The Only One Left by Riley Sager
SEVEN
We eat dinner in silence, something I’ve become quite used to in the past six months. I sit facing Lenora, making sure our knees don’t touch. Since we left the typewriter, I’ve kept physical contact to a minimum.
Our plates sit on the wooden tray I attached to Lenora’s wheelchair. Roasted chicken and glazed carrots for me, mashed acorn squash seasoned with crushed pills for Lenora. Since I don’t know who to feed first, me or her, I decide to alternate bites. One mouthful for Lenora and one for me until both plates are cleaned.
After dinner is dessert. I get chocolate cake. Lenora gets pudding.
After dessert, it’s time for Lenora’s evening circulation exercises. Something I’m not looking forward to because it means our limited contact must come to an end. For the rest of the evening, Lenora and I are going to be uncomfortably close.
I use the Hoyer lift to get her out of the wheelchair and onto the bed. It requires sliding the sling under her, raising her out of the wheelchair, moving the whole contraption while she dangles like a kid on a swing, lowering her onto the bed, then pulling the sling out from under her. It’s easier in theory than in practice, especially because Lenora is heavier than she looks. A surprising sturdiness hides inside her birdlike frame.
On the bed, I lift Lenora’s right leg before bending it, pushing the knee toward her chest. Lenora stares at the ceiling while I do it, seemingly bored. I think about how many times—with how many different nurses—she’s had to do this. Thousands, most likely. Morning and evening, day after day after day. When I move on to her left leg, Lenora lolls her head to the side, as if trying to see past me to the window.
Even though it’s dark now and there’s not much to see, I understand why. It’s better than looking at the ceiling. At least there’s variety out there, even in the darkness. The full moon sits so low on the horizon it looks like it’s bobbing on the ocean’s surface. Clouds as thin as fingers drift in front of it. In the distance, a ship cruises through the night, its lights as bright as stars.
I glance down at Lenora and notice longing in her eyes. I can relate. All my life, I’ve felt like the world is passing me by. I was born in 1952, and my late teens coincided with the end of the sixties. I spent my high school years working in a diner, watching as my few friends decamped to San Francisco, skipped north into Canada to avoid the draft, went to Woodstock and came back tuned in, turned on, dropped out. I watched the moon landing on the evening shift, catching glimpses of history while carrying trays of blue plate specials.
My mother assured me not to worry. That by reading, whole worlds could be explored without ever leaving home. My father, on the other hand, warned me to get used to it.
“It’s our lot in life, Kit-Kat,” he told me. “People like us toil. The rich bastards running everything make sure of that.”
I believed him. I think that’s partly how I ended up a caregiver, so willing to put others’ needs before mine, not even daydreaming about a bigger life.
“I don’t get out much, either,” I tell Lenora. “I’ve basically been stuck inside for the past twelve years.”
Phrasing it that way startles me. Twelve long years. Not as long as Lenora, but stuck all the same. Only the rooms and patients have changed. I try to remember them all and am surprised when I can’t. How strange it is to have spent so much time in a single place with someone and forget everything about it. About them. I chalk that up to monotony. The people and places were different, but the job was the same. Day after week after year until it all became a blur. It dawns on me that, probably like Lenora, I completely missed the seventies. All those touchstones everyone else got to experience passed me by like a speeding car. I never went to a disco. I didn’t see Jaws until it was shown on TV. I breezed through both gas crises without ever waiting in line to fill my tank. Watergate and all the political upheaval that came afterward was mere background noise as I spoon-fed patients and gave them their pills and sponged their withered bodies.
A brief pain pierces my side. Like a knife poking into my ribs. Longing, I realize. For a life I’ve never had—and likely never will.
“You ever feel that way, Lenora?” I say. “That there’s a whole life out there you could have lived but didn’t?”
Lenora taps twice against the mattress.
“I thought so.”
Soon we’re done with the exercises and on to the next task—bath time. In the bathroom, I start filling the tub before wheeling Lenora in next to it. When it’s full, I reach for Lenora’s left hand but can’t bring myself to grasp it. Just like that, I’m back to being nervous touching her.
Mentally cursing Mr. Gurlain, I force my hand around Lenora’s and dip it into the water. “Too hot?”
Lenora raps once against the tub. No.
“Are you sure?” I say, stalling, not wanting to face what’s next—slipping Lenora out of her clothes.
After two taps signaling the affirmative, there’s no more avoiding it. Lenora Hope and I are about to get intimately acquainted.
At the start of my career, I used to avert my eyes when undressing a patient. Out of respect for them, yes, but also because I didn’t want to see what the future had in store for me. All those wrinkles and blotches and saggy breasts. Now I’ve come to terms with it. This is what I’ll eventually look like. What everyone will look like. If they’re lucky, that is. Or maybe if they’re unlucky. I’m still on the fence about that.
Seeing a patient naked is simply part of the job. It’s the same with bodily fluids. In the past twelve years, I’ve encountered most of them. Blood and urine. Puke and snot. And shit. Way too much of that.
I use the Hoyer lift to get Lenora into the tub. A task made more difficult by the cramped bathroom, my ill-fitting uniform, and that lingering urge to have as little physical contact between us as possible. It all leaves me awkward and fumbling, to the point where I accidentally knock Lenora’s elbow against the tub’s edge. She flashes a narrow-eyed look of annoyance.
“Sorry,” I say.
Lenora sighs, and for the first time I sense frustration that she’s not able to speak. The feeling is mutual. There’s so much I want to ask her. So much I need to know. Because I don’t think I can continue like this. Nervous in her presence. Afraid to even touch her, which is pretty much the reason I’m here—to do all the things Lenora’s right arm and legs can’t.
“We need to talk,” I say. “I mean, I need to talk.”
I pause, as if Lenora can respond. Instead, her silence fills the bathroom like steam, making it feel small, almost oppressive.
“You’re right. I’m scared. I’ll try not to be. But it’s hard. Maybe it would be easier if I knew why—”
I catch myself before I can finish the sentence. Why you killed the rest of your family. Lenora knows what I mean anyway. I can sense it as I squeeze shampoo into my hands and start to lather her hair.
“Because I might understand.”
I cup water into my hands and pour it over Lenora’s head, taking care to keep soapy water from getting into her eyes. My mother did the same thing when I was young. I returned the favor when, years later, I had to bathe her. The act has always struck me as something sacred. Like a baptism. Doing it now, in this stuffy, silent bathroom, puts me in a confessional mood.
That’s something my father suggested, right before he all but stopped talking to me. Go to the priest. Confess my sins.
I didn’t then. But I attempt it now.
“It turns out, we’re a lot alike, Lenora.” I cup more water, splash it onto her head, let it trickle down her hair as if the act will absolve us both. “We both like books. We haven’t been anywhere for years and years. And I know what you’re going through.”
I pause, unsure if I should continue. Or if I even want to. But then Lenora gives me a sidelong glance, looking as curious about me as I am about her.
“That’s the biggest thing we have in common,” I finally say. “That everyone thinks I also killed my mother.”
