Opal won’t come out of her coat. They checked into the Wellspring Assisted Living facility over an hour ago and ever since unpacking her grandmother’s suitcase Aura has been trying unsuccessfully to get Grams to relax.
“Look at that. There’s a little pond outside your window.”
Opal hugs deeper into her peacoat.
“When we leaving for home?”
“We’re already there.”
“This no home, child. This a hotel.”
“It’s an apartment. It’s your apartment. There are people here to cook for you, to clean for you, to help care for you.”
“I expect they’ll be wanting a tip.”
“Everything’s already been paid for. There’s no reason to tip. It might actually offend them.”
Opal scopes out the one-room studio. There’s a sofa, half a fridge puttering under the kitchenette sink, a dresser and a little end table and a big-screen TV. Last night, hoping to make today’s transition easier on the both of them, Aura dropped by to hang a few of Grams’s most treasured pictures. Also made up the bed, draped a familiar quilt over the sofa back, unwrapped a bar of scented soap for the private bathroom. But it was all so silly, she’s realizing.
Because how could you expect this to be anything but the most awkward kind of awful?
“Where’s the rest of it at?”
Aura indicates the door. A polished brass peephole and throwbolt both contribute to an illusion of privacy. But the nurses—check that, she won’t call them nurses, the caretakers—all carry a skeleton key should they need access to Grams in an emergency.
“The dining room and game room and television are all out there, remember? You want to go take another look?”
Grams disappears deeper into her collar. She’s not so sure about this faux front door—what kind of people paint an inside door blue, Aura, anyhow?—but just then a knock-knock-knocking comes from the other side of it.
It’s Tahira, the intake nur . . . no—caretaker—holding a bouquet of wildflowers she’s gathered from the footpath surrounding the Wellspring grounds.
“How are we settling in, Opal?”
Tahira is a tall, graceful Indian woman with a dancer’s taut posture and soft, sympathetic eyes. Inviting herself inside, she places the bouquet in an empty vase beside the television set and beams beatifically down at Grams.
“It is much too warm to be wearing this coat in here, Opal! Let us get you out of it then. It will be time to take the tour. Simon will be setting out the lunch by now. Today we will be having the chicken and the dumplings, with a nice pecan pie for dessert. And trust me Opal, you will not want to miss Simon’s dumplings.”
Opal is more pliant with this stranger and gives up her coat without a struggle.
Tahira escorts Grams past the threshold but Aura hangs back a bit, bracing herself for the lunch to come. Look at them already. Chatting like long-lost friends. Grams hanging on her new handler’s every word, hanging on to her elbow for support. Aura wanders, alone, along the hallway after the two women. It’s a nice place, Wellspring, equal almost to the rosy picture painted in the official literature. Professional. Clean. Friendly. Just five minutes’ drive from Aura’s apartment in downtown Stillwater. They might even see more of one another.
For better or worse, though, Grams is here to stay. Here to live out the remainder of her days. Or Aura’s savings, whichever comes first. Selling Opal’s car, selling the house, these things would help. A lot. But for how long?
Of course it’s for the better.
So why this sense of abandonment or loss? That same runaway train churning her stomach, like this was the first day of grade school?
The dining room is buzzing with news of Opal’s arrival, a capacity crowd of blue-haired old ladies and liver-spotted old gentlemen—mostly it’s blue-haired old ladies—everyone seemingly eager to meet the new neighbor. Offering to sit with Opal and Aura, Tahira begins dishing dirt on their tablemates.
“Opal, you must keep your eyes on Bennie here.” Tahira touches Grams above the elbow. “He will rob you blind in the bridge game. Personally I think he has found a way to cheat. But do not get too pleased with yourself, Bennie. We are wise to you.”
“They got the blacks and the whites equal,” Opal says. “Everyone sitting together now.”
“We all get along here,” Tahira assures Grams before introducing Roseanne McGuire, the Irish widow whose auburn hair won’t ever go gray: “I hear rumors,” Tahira whispers when Roseanne isn’t listening, “that Roseanne owns at least one dozen wigs.” And wheelchair-bound Pauline Hobson, the oldest woman on the wing at ninety-seven or ninety-eight, Pauline can never remember: “Pauline will say she has met Ulysses Grant. But I believe she is joking.”
It’s comforting to see Grams in a different context. Next to Mrs. Hobson here, Opal seems spry as a prizefighter. Aura can’t help but feel Tahira’s giving them some special sort of treatment. But she’s worked with enough geriatric specialists to know that making people feel special is this woman’s job.
Sensing Aura’s mood, perhaps, Tahira blinks a good-humored wink—everything’s going to be just fine here, the gesture promises, your Grams is in good hands—and Aura is immobilized by a boundless rush of love for this beautiful, this wonderful caretaker.
Aura has never been good at goodbye. But after lunch is over, after two games of bingo, okay make it three, and one of dominoes, after showing Opal back to the new apartment, Aura hears herself saying it.
“I’ve got to go, Grams. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? Tomorrow after work.”
“Aura, don’t put me in this hidey-hole too long. These people so old!”