Tempest Rising - Diane Mckinney-whetstone [112]
25
Clarise was back. Not back in the physical sense, with her dark, bushy-straight hair swept off her face, while a pure silk paisley skirt and blouse set, or cashmere walking suit, or gaberdine coat dress ensemble traipsed over her lithe proportions as she stepped out in the kind of style that had become natural for her over the years. She still wore the light blue hospital gown, the terry-cloth slippers with the rubber soles, the chain bracelet with the white plastic balls that spelled out “Clarise,” her hair pulled in two puffs and wrapped tightly in rubber bands by some unknowing nurse’s aide. Physically she still looked like that crazy lady, that rich caterer’s widow who had tried to separate her hand from her wrist over a bad reaction to his death. To look at her, no one would know she was back. But her mind was back indeed. When the day was bright and floating into her room through the venetian blinds, she saw it for what it was: yellow, sunbathed air. At night, when the sky was black and moonless, and the lights were turned on in the courtyard below her bedroom window, she knew it was night, and that was the reason for the navy descending; she didn’t have to fight the dark to push it out of the way so that she could see. No more variegated hazes confusing her, making her slice at her skin. She was back, completely, cinematically, and then more, much more than she could see through the air that was prone to change colors, that was now dripping gray all around her table as she sat in the multipurpose room and ate her breakfast. All of her senses were back: the salty taste of the bacon as she crunched it down between her teeth; the chirping sound of the ice chips hitting the bottom of her juice glass as she swirled the glass around in her hand; the cold, slick feel of the butter pat that plopped from between the waxy paper into her fingers as she tried to drop it into her grits. But it was the olfactory sense that was the strongest, that was greatly affecting her now, the smoke rising off the top of the brown ’n’ serve roll and sifting up into her nose straight through to her brain, shaping itself in her brain until there it was, clear as the shine on her fingers from the butter pat, a sense of her girls and baking bread. It wasn’t a comfortable sensation. It wasn’t as if she could sit back and say, “Ah, my girls are in some grandmother’s kitchen right now, and she’s making them yeast rolls and telling them parables from the Bible.” Instead it seemed as if the smoke curling so gently off the bread turned sharp, pointed, left her with a stabbing feeling that went all the way to her heart. She dabbed at the corners of her mouth. Then tilted her chin. Her hands shook; she held them together tightly in her lap, nodded and smiled at the woman who stayed in the room next to hers. She didn’t want to appear nervous, might be cause for strapping her down, force-medicating her again if they decided she was exhibiting signs of agitation.
She was actually more excited than agitated because today was the day. The staff was buzzing all around her about the shortage of help because of the storm last night. That’s why she was eating breakfast in the multipurpose room instead of in the chair by her window; most of the tray girls called in late or absent, so the kitchen just sent up the food in bowls and left it up to the floor nurses to dish it out. And the floor nurses were exhausted, couldn’t leave until their replacements showed up. Even the night cleaning staff had been retained: Broom sweeps became receptionists; window shiners became telephone operators; trash collectors became messengers. But what really confirmed for Clarise that today was the day was the gem of information that she’d just heard as she bit into her toast and licked the crumbs from her lips: Four-eyed Jim, the thick glasses–wearing head of the linen collection crew, was down on the front desk, signing visitors in and out and checking off the