She
remembers. He told her last night that someone would be coming to
stay with her today. He had to take the truck into
Clayton’s for a lube and oil change. He’s been taking
his trucks there forever. Ginny used to tag along, years ago.
She’d ride with him into town, wander through the
Woolworth’s, look at yarn and buttons. Sometimes she would
eat lunch at the counter, a fish sandwich and a Black Cow, before she
headed back to Clayton’s waiting room with its ripped,
vinyl chairs. She remembers the vending machine that was always
half full, the smell of overheated coffee and car exhaust.
Ashtrays were rarely emptied, you just pushed out a little clear
space so your ember didn’t catch the rest of the butts on fire.
Sometimes she would try to tidy it up a bit, but Ed said he
didn’t like his wife cleaning up after other people, so she
stopped. They closed the Woolworth’s down almost thirty
years back.
Ginny
considers letting the woman sit in the half-light until Ed comes home
and sends her away. Nothing would seem amiss. But she may
be needing her pills. She doesn’t know how long she has
slept. She never knows time any more. Often she
doesn’t know she has slept at all unless Ed tells her.
She could move a bit, shift her position, make some sound. If the
woman’s worth her salt, she should realize what Ginny needs and
offer it to her. But no, that doesn’t work. Now the
woman is out of the chair, honeying, pulling the drapes aside, opening
the window. Fresh air, she says. When she tells Ginny it is
good for her, Ginny nearly laughs in spite of herself. The woman
is coming close to look at her now. She doesn’t want to be
seen, half-gone, skin slack, nails thick and spooned. Ed took the
mirror off the wall over the dresser so she is left to imagine what she
must look like whole. She risks a glance at the woman, meeting
her eye. She sees her blink it back. Quickly—she is
skilled. But Ginny sees it.
Then
she’s off, out of the room. Ginny hears cupboards opening
in the kitchen, water running. Footsteps, now the dry squeak of
the linen closet door.
Pat returns
and sets the bowl of water on the floor by the bed. She
turns back the covers and raises Ginny gently, spreading a beach
towel underneath her. She eases her back down and begins to
sponge her with the washcloth. The warm water feels good.
She’s put lemon in it, it seems. Ginny remembers
making lemonade in the hot summers, taking a glass out to Ed
as he worked in the yard. The smell of cut grass and citrus.
The sun warm on her skin.
She ponders
the fact that a stranger is bathing her. Although
that’s no longer unusual. Her life, her body,
what’s left of them, have become open to strangers. They
have discussed her, taken her blood, infused things into her,
radiated her bones. Not so much anymore, though. She thinks
they’ve given up, decided to move on to battles they
stand a chance of winning. She battled, herself,
for a considerable time. Now she waits to feel the peace she
has heard comes with giving over.
Ginny
must have drifted again. When she opens her eyes, Pat is gone.
The bed tray is removed, she is covered with her quilt. The
afternoon light has shifted, and the shadows are longer. She
hears the television now. Ed must be home. Her pills.
She turns her head and sees that the water pitcher is full.
Condensation has run down the sides and puddled on the plate
beneath. Ginny works herself onto her side, reaches toward the
pitcher. Her hand settles on its cool metal handle. She
closes her fingers, tries to lift it, hopes to pour herself a glass of
water. She feels a slight tensing of her bicep, a soreness in her
wrist. The pitcher doesn’t move. She lets go, and as
she does, she sees a basin on the floor, the basin from her bath.
Pat must have forgotten to take it away after lunch. The
water in it is murky and brown. She touches her arm, feels its
unfamiliar softness. She thinks about the look on Pat’s
face when she first came to her bedside. She thinks about her wadding
the sheets so quickly. And she knows.
It
is twilight now. She has been watching the sunset play on the
wallpaper. There is a rectangle over the dresser that is sharp,
bright. The colors are those of the paper when it was new, red
cabbage roses on a golden background, trails of green vines. She
chose this paper years ago when she and Ed first moved into this house.
Over the years, she thought about replacing it, but never could
find anything she liked as much. Now this rectangle is all that
remains of what she remembers. The rest is faded, the colors no
longer true. She wants to cover it, to protect it, to keep it
like it was. The mirror is just across the room, in the closet,
but she can’t get over to it. She can’t put the mirror
back. She knows that. She knows there’s nothing to be
done.
Terri Lynn Moran's fiction has been published in Toasted Cheese Literary Journal and was nominated for Best of the Net and the Million Writers Award. She holds an MFA in writing from the University of Nebraska and lives with her husband, three dogs and two cat in an old farmhouse on a bluff above the Missouri River. She is working on a collection of linked stories.
| This story had
its origins in something a friend told me from his training as a
hospice volunteer. A volunteer had gone to see a patient in
home care. When she arrived, the house was filthy, as was the
patient. Somehow the patient hadn't realized the state she was in
until the volunteer proceeded to give her a bath, and after that she
became bitterly angry at her husband-caregiver and never spoke to him
again. Originally, my intent was to focus on that marital
relationship, but the story evolved into a much more interior piece
about end-of-life and acceptance. |
