Between Thoughts of You

His mumbling no longer bothered her. It had become part of the soundtrack to the Tuscan landscape where she now lived. Only when she heard the old man start to gurgle, did she finally get up. Only then, did she stop numbly watching shadows of clouds as they drifted over the olive tree groves surrounding the villa. A slight breeze lifted her hair, now sticky from beads of sweat at the base of her neck. She lifted a glass of water from the patio table and calmly walked into the dark kitchen. The old man had terrible nightmares. He often woke up from them as if he were trying to scream under water. At that point, the gurgling noise would begin. During these episodes, it seemed to Lulu that her patient was desperately trying to stay in the dream, yet garner her attention, pull her inside—make her to join him in his mysterious world. She was his witness and his companion during his final journey. The dreams were somehow an important part of it all. “It’s okay Pops,” she said, while lifting his sweaty bald head to place a firm pillow behind it. His eyes were tightly closed, but his dry lips were slightly moving. She pulled a rickety whicker chair beside his thin hospital bed, pushing a button to lift his torso up higher. Lightly holding his arthritic hand, now covered in brown and grey liver spots from steroid use, she allowed him to sense her presence. His hand tightened on hers, before a slow smile spread across his tight, yet full lips. It was clear that he had once been incredibly handsome. She could tell by his grey blue eyes, the remnants of high cheek bones, his cleft chin. His eyes remained closed as his right hand twitched back and forth where it rested beside him in bed. She knew half of his mind was still tangled up in his latest dream, his latest adventure. Then the mumbling started. “Ah shee-” A loud barking cough screeched through, interrupting him. His closed eyelids tightened, his brow furrowed, as he struggled to continue: “Ah shee-ter--” Another barking cough. Then another. His frail chest rattled slightly after each cough, with wheezing asthmatic gasps softly erupting between each one. It’s time to give it up old man, let it go, she thought. Yet the old man fought to stay under, to keep dreaming—like a soul resisting surrender. His left hand, still balled into a fist, rested on her own palm. Her patient turned his head to the left, toward her, while still mumbling: “Ah she-” She thought it might be a request for ice, as coughing scraped his throat until it was raw and inflamed. The carabeener delivering oxygen slipped out of his right nostril, so she placed it back gently before rising to walk the few feet to the small kitchen where she kept a bowl of shaved ice in the freezer. Before returning to the old man, Lulu placed an ice chip at the base of her neck, enjoying the refreshing coolness. She paused momentarily, mesmerized by white steam particles as they drifted out of the freezer, disappearing, melting into the air by the open patio door. . A memory flashed across her mind’s eye then. Just a moment in time, yet it came back with clarity and intensity. Her husband had placed an ice chip at the base of her neck just like that. As he sat at the top of the hospital bed, cradling her with gentle arms. She had been curled into a tight ball, on her left side. The contractions were violent and unrelenting. Her nausea was unlike anything she had ever felt before. At one point, she wanted to die; wanted it all to end. The delicate ice, his soothing hand on her head, his whispers to push, his kisses on her forehead, were the only thing keeping her going. “You can do this. It’s going to be ok baby,” Kon said over and over. “I love you so much. Our little girl’s almost here. Don’t give up.” Kakkaaaa!! huhuhhu! The sound of the old man’s barking cough, followed by a shaking wheeze, ripped through the house, tearing Lulu away from her bittersweet memory. She was grateful. She wanted to hate her husband. And she hated herself for remembering any sweetness in him: in that life. It had been a false life. A lie. This is my real life. Right here. Right now. Nothing else matters, Lulu told herself. She then let out a deep sigh before walking back on the cold stone floors, that were likely 500 years old, as the villa itself. “It’s okay Pops.” She lifted an ice chip to his lips, first letting him sense its presence, its coolness, before she slipped it inside his mouth. His eyes fluttered open. The dreamy smile drained from his lips, as his demeanor turned angry. Both of his hands balled into tight fists, ready to rumble. Lulu decided to up the oxygen level on his machine and placed a hand over his left fist, softly easing it open. “She was here. It was real. I can still smell her. You know what I mean? You know what I’m trying to say?” The old man spoke perfect English, with a soft Italian accent. He had requested an American nurse, as he had lived most of his life in New York. Lulu smiled at him, but said nothing. She wondered if the morphine level had been too high, then realized that he was actually due for another dose. She had strongly disagreed with the old man's hospice physician when he advised her the first week on the job: “when in doubt, give morphine.” Dr. Barrio only managed to check in twice a month for quick, obligatory visits. Lulu had no respect for him. The doctor appeared weak, impatient, and completely terrified of death. Never with a spiritual or comforting word, he barely spoke with her patient at all. Perhaps he wasn't a true hospice physician? Whenever he had visited, both she and the old man couldn't wait for him to leave. So Lulu disregarded his advice and treated the old man's pain slightly differently on a daily basis. “You ever dream like that?” the old man asked, interrupting her thoughts. Lulu looked deeply into the old man’s grey-blue eyes that reminded her of a turbulent sea. “What? Oh, sorry. My mind wandered. No. I don’t dream anymore.” The old man leaned onto his left shoulder, as if sizing her up with a better view. Lulu had a round, pale and yellowish face, with eyes that were both almond shaped and long, slim at the same time. These were her genetic features given to her by her mother, who had been half Japanese and half Hawaiian. With vibrant green eyes, a tall forehead, a pointy chin, and freckles she had been named for, Lulu was clearly a genetic mutt. The day she was born, her great uncle Rusty named her “Lulua`ina [loo loo (w)ah' ee nah], meaning freckles in Hawaiian. Lulu grew into a tall young woman with long, thin black hair, also like her mother, but was angular and boney, unlike the rest of her Hawaiian family. These traits, she had surmised, were thanks to her German father. Her appearance fascinated the old man. The moment he gazed at her photograph attached to her application, he had demanded his sons fly Lulu out. Her resume wasn’t terribly impressive, they had argued. She’d get homesick and run back to Hawaii. Their arguments had all fallen flat. It didn’t matter that there might be ‘more qualified’ nurses in Italy—the old man had to meet Lulu. And when she walked into his bedroom that afternoon, with a few of his boys sitting around his bed, the old man knew she was the one. She was who he would die with. She was who he would tell. Just like that, he knew. Partly because of her Asian-Anglo appearance. And partly due to her quiet, respectful manner, reminding him of someone quite dear. The old man had to hire her. Plus, he had sensed a sadness beneath Lulu’s calm demeanor, like a storm that needed to be brewed. And oh how the old man loved brewing storms. He loved drama of any kind. And he especially loved beautiful women who needed to be rescued. “You’re heart-broken,” he spat out that afternoon, after recovering from his coughing jag. “Anyone can see that.” She blinked in response. “Dreams will come back to you, when you start to heal. Then, you’ll be ready for their messages.” He lifted an eyebrow before saying, “You know what I mean?” His signature catch phrase. The old man started to cough again so violently that Lulu had no choice but to give him his morphine dose—an immediate injection. Lulu hated needles, but knew it was the fastest way to relieve his pain. His lungs were now as hard as bricks. It was a miracle that he had managed to stay alive. The 85-year-old's body was shot. His mind, however, was still as sharp as ever. She hoped the morphine wouldn't put him in a dream-like state for the rest of the day. She cherished their talks. But now wasn't a time for them. After his injection, she prepared the nebulizer to deliver albuteral to his fractured lung capillaries—to ease them, to soften them, to allow for any possible opening. He hated whenever the 20 minute treatment began, as it meant that he could no longer talk. She had never met a man who liked to talk as much as Pops. As the morphine began to set in, his hands loosened. She leaned forward to put the plastic scoop of a mask around his nose and mouth. He instinctually waved a hand at her to stop. “You got to do that? I want to tell you about my dream. ‘For I forget.” Convulsing into coughs again, he was forced to wait for them to stop, before he could raise an eyebrow at Lulu as if to say: “The mind is willing, but the body ain't.” “Something tells me that you’ll remember that dream. Tell me later,” she said, placing the nebulizer cone around his nose and mouth, tucking the strap softly around the base of his head and behind his ears. Lulu kissed the top of his head as steam began to engulf his face. Before leaving, Lulu turned up the music on his CD player, now playing his favorite opera: La Boheme. She padded out the room and sat back down in her oasis: the side patio by the kitchen. Hills of cypress trees in the distance enclosed the family's olive tree grove like the tips of a crown. If she strained her neck to the right, she would be able to see rows of grape vines in the distance, dark green paint brush strokes dotting fields of mustard yellow semolina wheat. Although she couldn't see them from the patio, a short 30 minute walk to the west revealed rows of sun flowers that appeared to ache in a way understood—struggling to stand upright, but never managing to—their heavy heads falling forward in the heat, like defeated lions. The landscape felt unreal to her, like living inside a Van Gogh painting. It was the antithesis of Oahu in nearly every way. And for that, Lulu was extremely grateful. “No reminders. I need no more reminders,” she had told herself the day she left. Lulu’s hands shook as she raised a slim cigarette to her mouth and lit its end. She had closed the patio door earlier, so the old man wouldn’t smell the intoxicating tobacco, his nemesis. Even after his first hospitalization, Pops had infuriated his four sons when he took up smoking yet again. “What did I have to lose?” he had told her one afternoon when his energy level was high enough for a long chat. “See, they just didn’t understand. My boys. I had nothing rich in my life. I’m a shriveled up old man. No wife. No little kids. A business that runs itself. No richness,” he had paused and pretended to bring a cigarette to his mouth, while smiling sheepishly. “I'm not needed,” he continued, then shook the ice in his glass, asking for another. There was a light in his eyes that day and Lulu had been able to enjoy a full conversation with her patient, uninterrupted by frequent coughing jags. She decided Pops had to have been insanely charming in his youth. Lulu could visualize him at his favorite restaurant having cocktails with friends and gorgeous women. “No richness,” he continued. “No hope. I'll never walk again without a walker. You can't flirt with beautiful women in New York or Rome when you go to a bar using a walker and an oxygen tank. You know what I mean?” The old man poked her arm jokingly and laughed at himself. What a gift his laughter was. “The smell,” Pops continued, pretending to have a cigarette between his fingers. “God damn do I love that smell. It’s my richness.” His tone was tinged with a bit of naughtiness that made Lulu laugh. What a good day that had been. Lulu was able to wheel the old man out onto the patio and sit with him as the sun began to set. She even allowed him a glass of his favorite vodka with a sprig of mint and a squeeze of lime. She hadn’t dared to join him, although she was tempted. As the only nurse in the villa, Lulu couldn’t risk being intoxicated during an emergency. Once she had been hired, the old man stopped allowing any other nurses to work with her. “It's just you and me now kid,” he had told to her with a wink. Before Lulu began her position in Tuscany, Pops had a history of firing one nurse after another. One got fired for being fat. The old man said he hated the sound of panty hose rubbing together between chubby thighs. “It’s like daily water torture! You listen to that swish noise all day long and tell me you wouldn’t go pazzo!” he had yelled at Piero, his oldest. He fired another nurse because she had long nose hair. “Would you want to look up into that mess leaning over you every day? I mean, come on!” he had justified to Lorenzo, his youngest. Another nurse had gotten fired for having scary “man hands.” And yet another for crooked teeth and bad breath. Of course, the old man never told these nurses his reasons for dismissing them, but he had told his sons why. And his sons had to take time off work to manage the situation. In one way or another, all the stories had leaked back to Lulu. The old man was stubborn and used to getting his way. As his disease had progressed, for instance, he refused to live with any of his children. He demanded that he be taken care of in the family villa surrounded by the first olive tree grove he had purchased nearly sixty years earlier. It was an inconvenient request for the family. The villa was located where none of his sons needed to live or work. Fig, the family olive oil business, was based in New York, with factories and warehouses across Italy, but not in that region. His oldest son Piero, CEO of Fig, lived in New York, as did Johnny, his second, who oversaw sales and marketing. His third son also lived in New York, but had opted out of the family business to be a chef and run a restaurant. Once living in Paris, Pauli now found himself divorced and the owner of a Greenwich Village bistro, The French w***e. His youngest son, Lorenzo, was the only son to live full time in Italy. Lulu had discovered, however, that he had many limitations that got in the way of being a reliable source of help. Managing all the Italian warehouses and European distribution, meant Lorenzo was often traveling. He and his wife Sara and three-year-old daughter lived outside of Florence. They were only free to visit on Sundays, and not every week. In retrospect, Lulu had been insane to accept a position as a solo, in-residence hospice nurse. There would never be shift changes. She received only one half-day off a week, when Lorenzo visited on Sundays. There might be the occasional “weekend off” when the oldest son Piero flew in from New York. But both times he had visited, Piero requested that Lulu stay and help. Of course she had to say yes. Clearly, Lulu was crazy to accept such a demanding position. She couldn’t deny that. Her boss at The Queen's Medical Center in Oahu, where she worked for 10 years, had yelled at her: “The liability alone is nuts!” And of course, without any back up or shift changes, it was clear that Lulu would burn out—get exhausted mentally and physically—and would likely need psychiatric help by the end of it. But she hadn’t cared. If she had stayed in Honolulu any longer, she would have died. It was that simple. And yet, that was what no one in her family understood. Lulu had been on a collision course with depression and suicidal thoughts. She had to find a way out. And she did. Besides, could the job really exhaust her mentally and physically more then she already was? Deep down, some of her family had to have known how bad it was. They had all walked around on egg shells around her. No one joked with her anymore. They were all waiting and watching for her to break. She was tired of being treated like a pice of china dangling off a high shelf. She had spent the last three months with her head down at work, or hiding at home. She craved to go as far away as she could. So when she discovered the post on the hospital lounge board advertising a home hospice position in Tuscany, Lulu jumped on it. It was the first irrational choice she had ever made. And it had felt great. So what if taking care of the old man was an unrelenting job? She had been through tougher challenges. She would make it work. She would focus every moment on it, like treading water toward solid ground. Because where she had come from—her family, her friends, her home—had become violently unrecognizable. Time hadn't healed any of her wounds. There was no question in her mind—even after a month of exhausting round-the-clock work—this job was saving her life.