Marta ~ May 13

 

It was the tail end of the day, but I went anyway because I miss you. 

 

You are sitting just inside the door of your room, facing out and eating from your dinner tray, your plate already empty. Looking up with a smile you say, in such calm neutral tones, like a normal person, "Oh, it's good to see you."

 

There is food on your shirt, the same shirt you were wearing the last time I was here. 

 

"You were hungry!" I say, looking at your empty plate. I have actually never seen you eat with any gusto off these disgusting trays. Usually you glance at them with disinterest, pick a little. 

 

"When I'm hungry," you say, "I think the food's quite good."

 

With your assurance that you are done, I pick up the tray, messy with plastic glasses of untouched liquid, packets of this and that, scraps of unidentifiable glop and take it down the hall, into the "day room," and load it onto the big trolley, and return. 

 

"How about I clean up your shirt?" I ask, but there's no paper towel, so once again I go out and feel lucky to find the high school boy who sometimes works here. I don't know if he's high school. I just think of him that way and know that his name begins with B. He gets me a towel out of a locked closet and I return, run some water on it from the sink in your room and clean off the food from your shirt front. 

 

"How about I help you change shirts?" I ask. Your body does not smell washed and I suspect you have not had your weekly bathing. I will ask them about it.

 

You gently acquiesce and begin to pull both the long-sleeve button-down shirt and the tee-shirt underneath off over your head. I help and it's done quickly. I take one of your name-labelled bright blue cotton wash cloths from a drawer, wet it and as I am about to apply it to your shoulders notice as you lean your face instinctively towards the cloth, your eyes already closed in anticipation. I change direction and begin to stroke your face with the damp cloth. I can see you take in every drop of pleasure you can squeeze from the touch of the damp cloth. I bring it next across the skin of your arms and chest and shoulders. Ugly new bumps have formed here and there on your skin. "This," I think, "is old man's skin," and see you as an almost-90-year-old man, caught in an almost-90-year-old body. I don't care. It does not repulse me. It is you. 

 

There are no clean tee shirts in the closet. It's Sunday evening and I hope that Joy will arrive tomorrow morning with a pile of fresh ones from the laundry. I look at the shirts hanging. There's the seer sucker one that I don't think anyone has chosen to put on you in all these many months. I always avoid it too because it is so pretty and new and I guess all of us dressing you know that whatever you put on will have food and/or coffee on it within an hour. I reach out for one that does not appeal to me, thinking about the inevitable food stain, and then change my mind. No, you shall wear one of the ones I like better and I pick one of the brightly striped ones and we put it on and it's so lovely to see you in the fresh bright colors and I resolve to buy you more shirts. I cannot get you enough shirts. You should always be in the bright colors you taught me about. 

 

I sit for a few more minutes. You tell me about the book you are reading and even volunteer what it's about, as always your rich bass voice so very convincing. You are almost too calm tonight and I wonder if they have disregarded my request that your medication NOT be upped. I don't want you drugged into somnolent complacency. I will call in the morning to make sure. For now, I read out loud the two pieces of writing that Billy has sent us. "There's a whole world in there," you say and your eyes shine and once again I see the workshop leader Billy and I once knew.