Aged

by Elana Cohen

Arthur sighed. The pictures were wrong. They looked stupid here, just like the furniture. He hiked up his pants at the knee as he slowly lowered himself to the bed. He sat, rubbing his knees as he stared at the wall in front of him. All wrong, he thought.

There was a knock at the door. “Arthur? Are you in there?” Arthur looked up to see the young nurse peeking her head through the door.

“Right here,” Arthur responded.

“Come on now. It’s not that bad here, is it?” the nurse asked, turning her face down into a frown. Arthur didn’t reply.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it,” the nurse chirped. “It’s always hard to make friends at first, but you’ll be one of the gang in no time! Just ask Mary Tomlee, down in 325. When she first arrived here she didn’t know a soul, but now look at her!” Jeez Lyn, how did this happen? Arthur thought, tuning out the nurse’s incessant chatter.

***

“No.”

“Dad come on, you can’t do this.”

“Yes I can.” Arthur’s face was stern as he stared straight ahead, past his son and daughter-in-law.

“It’s not safe here Artie. What if you fell?” Don’t call me Artie, Arthur thought as his daughter-in-law, Jackie, stared down at him, her eyes wide with concern. She looked like a deer, a big stupid deer who breathes in your face because she’s always too damn close to you. Arthur coughed as his lungs filled with her sickeningly sweet perfume.

Jackie’s face fell sympathetically, her eyebrows lifting, scrunching the skin on her forehead as her head cocked to the side. She wasn’t bad to look at he supposed. She had a round face and those eyes might have been exotic and intriguing if they weren’t so goddamn pathetic looking. The main thing that Arthur hated about her was her wits; she was about as dumb as a doorknob.

Arthur never could understand why Dan had married her. He was smart, handsome and had been the star of his high school baseball team. He could throw a ball faster then any other boy on the field. Dan used to have the prettiest gal, a girl named Kate. Both Arthur and Lyn were sure that Dan was going to marry her. She was smart and funny and could sing better then the birds. They dated through high school and then most of college, until this Jackie showed up and suddenly Kate was out of the picture. Lyn still loved to see her though, inviting her over for dinner or tea. Arthur always thought that in some ways, Lyn took it personally when Dan ended it with Kate, them getting along so well and all. In the end though, it wasn’t about Lyn, or anyone else for that matter, it was about Dan, and now Jackie.

“I’m not going, I tell you.”

“Dad, just have a look at it. It’s nice, really. The people are nice, the nurses are nice, everything is perfect, harmonious, just like it says on the pamphlet right here.” Dan extended the glossy brochure out to Arthur. On the front cover it had a picture of two senior citizens smiling lovingly at each other and holding hands on a hill as they watched the sun setting in the distance. Above the image were the words Harmonious Village scrawled out in perfect, flowing cursive. Directly below in smaller type were the words A Home for the Aged.

Aged. Arthur laughed. He didn’t mind the idea of getting old, he understood how the world worked and that eventually he would have to die. He just never thought it would be like this, but then again, he had never imagined living in a big empty house alone either.

Dan and Jackie left Arthur to think about what they had discussed. Arthur knew that Dan was only trying to help, deep down he did know, but this wasn’t a decision for Dan to make; it was for him. Goddamit, he thought as he walked down the hallway and up the wooden staircase. As he slowly made it up the stairs, he looked at the pictures on the staircase wall. There were baby pictures of Dan, pictures of Lyn holding Dan the way only a mother can, pictures of the life that their family had built in this house. At the top of the stairs was Arthur’s favorite. It was a picture of Lyn on their wedding day, all dressed up in white lace, her train billowing down below her feet. Her eyes pierced through the picture, a slight smile broadening across her face. My Mona Lisa.

Arthur had never imagined life without Lyn and when she fell sick abruptly, Arthur shook it off, knowing Lyn’s resiliant nature. Even when her condition continued to deteriorate, Arthur still had hope. Lyn’s death wasn’t a surprise to anyone but Arthur. The idea of not having Lyn by his side at all times wasn’t plausible. Since her death, everyone had decided that he was an invalid child. Neighbors whom he had never seen before suddenly came to check on him, people didn’t trust him to drive and now this. Now his own house was being taken from underneath him. His only son was forcing him into an assisted living facility.

“I know how to live on my own. I don’t need assistance,” Arthur said aloud to himself as turned into walked down the hall to the study. As he slowly ambled down the hallway, he stopped and peered into Dan’s room, or at least what used to be Dan’s room. It was still arranged just as Dan had left it. On the bookshelves were trophies and certificates of completion for this or that. Arthur stepped into the room. As his feet slowly slid his feet across the room and over the rug, he was reminded of the pride he used to feel while talking about Dan to his friends. He was always Arthur’s favorite topic of conversation.

Now, however, Arthur felt betrayed. Why would Dan do this to him? Separate him from the house, from Lyn… Just then, Arthur heard the door slowly creek open.

“Dad?” Arthur heard Dan call from downstairs.

“I’m upstairs,” Arthur replied. The stairs creaked underneath Dan’s weight as he made his way to the second floor.

“What are you doing in my room?” Dan asked as he stepped in beside his father. “I haven’t been in here in a long time,” Dan said as he picked an old baseball, throwing it up in the air and catching it again.

“Neither have I,” Arthur admitted as he turned towards his son.

Dan smiled back. “Dad, you really should think about moving….”

Arthur’s face quickly fell. “I’m not a child Dan. You are my son, not the other way around. You can’t just put me anywhere. This is my home, this is where I live, and this is where I will die. Here, in my house. I am an adult goddamnit!”

Dan took a step back at his father’s sudden surge of anger. “And what about me?

Arthur looked at his son in disbelief. “What about you? You are forcing me out of my home. You are making me leave the last forty years of my life behind while you sell the house and make a profit so that your wife can get her hair done and buy that ridiculous perfume she always wears while I live in a prison for old people.”

“Is that what you think, Dad?” Dan asked, laughing to himself. “Do you really think that this is all just an elaborate scheme so that Jackie can buy more of that god-awful perfume?”

Arthur didn’t answer.

“Come on Dad, really? I don’t understand why you think I am physically incapable of doing something that is not for myself. Dad, I’m worried about you. You live here all alone and despite whatever you might think, I am actually concerned about if you did fall. Or what if something else happened and you were all alone in this house by yourself? That scares me dad. That scares me a lot.”

“I’m not a child,” Arthur murmured defensively.

“Neither am I.” Arthur looked up at Dan. His face was neutral, as he took a step closer to his father. “Dad, I am an adult now. A successful, happy, perfectly capable adult. I’m not sixteen anymore.”

“I know that.”

“Do you, dad?”

“Yes, I do. But you’re still so young. You don’t know the things that I know.”

“Dad, I’m thirty.” Dan took a seat on the bed. “You have been and always will be older than me. I can’t deny that, but there comes a time when you have to acknowledge that I am an adult as well.”

“You’re just so different from when you were little, sometimes I feel like I don’t know you anymore.”

“That’s what happens, people grow up. I mean do you truly want me acting like I did when I was ten?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Arthur snapped. “We used to talk on the phone, you and Kate would come over for dinner- ”

“Don’t make this about Kate.”

“And why not? You know how much it hurt your mother when you two split up. And then you come in here with that nitwit Jackie? How were we supposed to react?” “You were supposed to support me,” Dan said, standing up from the bed swiftly. “You were supposed to give Jackie the same love and welcome that you gave Kate. Things change and that’s okay, or at least it is to everyone but you.”

“It wasn’t okay with your mother. Sometimes I’m glad she’s not here to listen to what you say.”

“Nothing that I am saying is unreasonable! Listen to yourself. I am asking you to be decent to my wife and you reply by telling me how much my dead mother would be ashamed of me? Jesus Christ, do you think about the words at all before leave they your mouth?”

Arthur paused. He opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again.

“You’re right.” Dan turned to face his father, surprised by his words. “I’m a crotchety old man,” Arthur laughed to himself. “What would your mother say?”

Arthur stood up and took a step towards his son.

“I’m sorry.”

Arthur looking into hi son’s eyes.

“Will you go to the retirement home?” Dan asked.

“No.”

***

Arthur got up and slowly moved around his new “apartment”. There were three rooms: A bathroom, a bedroom and an all inclusive kitchen, dining room and living room. This had never been his choice. After Dan had left, as Arthur hurried down the stairs, trying to catch him on his way out, Arthur fell. Arthur knew as he lay on the floor that he had lost his battle.

He opened the cabinet above the sink and pulled out one of his three water glasses. There wasn’t any need or room to bring more; he wouldn’t be hosting any dinner parties or anything. He let out a sigh as he turned around to head back into the bedroom. Arthur took a deep breath as he sat back down on his bed. His hip hurt where it had fractured, and while the doctors said that it was healed, Arthur still felt a throb throughout most of the day.

He glanced at the clock; 5:30, time for dinner. He began to raise himself from the bed and took another look at the pictures on the wall behind his dresser.

“Still wrong,” he said to himself, a smile slowly creeping into the sides of his mouth.