‘Look who’s here, Helen.’ The nurse plumped up the pillows and turned down the television.
It had begun slowly at first, a few episodes of forgetfulness, confusion over Christmas and Easter, then the annoying habit of repeating the same stories more than a dozen times. At first Rimis and his brother Peter had thought it was a case of old age catching up with her. Then there were the tests and the diagnosis. Nick knew his mother would have despised the person she’d become.
Helen Rimis was dressed in a pale blue nightdress scattered with sprays of yellow daisies. Nick took her hand and held it in his. ‘It’s Nicko, Mum.’ Nick noticed the bony hand, the finger joints twisted by disease.
‘I don’t know any Nicko.’ Helen Rimis took back her hand. ‘Get away from me. I know what you want; it’s what you all want. Well, don’t think you’ll be getting any from me.’
‘Mum, it’s okay. It me, Nick.’ He looked into her eyes and waited for a sign of recognition.
‘Nick?’
‘Yes, Mum. I’ve bought you some flowers, roses. They’re your favourite.’
The nurse returned to the room with a narrow vase and set it down on the bedside table. Helen Rimis looked at the cream-coloured roses.
‘They’re lovely.’ A smile formed on her thin bluish lips. Her flat chest rose as she took in a sudden breath and he studied her face. Guilt overshadowed him. It hadn’t been a conscious decision to stay away; she had just slipped out of his life without him realising it.
‘She seems more settled now,’ Rimis said to the nurse.
‘We don’t know where she found the strength to unlock the window. She’s as frail as a sparrow. She wasn’t in the garden overnight, only an hour or so, since first light when the shift changed. We bought her in and gave her a shower straight away and changed her into a fresh nightdress.’
‘Has the doctor been in to see her?’ Rimis asked.
‘Doctor will be in later today. He might want to change her medication. We’ve given her a sedative. And we’ve spoken to maintenance. Someone’s coming in later to change the lock on the window –make it harder to open.’
Rimis smiled to put the nurse at ease because she looked embarrassed. Or was it a look of worry he saw on her face? Was she worried that he might report the incident to the Aged Care Complaints Scheme?
Helen Rimis stirred.
‘Do you want me to call your brother and tell him what’s happened?’ The nurse asked.
‘No, I’ll tell him.’ Rimis’s shoulders slumped. ‘I appreciate what you all do for her, you know.’
The nurse smiled at him before leaving the room.
Helen Rimis loved gardening. Before she became ill and was forced to leave her home in Maroubra, where Rimis now lived, she’d spent almost every day in the garden, tending it. Perhaps that was why she was drawn to the garden outside her window. Some distant memory of better times. She would be disappointed if she saw what Rimis had done, or rather, not done to her garden. It was neglected and overgrown and the roses badly needed pruning. He decided that from now on he would make more of an effort.
Helen Rimis was well cared for at Bayside Nursing Home. It was clean with pleasant surroundings, good food, and friendly, caring staff. Rimis’s brother visited every second day for an hour or two; he sat with her, read to her, took her for walks in the garden. Peter Rimis was older than Nick by six years, and over the decades the age gap between them had never closed.
Rimis knew his brother didn’t approve of his choice of career or his lifestyle, and he knew Peter thought he should have worked harder on his marriage. If Rimis had, then Fiona would never have left him and he would have had children by now. A few months ago, Peter and his wife Christina tried to fix him up with a nice Greek girl, but they gave up when they realised he was a lost cause.
Without exception, every March for the past five years, Peter and Christina took the boys out of school for a week and headed up the coast to their holiday home at Bluey’s Beach, leaving Nick to look after his mother. It was the only thing his brother had ever asked of him. This time was important. It was family time.
Rimis returned to his car and switched on the CD player. By the time he drove into the Station car park, the CD had finished. He glanced at the clock on the dashboard and was surprised it was almost eleven o’clock. Seeing his mother this morning had unnerved him. He wasn't overweight, but he knew he ate lousy food and drank too much. He’d given up the cigarettes more than a year ago. That was something, at least. He knew he had been doing everything wrong and made a mental note to ask Rawlings the name of the gym he belonged to and about the cost of membership. He put on an extra burst of speed and ran up the stairs to his office.