Blue

MONICA

MONICA

Breathe, Monica thought as she closed the door to her unoccupied office behind her.

Releasing her typically erect posture, she slumped into the cheap, padded chair and

wheeled herself to face the metal and faux-wood desk. Reaching to straighten the

plaque near the front of her workspace, she impulsively turned it around to read:

Assistant Director of Patient Affairs.

What the heck does that even mean? She shook her head and closed her eyes in disgust.

It sounds like the patients need help directing their illicit and nonexistent love

lives.

Pushing her heavy-framed glasses higher up her upturned nose and tucking a stray

strand of hair behind her ear, she freed a deep sigh from her chest. The only “affairs”

she’d been directing today were the persistent complaints from a visiting daughter-in-law.

The brash woman from Orcas Island had asserted that her mother-in-law’s closet was

filled with indistinguishable KMart clothes instead of the designer tracksuits she’d

provided for her mentally deteriorating in-law.

Monica had pasted a look of compassion on her face and explained for the nth time

about one resident’s penchant for “shopping” in other patients’ closets. But the

woman had been more concerned that her mother-in-law was dressed shabbily rather

than the potentially serious issue of one resident’s stealing other people’s possessions.

Shortly after breakfast, the cockatiel had escaped from its cage in the game room.

This had caused a ruckus only Monica could quell, by tossing her sweater over the

quivering bird and returning it to its safe haven. During the commotion, patients

had watched from wheelchairs and wrung their hands, while others had shouted encouragement

in rasping voices. Moments later, as she’d continued her rounds, she’d heard the

hullabaloo rise again, announcing that the bird was once more flying free.

Monica had also wasted a serious chunk of time trying to convince Mrs. Johnson, another

resident, that she wasn’t her daughter Ethel. Monica berated herself for the uncharacteristic

need to argue the moot point. She knew from years of experience that there was no

derailing Alzheimer’s patients’ train of thought once they had the track programmed

for a destination.

Monica had tried everything she knew to defuse the situation: nodding in agreement,

evasion tactics, pretending she didn’t hear the conversation, and (the least helpful)

explaining that Ethel had actually died several years before. This strategy had set

Mrs. Johnson weeping until one of the nurses was able to console her.

Monica had continued on her rounds and altered her customary path throughout the

Center, hoping to steer clear of Mrs. Johnson’s unyielding pursuit, but it was as

if Monica had been tagged with a homing device and Mrs. Johnson held the control.

Instead of a woman with deteriorating mental capacities, the patient had taken on

the persona of a diabolical tracker. If Monica had had a bounty on her head, Mrs.

Johnson would certainly have collected the prize. If she tells me one more time I’m

the spitting image of her dear daughter Ethel, I’ll scream bloody murder! Monica

thought.

Monica’s patent reserved manner and painstaking attention to detail normally fit

with the tasks required of her at Stratford Estates Memory Care Facility. Today,

however, she found herself muttering under her breath, exasperated with the tidy

office she called her sanctuary, and wanting to pummel sweet old Mrs. Johnson for

initiating an elaborate game of hide and seek for the past few hours.

How had this come to be her life? Listening to moderately functioning Alzheimer’s

patients loop their ingrained stories through an auto-rewind every fifteen minutes,

trapping elusive cockatiels, and wanting to dive under her perfectly ordered desk

when anyone approached the door?

A flash of her days at Briar Cliff College rose in her mind. She smiled as she remembered

her English Lit studies. What would her favorite heroine do in this situation? Monica

found slight comfort in imagining herself at the center of an Elizabethan tragedy,

instead of a modern-day woman stuck in a soul-sucking job and lonely existence.

I’m only forty-three. There could still be time for me. I’m supposed to be somewhere,

anywhere else, doing anything but being a pitiful director of patient affairs. Oh

hell, not even director, just a lame-o assistant director. Oh God, help me!

KNOCK. KNOCK.

Monica jumped as she heard the sharp tapping on the door. Reflexively, she smoothed

her freshly cut hair and waited for someone to enter, until she remembered that she’d

locked the door when she slipped behind it moments ago.

“Monica? Monica, honey? Are you in there?” Mrs. Johnson cooed from the other side

of the door.

“Breathe,” Monica whispered to herself, before responding. “Yes, Mrs. Johnson. How

may I help you?”

“Someone let the birdie out of its cage and it’s making horrible noises.”

Again. “Okay. I’ll be right there,” she said, as breezily as she could manage.

Like a soldier preparing for battle, Monica adorned her face with the armor of a

good girl smile, straightened her weary shoulders, and opened the door of her refuge.

Mrs. Johnson stood like a sentry guarding the passage. A helmet of salon-teased bluish

hair topped her head, and turned-up crimson lips punctuated her lined face.

“Ethel? Is that you?” she whispered, tender hope in her voice.

“No, ma’am. It’s me. Monica.”

“Monica? Oh, yes.” Mrs. Johnson shook her head as if waking from a dream. “Have I

ever told you that you’re the spitting image of my daughter Ethel?”

Monica thought: Dear Lord, I’m living in the morning that won’t end.

As she drove south on Greenwood Avenue after leaving Stratford Estates for the night,

Monica heard her stomach rumble. She knew she should stop by Northwest Hospital and

check in, but today had been interminable with the escaping birds, ranting daughters,

and erratic patients. She couldn’t face seeing the night nurse on call, who would

only shake her head with downcast eyes and say, “No change.”

No change. It seemed as though they were all stuck in the same endless loop. Monica

thought about her own perpetual days of drudgery and boredom. Her days were so regimented

it wasn’t even funny. She was up at six each morning, followed by a quick shower

and twenty minutes of yoga, if there was time. Special K, a banana, and skim milk

for breakfast. An autopilot drive to Stratford Estates, where she filled the mornings

with staff meetings, mounds of paperwork, and the same conversations dozens of times

over with the clients.

Lunch consisted of Caesar salad with skinless chicken breast, if she managed to stop

for lunch at all. More of the morning’s blandness continued throughout the afternoon.

Her norm was working past dinnertime until she decided to move the monotony from

one space to the next.

The most hopeless hours of her day came when she stopped by the hospital and sat

in silence next to the unresponsive figure until she could cope no longer. Then she’d

make the autopilot drive home to her empty duplex near Holman Road.

That night, after arriving home bleary-eyed at 9 p.m., Monica turned on the television,

put a Lean Cuisine in the microwave, and poured a glass of Two Buck Chuck wine from

Trader Joe’s. Tonight she felt like she could use a little indulgence. Instead of

setting her place at the table, she took her food and wine and climbed into bed with

the remote control.

She considered that she really was no different from Mrs. Johnson. The main difference

between the two of them was that Mrs. Johnson seemed to be enjoying her life, or

was at least oblivious to the dull repetitiveness of it all, whereas Monica was becoming

acutely more aware of her own mortality with each passing day. She tried to put the

depressing thought out of her head, flipped through a dozen channels, and watched

mindlessly until she fell asleep during The Daily Show.

The next morning, as Monica headed toward her car with slumped shoulders and her

gaze focused on the sidewalk, she cringed at the sudden sound of her neighbor’s voice.

“Hey, Monica! Hey, how are ya?”

Oh no, Monica silently swore under her breath. Please go away.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but something got ahold of one of those wild

cats from the park and left it on your driveway. It’s dead, ya know?” The woman scrunched

her mustached upper lip to her nose and shook her head. “I would’ve had Matt take

care of it, but he’s gone off huntin’ this week.”

Monica turned her deadpan face toward her well-meaning neighbor, Jenny. The woman

had thinning hair plastered to her head and a strange rosacea-like rash sprinkled

across her left cheek. She couldn’t have been more than thirty-five, based on all

the little kids running around her yard, but her weathered skin and stooped form

spoke of someone who’d lived a harder life than many of the patients at Stratford

Estates.

Monica stepped closer to where Jenny pointed. A lifeless creature sprawled, limbs

askew, on the cracked concrete path less than ten feet from her front door. Just

this past weekend she’d meticulously replanted her flowerpots in an effort to brighten

the appearance of the sixties-style duplex. The animal’s once-gray fur was plastered

to its skin by blood from a gaping wound in its throat. Its body was contorted, with

feet splayed out as if there were no bones inside, and bright red entrails poured

from a hole in its stomach.

Monica lifted her hand to cover her mouth and nose, and swallowed hard as her gag

reflex jerked like a caged animal. A cat’s rage is beautiful, burning with pure cat

flame . . . William S. Burroughs.

“No. No. No. I can’t take this! Why does everything die?” The words poured out from

behind her hand.

Jenny shifted from foot to foot, questioning furrows forming on her brow. “Like I

said, sorry to be the bearer of bad news. You want me to go fetch a shovel from my

storage shed?”

Jenny’s earnest, twanging voice made Monica cringe. She was starting to feel ungrateful,

because Jenny was only trying to help. But the thoughts came anyway: If she’d wanted

to be really helpful, she could have taken care of the cat when she found it instead

of leaving it for me to deal with.

Monica turned toward Jenny, squaring her shoulders in an attempt to gain her composure.

Behind her fixed façade, her mind went wild. What do you do with a dead cat in the

middle of the city, for Christ’s sake? Call Animal Control? Toss it in the garbage

bin? Is that even legal? Bury it? Maybe set up a bonfire and have a private cremation?

Offer a royal ceremony for the dead? Oh geez, I’m losing my grip. Hold on, Monica.

It’s going to be okay.

Monica believed that if you just did the right thing, everything would be fine. She

couldn’t fall asleep at night if there were dirty dishes in the sink, and she wanted

to send apology notes to the city hall if she accidentally ran a red light. At work

she filed her reports on time and kept her desk neat and orderly. Her home was the

picture of perfection, even if it was a little shabby around the edges. A place for

everything and everything in its place. There was no place for a dead cat in her

tidy world. This was messy, disgusting, and more than a little disturbing. Not orderly

at all.

On the outside, Monica was the picture of a professional woman heading to work: tidy

auburn hair, black button-down shirtdress, sensible one-inch pumps. Inside, however,

she felt like the cat raging in her last moments before death: fur flying, teeth

barred, and insides tumbling out. A persistent gnawing in her gut murmured that this

was not about the cat.

“Shovel? You want me to fetch it now?” Jenny offered again.