Becky knew her way around the hospital quite well, now, and no longer needed to follow the blue arrows on the floor to the elevator.
Room 208 was directly across from the nurses’ station on the second floor. Becky stopped at the station every day before going into her mother’s room. She asked what, if anything, Marian had eaten since the day before. She asked about change: had there been any? Was the doctor available to discuss Marian’s treatment? At first, most of the nurses regarded her with disdain: another pain in the ass relative butting into our business. Now, nearly eight weeks later, the nurses looked at Becky with pity.
The Final Stages of Dementia: Her mother had forgotten how to swallow. A few days before, the intravenous nutrition had been removed; now, Becky’s mother was in hospice care. Hospice. A nice way of saying my mother is dying.
“No feeding tube. I want to go, now,” she’d said simply. “I miss your father… I miss my Robin Hood.” Maid Marian was mentally clearer than she had been in the months before the pneumonia came. She knew that she was dying, and welcomed it. But Becky didn’t want her mother to go. She still needed her.
Sue, Marian’s favourite nurse (the only one she was not afraid of or angry with) met Becky outside of the door and helped her put on the blue plastic gown and the rubber gloves (there was a staph infection going around, so all visitors had to take precautions). She put an arm around Becky’s shoulder and said, “She’s withdrawn into herself today. I am afraid that’s part of… the process.”
“She’s still… in there, though… right?” Becky hated that she sounded like a five-year-old.
Sue hesitated. “Yes.” She spoke quietly. “She can hear you.”
They walked into Room 208 together, Sue’s arm still around Becky’s shoulder.
Marian was sleeping, head back, mouth open. Monitors around her beeped and buzzed as they had for the last two months, only now, there were fewer machines.
As Sue rearranged Maid Marian and her several pillows, Becky plucked dead flowers from the latest arrangement on the bedside table. Only the orange roses were still fresh looking. That’s fine, Becky thought; they are her favourite.
Sue checked the Morphine drip, gave Becky’s shoulder a pat and left the room.
Becky brushed her mother’s hair, and then stroked her face with a warm, damp washcloth. Maid Marian’s mouth closed into a grin for a moment, and then went slack again.
Becky pulled a chair close to the bed and sat down. She pulled the Robert Browning book out of the bedside table’s only drawer and opened it on the bed before her. With one hand on the book and the other on her mother’s fingers, she read out loud. Every now and then, her mother’s fingers would reach upward and lace with Becky’s. She’s listening.
Becky read for about an hour. Then she stood and turned the television on. She turned the volume up so that her mother could listen to the Yankees game. “I’ll be back in a little while, okay, Mom?”
Her mother made a sound that could have been, “Okay.”
Becky bent and kissed the pale forehead. “I won’t be long, and then I’ll read your Roses, Roses poem.”
Patti, the hospice consultant, was waiting for Becky out in the hall. More talk about what was happening to Marian’s body. More details about death. More acceptance. More tears. More support “hot-line” numbers for her to call, should she need any help. Becky thought she might vomit.
After Patti left, Becky stopped at her mother’s door and stuck her head in: Please don’t leave me, Mom. I still need you. God. We used to fight all of the time. Can’t you fight now? Please?
She turned away and stopped at the nurses’ station. She let them know she was going outside to smoke and that she had her cell phone with her, if they needed her.
When Becky turned to head toward the elevators, she nearly walked into the man who had been standing behind her. He was taller than Becky, close to six feet. He was gray and balding, with a full beard and mustache. He was wearing little glasses, a red polo shirt and khaki pants. He was older-looking, but not elderly.
Becky’s first thought was, he looks like a nice man. Kind of a preppy Santa Claus.
They talked a little about weather; it had been pouring when she first got there but now, the sun had come out. He got on the elevator with Becky.
“Which floor did you need?” she asked.
He replied, “B, I guess. I don’t know why they call it the basement... It isn’t underground, right?”
She nodded.
“Wow, that was fast,” Becky said, less than a minute later.
They walked outside together. The man pulled out a pack of cigarettes and said, “This is the only thing I want to think about at the moment.”
She pulled out her box of Newports and told him she felt the same way.
While they were outside, it began to rain again, a sun-shower.
The man pointed at the bench in the overhang and said, “Do you think we’ll get into trouble if we smoke over there?” (No one was supposed to smoke on the premises, according to the sign out front.)
Becky said, “Naw, it’ll be okay. You have one of those ‘kind’ faces... And if anyone says anything, I’ll burst into tears and play the sympathy card.”
He said, “It’s a deal. If my face doesn’t work, your tears might.”
So now we’re conspirators, Becky thought. I think I might like him.
She sat on the bench; the man remained standing. They both lit up.
He spoke about talking to strangers. He said, “As children, we are all taught that strangers are bad. I think that may be what leads to ‘profiling’… not so much racial, but just kind of judging people by their appearances. Kind of like how sometimes, people with tattoos are considered ‘bad’… now, how unfair is that?”
She nodded.
“This could be a good conversation,” Becky said, “Considering you are a stranger and I don’t usually talk to strangers…”
“Well,” the man said, “I don’t have any tattoos, if that helps.”
She tried to smile.
He handed her a tissue and asked, ‘You okay?”
She hadn’t realised that the tears were falling again. “My mom’s sick.”
The man nodded and said, “I am here visiting a sick friend.”
Becky dabbed at her eyes and asked, “Is he going to be okay?”
“No… Your mom?”
Becky shook her head and tried to stem more tears.
He sat next to her. “Your mom is tired.”
“I know,” Becky whimpered, “But I can’t just...”
“Let her go,” he finished for her.
She nodded, still trying not to cry.
“I am sorry,” he said. “It’s hard when you love someone, I know.”
Becky let a few more tears fall before dabbing at her eyes again. “I’m selfish. I don’t want to be... without her.”
The man touched her hand. Becky could not have explained why, but the touch made her think of her father, Robin Hood. Suddenly, she felt calm. The crying stopped. She looked up into his eyes; they were soft and grass green. Like Dad’s.
He said, “You’ll never be without her, I promise you that.”
A woman walked up to them from the parking lot and reminded them, “This is a smoke-free environment.”
Becky giggled, and said, “So much for your ‘nice face’, huh?”
They stood and walked toward the parking lot with their cigarettes. He said, “And you! So much for playing the sympathy card!”
The rain stopped again. They looked for a rainbow and found none. The man said, “You know... Who the heck is she? It isn’t like she was wearing a uniform or a badge... Or any kind of symbol of authority...”
Becky shrugged. She thought that the woman might have been a nurse, but she was not sure; she told him that.
The man said, “Eh, nurses aren’t authority figures!” He paused at the two big flowerpots on either side of the sidewalk that marked the entrance to the parking lot.
His smile was almost impish. “You know, she didn’t have to be a wise-ass. You know what I’m going to do?”
Becky’s eyebrows went up, questioning.
The man put his cigarette out in the flowers.
Giggling, Becky did the same, placing her cigarette stub next to his.
He said, “Somehow, that felt good.”
“Yeah,” Becky said, still giggling. “That’s puttin’ it to the man!”
They walked back in and took the elevator to the second floor. Becky headed toward Maid Marian’s room. The man stopped at the doorway of the room next door, Room 209.
Becky turned to him and shrugged. “Well, I guess I will be seeing you around...”
He smiled and pointed at his heart. “I’ll always be with you.”
Becky put on a fresh blue plastic gown and latex gloves. She walked into Maid Marian’s room, sat in the chair by the bed and held her mother’s hand. Becky read from the Browning book again. Her mother’s eyes opened and a grin appeared on her face. Her fingers gripped Becky’s tightly.
“He’s coming,” Marian whispered. Her voice was fairly clear now.
Becky closed the book with one hand and with the other, caressed her mother’s fingers as their grip loosened.
Marian grinned again, her eyes bright. “You gonna be all right, Beck?”
Becky smiled as best she could. “Of course, Mom.”
“I love you,” Marian said.
Becky stood and kissed her mother’s forehead. “I love you, too.”
“Go home, now.” Marian’s voice went back to almost unintelligible. She closed her eyes and withdrew into herself again.
“Oh. Okay,” Becky choked. She leaned down and kissed her mother’s forehead again.
I want a cigarette, Becky thought. Maybe my friend with the beard and the red shirt is still here, and maybe he’s craving one, too.
She took off the blue plastic gown and rubber gloves. She walked into the room next door, Room 209.
It was empty.
Well, sometimes, people get shuffled from room to room, Becky thought, and if his friend’s that bad off, maybe they moved him down the hall to one of the private hospice rooms, like they were planning to do with Mom.
She walked up to the nurses’ desk and asked if they moved the person in 209.
Lisa, the nurse behind the desk, frowned and checked her computer. She looked up at Becky and said, “No. No one’s been in that room for nearly a week.”
Becky thought, maybe he just stopped at that room to say good-bye to me, and his friend is in a room down the hall.
She walked up and down the hall, and didn’t see the man. She went back to Lisa and asked her if she’d seen “my friend with the beard and the red polo shirt.”
Lisa gave Becky another frown and said she had not seen anyone like that.
Other nurses returned to the station, nurses who were there when Becky and the man in the red polo shirt were chitchatting by the elevator. They all gave Becky the same kind of frown that Lisa had given her and said that they didn’t see any such person; they saw Becky take the elevator earlier, alone.
Great. Now they think I am crazy.
Becky took the elevator down, crying a little bit. There were other people in the elevator, so she got out on Floor 1, to be alone and use the soda machine.
Once the tears stopped, Becky blew her nose and then got on an empty elevator.
She went outside and headed for the parking lot.
She stopped at the flowerpots, muttering, “You’re crazy, this is stupid, you’re crazy...”
Becky peeked into the flowerpot that she and the man had used as an ashtray.
Her Newport stub sat there alone.
Great. I AM crazy.
Maid Marian died that evening, in her sleep, with a grin on her face.
Becky kissed her mother’s pale forehead one more time. Robin Hood? Was that you?
She looked once more at her mother’s grin and nodded to herself. It must have been.
Chatboard (0)