A New Day Dawns

    Susanna opened her eyes slowly and gazed around. The sky was beginning to glow with morning light, silhouetting the large trees outside her bedroom window. Birds were stirring and chirping with the promise of a lovely summer day. Her heart lifted for a happy moment before plunging as she remembered. She was in that awfully expensive prison they called a retirement community. She got out of bed carefully as her legs were still not entirely trustworthy. At that moment, her front doorbell rang. She pulled on her robe and went to let Claudette in.

      “Morning, Ms. Sue,” Claudette said cheerfully. Nothing ever seemed to get her down. “How are you today? Let’s get you prettied up.”

      “Hah,” said Susanna. “I don’t think even you could accomplish that miracle, but we can improve on my present state. My hair looks as if I’d been dragged through a hedge backwards.”

      “You should put a night cap on when you go to bed,” said Claudette, bustling around collecting towels and beginning to run the water.

      “Never!” said Susanna. “Night caps are for old ladies. But at least my teeth aren’t like the stars.”

      “What do you mean?” said Claudette.

      “They don’t come out at night.”

Claudette cackled.

      “You’re a card, Ms. Sue, you surely are. Whoops, steady on.”

Susanna lurched and grabbed Claudette’s arm for support.

        “Ms. Sue, where is your cane? You’re going to be an old lady with a broken hip as well as a bad hairdo if you don’t start acting right.”

Susanna allowed herself to be guided to the shower stool and sat down with relief. These little dizzy turns scared her more than she let on. Claudette continued fussing about foolish, hard-headed old women as she began to lather Susanna’s back. Susanna let the words wash over her as she relaxed under the massage without pausing to think that she would never have tolerated the lecture from anyone else.

      They sat in the living room with cups of coffee afterwards. The sun was fully up now, and the view of the flowerbeds in the grounds was very pretty, much as it pained Susanna to admit anything good about her present situation. She stirred her coffee, thinking hard. She had always had a quick tongue, but now words often eluded her. She could visualize them skittering around in her head as she grasped for them. She let Claudette finish relating the latest doings of children and grandchildren and cleared her throat.

        “Claudette, I must ask you something and I hope you’ll answer me honestly.”

 Claudette looked at her warily.

          “You know I speak my mind, Ms. Sue. What’s wrong?”

          “I was talking to my niece Elsa. She told me that the other nursing assistants didn’t want to work with me, and you were my last chance to stay here. If it didn’t work out with you, she was going to have to find me a different place, because I can’t go back to living on my own at home. You drew the short straw, as she put it. Is that true?”

Claudette started to laugh.

            “Let me think of how best to say this, Ms. Sue. To be honest, you were a trifle cantankerous with some of those young ‘uns. They’re not used to being spoken to like that. Now, me, I’ve divorced one husband, buried another and raised four boys on my own. I can deal with just about anything. I need my job and I wasn’t going to let some tetchy old lady put me off it, no offense meant.”

             “No offense taken. I was a businesswoman when that was unusual. The men called me a lot worse than tetchy and hard-headed when they thought I wasn’t listening. I don’t mean to be impatient, but I learned fast to toughen up and give as good as I got. I’m sorry if I hurt their feelings. I’ll try to be kinder in future.”

              “I reckoned it was something like that,” said Claudette. “That’s why I didn’t take it personal, and as you know, I’m going to speak back when it’s called for. Plus, I know it had to be hard leaving your own home and coming here, no matter how nice they try to make it. You’re used to being independent. Elsa shouldn’t never have told you that.”

               “I think she was just speaking her mind. Apparently, it runs in the family. She went to a lot of trouble to find me a place here and I can imagine she was very frustrated when she thought I was jeopardizing it.”

               “Well, you can tell her you’re not going anywhere. I’ve spoken to the other girls and the dust has settled. Mind you, it wouldn’t hurt to tell them you’re sorry. Now, have you taken your morning medications? I thought not. Let me get them.”

Susanna obediently swallowed her pills. She started laughing. Claudette looked at her quizzically.

              “If you ladies think I’m grumpy here, you should have seen me in the emergency room. I woke up under this huge spotlight with all these faces peering at me asking me dumb questions, like what my name was, what month it was and did I know the name of the President. I told them that unfortunately not only did I know his name, but I had been in the middle of typing a letter to the editor about him when I had the stroke. Did you know they're allowing teenagers to be doctors these days? A little whippersnapper in a white coat called me sweetie and said I hadn’t been taking my blood pressure medicine correctly. I told him I was nobody's sweetie and I had been taking my medicine correctly since before he was in elementary school. My pressure went up because I was so irate about that damn fool President and this baby doctor wasn't helping it at all.”

Claudette laughed until she had tears in her eyes.

            “That sounds like you alright, Ms. Sue. He didn't know who he was messing with. Politics will get people bent out of shape for sure. I think you should stay away from the news for a while. Meantime, why don’t we make you an appointment at the beauty parlor? You must admit it’s convenient to have it right here.”

             “You’re right, Claudette, and thank you. Elsa did say she would come and take me out later this week. It would be nice to look presentable. I’ll even use my cane as I’m supposed to. But I will not wear that old-lady night cap for love nor money!”