Allowed and Not Allowed. Bunny learns that the difference between Allowed and Not Allowed is the difference between a person and a crazy person. Shortly after she is checked into this hospital, during the hours between lunch and dinner, one of the aides leads Bunny, along with Albie, to the dining room, which is now deserted except for the four lunatics at a far corner table playing Parcheesi. The dining room here is a study in institutional beige. Beige cafeteria-style tables are met with folding chairs of a slightly darker beige surrounded by beige walls. Bunny’s red suitcase, flat on top of one of the Formica tables, looks like a surprise.
The aide is a middle-aged woman with lank blond hair and pink lipstick. The name tag pinned to her royal blue hospital scrubs reads: Patricia. Bunny takes the seat on Albie’s left and shifts her chair to be nearer to him. Patricia unzips Bunny’s suitcase and dumps the contents onto the table. Then, as if to rid the lining of sand or lint or contraband hidden in a pocket, Patricia gives the suitcase a vigorous shake. Nothing falls out, but still Bunny feels like a criminal. Setting the open suitcase on the empty chair beside her, Patricia focuses her attention on the pile of comfortable clothes and Bunny’s other items for everyday use. One by one, item by item, as swiftly as if she were sorting fruit, she sorts Bunny’s things into two groups: Allowed and Not Allowed. What is Not Allowed goes back into the red suitcase, which Albie will take home. Her cardigan sweater is Allowed, but her bathrobe is Not Allowed. The yoga-style pants get tossed into the suitcase for the same reason her bathrobe got tossed into the suitcase: what ties around the waist can tie around the neck.
T-shirts, jeans, wool skirt, bras, panties and socks are Allowed but her black tights are Not Allowed. She can keep the legal pad and three felt-tipped pens but the spiral-bound notebook and ballpoint pens are Not Allowed. Cigarettes are Definitely Not Allowed. Nicorette gum is dispensed at the nurse’s station.
“I’m sorry,” Bunny says. “I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry about what?” Albie asks, and Bunny says, “Everything. I’m sorry about everything.”
Jewelry is Not Allowed.
Bunny takes off her wedding band and gives it to her husband, who turns it over between his fingertips before slipping it into his shirt pocket.
“I’m so sorry,” Bunny says again.
Nail polish is Not Allowed. Cosmetics are Not Allowed. Chapstick is Allowed, but dental floss? No way, no how.
The woman whose job this is, whose job it is to take away Bunny’s gray silk scarf, her ballpoint pens, her cell phone, her house keys, her pocketbook with the shoulder strap, this woman never looks up, but she takes away Bunny’s shoes.
Shoes with heels are Not Allowed. Sneakers are Allowed. Sneakers, but no shoelaces. With or without laces, Bunny doesn’t own sneakers. Albie says he will buy her a pair. The Allowed things go into a bag that is something like a laundry bag except there is no drawstring. The aide tells Albie that he has to go now, and she says to Bunny, “You wait here.”
It would seem that the aide has disdain for her, but it’s not disdain. It’s resentment. She’s not getting paid enough to strip these sad people of their personal belongings, although it is better than her last job at the nursing home where she was expected to rat out old people for having sex.
The aide walks off with Bunny’s Allowed bag. Albie hugs his wife and he tells her that he will see her tomorrow during visiting hours, that he loves her very much, that it’s all going to be okay.
Bunny watches him leave with her red suitcase filled with her things Not Allowed, and she waits.
She waits here.
She waits here.