Short-Term

The warm soil wrapped around her pink and green floral printed gloves. Traces of dirt could always be found hidden in the small crevices and wrinkles across its old surface; they were well hidden, but always there. The old woman worked painstakingly to keep her gloves and her small garden in the green house looking pristine, though these traces couldn’t be reached. Dots of sunlight filtered through her faded pink sun hat and splattered across her arm as she worked at digging up a stubborn root reaching under the earth’s surface toward the fragile blossoms a few inches away. She suspected it was from that fish-smelling bush her neighbor Patty had planted. She wasn’t sure exactly when it was planted there, but it always causes problems for her primrose growing just on the other side of the border stones. She wondered if she should just plant the new patch of flowers she had in another spot, somewhere where a scraggly root wasn’t sticking into the whole made for the flowers. 

“Hello.”

She started, turning around to see a young man in a smart-looking suit standing at the edge of her small garden patch. 

“Oh hello there, just passing through?”

“Um,” he shuffled his feet shyly, she noticed that his tie had been loosened, and his jacket was wrinkled, “yeah, I was just going for a walk and I saw you struggling there, and thought you might like some help?”

“Oh, what a gentleman you are! Though,” she gestured at him with her dirty hand shovel, “are you sure you want to soil that lovely getup?”

“I think I can manage.” He squatted down next to her. 

“Oh, I should get you some gloves.” He offered her a hand, which she gratefully clung to as he pulled her to a shaky standing position. She stumbled over to a nurse using a spray bottle to water a nearby plant, and asked where her gloves were. The nurse told her that there was only one pair given to each resident, and that her gloves were still on her hands. The old woman insisted that she used to have a plain brown pair, claiming that her floral pattern would just embarrass the young man. 

The young man came up, and emphasized that her gloves were just fine, gently helping her take them off her hands. 

“But, you need to use the brown ones. It isn’t right!” The nurse and the young man shared a meaningful look behind the old woman’s back as she was escorted to a nearby bench.

“Well, you can’t very well get that nice suit all dirty! I should get you a towel or something!”

The nurse, who had stayed near enough to hear their conversation, brought one and gave it to the man for him to kneel on. 

“Humph! Now they learn some sense.” She noticed his mouth twitched at this, and realized he hadn't smiled throughout the whole exchange.

“You know,” she started, trying to break the silence, “I just hate it when I can’t find my gloves. Once I needed to pull some weeds, and I never let the nurses touch my garden, but I couldn’t find my gloves anywhere, so I just did it without my gloves. Oh did I regret that! There was dirt under my nails for weeks! The stuff just gets stuck in the worst of places, and that… you know that feeling of…?” she rubbed her chin in thought. “Grit!” She finally exclaimed. “That gritty feeling of being dirty just doesn’t leave, no matter how much soap and effort you use…” she trailed off, staring at some distant point, lost in thought. 

The young man nodded and began to work at the stubborn root, silently tearing at the dirt. 

The old woman shook off the fogginess in her head “You’re quite good at this, do you have a garden?” 

“No, but I often help my mom out with hers.”

“That’s sweet.” He pulled a length of dead root out of the ground and set it aside before starting to put the bushel of bright yellow flowers into the small whole. 

“It must be nice to have a strong young man to help out every so often. Say, I just realized, I don't even know your name! And what are you so dressed up for? Are you meeting someone?” she ended her questions with a wink. 

He paused, looked up at her, then back at the ground.

“My name is Kyle” he was silent as he turned to continue working. He patted the dirt and sat back to look at the new plant added to the bunch. The old lady thought he wasn’t going to answer the second question before he muttered, “my dad passed away. I just came from his funeral.”

“Oh dear!” The old lady stood and made her way to his side as fast as she could. She could almost hear her joints creak as she knelt in the small patch of dirt. She put a weak, wrinkled, loving arm over his shoulders. Slowly, a tear rolled down his cheek and splattered on the flowers. 

“There now, it’s good to cry in times like these, there ain’t nothing wrong with being emotional, especially when you lose someone like that.” She paused for a few breaths. “Were you two close?”

He nodded, wiping the tears from his cheeks and attempting a calming deep breath. He had held himself together for the whole ceremony, and he silently berated himself now for losing it in the company of someone that doesn’t even know him. He patted her hand and muttered a ‘thank you’.

“Think nothing of it dearie! Now, why don't you come on up and have a cookie?” She helped raise him to his feet as much as he helped her, and they both strode into her little house. He took off the gloves and awkwardly held them limp in his hand. A nurse followed a few steps behind them as they set off. 

They strolled arm in arm out of the greenhouse, and into a little fake courtyard made to look real for the residents. On the other side of the courtyard a fake street, about five feet wide, opened up to a hall with the resident’s rooms made to look like a little suburban neighborhood. Kyle was impressed with the attention to detail, as even the ceiling was painted a soft sky blue with wispy clouds brushed here and there. 

The old lady led Kyle to a small French pastry stand and asked for two cookies. They sat at a small table with two seats and ate the chocolate chip cookies they were given. She bragged that since she didn’t have any problems with her heart, she could still eat sweets, unlike one of her neighbors Marty, who couldn’t have anything that would raise his cholesterol. Apparently all the residents here referred to others as their “neighbor”, whether or not their rooms were near each other. Kyle figured it helped foster a community. 

The nurse who followed them, and was assigned to the old woman apparently, came up to check in and make sure the old lady took her pills. 

“So, do you want to talk about your dad?”

“I don’t know…” he sighed, looking around the quaint looking, yet disturbingly perfect courtyard, “I feel like I suddenly have no one.”

“What about your mother?”

He shrugged and shifted in his seat, “I don’t see her very often. And I don’t have any siblings.”

“Are you seeing anyone?”

“No,” he said, absentmindedly folding the napkin that came with the cookie. “I don’t have time for dating between school and work…” 

They sat in silence, watching an old man stroll by on the arm of a young nurse. 

“You know, being alone isn’t so bad.”

Kyle looked up at her with a questioning expression.

“I mean,” she smiled as a couple made their way to the center of the courtyard and began to slowly rock back and forth to some silent melody. “I mean, I’ve got it pretty good here. I have my garden, and the nurses who make sure I stay alive, and my sweets. It isn’t the most rewarding life, but I survive; I might even be a little happy sometimes. And you’ll be happy too. You’re young, you've got your whole life ahead of you, and you will be happy someday. But in the meantime, being alone isn’t too bad.”

“I’ll… I’ll try to remember that.” He mumbled. 

The old lady nodded, smiling to herself while getting lost in the view. It struck Kyle that she really did look happy. If ignorant bliss could count for happiness. Minutes passed, and Kyle finally stood up to leave. The old woman turned to him in surprise,

“Oh dear me! I didn’t see you there! Can I help you with something?” 

He just stared at her, struggling to swallow the bowling ball lodged in his throat. 

“What’s your name dearie? You look sad, would you like me to get you a cookie?”

“Um, no thanks. And you’ve already done so much for me.”

She laughed, “Oh honey, don’t be ridiculous, we just met!”

He sighed dejectedly, “I know.” 

He forced a cheerful smile, and turned before she could see the tears in his eyes. 

“Well,” she didn’t know how to respond, something seemed to be wrong. Her breathing began to quicken in a slight panic as her mind desperately searched for what had just been swallowed up by the gaping whole in her mind. A nurse walked up and whispered something to the young man in front of her. He nodded sadly, and began walking down the fake street towards the exit of the care home. The nurse sat down in the empty chair, patting her arm and saying something that was probably meant to be comforting. But all the old lady heard was the words the young man had whispered before slipping away and down the street.

“Goodbye mom.” 

“What a silly boy” she muttered, interrupting the soft spiel of the nurse with a shake of her head. Unknown to her, she always opted to ignore the panicked feelings that suddenly come upon her at seemingly random moments. She picked up her faded green and pink floral gloves that the young man had left on the table and fingered a vein of dirt stuck in a long wrinkle across the fabric. She wondered why her failure to dislodge any of the soil made her so sad.