Marrying George Clooney by Amy Ferris

Author:Amy Ferris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Seal Press

This is the email I get late afternoon on December 31—not a phone call, not a phone call days earlier letting me know that my mom is being taken to a hospital. I immediately call the assisted living facility asking why, oh why, hadn’t I been called, and I let them know in a clear, crisp voice that my brother and I do not talk at all—something I have never said to them before but feel the need to in this phone call. My brother and I don’t speak at all. I am told by the attending nurse when asked if they should get in touch with me—my brother tells them, no, he will get in touch. HE DOESN’T. And I get this email after the fact. Obviously I don’t know if this is the truth or not, but I’ll take the attending nurse’s word. Maybe they didn’t ask. Maybe she is in fact covering her ass. And having spoken with my mom on the very day that she was hospitalized, I AM SWIRLING AND SPINNING AND MY HEAD IS SPLITTING APART AND I AM HAVING A HOT FLASH, AND I STRIP DOWN NAKED ASI CRADLE THE PHONE AND EXPLAIN TO THE NURSE THE ENTIRE SCENARIO WHILE TRYING TO . . . CRADLE THE PHONE. Everything from how difficult it is to get my mom on the phone to why aren’t my calls returned when I leave a message on their inbox/voice mail, and while I’m on this tear, she then—then—informs me that there is a policy at this facility that long-distance phone calls cannot be returned. Ken comes into my room, gives me a thumbs-up, and a “Hey, how are you?” sort of wave, and gestures to my shoulder, and another gesture that I should maybe use the speaker phone. Uh, huh. That’ll make it all better. I am preparing a Happy New Year dinner party for sixteen people and don’t have the shrimp and scallop recipe, and (as I cup the phone so the attending nurse doesn’t hear me) I tell Ken that he must now prepare everything because I am no longer feeling joyous and happy, and FUCK NEW YEAR’S. And then I tell the nurse into the phone that they should have contacted me, FUCK LONG DISTANCE, and . . . and I can’t believe that my mom was in a hospital, and no one called me, and this was the second time I found out after the fact. I ask if she thinks my mom has any time left, because it seems that she is on her last leg from the email. There is a definite silence. I hold my breath. She says, “She fell, she was quite disoriented. Your mom has dementia. This is a part of the disease. I wouldn’t be too alarmed. She’s settled back in and resting. Her back is sore. It’s really not life or death. It’s all a part of the process.”

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