May We Be Forgiven

suited to the hot, dry air of the nursing home.

    T he nursing home smells like shit.
    “Someone must have had an accident,” I say.
    The farther we get from the front door, the less it smells like shit and the more like chemicals and old people.
    “We moved your mother into a semi-private room. She needed more companionship,” the nurse tells me.
    I knock on her door—no one answers. “Hi, Mom,” I say, pushing the door open.
    “Hello there.”
    “It’s me,” I say. “And I’ve brought someone with me.”
    “Come in, come in.” We step into the room, and it’s the woman in the other bed, thinking we’re there for her. “Come closer,” she says. “I can’t see very well.”
    I go to the edge of her bed. “I’m Harry. I’m here for your neighbor. I’m her son.”
    “How do you know?”
    “Because she was in the house when I was growing up,” I say. “What’s your name?”
    “I don’t know,” she says. “What’s in a name?”
    “Do you know where my mother, your neighbor, is?”
    “They’re having an ice-cream social, make your own sundae, down the hall in the dining room, but the diabetics are forbidden, they make us wear this vulgar bracelet.” She holds up her arm; on her wrist is a yellow bracelet with “DIABETIC” in caps written on it, and on her other arm is an orange bracelet that says “Do Not Resuscitate.” “That’s why my eyes are lousy—it’s the sugar that got them.”
    As she’s talking, my mother is wheeled back into the room, holding an enormous sundae in two hands. “I heard I had company,” she says. I notice she too has bracelets, a blue one that says “Demented” and the same orange “Do Not Resuscitate.”
    “I was talking to your roommate.”
    “Blind as a bat,” Mother says.
    “But not deaf,” the roommate says.
    “It’s about time the two of you came,” Mother says to Nate and Ashley. “How are the children?”
    “She thinks you’re George and Jane.”
    “Does she know about Mom?” Ashley asks.
    “Don’t talk behind our backs in front of our faces, it’s rude,” the woman in the other bed says.
    “It’s nice to see you,” Nate says, hugging Mother.
    Ashley hands her the plant, which she places in her lap but otherwise ignores.
    “Are you working hard?” Mother asks Nate. “Filling the airwaves with crap? Are the children in school, is the one with problems feeling better?”
    “The children are amazing,” Nate says. “Both brilliant in their own ways.”
    “Wonder where it comes from?” the roommate says. “Are they adopted?”
    “Okay, Mom,” I say. “We wanted to have a little visit; we’ll come back again soon. Is there anything you need?”
    “Like what?”
    “I don’t know, you tell me,” I say.
    “Next time you come, you could bring me something,” the roommate says. “Bring something sugar-free; because I’m diabetic doesn’t mean I should be punished. Look at me, I’m not fat, I didn’t overeat. And look at her, she’s eating ice cream.”
    “With whipped cream, hot fudge, and a cherry on top,” Mother says, and briefly chokes. “I ate the stem,” she says. “Forgot to spit it out.”
    “Serves you right,” the roommate says. “I could tie a cherry stem in a knot with my tongue.”
    “Bet you can’t anymore,” Mother says.
    “Of course I can,” the roommate says. “Girl, go get me one and I’ll show you all.”
    “Should I?” Ashley asks.
    “No reason not to,” I say.
    Ashley goes to the dining room and comes back with a maraschino cherry. She hands it to the roommate, its red juice dripping like blood on the white coverlet. The old woman pops the cherry into her mouth; we see it vaguely going around and around.
    “Harder with dentures,” she says, taking a break, “but I’m making progress.”
    And voilà, she spits the cherry into her hand, the stem tied into a knot.
    “How’d you do it?” Ashley wants to know.
    “Practice,” she says.
    “Okay, Mom, we have to go now.”
    “So soon,” the roommate says. “You just got here.”
    “The car is waiting outside; it’s a long story.”
    “All right, then,” she says. “You’ll tell me next time.”

    E arly Monday morning, the children are driven back to school with lunches I make from what remains in the refrigerator.
    With the children gone, the tick-tock of the kitchen clock is deafeningly loud. “Was that clock always there?” I ask Tessie. “Was it always so loud?”
    I load the dishes into the