I didn’t know that was going to be
the last day. I swear I didn’t know. If I had known, I would’ve baked oatmeal
raisin cookies instead of buying chocolate chip. I would’ve worn the earrings
she liked—the ones that looked like little turtles. I would’ve brought a game
she actually enjoyed playing. But I didn’t know, and I didn’t bake or wear or
bring, and that was the day Rose died.
***
“Took you long enough!” she yelled.
I rubbed my hands with sanitizer upon entering room 223, trying not smirk at
the way her voice cracked when she was irritated. Florescent overhead lighting
mimicked noon in the worst possible way.
“Oh, be quiet. It’s eight in the
morning, you brat.” A shiver seized the
hair on the back of my neck as I adjusted the thermostat. There was no point in
asking if she wanted a blanket—she didn’t. My eyes brushed her bones, knowing
that drum-tight, moon-colored skin was the normality of her condition. Her blue
lips fused into a firm line as she adjusted her oxygen cannula, then her floppy
sunhat, which she insisted on wearing year-round.
“What’d you bring me?” she asked.
"I'll tell you what I should've
brought you—nothing.” Rose laughed in reaction, mucus bubbling in the back of
her throat. “Hey, can you even see with that thing on?”
"Obviously. Not that there’s
much to see here, anyway," she said. And she was right. With rounded furniture
in varying shades of gray and a third story view of sidewalk cracks and bus
station smokers, blindness seemed like a tumor worth trading for. Out came the
cookies and the deck of cards.
"Seriously? We played Uno
yesterday," Rose said, not at all trying to conceal her disappointment. I
constantly eyed the growing dullness of her corn stalk hair and wondered
whether she was actually swallowing
the pills I placed next to her milk. But when it came to what she was feeling,
there was no guesswork involved. Methodically, I took off my coat, tossed it
onto the empty recliner, and sat at the foot of the bed.
"Well, Uno is a classic. And
the classics are classics for a reason,” I replied, shuffling.
“That’s what my dad says about his
music.” I paused for a moment to watch her. Her freckles hid in response to
January snow, clashing with the perennial power of her eyes. Her port dressing
was coming loose, barely visible above the neckline of her t-shirt.
“When was the last time you talked
to your dad, Rose?” Now it was her turn to pause.
“Last night.”
“And what did he say?”
“Nothing. Just the usual stuff.” She
was growing more and more annoyed, her gaze refusing to set from my fingers and
the cards.
“Is he coming to see you, soon?”
“Deb, does it matter?” Her eyebrows
blew together and furrowed. “He’s too busy with work. Besides, you’re way more
fun. And you’re a nurse. If I was dying, you would know how to save me.” She
pushed her bangs behind her ears and I could see tiny dewdrops shimmering on
her forehead.
“Why would you say something like
that?” I asked.
“Because it’s true.” A cough rattled
from within her ribs, proof that disease had rooted itself in a place neither
of us could reach.
“Here—we’ll start with more cards
this time. It’s harder, but it’s also more fun.” Rose’s nostrils flared as I
passed her seven Uno cards and straightened the deck between us. She froze, staring
at her purpling fingernails.
“You won’t stop coming, will you,
Deb?”
“Well, considering how often you tease me, I should.” I dug a finger into her side and a single, scratchy laugh was uprooted from behind her teeth. “But, no. I’ll always come. Life would be far too boring without you.”
“Well, considering how often you tease me, I should.” I dug a finger into her side and a single, scratchy laugh was uprooted from behind her teeth. “But, no. I’ll always come. Life would be far too boring without you.”
“Ugh. Stop mushing out on me and play.” She picked up a chocolate chip
cookie, bit into it, and grimaced. “You know,” she said, chewing, “these taste
like shit.”
***
I often look back on that day and
consider the things I could’ve done to give myself more time with her. I ask
myself if the meticulous lip-liner was worth it—if my sedan really needed to be
washed. They called it “Rose’s Celebration of Life,” but that’s not at all what
it was. Or at least that’s not what it turned out to be. I withdrew into my
skin, safe and unchanged, and peeked: thirty people in a dim room they could
barely afford, listening to a man preach about a god they didn’t believe in,
weeping over the loss of a girl they never paid attention to.
