Well, I finished my portfolio Monday and turned it in. I did manage to lengthen my short story but I don't really like it...probably because I really don't like writing love stories. However, that's kind of the road this one took sooo here it is anyways.

FORGET ME NOT

I left the house, a quarter to five and the sun was just setting. Grasped the old Ford pick-up’s peeling dusk blue handle and swung one leg inside the truck. Using the steering wheel as a balance, I hoisted my other leg into the cab and just sat for a moment, eyes closed, air leaving my lungs heavy. I could remember her sitting next to me. Pale yellow sundress, red bow in her hair, a supple smile turned towards me. Her glittering laugh touched me as if raindrops were kissing my balding head. The cab shuddered in harsh wind. Tired eyes opening slow, without rush. Sighing deeply, I turned the key in the ignition.

The sun had just begun to set. No longer summer, not yet fall. I could feel her long hair tickling my neck as it swirled around her face, strewn about by the wind pouring through the open windows. The radio hummed a few lines of Sinatra. Pretending as if she was with me in the cab, my arm hung over the back. The familiarity of the drive kept my hands turning the wheel robotically. Air still thick with flowery scents of heat and summer.

The transition from empty farmland to suburbia and townhouses was sudden. Houses all the same sat like dollhouses side by side. Each wearing a different shade of blue and boasting white fences. The truck’s engine too loud as I passed Prius after Prius. Gone as quick as they appeared, replaced with trees. Drove like that for some time, trees lining the road. Still wishing her head was on my shoulder. The sun bounced reds and oranges off the sky as the sun set. City buildings, each taller than the other begin to appear. I swung the truck into staff parking lot behind a white building, with hundreds of windows.

Still buckled, I looked to the empty seat next to me. I took out the keys and set my hands in my lap. Three deep breaths, eyes closed. Time seemed to drift between wanderlust and fantasy as I felt her soft lips graze my cheek. Eyes still closed I whispered, “Miss you, Ev.” One of her small fingers traced my jaw line and I sighed, my breath fluttering her out the open window.

            Hand still resting on the door handle, I pushed it open and stepped outside. Heavy air, evening heat clinging to skin. The day’s heat rose from the pavement in steam. I walked up the short path; different colors of greenery decorated the sides. The automatic sliding glass doors of the hospital lobby rushed open when I approached. The blast of air-conditioned sickness stung my nose.  My body went through the paces of finding the elevator, my mind in a different realm. I joined the morning shift cue that waited for the large metal doors to open. Most of us got off on the third floor, heading for the locker room. I nodded a ‘good morning’ to the few other doctors already changing from their street clothes into blue scrubs. I took off my regular clothes and replaced them with the periwinkle scrubs. I felt my motions quickening, it was now almost 6:45, I had a few minutes before I needed to do inventory. By the time my leathery, nobbled knuckles had finished a sloppy job of tying my black tennis shoes I could feel my breath quickening. Quick to the sink, water bathed my hands. Soap foaming between fingers, rinsed and dried.

            I slipped out the locker room door, with the agility of a younger man and headed for the elevators. Alone this time I reached for the wall of buttons, my fingers finding the familiar number 5.  The doors slid open and I was greeted by the nurse’s station. Next to the desk, in bold, red print, ALZHIMER’S WARD. Slipping down the hallway to the left, steps quick.

            I reached room 526 where a small plate below the room number read EVELYN MARLOW in chicken scratch doctors writing. The nurse was just setting breakfast down on the table. Doctor Vlist, checking Evelyn’s vitals looked up at me. She was roughly my age, somewhere in her seventies, with close-cropped grey hair, “Hey Charlie,” she says softly. Neither of us says it but I look at Evelyn pointedly. The nurse leaves the room while I stare at the sad, wispy smile on the doctor’s face.  Hand on my arm and we go into the hallway.

            “Evelyn’s been here awhile, Charlie,” She starts in, no preamble. “When she first came in she was at Stage 4, which is moderate decline. We ran tests her memory tests again this morning.”

            Opened my mouth to speak when she cut me off, hand raised, “The same tests as normal, Charlie. We just added to them a bit.”

            “Meaning?” I said, feeling nervous.

            “Charlie, Evelyn is now in Stage 6: severe decline. Her bodily health is also a concern to me. Last week’s test results came in. Her heart is failing, Charlie.”

I breathed slowly, in and out. Memories rushed through my brain as my body went numb. As if I had my personal slide show playing in my mind of the life, that Ev and I had before all this. She had been spry and beautiful when we met. We met at Shelton High School, and dated for two years. Ev wanted to get married right after school but her parents put her in the nursing academy. We tried long distance for years, though every time we saw each other something new was different between us. I thought that was it, nothing left to be salvaged.

Evelyn graduated nursing academy in the spring of 1932. We didn’t see each other for over a decade. I had been married once already and divorced, she had been sent to England during the second world war to help the Red Cross.

It wasn’t until 1952 that we saw each other again. I sat in the Blackbird Café three blocks over and two up from my small apartment in lower Manhattan. Meeting a friend who was frequently late, hopelessly forgetful. Evelyn walked in the door, bundled in more layers than an Eskimo, whisking in flakes of snow with her. She was with two other similarly clad women, who babbled about stitch work patterns.

They three ordered and sat at a table three away from me. The two women left after a small cup of tea, each kissing her on the cheek as they left. I could not help but to stare at her, it had been more than two decades since I last saw her. She looked older, red hair now dabbled with silver.

Lost in my past life, I couldn’t pin point when things had gone so sideways. Evelyn had always been the healthy one, strong. When the Alzheimer’s first crept in, I denied it. Now looking into Doctor Vlist’s pitying eyes I realized, I was losing her again. The doctor looked at me expectantly, waiting for some kind of response. I let my breath seep out trying to find the appropriate words. All I managed was a curt nod, a check of my watch and I turned away.

            I stood in the elevator for a few moments, without pushing buttons brain fuzzy, mind numb. Finally, I pushed for level A, where my rounds were to take place. When the elevator doors opened into the morgue, the rush of loneliness and death greeted me as I began my night shift of tagging the freshly dead bodies.

We are on Christmas break now so maybe I will do some non-school writing (I know I should...). 

Love from home,

The Blonde and the Bullshit