My sister and I have consecutive
appointments at Cohasset Family Health. I introduce Jan to my friend, nurse
practitioner, Patti Koziel.
“Patti,” she says, shaking Janeth’s
hand. She checks my vital signs, looks in my ears after I take the hearing aids
out, listens to my heart. She says the irregular heartbeat isn’t there anymore.
How am I feeling in general?
“I have no appetite. In fact, with
a tad less interest in food, I’d feel nauseated. I searched online and found several
reports from pregnant women who said that except for junk food, they have to force
themselves to eat. I’m thinking of going to McDonald’s.”
“Or getting pregnant,” says Jan. We
laugh. Considering the results of my blood work and today’s checkup, Patti sees
nothing that could explain my lack of appetite. Every-thing looks normal.
“Do you cook your own meals?”
Yes. I admit they’re boring and
bland. She relates a Thanksgiving story about her husband’s cutting remnants of
turkey from the carcass, and setting a pot of soup on the stove to simmer.
“My mother sidled up to him, tucked
her arm under his, and dropped a bouillon cube into the broth. When I got home
Mother took me aside and said, `Guess what I did to make sure the turkey soup
would be delicious.’
“My husband took me aside and said
‘Guess what your mother did to ruin the turkey soup.’ I realized that hereafter
we would have to have two pots of soup, one for her and one for the rest of the
family. Maybe all you need to do, Barbara, is add a little salt to your food to
make it taste better.”
“I have a friend who has offered to
give me a substance I can put in my Ovaltine, a guaranteed appetite stimulator.
I had it in a brownie back in the seventies, and it does make you ravenous. Did
you ever try it, Patti?”
She doesn’t say yes and she doesn’t
say no. She says she never heard of its having that particular effect.
“Don’t tell anyone. I don’t want a
policeman showing up at my door.” Patti says she will consult with her
colleagues and get back to me.
We are early for Janeth’s cortisone
shot, so we chat in the waiting room. My sister talks about Linda’s sweetheart,
Toby.
“He has a paunch and he puts Linda
down, with his talk about ‘this woman I'm dating.’”
“He’s teasing her, Jan. When they
stopped to see me, I could see they were crazy about each other.”
“I don’t know what Linda sees in
him.”“Paunch or no paunch, he may be loving and cuddly in bed.” My sister’s expression tells me what she thinks of that image.
An aide calls my sister’s
name, and Dr. Freed gives her the cortisone shot. I hope she’ll soon be
discarding her cane.
I go with her to her apartment to
see the other blouses Linda chose for her. The ones Jan condemned as garish have
pastel tinsel threads on either side of their pale stripes. She would “never
have taken them from the rack,” but suppose there was nothing else? Suppose her
daughter had other things to do besides go shopping every two months for new
outfits?
“This red one will be perfect for
Christmas, Jan.”
“I’ve been thinking about sweater
sets. I could probably stretch the neck enough to protect my hair.” This
concession may solve the I-haven’t-a-thing-to-wear problem.
My sister tells me Robert agrees
with her that the food at Advantage House is terrible. “It’s dog food.” Bitch
food, I’m thinking. Bitch, bitch, bitch. I can hold my tongue but I can’t
control my thoughts.
“I’ll be coming
early to the Christmas party to help you get dressed in something festive.”
“And today is . . .Wednesday?” That’s
right, dear. “Wednesday the fifth? And tomorrow will be Thursday? Thursday the
sixth? I've lost the marker for my calendar.”
That’s exactly right. Good, dear.
I’ll bring another marker.”
On the drive back to Hingham and
the Christmas party my thoughts are on Linda and all the time she has spent in
department stores, trying to find clothes that won’t be rejected.
Suppose by some quirk of fate,
Janeth had been the caregiver for our mother. And suppose that again and again,
Ernestine wasn’t satisfied with anything Janeth bought for her wardrobe. How
long would my sister’s patience last?
The exterior of Advantage House is glowing with holiday lights. I am early enough, thankfully, to find a parking space in front of the building My last cortisone shot made my joints feel worse instead of better.
“No need to sign in,” Joan says.
“There’s Janeth, right over there.”
My sister is sitting next to Norma.
She gets up and approaches me. She’s wearing a white blouse, beige sweater,
beige shoes, beige slacks, and a fretful expression.
“Everyone is dressed up for
Christmas except me!”
“That’s why I’m here early. The
party won’t be starting for half an hour.”
In Janeth’s apartment I see a black
marker on the table.
“I have another one of those in my
pocket,” I say. “I thought the two I brought you were both lost.”
The way I expressed the comment
sets her off. “They’re terrible things!” she says angrily. “They leak Through anything you write on and ruin what’s underneath the paper!”
Suddenly I’ve had my fill. “Show
me!” I pick up last month’s calendar, with its days partially checked and
crossed out. “I don’t see any black marks on the windowsill! But that’s all
right, I’ll take this marker home with me, since you’re not using it.”
“Why don’t you take everything I
own, while you’re at it,” my sister says, her face distorted.
I’m as angry with her as I’ve ever
been. “Yes, why don’t I take everything you’re never satisfied with, while
I’m at it!” (“This is a great start to the party,” says Janeth.) “Why
don’t I take myself out of your life again. Is that what you want? I’m
wound up, can’t stop, don’t want to stop. I voice those dark thoughts I had in
the car.
“If you were our mother’s caregiver,
and no matter how hard you tried to help her, all she did was whine and
complain and criticize, how long would your patience last?”
Janeth silently
heads for her closet. I am spent. I look at my watch and follow her.
“My black cardigan? I don’t have a
black cardigan.”
“Yes you do, dear, I was with you
when you bought a black one and the white one you’ve been wearing a lot
lately.”
I don’t find the cardigan in the
closet, so I go into the living room and start looking through jackets hanging
on a chair.
“Is this it?” Jan has found the
sweater under other garments on the handle of her cart. She puts it on and I
look at my watch again. It’s time to join the party.
Throngs of
guests are arriving, decked out in their colorful Christmas finery. Everyone
compliments Janeth. Dark-haired, pink-cheeked Kit, the activity director,
dressed in a silver lame top and silver slacks, says she wants Janeth’s boa.
We say hello to Ruth Reynolds, who
is expecting her daughter any minute.. When Margie arrives, she takes the three
of us under her wing, latching onto a table in the dining room before they are
all taken. Waitresses pass hors d’oeuvres, and I set an example for Jan by
choosing a couple of scallops wrapped in bacon. I find one for her that has
very crisp bacon. “See, Jan? No grease or fat.”
She continues to receive
compliments on her silver boa when we go to our seats in the dining room. My
spine is saying thanks a million. Margie is a pro at keeping our conversation
flowing. We learn that Ruth doesn’t have a high opinion of the meals at
Advantage House, although she doesn’t go so far as to call them dog food.
“Margie, you told me you’ve had at
least twenty-five meals here. How did they seem to you?”
“I wouldn’t describe them as
gourmet, but they’re not bad.” She has to think for a moment about one meal
that was particularly delicious . . . “Chicken Marsala.”
I urge my sister to try this dish
next time she sees it on the menu, as if she’ll remember. We talk about how
long Ruth has been a resident and when it was that I started seeing my sister
for the first time in years. Margie wonders what happened to cause the
separation, and I shorten the encyclopedic explanation.
It was a misunderstanding.”
We don’t want to lose our table, so
we go in shifts to the buffet. There is well-done roast beef, macaroni and
cheese with broccoli and chicken, and cubed steamed vegetables. Janeth helps
herself to very little. We return to our table, where she starts picking off
specks of herbs, one by one.
“I saw Jan do the same thing with a
bowl of fish chowder,” I remark to Ruth and Margie. “I figured she thought they
were bugs.”
“I like my food to be
unembellished,” my sister says.
Santa Claus comes ho-ho-ho-ing our
way.
"Last year,” Margie says, “my
mother sat on Santa Claus’s lap and had her picture taken.”
Hearing music, we migrate to the
hall, where a three-piece band and a singer are providing the entertainment.
There are no chairs available, so I sit on the stairway. Jan and Margie join
me, and Ruth perches on the seat attached to her walker. Jan tells us about a
little boy who believed in Santa Claus a lot longer than most children.
“He was sure his father wouldn’t
spend that much on presents. “
Residents,
staff members, and guests are circling the room, performing the Chicken Dance,
which I’d never seen before. It looks like so much fun, I wish I were ten years
younger, a spry seventy-six.
But it’s getting late for this lame
octogenarian, so I take the elevator to Jan’s room to get my coat. I discover I
can’t leave yet because the band and the crowd are filling the lobby with the
sound of patriotic songs. Jan has joined them, I am happy to see. I stand next
to her while we sing God Bless America. It’s 8:15 when I head home, the route
so familiar I can safely drive it in the dark.
Janeth tells me another Chicken
Dance took place after I left.
“Phyllis grabbed my hand and pulled
me into the circle. By watching her, I was able to do the steps almost
perfectly.”
I’m glad to hear about this because lately my
sister has been complaining about the kitchen goddess’s
do-whatever-I-please-whenever-I-feel-like-it attitude.
From Linda:
I spent over
two hours in JC Penney, looking for what I think mom is describing. I found
parts of sweater sets scattered all over the store, finally managed to get the
right-sized pieces coordinated. I never know if mom is asking for a current
style or if she’s seeing an older wardrobe a resident is hanging onto. But I’m
sure to buy the wrong thing in any event.
Such is MY world. Full of little
errands and playing catch up on my visits to clients.
Jan reports that she’s started
having a lot of loose bms—“Oh, that’s wonderful!” I interject. “I mean, isn’t
it?”—“Well, yes, but I never knows when I might have to rush to the bathroom.
My date with Ray at the Quincy buffet could be a malodorous one.”
“He is the perfect friend to be
with if that happens.”
”At least it would
be a way to turn off any romantic inclinations he might have. “
"That might do it.”
“I almost choked to death during
supper, had to be pounded on the back until I coughed up what was caught in my
throat.”
“Remember how Aunt Ruth almost
choked to death at our house? Mom and Dad rushed her to the kitchen sink and
pounded her back until she finally caught her breath. Maybe you’ve inherited
her small throat.”
“Maybe.” My sister was in a chatty
mood. “There wasn’t an entrée I could eat, so I pondered for a while on what to
have instead. I usually have a chicken sandwich, but before I could make up my
mind, Faith got impatient and made my mind up for me. She turned on her heel
and came back with a grilled ham and cheese sandwich. I went ahead and ate all
that fat, but I think she should know by now that I order a chicken sandwich
when I don’t want either of the entrees.
“I had to eat it because it was
getting late. When I finished, I said to her, `It would seem that if someone
hasn’t decided what to have, you would wait until she tells you instead of
bringing something she can’t eat.’ Faith gave a whoop. I knew it was a whoop of
joy because she was pleased she had succeeded in upsetting me.
“The Sennacot for my bowels is
getting low. Stephanie looked for a piece of paper for a note to give Celia.
She had to write it on a paper towel. And I’ve been worrying that my pills will
be delivered so late tomorrow morning, I won’t get to breakfast on time.”
“I don’t recall that this ever
happened. As long as you get to the dining room before nine . . . ”
“You imagine that the staff is
accommodating, but they’re not. If you’re the last one there, they give you the
bum’s rush.”
I say I’ll hope for the best. The
prophesying of a future problem is more than I can deal with. My bad time of
the month, maybe, although the syndrome is hard to pin down in your eighties.
.
I call Jan and
tell her we sisters are having twin problems with our food.
“You almost
choked to death during your supper, and tonight I almost bit my tongue off
during mine. It bled so much that it still hurts to talk.”
Oh, you poor darling, I’ll let
you go.”
“ No, that’s okay, I can listen.
How did it go today?”
"For a start, Norma and I are like
oil and water. No matter how long you stir it, it’s not going to blend. Norma
gets aggravated by Alice’s Alzheimer’s, as well as mine. She’ll say aside to
me, `I don’t think she’s well.’ Then she gets impatient and starts making
pushing away motions with her hands. She doesn’t have enough sympathy for
people’s problems.
“I have run out of Sennacot. I
don’t know if Celia got the message Stephanie wrote on a paper towel. I’m also
getting very low on toilet paper. I think someone has been coming into my
apartment and depleting it.”
Taking care not to bite my already
bitten tongue, I say, “I have lots of toilet paper. I’ll bring you a couple of
rolls Monday morning.”
“I hope it won’t be the kind that
tears crookedly instead of straight across. “
“I’ve never had that worry, no
matter what brand I use. But you’re more of a perfectionist than I am.”
Janeth’s response is a trill of laughter, whether at me or herself, I’m unsure.
She is amused again when I recall
the awful day I spilled flaxseed meal and prune juice all over her kitchen
counter and then spilled another gusher when I placed the flaxseed bag in her
fridge. Two deplorable messes in five minutes, created by her clumsy sister.
“I should have been stood up in a
corner.”
My comment produces a crescendo
trill, longer than the first one. It’s a shame that my sister refuses to join
the Advantage House chorus. . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment