May We Be Forgiven

diapers. We get them dressed before they leave. It’s great for their mobility.”
    “Since when does she swim?” I ask.
    “We got lucky with this new therapist who also works with the psycho-pharmacologist; this place is hoppin’. More work in some ways, but very exciting. Sometimes we joke that we’re bringing back the dead. And they all seem so happy—well, almost all.” She nods towards an older man heading down the hall, seeming quite purposeful; he approaches us.
    “What the fuck is going on around here? That’s all I want to know. What the fuck? Who is that man in my office? Did you fuckin’ replace me behind my back? I’m the goddamned boss around here, or at least that’s what I thought. We’ll see what you’re thinking when Friday comes, see if I’m signing your check. Who the hell are you?” he asks, looking at me.
    “Silver,” I say.
    “Good job,” he says. “Keep up the good work.”
    “Now, where the fuck is my secretary? She said she was going to lunch, and I swear that was ten years ago. …” The man wanders off.
    “Like I said, it’s been good for most people, and it’s nice to see him up and around,” the woman says.
    “What are they giving him?”
    “I’m not at liberty to discuss the patients—in fact, perhaps I’ve said too much already. It’s a little of this, a little of that—there are advances being made every day. It’s a lot about movement—getting them up and out. Short of true paralysis, there’s no reason a person should be in bed or sitting down all day … and for those who are too weak, we start them off just hanging up.” She leads me down the hall to a room and opens the door. Dozens of long springs hang from the ceiling, and each pair of springs is attached to a modified straitjacket/ canvas lace-up vest, and laced into the vests are old people. They hang like limp puppets, half standing, half bouncing, half dancing to music, as physical therapists make their way from person to person. “They seem to like it,” the woman says. “We invented the units here—weighted standing-assist devices. It cuts down on the respiratory illnesses—better lung function.”
    “They seem pleased,” I say, unable to get over the sight of a roomful of “suspended” elderly.
    “Enough show-and-tell for one day,” the woman says, closing the door. “Are you going to go down to the YMCA and look for your mother? They just left, so you should be able to catch them.”

    I have to pay fifteen dollars and fill out a liability waiver before I can enter the pool area of the YMCA, and the fact that I am not going swimming seems irrelevant to the person at the desk.
    I enter through the men’s locker room, an unappealing old green tile space dotted with male flesh and the smell of sneakers.
    As soon as I enter the pool area, I am sent back—told that I must take off my shoes and socks and wash my feet in the shower before entering.
    “Hi, Mom,” I call out when I get into the pool area, my voice echoing off the tile walls and then absorbed into the chloramide fumes rising off the pool’s surface. “Hi, Mom,” I repeat.
    The entire class turns to face me. “Hi,” all the ladies in the pool answer.
    My mother is wearing a latex cap, the same kind she used to wear thirty years ago—white with large rubbery flowers in full bloom bursting off the top. Could it be the same bathing cap she’s had all along? She swims towards me and, considering that not so long ago she was bedridden, it’s disorienting to watch her kicking, swinging her arms through the water’s surface. She breaststrokes to the edge of the pool, where I find myself staring down into an oddly open face—framed by the latex flowers—and a deep, wrinkled cleavage.
    “You look great,” I say. “How are you?”
    “Fantastic,” she says.
    A barrel-chested man swims to her side.
    “Hello, son,” he says.
    “Hello,” I say.
    “Good to see you,” he says.
    “You too,” I say, going along with it.
    “How’s your sister?” he asks.
    “Good,” I say, even though I have no sister.
    “I’m very worried about your mother,” he says. “I can’t find her anywhere.” He speaks in a booming voice, like a former radio announcer.
    “You can’t find her because she’s gone,” my mother reminds him. “But you’ve got me now.”
    “You have each other?” I ask.
    “Yes,” they say.
    “And what about Dad?” I am confused, suddenly a child again.
    “Your father’s been dead