Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver by Ariel Gore

Author:Ariel Gore [Gore, Ariel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 2014-07-06T00:00:00+00:00

“Did you always have a problem with those birds?” I asked the previous owner of the duplex when I saw him in the produce aisle at Healthy Wealthy. He was wearing spandex bike shorts. “Falling from their nests onto the walkway every day?”

He bagged his butternut squash. “I always loved those birds,” he hummed. “With their nests in the trees and in the eaves. I can’t remember any falling. Maybe though. Maybe once,” he said as he walked away.

Ronald’s worker, Julio, cried over the bathroom sink. He was one of the men my mother saved from early retirement. He’d lost his only child in a drunk driving accident, and I found him there late one afternoon, just crying. “My daughter is dead, and my wife is married to someone else, and all I want is a loving family around me, and Eve has exactly that and she can’t see it.”

But my mother was standing silent out in the hall, and she heard him him say that, so Julio wasn’t allowed in the house anymore, and the workers who came after that only spoke Spanish, and they didn’t cry in the bathroom.

She counted the days to October 18, 2010, and said, “I’ll be dead in seven weeks.”

Then, “I’ll be dead in 33 days.”

“I’ll be dead in three weeks. That’s 21 days, you know?”

“I’ll be dead this time next week.”

Her voice was always monotone, and I didn’t know how to answer her, so I just shook my head and said, “No. You’re doing good, Mom. You’re doing really well.”

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