Goodnight Tweetheart by Teresa Medeiros

Author:Teresa Medeiros
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Pocket Books

Chapter Eleven

No matter how old a girl got, there would always be days when she needed her mom. And Abby was wise enough to know the Sunday after her second “date” with Mark was one of those days. Since they couldn’t dish over frozen hot chocolates at Serendipity’s or go on a shopping binge at Bergdorf’s, Abby did the next best thing. She took the subway to the Bronx and trudged the mile and a half in the sweltering summer heat to the nursing care facility where her mom lived.

Any fantasy Abby and her dad had entertained about caring for her mom at home had died the morning her dad had walked into the sunny kitchen of their house to find her mom about to mix up a blender full of Drāno daiquiris. After his death, Abby had transferred her mom from the nursing home in North Carolina to Sunshine Manor—a five star–rated facility that specialized in the treatment of patients with Alzheimer’s and other forms of early-onset dementia.

She punched a four-digit code into the keypad next to the triple-paned glass door of the nondescript brick building. The door swung open, buffeting Abby with a rush of stale air conditioning. The hallway in front of her seemed to stretch off into infinity, forcing her to run a gauntlet of parked wheelchairs and roaming residents before she reached her mother’s room. Most of the residents had stopped having visitors a long time ago, so each new arrival was greeted with a heartbreaking mixture of hope and resignation.

“Are you my daughter?” one woman asked plaintively, her white head bobbing up and down like a child’s toy lost at sea.

Abby paused long enough to give the woman’s outstretched hand a squeeze. “No, Elsie. Don’t you remember? I’m Brenda’s daughter.”

“Get over here and help me with my wheelchair, young lady,” demanded a striking black woman with a grizzled short-cropped Afro and one leg. “It’s stuck.”

Abby squatted to adjust the wheelchair brake before moving on.

A shrunken little old man tottered up to her. “Could you take me to the bathroom, please?” A covert glance at the front of his pants showed that his request had come a few seconds too late.

“I’m not allowed to do that, Mr. Dugan, but I’ll tell one of the nurses to come help you when I go by the desk.”

In the two years she’d been visiting the nursing facility, Abby had discovered it took very little to make the residents happy—a smile, a hug, an encouraging word. Some acknowledgment of their existence that went beyond helping them into their pajamas or doling out medications. The nursing staff was incredibly caring, yet desperately harried as they dealt with cutbacks and shortages and the inevitable burnout that went hand in hand with caring for those who could no longer care for themselves.

After sending a patient aide to rescue poor Mr. Dugan, Abby slipped into the room directly across from the nursing station. Her mother was sound asleep in her lift recliner, her chin resting on her chest.

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