Lucy, Lucy


The stripes on the wall are eggshell blue and tan, a terrible color combination that does nothing to put me at ease.
I sit on a cushioned bench pushed up against this hideous wall, feet tucked underneath me, hands folded in my lap. I’m trying to focus on the painting of a sailboat directly across from me, but it’s not working. My eyes keep drifting back to the woman to my right.
She’s sitting in a wheelchair- well, not sitting, really. She doesn’t have the strength to ‘sit’ anymore. Hasn’t had it in three years. Instead, she remains in the position the orderlies placed her in when they got her up this morning: half slumped, head lolled forward, hands crossed crookedly over her lap. She’s parked next to a table where a nurse is attempting to feed her applesauce and pureed chicken. From the amount of food on her bib and around her shriveled lips, it’s not going well.
This woman is my grandmother. She has Benson’s Syndrome, which put simply is basically early-onset Alzheimer’s. But I don’t like to get caught up in the technicalities of it. She’s sick, she’s dying, end of story.
The nurse tries to coax a spoonful of mush into her mouth. I watch, unable to tear my eyes away from the irony of it all. My grandmother once fed me in that exact same manner.
Oh, there she goes- her lips part and the spoon slips into her mouth. She closes, and the nurse gives her a moment to swallow before removing the spoon and wiping the excess food from her chin and cheeks. Lu has not moved the entire time, except for a slight jerk of the feet.
My parents are talking in low voices to my grandfather, discussing some sensitive ‘adult only’ topic unfit for my teenage ears. Fine by me. It’s much more entertaining on the bench.
The nurse, brave soul, is dipping back down into the applesauce.
“C’mon, Lucy,” She coaxes. “One more bite. C’mon.”
Come on, Lucy, I silently urge her. Here comes the train.
But she won’t take it. The nurse tries for a full five minutes, then shakes her head and lays the spoon down, instead picking up a plastic cup filled with water. A straw pokes out of the top.
“Time to drink,” She says, putting the straw to my grandmother’s lips. Lu knows the feel of the straw and allows it entry. There’s a brief sucking, and I can see the liquid shooting up through the transparent tube. It always amazed me that a woman who can’t even lift her fingers voluntarily still retains the ability to drink through a straw. Although, come to think of it, sucking is one of the first lessons we learn, right behind breathing and screaming.
My grandmother has reverted to infancy.
The nurse (her name is Connie, I think) gives her patient a final cleaning and wheels her briskly over to the television. Two other hospice patients are parked there, both looking only slightly more alive than my grandmother. The TV has been set to a channel that plays nothing but old love songs, Frank Sinatra and the like. It’s supposed to calm them.
I’m tempted to put on Baby Einstein and see if it makes them anymore alert.
I apologize if I’m handling this inappropriately, but… I’ve been dealing with this for half of my life. Lu’s sickness is what dominates my memory, not the beautiful, kind woman I hear about from my parents. The few hale memories I have of her are heart-wrenchingly clear: tea parties in her basement, the books we read together, her soft, high voice. We used to go on walks through her sleepy, old neighborhood.
I can trace her disease through my memory. In the beginning, she starts to stoop and move more slowly, and she’s always cold. Next, she needs help walking. Soon, stairs are impossible, and the house I practically grew up in, nestled in the shadow of the Appalachian Mountains, is sold. Lu and Grandfather move into an apartment, and she is now confined to a wheelchair. She sees things, too, and Mom has to rush me out of the room on multiple occasions to prevent me from hearing the foul words she spits out on occasion. The only time she had ever heard her curse, Mom says later.
Then comes the hospice. By now, she is completely unresponsive. Her only movements (if you can call them that) are occasional muscle spasms. Her hair, always kept short, suddenly thins out. Her beautiful skin shrivels and pales. She weighs less than me, existing on only tablespoons of food a day. Her soft-spoken ways degenerate to silent staring into space with those big blue eyes I, too, have been cursed with.
So, again, excuse me if I act a bit calloused about the whole thing.
From the snippets of conversation I’m overhearing, I gather that Dad and Grandfather are about to go pick out a coffin. They’re trying to nail down a price.
Nail down. Ha, ha.
Mom comes over to me and sits on the bench, sighing loudly and dropping her chin on her chest. “Your father. His father. Argh.”
I grunt sympathetically and she glances at me. “Honey.”
I give her a sideways look. “Yes?”
“Are you okay?”
Mom thinks that because I don’t break down into tears every time I walk into this place that I am suppressing some emotional duress.
“Fine,” I reply, settling myself into a more comfortable position.
Open up, Lucy, here comes the train.
Mom sighs and crosses her fingers over the belly she works so hard to keep flat. “Those two are the most indecisive men I have ever met. If your grandmother were here, she’d laugh and say ‘put me in a pine box and get it over with’.”
See? Mom does it, too.
“They like obsessing over details,” I tell her. “Let them. They can vent their neuroses somewhere outside of the house.”
“Mm.” Mom glances over at Lu. “Have you talked to her?”
I roll my eyes. “Mom-”
“You know she can hear you, she just can’t respond.” Mom gets to her feet and walks towards the cluster of wheelchairs, motioning for me to follow. I groan and drag myself to my unwilling feet, forcing them to move in the direction of the TV.


Mom sits down on the couch next to Lu and lightly touches her arm. “Hi, Lucy.”
Lu jerks slightly at the contact, her red-rimmed eyes staring at the blue and tan walls. A painting of a starfish is in her direct line of vision.
“It’s me,” Mom continues, not even fazed. “Charlotte, your daughter-in-law. Your granddaughter is here, too.” Mom smiles and points at me.
“Hey, Lu,” I say flatly. The other two patients seem to radiate disapproval, even in their vegetative states. Or maybe it’s just the sour looks permanently screwed to their faces.
“Jack’s here,” Mom says cheerfully. “He’ll be over in a minute. Just talking to your husband.”
“Do you want a pine box?” I ask abruptly, and Mom nearly slaps me. “I mean- you look nice today.”
Mom will slap me for stating the truth, but nod approvingly at a lie. Interesting.
“Are those the socks we gave you?” Mom asks, motioning to Lu’s feet. She’s wearing a fuzzy blue and white pair.
“Probably,” I say. “Seeing as how we give her socks every Christmas.”
Mom shakes her head at me and mouths- Quit it.
She can’t hear you, I mouth back.
Our silent argument is suddenly interrupted.
“Charlotte,” Dad calls from the corner. “Can you come over here for a sec?”
Mom hops to her feet, trying to cover her relief, and utters a hurried ‘be right back’ before leaving. I’m about to return to my bench when something catches my eye.
Snot. Clear and thin, it runs from Lu’s left nostril like a stream, moving dangerously close to the corner of her mouth.
My reaction is automatic. I grab a tissue from one of the eighty boxes located around the room and lean forward, carefully wiping the sticky substance from her pale, liver-spotted skin. At this distance, I can see violet-colored veins coursing through her cheeks and eyelids, snaking through her thin flesh. Her nostrils quiver with breath, the only visible proof that she is, indeed, alive.
Hold still, Lucy. Let me wipe your nose.
She used to do this for me when I was little. Used to rub her Kleenex all over my dirty face.
I drop the tissue on the coffee table and sit down, feeling suddenly heavy.
Hold still, Lucy. Here comes the train, Lucy. Open wide. Hold still.
I realize my Mom is calling me.
“…leaving,” She says, coming to stand by the couch. “Your dad and grandfather are going to stay a bit longer and talk to one of the nurses.”
She stoops down and squeezes Lu’s hand, kissing her on the cheek. “We’ll be back tomorrow, Lucy, okay? See you then. Love you.”
Lu doesn’t move. Her big eyes, watery, pale, red-rimmed, are fixed on the starfish painting. I wonder if my eyes will look like that when I’m old.
“Say goodbye, Lucy.”
At first, I think Mom is still talking to Lu. Then I see her looking at me.
I do the obligatory kneel and awkward hug. “Bye, Lu,” I say. “See you tomorrow.”
Mom smiles tearfully. “Look at her, Lucy. She looks just like you. Same name, same eyes…”
Mom turns and leaves, dabbing her eyes and sniffing. Lu still stares at the starfish.
I stand up, but don’t yet leave. Instead, I stare down at Lu.
I suddenly realize that those aren’t liver spots on her skin. They’re freckles, visible to me only now that her skin has turned nearly white.
I instinctively touch my face. So we share freckles, too. I can hear her talking to me from the past, feel her cool, smooth hands on my cheeks and forehead.
You have such beautiful freckles, Lucy. Like stars in the sky.
She smiles at me in my memory. In the present, she’s still fixated on that starfish.
I do something I haven’t done in a long time. I stoop down and swiftly kiss her withered cheek. She spasms, jerking away like she doesn’t know me, and I retreat.
For such a pale person, her skin felt very warm.
I quickly turn to follow my mother out the door only to run smack into Nurse Connie.
“Oh,” We both say, then- “Sorry.”
She turns to leave, but I stop her. “Um, does Lu- my grandmother- Lucy Warren-” I end up pointing at her in desperation. “Does she sit there every day?”
Nurse Connie follows my finger and frowns slightly. “By the TV? Yes, I think so.”
“And does she-” I swallow, knowing how stupid I sound. “Does she look at that painting? Of the starfish?”
Nurse Connie gives me a strange look. “I… don’t know. Perhaps. I position her the same way every time, so maybe.”
“Okay,” I say. “Okay, thanks.”
I scurry away and grab a piece of paper and a pen from the welcome desk, scribbling out my message in big letters. Just in case she can see.
“Do you have any tape?” I ask the lady behind the desk. I get another strange look, but she gives it to me, and I run back to the starfish painting and tape the note onto the glass.
Turning back around, I find myself staring directly into Lu’s eyes. I slowly move one finger up and point to the note. Her head twitches slightly in response.
I read it for her, the face of the woman I’m losing running through my memory. For the first time, I can see the freckles on her face. Her blue eyes look into mine, and her smile twitches the corners of her lips. I swallow quickly and look her square on, clinging to that memory.
“Your freckles are beautiful, Lucy. As beautiful as the stars.”