Can You Hear Me?
By: Michele Kaider-Korol
Tags: Healthcare, Aging, Creative Nonfiction, Creative Writing, Empathy

Evelyn feels invisible. She may as well be.

I’m in the middle of a good dream. I push myself down into my warm covers, wanting to make it last. Something’s bothering me. What is it? Something hot, and bright. I slowly open my eyes. It’s sunlight, flooding in through a six-inch gap between the flowered pink drapes in my room. Someone didn’t bother to pull them all the way shut on their way out the door last night.

What day is it? Sunday, I think. If it’s Sunday, I want my New York Times.

I’m stiff. I try to move my legs under layers of blankets. One leg moves. The other is numb. I must have slept on it wrong. I squint, trying to see the clock, but it’s too small and too far away. I’m guessing, though, it’s too early to get up yet. Maybe I’ll just —

“Evelyn! Evelyn! Good morning!” Someone sing-songs. “It’s time to get up!”

Two young nurse’s aides burst into the room, bringing the scent of eggs and toast in with them. But I don’t want to get up. I don’t have to get up. Do I?

Abruptly, one of the aides grasps the top panel of the cotton blanket covering me and pulls it back with a matador-like flourish. I cringe involuntarily as cold air hits my bare stomach. Why is it so cold? I look down to see my nightgown, twisted like a snake around my body during the night, bunched up under my armpit. My midriff and legs are completely exposed.

I open my mouth to speak, and think I do, but the girls talk over me and keep doing what they’re doing — sliding their arms behind my back, half-sitting, half-lifting me out of my warm bed. I frown, and then attempt a scowl, willing them to stop.

One of the aides, responding to a buzzing noise in her uniform, plucks a slim pink cell phone from her pocket. Her long, enameled nails make a clacking noise as she taps on the glossy screen. The gesture reminds me of the chickens on the farm, pecking the hard dirt with their beaks, searching for grit.

The aide laughs and says to her co-worker, “Whoa! Guess what? Jen got lucky last night! Must’a been some party!”

The other one says, “Didn’t you go?”

The aide busy with the cell phone answers, “No…I hadda work 11–7. And wouldn’t you know it, Mrs. Baker in #302 passed away just at the shift change, 11pm. What a pain in the ass.”

One of the girls grabs a brush and swipes it through my thin hair, while the other pulls a pair of worn corduroys and a faded striped pullover from the closet. I crane my neck and motion toward the closet door with my eyes. Can’t they see? Can’t they see the beautiful new Talbot’s pantsuit, the one my niece got me for Christmas? I want to wear that! But, some time, probably long ago, the pantsuit slid off the skinny, wire, nursing home hangers, joining other, unnoticed, casualties on the closet floor.

Ouch! The aide brushing my hair pulls hard on a knot, jerking my head slightly.

“So sorry, sweetheart,” the aide says, seeing my eyes well up. She reaches into the cluttered drawer and, in one swift motion, plucks my dentures from their soapy cup, rinses them quickly and pops them into my mouth. “There, beautiful!” she says. “You’re all set for the ball!”

The other aide laughs and deftly swings my wheelchair in a semi-circle, my feet pointing toward the door. I glance down. I see a dried spot of applesauce from yesterday’s lunch on my left canvas shoe. I try to get it off with my other foot, but it’s still asleep. I wonder, how long will that last?

The aides wheel me out of room and thrust me into the busy, fluorescent- lined hallway. They park me next to the charge nurse’s desk. “Keep an eye on her, will you?” they say to the lone nurse on the floor.

Without waiting for a response from the nurse, one of them says, “Have a great day, Evelyn!” over her shoulder. I try to get her attention, to ask her about the Times, but she walks hurriedly away, the elevator swallowing her up.

The charge nurse, tasked with dispensing morning meds to forty residents before breakfast, hears the cacophony of requests, demands, complaints and noise around her, but is already behind schedule. She zig-zags efficiently between rows of wheelchairs and canes, occasionally fixing a blanket falling off a bony shoulder, but other than that, she has zero time to stop, and less time to listen.

I close my eyes, put my head back, and wait. I’m waiting for someone to hear me.