Eula thought women who wore blue jeans out in public were harlots, or worse. Mary Bliss slipped on a cotton dress and a pair of sandals, and she packed her blue jeans and polo shirt and sneakers in a tote bag, because she still had to go be a product demonstration hostess later in the day at Bargain Bonanza.
She was heading down the hallway at the Fair Oaks Assisted Living Facility when a voice stopped her.
“Mrs. McGowan?”
Mary Bliss turned. A tall thin woman in pink nurse’s scrubs hurried toward her. “Could I have a word with you?”
It was Anissa, who had been helping to take care of her mother-in-law since Eula had moved into the nursing home.
“Hey, Anissa,” Mary Bliss said. “Is everything all right?”
“Well, probably,” Anissa said. “I was wondering. Is something upsetting your mother-in-law?”
Mary Bliss thought about that. How much should she say?
“Not that I know of,” she said finally. “Why? Is something wrong with Eula?”
Anissa frowned. “She’s been difficult the last few days. Won’t eat meals with her friends like she usually does. Refuses to go to Bible study or crafts time. And there’s something else.”
Anissa lowered her voice. “I hate to be telling you this, but your mother-in-law used some very unpleasant language last night to Hidalgo, the nurse’s aide on the late shift.”
Mary Bliss tightened her grasp on the handle of her food basket.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said. “I do apologize. It’s so embarrassing. Eula was raised in a fairly closed society. We’ve tried to talk to her about her language, but…”
Anissa rolled her eyes. “Honey, they were all raised in a different time. We try to just ignore their ways, but when our folks drop the n-word all the time, it’s hard on us, you know?”
“I am so sorry,” Mary Bliss said.
Anissa patted her arm. “I know y’all don’t talk like that or think like that. And I’m sure Eula doesn’t mean anything by it. But Hidalgo, she’s not used to having people cuss her and accuse her of stealing from them.”
“She did that? Oh God. I’ll talk to her. I promise.”
Anissa nodded. “She’s slipping some, you know?”
Mary Bliss was taken aback. “Physically? Has her doctor said anything?”
“Her blood pressure’s been up,” Anissa said. “She hasn’t been sleeping too good, says her chest is giving her pains.”
“But she’s all right? Physically?” Mary Bliss asked. What would she do if Eula got really sick? How would she reach Parker?
“The doctor changed her meds, and he’s giving her something to sleep better. Ambien. I don’t think it’s anything drastic. But I wanted you to know she was cuttin’ up.”
“I appreciate it,” Mary Bliss said. “And I’ll talk to her about her language.”
She knocked lightly at the door to Eula’s room, but when there was no answer, she pushed the door open. Eula was asleep, her face pressed flat against a pillow, her mouth open, and a thin line of spittle glistened on her chin.
“Eula?” Mary Bliss whispered.
She tiptoed closer to the bed. Eula didn’t look much different. Her iron-gray curls were flattened on one side, and the hollows of her eyes were deep with shadows.
Mary Bliss put the basket of food on the bedside table and looked around. The room was a mess. Clothes had been flung over a high-backed chair, and a trash basket was overflowing. It smelled funky too. Like dirty socks. It wasn’t like Eula to put up with a messy room. Maybe she really was slipping.
She went to the janitor’s closet at the end of the hall, got a broom and a sponge mop and a bucket of lemon-scented cleaner, and came back and went to work.
Mary Bliss worked quietly. She swept and mopped and hung up clothes in Eula’s closet. She was going through the laundry, sorting things into a plastic bag to take home.
“You stealing from me?” Eula’s voice crackled with anger.
Mary Bliss dropped the plastic bag, startled. “Meemaw, you’re awake. How are you feeling?”
Eula was struggling to sit up. Her cotton nightgown hung from one bony shoulder, exposing the top of her pale, shriveled breast. The thought occurred to Mary Bliss. Someday I’ll look like that too.
“Good thing I did wake up,” Eula said. “I reckon you already ransacked my purse.”
“Meemaw,” Mary Bliss said, shocked. “You were asleep. The room needed tidying, and I want to take your laundry home to wash it. You know I would never…”
“Steal? Why not? Everybody else in this place is a thief. They’re robbing me blind. Think I don’t know that? Especially that little spic girl. I ran her off last night.”
“Meemaw! You shouldn’t say words like that. Nigger. Spic. The words are demeaning. And ugly.”
“That girl doesn’t understand a word of English,” Meemaw said, waving away Mary Bliss’s protests. “Anyway, why can’t they get some nice white folks in here to take care of me?”
“The people who work here are very nice,” Mary Bliss said. “Nice white folks and black folks and brown folks. And you need to stop talking so ugly to them. It hurts their feelings.”
“Who cares?” Eula said. “Put the television on, will you? I want to see what Guy Sharpe says about the weather. If we don’t get some rain soon, I swear I’m gonna dry up and blow away.”
Mary Bliss decided not to point out to Eula that her favorite weatherman had been retired from channel 2 for at least ten years.
Instead, she lifted the pie out of the basket and set it on the bed tray. She cut a slice and put it on the flower-sprigged china plate she’d brought from home. She poured the iced tea into a glass and placed it beside the pie plate, then she slid the rolling table over next to Eula’s bed.
“Look, Meemaw,” she said. “I brought you a treat. Coconut custard pie from the women’s circle cookbook. And home-brewed sweet tea. Your favorites.”
Eula had her eyes closed, her head tilted back on the pillow. She opened one eye and grunted. Then she opened the other.
“Treat. Huh. More like a bribe.”
But her hand found the electric controls for the hospital bed, and she raised herself to a sitting position.
“Bribe? What’s that supposed to mean?” Mary Bliss asked.
“Think I don’t know what you’re up to? You come sidling in here today, all nicey-nice, mopping and bowing and sweeping. Where were you yesterday? Wednesday? I waited all day, and you never came. Say what you mean to say, girl. Get on with it. I don’t want to miss the weather report.”
Mary Bliss had been steeling herself for this moment.
“I’m sorry about yesterday. I have a new job and I had to work. All right. Yes. I do need to talk to you. About Parker. Have you heard from him?”
Eula’s lips pressed into a tight line. “No.”
Mary Bliss looked at her warily. She never could read Eula McGowan. Was she lying? There was just no telling.
“I’ll get right to the point. Parker left us in a bad way, Meemaw. He hasn’t paid the bills. Emptied out all our accounts. Our accounts,” she emphasized. “Joint checking and savings. Investments. Erin’s college money. It’s all gone.”
Eula didn’t blink. She slowly took a bite of pie, then followed that with a gulp of tea.
“I’m going to lose the house if I can’t pay what we owe,” Mary Bliss continued. “I’ve taken a part-time job, but it’s not nearly enough. It’ll just barely buy groceries. And Erin’s tuition for Twin Oaks Academy is due next month. It’s eleven thousand dollars, Meemaw. And I don’t have it.”
Eula ate another bite of pie.
“You’ll manage,” she said finally. “That’s one thing I always did give you credit for, Mary Bliss. You might not be much in the brains or the looks department, but I always did say you were a good manager.”
Mary Bliss felt something stirring in her chest. Around the esophagus area. She was shocked when it came out as a laugh. She laughed. She did! She laughed so hard she got stomach cramps.
Eula took another swallow of tea, then set her fork on the edge of her plate, clearly horrified at Mary Bliss’s seeming hysteria.
Mary Bliss finally got up and went into Eula’s private bathroom, which she had just finished mopping. When she had peed and washed her hands and blew her nose, she came back out.
“Sorry,” she said, emerging a few minutes later. She managed to stifle one last snigger.
“There is something bad wrong with you, girl,” Eula said.
“Yes,” Mary Bliss readily agreed. “You’re right, Meemaw. There is something bad wrong with me. I’m at the end of my rope. I’m here, asking you for help. If not for me, for Erin. You do love Erin, don’t you?”
“What kind of fool question is that?” Eula snapped.
Mary Bliss dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “Will you at least loan me the money for Erin’s tuition?” she asked. “It would be a loan. I’d pay you back.”
Eula stabbed at the pie with her fork, smearing the creamy yellow filling all over the plate.
“I’m an old lady,” she said, not looking up. “I’m old, and I’m sick. I’m not sleeping well. My chest hurts. My only child has gone. But you, you’re young, Mary Bliss. You’re healthy. And you’ve got your child at home with you. You’ll manage. I always did.”
“I see,” Mary Bliss said. So that was it. The metallic taste was back in her mouth again. She wanted to gargle with some of that disinfectant, to make it go away. She picked up her basket and left Eula’s room.
She stopped in the visitor’s rest room in the nursing home lobby to change into her work clothes. As she was about to leave, Anissa stopped her.
“How did she seem to you?” Anissa asked, concern on her face. “Any better, did you think?”
Mary Bliss had to clamp her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud again. Once she started, she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to stop. She took a deep breath. “No better, no worse. Eula McGowan never changes.”