My Sweet Annie

25

The Heartland Nursing Home was a long, low, tidy building divided from the road by a well-kept parking lot. It was in Eldora, one of the small towns near Gran's hometown of Myrtle. Across the street were the Green Prairie Retirement Apartments, where I could be reasonably certain that Uncle Royal lived. It was nice he could be so close to his wife; although the road dividing the properties was technically a highway, it was quiet, and it would be just a short walk between Royal's home and Mary Ellen's.

The entry to the nursing home smelled like fresh paint and cleaning products. Past the front desk was a door with a keypad above the handle and what appeared to be an alarm light on the wall above it. I had heard that many nursing homes had strict security, with locked doors and alarms for the safety of the residents with dementia. My heart twisted at the thought of my great aunt wandering the street alone, confused. I wondered how bad her Alzheimer's was. Gran hadn't talked much about it, and before the past few days I had never even talked on the phone with Uncle Royal, let alone his wife.

"Who are you here to see, honey?" asked the pleasant-faced receptionist. Or maybe she was a nurse. She wore scrubs patterned with cartoonish butterflies.

"Mary Ellen Haas." I adjusted my grasp on the bag of food I was carrying: a carton of fried chicken, coleslaw, and biscuits.

She smiled, jotting something down on a clipboard before squinting up at me. "Well, you're not Ellen."

It took me a second to understand. Ellen was Royal and Mary Ellen's daughter. I had seen her at the funeral, but she was another relative I felt I didn't know. "No, sorry. My name is Tabitha Carter. I'm her grand niece. Or great niece. I'm not sure what you call me."

She chuckled, sliding the clipboard and a pen toward me across the counter. "Just sign in. She'll be so pleased to see you. The Reverend is here, too."

I leaned in to sign my name and jot down the time of my arrival. "Good. I brought them dinner."

"I thought I smelled something yummy. I'll buzz you in. Have a good visit, honey."

"Thank you."

The door did indeed buzz a moment later, and then something clicked. When I tried the latch, it opened easily, and I stepped through into the nursing home proper. There was a sign on the wall right there with directions to residents' rooms, and I started down the hall toward Aunt Mary Ellen's, 1202. On the way, I passed a couple of residents with walkers and one in a wheelchair who had a baby doll tucked in her arms. I smiled politely, uncomfortable among strangers and in a completely unfamiliar place.

When I arrived, the door stood ajar, and I could hear low voices from inside Mary Ellen's room. I rapped with my knuckles on the door frame.

"Come in!" Royal called. I nudged open the door to see a neat room with large windows. The walls were beige, the curtains soft green. The floor, tiny dining table, and small dresser were all a cheerful, yellowish wood laminate. Family photographs decorated the walls, along with a landscape I suspected my grandmother had painted. The bed was neatly made, but the folded quilt could not conceal the wheels and cords beneath it, a subtle reminder that this was a room in a medical facility.

In a dark green armchair in the corner of the room sat Royal, with a newspaper and a pencil in his hands. He was in his mid-eighties, his hair the color of steel. His eyebrows were darker, emphasizing his clear blue eyes. He wore a button-down shirt, slacks, a belt, and loafers, clothes that would have seemed formal on anybody else but suited him well—I couldn't imagine my great uncle in anything else.

Next to Royal was Mary Ellen in her wheelchair, another quilt draped over her lap. She had a pale, round, wrinkled face beneath a cloud of white hair still shadowed here and there with gray. She peered at me, her eyes vague behind wire-framed glasses. She was wearing a pale pink sweatshirt with an image embroidered on the front of goldfinches and wild roses.