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Both women directed their unintelligible, if vitriolic,
comments to Renie. The Pakistani shook her finger;
the Southeast Asian stamped her foot. Renie looked
dazed.
“Hey, girlfriends,” she finally said, raising her voice
to be heard, “knock it off. You’re giving me a relapse.”
The women didn’t stop. In fact, the Southeast Asian
pointed to the wastebasket and glared at Renie in a warning manner. The Pakistani waved her arms at all the clutter on the nightstand, narrowing her eyes at Archie the
doll, who grinned back in his eternally cheerful manner.
“Touch Archie and prepare to be the next patient in
the OR with a broken arm,” Renie warned.
The cleaning women looked at Renie, again at
Archie, and then at each other. They shook their heads.
Then they shook their fingers at Renie.
“That’s it,” Renie said. “I’m dead.” She closed her
eyes and disappeared under the covers.
The cleaning women simply stared at the mound in
the bed and shook their heads. Then they resumed their
work and began chattering to each other, though it was
clear to Judith that neither of them understood what the
other was saying. A few minutes later, they left, and
Renie came up for air.
“Finally,” she gasped. “I feel like I’ve been smothered.”
“You can’t really blame the cleaning women,” Judith chided. “You do make a terrible mess.”
“Nonsense,” Renie scoffed, tearing open a pack of
gum and tossing the wrapper on the floor. “You know
I’m a decent housekeeper.”
“In your own house,” Judith noted, then gave her
cousin a coy smile. “I wonder if Addison Kirby would
like a visitor this morning.”
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Mary Daheim
“Meaning me,” Renie grumbled. “I’ll be glad when
I can dump you in a wheelchair and send you off on
your own.”
“So will I,” Judith retorted. “Do you think I like
lying around like a bump on a log?”
Renie was getting out of bed. “I’m going to go wash
my hair and take a shower,” she said, unhooking the IV
bag and carrying it in her good hand. “I’ll visit Mr.
Kirby on the way back when I’m clean and beautiful.”
After watching her cousin traipse off to the shower
area, Judith returned to the family tree with an air of
resignation. Joe’s mother was already dead by the time
Judith had met the family. His father, known as Jack,
but named John, had been a bombastic man with a barrel chest and a booming voice. He drank too much, he
worked only when he felt like it, and after his wife
