Chapter 3 - THE PACKING OF A LEGACY
Packing seven years of an invalid's life into a set of luggage is an exercise in clinical precision.
I brought four large canvas duffel bags into Carmen’s room, setting them on the floor beside her bed.
Carmen watched me with wide, suspicious eyes. Her working hand was clenched tightly against her chest, her breathing shallow and fast.
"What... doing?" she slurped out, her gaze darting from the open bags to my calm, efficient face.
"You're going home to your son, Carmen," I said pleasantly, pulling open her dress drawers. "You've missed him so much, haven't you? You've spent seven years telling me how brilliant he is, how hard he works, how much better he could do than me. Well, now you get to live with him full-time."
I began folding her clothes—not her soft, comfortable cotton house dresses that I used to hand-wash with delicate detergent, but her formal, heavy outfits that required effort to put on. I packed her long flannel nightgowns, her heavy winter shawls, and her orthopedic shoes.
In the second duffel bag, I packed her medical world.
I organized her prescription bottles into plastic bins: the Amlodipine for her hypertension, the Warfarin for her blood clots, the Gabapentin for her nerve pain, the laxatives, the stool softeners, the anti-anxiety drops, and the sleeping aids. I included the plastic pill-sorting boxes, the blood pressure cuff, the digital thermometer, and the thick, laminated wall chart where I had painstakingly recorded every dosage, every bowel movement, and every blood sugar reading for eighty-four months.
I placed her heavy, multi-ringed binder in the front pocket—the binder containing her complete medical history, her stroke rehabilitation summaries, her neurology reports, her Medicare insurance cards, and the phone numbers of six different specialist doctors who hadn't seen her in person for months because I was the one who managed her home therapies.
In the third bag, I packed the unglamorous, brutal realities of elder care.
The large bags of heavy-duty adult diapers. The waterproof plastic underpads. The thick jars of zinc oxide barrier creams. The wet wipes. The latex gloves. The bedpan. The soft silicone feeding spoons. The liquid thickener powders required to keep her from inhaling water into her weak lungs and contracting fatal aspiration pneumonia.
Carmen watched the pile of medical supplies grow, her face shifting from stubborn anger to deep, creeping terror.
She was not stupid. Despite her physical paralysis, her mind was sharp enough to recognize what these supplies represented. They were the invisible armor that kept her clean, comfortable, dignity-intact, and alive. And she knew—deep in her bones—that her son had never touched a single one of these items in his entire life.
"No..." she moaned, her voice trembling, her left hand reaching out to grab my skirt as I passed her bed. "No... stay... stay here..."
I looked down at her hand on my fabric.
Seven years ago, if she had looked at me with that desperate plea, my heart would have melted. I would have dropped to my knees, held her hand, kissed her forehead, and assured her that I would never abandon her. I would have sacrificed another seven years of my life to keep her safe.
Now? I felt nothing. A vast, calm ocean of absolute indifference filled my chest.
I gently, firmly reached down, unclasped her fingers from my skirt, and laid her hand back on her lap.
"You don't want to stay here with me, Carmen," I said softly, my voice devoid of malice. "I'm just the uneducated, lower-class girl who wasn't good enough for your son. Remember? You told your sister that on the phone three years ago when you thought I was asleep in the hall. You said I was lucky Miguel gave me a roof over my head."
Her mouth opened, her jaw working uselessly, but no sound came out.
"Now you get to live with his choice," I continued, zipping up the third duffel bag with a long, sharp shhhhk sound. "His new woman is rich, cultured, and wears silk. She has red lipstick and lives in a high-rise downtown. I'm sure she will take wonderful care of you."
I walked out to the garage, pulled out the heavy folding metal ramps I had bought with my own money years ago, and set them up near the rear bumper of my small hatchback sedan.
I rolled Carmen’s heavy, custom-molded wheelchair into her bedroom.
"Time to go, Mom," I said, using the title she had demanded I use while treating me like a servant.
Getting her out of bed alone was a grueling, dangerous task that usually required extreme physical effort. I locked the wheelchair brakes, placed my feet firmly against hers, wrapped my arms around her heavy torso, and lifted her with my legs, taking the full burden of her dead weight against my aching spine.
She groaned, her body stiffening with fear as I pivoted her frame and lowered her into the padded vinyl seat of the chair.
I buckled her safety straps, wrapped a thick wool blanket around her legs, and wheeled her down the hallway, through the front door, and down the ramp into the back of my car.
I loaded the four heavy duffel bags into the trunk alongside her folding walker, her portable commode, and her specialized air-cushion mattress.
I walked back into the house one last time.
The house was silent. The bedroom where I had spent seven years of my youth was empty, the bed unmade, the plastic mattress cover bare and gleaming under the fluorescent light.
I walked to the kitchen counter, picked up my purse, my personal legal documents, my passport, and my divorce attorney’s business card.
I did not look back at the framed wedding photograph hanging in the hallway. I did not leave a note on the fridge.
I closed the front door, turned the deadbolt from the outside, slipped the key into my pocket, and got into the driver's seat of my car.
May you like
I started the engine. In the rearview mirror, I could see Carmen sitting in the back, her pale face framed by the window, her left eye fixed on the house she was leaving behind, her chest heaving with silent, terrifying gasps.
I shifted into drive and headed downtown toward The Lumina Towers.
