The Girl, The Guard & The Ghost

Mom

Sienna gave a wave to the nurse at the desk as she made her way to her mother’s room. She never liked nursing homes. This one was better than most with state-of-the-art facilities, a great nurse to patient ratio and fabulous physicians on site who were exemplary in their field. This was a home where the uber wealthy sent their old and weary and she was grateful her sisters pulled out all the stops to get her mom into it.

Yet, she could hear the wailing down the hall of a patient who was distraught for one reason or another. She could smell the disinfectant wafting from the room near her mother’s where the fella who liked to pee on the walls resided. The swearing of the angry woman who perpetually hated every television show she put on the tv rebounded like an echo in a cave around her. She was grateful each time she came to visit her mom, her mother’s anger and confusion never appeared to match the intensity of some of the other patients.

She poked her head into the room and smiled to see her mom reading a book. Her mother, Carla, looked up and Sienna knew immediately it was a day her mother would not remember her. The vacant stare as she examined the intruder in her room made Sienna’s heart ache.

“Hi there,” she gave a little wave. “How are you today?”

“Are you another nurse coming to take more of my blood?”

“No. I’m simply stopping in to say hello. What are you reading?”

Her mom looked to the book in confusion, “I found it on my nightstand and thought maybe someone left it for me.” She leaned forward whispering, “It’s dirty.”

Sienna made wide eyes as she drew closer to her mom and sat in the chair opposite her to look out the window to the courtyard below. “Dirty?” She knew the paperback romance novel was one her mother had read multiple times. “I may need to borrow it.”

Her mom smiled at Sienna’s words. “Don’t tell my mom. She gets angry with me when I read this stuff.”

“She does?” Sienna chuckled as she stared into the eyes so much like her own.

“She says fantasy books about girls waiting for their Prince Charming are a waste of time. She made me go to nursing school, so I don’t rely on any man to take care of me.”

“This sounds very practical.”

“It is but I have a secret,” her mother put her finger to her lips as if shushing her. “Don’t tell anyone but I met a man.”

“Ooh,” Sienna pretended to gasp with excitement. Of course, none of them knew if her mother could absorb the words of the book or if she could understand a full story but they let her have them. She had kept these books with her since Sienna had been in high school. More than once she had leafed through one of her mom’s stories and had found the story her mother told her was a replica of one in a book. She found herself wondering which of her stories would be mixed with her memories today.

“His name is Damien. He’s from New York.”

Sienna gave a tight smile. She knew her biological father’s name was Damien.

“My mother would be very angry to know I helped him. He’s so handsome but he got hurt.” She was whispering as if sharing a confidence. “Someone shot him.”

Sienna wasn’t sure how to answer. During her childhood she knew nothing of her father. Her mother had introduced her only the one time when she had stupidly looked him right in the face and he’s smacked her hard. His name wasn’t even on her birth certificate, and she had no idea what his last name was. Since she knew nothing of how her parents met, what their relationship was like prior to her birth or anything else about the man, she was unsure whether what her mother was telling her was a twisted fantastical take on reality, it was all made-up or it was completely factual.

“You must have been scared when he got shot.”

“It was how we met. I was leaving my shift at the hospital and some men forced me to go with them to help them and their boss who had been hurt. I had to put stitches in him. The bullet went right through his arm. He came to see me at the hospital after. He pulled me into a broom closet. It was very sexy.”

Sienna felt her stomach turn as her mother gave a happy and contented sigh. How much of this story was real, she didn’t know but clearly, whatever memory her mother had created was long before the man had started smacking her around.

“Ms. Lawrence, would you like to bring your mom to the dining hall or eat here in her room with her this evening?” A friendly nurse poked her head into the room.

Her mother snorted, “mom? I’m too young to be her mom.”

“My apologies, Ms. Lawrence,” the nurse addressed her mother with a wide smile. “I must have the rooms confused.”

“If I have a daughter, I will name her Sienna. My best friend growing up was named Sienna. She died when we were in high school. I miss her so much.” Her mother started weeping and Sienna felt her own heart break.

“I’m sorry you lost your friend,” she patted her mother’s hand softly.

Several minutes later her mom was back to staring out the window and she looked to Sienna as if startled to see her there.

“Who are you?”

“I’m a visitor here. I came to see if you would like to have dinner with me.”

“You’re so pretty. Why would you hang out here with me for dinner? Don’t you have a boyfriend?”

“No,” she shook her head sadly. “I don’t. I was working on my education and taking care of my mom. I had someone I cared for, but it turns out he’s a lying, scheming jerk who had a girlfriend for two whole years and never told me.”

“Oh no.” Carla’s eyes popped, “are you the other woman? Like me?”

“Like you?”

“I found out my boyfriend Damien is married. I tried to stop myself but he’s very persuasive. I found out he had a wife and I asked him not to come back.” She sniffed, “I love him so much. He got angry when I told him to never come back.”

Dear heavens, this was definitely a new plot twist to the story of her life if this part of her mother’s account was accurate and not pulled from the book she was reading. Had her father been married?

“I’m sorry to hear he was angry.”

Her mother put her hands on her belly, “I’m having a baby. Shh,” she whispered at Sienna. “He came to see me, and I told him we were going to have a baby and,” she sniffed, “he told me to have an abortion. He has a wife and three kids at home, and I didn’t know. I told him to get out and never come back. He left money on the table for the procedure but I’m not going to have it. I hope I have a girl. A sweet little girl.”

“Well, holy s**t with sprinkles,” Sienna thought to herself as she looked around the room for the stack of books her mother liked to read. Was her mother making things up from the books or was this a real memory she had suddenly accessed? Either way, it was uncomfortable.

“We should get some dinner, so my baby has food,” her mother said suddenly.

“Yeah, sure,” Sienna tried to keep a straight face as she wheeled her mom through the corridors to the dining hall. This was by far one of the more bizarre conversations she’d had with her mom.

“I hope I have a girl.”

“I bet,” she didn’t know what to tell her.

“My mom is going to be furious with me,” her mother continued confiding.

“I’m sure she will come around.” Sienna knew for a fact she had. Her grandmother had spoiled her rotten before she passed away.

She parked her mother at a table for two near the window and then promised to bring her back a nutritious meal for her unborn child. The nurse who had come to the room met her near the counter.

“You look upset, Siena. Everything okay?”

She looked to where her mother was staring out the window to the gardens outside and sighed, “today she believes she is pregnant. She can’t remember breakfast today, but she remembers twenty-six years ago like it’s happening now.”

“Pregnant? That’s a new one for her.”

“I know. I’m starting to think we should maybe stop allowing her to read the romance novels we’ve been giving her. She’s mixing them up with her memories and her reality. She told me a story about being kidnapped to help a bad guy and falling in love with him.”

The nurse gave a nod, “it’s right out of a paperback. I’ll mention it to the doctor when he does his rounds in the morning. Sienna,” she squeezed her forearm, “don’t stress so much over the stories though. She’s very communicative. It’s when she stops telling us the stories or spends more time in her head and staring into space not speaking at all, then we can start to worry. She might be telling tall tales but she’s talking.”

“I know and you’re right but it’s hard when I can’t suss out what is real and what isn’t. If the story she told me rang a bit of truth, then who is to say it’s not all truth and things she kept hidden from me. She never kept journals, but she did keep secrets.”

“Do you think she fell in love with a bad guy?”

“I know she did,” Sienna chuckled as she accepted the dinner plate from the server behind the counter. “My father was an abusive piece of shit.”

“Was? Did he die?”

“I couldn’t tell you. I know he would come to our home late at night and leave by morning. Many times, I would be at my grandmother’s house for several days because he was in town. I knew because my grandmother would be sitting close to her phone as if expecting it to ring. He used to,” she swallowed with the memories, “he was rough with her. I don’t know if he was rough with her before I was born but after he became increasingly more violent.”

“I’m sorry you went through that.”

“I didn’t,” she shrugged. “Mom did. Mom survived his abuse. I know we moved a couple of times, and he would find her and punish her for trying to leave him. He was a sick man. Very sick.”

“Your poor mom.”

“Yes, and I think it’s why she always loved her romance novels. I think she dreamed of having a man who despite being a total dickhead to the rest of the world, worshipped her. Instead, she fell in love with the devil who worshipped nothing. She could get lost in her stories fantasizing of escaping the hell of our lives. I feel bad talking about taking them from her but if it’s going to mess with her head.” She trailed off sadly.

“Sienna, her head is already messed up,” the nurse gave a sad chuckle. “Letting her live a bit of fantasy isn’t going to cause her harm or hurt her. You’ve gotten good at working with your mom, not correcting her, and letting her be whoever and wherever she is in the moment. I know it’s hard for you to let her dwell in inaccuracies, but I think it’s not doing her any real harm.”

“What if she gets trapped in the violence of the memories of my father though? She’s thinking she’s pregnant right now but what if it escalates?”

“We’ll cross the bridge when we get to it. For now, enjoy the fact she’s still talking your ears off and is easy going.” She gave a pointed glance to a man sitting at a group table who more than once when Sienna had visited had gotten violent and needed to be subdued because he was paranoid everyone in the home was out to get him.

She nodded and thanked the nurse for the chat and brought her mom’s dinner to her. “Hey. I found mashed potatoes, carrots and ham and there’s even chocolate pudding.”

“I love chocolate pudding,” she gushed as she tore her eyes from the garden.

“You’ll need to eat all the healthy stuff before the pudding.”

“Nuh-uh,” her mom said with a twinkle in her eye. “I’m a grown up with a baby in my belly. If I want to eat dessert first, I can.”

She chuckled at her mom’s playfulness and then switched the plate of her meal with the dessert, “do you know what, you’re absolutely right. Eat the pudding first.”

As her mom chortled with glee at being free to be what she considered naughty, Sienna smiled at the thought of what the nurse said. It wasn’t hurting anyone to allow her mom to rest in her memories and to smile. She was going to enjoy her happy mood as long as she could.