A hand-drawn spiral containing a flower

CHAPTER SIX

Mother’s Got a Bell! A Ringy-Ding Bell!

WHEN SISSIE WAS ABOUT ninety-five years young, she fell and broke her hip. The ensuing hospital stay was a lengthy one, and once Sissie finally returned home, Martha realized that she was going to need some extra help to take care of her mother. She decided on a local home health service, and while the bulk of the Sissie-related responsibilities still fell on Martha’s shoulders, she was able to schedule sitters for a few hours every day so she could run to the grocery store, go to church, or meet friends for lunch. Martha’s attentiveness to Sissie’s care demonstrated a level of devotion that would make Florence Nightingale say, “Dang—I need to step up my game,” so whenever Martha would leave the house, she always made sure that there was a small, handheld bell beside Sissie’s bed. Just in case Sissie needed to ring it for some immediate attention, you understand.

One of Martha’s favorite annual events has always been her Sunday school class’s Christmas party, and even though she was absolutely exhausted and could barely wrap her brain around putting on a sparkly three-quarter-sleeve jacket with some dressy slacks and spending the evening at the country club, she figured it would be good for her spirits to spend a few hours with her friends. Martha went to great pains to schedule a sitter—not an easy feat during the holidays—and before she left the house, she made sure to tell Sissie that someone else was there to help.

“Mother, you ring your bell if you need anything! If you need anything! The sitter will be sure to help you with whatever you need, and I’ll be home in a few hours. Okay, sugar? You get some good rest, sugar.”

Martha felt fine about the arrangement as she backed out of the carport, but when she got home “a little before nine, I was home before nine! I wasn’t even out that late!” she was distressed to find the sitter sound asleep—snoring, even—in the living room recliner. Despite her first inclination to let sleeping sitters lie, Martha’s concern for Sissie proved too strong to ignore. She wanted to check with the sitter to make sure everything was okay with Sissie, and that’s why Martha stood in front of the recliner for the better part of five minutes and repeated, at varying volumes, some variation of “Hello! Hey there! Time to wake up! I’m home now! It’s time to get up! I want to ask you about my mother! Hey, honey! Hello!”

The sitter never budged. She didn’t miss a beat with her snoring, either.

I’d like to think that if I had been in Martha’s position at this juncture, I would have walked over to the woman in the recliner, put my hand on her shoulder, and very gently said something like “WAKE UP! WAKE UP! YOU’RE ON THE CLOCK, AND I’M NOT PAYING YOU TO SLEEP, MA’AM.” But Martha avoids confrontation of any sort, so here is what she did in an attempt to rouse the sleeping sitter:

  1. Walked in the master bedroom and shut the door.
  2. Opened the door.
  3. Walked in the master bathroom and shut the door.
  4. Opened the door.
  5. Flushed the commode.
  6. Walked in the kitchen, where she repeatedly opened and shut the door to the microwave because, according to Martha, “My microwave door is really loud! It’s terribly loud! And I don’t see how anybody could sleep through me shutting it, especially not over and over again!”

At that point Sissie woke up (no doubt because of that microwave door opening and shutting), so she started ringing her bell and yelling, “MAH-THA! MAHHHHHH-THA!” as loudly as she could. The sitter still didn’t move, and according to Martha, “She didn’t even hear Mother’s bell! She didn’t hear the bell! And you know I was at the Sunday school party, and what if Mother needed her and rang the bell and the sitter never answered? What if she never answered? Because she surely didn’t hear it when I was home! She didn’t! Mother rang her bell, and the sitter never heard it!”

And then, after a brief pause: “CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE?”

So Martha took care of whatever Sissie needed before she walked in the living room and stood in front of the recliner and loudly cleared her throat four or eleventy hundred times until the sitter finally stirred. And instead of asking the sitter what in the world she was thinking, Martha simply said, “I couldn’t get you to wake up! Mother even rang her bell! And I opened and closed the microwave door!”

I’m going to venture a guess that the sitter no doubt wondered how she’d fallen asleep in Myrtlewood only to wake up smack-dab in the middle of a Tennessee Williams play.

The sleeping sitter confessed that she had been a bit sick to her stomach earlier in the evening and had taken an anti-nausea pill or two, and much to her surprise she became incredibly drowsy and dozed off into what might be classified as a light coma. Martha told her that it probably wasn’t a good idea to take medication when she had a job that required staying awake in order to care for the elderly, but the sitter was nonplussed and asked Martha if she could have her check, seeing as how she had some Christmas shopping to do the next day.

I’d be willing to bet that Martha probably cleared her throat about fifty-four more times after that request. She was going to be polite at all costs, of course, but she had to consider her mama’s best interests. And before the sitter left, Martha managed to tell her that it just wasn’t going to work out. She was a perfectly lovely person and all—perfectly lovely!—but Martha needed to know that Sissie was in good hands.

I mean, sleeping on the job was one thing.

Being oblivious to the sound of the microwave door was another.

But failing to hear Sissie’s bell? That was a deal breaker, my friends.