The woman is hunched over today, her back rounded and I can see that this might be her permanent position when sitting on the beige tweed couch. She doesn’t see me when I come in and I know from experience that I need to get in front of her and close to her face. Closer than I’m comfortable with, but what can you do? It’s the kind of close you have to move towards someone when they are hard of hearing. I’m instantly conscious of my breath, wondering if my morning coffee is still lingering. Or maybe I’ve got a new blemish, one that you can only see if you’re up close. Either way, it makes me uncomfortable. And it’s silly, really. Very silly. Even if I had dragon breath and the worst crusty pimple, it’s not as if she could see it and if she did, it wouldn’t be in her nature to comment on it. Why do I worry about such things?
I move my face in front of her and offer a wide smile. I’m sure I must look like a clown, the way I’m smiling, but it works. It works on all of them, really, except for Sharon, the woman who has been there the longest. Every Sunday, I make it a goal to get at least a few of them smiling, especially this woman. Sharon, on the other hand, is always a challenge, the way she’ll give me daggers, the darkness in her glare.
The animated smile works for the woman in front of me, though. She mirrors my goofy smile and gives one back to me, her eyes wide and head bouncing side to side like she's playing a hide and seek game with a toddler. The air is thick and smells like bedding that needs to be washed. While there are windows here just past the living room, the light seems harsh and artificial. Although I’ve only just arrived, I feel like a filet of fish under a warming light.
“How are you today?” I ask her, in a voice that is too loud. She isn’t deaf. I’m mindful of the aides walking by us in the room and wonder how they suppress the urge to tell me I don’t have to speak to her so loudly. It might even frighten her, who knows. But somehow, I can’t help myself.
I sit next to her and pick up her hand. She takes hold of my hand and strokes it, like you might a cat. She turns my hand this way and that, as if to examine it, running her fingers down the length of mine and then finally her index finger points to the diamond in my wedding ring, as she does every week. She’s mumbling something faster now, her widened surprised eyes conveying Wow that’s beautiful! Such a large diamond!
I place my arm around her, trying to recall if her back felt so bony the last time. That was just last week, wasn’t it? I make a mental note that next week I’m going to take special notice of this–that I’m going to see if her shoulder blades feel sharp, if I can feel her ribs through her back. But then what would I do with such information? Complain? Tell the aides she’s not eating enough? I’ve watched her eat her lunch every Sunday for almost a year now, and while she doesn’t eat like she used to, she still cleans most of her plate.
“It’s the way her body processes food now,” the nurse would tell me.
Or the answer they give when they don’t have an answer, which is most of the time.
“It’s the progression of the disease.”
She frees my hand now, reaching her
fingers into her white sweatshirt sleeve, where she used to keep tissues. Her
movement is sudden, jerky, like a record screeching to a stop. Ah, her nose. Her slender long nose with the
pink tip. Sure enough, her nose is running, a glob of clear mucus forming into
a large drip at the end of her nostril.
“I have a tissue,” I tell her,
again in an outside voice, reaching into my purse. I put the tissue in her
hands and immediately regret it. She starts to fold the tissue into tiny
squares, using her fingers to smooth it out. The snot has already dripped onto
her lap, and I grab the tissue from her–too aggressively–but I’m grossed out by
this, by all these bodily functions she can no longer control. I chide myself
for this, over and over.
When I’m not repulsed or saddened, I sit back in almost pure wonderment. For the millionth time, I marvel at how easily she is distracted. Like a screaming toddler you can convince to smile by making a goofy face or offering a bowl of ice cream. Or worse, I’m reminded of my border collie, Hank, when we go on walks. A squirrel, leaf or shiny object derails our walk instantly and sends us both into a new direction. I wonder if it’s like that for this woman. I doubt she knows. She’s truly living in the moment. A blessing, perhaps.
She’s talking again. Or rather, words are coming out of her mouth. I try to focus but quickly lose interest or tolerance. I am not patient anymore.
“And I told the man. Yes. It was bl–{incoherent words}. I like everyone. It. That want. Truly.”
Her small mint-colored eyes are looking at mine and she’s nodding, as if what she said is profound and made sense. I know my role here. I know how the books say to respond.
“You’re so right!” I squeeze her hand, forcing another ridiculously wide smile upon her.
She laughs now and is holding my hands as tight as she’s able. I notice how discolored her teeth are and try to remember how they used to look. Another mental note to ask the aides about brushing. She’s with me though, in this moment, and I know she feels like she’s being heard. Understood. I want to scream at the futility.
I long to go home. I want to leave. My joints ache like any other 56-year-old, but if I could sprint out of here, I would, in Usain Bolt speed, no less. I just need to hear the gun starting the race and I will fly. I will fly.
Just when I think I can’t sit on that couch a second longer, someone is tapping me on the shoulder. It’s Brenda, one of the aides. The interruption is a deliverance–like the kind of relief you feel after swimming a long while, with every muscle throbbing, legs and lungs screaming in defiance and then you finally reach the other end of the pool.
“Do you want to bring her over? We’re going to get lunch ready.” Her round face smiles at me, so self-assured, such a calm voice. Do they have gummies in the back room? Tequila shots? How do these women do it? Just last week one of the residents–Sharon (of course)–had thrown up all over Brenda. Brenda reacted as if Sharon had only sneezed in her direction. Day in, day out. The woman is never vexed.
“Sure, Brenda,” I say and then tell the woman next to me we were going to lunch. I am relieved by having something new to do.
“C’mon now,” I say, standing up and reaching for her hands. “We’re going to eat.”
I start to pull the woman up by her hands and her face changes.
“Wheat?” she asks, her smile gone and what’s left of her eyebrows are raised and furrowing.
“EAT” I say, again too loud, trying to enunciate.
The woman’s face softens, but I know she doesn’t understand. She points at a piece of lint on the floor. “Door and I said OK and I never told him. Sending it. That’s OK with me.”
“Yes, it’s OK, it’s just lint.”
I pull her in the direction of the dining room, and she keeps pointing back, her words jumbled. I know she’s fixated on the piece of lint on the floor, but it won’t be hard to distract her yet again. The dining area is painted yellow and there are paintings of water lilies, hyacinth and one empty canoe on a riverbank. Six tables with white tablecloths take up most of the space, four wooden chairs at each table, save one, which has only wide open spaces intended for wheelchairs.
“Here, here,” I say, and grab a napkin off the table next to us. I thrust it into her hands like one does with a toy to a toddler, and once again her attention shifts, like the wind. She sits down and starts folding her napkin with care.
“I like that,” she says, her fingers gently smoothing the napkin creases. For a moment I see her twenty years ago, ironing a man’s dress shirt and realize the moments aren’t so very different.
We sit at the table until she finishes most of her chicken fingers and one of the carrot sticks. The plastic cup with Coke (no ice) is drained, as usual. I then guide her back to the couch. The residents take their same spots, and it is like time has never moved.
“I’m going to have to go now,” I tell her. “But I’ll be back really soon.” I stand up.
With surprising briskness, she stands up beside me, unassisted. She grabs my hand as if we were ready to disembark on a grand voyage. She somehow still manages to hold her napkin from lunch.
“Let’s go find your mother,” she says so clearly, and pats my hand like you might do with a small child, momentarily separated from her parents.
My throat is thick, and my eyes start to burn. I swallow hard and sigh.
“I wish you could, Mom. I really wish you could.”
I tell her to sit, and she obeys, folding her hands on her lap and somehow sitting up taller, alert, like she was holding a ticket and waiting for her train.
I call over to Brenda to let me out. I should look back, but I cannot. I can only hope she is folding her napkin yet again.
About the author
Corrina Malek’s work has appeared in Bright Flash Literary Review and has been published in the Ohio Writers' Association anthologies. When she's not writing or thinking about writing, she spends time with family and rescuing dogs in central Ohio.
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