On my arrival, as I walk through the door of the 1st floor condo, I see Jean, her home health aide, vacuuming.
“Hi, Jean!” I exclaim. “Where is Mom?”
“She’s in the shower,” she says without looking at me or smiling.
“Is anything wrong?” I asked.
Jean looked at me and frowned. “Yes! My mother is dying of cancer and so is my brother.”
“That’s terrible!” I exclaimed in empathy. We discussed this for a few minutes as she finished and started preparing our lunches.
“Jean, Oh, Jean!” Mom yelled from the bathroom. Jean dropped everything to help my mom, who was in her eighties now, get dressed.
I followed right behind her and peeked over her shoulder. “Hi, Mom!” I shouted.
“Hi, Laura!” she responded back. “You had a safe trip?”
“Yes and the weather is perfect out there.”
Jean came back out and finished preparing our lunches of tossed salad and fried tilapia. I picked them up from the counter and brought them to her dining room table.
We hadn’t taken but a few bites of our meal when I noticed Jean had disappeared.
“Jean!” Mom yelled. “You can dust the coffee table, the end tables and the bedroom window sill. You know?” She snapped and her voice lowered, “the sills have never been dusted in one whole year. One whole year.”
“Really? That’s bad.” I responded.
“Yes, ma’am!” we heard from Jean has who hurried to finish her work so she could leave early.
“I like her,” Mom continued, “but you have to tell her to do everything. She has no self-initiative, you know? She doesn’t put away the pots or pans, either. Then she always wants to leave early and get paid for the full time.”
“Yeah, I see. She said her mom and brother are dying from cancer. At least, that’s her excuse.” I said as I crunched on the big bowl of salad. “Why don’t you tell the agency about it?”
“I will, but I’ve been so busy, what with my friend, Dr. Sarah, staying with me for a whole month and all.”
“That was too long a visit, Mom! You should’ve just told her to stay only two weeks.”
“No, I couldn’t do that to a friend.”
A determined look came over her aged face.
“But, Mom, sometimes friends stay too long.”
She said nothing more but we ate a few minutes in silence. I noticed she had three prominent pictures of my younger brother, Frank, on the wall. One had him smiling with his First Holy Communion outfit on looking almost like a priest, smiling down on us. The rest were when he was little, too.
“She always did favor him more.” I thought to myself but I kept my musings to myself.
Jean left about an hour early and Mom explained she wouldn’t be paid for the hour she didn’t work.
We finished our meal and I cleaned the plates off the table and finished putting away the pots and pans.
“Are you ready to go shopping?”
“Yes! Yes! Let’s go! Where’s the list?”
“Right here,” I responded and tucked it into my pocket. “You want your sweater?” I asked her.
“No, I’m good. I don’t need a sweater.” She got up from the table and plopped down in her lounge chair.
Suddenly, the cocker spaniel started barking loudly. “Oh, Roxy has to go out before we go!”
I said I would do it and grabbed the leash. I went outside with her and she tugged hard on it as we tramped down the sidewalk. I noticed all the azaleas were blooming early this year due to our mild weather. The neighborhood of condos and townhouses was quiet this early Tuesday afternoon. However, you could hear the laughing and playing of the children in the daycare.
I forgot the pooper-scooper and ran back to get it. I had to remember the exact spot where the dog went. It broke when I was using it and I guess we’ll have to buy a new one today if we could find one. I tried to patch up the old one with masking tape.
So we got ready to go and I took my car instead of her Cadillac. It’s too hard to back out of her narrow one-car garage.
But I took a detour first…
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