by Valerie Lewis
My grandmother died twenty-two years ago in Saint Medard’s Hospital. I lived close to the hospital then, so I was the one who stayed with her, even though I was the youngest, still in college at the time. Back then the building was much smaller than it is now, with geriatrics in the same ward as maternity. Outside her window it was dark, though in the distance I could just make out some of the parking lot lights, white circles fractured in the double glass, each glowing like two superimposed halos.
I sat in a chair near her bed and watched her. Unconscious, she looked much worse than she had at Christmas. The veins in her thin arms looked like little blue ropes twisted over her bones, and her lips were so dry they were covered with caked-on blood. I remember thinking, ‘Am I supposed to clean that up? Does the hospital have someone to do these things, or is that my responsibility?’ And then I felt terrible for worrying about my own discomfort when my grandmother was likely in the last hours of her life. I bowed my head and closed my eyes.
Sometime after, I’m not sure how long, I met the man who later became my husband. He walked into the room wearing blue scrubs. I’d seen so few male nurses that it took a moment for me to realize what he was doing. He checked my grandmother’s vital signs, and seeing him gently handling her as he listened to her heart and took her blood pressure somehow broke the spell of her fragility.
“Your grandmother?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Are you here by yourself?”
“My mother will be here soon.”
“That’s good.” He read the blood pressure display and made a note on her chart.
“Actually, it’s not,” I said. “She’ll just find a way to make this all about her.”
“Well,” he said as he returned the chart to the foot of the bed, “if she gets out of hand, just give me a call. I’m Rich, and I have the authority to commit people.”
I held out my hand. “I’m Ellen, and I have twenty-four credits in Photography.”
He shook my hand and smiled. “Truly a fortuitous meeting of great minds.”
Rich packed up his medical supplies, straightened up the empty bed on the other side of the room, and then went into the bathroom. He came out with a damp washcloth, which he used to wipe off my grandmother’s bloodstained lips. Then he folded it over his forearm, gave me a small wave, and left the room.
Though my mother said that she would be at the hospital “right away”, it was two hours before she arrived. She was wearing a floor-length wool coat and a long red scarf. She walked into the room with her high-heels clicking madly, and announced her entrance with a loud sigh. Her hair looked like it had just been blow-dried.
“You would not believe the horrible day I’m having,” my mother said.
I didn’t stand up. “If we’re competing for who’s had the worst day, I think Grandma wins.”
“My washer broke,” she continued as she moved into the room and to the foot of my grandmother’s bed. “Do you know what I had to do? I had to show my housekeeper where the Laundromat is.” She reached into her designer handbag and took out a pack of cigarettes. Back then you could still smoke in hospitals. She lit one with a silver Zippo, and closed the lighter with a sharp snap.
My mother took a slow drag as she stared down at my grandmother. “It’s awful,” she said softly. “Just awful.” She looked for another moment, then turned to me. “When I get this old, kill me. Just put a pillow over my face and smother me to death.”
I crossed my arms. “I don’t suppose you’d like to speak to Grandma’s doctors.”
My mother walked over to the window and looked out, as if she hadn’t heard me. “Do they have a restaurant in here?”
“I met one of her nurses too,” I continued. “He seemed very nice. I’m sure he could answer any questions -”
She turned around. “They have male nurses now? What was he wearing?”
“If you’re not interested, you might as well leave.”
“Honey.” My mother walked forward, leaned over, and pushed some of my hair back away from my face. “Sweetheart, you’re all tense. Don’t you have a boyfriend yet?”
I pushed her hand away. “They expect Grandma to die before the morning. If you want to you can sit here with me, on the condition that you not speak at all. If you don’t think you can handle that, then leave.”
She stood up. “I have a busy day tomorrow.” She put her scarf on and adjusted her coat. “I have to wait for the washing machine repairman, and then I have to write him a check. Call me at home if anything changes.”
As my mother was leaving the room, Rich was walking in holding a stack of clean towels. He put the towels down on the empty bed, picked up the pillow, handed it to me, and gestured at the doorway with a nod.
I smiled and took the pillow from him. He picked up the chair next to the empty bed and moved it close to mine as the sound of clicking steps slowly faded into nothing.
The next time I was in St. Medard’s Hospital was years later, when my sister Margaret had her twins. Rich and I were married by then, but he was working in the ER that night, so he was only able to stop by for brief periods of time. For most of the time it was just my mother and I, sitting on plastic chairs in between a vending machine stocked with Pepsi and mini powdered donuts and a bulletin board showcasing pictures of recent newborns from St. Medard’s Esther A. Pullet New Life Wing. The chairs alternated from dark orange to mustard yellow, and between my mother and me it went orange-yellow-orange-yellow.
My mother was flipping through the pages of a newspaper, barely pausing to read the headlines. When she was finished she dropped it on the floor, leaned back in her chair, and let out a low moan. She had recently quit smoking, and decided this meant she was experiencing levels of suffering few people could comprehend.
My mother held out her left arm, shook it until the sleeve of her blouse slid down, and looked at the time on her silver watch. “How long does it take to have a baby?” she asked.
I responded without looking up from the pages of my Newsweek. “You did it twice and you don’t remember?”
“In my day they gave you so many drugs you barely knew what was happening. There was none of this Lamaze business, where they say painkillers give the baby brain damage.” She looked over at me. “Though that explains so much about you, dear.”
I turned a page of my magazine.
My mother stood and went to the magazine rack on the far wall, where she pulled out several news, gardening, and children’s magazines, and then left them in a pile on a chair. Next she went to the vending machine and paused to tap her manicured fingernails on the glass.
“I can’t read anything here; I can’t eat anything here.”
“Feel free to starve to death,” I muttered.
Rich came in carrying two paper cups of coffee. “Hello ladies.”
“Sweetheart,” my mother said. She clicked across the room and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank God you’re here. Your wife is boring me to tears.”
“I can only stay a few minutes.” He handed one of the cups to me, leaning down to kiss me as he did. “How’s Margaret?”
My mother put her hand on Rich’s shoulder. “Can you believe I’m going to be a grandmother?” She nudged Rich so that he was facing her, and tilted one of her legs out, posing. “Do I look like a grandmother to you?”
Rich took one of her hands. “Unequivocally,” he said with a smile.
My mother giggled. “You’re so sweet.” She took the other cup of coffee from him, took a sip, and made a face. “This is awful. I need a cigarette.”
She walked to the trash can near the vending machines and dropped the full cup of coffee into it just as Scott, Margaret’s husband, came walking down the hallway.
“Is it born yet?” my mother asked. “I have a nail appointment.”
“Uh, no.” Scott frowned. “She’s only been in labor an hour.”
My mother groaned. “I’m dying for a cigarette. Really, you have no idea how much pain I’m in.”
“Yes, I’m sure it’s incomparable to Margaret’s,” I said. Rich put his hand on my shoulder.
“You should all go home for a while,” Scott continued. “I can call you once the baby’s born.”
My mother let out a sigh. “Wonderful. I hate being here. Hospitals are so depressing.”
As she spoke there came the distinct sound of a gurney approaching. A nurse pushing an elderly patient mostly obscured by a sheet made her way past us and further down the hall to the elevators. Our conversation ended immediately, as if it was a funeral procession and we had to show respect through our silence.
When the gurney had almost passed out of view, the patient lifted his arm out from underneath the sheet, and held it up tentatively, as if struggling to keep it aloft. The arm was pale and hairless in the fluorescent lights, and covered in purple sores, lesions that looked wet, like they would rub off on anyone who touched them. While none of us said anything or even made eye contact with each other, we all saw it, and were all saying silent prayers in our own way.
“Well,” my mother said finally to break the silence. “When I get old like that, I hope you’ll all have the decency to kill me.” She put one of her nails in her mouth and considered this. “Better yet, just buy me some smokes. Let the lung cancer do the dirty work.”
“Be quiet,” I hissed, glancing down the hallway to see if the gurney was still nearby.
“Good luck with the birthing,” my mother said to Scott. “Don’t bother calling; I’ll just stop by your house sometime next week.” She went to get her coat from one of the waiting area chairs and threw a kiss at Rich. “Sweetheart, don’t let my daughter drive you crazy.”
“I’ll try,” Rich said. I poked him in the stomach, and he smiled.
“Bye kids,” my mother said, and then she was gone.
But that was nothing. The worst thing my mother did to my sister was Thanksgiving five years ago. Scott’s family, the Loewen’s, invited us all over to their place. Rich, my mother, and I joined Scott and Margaret at Mr. and Mrs. Loewen’s, along with their other son Kyle and Mrs. Loewen’s father, who they referred to as just “Papa”.
It quickly became apparent that Papa had Alzheimer’s. He couldn’t remember everyone sitting at the table, and he often strayed from the conversation topic. I kept waiting for my mother to say something insensitive, but she seemed content to reapply her lipstick at the table while boring everyone with stories of her new Chihuahua named Baby Doll, who she described as “so much easier to care for than my daughters were”.
We had dessert in their family room, where Mrs. Loewen showed pictures of Scott’s days in the high school marching band, much to his embarrassment. As we were flipping through albums the twins ran up to Margaret and I and, while fighting over a toy, they bumped into me and spilled my coffee into my lap.
“I’m so sorry about the kids,” Margaret said in the bathroom as she helped me dry off my dress.
“It’s fine,” I said. “It reminds me that I have to make an appointment to get fitted for a new diaphragm.”
She shoved me playfully. “Stop it; you sound like mom.”
When we went back out to the living room, Rich, Scott, Kyle and Mr. Loewen were all standing around talking about sports, while Mrs. Loewen, sitting on the couch next to her father, was trying to engage my mother in a discussion about charity work.
“I would,” my mother was saying as we approached. “But I just get so busy. Like tomorrow I have to have lunch, and then I have a dinner date, and by then the day’s just over.” She put her hand on Mrs. Loewen’s. “I have a beautiful dress for dinner. It’s red and gold -”
Suddenly Papa, who was slowly consuming one of the little pastries set out on the table beside him, let it fall out into his lap, followed by long trail of drool. He looked up at the guests with a blank expression in his eyes. Mrs. Loewen quickly got a napkin and began wiping up the mess.
My mother rolled her eyes and sat back in her seat. “When I get that old, kill me,” she said. “Just shoot me. There’s no point living once it gets that bad.” She waved her hand at Margaret and I. “Girls, when I get like that, just buy a gun and blow my brains out.”
Margaret covered her face with her hand.
“Jesus, mom,” I said.
“My father might be ready for bed,” Mrs. Loewen said. Scott stood to help her, and together they quickly ushered Papa out of the room.
We weren’t invited back the next Thanksgiving.
Which brings us to now. Back at Saint Medard’s Hospital. Rich doesn’t work here anymore; he’s at a nursing home, where there are much better hours. He’s working right now, which is why I’m alone when I come to see my mother.
My mother has anaplastic carcinoma, one of the worst forms of thyroid cancer. It came on her suddenly, moving quickly from the initial symptoms to this hospitalization. I’m sure she regrets not having enough time to use the diagnosis to get attention. I can just imagine her sitting in her doctor’s office, wearing a tailored suit, one leather boot stretched out in front of her, twirling a piece of her hair on her index finger and asking if she has time to get her highlights redone before the radiation treatments. She’s spent only a week in the hospital, and it’s the first time she’s allowed me to visit.
When I walk into the room, she’s bent over the side of the bed, vomiting into a bedpan. Her hair is chin-length and thinning so much that her scalp is visible. Her skin is white and flaky, and as I watch she scratches one wrist, taking off a small patch of skin. She pulls herself up, and it sounds like she’s winded from the effort of vomiting, but it’s just how she’s breathing now, slow and labored. There’s a plastic oxygen tube around her neck, and she pushes it up and into her nose as I stand in the doorway staring.
This is the first time in my life I have seen my mother without make-up.
“I brought you some things.” I walk further into the room, up beside my mother’s bed, though not close enough to touch her. I open my shopping bag and begin emptying it out on the nightstand beside her. “I got those fashion magazines you read. If you want to mark things, Rich and I can buy them for you. And I got you a few romance novels, and those mints you like…”
My mother reaches over, her hand moving impossibly slowly, and if it’s weighed down by lead, and picks up a napkin off the nightstand. She coughs and spits a gob of blood into the napkin. She crushes it weakly in her palm and closes her eyes.
“Mother,” I say.
She drops the napkin on the floor and lowers her head to her hands.
“Mother,” I say. “Mother, you’re not going to die.”
She lifts her head and looks at me.
“I spoke to your doctors,” I tell her. “You’ll have a few more weeks of the radiation, and then surgery to remove what’s left of the tumor.”
She coughs again. The blood gathers inside her lower lip, but she just swallows.
“It’s likely the cancer will come back, or spread, but you’re not going to die now. Not today.” I look down at the bag in my hands. “Maybe a year.” I look up. “That’s something.”
My mother is too quiet. It’s disturbing. My mother does not sit quietly and cough up blood. My mother makes cutting remarks until everyone around her feels insignificant. My mother talks about herself until everyone else is either uncomfortable or bored. My mother wags one French-manicured finger at the hostess of an exclusive restaurant and says, “Of course you have a table for me. Don’t you know who my dead second husband is?”
My mother coughs again, and when she raises her face up her eyes are filled with tears. Her hands are covered with blood, pooled in her palms and stretched in sticky lines between her fingers. This is the first time I’ve seen my mother cry. It’s obscene.
I look down into my bag again. The sad truth is, I’m too selfish to go out and buy a gun, bring it into a hospital, kill my mother, and be left to explain what I’ve done. I wouldn’t have the courage to tamper with her medication levels, if I even knew which medications would do it. When I look up, I’m crying too.
“Mom,” I say. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”
My mother wipes her hands on the bedding, leaving brown-red smears on the sheets, and I move closer to her. She puts one hand on my shoulder, and uses the other to push some hair back off my face. I put my arms around her. She smells like iron, like the railing on her penthouse balcony where I remember her standing with her thick hair blowing backwards, her body framed by skyscrapers. She would tilt her head up, smile into the sunlight, and talk about where she’d like to have brunch. She’d flick her ashes over the railing, oblivious to how far down they fell, or whether they blew onto the chubby little girl who was left every night with the housekeeper.
When my mother releases me, I reach into my bag and take out the final item: a pack of cigarettes. She smiles. I tear open the plastic, put one of the cigarettes in her mouth, and light it for her. It probably won’t take long for someone to smell it and come to yell at us, but I can face them. This I can do for my mother.
My mother takes a long drag through her congested lungs, exhales through her nose, and for a moment she looks like herself. She puts one of her hands over mine. “Thank you,” she says. Then she takes the cigarette, holds it out over the edge of her bed, and presses it against the tube of her oxygen tank.
