Sitting Still

by Sarah Nelle

Kate slams the car door a little too hard. She tucks her bracelet deep into the pocket of her second-hand scrubs as she starts across the staff parking lot to Shady Grove Rehabilitation. She’s not allowed to wear jewelry that might get in the way, but she can’t bear to leave it behind.

She keeps her hand in her pocket as she walks, passes the beads one by one through her fingers.

She’s had the bracelet since she was ten, when the tiny insects trapped forever in drops of amber caught her eye in a museum gift shop. Usually it’s calming. She fidgets with the beads when she’s stuck in traffic, or stumped by a line of code, or waiting for a date to show.

Today it mocks her.

Stuck, the flies whisper from their golden graves. Stuck, stuck, stuck.

As if she needs the reminder.

As if Kate would be starting a job as a care attendant if everything hadn’t gone horribly wrong.

***

Darcy, Kate’s new supervisor, waits at the front desk.

Kate never would have applied for the job if not for Darcy, never would have considered it. She knows, realistically, that Darcy probably greeted every single person at the job fair with the same enthusiasm, that Shady Grove is desperate for staff, generally, not for Kate, specifically.

But, still.

Kate has sent out nearly a hundred job applications since the layoffs. She’s received maybe a dozen responses, all some generic version of “unfortunately.” Most firms haven’t even bothered to reply.

It feels good to be needed.

“Good morning, Kate!” Darcy says brightly.

On anyone else, the cheerfulness would seem false. Grating, even. On Darcy, though, with her warm brown eyes, the lilac scrubs that strain a bit over soft curves, it makes Kate take a half step closer to soak in a bit of her warmth.

“I just want you to start getting your bearings today,” Darcy continues. “I know it can all be a bit much at first; I don’t want to overwhelm you with training. Sound okay?”

“Sure.” Kate grips the beads harder at the reminder. When she’d told Tessa about her new job, her friend had wrinkled her nose.

“What, like wiping people’s butts?” she’d asked.

No. At least, not yet. A mountain of student loan debt and she won’t even be qualified to help someone use the toilet for another six weeks.

If Darcy notices Kate’s discomfort, she doesn’t say anything. She pulls a pen from the mass of dark curls piled on top of her head and checks something on a clipboard. “You’ll mostly be working with our rehab team, but all our residents use the same common areas and you’ll do some shifts over in the long-term wing when we’re short staffed. We’ll go catch the end of breakfast so you can meet people.”

Kate spins the beads in her pocket as she follows Darcy through the dining room. It’s nicer than she expected, though she doesn’t have much to compare it to, just vague memories of a hospital cafeteria when her grandma was sick. This looks more like a restaurant–dark navy linens and crisp white napkins set neatly on round tables, widely spaced in the large room to accommodate residents’ walkers and wheelchairs.

Darcy stops at each table, greets every resident by name, asks them about their families, spouses and children and grandchildren.

Kate does her best to remember.

A barrel-chested man grins when they get to his table. Kate always thought that “twinkling eyes” was a figure of speech reserved for fairy tales and Santa Claus, but there’s no other way to describe the way mischief sparkles in his bright blue eyes.

“I keep telling you, Darcy,” he rumbles, “it doesn’t matter how many beautiful women you hire, you can’t tempt me. I’ve been with my Marianne for nearly forty years now.”

Darcy rolls her eyes. “And I keep telling you that anti-harassment policies don’t only apply to staff.” She winks at Kate. “Don’t mind Jim. He’s harmless.”

“Harmless!” Jim clutches his left hand to his chest as if wounded. “I had my pick of the ladies back in the day, I’ll have you know.”

He offers Kate his left hand and Darcy clears her throat pointedly.

Jim groans.

“You’re the one who’s in such a hurry to leave us,” Darcy quips.

It takes him a moment and his face screws up in concentration, but Jim unclenches his right hand and slowly extends his arm. When Kate shakes his hand, it’s warm and calloused. 

“Jim Davies,” he tells Kate. “Good to meet you. And no offense, I’ve just got to get out of here before my new grandbaby comes. My oldest has three, but this is Alice’s first.”

“Congratulations! Is she having a boy or a girl?” Kate asks.

Jim throws up his hand in exasperation. Now that he’s stopped focusing, his right arm is back against his stomach, the fingers curled into a fist.

“She won’t tell me! She wants it to be a surprise!” Jim lowers his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’ve got a betting pool going, if you want in. Cheryl–” he nods at a woman with sleek white hair a few tables over–”has everyone convinced it’s a boy because she’s been right about all six of her grandkids, but I think it’s a girl.”

Darcy rolls her eyes again. “Is it too much to ask for you to wait a day before corrupting my staff? Come on, you’re going to be late for PT.”

Kate’s gaze catches on Jim’s leg as Darcy takes the handles of his wheelchair and rolls him back from the table. The left footrest of his wheelchair is empty; his khaki pants are neatly cuffed right where his knee should have been.

She looks away quickly, but Jim catches her.

“Don’t worry about that, Katie girl. That leg’s been gone since before you were born.” He taps his head with a broad finger. “I was doing just fine before the brain decided to cause trouble.”

It’s so fast she almost misses it. Bitterness creeps into his words, his broad shoulders slump, just for an instant, before he fixes the smile back on his face.

Jim wheels himself, but Darcy keeps her hands on the handles, occasionally correcting his course when he veers to the left.

They pass a cluster of wingbacked chairs arranged in front of a large window. Darcy nods to the tiny woman sitting in one of the chairs, wrapped up in a thick crocheted blanket.

“Rose is one of our long term residents. Why don’t you sit with her for a bit?”

“Just…sit?” Kate asks.

Darcy laughs. “Enjoy it while you can; we don’t get the chance very often. But yes, just sit. Rose doesn’t talk much, but she enjoys the company.”  

Kate waves goodbye to Jim and sits in the chair next to Rose. It’s more comfortable than she expected; she sinks a little in the plush upholstery.

“Hi,” she says. “I’m Kate. Is it…is it okay if I sit here?”

Rose nods, her pale gray eyes still fixed on the courtyard garden just outside the window. A book rests on her lap. Kate can just make out the cover between Rose’s gnarled fingers.

A birdwatching guide.

Kate fidgets. She doesn’t just sit.

A little brown bird lands on the stone wall of the fountain. It looks perfectly ordinary to Kate, but Rose sits up straighter. Her hands shake when she tries to turn the pages of her book.

“Here,” Kate offers, “let me.”

***

            Kate splurges on a new pair of scrubs–actually new, not just new to her–to celebrate when she completes her training. They fit better than the ones she found at the thrift store, more comfortable. Or maybe she just feels better in them. A little bit less like an imposter, now that she’s waded through what Darcy calls the alphabet soup of ADLs and PRNs, learned the difference between PTs, OTs, and SLPs, Medicares A through D, and how to chart to make sure they pay.

            She still tucks the amber beads in her pocket each morning, even though she knows it’s silly. Kate’s always been like this, just a little superstitious. Why risk it, she thinks. It becomes her talisman, her good luck charm, her reminder to breathe, though she needs it less as the weeks go on.

            She’s busier now, just like Darcy warned she would be, but she still finds time to sit with Rose whenever she can. Together they’ve watched the courtyard turn into a winter wonderland. Thick, fluffy snow covers the fountain and the stone bench.

            She has a bird watching app now, though Rose still prefers her book to Kate’s phone.

            Just last week, Kate surprised herself by gasping in delight when a cardinal made his appearance. She might have been embarrassed if Rose hadn’t been similarly excited.

***

            Alice sits next to Jim, hands resting on her enormous belly, with a bemused expression as all three of her nephews race toy cars in circles around their chairs. The youngest falls trying to keep up with his brothers and lets out a blood curdling screech.

Meg, Jim’s oldest, picks him up and plops him into Jim’s lap, where he quiets immediately, thoroughly engrossed with the wheel on Jim’s chair.

“You ready for this?” he asks Alice.

She laughs, shakes her head. “Probably not.”

“We’ll all be there for you,” he promises.

Kate sees him flex his arm, just to prove to himself that he can. That he’ll be ready.

***

            Jim sits in the center of a crowd of residents like a king presiding over his subjects, but Kate catches the way his smile wavers when he thinks no one is watching.

Someone passes her a card to sign: “Welcome Baby” in sparkly pink cursive across the front.

“Looks like you were right, Jim. Is everyone doing well?”

Jim nods. “Little Josie Anne just couldn’t wait. She’ll be in the hospital for another day or so, but she and Alice are both healthy.”

“That’s wonderful.”

Jim nods again. He stares at the table for a long moment before he sighs.

“Actually, Kate, could you bring me back to my room? All this excitement has worn me out.”

Kate takes the handles of Jim’s wheelchair and carefully maneuvers him through the crowd of wellwishers. He has most of his strength back, now, but lets Kate wheel him down the hallway. Darcy would probably make him do it himself, but she doesn’t say anything. She recognized the look in his eyes.

Disappointed. Stuck.

Early or not, Jim’s self-imposed deadline has passed.

Josie Anne has arrived and Jim isn’t there to hold her.

“Do you want to call Alice?” Kate asks when they’re back in Jim’s room. It’s bright and cozy, with a patchwork quilt to cover the stark white sheets on the bed. Every inch of space is covered with photographs and drawings, knickknacks and toys his grandsons have brought to keep him company, down to a well-loved stuffed tiger on his pillow.

“We can even do a video call, so you can see Josie.”

Jim frowns. “I don’t know if my phone does that.”

For her first few weeks, Kate tried to explain that a degree in computer science doesn’t mean she’s an expert in all forms of technology. She’s long since given up and accepted her role as Shady Grove’s onsite tech support.

“I’ll help you,” she says. “We can even do it on your tablet, so you can see better.”

“Are you implying that I’m old, Katie girl?” Jim asks. A bit of his usual jolliness comes back into his voice. “My eyes work just fine, thank you very much.”

***

            Kate sips her beer. It’s flat now, and so warm it’s almost undrinkable, but she nurses it anyway. Better than admitting that she’d only ordered it because it was the cheapest thing on the menu and had still flinched at the cost. Across the table, Tessa is on her third fizzy cocktail.

Like Kate, Tessa had started working at a big tech firm in the city right after graduation. Unlike Kate, she’d survived the layoffs. For now, at least. She chews her biodegradable straw down to a pulp when the subject comes up.

            “It won’t last,” Tessa says. “Pretty soon everyone’s going to be scrambling to rehire developers. You’re still applying, right?”

            Kate shakes her head. “I signed a contract with Shady Grove. I’d have to pay them back for my training if I quit early.”

            Tessa dismisses her with a wave of her freshly manicured hand. “A firm will pay that off, if they want you badly enough.”

            “Which firm? The ones that don’t even bother to send me a rejection?”

            Tessa trades her mangled straw for a napkin. Tiny shreds of paper fall to the table in a messy imitation of the snow outside.

            All evening they’ve danced around it: the fact that Kate ran back to her parents’ house in the suburbs, her childhood bedroom with its pale pink walls and its frilly curtains, all while Tessa rents a downtown apartment in a brand new high-rise.

            Now it hangs in the air between them, sharp and sour. Not jealousy, not exactly. Just…distance. As if Tessa exists in an entirely different orbit, one that briefly intersected with Kate’s and is now veering off again.

            It’s only been a few months since they’ve seen each other, but Kate barely recognizes her friend.

            Shiny, that’s the best way she can describe Tessa. The fairy lights strung around the bar glimmer off her perfect hair, the jewelry at her neck and wrists and ears, her polished nails and brand new phone. There’s even glitter in her drink.

            Kate takes the final sip of beer and sets down her glass.

            “Do you want another?” Tessa asks. “On me,” she adds quickly.

            “That’s okay,” Kate says. “I should get going.”

            On the train home, she leans against the window and watches the snow. It sparkles in the city lights, the glow of windows and neon signs. Even the streets shine when the snow settles on the pavement.

            Little by little, it fades behind her.

            She hasn’t applied for a job in weeks. Not just because of the contract, whatever she told Tessa.

Because as shiny as that life is, she doesn’t want it. 

***

            When Kate gets to work Monday morning she doesn’t see Jim in the dining room. She assumes he caught the cold that had been making its rounds through Shady Grove and collects a plate of breakfast and a cup of coffee – black, but with so much sugar you’d think his grandson had made it – and takes it to Jim’s room.

            When she arrives, though, the room is bare – the mattress stripped, all the cards and photos and flowers cleared away. The sharp scent of antiseptic still hangs in the air.

Kate finds Darcy at the nurses’ station.

“Did Jim go home?” she asks.

The look on Darcy’s face answers for her.

“What happened?”

“He had another stroke, a massive one. There was nothing anyone could have done.”

Kate steps back before Darcy can hug her. She doesn’t cry. Never.

The day she was laid off, she reformatted her resume, set up alerts on seven different job boards, and sent out eleven applications.

There’s always something to be done. Some next step to take.

Because if there’s not, if she stops, she might never move again. The hurt and the fear, the frustration and anger and uncertainty, all of it will surround her, hot and sticky, will flood her mouth and nose, fill her lungs when she tries to scream, harden to stone with her trapped inside, just like the amber beads in her pocket.  

“I thought people come here to get better?” It slips free, small and childish even to her own ears.

“They do, sweetheart. But people also come here because they’ve been sick or hurt, and sometimes things happen.”

This time, when Darcy steps closer, Kate lets her put a hand on her arm.

“I won’t lie and tell you it gets easier. But you do learn to find the good. Jim met his granddaughter because of you. Not in the way he wanted, but you did that, Kate. You made his time here better.” She squeezes Kate’s arm gently. “Do you want to go home?”

Kate shakes her head.

At home, there’s truly nothing to do. Just her parents, who will wonder why she’s home so early, why she cares so much about a man she knew so briefly.

Here, at least, there’s understanding.

Kate sees it in the way Darcy’s eyes shine a little brighter, the way she smiles softly, her hand still on Kate’s arm: she knows the peculiar intimacy that comes from caring. What it is to be trusted with the most human of tasks. The way it changes you to know someone in that way.

She wants to be here, amidst the simplicity and tiny splendors of everyday life, the things she was too busy to notice before.

***

            Snow still clings in shadowy patches, but the hardy spring flowers bloom in the courtyard, even brighter against the dingy white.

Kate checks that Rose’s coat is zipped all the way up. It makes Rose look twice as big as she really is, but she smiles from the little cocoon of her faux-fur hood. She holds onto Kate’s arm as they walk slowly through the garden.

Shuffle, really.

Kate doesn’t mind. She used to, not that long ago. She’s always been a fast walker, always going somewhere.

Now she takes her time, enjoys the sun on her face and the soft scent of flowers after months and months of cold gray skies.

Rose is less stable than she was just a few months ago. She’s wheezing slightly when they stop at a stone bench to rest.

They won’t be able to stay long; even in the sun, the chill will force them inside soon.

The last time Rose’s family visited, Darcy mentioned hospice.

Kate sits beside her, enjoys the time they have.

Rose hums softly to herself, a tune Kate doesn’t recognize. Something from her childhood, perhaps, or just nonsense. It’s pleasant, regardless.

Kate pulls the bracelet from her pocket while they sit, spins the beads and listens to them clack softly in her gloved hands.

Not mocking, not anymore.

She is still, but not stuck. Not trapped, not suffocating.

Exactly where she is supposed to be.