In my dream, I pick up my cell phone and hear my mother’s voice. She sounds sleepy and far away.
“I’ve been trying to call you,” she says.
I tell her I will visit tomorrow.
“They are starving me. They lock us in our rooms. And they beat us. It’s cold. So cold.”
Her small hand reaches for mine through my iPhone. Her fingertips have turned white and feel like ice. There is a large cut on her hand; blood is seeping through a dirty bandage.
“I’m coming to check on you.”
***
My mother’s nose bleeds heavily. I’ve thrown several of her sweaters away, the blood had caked in large droplets, working its intractable way around each fiber of the wool. I can see traces of it on her face, a light dusting around the delicate skin on her nose and cheeks. When I give her a manicure, there is dried blood under her nails. I gently pick out the brown crust with the nail clipper file.
***
The hospice nurse calls to tell me a story she knows I’ll get a “kick” out of.
“Your mother told me that she still gets her period! My medical director and I had a good laugh about that.”
“That is funny!” My face is getting hot. My mother has dementia. She did have heavy periods and cervical cancer; she thinks she is young, that the diaper she wears is a sanitary pad.
“Did the medical director have any idea why she’s having nosebleeds?”
“Oh, I forgot to ask about that.”
***
I walk into my mother’s room at Menorah Village Memory Care Center. I hear her weakly yelling, “Help!”
I find her in the bathroom. She is holding onto the metal bar they’ve installed between the toilet and shower. Her pants are down to her ankles. She has shit herself. She was trying to get to the toilet but became disoriented.
I roll the wheelchair that she forgets to use into the bathroom. I put a towel on the seat and guide her to it. “Stay right here!”
I run into the hall to find a health aide. I have my period and am wearing a pad, tampons are too painful now. I feel thick blood pouring out of me as I scream for help.
When we get back, my mother is on the bathroom floor. The aide and I lift her; I see a smear of red where her small head met the tiled surface.
***
My gynecologist orders an ultrasound. She wants a better look at the fibroids she feels with her hand. She describes her approach as “aggressive” and recommends a hysterectomy. It will help with the pain and bloating, she says. I have a dream that the surgery leaves me permanently weakened, that my body never recovers.
My Greek friend Eleni tells me about her surgery that an American doctor botched so badly, she was shitting through her vagina. Four operations in Athens corrected it. “Don’t risk it,” she warns. I won’t.
***
“Where’s Charlie?” I ask Jeanine, the facility director. I haven’t seen him for a few weeks.
Charlie had started sitting with me and my mother in Menorah Village’s Cafe Bistro. Recently, he had a deep wet cut on his forehead, bruising on his cheeks. His head kept drooping but periodically popped up. He looked at my mother and said, “You’re so pretty.”
“What’s he saying?” My mother asked.
“Oh, he died,” Jeanine tells me. “And just in time! He was such a horn dog. There was a catfight brewing among his ladies.”
“My mom would never fight over a man.”
I take a cup of coffee to my mother.
“I heard about Charlie,” I say.
“Who?” She asks.
***
In my dream, my mother is cooking dinner for me and my dead father. She is holding a knife, preparing a tray of cheese and crackers.
“Can I help?” I ask.
I get up from the table and walk over to the counter. I grab the knife from her. The cheese becomes my finger as I slice through. I can feel the throbbing pain, a greasy liquid spreading on the butcher block.
“I’ve cut myself.” I hold my hand up, blood is dripping from the missing fingertip.
My mother is not surprised.
“I knew you would, Rebecca. We all end up in the same place eventually.”
I shake my head, no, no.
“Are you prepared?”
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