Chapter Twelve #2
“Oh, I could never.” Daphne releases a hearty laugh, and her box braids keep time with her chuckles.
“Did I tell you she said I look like Aretha Franklin? Said I sing like her too, so I think I’ll keep Helen around for a little while longer.
” I am grateful that Daphne took that not as an insult to her size, but rather as a compliment to her singing voice that brightens the hallways at Mercy Community Care.
My mom may have meant it as both. “But now that I know how you think, I’ll be keeping my eye on you. ”
“Truthfully, Daphne, I’d be happy to know anybody is looking out for me.
Even if it’s to watch out for me committing matricide,” I admit.
Daphne doesn’t play into my “poor me” mindset and keeps the conversation moving.
I’m envious of her positivity and her unwillingness to indulge in self-pity, even surrounded by sorrow, as she is.
“What did you have planned for you and your mom today?”
“I thought I’d take her to the garden store with me. I want to change up the flowers in front of my house to maybe help it sell. My mom’s mind may be going, but she still has great taste, including when it comes to garden design.”
“Yes, she does. Do you know she told me I should get rid of the guy I’m dating, and you know what?
She’s right. That man ain’t worth the dirt on the bottom of my running shoes.
” Daphne kicks up her leg for emphasis, her cotton nurse’s scrubs being flexible and all.
I notice her worn-in sneakers are the same style as the ones I have sitting in their pristine box in the back seat of my car.
“The nursery shouldn’t be too crowded on a Monday afternoon, and it’s such a beautiful day.
Thought it would be a nice change from going to the mall,” I share.
My mom asks to go to the mall every time I visit, but I don’t need to be tempted by the addictive waft of waffle cones, and she doesn’t need reminders to beg me for new bras like the lacy polyester ones the women in her favorite smut shows wear.
“I don’t see her in there.” I point to the tidy communal space where a few residents are taking in the first in the lineup of afternoon celebrity talk shows.
Daphne leans over the front desk and lowers her voice to say, “I get the feeling Ms. Helen’s not up for an outing today. She’s not her regular feisty self, but I bet she would love for you to sit with her in her room. There’s nothing wrong with staying still, as long as you’re together.”
“Is that code for she wasn’t minding her manners and being nice to the other residents at lunch, so you banished her to her room?” I point to the cluster around the TV.
When I first moved my mother into Mercy, her cognition was waning, but she still had many moments of sharpness that manifested in her refusal to socialize with anyone in the facility who had an outward appearance of age or failing health.
I would walk down the hallway with her, and she would point out who lived in what room, identifying each resident by their ailment.
While she couldn’t remember anyone’s name, she was quick to point out who had a walker, who was on oxygen, who wore tragic brown leather orthopedic shoes.
Daphne called Helen’s unwillingness to dine with anyone sporting a handicap “unique.” Thomas and I called her a “sickist.” While Helen Steele had not one racist bone in her body, if you sat her next to someone in a wheelchair, the insulting slurs would fly due to her mangled mental state.
“I said she’s not herself today, but she is something else,” Daphne clarifies with a cluck of her tongue against her teeth.
“Touché.” I laugh along with Daphne and follow closely behind her as we head down the hall.
“She’s still in her robe. I put some blush and lipstick on her, but she wouldn’t let me help put her earrings in,” Daphne reports. Helen Steele wears a full face even when in her housecoat, so that’s no surprise.
“She also refused breakfast and lunch, but maybe you can get her to come out of her room for a snack. We don’t like our residents to begin a habit of isolating. It can turn into full withdrawal from the present into the past of the mind.” Refusing meals, that sounds exactly like my past mother.
“Got it.” I give Daphne a salute because she is most definitely now the ranking officer when it comes to my mom.
“Ms. Helen,” Daphne lilts as she opens the door to my mom’s suite. “Callie’s here to see you.”
We both stop in the doorway to see if my mom, sitting in her favorite wingback chair that we brought out with her from her apartment in New York, will respond to Daphne’s greeting. Her gaze does not divert from the off-center red maple tree outside her window.
“Your daughter has a lovely orange top on today, and her cheeks are looking all rosy. Doesn’t Callie look pretty, Ms. Helen? What has you all fit for the day, Callie?” Is Daphne telling the truth, or is she making polite conversation to pull my mother into the here and now?
“She wouldn’t let me touch her hair today either,” Daphne continues in a quiet tone, leaning toward me. “She kept asking for Reggie.” Daphne crosses the room and lightly taps my mother in a teasing gesture.
My mom scolds Daphne for not knowing such pertinent information. “Reggie’s the best.”
“Reggie was a salon owner who blew out her hair twice a week in New York. He was her favorite member of the family,” I inform Daphne, meeting her hushed voice.
“He was a relative?”
“He may as well have been, as much time as they spent together,” I reply, and release a sad laugh from behind my mother’s chair.
“Well, Callie, it might be nice for you to have a seat on Ms. Helen’s bed and catch up, isn’t that right, Ms. Helen?
If you two need anything, let me know. I’ll either be making rounds or at the front desk.
” Daphne closes her lids to half-mast as she smiles at me; her subtle gesture encourages me to hold patience in my heart today as I settle in for a couple of hours of reliving the past with my mother.
“Will do.” I kick off my shoes, grab a throw pillow to support my back, and shimmy onto my mom’s bed so I can sit comfortably up against the wall.
I extend my legs out in front of me and forward-fold to touch my toes.
I guess if I’m going to consider becoming a runner, I should first become a stretcher.
“Ms. Helen, you enjoy your time with your daughter, Callie.” Daphne pats my mother’s arm one last time.
Though she’s trying to hide her intentions, I know by saying my name over and over, Daphne’s reminding my mom who I am.
That my mother often forgets my name is a stinging reality to swallow, but reminding her is becoming more necessary to prevent her forgetting me altogether. I appreciate Daphne’s veiled efforts.
“Remember Quinn, my best friend from Princeton?” I ask Mom, instigating a past memory that is easier for her to recall than a more current one.
She offers no response, but I proceed anyway.
“I’ve talked to her a lot recently, and she had some big news for me.
For us.” My tactic of inclusivity prompts my mom to turn her head toward me.
Either that, or she was getting a kink from jutting her chin forward, staring straight ahead at the tree.
“Alice is getting married,” I continue, placing a second pillow over my lap so I don’t feel compelled to suck in my stomach in front of my mother. Old habits die hard. If anything will spark commentary from my mom, it’s the mention of a wedding, her favorite reason to celebrate.
Still silent, my mom points to a frame on her bedside and then waves the “gimmie” fingers so I’ll pass it to her.
I hastily grab what she wants and place it on the armrest of her chair.
Her knotted hands pick it up and run over the glass.
A contented smile softens her face. “This is going to be a lovely wedding.”
I inhale and then blow out a hefty breath to engage the patience Daphne encouraged me to have.
“It sure was,” I respond flatly. My mom is holding my and Thomas’s framed New York Times wedding announcement from late winter 2002.
When I packed up my mother’s apartment to move her out to Sacramento so she could be closer to us, rather than alone in a facility in New York, she insisted on bringing the announcement with her.
I sold her artwork, shipped John some of her furniture for his first apartment, and packed away decades of pictures, but my wedding announcement, my mother insisted she carry with her on the plane.
I could only suppose she wanted a reminder of her social status in New York upon the unfortunate reality of moving someplace where she would have none.
Calliope Steele and Thomas Kingman
Calliope Kincaid Steele, the daughter of Helen and Rhodes Steele of New York, New York, was married last evening to Thomas Oliver Kingman, a son of Ruth Kingman of Richmond, Virginia, and the late Governor August Kingman.
The Reverend Dr. Samuel Clemens performed the ceremony at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York, New York.
Mrs. Kingman, 29, graduated from Princeton and received a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia. Her father is the Chief Medical Officer of Weill Cornell Medicine in New York.
Mr. Kingman, 30, is in his first year of a two-year cardio-oncologist fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York. He graduated from Georgetown and received his medical degree from New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine.
His mother is the chairwoman of the newly established Kingman Scholars in Richmond, Virginia. His father was Governor of Virginia from 1989 until his death in 1998.