Toothless Mother smiles from behind the bars. She smiles at nothing in particular, something melted, sweet, and white beyond that faraway window. But the here and now just won’t let her be. Her palms press down onto the bars and force her to push herself up. Her body is crumpled, it doesn’t want to move. Her muscles are knotted at the thighs, her legs don’t want to stand. It’s hard for her, she doesn’t understand why she has to stand if her body doesn’t want to. But she’s propped up with her hands on the bars and is stretched like a piece of leather across a frame as the bottom of her nightdress is rolled up in the morning light. They wash her back. She puts up with it. There’s a throbbing and pulsing in her temples. She feels her blood slosh through her bony body and pool at her feet, she is a glass of corked wine balanced precariously high over the emptiness and the white of daylight.
“Good thing Pāvils gave me these yellow rubber gloves. They’re really good, see? Before my hands would smell so badly I couldn’t go to work—piss and shit get under your nails and the smell sticks to your skin no matter how hard you scrub your hands. It’s more hygienic with the gloves. They work! I put a hat on before coming in here, too. Your hair soaks up smells in a second. I can’t talk to anyone at work about any of it. I never dreamed it would be like this. She’s been strong as a horse her whole life—she worked as hard as a horse and was as proud as a horse. Wouldn’t let anyone or anything get to her. And look at her now! How long will it be like this? Could be years. The doctors said her heart was like a horse’s. Strong. Her mind’s gone, she doesn’t think or feel anything, but she’s still got an appetite.”
Mother hears these doubts about her mental capacity and smirks, then smacks her gums, which are again as dried out as the desert. But right away she winces as a rough towel digs into the skin behind her knees.
“Mom, what you’re doing is admirable—you’re great. You amaze me. You’ll feel good about it afterwards, right?”
“Will I feel good about it? I don’t even know how to respond to your little cheer.”
“Cheer? Mom!”
“I don’t know. I don’t know about anything anymore. I try not to think at all.”
They put a new diaper on Mother and sit her back onto the bed with a pile of pillows behind her back. A napkin is tucked in under her chin. A spoon of something red is brought to her mouth. She opens it like a mechanical beak and swallows.
“Have some fruit, Mother!”
“You should cut it up—she doesn’t have any teeth.”
Mother nods and swallows the piece of fruit whole.
“She can mash it up with her gums.”
“Maybe it would be better to put her in a home. You yell at her. And one time when I called you were in tears. Sometimes you drink and cry.”
“I don’t just yell at her, m’dear, I hit her too—with a towel. She’s totally shameless. And yes, I yell. She shits all over the bed and pisses all the time. But she still has an appetite. I stand next to her and watch my life fall apart—or what’s left of it. An hour with her sometimes feels like a year. I’ll drink her medicine, it happens a lot. It’s human nature! Don’t shake your head, that’s life. You don’t believe me and that’s fine, because you don’t know anything about life yet. Think what you want, but I’m not putting her in a home. She’s my mother.”
“Nurse supervision, good food. She’s been proud her entire life, remember, Mom? It might be better for both of you if you didn’t yell and hit her with towels. If you didn’t cry and drink her medicine.”
“Why bother having kids if they just end up putting you in a home?”
“But let’s at least think about it.”
“You’re all trying to push this nursing home thing—stop piling on your advice!”
Mother nods and opens her mouth to have her say, but gets a mouthful of chocolate spread instead. That was unnecessary. Mother hates the chocolate. She shudders and shakes her head. But her gums mash up the spread, and it melts and drips heavily into her stomach.
Mother speaks:
“The white one.”
“Mom, she wants the cottage cheese.”
“I heard, I heard. I’ve got it all under control, I’ll get through it, you hear me? This is my mother. Alright, let’s give it a rest. She’s scheduled for an X-ray Tuesday. Can you come help me? To get her in the wheelchair and down to the clinic.”
Silence.
Mother smiles.
“I can’t do it by myself. She’s ridiculously heavy. Every muscle in my body is already strained. It hurts here, on the left side. From my ribs to my thigh—it’s like I’m being cut with a knife.”
“Are you crying?”
“No. It’s some kind of fluid that just drains from my eyes on its own. It’s just that everything hurts. I never thought it would be like this. I’ve never experienced anything like it before, you know? She doesn’t want anything but pity. But I can’t give it to her because of all the shit and the pain. I don’t see anything beyond that anymore, and I’m so scared. There’s nothing to do about it. Let God pity her—that’s his job. I just wash the sheets, get upset, and cry. Eat faster, Mother, I have to go to work!”
“What does she do by herself all day?”
“Sleeps. What else?”
Mother smiles. What does she do by herself all day? Time’s a real son of a bitch, she thinks.
Time always pretends it’s something else. Sometimes it pretends to be a person. Time pretends to be people’s wrinkles, scars, saggy bits. Sometimes it’s faraway, unreachable roads. Time pretends to be a road that leads to the sea—over hills, past hidden places, past mysterious destinies that are never understood, over roofs, chimneys, castles and huts, fields of cow-wheat and forget-me-nots, and under the silvery smooth beech trees of manor houses. Sometimes it pretends it’s the sea itself. And the sky. Sometimes it pretends to be gravestones, children, the elderly. It pretends to be your veins, your teeth, your dentures, or eyes. In Mother’s eyes, these days time usually pretends to be the wall opposite her bed. The window is time. Day and night. Light and dark. Time is yellowed photographs—black and white, figures disintegrating under her failing vision (what time hides from Mother is that these figures are her own faces throughout the years, her children and her husband). Time is a clock that has stopped. Sometimes Mother’s fingers are time—she holds them up against the light and studies them for hours like a child.
“I wanted to ask you something.”
“What, Mom?”
“I hope it won’t be like that, but if I… If I end up like her, shoot me! Or get rid of me some other way. I’ll write a letter of permission ahead of time. I’ll keep it in my purse with my ID.”
“Mom! Don’t talk like that around her!”
“See, you’re thinking of her again. I’m not blind or deaf—that kind of talk is fine around me.”
“Stop it. At least stop making it all about you for a little while.”
“I’ve done nothing else my entire life but put myself second—I wonder why she never bothered to do the same!”
There are no more words. They fall silent and hug, then stand next to Mother’s bed. A shadow falls over her face. Mother sticks out her chin—this is how it should be.
Warmth! She also craves that heat. She’s grown almost completely cold. Tomorrow night’s high tide will extinguish her.
A