I can face grief, bills, and loneliness. I can't face her

F

ifty-nine years melt away before Claude gets to the end of the sentence.

This woman — this new admission — it is Miss Merrick. Her fifth-grade teacher.

Ruti’s arms go slack as she stares into the face of the elderly woman. She is a sweet and simple woman, diminutive frame, gray, watery eyes. Nothing different from most geriatric patients under her care.

Except for the part in her wig.

It’s the part that gives her away. That has Ruti transfixed. Just a few inches removed from her ear, it’s like a side entrance to her head, and from there, the wig’s hairs are teased into a stiff dip over her forehead.

“…approximately five weeks,” Claude is saying, and Ruti hears, belatedly, a report about knee replacement surgery, about a physical therapy regimen.

It is her. She is certain. Fifty-nine years may have passed, but the recognition is fierce. She cannot tear her gaze away from that part. With clammy fingers, she clutches the reading glasses dangling from her neck.

The woman — Miss Merrick — smiles sweetly. If she doesn’t recognize Ruti, it’s not because of mental decline. “Mrs. Russack’s thinking is sharp, and she leads an active life,” Claude murmurs quietly, so the patient wouldn’t hear her. “If she’s good about therapy, she should be out of here before long.”

Mrs. Russack. Sarah Russack. Different name, but it’s the same person.

No, of course Mrs. Russack doesn’t recognize her. Why should she? It’s been 59 years. And she hadn’t spent all those decades scanning faces in stores and at weddings on the lookout for Ruti the way Ruti had scanned faces on the lookout for her.

Not because she’d wanted to see this face again. Not at all. Ruti had been hyper alert to avoid encountering this very woman.

Miss Merrick?

It takes supreme effort to do her job. Roll the wheelchair into the elevator. Direct it down the hallway to Room 306. Park it in a corner and, with Claude’s help, gently transfer the post-op patient to the waiting bed.

There are no friendly introductions, like she usually conducts with new patients. She’s not a nurse. Her job is to tend to patients’ needs, to make sure they’re comfortable, well taken care of, and in good spirits. But she doesn’t chat with this new admission. She cannot leave that room quickly enough.