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When her rounds were finished, Nelda pushed the half-full cart into her room and quietly shut the door behind her.
“Good night, Nurse Nelda,” one of the day nurses called to her, but without response, save a tittering of laughter from the other whitely clad professionals who were huddled around the nurses’ station in preparation for the shift change.
Emma looked up from the tray of meds she was supposed to administer that night.
“Oh. You’re new, right?” the jokester asked.
Emma nodded.
“Ah… well, you see, Nelda thinks she’s a nurse. She wanders around the wings with her granny-cart, visiting the other patients. She calls it ‘doing her rounds.’ She’s harmless enough, though. We all call her Nurse Nelda; the old bird gets a kick out of it.” The others giggled in approval of this description.
“I see,” Emma said quietly and went back to putting different colored pills into little plastic cups.
“Hey, remember that time when Sandra left an old nurse’s cap and broken stethoscope on Nelda’s nightstand?” one of the orderlies asked to no one in particular. Inevitably, they all cackled and congratulated themselves on their wit and cunning before scurrying off, in one herd, out the front door and into the waiting world.
That night, Emma wandered the halls of Shady Oaks Retirement Home, administering medications, reading patient charts and reminding herself that the night shift paid time and a half. When she got to Nurse Nelda’s door, she looked down at her cart; there were no meds for Nelda. Still, Emma lingered for a few minutes before finally putting her hand on the door and gently pushing it open. In the darkness, she could just see the woman’s sleeping figure beneath the blankets – a dark, rounded mound, hidden in the shadows. The scent of lavender hung in the air. After a moment, and just as quietly, Emma shut the door and went on her way.
The next morning, as Emma sat at the nurses’ station watching the day shift swarm in, Nelda’s door opened. The cart came first, followed by its owner, dressed in a pale flowered dress and white bedroom slippers. “Good morning, Nurse Nelda,” cooed Derrick, a honey voiced CNA whose ebony skin matched his bright, black eyes, “and where are you are going so early in the morning?”
Nelda barely looked up, but a smile crossed her lips, “Silly boy” she said, “I’m not going anywhere; I’m only just getting back.” And with that, she shuffled down the hall.
Emma studied the scene for a moment. “Wasn’t her cart nearly full yesterday?” she asked finally.
“Was it?” asked Derrick, with a shrug, having already moved on to more pressing matters.
“I’m almost sure it was,” Emma said. “What does she put in there anyway?”
“Oh, just empty cans and bottles… you know, recycling. One of the orderlies empties it for her at night, I think.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In the weeks that followed, Emma learned a few tricks that made the long night at Shady Oaks barely sufferable. She learned, for example, that the night staff often took turns sleeping on the old cots that were kept in the storage room nestled just off the kitchen. She learned that Mrs. Hinkler, in room 212, pushed the call button once an hour, on the hour, marking off the passing of every sixty minutes with the religious fervor of ancient church bells. And she learned that if she readied her tray of meds prior to leaving in the morning, she could begin her rounds directly after reporting for duty the next night, thus avoid the day shift entirely.
Slowly, the nights turned into a series of rituals that, if followed precisely, became a map leading to daylight and the world where places like Shady Oaks didn’t exist. Each night, Emma followed her map and made her rounds down the same empty, faded halls trying not to think of the people behind each door, the last time they’d had a visitor, (besides, of course, the obligatory groups of school children who sang carols and complained about the smell), or how many years remained before she’d have to take her place among them. Each night, her feet padded silently across the black and white tiled floor. And each night, before returning to the nurses’ station for the final time, she stopped to check on Nurse Nelda, who was always silently sleeping, exactly as she had been the night before.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Then one night as Emma made her way towards the island of computers and phones that lay in the center of Shady Oaks, (where the nurses gathered and occasional visitors stopped to make inquiries about patients), she heard music softly wafting into the corridor from within Nurse Nelda’s room. Emma halted her cart of medication and closed her eyes in order to breathe in the sound: Nina Simone. Quiet panic washed over her as she stood silently on one side of the door, pulled by the two opposite of poles of both wanting and not wanting to interrupt what has happening on the other side.
“Do come in, dear” she heard Nurse Nelda call to her. For a moment, Emma chewed her lower lip and considered simply tip toeing away, pretending that she’d not been caught peeking through the keyhole. Instead, she inhaled a bit of courage and gently pushed the door open, only to find Nelda perched at the edge of her bed, going through what looked to be an old photo album.
Having never seen the room lit before, Emma was immediately struck by its peculiar beauty. The bed, secured in a spot identical to that of all the other beds at Shady Oaks was, in Nelda’s room, flanked by two large bookcases – each brimming with row upon row of old books and delicately framed photographs. In between, sat Nelda, a solid woman with thick hands and laughing eyes, her white hair swooped atop her head like a mound of vanilla ice-cream.
“You’re up awfully late, aren’t you?” Emma finally managed to muster as she made her way fully into the room.
“Oh posh,” Nelda replied with a giggle. “I’m always up this late.”
“Hmmmm” Emma offered softly, but with a raised eyebrow. “Forgive me, but I check on you each night, Nelda, and you always look pretty sound asleep to me.”
Nelda looked up from her photo album. “Well, we do tend to see what we want to see, don’t we dear?” she replied thoughtfully and then held the album out to Emma, patting the mattress next to her in invitation.
Emma sat on the bed, scanning the walls which were likely painted stark white, as all the walls in Shady Oaks were, but which, in Nelda’s room, were completely lined with postcards, maps and magazine clippings of ancient stone farmhouses, rocky island coastlines and hundreds of individually cut out leaves and flowers. Her eyes eventually landed on the oft ridiculed granny-cart, which sat huddled in the corner and, which Nelda used on her so called “rounds” – a few empty bottles were sticking out the top.
“Your cart’s nearly full,” Emma observed aloud, not knowing exactly what to say.
“Ah, yes” Nelda said with a sigh. “I’d have taken them tonight, but I prefer not to go when it’s raining…” her voice trailed off.
“I see,” Emma said, not really seeing at all.
“Not that I mind the rain, of course,” Nelda continued a moment later, “but I can’t risk a cold at my age, now can I?”
Emma looked at Nelda’s face; it was difficult to pinpoint exactly what age she was. An intricate lacework of lines and dimples seemed to whisper hints of a century of grins and grimaces, but something in the eyes and mouth seemed likewise determined to subtract years in equal measure. To be sure, there was nothing about Nelda that would have indicated anything other than complete lucidity. “I suppose not,” she replied politely and then asked, “where do you take them, Nelda?”
“Why down to the bottle bank – in Witney,” Nelda said as though the answer was obvious.
“But that’s nearly 10 miles away,” Emma retorted in precisely the same tone.
Just then Nelda pointed at the photo album in Emma’s hand, a look of restrained delight flashed in her eyes, daring Emma to gently lift the faded cover. When she finally did, its ancient spine cracked and moaned in weak protest, but eventually gave way. Inside, a plethora of aged sepia photographs clung desperately to its once black pages, which had grayed and become more brittle with each passing year. As Emma turned the pages, a story began to unfold of a girl who had come to a new country as a teenager and who saw the world on her own terms. In one photo, a young Nelda sat in the cockpit of a plane, a leather pilot’s helmet draped over dark, rebellious curls. In another, a slightly older girl poses next to a gaggle of smartly dressed university boys in lettered sweaters – one of whom is clearly a very young John F. Kennedy. In the last photo, breaking a bottle of champagne against the bow of a large ship, Nelda winks for the camera, the words “Never Nelda” scrolled just above her on the ship’s hull.
“I had no idea” Emma said tenderly, but Nelda said nothing that would quiet the questions that were running through her head.
“Everything deserves the chance to be something else” she offered finally.
Emma looked around the room, taking note of the assorted bouquets of wild flowers that sat atop the bookshelves, window sills and various table tops. Each arrangement living happily in all manner of makeshift vases: old milk bottles, a small jar still labeled as homemade preserves, an old soup tin and even a spare bedpan. She had to agree.
~~~~~~~~~~~
The next night, there was no music coming from Nelda’s room.
The following morning, however, as Emma stood at the station, gathering her things, waiting for the charge nurse to say that she could go, Nelda emerged from her private sanctuary– empty cart in hand.
“Well, if it isn’t Nurse Nelda” one of the daytime crones yapped with banal amusement.
Nelda looked up, “Good Morning, dear” she said to Emma with a wink, and then darted down the hall to her waiting patients.
“Oh, I see we’ve made a friend,” the same, (or another), crone said mockingly, as though having discovered the key to some long unopened door… but Emma didn’t hear them. She was busy watching Nelda make her way down the hall, her muddied slippers leaving a trail of brown footprints along the freshly waxed floor.
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As always, thank [url=http://thejongleur.tblog.com]you[/url] for the inspiration and encouragement.
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