Page 46 of Nash Falls

“This is my mother, Alice,” said Parker.

The woman stared up at her daughter and then at Nash. She gummed her lips for a few moments before saying in a low, croaking voice, “Thirsty, Rose.”

“Yes, of course, Momma.”

Parker rushed to the little nightstand next to the bed and poured out water from a pitcher, then got her mother to sit up and gently helped her to drink. As she did so, Nash looked around the confines of his old room and fixed on the spot where he’d had his desk and his first computer, a Bondi blue Apple G3 that he’d bought with money earned from his paper route and mowing lawns.

Standing there now were a portable toilet and a rolling table with some prescription bottles carefully arranged. An oxygen tank was set next to the bed. Its tubing was attached to a canula in Alice’s nostrils.

Nash turned back to Parker with an inquisitive look. When she rejoined him he said quietly, “How long has your mother been here?”

“She… I brought her the day after your father passed.”

“I see. And where was she before?”

“At a facility. But they said she needed to go somewhere else. Only I had nowhere else.” She glanced at her mother as the woman closed her eyes and slowly drifted off to sleep. “They told me to put her in hospice, but her benefits are limited and the ones that would take her,well, the level of care there I knew was not… not what my mother deserved. Not that anyone does. Particularly at this stage in life.”

“I understand.”

“I did talk to your father about it before he passed. He knew my mother and liked her. He said it would be okay.”

“But how will you manage this while you’re working? She looks like she needs constant attention.”

“I got a month’s time off to care for her. Under FMLA.”

“Right, the Family Medical Leave Act. But isn’t that leave unpaid?”

“Yes, Mr. Nash, but I had no other options. I had already used up all my sick and vacation time. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. And my salary doesn’t go far. But with the money your father left me.” Her eyes again filled with tears. “Well, it makes things a lot easier, that’s for sure.”

“Very timely,” he said gently. “I’m glad this has worked out for you, I really am.”

She lowered her voice. “She doesn’t have long.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Old age, mostly. Things are pretty much worn out. And she was a smoker for fifty years and has COPD as a result. That’s why she’s on oxygen.”

“When you followed me to the deli and met up with me after, who stayed with your mother?”

“A friend of mine from the VA. I just had to talk to you. That’s why I… followed you. Things were getting… desperate.”

“I understand perfectly, and I’m sorry.” He looked at her mother. “This must be incredibly difficult for you, Rosie.”

“I look after people like this every day, Walter. I don’t mind it. I… like to feel useful. And people who are sick and scared and… well… they shouldn’t be alone to look after themselves, should they? They should have someone to help them.”

“Yes, they should. And she’s lucky to have someone like you.” He paused and added awkwardly, “Well, as I said, I came to look over some of my parents’ things and to open the safe and review the contents.”

“That’s all in the bedroom closet downstairs. The safe is also in the closet.”

He left her there and went downstairs, through the living room, past the minuscule dining room where he had eaten every meal with his parents, and down the short hall with the varnished floors to his parents’ bedroom. He opened the door and surveyed the space. It hadn’t changed much since his childhood. The bedcovers, of course, were newer, and there was a chair he didn’t recognize. When he looked at it more closely, he saw that it was one of those assisted-lift models. In his mind’s eye he imagined his father using it to get to his feet. He would have hated that vulnerability, Nash understood quite well. Thatweakness, as his father would see it. He opened the closet and saw his mother’s clothes still hanging there. She had been petite, but his father had been six four and chiseled out of granite. Nash had taken after him in the height if not the musculature department.

On a shelf in the closet were two plastic boxes with lids. He pulled them out and placed them on the bed. Inside one were letters that he’d written to his mother while he’d been in college and through his first few years of marriage, before everyone started corresponding mostly via emails and texts. He read through several of them, each bringing back important memories. He found himself forgetting about his present dilemma and allowed himself to be whisked back in time to the simpler existence of a little boy, then a teenager, then a young adult. He pulled out his Eagle Scout sash with all the earned merit badges. He had felt proud wearing the uniform and working toward that elite status. He had thought his father would be proud of him, too, but he’d been pretty much indifferent about the whole thing.

There were also presents that Nash had made his mother for her birthdays, simple things crafted from popsicle sticks and plastic, and lots of Elmer’s glue. And Hallmark cards, which his mother loved. Then there was his high school diploma and senior yearbook. He couldn’t even look at the gawky, nerdy youth he’d been at eighteen.There was an old bottle of pain pills that his mother had taken for her cancer. He would dispose of it properly.

He decided to take the whole box with him.

The second box contained mementos of his father’s military career. One of his Army hats, his medals and ribbons, his discharge papers, letters of commendation, and one old photo.