This is what Jessie whispered in her grandmother’s ear:

	Inside the Jewel Box there were crystal-clear pools with bright slipping shadows 

of fish:  mudskippers, seahorses, Missouri-bred salamanders.  Above them, steel arches 

that mirrored the smooth, easy curve of the Gateway Arch in downtown St. Louis.  

Windows that let in a great amount of light, a fine white wash on the walls.  
	
	There were tropical trees, waterfalls and fountains, and below us, golden 

pheasants and flamingos flashed among thick bushes and trickling streams.  In the 

trees, scarlet ibis.  A touch-pool, with turtles and crayfish.

	Nini lay on a small bed, too close to the floor.  Listening?   It had been forty 

years since the two of them had travelled to the St. Louis Zoo.  Jessie had been just

a girl!  But she remembered how fast the train had moved, how quickly corn rows 

and fields freckled with cows had rushed past the window.  

	Now, beyond the window of Nini’s nursing home, a lean tree bowed in the 

wind.  Nini weighed 76 pounds. She wouldn’t eat.  A blue plastic band circled her wrist, 

naming her:  Edith Hinote Rathbun.  Her white hair was soft and smelled of sweet 

shampoo, but yellow and purple bruises floated under her eyes.   Her gown was covered 

with small blue birds.

	Jessie wanted her grandma back.
	
	When Nini’s stomach growled, Jessie’s ears ate up the sounds, grateful for even 

this small sign of her.  

	Do you remember?  Jessie whispered into the translucent ear.  

	They’d taken the train from Kansas City, from the ornate stone Union Station.  

As the train pulled from the platform, Jessie watched her parents grow small.  It was the 

first time she’d left them behind, the first time she’d set out for somewhere unknown.

	On board, she sat prim and happy next to Nini, who wore a dark gray coat with a 

gold circle pin in its lapel.  

	The weekend trip to St. Louis was a present for Jessie’s tenth birthday.  They’d 

visited the zoo with its Rose Garden and Jewel Box, the Veldt with its swampy alligator 

pool.  
	
	Now, Jessie wanted to remind her grandmother of that magical trip.  She didn’t 

want her to die.  But she would have to, and it was better Nini not be afraid.  So Jessie 

spoke slowly, describing a beautiful place, like the place she hoped Nini might go.

	There were birds swooping to rest in the branch of a tree, lush habitats enclosed 

with fine steel wire that seemed to disappear in the vertical lighting.

	Nini spoke, startling Jessie, though her words were just above a whisper.  “Was it 

a dream?”

	“I don’t think so.”  She wanted where Nini was bound to be as dazzling, as 

teeming, as safe.

	There was another, louder voice: “Take me to the bathroom.  I need to go 

to the bathroom.”  It was the woman who shared Nini’s room.  Gretta.  She’d been 

asleep when Jessie walked in but now started to stand, one bony hand clutching the open 

back of her gown, the other reaching for a walker.  Jessie could see her bottom, dotted 

with moles. 

	The bathroom was in the corner of the room.  Jessie stood to turn on the 

light then waited, uncertain just how much help Gretta would need.  After the old 

woman walked in by herself, Jessie closed the door behind her.  

	“Oh, it hurts,” Gretta said loudly through the door.  “I just went a while ago and 

now I have to go again.”

	Jessie glanced toward the soft low mounds of Nini on the bed.

	“Oh, honey!” Gretta moaned.  

	When Gretta opened the door, Jessie helped her back to bed, but then Gretta 

refused to lie down.  

	“Nini’s my grandma,” Jessie told her though she didn’t want to have to be polite.

	“Oh.”  Gretta stared through gold-rimmed glasses.  

	“She’s 95 years old.”

	“I’m 91,” Gretta said. “Never thought I’d live this long and don’t know why I 

did.”	

	“Gretta, I think you should lie down.”  

	“Oh honey, that’s all I do around here,” she said, but she put her legs up on the 

bed and waited for Jessie to cover them.

	Turning back to Nini, Jessie saw her grandmother had closed her eyes.  The 

sheet rose and fell with her slight breaths.

	Jessie looked at the framed photo on Gretta’s nightstand.  In it, Gretta stood 

broad-hipped and smiling in a blue-checked dress next to a man just her size; both wore 

leis of hibiscus.  Behind them, the fronds of a palm tree froze mid-sway.

	“My husband died in ‘82,” Gretta said loudly.  “He was sitting next to me on a 

plane.  We were going to visit my nephew in Pennsylvania.”

	Nini would have to be moved to another room, Jessie thought; this was far too 

much talking.

	But Gretta continued.  “Never had a sick day in his life.  Heart failure on the 

plane.  That was a terrible Christmas.”	

	A nurse brought in a cafeteria tray with two cartons.  “You talkin’ this 

nice lady’s ear off, Gretta?”  The nurse wore a navy cardigan over her white uniform.  

She moved quickly to Gretta, pushed her gently back down on the bed and propped a 

pillow behind her.  “You’re my good girl.  Drink this up fast.”  She glanced over her 

shoulder. “Your grandma’s the fussy one. Just won’t eat for me.”

	Jessie took the high-protein drink and straw the nurse handed her.  

	“Maybe for you she’ll get some of this down. We have to try.”

	Jessie’s eyes filled.

	“It’s okay, honey.  You know when she won’t eat, that’s just a sign.  She knows 

it’s almost time.”

	The tears fell. 

	“It’s in God’s hands now,” the nurse said, patting her shoulder.  She picked up 

the tray.  “You let me know what you need, honey.  And Gretta, you let her spend 

time with her grandma.  That’s who she’s come to see, you know.”

	Gretta grunted and turned her face to the wall.
	
	Wiping her nose and eyes, Jessie knelt beside Nini’s low bed.  

	Somewhere we couldn’t see, she whispered through the strands of white hair that 

floated near her mouth, birds swooped to rest on the branches of trees.  

	She touched her grandmother’s shoulder, felt her bird-like bones.  Nini’s paper-

thin lids rose half-way.  

	“Nini,” Jessie said, more loudly, “I’ve got a milkshake for you.”

	Nini’s watery eyes stared back at her. 

	“Look, it’s vanilla.”  Jessie lifted the carton and straw, like a woman in a TV 

commercial.  “Not quite as good as Winstead’s, but...”  She tried to stick the straw 

between Nini’s lips.  “You have to,” she said though she knew she didn’t have to at all.

	Again she tried to insert the straw, staring at the tiny bump in the dip of her 

grandmother’s upper lip and the small growth on the side of her neck that looked like a 

rice krispie.  But Nini wouldn’t drink.

	Jessie remained on her knees a long time, carton in her lowered hand.

	“When I was little,” Gretta said from across the room, “I had some childhood 

disease -- oh what’s the name of it, I don’t remember now -- and the doctor came every 

day to my mama’s house to rock me in his arms.”

	Jessie squeezed Nini’s hand as her eyes shut again.

	“Never thought I’d get this old,” Gretta continued.  “Who wants to be 91?”

	In a while, an aide walked in, wearing a green sweatshirt, bunched-up socks, and 

hiking boots.  “There’s a birthday party,” she said to Jessie.  “Maybe your grandma 

would eat a piece of cake.  Since you’re here.”  She bent to lift Nini in her arms, and in 

one swift motion, deposited her in a wheelchair.  Nini looked like a child woken from a 

nap.  

	“Edith, you can’t sleep all day!” the aide chided.  “Birthday party time!  Come on 

out with your granddaughter and have some cake.”

	Nini pinched the back of the aide’s hand.  “No-o,” she cooed.  But there 

was a look in her eye, one she used to give Jessie whenever they were ready to escape 

some family gathering and go off on an adventure alone.

	“I’m Carol,” the aide said.  “Your grandma’s a feisty one. She lets us know just 

what she likes and what she doesn’t.  But she’s sweet.  My is she sweet.  Always a smile.  

She just knows what she likes.  Sometimes when I put her in the wheelchair and she 

doesn’t want to go, she puts her feet down.  Stops right like that.”

	Carol motioned for Jessie to follow her out the door.  “That’s why she’s holding 

on so long, I bet.  Some of them don’t.”

	They passed a room where a man lay on his back in a hospital bed, tubes running 

from his nose.  Jessie started to tell Carol that Nini had worked in a hospital for twenty-

five years, as a surgical technician, but Carol was walking ahead of them, toward a long 

table in the cafeteria that had been decorated with a paper tablecloth.

	Half a dozen wheelchairs circled the table.  Some people sat upright and dressed, 

others were slump-shouldered in pajamas.  Carol turned the knob on a boom box.  Nini’s 

pink-slippered feet hit the linoleum, and the wheelchair jerked to a stop.

	“It’s the birthday party,” Jessie said, leaning down to her. “Remember? We were 

going to have cake?”

	Nini’s fingers reached up for Jessie’s.  There’d been so many birthday 

parties:  doll cakes with tiered pink icing dresses, special gifts like Jessie’s first Brownie 

camera and the doll with plastic crutches and stick-on measles.

	Jessie squeezed her grandma’s hand then pretended to look for Carol so Nini 

wouldn’t see her cry again. “I’ll get that chair so I can sit right by you.”

	Nini’s head bobbed like a dandelion gone to seed.

	When Jessie came back, Carol held a piece of cake on a paper plate.  Nini smiled 

and patted Carol’s hand.  

	“I love your grandma,” Carol said, her hand tan and smooth beneath Nini’s.  

“We have lots of good talks, don’t we, Edith?”

	Jessie tried to think of something else she could give her grandma.  Something 

else she remembered from their trip: At the Jewel Box, there’d been Bali mynahs, fruit 

doves, red lories.  Birds flying all around us.

	Carol set the plate on Nini’s lap.  “It’s orange cake.  For Eleanor’s birthday.” 	
	When Carol left, Jessie lifted the cake and held it in front of Nini’s eyes.  “This 

looks so good.  Can I give you a bite?”

	Nini nodded.  Jessie cut into the cake, being sure to get a piece with plenty of 

icing.  The white plastic fork slipped into Nini’s mouth and came out clean.  Nini smiled.  

	Jessie gave her another bite, and another. 

	When she asked, “Would you like another piece?”  Nini drawled, “Yah-us,” and 

half of that.  Then she held up her hand and said, “No more.”  

	Jessie got coffee and moved the styrofoam cup back and forth beneath Nini’s 

nose.  Nini sniffed, and her fingers circled the cup.  But Jessie shook her head and said, 

“Careful, it’s hot.”  

	Nini sipped while Jessie held the cup.  “I like it hot,” she said happily, sitting 

straight in her chair.  “Now my mother, my, I never saw anyone drink so much coffee 

in my life.”  

	Jessie sat there, too shocked at the powers of caffeine to answer.  In a minute, 

she lifted the cup again, but Nini’s chin was down.  Jessie patted her grandma’s soft hair.  

She used to have her hair done once a week, walking from her apartment down Brush 

Creek to a shop on the Plaza. 

             Jessie looked frantically around the room; they knew none of these people.  

There was no air, and the windows were streaked.  The paper party cloth looked 

pathetic now, ripped and stained with spills.  One woman sat in a wheelchair with a bit of 

icing on her nose.

	“Let’s get out of here,” Jessie said with a sudden rush of purpose.  She traced 

Nini’s brow with one finger.  “I can push you in the wheelchair outside.  We can get 

air.  Fresh air would be good.”

	Jessie stood and quickly pushed the wheelchair down the hall toward the 

entrance.  Nini’s slippers rested on the footrest.  

	If I can just get her outside, Jessie thought.  Let the sun fall on her, bring her 

back to me.

	The wheelchair rolled silently down the hall, past fuzzy stick-up decorations on 

the wall:  purple and yellow pansies tied with a white bow, a heart pierced by an 

arrow.

	Finally, they reached the front lobby.  A big-screen TV blared.  Heads turned 

to watch Jessie and Nini’s journey. 

	Jessie maneuvered the wheelchair through the glass door that led to the inner 

vestibule, but then had to wait for another woman approaching from the parking lot to 

hold the outside door open for them.  

	They started to move past the woman’s tan coat, but a breeze blew in, lifting 

Nini’s hair, kissing her scalp.  Her feet went down.

	The woman holding the door pulled her coat more tightly around her, looked 

impatient.  Jessie hesitated.  The sun was simply too bright, the wind too strong.  And no 

matter how much Jessie might want to, she could not push her grandma into them.

	“I don’t think we’ll go out right now,” she said to the woman, foolishly, pulling 

the wheelchair behind her back inside.

	Nini’s head bowed as Jessie pushed her back down the terrible, long hall.

They could hear the music of the boom box.  Jessie found a spot for the wheelchair by 

the table, pulled up a chair.  They listened to “Paper Moon” and “Orange Colored 

Sky” and “Time to Get Ready for Love.”  Nini kept time to the music with one 

gnarly finger, just as she’d done singing Jessie to sleep as a child.  

	Jessie began to move the wheelchair back and forth, only slightly at first, 

but then more pronounced.  Rocking her, rocking her, rocking her grandma.

	Then she stood, slipped one arm beneath Nini, the other behind her back.  Nini 

curled as Jessie lifted, her knees bending beneath the blanket, eyes locked to her 

granddaughter’s.  One scoop and Nini was out of the rocker.  One step and Jessie was 

back in her chair.  

	Carol frowned, stepped forward to stop them.

	But Nini was already in Jessie’s lap, and they were beginning to sway slowly to 

the rhythm. Back and forth, back and forth.       

	Later, in another town, Jessie woke from a dream.  Gold spheres of 

light, bursting like fireworks, flew through her room, passing over her sleeping dogs, her 

four-poster bed.  All around her, there were shadows on the walls:  of fish, large and 

small, smooth against the pink-and-blue flowered paper.  An eel, curving.  Tall, bending 

seagrass and spiny coral, illuminated by an unseen source.  

	Nini’s eyes finally closed. Though her arm hurt, Jessie knew she would do this as 

long as it took.




Originally published in  PATERSON LITERARY REVIEW, Issue #30, 2001.