Page 10 of Scent to the Feral Cowboys
The soft hum of the tiny fridge.
The soft tapping of the keyboard.
The whirr of the vacuum suddenly paused.
“So, how are they today?” I pushed the words out; they felt thick as they fought the gathering storm inside my head.
Marissa's smile faltered slightly as she glanced up. “Your grandmother had a good morning. She was looking at old photo albums with Nurse Janine earlier. Your grandfather...” She hesitated. “He needed to take a nap after lunch.” She forced her smile back. “But he was much perkier after.”
My stomach tightened with worry. Grandpa just didn’t seem right these days. We were waiting on a new round of test results. Earlier panels had shown some abnormalities, but nothing conclusive. Grandpa hated worrying about things before theywere actually a problem. He called it putting the cart before the horse.
“Thanks for letting me know. Any idea where they are right now?” Cheerful. I was getting good at sounding passably happy.
“Hmm, let me check.” Marissa typed quickly, pulling up the patient roster which tried to keep up-to-date locations listed. Her face brightened, eyes crinkling. “Oh, they’re in bingo before dinner. That must mean your grandmother is still having a good day!”
Relief flooded through me, and I didn’t try to hide it. Grandmother's good days were becoming increasingly rare. It was important to cherish each time she found her way back to lucidity, even if it was fleeting and oh-so-painful when it faded away. I clutched my purse tighter, the wallet inside passing through my mind. It used to be Grandmother’s. Age-worn leather, faded bird embroidery, crammed with dozens of small photos she’d collected over the years. I didn’t actively use it, opting instead for a compact card holder, but I kept carrying the wallet anyways.
"They do bingo in community room three on this level, right?" I asked, not that I needed confirmation. Just filling another lull in conversation.
"Yep. Just follow the voices. You'll hear them calling numbers." Marissa laughed, then continued. "Your grandfather got quite competitive last night during charades. Won a pack of sugar-free gum and acted like he'd struck gold."
I managed to genuinely smile at that. Other than with Grandmother, whom he often let win, Grandpa had always been competitive. Whether it was Go Fish on rainy afternoons or teaching me chess when I was seven, he rarely took it easy on people. Some things didn't change, even here in this place which marked the last life transition for so many people.
No, everything always changes eventually, doesn’t it? Nothing ever truly stays the same.Words streamed through my head. Loudly. Persistently. They wouldn’t let me hover in blissful ignorance.
Everything. Always. Changed.
Nothing. Ever. Stayed.
Yes, Grandpa was still competitive. When he had the energy. When he wasn’t busy taking care of Grandmother.When. When. When.He’d barely been able to focus during checkers two weeks ago. Even if a person doesn’t change, life often keeps things from continuing in the same way, at the same frequency. Free will versus the machinations of reality.
The hallway stretched before me, lined with watercolor paintings of serene landscapes depicting rolling hills, tranquil lakes, and forests bathed in golden light. They reminded me of that Kinkade artist who once had galleries in malls across America. Everything here was designed to soothe, to calm, to make you forget you were in a place where people came to wait for the end.
My patent leather flats whispered against the polished tile as I walked; each footfall echoed softly in the wide corridor. It wasn’t so loud and jarring as striding through the Imperial. The clacking of my steps didn’t jump off the walls with gunshot intensity. For some reason though, my chest still tightened with anxiety. Serenity House hurt me in a different way than my old place of employment. This place wasn’t taking my career; it was slowly taking my loved ones.
I could hear them before I saw them—a chorus of elderly voices responding to called numbers, punctuated by the occasional whoop of victory or groan of near-miss. The recreational community room came into view, filled with round tables where residents clutched their bingo cards with varying degrees of focus and enthusiasm. One woman with bubblegumpink hair was waving her slip of paper in the air triumphantly, apparently having just achieved ‘bingo!’. She hopped up with surprising agility, darting forward to exchange her used card for a blank one, before making a choice at the prize table. She snagged a paperback, then immediately turned to tease one of her table mates that she’d gotten the spicy novel with its Fabio lookalike model on the cover first. Her friend gave her a crooked middle finger, but they hugged once the winner was seated again.
A fresh wave of melancholy washed over me.
God, what would it be like to have a friend or a lover that would care for me that way when I was ancient, wrinkled, and standing with one foot in the grave?
My eyes roved over the bustling room, spotting my grandparents. They were sitting by the large bank of windows. Their usual choice in any room was to position where they could gaze outside and feel warm sun. Grandpa’s silver strands caught the late afternoon light. He looked too pale, like the moonlight shade of his hair was also bleeding down from his scalp to change his skin hue. Even from across the room, I could see how his clothes hung looser than they had just a few weeks ago. The side of me prone to panic wanted to imagine they were even larger on him now, then they had been a few days ago. It couldn’t be.
Besides, his posture was straight and alert as he watched his wife. He couldn’t have lost more weight. Couldn’t have gotten worse from whatever ailment the doctors hadn’t discovered yet.
My eyes moved from Grandpa to Grandmother, who appeared unusually robust. Her cheeks, still as chipmunk chubby as they’d always been, were pinked with excitement. Even though her once-vibrant auburn hair was now white, wispy, and thinning, it was lovingly brushed into waves andpinned back with a flower hair clip. It was Grandpa's work. I’d spent my entire life watching him brush and style her hair.
The Serenity staff running the game called out thirty-one. Grandmother’s eyes sparked and her mouth thinned with determination as she leaned over the table, blunt-tipped marker gripped in one wrinkled hand at the ready. I’d not seen this kind of engagement from her in forever. Intellect sharp. Mind curious. She was studying her card intently, lips now moving slightly as she searched. A wrinkle eventually formed between her eyebrows when she concluded she didn’t have the called number. Grandpa did though, and he marked his card before switching with her. She grinned at him brightly. She said something, which made Grandpa lean over and nuzzle her cheek with his nose.
"Seventeen," announced the volunteer running the game—a tall woman with greying hair and a voice that carried perfectly over the crowd. She wasn’t as creative as the man running bingo last time. He used whacky phrases, then made the players frantically search on a print-out to find the corresponding number. I still remembered a few. “All the sevens” meant seventy-seven. “Two fat ladies” was eighty-eight. My favorite had been “Dirty knee” for thirty-three. Silly, laughable. He had everyone in stitches that day. People like him made realities like this place bearable.
"Bingo!" Grandmother's voice rang out triumphantly. She placed her marker down on the number with deliberate precision, the tip of her tongue darting out to curve around her lower lip as she focused. Grandpa squeezed her shoulder gently, leaned closer to her, and whispered in her ear.
A pang shot through my heart.
I wanted what they had.
Wrinkled, time-worn, endearing love.
