“Hardly.” As I went back outside to my mother, I couldn’t help feeling a bit guilty for leaving Lily R-for-Romano to remake the bed by herself. Then Mom asked me to read to her and I put it out of my mind. I might never have given it another thought if I hadn’t found a pill in the sole of one of my very expensive athletic shoes.
I wore them not because I was particularly sporty but because walking in them felt so good. Plus, they came in bright, jazzy colors, which I had a new fondness for in my old age. And what the hell—if I ever decided to defy my old age and run a marathon, I was ready.
Running a marathon was probably the only thing that could have been farther from my mind than Lily R. when I felt something stuck to the sole of my shoe. Pausing at the kitchen door, I took it off before I scarred the tile flooring for life. A tiny rock—I used an ice pick to flip it out the open door, then checked the other shoe, just in case. The pill was about the same size as the rock but wedged in more deeply. Maybe that was why it was still intact, I thought, carefully working it free. Although I had no idea why I was bothering—I was hardly going to give it to Lily Romano next time I saw her. Hey, girlfriend, found this on the bottom of my shoe, thought you’d want it back anyway. Now who’s kind of stupid?
I put it in an empty ring box on my bureau. As Mom always said, waste not; in a cluster-headache emergency, I’d be glad I’d saved it. Stranger things had happened; were happening now.
A week later, Jill Franklyn called in the middle of the afternoon, apologizing so much I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. The I heard her say something about death being harder for some people, especially the first death.
“The first death?” I interrupted. “Are you talking about my mother?”
“Oh, no, no, no, your mother is fine!” she said quickly. “It’s your sister—”
“My sister?” Suddenly the pit of my stomach was filling with ice water. “Something happened to Gloria?”
“No, no, no, she’s fine,” Jill Franklyn said. “Well, not fine, exactly—”
“Is she still alive?” I demanded.
“Yes, of course she’s still alive.” Bewilderment crept into her apologetic tone. “But—well—you need to come and get her, she shouldn’t drive home.”
I said I was on my way and hung up without telling her that would be a bit longer than either of us would have liked, because I’d have to take a cab, and although this wasn’t the middle of nowhere or darkest suburbia, it wasn’t Manhattan, either. I got there in half an hour, which was actually sooner than I’d expected.
Jill Franklyn was waiting for me at the reception desk, looking a bit flustered. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she told me, smiling, but I could hear the admonition in her voice. The receptionist pretended not to eavesdrop by studying something intently on her desk.
“Sorry, I had to get a cab.” I tried to look contrite or at least sheepish. “I’m not sure I understand what’s going on. You said my mother’s all right—”
“Yes, just fine.” Jill Franklyn nodded vigorously as she ushered me through the entry gate and down the corridor leading directly to my mother’s room. “Gloria’s with her right now.”
I found the two of them sitting side by side on Mom’s bed. Mom had her arm around my sister, who had obviously been crying. Lily Romano was there as well, looking concerned and fidgeting. She left as soon as I came in, nodding a silent hello as she rushed past. I frowned, wishing she’d stay, but I had no chance to ask and no good reason to do so.
“What kept you?” my mother was saying, a bit impatient.
“There’s only one car between us,” I said, “and Gloria has it. I don’t usually need it. What’s up, Glow-bug?”
Gloria looked up at me and I thought she was furious at my using her childhood nickname so publicly. Then she got up, flung her arms around me, and sobbed.
By the time we got to the car, she had quieted down and stayed quiet all the way home, for which I was grateful. Rush hour had started and I didn’t want to fight the traffic to the soundtrack of Gloria’s heartbroken sobs. A dozen years ago, never driving in rush hour again had been one more good reason to leave the local tax-preparation firm in favor of a home business; now I decided that it had been the best reason.
We made it home alive; in lieu of kissing the ground in thanksgiving, I put a pizza in the oven and joined Gloria in the living room. I found her wedged into the far corner of the sofa, hugging her knees to her chest as if to make herself as small as possible. A joke about never having a white-knuckle ride on the couch crossed my mind, but for once I actually thought before speaking.
“I don’t know what happened today,” I said after a bit. “Jill Franklyn didn’t have a chance to tell me and I thought I’d better just get you home rather than hang around.”
She flicked a glance at me but neither spoke nor moved. I waited a little longer, then went into the kitchen to check on the pizza. I was taking it out of the oven when I heard Gloria say, “I couldn’t save her.”
I turned to see her sitting at the table. I cut the pizza into eight slices, grabbed a couple of plates, and put the platter on a heat pad within easy reach before taking the chair on her right.
“They gave me coffee with, like, six sugars.” She frowned at the plate in front of her as if she were seeing something other than a Currier-and-Ives style winter scene in blue and white. We’d grown up with these dishes; in thirty or more years, we’d only lost two. “They said it was good for shock. I didn’t think I was in shock but I guess I was.” She raised her face to me. “I never, ever, ever imagined what it would be like to do CPR on someone and not … not w—” She swallowed hard. “Not have it work.”
“Oh, sis, I’m so sorry.” I got up and put my arms around her. She sat passively for a little while; then I felt her slowly move to hug me back. “I can’t even imagine.”
“It’s not how it should’ve happened. Mrs. Boudreau should be playing bridge with her son and her friends right now. Watching a movie tonight. Getting up for breakfast tomorrow morning and then … just … having a few more years to be happy. Like Mr. Santos and the others.”
The last three words clunked in my ear, but I was too busy trying to remember the dead woman. Still keeping hold of both her hands, I sat down again after a bit and said, “I’m sorry, Gloria, but I can’t place her. The lady who died. Mrs. Boudreau?”
My sister nodded sadly. “She only moved in a couple of weeks ago; I don’t think you ever even saw her.” She took a shuddery breath. “I promised her son I’d look after her. I promised her I’d take care of her. And then her son had to watch while I broke that promise.”
“You’re a good person, sis.” My thoughts shifted around like puzzle pieces trying to fit themselves together. “You did take care of her, as best you could. But no matter how well you do it, CPR isn’t a get-out-of-death-free card.”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to kick myself. Gloria frowned and I waited for her to tear me a new one for making stupid jokes again. Instead she said, “You don’t understand. Mrs. Boudreau really shouldn’t be dead. She wasn’t even long-term. She was only there till the end of the month,” she added in response to my questioning look. “Then she was gonna live with her son and his family. They’re adding another room to their house for her. It isn’t ready yet. And now they’ll just have an extra room with nobody in it.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to say that no extra space in any home ever went unused under any circumstances, but then I didn’t. Having grown up in a decidedly uncrowded house, Gloria’s experience was limited, and it was beside the point anyway.
Little by little, I got the story out of her; it was pretty much Mr. Santos all over again, with a slightly different cast and an unhappy ending that even a portable defibrillator couldn’t change. “The defib’s the last of the last resorts,” Gloria said as she started on a slice of pizza. That had to be a good sign, I thought. “It’s too easy to screw it up even if you’re trained. I’m trained to defib, but I’ve never done it.” She paused, head tilted to one side. “Jesus, I just heard myself. ‘I’m trained to defib but I’ve never done it.’ Like it’s routine. Until I started volunteering, I’d never done any CPR for real. Not even once.”
I was trying to think of something to say when she dropped the slice of pizza she’d been holding and put a hand to her mouth. “And I never even thought anyone would actually die. Mr. Santos and his daughter were calling me a heroine, the head nurse put a letter in my file, I got my name in the newsletter as this month’s MVV—Most Valuable Volunteer. I didn’t think, What if somebody dies? because nobody did. So I didn’t think for one second that Mrs. Boudreau might die. I just waited for the nurses to say she had a pulse.”
I frowned. Had Gloria performed CPR on someone else besides Mr. Santos? “Gloria, how many times—”
She didn’t hear me. “Even after they shocked her, I was still waiting for someone to say she was back.” She put her hand to mouth again. “Omigod, deep down I’m still waiting for Jill to call and say someone at the hospital decided to give it one last try and brought Mrs. Boudreau back after all.”
And I was waiting for her to burst into tears again or even get sick all over the table. Instead, Gloria finished the slice and reached for another. Good to see she was recovering from the experience, I thought. My own appetite was history.
The head nurse who called the next morning to check on Gloria was new. Celeste Akintola had that friendly but no-nonsense voice all RNs above a certain level of experience seem to have. Jill Franklyn didn’t have it, and I couldn’t imagine that she ever would. I shook the thought away and focused on getting acquainted with the new head nurse. More specifically, on trying to find out how often Gloria had used her mad CPR skillz, but without sounding like I was prying. Or like I had to.
Celeste Akintola made friendly but no-nonsense noises about patient confidentiality, adding that she expected all staff, including volunteers, to respect the privacy of the residents. I gave up, handed the phone to Gloria, and stood by, blatantly eavesdropping; all I heard was yes and okay. After hanging up, Gloria said she had strict orders to take a full two weeks off before she even considered coming back. Even then, it would be for no more than three days a week, at least to begin with. My sister didn’t mind going along with that, which was a relief. Also a little amazing—or perhaps not. She was subdued, obviously deep in thought.
If I were honest, I had to do some thinking of my own about taking Gloria seriously. As the older, supposedly wiser sister, I’d never saved a life or seen a person die right in front of me. Gloria had saved one person and had another die practically in her arms just in the space of a few weeks. Life and death—it didn’t get any more serious than that.
I wanted to tell her as much, but I couldn’t figure out how to begin. Whatever I said came out trite, if not weaselish. Gloria by contrast had a new eloquence. Or maybe it was only new to me.
“I was scared of what you’d say,” she told me later. “I was doing so good, you know? Everybody needed me—me, personally. Me specifically. And then this happened. I needed you to come and be Mom, Jr., so much, but at the same time I was thinking how pathetic it was to be such a mess at thirty-eight. Then you came in and just—” She shrugged. “All you cared about was me. And I realized there’s only one person in the whole world who’ll always show up, no matter how pathetic I am. You didn’t go all smarter or older or wiser on my ass and you didn’t act like it was all a big joke.” She paused. “Although the get-out-of-death-free-card thing was kinda cool.”
“Some people make jokes when they’re nervous,” I said.
“Yeah, I get that now,” she said. “See? I’m growing up.”
But, I hoped, not so much that she’d ever realize how utterly and completely she’d pwned her big sister.
It was a nice two weeks. I took some time off and let Gloria introduce me to the quirky world of hard-core flea-market shopping, including lessons in haggling for the reserved soul. She even got me to admit it was fun, which it was, although I didn’t see myself doing it without her. She said she felt the same way about Red Dawn.
I visited Mom alone and quickly learned to come in the mornings, when she was sharper, upbeat, and much more like her old self. After midday, her energy flagged and she had a hard time concentrating, whether she’d had a nap after lunch or not. Jill Franklyn said this was called sundowning. Her sympathetic expression wasn’t perfunctory, but there was something professional about it, almost rehearsed. Maybe it was all the training she’d had in how to discuss these things with the family.
Or maybe, I thought, suddenly ashamed, it was repetition. How many times had she explained this to anxious relatives? I really had to work on giving credit where credit was due, I thought, or I’d end up yelling Get off my lawn! at everyone under sixty.
After her two-week break, Gloria was ready to go back to work—or “work”—and I was happy to let her, despite being tempted to drop hints about looking for a paying job. Then I thought of Mom; having Gloria around again would probably be good for her, even if it wasn’t as often as before.
After the first week, however, Gloria announced she’d be going every day again. “Akintola said I can only volunteer three days a week,” she said when I questioned her. “So, fine. The rest of the time, I’ll just visit Mom.” She smiled like she’d just cut the Gordian knot with blunt-end scissors.
“I’m not trying to go all older, wiser, or smarter on your ass,” I said, wincing, “but I’m pretty sure that violates the spirit of the order.”
“She doesn’t want me to volunteer, I won’t volunteer,” Gloria said stubbornly. “Four days out of seven, I’ll sit around like a lady of leisure.”
“I don’t think you should go seven days in a row—”
Gloria huffed impatiently. “Have you seen Mom lately?”
My heart sank. “I know what you—”
“You always go in the morning, right? Who told you about sundowning—was it Jill?” I tried to say something but she talked over me. “It’s code for Mom gets worse as the day goes on. They use sundowning with the families because the word makes them think of things like pretty sunsets after a nice day—as if the person started out good in the morning. But they don’t. They’re better in the morning—that’s not the same as good.”
I stared at her, slightly awestruck, then tried to cover it by saying the first thing that came into my head. “I thought you weren’t volunteering today.”
She frowned. “I’m not.”
“So if Mr. Santos has another heart attack—or someone else has a coronary—you’d stand back and let the pros handle it?”
“Are you insane?” she demanded. “You think I’d just watch someone die just because it’s my day off?”
“No, only if they were DNR. Like Mom.”
She looked so stricken, I wanted to bite my tongue off and let her throw it away. “When you don’t know for sure, you assume they want to live until you know otherwise for sure,” she said in a stiff little voice, and I could have sworn she was trying to do Celeste Akintola’s no-nonsense voice.
“And if it is otherwise?” I asked, trying not to sound argumentative.
She didn’t answer.
“You know you can get into big trouble for doing CPR when you’re not supposed to? Not just you, but the doctors and nurses and everyone else who works there, including all the other volunteers.” I wasn’t sure exactly how true that was, but it wasn’t a complete lie. “You could even get arrested for assault, and I don’t think the family has to wait till you’re out of jail to sue you.”
Gloria gave me the most severe Eyebrow I’d ever seen. “The box set of Law & Order doesn’t come with a law degree. I do what I know is right.”
“I just asked what if you knew for sure—”
“Like Mom?” she said, almost spitting the word. “Go ahead, say it: Mom. What’s the matter, can’t say who you really mean? Why? Things get too cold-blooded for you all of a sudden? Or are you really afraid Mom would sue me? Press charges? Both?” Gloria gave a single, short laugh. “Have I asked you for bail money? Lately?” she added. “No, I haven’t. Case closed.”
“So, what—you always guessed right?” I frowned. “Just how many times was that?”
She hesitated. “Counting Mr. Santos and Mrs. Boudreau? Five.”
My jaw dropped. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was mad at you.”
“Then why didn’t Mom—no, scratch that. Why didn’t anybody tell me?”
“Maybe they thought you knew.” She shrugged. “I mean, they kept calling me a heroine.”
I wanted a desk to pound my head on. “Don’t you think I’d have said something if I had known?”
“I was mad at you,” she said again. “Remember?”
“Yeah. I also remember why: I asked you why you thought there was something wrong at the home.” I gave her a sideways look. “Does this mean you’ve changed your mind about that?”
She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and huffed. “Do you really have to make a big deal out of it?”
“Hey, it was your idea,” I called after her as she left.
If Gloria had changed her mind, so had I, although I didn’t realize it right away. It crept up on me in chilly slow motion. My visits went from three a week to daily. I thought it was intimations of mortality—specifically, my mother’s—brought on by the revelation of how many times Gloria had used her mad CPR skillz. No, I corrected myself: how many times Gloria had performed CPR in an emergency situation. Taking her seriously meant swearing off funny terms for matters of life and death.
I was even ready to confess that I had a case of the jitters—not eager but willing—except that she didn’t ask. Baffling—surely she was wondering why I’d rearranged my schedule so drastically … wasn’t she? I waited, but she didn’t try to talk to me during visits or at home, where I was now working through evening hours we had previously spent together.
After a week, I couldn’t stand it anymore and called in one of my temps. Gloria raised her eyebrows—it wasn’t the first half of April—but didn’t ask. In fact, she didn’t say a word on the drive in.
“Are you picking me up or should I get a ride with Lily?” she asked as I pulled into an empty space in the visitor’s lot.
I made an exasperated noise. “You’re gaslighting me, aren’t you?”
“What is that?” Gloria looked genuinely baffled.
“Okay, not a fan of old movies. You’re trying to drive me crazy,” I said.
“And what happened to make you think that?” she asked politely. The strong urge I had to smack her must have been obvious. “Come on, seriously,” she added. “You’re the one who’s gotten all weird, working all night so you can be here every day—”
“And you’ve never asked me why. Aren’t you even a little bit curious?”
“Well, yeah,” she said, like she’d never heard a stupider question. “But I figured I’d just be wasting my breath. You don’t tell me a goddam thing till you feel like it. If you ever do.”
I felt my face getting hot again.
“What’s the matter?” she said, a little impatient now. “It’s true, isn’t it?”
I gave up. “Okay, okay. I’m nervous about Mom. Finding out how many times you’d done CPR kinda …” I shrugged. “It kinda freaked me out, I guess.”
“Really.” My sister gave me the skeptical Eyebrow. “When? After you considered the legal ramifications of my possibly keeping Mom alive?”
“I never did CPR on anyone—I don’t even know how—so it took a while for the reality to sink in, that Mom could … you know. Die.” I barely managed not to choke on the word.
My sister let out a long breath, staring through the windshield at nothing in particular. Then: “If it makes you feel any better, Mom isn’t too likely to have a coronary anytime real soon. Her heart’s in pretty good shape. To be honest, I worried more about her falling—the dizzy spells. Fortunately, she doesn’t fight using the wheelchair as much as she did, so it’s less of a worry than it was. But if you want to keep coming every day, I’m not gonna stop you,” she added with a sudden smile. “Because it really seems to help her stay clear.”
“What about the sundowning?”
“That’s what I mean.” Gloria’s smile grew even brighter. “Some days, I can barely tell it’s happening.”
“New medication?” I asked.
“Nope, same stuff, same dose. Some of the other residents take a lot more and don’t do as well.”
“Maybe it’s because she’s eating better?” I said.
Gloria shrugged. “It doesn’t hurt. Now, are we going in, or do you want to sit here and, as Mom says when she thinks no one’s listening, fret like a motherfucker all day?”
She was right—Mom was better. But Dr. Li had warned me that these periods of near recovery, when patients somehow seemed to shake off the fog that had been rolling in, weren’t signs of genuine improvement, only the erratic nature of the disease showing itself—one of dementia’s special cruelties.
But it didn’t make Mom any less lucid. She started telling me to go on vacation again and was annoyed when I refused, occasionally getting so agitated with me that I had to leave so she’d calm down.
“You want to know the truth,” Lily Romano said as she walked me out one afternoon, “she’s kinda scared that you’re coming every day. She’s afraid maybe it means that she’s dying and the doctor won’t tell her.”
“Really?” I was shocked. “I’d never have thought of that. Gloria never said anything.”
Lily Romano shrugged. “She doesn’t know. Residents don’t always tell their families everything. Sometimes it’s easier for them to confide in someone they aren’t so close to, especially when–”
“When …?” I prodded after a moment.
She winced. “When it’s something where they think their family will, like, just say they’re being silly or paranoid.”
When the family doesn’t take them seriously, I thought, wincing a little myself. “So does my mother confide in you a lot?” She looked so uncomfortable, I went on quickly, “Forget I asked, it’s not important. How’re your headaches?”
She looked blank for a moment. “Oh, yeah, fine—I haven’t had any in a while.”
I might have mentioned finding the pill in my shoe just for the hell of it, but we were nearly at the entry gate and she was making gotta-get-back-to-work noises. I made a mental note to talk to Gloria later about Mom’s possible anxieties. Then the day got busy; Gloria was getting a lift home with another aide, so I did the grocery shopping, and somewhere between the deli counter and the perennial choice between paper or plastic, a gust of tedium blew all the mental notes off the front of my mental refrigerator.
Only much later, after several hours into another night at the computer, did it come back to me. My work ethic said it could wait; my procrastinator said it was a golden opportunity. For once, I went with the latter.