It’s nearing five. Almost suppertime. You know by the roofed carts with roofed trays and the RNA’s with white-knit hair in buns and white-capped hands. Something smells good, something held in plastic and stainless steel. Lasagna, maybe, or country fried steak.
Outside, the sun blends out. Moon curving crescent. Sunset around the corner, sometime after supper, making autumn stretch-marks in the sky.
She’s sitting with the rest, in a chair like any other, though it’s hers, where there’s comfort. Sitting with others. Some were speaking, most were silent. Thinking. Maybe. Maybe seeing. In a teal blue sweater and pink cotton pants, and her hair brushed pretty, she sits and waits for consideration. Someone’s tied her shoes and clipped her nails but left her face untouched. She knows it, maybe. Touching her lips once now, and later, again. Maybe it hurts. Maybe she’s shy. Ducking her head, smiling shy.
“Mom?”
It takes a moment, and the RNA who likes her saying loudly, “Your daughter’s here.”
Slow take in her eyes. Slow gaining smile. Like doors that open, swinging wide.
“Oh.”
As if you’re walking close from far, walking real.
“Hi, Mom.”
You speak louder for no reason, really, but that she’s far apart. Her eyes following you, reading close. You’re speaking but she’s only saying, “Oh.” Some days, she can’t but cry. Those days are hardest, but not today. Today is laughter.
Her hand is tugged up, the RNA saying, “Come along.” She folds off the chair and holds the hand you reach for her.
“Do you want to go for a walk?”
She nods, hesitantly, but when she holds your hands, her grip is strong. You walk together, face-to-face. She watches you walk backwards holding both her hands out in front; she walks catawampus through the white-made walls, past shadow frames of paper echoes etched on stranger faces. Leaning backwards off from you, smiling shy, uncertain scuffled feet in green-laced walking shoes with her name marked in clean black lines. When you danced a little, she does, too. This game she knows. She bounces, too, and sings a buoyant chanting line over and over with smiling eyes.
For minutes however long you stroll in sidesteps and playful bobbing knees until at last you’ve gone full circle around back to her single room. She hesitates at the door, shyly smiling. You say, “It’s okay,” but it’s better out. Her eyes are speaking aloud. Some days, you’ve an answer, and some days, you don’t. Some days, it’s just better out.
There’s no one there at the front door, as you walk outside with her. Outside to the plastic chairs, once white, on red brick and cooling floors. It’s quiet without the rain. People are leaving in ones and twos, unparking cars and blending out. You’re allowed to sit here with her, but not too long.
She’s sleepy, growing remote. She stares a while, and smiles a bit, at scattered butterflies. You wonder if she remembers, years ago, back when she could, she’d painted splendor onto simple canvas for the first time in her life, signing backwards D’s brushing displaced N’s for months before she stopped. Her journal had been a thread of prayers only God might understand. Years ago, back when she knew. Scrap papered under photographs, elapsed from mind in closet clans of keepsake boxes labeled plainly or not at all.
Of all the arts, she’d liked singing best, and with her, you sometimes sing. Where no one knows and you can be, just be between you and her. She sometimes laughs at that a little, and makes faces as you sing. You get her back, though, gentle tickles that make her start and glare. Just like your father, you. Her eyes are smiling as she glares, just like years ago, back when she knew.
Now on the porch here, on the phone—the best device you ever bought, for these moments above all other thoughts—you find Frank Sinatra, and he begins to sing. Blue Moon, he sings, in ricochets of sweet scattered sound. Blue Moon for her, the song she sang famously and wondrous well, years ago, back in her youth.
By and by, she picks it up. A little sluggishly. An echo off his canter, almost wordless and remote. She follows as she’d followed your face, latching clear and dogged onto sound, the hum of likeness in her mind, of time and place familiar. And in her pauses, she cries. Scattered. Like maybe she knows and maybe she doesn’t, that he’s gone and gone is where she’s turning. She doesn’t stop when he does, singing on a minute longer. Her eyes let go of memory last, after the fade of sound. Staring, like tracing paper faces in her mind.
“That sounded nice, Mom.”
She glances over. She smiles. Maybe. Like maybe you’re not even there.
Some minutes pass. You don’t play him again, and she doesn’t sing. You speak of other things, a little cheery and a little forced, bringing present back from past, sifting memories back to ground that was more of here and less of then. Back to where you know and stand. Back to her right now with you.
A nurse walks in. Some family heading out: father, mother, with their children waist-high waving arms and fighting mother as she rubs their hand with cleansing gel. Wasps are sending shivers in your ear, now too close, then thankful far. She pays no mind but watches butterflies float over green, frail wisps of dappled yellow stark against discolored bush too dry and needing rain.
“Aren’t they pretty?”
“Yes,” she says.
Sometimes, it clicks.
Back in the ward, you lead her to her private room and brush her hair pretty. RNA’s dealing dinner trays to supplicants crying “Mom,” and “Wait,” and one who cries unendingly, “Someone get me out of here.” It’s suppertime. And work for you. Tomorrow, next, and day after that. These moments are too few.
She leans in as you wash her face, cold paper cloth in hand. You leave your hand there, lingering, but when it’s gone, she’s gone, as well, back to where she’s been.
"I’ve gotta go now, Mom. I’ll be back in a minute."
You’re lying now. Maybe she knows. Maybe it works. Tomorrow, soonest. Maybe days.
She smiles a little. Sheepish. “Yes, probably,” she says. As if you’re asking an opinion, she says. Casually. You reach for that with your smile. She ricochets off your warming face and giggles some while with you. Laughter’s the same, sounding good.
Some days, it’s easy leaving. Some days, it matters less and less. These days that come less and less.
The RNA sees you. The RNA who likes her, nodding goodbye. This is when you can leave. It’s okay.
The door to her room stands open. Patchwork paper faces collage the wall. Bed is railed, ready. Blue-wrapped mattress in disposable sheaths. Rocker with a clan of bears. White stuffed tiger at window sentry. Offwhite blinds tilt catawampus. Sunset on discolored grass past the common porch. Outside, the trees pour down. Leaves bleeding out. Scrap paper.
“I wish I were the way I was," she’d said.
Years ago, back when she knew.
