Applesauce

Applesauce

Dad is visibly disturbed to be here. I don’t blame him. They have assigned him to a nursing care floor that looks exactly like the hospital room he’s just left — except there’s no TV. You have to bring your own.

His roommate talks too much and doesn’t hear well and therefore carries on a constant, one-sided monologue. Dad is upset that the residents who dine together do not make eye contact or converse with each other.

“You could talk,” I say. “You could change everything. Be the one who starts the conversation.”

“I know,” he snaps. “I’m figuring it all out.”

“I can see that . . . I know you are,” I say, trying to soothe him — and myself.

—

But Dad’s right. At mealtime, the residents sit in wheelchairs at the same table and not a word passes between them. The nursing staff moves through the room, feeding them, talking to each other over their heads. There is no interaction between staff and residents except for the putting in and taking out of spoons from mouths. Dad, whose meals need to be pureed, receives the wrong tray. I take it back — and piece together a meal from what hasn’t been picked up: chicken salad, tuna salad, mashed potatoes. “Mix that all together,” Dad tells me. I stir applesauce into vanilla ice cream for dessert.

I leave Dad in his room and walk toward the nurse’s station. On my way, I pass through a corridor of wheelchairs. Along one wall, women sit, lined up in a row — dozing. One stares straight ahead, eyes vacant. Another slumps forward, chin to chest, drooling. Another group dozes in a circle around the television. In a sunny, wide open room filled with wheelchairs, an activities coordinator reads a newspaper story aloud. She tries to get a chat started about the news item she’s reading but no one says a word.

“Okay,” she asks them. “Would you rather have music now or a TV program?”

No one answers. No one is walking. No one can.

Which is when I realize: It’s the fucking Alzheimer’s floor.

The earth tips — that inner-ear thing I don’t have a word for. It happens to me sometimes when I am hit with a wave of… what do I call it? Seeing? Vision? I step back against the wall. Beside me, a woman in a wheelchair reaches for my arms. “Help me,” she says. “Help me help me help me.” I back away. She keeps calling.

And then — I don’t know how else to say this — a window of awareness opens to the right of my forehead. It’s happened before. I can’t make it happen. It’s happening now.

I see beyond what is in front of me. The whole lives of these women, spooling open. Not imagined. Vivid. The vibrational ghosts of who they were, layered over who they are now. A woman lifts a child. A woman walks a sunlit street. A woman stands before a mirror, watching her skirt fly out around her legs.

I feel my throat close with grief.

—

I march to the nursing station. I am going to ask straight out: Is this the Alzheimer’s floor? Why is my father here? He has none of the checkmarks for Alzheimer’s, for dementia. I want him evaluated — properly, by a competent physician. I stand there, waiting, while the nurse at the counter talks on the phone. I wait. And wait. Finally, she hangs up. And walks out of the room.

—

I go back to Dad. At least he is fighting. At least he is trying to keep his head above water. He is sitting in his wheelchair beside his roommate’s bed. His roommate is talking. Dad is nodding.

“Hey,” I call from the door. “Let’s go outside.” I push his wheelchair along the path — his first time out of doors in over two months. I am dazzled by the view. Overlooking the Hudson River, small boats flow by on blue, blue water. Clouds float overhead in the blue, blue sky.

“I told you it would be like this,” Dad says.

We stop in the shade of a little concrete hut. Some sort of lookout, I think. I carry a chair over from the lawn. We look out.

“It looks really nice,” Dad says. “But there’s no one here. They’ve all given up.”

“Don’t you give up,” I say.

“I won’t,” he promises.

—

But I’m giving up, I think on the way home. I can’t stand to watch him go through this. And I find myself praying: Not for help or comfort. I pray that he dies soon. I pray that he does not have to endure any more humiliation. I pray that his body does not betray him any further. I pray that he makes a friend or two and finds someone to play chess with.

Then I pray not to feel guilty for praying that. Then, as I pull into the driveway back home, I un-give up. If he won’t. I won’t.

—

This is a scene from The End of Men, a memoir I started years ago. The previous chapter, Tea, is here. If you’re new to the project, read the first chapter here: Keys. The full list of scenes, in order, is here. Want to support the work? Leave a comment. Share a chapter with a friend. To receive the chapters by email, subscribe here. To support the writer (me) and the project, become a paid subscriber. Paid subscribers also get SOSI: The School of (Words and) Images.

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