He walks into my kitchen looking seven days worse than last week. The fingers, long and ghostly white, tissue paper wrapped on bone. Back bent and shoulders hunching forward. It helps the pain, I think, of looking anyone in the eye. Shuffle left, shuffle right, one and then the other across the floor without his walker; he doesn’t think of the strong arms of his son behind him as the same thing. How are you, little lady? he asks. But the smile is more a slit of mouth through which his hardy rough manner squeaks out. He coughs and waits until it’s over, then is slowly let down in his chair.
I watch him eat but he will never look at me except, I note, when I am not watching him. I learn, defer to his wishes, and do not look him in the eye. Soon he stiffly is helped up and shuffles out again. I hear his Thanks for dinner! that’s thrown over his stooped left shoulder back at me. I go back in the house as he is safely put inside the car and they drive back to the home and wonder what, come next week, he will be.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology