The kids laughed.
“Sir, you will watch your language in front of the children, or you will leave Shady Pines.”
“Promise?” he said sarcastically.
Then, he turned to the group.
“Hey, kids. You’re here for your future, right? Well, look at all the old people here. That is your future. So, don’t fuck around and waste time. Go to college. Get laid. Make some money. Travel. Then, get married and raise your kids to be nothing like Mrs. Collins or her husband. Capiche?”
Without waiting for a response, the old man hobbled on his bad knees back to the parlor, leaving behind a room full of adoring fans. Of course, it did nothing to stop Mary Katherine and Doug from getting the worst assignment in the place. It didn’t stop Mrs. Collins from being even more abusive to the kids and the staff because she couldn’t get her mani-pedi’d claws on Ambrose. But it did give them all a little ray of sunshine to pass the time.
Like a song to a chain gang.
Right after lunch, Christopher’s mom went into Ambrose’s room to clean. He was watching Jeopardy! on his television. He knew every answer and called them out. When the commercial break came on, he turned to her.
“I saw you try to help that poor girl,” he said.
“Yeah. I heard you help her, too,” Kate said back.
Christopher’s mom knew a lot about Ambrose from the nurses. Between his cataracts, glaucoma, and age, she heard that his eyes were not healing. His eye doctor told him that he would be blind soon. Probably by Christmas. He took the news with a bark of “Fuck it. No one to see anyway.” He had no relatives. No visitors. No one to take care of him. Nowhere to go for Christmas.
And yet, somehow, he was the brightest light in the place.
“Mrs. Reese…this is your future, too, you know? You’re a nice lady, and your kid is great. So, don’t fuck around.”
She smiled at him and nodded. Then, Christopher’s mom left the room, taking Ambrose’s smile with her.
*
Ambrose turned off the television and took a sip of water. He put the plastic cup by his bedside. Next to the photograph of the pretty old woman with the wrinkles. She was still beautiful after forty years of marriage.
It had been two years.
She was gone. Like his brother when he was a kid. Like his parents when he was a middle-aged man. Like the men he served with in the army. The only person he ever dared to love as a grown man was gone. And now, his only companionship came within the walls of Shady Pines. All of these old people like kids left in day care with Mom and Dad never coming to pick them up again. All of these nurses and doctors who tried their best to give them some quality of life. And that nice Mrs. Reese with the great smile.
His wife was gone.
By this point, everyone had told him in one manner or another that he needed to move on. “Move on to what?” was his response. He knew they were right. But his heart refused. He woke up every morning remembering the sound of her breathing. The way she wouldn’t throw away anything (except his things, of course). And right now, he would give anything for one more morning of a good fight with her over bacon and eggs. For the chance to see her flesh wither. As his did. And telling each other the lies about how beautiful their bodies still looked. But the truth of how beautiful their bodies actually were to each other.
That’s the kind of thing that Anne would say. A mixture of self-help and “walk it off” working-class Irish. Every morning now, he would wake up and turn over on the bed. And instead of her face, he would see a plastic cup of water. The old people weren’t allowed to have glass here. Not after Mrs. Collins’ mother cut herself up in a bout of dementia. The old man kept his wits about him. Thinking about escaping this place like Clint Eastwood and Alcatraz. He could escape Shady Pines, but there was no escaping old age. Not with two bad hips, two worse eyes, and enough arthritis to make a thirty-year-old cry. Not to mention war wounds, inside and out. Growing old was not for sissies indeed. And the physical pain was the least of it. He could take watching boyhood heroes become footnotes. He could even handle seeing his color memories become black-and-white footage. But the old man knew he would never get over the death of his wife as long as he lived.
Ambrose was raised Catholic, but ever since his brother died when they were kids, he thought that no God could let what happened happen. Seeing an empty room where his brother used to be. Seeing his mother cry like that. Even his father. Since that moment, there were no thoughts of God. There was only a staunch belief that we are carbon and electricity and that was that. When you’re dead, you’re dead. And his Anne was in a beautiful plot that he visited when the shuttle could take him. And when he was lying in the ground next to her, her photographs would be thrown in the trash because her face wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else. He was the last person alive who knew her and loved her. Like his little brother. Like his mom and dad. Like his wife, who said, “Don’t worry. Dead is just an asleep you don’t wake up from.” His wife, who made him promise to throw her a traditional Irish Wake with the joke, “You can’t have a good Sleep without a proper Wake.”
Right before he closed his eyes for the afternoon nap, he lay in bed like Clint Eastwood on Alcatraz. Trying to figure out a way to escape old age. He squinted through the clouds in his eyes and prayed in his heart just like he did every nap and every sleep that he wouldn’t wake up. He whispered, “God, if You’re up there, please let me see my family again. I beg You.” He wouldn’t know when his eyes closed. He would simply open them and realize that God was keeping him alive for a reason only God could say. For purpose or punishment. Or both. Then, he would turn…
And see a plastic cup where his wife used to be.
*
Kate was thinking what a nice man Ambrose was as she walked through Shady Pines. She looked at the old folks in the parlor. Some playing checkers. Some chess. A little Saturday afternoon television. Some talking. Some knitting. Mostly sitting. A few eager beavers lining up for lunch early to have first dibs on the Jell-O.
Mrs. Reese…this is your future, too, you know? You’re a nice lady, and your kid is great. So, don’t fuck around.
The thought was not depressing. It was realistic and sobering. She felt the tick tock in her chest. And she remembered a line from one of her self-help books. One of the early ones that got her out of her horrible small town with a horrible small family.
We have this time. We have no other.
She knew that Friday nights would always be for her son Christopher.
But maybe Saturday nights could be for her.
She got up and went to the phone. After a moment, she dialed.
“Hello. Sheriff’s office,” the voice said.
“May I speak to the sheriff, please? It’s Kate Reese,” she said.
“One second, ma’am.”
She stood there, listening to the Muzak. The song was Blue Moon. After a moment, the phone clicked.
“Hello?” the sheriff said. “Everything okay, Mrs. Reese?”
“Yeah. Everything is fine,” she said.
She could hear him realize that she wasn’t calling for police work. His voice changed.
“Oh. Good. That’s good,” he said.
He waited.
“Yeah. So, look, uh…I don’t have work tonight,” she said.