Phoebe's Way by Pamela Ditchoff

Author:Pamela Ditchoff
Language: eng, eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ECW Press
Published: 2014-06-25T16:00:00+00:00

THE DAUGHTERS OF JERUSALEM

JULY

We move as one, Myother and me, fourteen steps from car to door, cross the threshold with five steps more, right to the west wing, left to the east. Today we turn left. I raise my nose and sniff as we pass the kitchen doors: chicken, potatoes, beans, and gravy. Myother finds the first room is empty, and the second, and the third. We walk into the eating room with round tables. No tables here have corners to bruise a hip. The room is lined with windows that look out at the courtyard. The sun is bright and the room is hot.

Myother lifts a hand to shade her eyes. Residents are spread in a half circle in the courtyard. A man who does not live here stands at the top of the half circle. Myother opens the sliding door and we walk outside.

There are walls around the courtyard. They are too high for me to jump over but low enough that I can see the hill and trees on the other side. The courtyard smells of things growing, of flowers and dirt, of bark stretching. I hear the water fountain, bee wings, bird song, and a chipmunk in the eaves.

Aides hold the hands and waists of Julia and the three women from the last room in the wing. The aides wear bright shirts and smile and talk too loud. Just like the residents, they come and go over the years.

Walter’s daughter stands beside him. Pansy stands beside Rose. She bends over the wheelchair to say something that makes Rose laugh. Coral’s rings around her neck flash and flash in the sunlight. Beside her is Louie, the Angel of the Sea. The man who shares his room stands next to Louie. His name is George. He walks with a stick and strikes it hard against the floor when I enter their room.

Nurse Barbara wheels Father MacLeod into the courtyard. Archie sits in a swing chair in the shade. He watches Julia.

The man who does not live here raises his arms above his head, curls his hands inward. “In t’ai chi this is Separating the Clouds,” he says. The aides urge the residents to raise their arms and curl their hands.

“Imagine you are holding a big fluffy cloud.”

Myother tells me “Sit” and she raises her arms high.

“Now turn your palms out and push the cloud away in both directions,” the man says.

I hear a sound on the other side of the wall. It sounds like a porcupine in the rocks under our front porch. I stand tall. I see a boy’s head at the top of the wall, then a second boy’s head.

The residents turn their hands outward and they move their arms down slow. I hear a match strike and smell its sharp scent. Myother looks at me as she brings her arms down. My ears are high, my eyes on the boys on the wall. She follows my stare and Myother sees them too. She picks up my leash as one boy throws a sparking square onto the courtyard.

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