by Jerilee Wei

Created on: May 09, 2008

LIFE IN THE GAME OF SOLITAIRE

We stood in the doorway of a spotless nursing home located in Phoenix. Her bedroom was devoid of any personal possessions usually representative of a woman her age. I had not seen in her in twenty-three years. Although, now eighty-nine years old, she had changed little in our years of separation.

Sure, she'd grown smaller in statue. Her features, especially her nose, were more pronounced than I remembered. Both her arms were ghastly bruised from IVs, causing me to quickly focus on her face. It was a face swallowed by illuminated blue eyes that gave no sign of recognition, even after she was told my name.

A single raspy statement met all my attempts at conversation, "They are trying to kill me!" Lost in the envelope of awkward silence that followed, I thought about the sum total of all I knew about her. If I were to write it down, would it even fill a page?

She was the youngest child in her family. Born to Scottish immigrants in a Colorado mining town on Christmas day, a "change of life baby," they said. When an infant, her mother entered a state mental institution, never to return. Rumors were, that her beloved older brother had tragically died as a teenager, but there was no one alive who could confirm how he died to me.

She was unquestionably a homely woman, who didn't marry until she was thirty-two. Her husband came with a ready-made family from a previous marriage. She dutifully raised his mentally disabled son, as well as their own two sons. The family lived in their car, traveling from town to town looking for work. He was a miner, a blacksmith, a sharecropper, a steel worker and most importantly, an alcoholic. Her second husband was a cook, a Merchant Marine, and another alcoholic. She never drank.

I occupied the silence of our remaining visit, by trying to remember all that I could about her. I felt helpless and uncomfortable. Surely, I knew something more about her? After all, I had known her all my life. Part of my childhood was sharing my bed with her whenever she visited.

I tried to picture the woman she once was. A tall angular woman, with big feet, heavily rouged cheeks and brilliant red lipstick smeared upon her ample lips. Her henna-dyed red hair peeked from beneath a turban. She never went outside without the turban. I couldn't recall ever seeing her in a dress. Except for her eyes, her face was absent of any sign of ever having held any beauty. My younger brother, had often joked she had more wrinkles and lines, than

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