By Diane M. Taylor
This was the fourth time this week the staffing agency had scheduled her at St. Jo's and Marie was tired of taking care of sixteen residents every day. She prided herself that she always gave her residents good care, but this was hard to do here. That was one of the reasons she worked for a staffing agency, so she could change nursing homes if she didn't like it, and she was beginning to not like St. Jo's at all.
It was going to be one of those long dreary days too. The sky was gray and cloudy, with intermittent rain blowing against the large, bedroom window. At breakfast, the residents had mirrored the gray, dreary sky with angry complaints about their eggs or toast.
Marie's thoughts kept swirling and peaking in abrupt gusts of resentment like the rain that had intermittently beat against the windows all morning. She pulled the dirty sheets off one bed and began stretching and tucking on the clean ones. Next the draw sheet and blanket then she pulled everything to the top and fluffed up the pillow. Just then Elaine rolled into the room.
"Ccc..ii..giggg..er..ttte?" Elaine asked?
Marie looked down at Elaine and was about to tell her that she had too much work to do, that she didn't have time to sit on the patio. But she stopped herself Poor Elaine and her cigarettes, it was her only joy in life. She couldn't smoke unless some went with her to watch that she didn't burn the place down.
Elaine, mused Marie, who was tiny, feisty, sad, and happy all at the same time, didn't need another cigarette. Her face was already a smorgasbord of twitching wrinkles while her hands constantly shook with Parkinson's. She could barely hold on to a cigarette while she smoked. Glancing at the window, Marie noticed the rain had stopped. Well, if that's all she needs to be happy I am not going to prevent it.
"Sure," Marie told her, "I am dying for a cigarette too. You' re just the excuse I need. Two more beds, then I'll be ready for a break."
That put a smile on Elaine's face as she rolled away.
"Hay, it's been raining off and on all day, go get your sweater."
When Marie came out of the room, Elaine was already waiting in the hall, hands trembling so much she had to keep returning the gold cigarette case and white sweater to the center of her lap.
"Ok, lets go" Marie laughed and helped Elaine put her sweater on then angled them both towards the patio at the center of the building..
Marie pushed Elaine's chair down one dull peach hallway to another and then past the activity room where Mr. Henson called out his singsong litany, "somebody help me, will somebody please help me, somebody please help me."
No one ever helped him. Her first day here, Marie had stopped and tried to do something for him, but she couldn't figure out what he needed, so she just held his hand for a minute.
Mrs. Ganter was sitting nearby in her usual spot, bent over in her chair with spit dribbling down her chin and onto her gown, her head was bobbing up and down while she slept. She wasn't Marie's resident but she took a moment to wipe the dribble off with a Kleenex on her way past the activity room where she heard loud comments.
A quick glance inside revealed three aids, sitting, and talking together as they watched "Jerry Springer" on television. A few residents sat snoring and sleeping in front of the roaring TV and jabbering CNA’s, their heads nodding to the beat as they slept. Mr. Adam's snores and whistles were loud enough to hear above the TV noise. Marie wrinkled her nose at the odor of his bowl accident.
"Gloria, you know Mr. Adams did a job?"
"Yeah, get to him in a minute." She laughed at Jerry once more.
A feeling of hopelessness ran through Marie like a lightening bolt as she pushed Elaine past the activity room, but what could she could do for the residents who weren’t hers. She continued to push Elaine through the narrow hall across from the activity room and held the patio door open so Elaine could roll herself outside.
The sudden whiff of fresh, cool, daisy air pampered Marie's nose as she followed Elaine. It felt like a loving baby breath against her hot skin. The rain had stopped but the air was still damp. The varnished picnic table was beaded with rain drops that pooled in little rivulets on the seats. Marie sat on the wet seat, nothing wrong with a little water.
She lit Elaine's cigarette first then her own. Even through the smoke she could smell the ozone mixed with fresh green grass and wet cement. Water gurgled as it gushed from a nearby gutter and a bird was twittering its song into the silver gray sky.
Marie's seat was facing the alcove where the statue of Mary stood enclosed by a small white fence. As she took long puffs, she glanced over at the statue of Mary, wearing the usual blue gown with a beaded rosary hanging from her delicate plaster hands. Then she looked closer. Mary was crying.
Marie watched as a single drop fell from Mary's right eye and rolled down her cheek dripping off her chin. As the diamond teardrop fell off Mary's face, a tear threatened to swim and run down her own cheek, too, and finally did. Oh God! She sobbed letting out her held breath
Now she saw that black streaks were running down Mary's pale pink face. Her delicate beauty tarnished by streamers of soot and dirt. As she felt Mary's sorrow seep into her own soul, Marie's cigarette dangled, ignored in her hand.
She gulped back a huge shuddering sob. Of course it was only the eye paint running off and down statue's face. Wasn't it? Must only be paint mixed with rain. Still, Marie couldn't take her eyes off those dark, ugly streaks against the fragile pink cheeks.
She could feel why Mary was crying. How could Mary not cry, a prisoner in the corner alcove, feeling, with each opening of the patio door, a new stream of anguish and sadness seep out and swirl around her. Marie squeezed her eyes and her body shuddered as she tried to stop up the flow of tears that threatened to turn her own face into a gushing waterfall.
The clang of the metal gears on Elaine's chair broke the eerie spell.
Her wheelchair groaned and rattled in protest as she tried to release the break with her palsied hands. Cigarette smoked, Elaine was in a hurry to go back inside.
"Elaine wait. Look at Mary's statue, it's crying,"
But Elaine was already half way to the patio door, the chair's wheels grating on the cement, her head twittered and hands grasped for each hold on the chair's wheels. Marie repeated her words but Elaine didn't hear. Oh well, time to go back. Marie checked that both cigarette butts were out and followed, but when she opened the door she recoiled at the strong urine odor that rolled outside and mixed in with the fresh spring air. She gave a hard shove to Elaine's chair to push it over the threshold hump then pushed Elaine back into the stifling heat of neglect.
At lunch break, Marie noticed that Mary's statue still had dark streaks running down its cheeks even though it hadn't rained again. A small group of attendants and nurse assistants were playing cards on the picnic table and two kitchen helpers were sitting in lounge chairs eating and talking but no one seemed to notice the streaks on Mary's face. Marie kept glancing over at Mary's statue between bites of her peanut butter and jelly sandwich and sips of coffee. When she lit up her cigarette she almost expected tears to fall from Mary's face again.
Marie was beginning to feel exasperated that no one else noticed the streaks on Mary's face so she finally nudged the card player sitting next to her and pointed out to him that the statue of Mary looked like it had been crying. He shrugged, too busy to give her or the statue any attention. Next, she pointed the black streaks out to the heavy set nursing aid sitting at the end of the table.
"Oh yeah," the aid said as she glanced over at the statue for a minute and then turned back to her lunch and newspaper.
Marie shrugged and gave up the fight. She watched Mary's statue until lunch break was over, waiting for the next tear that never fell. It was obviously an old statue, probably been standing in the same place for years. Maybe someone painted the eyes last night. We'll she was crazy but the work day was almost over and she could go home.
Then finally, it was three o'clock, quitting time. On her way to the locker room to get her purse, she stopped at the nursing station in the west wing where Marge, a usually friendly nurse, was still on duty.
"Do you know that the statue of Mary on the patio has streaks running down her face?" Marie asked Marge. "It looks like the statue’s been crying."
Marge, who was sitting at her station, busy writing in her notebook, stopped for a moment and looked up at Marie like she was crazy. Marie shrugged and continued walking to the locker room.
Then, purse in hand and light brown jacket slung over her arm, Marie back tracked to the patio door, but rain was falling again, harder now, splashing on the picnic table and obscuring Mary’s statue.
While she ran through the rain to her car Marie made herself a promise, she made a pledge that she'd never work in this nursing home again after this week's schedule was done, never, even if the agency begged her.
Months later while she was working in another nursing home, she heard a rumor that the state had closed St. Jo's down and that it had a new owner now. She hoped it was true. Suddenly, she remembered the statue that stood in the alcove on St. Jo's patio-- she wondered if Mary was still crying.
The end