though you’re here, I fear I have lost you.
“Be gentle with her,” the doctor says superfluously, as if I need to be reminded. Doesn’t he know that I promised to hold and cherish you in sickness and in health? Doesn’t he know I am a man of my word?
Today is our golden anniversary. The treasure trove of memories that always flowed from the wellspring inside of you has been ransacked, vandalized. When your eyes are not vacant, you stare at me as if I were a stranger. To be fair, I’ve changed. There are deep creases around my mouth and eyes, but I could not have changed so much that you would not recognize me.
Our life’s savings of remembrances have been stolen. Your collection of ancient tales that were passed down to you like priceless heirlooms have dissolved into the thin and invisible air. You used to love talking about the history of your birth country. You could recount verbatim chapters from books about the only successful slave revolution known to man. We made pumpkin soup every New Year’s Day to celebrate Haiti’s independence in 1804. Now the holidays run into one another and hold no special meaning.
Us Against Alzheimer's Page 27