Granny realized she was in for bad news when she saw the administrator striding through the door. Her appearance always meant trouble or death at the nursing home.
"Mrs. Feldson, we're going to have to move you in with someone else today. We've got two new patients coming in and we need the space."
"Who do you aim to put me in with?" Granny demanded. Her heart beginning to thud at the dreaded words.
"We're going to put you in with Mrs. Spencer. I think the two of you will find that you have a lot in common."
"I'm sure you do," Granny said. "But you're the only one who thinks that! That old woman is as deaf as a door knob, and as mean as a sidewinder. And if you think I'm gonna move in with that old witch, you're crazy. I'll call my, daughter Mary, to come get me."
Granny knew it was futile to argue with the administrator; the woman was as cold and hard as frost on a pump handle, but the idea of sharing a room, especially with someone like Mrs. Spencer, was more than she could take.
"Mrs. Feldson, you know very well that Mary doesn't have room for you. Calm down now. After all, it isn't as if it's the end of the world." Mrs. Townes paused in the doorway. "By the way, when Mary gets here, tell her to take home whatever you have that isn't absolutely essential. You'll have to share a closet and chest with Mrs. Spencer. I'm afraid that doesn't give you much room."
Lying in the narrow bed, Granny shook with anger and frustration. Tears filled her eyes; never before had she felt so helpless.
She knew that Mary and Ben had no room for her in their cracker-box house, and there was Mary's health to consider as well. The girl did well to take care of herself, much less an aging mother. However, Granny would sleep in a closet if she had to. Anything would be better than moving in with that crazy old woman.
"I feel like an old turtle with all its innerds gone, just a dried up old shell," she mumbled.
The nursing home decides what I'm gonna eat, and when I'm gonna eat it; when and how long I sleep; even when my bowels oughta move! Speaking of bowels, I hope Mary don't forget to bring me them Ex Lax when she comes. I'm as bloated as a toad and if I wait for them to get around to giving me a laxative, I'll bust. Now, ain't that some kind of howdy-do, when a person ain't even got control of her own bowels!
Wilma, the nurse's aide, dropped the luncheon tray on the bedside table with a clatter. "I'll be back and help you move to your new room after a while," she said. We're working short-handed again today, so it may be late."
"Don't get in no hurry on my account. I expect I'll be leavin' when Mary gets here, anyway."
"Now, Granny, almost everyone here shares a room. You know that. I'm surprised they haven't moved you before now."
"There's plenty vacant rooms here," Granny snapped. "Ain't nobody in the east wing."
"I'll bring some boxes with me so we can pack some of this stuff," the girl said. She glanced at the photographs that adorned the small room. "You sure have a lot of kids and grand kids, Granny."
"Yeah, they're all dead now except Mary, and the grandkids."
"Do any of them come to visit? Mary is the only one I ever see."
"No, they don't live around here, and I reckon they're too busy to make the trip."
After the nurse's aide left, Granny continued to stare at the photographs. She wished Mary hadn't brought them here. She should have kept them at her house or left them at the farm. At least they would have been at home, even if it was in the trash heap.
There was Ed in his military uniform, the bloom of youth still on his face, though he'd been dead for forty-five years now--killed by a sniper's bullet a few days before World War Two ended. Beside him, a snapshot of the two young sons he'd left behind. She'd seen them only once since that fateful day. "Wonder what they look like now," she whispered to herself. "Did they grow up to be as handsome as their dad?"
And there was June Bug sitting astride old Lindy. Why, the horse had lived longer than the girl in the photograph. And would you look at Andy; standing there so stiff and proud in his sailor suit; poor Andy, dead at nine from Polio. Across from him hung a picture of Nathan. Killed in 1956. Them people at the petroleum company never did figure out what caused the explosion that took his life.
And there was Mary, looking like an angel in her First Communion dress. Poor Mary, she'd had such a go of it, born with a faulty heart valve...and her such a tiny slip of a girl, too. Doctors had said back then that she'd be dead time she was twenty. But she'd fooled them all, Mary had. She was a fighter, that girl.
"Granny, you didn't eat any of your lunch!" Wilma said, interrupting her thoughts. "What's the matter?"
"I'd like to know how they expect me to eat slop? I'm already sick to my stomach. I'd be a lot sicker, too, if I ate this garbage. Look at this!" she said, lifting the cover from the tray to reveal a shriveled wiener on sauerkraut.
"Looks good to me," the aide replied.
"You eat it, then," Granny said.
When Wilma motioned to her, she had no choice but to follow her down the hall. They could hear the loud blast of the television long before they reached the room.
"Look," Wilma said, cheerfully. "There's two windows in here. You'll have a view of both the side yard and the back."
Granny reached up to cover her ears with her hands, trying to drown out the noise of the television.
Wilma lowered the volume, then turned to the other occupant of the room. "Mrs. Spencer, we've brought you a new room-mate. You know Granny Feldson, don't you?"
The old woman glared at the aide. "You may as well turn it off. I can't hear it when you turn it down so low."
"Where's your hearing-aid, Mrs. Spencer?" Wilma asked. "I'll get it for you."
Granny noticed that Mrs. Spencer had several long gray whiskers on her chin that bristled when she spoke.
"That thing makes me a nervous wreck when I wear it."
"Well, when you turn the TV up so loud, it makes everyone in here nervous," Wilma shouted, searching through the night stand drawer.
The aide had no sooner left the room when Mrs. Spencer jerked the hearing-aid out of her ear, then reached over and turned the volume back up. "Ain't no room to move around with all this junk in here," she grumbled, giving Granny's footstool a kick, sending it flying across the room.
"I didn't ask to be put in here," Granny shouted. And I won't be stayin' long. Soon as my daughter gets here, I'm leavin'. And you better keep your hands off my stuff, too, if you know what's good for you. Crazy old woman," Granny mumbled, picking up the call button to signal the nurse's station.
"Mrs. Townes," the aide said, knocking softly on the director's door. "You've got to do something with Mrs Spencer. She's driving us crazy."
"What is she doing?" asked the administrator, obviously annoyed at the intrusion.
"She keeps turning up the volume on her TV. We turn it down, and no sooner do we leave the room, than she turns it back up again."
"Well, get her hearing aid out and make her wear it."
"I did, but she refuses to use it. Says it makes her nervous."
Wilma followed the director as far as the nurse's station, watching as the woman stalked down the hall.
"What's going on in here?" demanded Mrs. Townes, bending down to switch the television off. "Don't you two know the aides have more to do than to run up and down the halls settling your arguments?"
Granny, watching the scene from her chair, was surprised when the administrator reached out and jerked the plug from the outlet.
"Mrs. Feldson," said Mrs. Townes, her voice as cutting as a straight razor. "Will you please leave the room for a moment? Mrs. Spencer and I need to have a talk in private."
Without a word, Granny arose from her chair and left the room. The last thing she heard as Mrs. Townes slammed the door behind her was: "Sit down, Mrs. Spencer, or I will call the nurses in to restrain you."
"Wonder who's going to win this tug of war," Wilma asked, as Granny paused at the nurse's station.
"My money is on old lady Spencer," Granny said, taking note of the stranger who leaned over the counter that surrounded the nurse's cubicle. "I told you that old woman is meaner than a rattlesnake."
"If she gets the best of the administrator, she'll be doin' somethin'," the stranger spoke. "That old woman may be a rattlesnake, but Mrs. Townes can yank her fangs if anyone can."
"Mrs. Feldson," said Wilma, following Granny's glance, "have you met Bill, yet? He's a newcomer--arrived last week"
"No, don't believe I have," Granny said, lowering her gaze.
The man's hand felt rough as an old tree trunk when Granny returned the handshake. He certainly didn't look like any of the other patients she'd seen in the nursing home. Tall, skinny, and bowlegged, he wore a western shirt and faded blue jeans with the legs stuffed into tall cowboy boots.
Something happened to Granny then that hadn't occurred in the last forty years--she blushed.
"Hi, I'm Bill Tyler," he said. "What's your name?"
"Cora. Cora Feldson."
"Well, Cora Feldson, you sure do look young to be in a place like this. I guess you're just visitin' somebody?"
"No, I live here." Granny began to walk away, but the stranger followed.
"You goin' out for some sunshine and fresh air?" he asked, as she brushed past him and pushed open the door to the verandah.
"Can't stay in the room with the two of them fighting," she answered. "Besides, I was asked to leave."
Granny learned within the hour that Bill Tyler was exactly what he appeared to be--a cowboy. According to him, he'd worked on all the big ranches in West Texas, at one time or another during the last sixty-eight years.
Sixty-eight years, why, that makes him almost twenty years younger than I.
Bill laughed, seeing the look of surprise on Granny's face. "Bein' a cowboy is rough work," he said. "It will make you look old before your time. Now you," he said, reaching out to take her hand in his, "you don't look like you've done a day's worth of hard work in your life. Not with hands soft and pretty as these."
Granny could feel her heart slam against her chest wall. My Lord! she thought; I'm acting like a teenager.
The verandah door opened and Mary hurried over, out of breath. "Hi, Mom, I'm sorry I couldn't get here any sooner. I came right on over when Mrs. Townes called and said she was moving you into Mrs. Spencer's room. I knew how upset you'd be, so I called Ben and he said I could bring you home today. We'll try and get a loan so we can have a room added on the house for you."
"What do you want to do a thing like that for? There's no sense in going in debt for me. I'm fine here, and if that old woman fools with me, I'll tie a tin can to her tail! She don't know it yet, but I can get as mean as she can." Granny chuckled. Turning to her companion she said, "By the way, Bill, this is my daughter, Mary. Mary, this is Bill Tyler."