Reluctant. That's the word.
I had no else to blame, since I was the one who said yes to the task, so I opened the car door reluctantly and climbed the four wide steps to the front door of Valley Manor Nursing Home. I rang the bell and waited for the buzzer that would unlock the red wooden door.
Perhaps it was some measure of guilt that inclined me to agree to Pastor Jim's request to visit Hazel at Valley Manor. My own mother had died there several years ago, and I had always felt I'd never gone often enough. My mother always denied being disappointed in the frequency of my visits and if she was lying, she hid it well, but I know I was disappointed in myself. So here I was today, in no position to disappoint Mrs. Hazel Chandler who was over the top at the prospect of my visit.
The receptionist, a scruffy but competent enough looking young man with the name Charl H. on his Valley Manor name badge welcomed me and called for Hazel. "You can wait for her here. She likes to wheel herself out to greet people."
Waiting for Hazel, I perused the bulletin boards with their cheery but childlike messages designed to keep the resident's spirits up. It always seemed that once people entered places like Valley Manor, they began to be treated like toddlers, to be entertained and kept out of trouble.
The changeable date and weather sign proclaimed, "Today is Wednesday, March 8, 2014. Make it a great day! Weather: Mostly cloudy, chance of sun late afternoon." I hoped that forecast predicted my day once I left here.
At last, Hazel emerged from the elevator and rolled herself easily over to my side. In an embarrassingly loud voice she proclaimed, "I hope Charlie here made you feel welcome." Charl just smiled.
She motioned for me to lean down and whispered secretively in my ear, "He's nice enough, but the hot one comes in at three o'clock." She seemed delighted in her attempt to shock me.
"I'll be sure to take a look on my way out then," I replied as conspiratorially as I could, hoping Charl was too busy tending to important matters like checking the residents' bus schedules to notice that women who could be his mother and grandmother were comparing his rear end to that of his co-worker. Maybe he would have been flattered.
Hazel led me up the elevator and down the broad hallway toward the common room where she wanted us to meet. Along the way, I peered into the rooms of other residents, some of whom we visible. Hazel seemed among the perkier of Valley Manor's clientele, a fact which surprised me given how Pastor Jim had described her.
"I think she is failing," he had said. "Doesn't have as much to say as she used to. Not repeating herself yet, but I think she reckons her time is coming."
"Any special topic I should either address or avoid?" I'd asked.
"Well, Linda," he had offered thoughtfully, "I'm not sure exactly what it is but I have a sense she has a confession to make, you know, before she can be at peace. I've given her every opportunity to speak it out loud, but she's never let it out. Maybe she'll reveal it to a woman."
So there I was, a reluctant woman on someone's idea of a mission to help an old lady get ready to die. I suppose I've run less noble errands.
* * *
Hazel and I spent about an hour getting to know one another. Turns out she and my mother had been great friends and bridge partners once upon a time. I never even knew my mother played bridge. I must have been away at college.
As I began dropping subtle hints that I probably needed to be leaving, I could detect no impending revelation of Hazel's misdeeds. I had imagined her lamenting she hadn't been a good enough wife or mother, something like that, but nothing of the sort was forthcoming. I was surprised to find myself feeling vaguely disappointed. Not that I really wanted to have to respond to anything, but Pastor Jim had piqued my curiosity and I guess I selfishly wanted something out of the visit for me too so I could say I had helped the old woman in some way.
Maybe that's why I suddenly blurted out, "Hazel, have you ever done anything you've regretted?"
"Something I've regretted?" she asked, as if to make sure she'd heard me correctly.
Suddenly embarrassed, I backpedalled, "Yes, but I'm sorry I asked. You don't have to answer. I should go." I stood up.
"Something I've regretted," she said again, but this time with a pondering tone. She lowered her head and drew her hands together to an almost prayerful pose. "Something I've regretted," she repeated again slowly.
Now I was the one with something to regret. I feared I'd opened that proverbial can of worms with no way to stuff the wriggling mess back in.
"Yes," she announced suddenly. I held my breath.
"It may not be what you expect, but yes," she said with the same mischievous tone she'd taken about Charl's afternoon replacement. "Sit down," she commanded. I obeyed.
"It is not so much something I regret doing, but rather what I regret not doing, even when I knew better." I imagined she had witnessed a murder and chose not to tell anyone.
"Yes, I knew better," she said with a rueful tone. "You see, I led them on. There were three of them. Sailors they were. Then, I couldn't stop it. And I never told a soul."
"You were raped?" I gasped. This was more than even Pastor Jim had bargained for.
"Raped?" she laughed. "Heaven's no, honey. You can't rape the willing!"
Seeing the relieved but puzzled look on my face, she smiled. Pausing to look around the room to see which of her fellow Valley Manor residents might be in earshot, she said softly, "Let me tell you a story."
* * *
I was forty-six years old before I had my first orgasm. I wasn't really the revolutionary type back then. Couldn't understand all those young people and their protests and sit-ins and burning down our cities, and all of that. I just wished they would leave us alone, but you couldn't escape. It was on the news all the time. I can't imagine what that poor Walter Cronkite must have felt having to read that on the television every single night.
