The Hateful Heavy Heart | 18+

21 - A Monday in December

With the final days of December approaching, we were right in the midst of the Winter. Winters in Memphis never bit nearly as hard as they could have; snow didn't stick here, and it was never cold enough to freeze. Still, I felt its bite.

Christmas was in four days, but work would be an obligation until its eve. It was a Monday, meaning I was back at work. I felt well when I awoke that morning, but something about the day felt uneasy. Part of me could tell that the day's calmness was only brief.

Glendshire looked as it always did, except there were decorations for the holiday season. No matter how much décor was spread around, it would never feel warm enough to feel like a home; there was always, always a draft. This time, the draft was coming from Cleo's room.

No one had informed me that I had lost a patient. As I stood against the wall of the empty room, I felt betrayed. Everyone in the institution knew how much Cleo meant to me. Furthermore, they knew how much she needed me. She didn't have anyone else, besides Theresa. However, ever since Cleo was diagnosed with coronary artery disease, they hadn't been spending much time together.

Cleo, who'd only been there for less than two years, was brought to Glendshire because her children were unable to care for her any longer. The real truth was that they could have, but that they didn't want to; they said that because of her burden, they could not live successful lives.

Dorina Lukás-Cazacu was a 29-year-old event planner. She'd made a name for herself in Nashville, helping to organize parties and weddings. Her beau, Gavril Cazacu, was of Romanian descent and, because of his grandfather's recent death four years prior, Gavril was now a considerably wealthy man. Dorina was helping her mother, but after tying the knot with Gavril, she was persuaded to let go of the "dead weight." Her brother, Kelemen Lukás, on the other hand, was 37 years old and ran a chain of nightclubs in Tallahassee. He was also becoming known for his architecture in Florida, having designed a few houses on the shore. Kelemen, while he assured us, "I love my mom, I do," at check-in, he also expressed that, "I just don't have enough time nor resources for her upkeep. I just feel like she's holding me back." Even though he had been taking frequent flights to the city to manage his nightclubs, an hour after dropping Cleo off, he boarded a plane to permanently move to the coastal state.

Since her admittance, neither of them had come to visit nor had they called, except one single time, on a group call, to remind her to, "Do something about the house. Neither of us can really afford to keep you in that place. Nursing homes are expensive, you know. Let Gavril sell your house. You don't need it. Ez van, ezt kell szeretni. You won't be going back to it."

This is what it is, this has to be liked.

Only, she still owned her home.

Her home was a beautiful two-story three-bedroom and three-bathroom home on Peabody Avenue and South Cleveland Street. She had pulled it up to me on Google Maps one day, explaining that, "They don't want me to sell the house because my care is too expensive. They want me"—she paused to use air quotations—"to sell the house, so they can have some more money in their pockets. They don't think I'm smart enough to notice how much money is really in my account and I know how much that house is worth. They told me I'd make about fifty thousand, but that house's market value four and a half hundred thousand dollars."

Cleo loved that house, but it was in that house that her fall occurred. She'd already had a bad knee, which she injured as a teenager and had only gotten progressively worse as she aged, and at 57 years old, she fell from the top of her staircase. She injured her spinal cord, and since, she'd lost all movement below the waist. Before that, she lived as a retired eighth-grade earth science teacher, still helping out the community by cooking for the neighborhood and school events. She'd worked in the school system ever since moving to the United States at 26 after she received a teaching offer. Two years before she gave birth to Kelemen, she was holding the keys to her new home, her big white house. Neither of them were fond of the fact that their father was an American man, one who left their mother after only 10 years of marriage. When they got divorced, Dorina was barely a year old.