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ROSEMARIE
SIX OF SWORDS: THE PAIN OF MOVING ON
My eyes burn with grit that could rival sandpaper as I box the last few things from my locker. I settle my little succulent plant with its bright red pot atop the now useless textbooks. I can’t believe I won’t work here again…ever.
This hospice wing holds so many memories. I lost my great-grandma Lala here, yet I found my true calling in helping people approach death with compassion. But two years of hard work and late nights spent in these halls doesn’t mean the administration will let me stay.
I couldn’t make it in the nursing program at school, and my four-year degree in social work isn’t enough for the hospital. They require a master’s degree, which is a problem when I have mediocre grades, zero aptitude for standardized tests, and a rejection letter from every graduate program I applied to. My dyslexia didn’t make college easy. Grad school would only be harder.
So this is it.
The end of my final shift.
And it had to be a bananapants, doozy of one.
Not that anyone knows I won’t be coming back. Or that anyone asked. Thank goodness or some of my crazy might’ve slipped out. With the insane things I’ve imagined these past few weeks, I would’ve probably flunked the psych test required for employees. Telling an examiner that I swear the gargoyles on the church next door come alive? Yeah, that wouldn’t go so well. Maybe it’s better I didn’t get the hospice care position I applied for, although that rejection stung worse than the grad schools saying thanks, but no thanks.
Flipping off the light, I slide my purse to hang across my chest—a trick I learned the first time I got a bag snatched off my shoulder—and heft the box. There’s no one at the workstation to tell goodbye as the nurse rotation changed a few minutes ago and they’ve begun their rounds to check vitals, turn patients, and touch base with family members.
With Doctor Douchebag due to roll in any second now, I don’t dare wait. At least I won’t have to explain again that I’m a social worker intern and certified nursing assistant—not the designating dumping grounds for his man-baby whine fests. People with the emotional intelligence of a pothole shouldn’t work with the dying. But they do.
Although it’s officially not my problem anymore.
God, I wish it could be my problem just long enough to help a few more patients through their final days the way Nurse Benita helped my Lala. She soothed Lala’s pain, made sure to listen to her ramblings whether sane or not, and even took care of her tiny pet owl Huey.
Thinking of Huey hurts. On the day of Lala’s funeral, he escaped his cage and flew away. I figure one of my brothers opened the cage for him, but I couldn’t prove it. Not that fault mattered anyway. Knowing what happened won’t bring Huey back. Or Lala.
Alone in the hallway, I squeak my way along the linoleum floor to the elevator where I’m left with the sticky tiles, graffitied walls, and my jumbled thoughts. I have no job, no money, and no new place lined up when I can’t pay the rent on the shoebox-sized closet I call home in a house with six stoner roommates. Okay, only the good two are stoners. The other four are just shady AF. I could move in with my parents, my many siblings, my aunt, my grandma, and whichever cousin has turned up to sleep on the floor. Nope, not going down that mental path loaded with landmines.
Like Lala always said, I need to stick to gratitude. For example, tonight’s the last time I’ll have to walk through the dark parking lot to my car and hope that it’s not squished between two giant SUVs since all the non-reserved staff parking should’ve been marked “clown cars only” with the way the lines are painted.
“Rosemarie?” a voice calls as soon as I round the corner, and I jolt with surprise. Normally, I slip through these halls as invisible as a ghost. The woman walking toward me with brown skin, grey hair, and blue scrubs makes my heart bump with happiness even as my gut twists with shame.
“Benita.” I remember all those nights she watched over Lala, her presence giving me silent hope of a path for me in hospice even as I flunked out of the nursing program. While Alzheimer’s stole Lala from me, Benita was a constant, calming presence.
She glances at the box in my arms. “You weren’t thinking of leaving without saying goodbye, were you?”
I bite back the yep, that’s exactly what I was doing truth and pin on a smile. I could earn an Olympic gold if people pleasing was a sport—which it should be, as exhausting as it is. I can become whoever the other person needs as easily as putting on a mask. Just so long as I don’t have to show anyone the hurt inside. “You caught me,” I say with false cheer.
“I heard you stayed with Mr. Alvarez until the end.”
My smile slips. Mr. Alvarez was my patient who took his last breath less than an hour ago. “He lost his wife a few years ago, and he didn’t have any other family. I couldn’t just leave him.”
“Even though everyone else did?”
“No one should be alone.” I don’t add that I didn’t have anyone expecting me or anywhere else I needed to be more than by his side. I certainly don’t mention the feeling I had of being watched. Not when I need every potential job reference who might help me back to hospice work. The last thing I want is people saying things about me like my family said about Lala.
Poor thing, she’s lost her mind, gone loco, become batshit crazy.
When the disease caused Lala to ramble about a Bridge of Souls and the after worlds on its other side, our family blamed her warped reality on her years of woowoo beliefs and eccentric fun.
Months haven’t numbed the pain of grief.
“Thank you again for taking care of my Lala…in the end.” I manage to keep my voice from breaking.
Benita touches my arm. “She’d be proud of you.”
“Would she?” I think of how Lala paid for my schooling and now I haven’t been smart enough, good enough, worthy enough to do anything with that expensive education. I would give it all back for another hour with her. But instead of concentrating on practical things like paying back Lala with a brilliant next move while I stayed with Mr. Alvarez, I again let my fantasies drift into madness that had me staring out the window to find the stone figures who seem to keep constant watch over me these days.
