Night Prayers
© A9KF0
Susan sighed as the old woman squirmed from her chapped hands. Working as a nurse's assistant in the healthcare unit at a retirement home beat the demanding shifts of the hospital, but her patients could be trying. Suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's, they didn't always understand the adult sized diapers or the shapeless gowns she struggled to put on them. This one could be a bit of a tartar, she usually didn't know where she is or who was around her. Sometimes though, the hazel irises would focus on someone with unusual alacrity, like when she told Nicole that she had too little bust and too much middle for that lycra uniform top.
As she changed the soiled gown and taped on the voluminous night pants she glanced at the framed portraits on the wall. Time was never gentle but it was really hard to believe that this is the same woman. The glowing young girl with flowing hair that matched the night above her head, the stars couldn't match the brightness in her eyes. The matured woman whose beauty was fully ripened smiled with warmth that the artist had somehow captured and put to canvas. Then the elegant woman in her sixties, her eyes still sharp and her teeth white.
Now the light in her eyes has faded, the poise lost in her slackened features. The bent over back and gnarled legs belied the tall figure in the paintings. Her thin, sparse hair had been cut almost to the skull after one of the children had left a pack of gum behind.
Susan picked up a book off the bed sheets. She had several of them, mostly poetry and romantic ballads put to the page. She placed it the shelf, knocking over a plastic cherub. The room was almost littered in the images, sun catchers, knick-knacks and crude colorings on manilla paper.
The shriveled form looked at the window, she always insisted that the blinds be open at night, it was the only detail of her surroundings that she was cognizant of. Now she was reaching fore the moon with her withered arms.
Her voice screeched, it reminded Susan of the howl of the cats on the streets below. "Angel, my angel comes at night. Watches me sleep."
Susan rolled her eyes, at least once a week she did the same routine, invoking the protection of her guardian angel. At least the guardrail kept her from falling to the floor as she grasped at the thin light from the window.
"Yes, CeCe, angels are watching over us all. Goodnight." The patience in her tone was stretched, she had half a ward still to prep for the night. Turning for the door she ran a fingertip over the roses on the rolling table. Every week without fail, fresh flowers arrived for the old woman. Everything from humble, cheery daisies to exotic blooms of birds of paradise and orchids. This week it was a dozen red roses, the luscious color drawing the old woman's eye despite the opaque cataracts.
Illuminated by the moonlight and street lamps, the old woman again tilted her head up to the window. "Angel, my angel."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The next morning, Saturday, Roberto Guzman-Chase and his sister Carlotta White arrived with their grandchildren. It was a habit from years ago when they would bring their own children every Saturday to visit Nana and the austere young artist who "rented" the small studio apartment above her garage. The children had loved the quiet man who carried them on his back and told endless stories of goblins and princesses in high towers. She had never admitted it, but the others had teased Francis, his youngest, about her crush on the handsome young man.
He grinned at the memories he only shared with his little sister. They could still remember the night when he had found them, cold and cowering beside their biological parents' bodies. He had brought them to a small house and a middle-aged woman with soft eyes and gentle hands. They were given a guestroom to sleep in but Carlotta, only four, had crept in to the other bedroom to sleep between the two adults as she had between Pappy and Mama so many times.
Now he gazed at his mother, her eyes on a distant point as Marcella babbled about the politics and power plays of the first grade.
Carlotta noticed a book of sonnets on the bedside table and picked it up, intending to put it away. As she walked across the room a small paper fluttered to the floor.
She snatched up the sheet before the children saw it. Smiling, she held up the image to her brother. An ageless woman, with long dark hair lay sleeping, the moonlight highlighting her cheekbones. Seeing that the children were now discussing their new pictures of crude figures with scarlet halos and puce wings, she slid the sketch into a folio under the bed.
The folder bulged with other pages, some yellow with age, other still crisp and white. If the nurses had ever gone through the box, they would have recognized the artist's style from the framed work on the walls.
Roberto returned her smile and gestured with his eyes to the flowers.
Carlotta looked at the flowers, knowing that there would be an extra blossom that had not been there the night before.
Tearing, she looked for something to focus on. Her eyes fell on a recent photo, in it her mother stared blankly at the camera, unsure where she was. Supporting her frame with a steady arm a tall man sat behind her. Hidden from the lens were matching rings of gold. One ring was still borne on a finger colder than the night. The other, not sized for an arthritic hand riddled with varicose veins, hung from a slender chain worn around the neck of a demon.
A demon with the face of an angel and the steadfast heart of a love that would never die.