6/13/15 -

unfinished

Sometimes she said nothing, just smiled wearily and looked out the streaked window.
Stanley patted her arm and nodded his head. He turned to the doctor and muttered,
“Thank you, Doc.”

Dr. Warren lingered and motioned for Stanley to step outside the room. “Have you made
any arrangements yet?”

“For what?” Stanley’s voice was a monotone, as if he was a robot repeating prerecorded
responses.

“Hospice, Stanley. She can’t last much longer. You’ve got to know that. She knows it,
too. Let hospice come in and help both of you. She can go home and pass peacefully. ”

Stanley looked at the doctor as if he were hearing a foreign language. “What do you
mean—go home?”

“Well, Stanley, most patients are more comfortable in familiar surroundings in their last
days. Hospice will take care of all her medical needs and provide you with home care
and counseling, too. Do you want the nurse to make the call for you?”

Stanley looked at Kathleen, then back to the doctor. For the first time, Stanley’s eyes
looked directly into those of Dr. Warren as he said, “We can’t do that, Doc. We have no
home...no place to go, no familiar place for her to lie down except a park bench.”

An audible silence filled the room. Dr. Warren swallowed and exhaled. He looked at his
hands, turning them over so as to inspect the palms and the backs as if looking for germs.
He turned to look at the withering woman in the bed, her back to him, facing the open
window that overlooked the visitors’ parking lot. She stirred, shifting her body back
towards the two men.

“Stanley,” she whispered. “I want to go home,” her voice trailing off into the sterile
room.

Stanley hurried to her bedside, taking her hand in his. “Shhhh, Kathleen, you need to rest
now. Don’t bother yourself about anything. I’ll take care of it all.

The doctor came back into the room, standing next to Stanley. Kathleen’s eyes had
closed and she looked like a child sleeping peacefully after a sweet bedtime story. Dr.
Warren raised his eyebrows, then furrowed his brow. Stanley edged past him and ducked
out the doorway. The doctor followed him.

1
“Stanley, why did you tell me you have nowhere to take her? She just said she wants to
go home.” Stanley said nothing and looked at his feet.

“Stanley, you heard her. She wants to go home. You have to call hospice. What’s going
on?” The doctor placed his hands on Stanley’s shoulders and he finally looked up.
“What is it? Look at me.”

Tears filled the brim of Stanley’s lower lids as he struggled to speak. His head began to
shake back and forth as he tried to get the words out. Finally, after a labored intake of
air, he found his voice.

“There is no home because it burned down two years ago and we’ve been on the streets
ever since. Kathleen doesn’t remember it or won’t face it. I don’t know which. I don’t
know what to do.”

“Do you have any family?”

“No.”

“What about Social Security, Medicare, social workers, shelters?”

“We’re not old enough yet for any of those, and Kathleen won’t go into a shelter. She
calls them ‘hell holes.’ I don’t know what to do.” He closed his eyes and tears spilled
onto his shirt.

The doctor’s hands slipped from Stanley’s shoulders and he put them around the man
who stood stooped before him. Stanley nearly fell into the doctor’s arms and began to
sob, his body limp and weighty.

Dr. Warren steered Stanley’s collapsed, heaving body to a chair near the nurses’ station.
Stanley looked like a small child, too, now. Perhaps “they” were right about people
reverting to childhood after a certain age, or at least looking like it. Some bald obese old
men resemble chunky babies. But this was different. Stanley looked like a child because
of his vulnerability and lack of guile. Even the nurses had noticed and remarked with
surprise at his true age—61. Life on the street ages people fast.

Dr. Warren called over a CNA and asked her to wait with Stanley for a few minutes
while he, the doctor, looked into things. (wc 706)