Things That Go Bump In The Night...

Mary never lies to me. In fact, most of my old guys tell the truth straight up, whether I like it or not.

"Yeah, you got them big hips and legs," she says, smiling like this is a compliment. "But they're nice. That's good. Men like that."

I smile back, but I swear off jelly beans and chocolate covered mints.

"Sometimes I hear things in here," she says. Her facial expression hasn't changed. She is still smiling but a chill runs up my spine.

"What do you hear, Mary?" I ask.

Mary hesitates. Her eyes waver away from mine for a brief second, enough for me to know she's learned the cardinal rule of The Home: "Don't tell. Don't tell anyone because if you do- we'll pay you back."

"Nothing," Mary says. "I think it's just them checking on me."

But it's too late, I know Mary sees and hears everything. I heard her talk about the lady in the room next door who cried out at night for a nurse and how the aides got tired of answering her call button. "I heard them laughing about her but then one night, she died. I heard this choking sound and they all went rushing in there. But she was gone."

I know Mary thinks her neighbor was neglected, but she won't talk. She's afraid. I have tried to reassure her but the trouble with me is, I leave. I get to walk out and go home. I'm only there two afternoons a week and that's not enough protection to make Mary feel safe.

Are you scared yet? Because one day this will be you and me. Go ahead and think, oh no, my family would never...but they might. They might be faced with your overwhelming medical problems and feel there are no other options. They will come to visit you, the good ones always do, but they have lives and jobs and families. They will get tired and eventually their visits will grow less frequent and you will be on your own too much of the time.

God help you if you have dementia. You can't tell on the staff when you can't remember your own name.

So Mary and I sit, her in her bed, me in her wheelchair, and go where she feels comfortable taking me...

"I told you I saw a ghost once," she reminds me.

"I was goin' across the street to ask Mr. Harold what time was it because our clock broke. My Mama was standin' up on the porch watchin' me, too. She said, she saw this little light go down along the other side of Mr. Harold's house and she thought it was the newspaper boy but it wasn't."

Mary's eyes are huge. "All I saw was legs, not no head, or body or nothin' but legs! I went runnin' back to Mama and she said 'What's the matter,child, you see something?'" Mary nods her head emphatically. "I told her 'Yes, Ma'am, I did!' And she said, 'I thought so. I saw it too, one time.'"

Mary smiles again. "Mr. Harold, he said it was his first wife. He said she come round all the time. She be standing out by the wood pile when he come out to get wood, just lookin' at him."

I say, "Wow! That must've freaked Mr. Harold out- his second wife asleep in the front room and his first wife waiting for him out by the wood pile!"

Mary shakes her head no, still smiling. "He said it didn't bother him none. He said she probably just want to see him."

"But he married someone else. Wasn't he worried his first wife would be mad?"

Mary just shakes her head and gives me her sanguine smile. "Now why would she be mad about that? She's dead!"

I can't believe Mary and I are discussing the feelings of a dead first wife, popping in to visit her husband and his new wife. But when I put it into the context of all the things we are not discussing, it makes perfect, beautiful sense. We are discussing things other people probably wouldn't believe, things we can't just tell anybody because they'd think we're nuts, or worse, imagining things again.