Doris

He knocks twice before entering Doris’ room, having learned the hard way not to surprise his mother. Last week, he’d walked in during her sponge bath and still could not get that image out of his mind.

Doris always kept herself thin, except for that time when she’d tried to quit her Virginia Slims. But, seeing her that morning, her ribcage visible through paper-thin skin made him wonder if she can come back from this.

Sleeping now, on her side, with a threadbare blanket tightly drawn up to her chin, she is like a child. Her hair, Doris’ self-described best feature, has turned the color of ash and thinned out so much he can see her scalp. This fierce woman, who obliterated anyone who got close, had been rendered helpless by a broken hip. After surviving years of drinking and backbreaking jobs, a fall seemed anti-climactic.

Frowning, he surveys the clutter on the nightstand and places everything inside the drawer except for her glasses and a copy of last year’s People magazine. He walks to the window, sweeping the cheap drapes to the side and the room is suddenly bright with the midday sun.

Across the way is Mercy Hospital where his son was born five years ago. The maternity wing faced the sun-kissed waters of Biscayne Bay. From Doris’ room, he looks down at the parking lot.

“He looks like E.T.,” Doris had declared when she met her wrinkled little grandson through the NICU glass. His wife, not yet used to his mother’s uncouthness, refused to let her hold the baby for weeks.

“Mom,” he whispers, his face close to hers. Her eyes are vacant, like when she’d wake from one of her blackouts. Her gaze focuses on his face, a hint of recognition lights up her eyes. She calls him by his brother’s name. 

He fights the urge to correct her and instead lobs a series of questions at her. What did she eat for breakfast, has the physical therapist come yet.

She looks up at him, her eyes dart from him to the wall, as if the answers are written there, and begins to cry. These new crying spells disturb him. Doris never cried before. She yelled. She cursed. She threw things. But he’d rarely seen her shed a tear.  

In his car, he puts the windows down, inhaling the briny air. The smell of the nursing home, a mix of air freshener, urine, and despair has seeped into his clothes.

At a stoplight, he turns to look at the school kids playing outside and is transported back to his first day of second grade at one of the many schools he and his brother had attended. For the life of him, he could not remember the name of the school. Sometimes, forgetting felt like a blessing.

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It’s after nine when his wife comes to bed.

“You take too long putting him down,” he tells her, feeling like a pouty child.

She says nothing but settles her head on his chest while he reads. Sometimes the bond between his wife and their son fills him with a longing he can’t describe.

The next day, he drives to the nursing home after work. Bayshore Drive is littered with cyclists and runners. On the sidewalk, a young father keeps up with a little boy on a tricycle while the mom pushes a stroller behind them. It’s a breezy fall afternoon, the sky glows pink and orange.

In the parking lot, he lingers in his car, watching the glass doors of the building open and close.

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