miss sally
by Bobbie Jean Huff
Originally published in Event, Volume 18, Number 2
I hear her before I see her, we all do. We are in the dining room waiting for the breakfast carts to come up, and we can hear the elevator doors clanking open and a deep voice booming out, “You call this service, young man? And where are the carpets on this floor, anyway?”
Then she is wheeled past the dining room, half lying, half sitting up on a gurney. She looks to be about seventy, obese, with silver hair cropped straight across at the ears. The way she sits, her head sinks into the fleshy folds of her neck; the large green ward dress stretches tight across her bosom.
Ray, who does nights on the male ward, tells us later that her name is Miss Sally. He says she isn’t suicidal, but that she and some movie star on four, Jessica something or other, had pushed a piano down the hall and tried to shove it out the window. The head nurse’s wrist was sprained in the ensuing ruckus, and Miss Sally got herself so excited that her doctor chucked her up here on seven.
***
Miss Sally stays in her room for three days. The fourth day Polly, at 15 the youngest girl on the ward, plays “Monday, Monday” on her record player all morning. Nobody says anything to her though; we all feel sorry for her—her visitors’ ban has just been lifted.
I walk past Miss Sally’s door on the way to Occupational Therapy. She is in bed, her face red and angry. She motions me in with her hand, which punches away the air, allowing me the space to step inside. On her night table are a pair of glasses with pink plastic frames, a head of broccoli (possibly wax), and six empty cans of Dr. Pepper. I wonder why she is in bed. Even in physical hospitals they make you get up.
Miss Sally says to me in an angry whisper, “You tell Mr. and Mrs. Mama and Mr. and Mrs. Papa that I’m onto them.” Then her anger dissipates, deflating her face, and she turns away from me to look out the window.
Stillson sees me standing by Miss Sally’s bed, and sticks his hand in the door, three fingers raised to show me he has only three more laps around the ward before he finishes his morning constitutional. He looks at Miss Sally. “Don’t fall,” he says to her.
***
By the next week Miss Sally is walking, but not much. When we go down to the garden after breakfast she just sits on a bench and reads. Sometimes she writes on the little pad she carries with her everywhere. One rainy morning George Lee, our aide, takes down the few of us who hate to miss the garden no matter how bad the weather. He sits on a bench behind the hydrangea doing his nails, while I walk the stone path with Stillson and Polly. But they are holding hands today and have forgotten my name.
There are no extra hands to take so I put my right hand on my shoulder and my left hand on my knee. I can walk slowly this way, and the raindrops slow down, too, until they finally stop, and the only sound I can hear is the dripping of rain from the bushes and the toot of a tugboat leaving the harbour. The clouds blow away, and when I look through the bars I can see the sun glinting off the river and the boats gliding this way and that. Perhaps it is Sunday; it feels like a Sunday. Even the birdsong is not too fast for my ears: the squawks of the seagulls wheeling out over the water, the chatter of sparrows in the hydrangea. George Lee, blowing his nails dry, looks up. He sees me and his mouth makes a moue.
Back indoors Miss Sally hands me a crumpled up purple napkin, on which is written in blurred black ink:
O sibili, si ergo,
Fortibuses in ero.
O nobili, demis trux:
Sewatis inem?
Cowsendux!
“Translate it,” she whispers to me. I don’t have a pocket in my dress, so I tuck the napkin inside my bra. It makes a sighing noise as I step into the elevator. Before we get off at seven, Stillson says to me, “I bit my tongue—is there any blood?” He pokes out his tongue. He is shaking.
***
That afternoon I walk past the gym to Occupational Therapy and notice that the noises in the hallway are different. Is it a trick? The ceiling lights are making their usual white hum, and I can hear the volleyball bouncing against the gym walls, the players jumping and swearing.
But there is a groan just ahead of me. Lois, skinny, birdlike Lois has dropped to the floor and pulled her skirt up over her head. She is screaming, “Where is me? Where is me?” Nurses and aides materialize to soothe her. “Here you are, Lois, in the hallway on your way to OT to work on those lovely blue moccasins.”
They don’t understand her question. I crouch down beside Lois and whisper softly into her ear, “It’s okay, Lois, you’re right here. You’re back now. It’s okay.”
George Lee wheels Miss Sally by in her wheelchair. She is singing in a low voice,
“The sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home.
‘Tis summer, the darkies are gay.”
Lois laughs and wipes her eyes.
***
The Occupational Therapy room is small. My thoughts are too big to fit inside today, so I sit in the hallway and wait for the bell. Stillson sits on the floor next to me and plays “Silent Night” on his harmonica.
I get up and walk over to the big hall window. Below, the city moves slowly in time to the music. I close my eyes when Stillson gets to “Sleep in heavenly peace,” but when I open them, nothing has changed. The blue lady comes by with her snack cart. I have forgotten my quarter, but she gives me my packet of peanut butter crackers anyway, and pushes the cart into the OT room with one hand, shaking her finger at me and smiling.
The bell rings. I can see Francoise, our occupational therapist, scraping clay off the table with a big knife. Miss Sally is the last one out the door. She has made a collage, and holds it up for Stillson and me to see: a ballerina in a frothy pink tutu and white slippers is lying on top of a grey cloud in a stormy-looking sky. Her hands are crossed over her breast and she is looking up at the jet plane flying over her head.
***
Thursday evening the whole seventh floor goes up to the library to pick out books for the week. It is a beautiful blue room, my favourite room in the clinic. Bookcases full of books and magazines line three of its walls. Over by the window, which looks out over the river, sits a shiny black grand piano.
We pick out our books and write our names on the cards, which go into a red lacquered box labelled “Books-Out.” Then we sit on the sofas or sprawl on the large oriental carpet and listen to Reinhardt play Chopin on the piano. When he is finished Miss Baskin, our evening nurse, plays the only song she knows on the guitar.
“Yes, Sir, that’s my baby,
No Sir, I don’t mean maybe,
Yes, Sir, that’s my baby now.”
By the last verse everyone is clapping and stamping as she sings:
“Yes, Ma’am, we’ve decided,
No, ma’am, we don’t hide it,
Yes, Ma’am, you’re invited now.”
When the music stops all is quiet except for Meredith, who can be heard talking to nobody behind the drapes: “Transference, my foot! I’ve imprinted him like a fucking duck! I mean, I don’t even like the bastard!”
Polly, beside me on the couch, whispers in my ear, “Poppy seed cake for dessert tomorrow night.”
When Miss Sally asks to recite a poem, even Meredith is quiet. Miss Sally has been sitting on my other side on the couch, her legs apart. Her library books are in her lap; she has been fingering them during the music. I notice that she has six books: one on Mexican folk art, and five Agatha Christies. She dumps them on the floor in front of her and pulls a crumpled-up purple napkin from her pocket. She looks at me for a moment, then says, under her breath, “O sibili, si ergo.” Then she recites, in that booming voice I haven’t heard since the first day:
“Oh, see, Billy.
See ‘er go.
Forty buses in a row.
Oh, no, Billy, dem es trucks.
See vats inem?
Cows and ducks.”
Stillson’s eyes are closed during this performance. He picks at the collar of his yellow shirt; he rubs his nose. When the poem has ended he opens his eyes and looks at Miss Sally.
“Don’t fall,” he says.
Miss Sally looks at me and winks.