+++++++++++++++++++

Eleanor clocks into Lawton Manor for her night shift. She rushes into her locker to find that her coworkers set out clear plastic cups of pink punch and a cake in their breakroom. It’s a rectangular ube cake, its bright purple sponge framed by tiny mounds of white buttercream with maraschino cherries pressed on top.  HAPPY ONE YEAR, ELEANOR! FROM, LAWTON :-) was written with cursive red icing. Apparently, Samantha, the new hospice director, did all of this in her free time before her shift.

Samantha raises her cup and congratulates Eleanor while making a speech about how special all of them were, how they provide an essential service to humanity. The coworkers smile at her because they have to. Of course, Eleanor understands that they have an important job. It’s just, God, Samantha is corny. This, along with all the sweet little antics Samantha did, forces Eleanor to confront that there are people out there who receive genuine pleasure believing that they provide an essential service to humanity. 

Eleanor cuts the cake into even cubes and swirls the buttercream coated knife into a glass of hot water after each slice, turning the water into milk. She hates cake. Still, she forks into the cube and tries to swallow without tasting it. The roof of her mouth becomes slick. Everyone consumes their cake with impressive speed and efficiency, exactly how cake shouldn’t be consumed, and they all shuffle back to work. She tongues the ridges of her mouth, intrigued by the numbness caused by the layer of the frosting’s grease, as she walks into the room of her first assignment where she finds Severo Yasay, a second away from flatlining.

+++++

She was relieved when he died. He was easy to care for but entering a room with a Filipino patient removed the sense of anonymity she had. It’s not like Severo had special insight into who she was. But this strange vulnerability stank up the room when she hoisted his legs up on the sling to clean his soiled diaper. When she cleaned his crusting bed sore. When she emptied the bag of urine attached to his catheter. They owed each other something but they couldn’t figure out what.

After calling the doctor, Eleanor calls his granddaughter, Bernadette Yasay. Over the weeks Eleanor gathered that Bernedette, referred to as Bunnie, acted as the head of the household. Like Eleanor, she was in her late twenties. Bunnie listed herself as the primary emergency contact, was the most proficient in English, had a car to drive her relatives around, and was a nurse herself.  Bunnie sometimes came to visiting hours with her teal scrubs on. Vitality Dialysis, a clinic less than three miles away in Daly City, was embroidered in yellow, stitched over Bunnie’s chest.

Many families with inpatient relatives request that when the patient is showing signs of dying, that the hospice nurse calls them so they can come to catch the patient during their last breaths. Over the phone, Eleanor will tell Bunnie the same lie she tells all grieving people: that the patient was sound asleep, she held their hand the entire time, and it lasted a few minutes. Eleanor loved when the teary eyed families would soften upon hearing the story. Eleanor picks up the phone on the bedside table and calls Bunnie, who picks up immediately. She greets Bunnie and delivers her perfectly packaged lie. Bunnie, understandably, is frantic. In between panicked mutters she says she and her family will rush over.

 It wasn’t until Eleanor studied nursing did she learn that death is a long, multifaceted biological process. But sometimes it’s quick. And while patient monitors give staff constant information, sometimes the patient dies alone, right before the nurse comes to their bedside. Of course, Eleanor is diligent in her notes. Write as though it will be read in court, she was taught. Telling sweet stories falls under bedside manners, not medical malpractice. Besides, most deaths were “peaceful.” But sometimes death looked so agonizing that Eleanor couldn’t even bear to listen to music on the bus ride home. Their mouths frothed with spit as they convulsed. They wailed in pain, calling for their dead spouses till they were hoarse.

The Yasays rush into the room. They cry and pray over Severo’s dead body as the doctor gives his usual speech. Eleanor clasps onto her wrist behind her back, observing Bunnie cry silently. After some time alone, Severo’s wife, his son, and his daughter in-law leave. Now it’s Eleanor and Bunnie in the room.

Eleanor was impressed by Bunnie the moment she met the Yasays. Whenever the nurses asked questions about Severo, Bunnie had answers right away. There was no lilting, no hmms, no statements were said in the shape of a question.

 He’s had a history of high blood pressure.

Yes.

No.

Yes.

Tomorrow.

Three children.

 You’d call me.

He prefers his kiwi skinned and sliced.

Bunnie’s family deferred to her. Eleanor’s grandparents had that same respect for her, too. Whenever Eleanor left Severo’s room, she thought of her own grandfather at home and felt proud of herself knowing that he was lucky enough to have the anak of his dreams. In the same way, Severo probably slept soundly knowing Bunnie would advocate for him. Bunnie would not let the money grubbing healthcare system fuck him over.

Bunnie bumps against Eleanor’ shoulder, circles Severo, and plants her feet beside his bed. “Whatever time I have out of work, I spend here during visiting hours. Every minute I keep my phone on me,” Bunnie says, “He died alone, didn’t he?”

No one ever questions Eleanor. Over the years she’s mastered being the opposite of the honey-voiced nurses that were often stepped all over.  Eleanor would respond to non-urgent questions with such relaxed conviction that if she were to administer Skittles as medicine patients would take it in full confidence. No matter how tearful and mucusy grieving was, Eleanor was in total control as she faced patients and their families with her clipboard pressed tight against her chest. The more distance she had between them, the less she had to process the messy feelings that come with being a nurse. Clean and easy, clean and easy.

Bunnie looks at Eleanor like she just spat on Severo’s face. Eleanor stands straight, her shoulders slack and soft. She was trained to let the grieving families emote. But no one trained her on how to deal with a patient that knows she’s lying.

“As I said, I alerted the doctor, held Severo’s hand, he passed, and once the doctor arrived, I called you.” Eleanor is intrigued. Surely, Bunnie understands that as a nurse, sharing bad news never gets easier; it becomes action and reaction.

“His cancer’s been hopeless for weeks,” Bunnie says, gripping tightly onto his bed railings. Eleanor feels like she was four again and was scolded by her grandmother for climbing the counters to dig into the cupboards for a hidden jar of jam. “At the first sign of dyspnea, you call me.”

Eleanor grows frustrated. Eleanor has given ample communication to the Yasays for weeks, being clear that Severo only had a short time left. “I’m truly sorry for your loss, Miss Yasay,” Eleanor says. When will Bunnie fuck off? Eleanor’s confidence is  slinking away like a small fish getting ensnared by twisting eels deep within her.  Bunnie, still gripping onto the bed railings, presided over Severo’s corpse. Bunnie’s entire body was rigid, but Eleanor notices thin ropes of muscle running along the length of her arm twitching, “That’s bullshit. You probably checked less and less as his condition got worse.”

Eleanor steps closer to the bed and grasps both hands on the rails, facing Bunnie. She became self-conscious over how territorial her posture was, like Severo was a freshly killed fawn and Eleanor was a scavenging coyote. She felt it was necessary to assert dominance. Eleanor needs to hide her insecurity and play Bunnie’s intimidation game. “We did everything we could to assure his safety. We called you promptly after he showed signs.”

“Who’s ‘we’? Only you called me,” Bunnie scoffs. Without breaking eye contact with Eleanor, Bunnie paces along the length of Severo’s bed, turning on her heels. “This is fucked. You know, they never allowed me to sleep here at night.”

Will Bunnie report her for medical negligence, elderly abuse? “Visiting hours are set with patients’ health in mind,” Eleanor says. She drops her gaze down to the embroidered part of Bunnie’s scrubs, “You know what it’s like.”

Bunnie shakes her head, her already loose, messy bun falling slack. She sits down on the armchair next to Severo’s bed and tries to gather her hair into a bun. Long strands of greasy, bleach-blonde hair keep slipping from her fingers.

Around this time last year, Eleanor’s grandmother was dying of breast cancer. Her grandmother knew exactly when and how she’ll die. She was weak and barely conscious but agreed to end treatment.

Her grandmother became her mother when Eleanor’s biological mother returned to her home in Silang at seventeen to drop baby Eleanor off in an empty, damp box that used to hold guavas. As a child Eleanor often heard the same two stories her grandmother had about her reckless daughter- how she whored herself out to strange men, how she was a hopeless shabu addict. No matter how she told the story, her grandmother was always the hero for sweeping up Eleanor’s little body into her arms, her home. Upon hearing these stories Eleanor would burrow her face deep into her grandmother’s soft shoulders and mutter a muffled thank you, but inside she ached with dread. All she wanted was her grandparents permission to let her be a child who can mess up and run free. And that if she was being reckless and broke an arm from climbing a tree too high, that they would carry her from the ground, whisper into her hair, even if she wailed and thrashed, that the pain will go away, that they will hold her and wrap her wounds. For the rest of her life, Eleanor must prove herself worthy to be someone’s child. After all, the moment a person changes their mind about you they can leave you nude, covered in your own shit, swaddled by soggy cardboard.

Eleanor wasn’t always studious. As a high schooler all she wanted to do was hang out with her girlfriends. She lived the typical Bay Area party girl fantasy- driving around in the shiniest cars full of smoke going to stranger’s houses where there would be Hennesy bottles, girls with immaculate winged eyeliner, loud rap, and plenty muscular, tatted up Asian boys who pretended to be too good to make the first move. Eleanor wanted to give the future as little thought as possible. Everyone around her spoke of their plans within the next five, ten years. The thought of living to be past thirty made her want to vomit. She wanted to drink herself into oblivion. Her friends didn’t think much of it- Eleanor was a sloppy, fun time.

Despite their disapproval, her grandparents reminded her how much they loved her every morning. She wished they never picked her up from the hospital when she got her stomach pumped from alcohol poisoning four different times. She secretly hoped they would kick her out after picking her up from the Oakland police station for underage drinking after the neighbors busted a brawl at one of Tommy Vuong’s infamous ragers. She didn’t expect them to allow her to go to prom, yet they drove her to nine different dress stores over the span of one weekend to pick out the best dress. She thought she would be totally cut off in senior year when she stole her grandmother’s brand new SUV, got crossfaded in her friend’s house, and crashed it into a steel road barrier and almost flipped herself over a cliff in Pacifica, straight into the ocean.

She had to get her act together and go to college. During the most stressful times, her lola would give Eleanor set steaming bowls of soup beside her laptop on the kitchen table, no matter how late it was at night. Eleanor got accepted into a competitive nursing program, secured an externship, got hired at a renowned hospital, and finally landed a job as a hospice nurse. When her studies got too difficult or the job market seemed dismal, Eleanor reminded herself of how excited her grandmother was. Eleanor was finally doing something right. Every exam she aced, semester she completed, job offer she got, Eleanor was collecting hard evidence that she was worthy of the love she received from her grandparents. Whenever she felt like backing out, she would spread out the evidence and convince herself that progressing was worthwhile. Her grandmother’s admiration for Eleanor’s career trajectory was an opaque, no-fuzzy-edges fact. Eleanor made a small show of being embarrassed by her grandmother’s boasting, but these were the only moments she had when she was burning with pride. Before she could even decide if she really wanted this life, she held her first paycheck in her hands.

Soon after Eleanor started at Lawton, her grandmother’s health was rapidly declining. It was a matter of days. They didn’t have time to consider hospice care. A nurse called Eleanor at 10 PM on a Wednesday, so she drove her grandfather to the hospital. The staff made her grandmother comfortable. She was drugged up, silent, and still.

Giving her grandmother the perfect death was the ultimate job that Eleanor assigned to herself. Her grandmother was only going to die once. Eleanor and her grandfather sat on each side of her grandmother and held her hand. With the pad of her thumb, Eleanor rubbed the thin, papery skin that was stretched taut over the back of her grandmother’s hands which was encased with thick green veins, her knuckles delicate as like the hollow bones of a dove. She did that for hours. It was the longest time she’s held physical contact with her, with anyone, but she dare not let go.

When she died, Eleanor felt the same small relief she got when she left a patient’s room at work, something she did dozens of times each day. She glanced up to her grandfather as he cried into his wife’s limp hand, mashing it into his wet cheekbones, his lips. A task as momentous as this should have a momentous reaction, right? Was she supposed to do something to feel grief, the same way she would push two fingers down her throat to puke after a night of binging before she could drive?

Eleanor regretted not being upfront to her grandmother. Why was she so afraid to tell her that nursing school wasn’t meant for her? Why didn’t she tell her that she lived her whole life in fear that one day they would give up on her? While Eleanor took pride in how she presented herself to the world, deep down she felt like she didn’t deserve the love she received because when she looks in the mirror she sees a teenager with vomit plastered on her chest, her body mashed between airbags, broken glass and the smell of burnt rubber around her.

And now some bitter nobody of a nurse is hell bent on taking down Eleanor. Bunnie had no idea what Eleanor went through to become a hospice nurse. Perhaps Eleanor is not as powerful as she thought she was. What if everyone actually saw her for who she is- a hopeless wreck, one that had no real skills or passions besides disappointing the only people who cared for her?

Eleanor pulls out a fresh white sheet from the bedside drawer to drape over Severo’s body below his neck before the morticians arrive. Eleanor loves the way a sheet or blanket floats midair, the way it silences every sound in a room when it reaches its full length, falling slowly. But Bunnie stands up from the chair, grabs a corner, twists it around her wrist, and yanks it out of Elanor’s grip, denying the sheet its descent. The rope of fabric drags across Severo’s face. “I answered at the first ring,” Bunnie says. “Didn’t I?”

Bunnie should be more like her name. Meek. Prey that survived by scurrying into dirt holes beneath shrubs. Eleanor speaks with the lilt of morning songbird. She inhabits Samantha. “You did. You did everything correctly.”

+++++

To distract herself from replaying the conversation she had with Bunnie yesterday, she messages a man on Hinge and agrees to meet him at the Mission for dinner and drinks. It’s a Saturday night. The Moroccan restaurant is buzzing with energy- waiters  rush wide silver platters of colorful pickled veggies and grilled meats to the dozens of tables, all of which contain patrons talking over each other. He’s an environmental engineer who graduated from Berkeley. Halfway through the meal, the engineer asks her how she felt about the disproportionate number of Filipino nurses who died during the peak of the pandemic. Eleanor is struck dumb.

She remembers the panic that struck her and her coworkers in her previous job. A few years ago Eleanor heard the most coverage about Filipino nurses Eleanor’s ever heard in her entire life. Those stories, the attention to her, made her want to shrink into nothingness.

The engineer blinks at her from across their platter of grilled meats and yellow rice, his lips pulled upwards, taut.  It was a valid question. She chews on a piece of lamb fat and sucks the salt out of it.

The whole point of going on dates was to avoid thinking. Without these dates, life would be relentless- work, home, repeat. At home her job never ended. She looked after her grandfather. While they discussed the possibility, they didn’t move from their two bedroom condo that sat atop a year-round foggy hill in Pacifica. Her salary afforded her routine chestnut-brown hair dye appointments that she would style in a bun during work so it would come undone in waves at night, regularly refreshed nail sets that looked simple enough for work but elegant when paired with silver rings and a satin slip dress.  She followed the same ritual -she laughs at these men’s jokes, commends them on their jobs (how important they are to the world), leans in closer, props her slender elbows on the table and touches their arms. It always works. They shuffle into her small, tidy room and fuck her. Then they leave for good. Some even block her. And she was okay with that.

When her dates go to the bathroom or there’s a lull in the conversation, she looks at the people snuggled up in tiny booths designed for couples and wonders how they fell in love. On rare, dateless nights, she gets drunker than usual with her friends, arrives home, and sinks her fully made-up face into her pillow. She pretends she’s a night vision camera mounted on the wall of her friends’ bedrooms. They’re kicking their shoes off, taking turns washing up in the bathroom sink. They’re kissing, they’re attempting to have sex, but maybe they’re settling into bed instead, their faces burrowing into each other’s sleep shirts. Then, she swipes on her apps, responds to her matches, then falls asleep once the screen light dries her eyes out.

The most honest thing Eleanor could say to this engineer is, talking about this is too painful, can we talk about something else? Or it was rough, simple as that. What would Bunnie say? Bunnie was the type who had a boyfriend, Eleanor reasons. Bunnie dyed her hair dark blonde, kept a trim physique, wore peach pink lip balm- all things that indicated she cared about being attractive for a mate. Yet, Eleanor does similar things. Bunnie probably has no issue being honest with her dates.  Her coworkers. Her grandfather. Eleanor envied how Bunnie so easily showed her anger yesterday. Eleanor couldn’t comprehend how someone could externalize feelings that easily. There are people out there who don’t have a filter system for their emotions so that words came out like triple distilled vodka- sterile, crystalline, dry.

Who could Eleanor be if she was honest about how she felt? Secretly, Eleanor fears that her true self is unloveable. There was no point in expressing tenderness. She could repress the nastiness that lurked inside her, like slick eels that slithered in the dark, muddy bottom of the ocean far below the sun’s reach. She was destined to disappoint. She was disposable even before she uttered her first words.

But there was a 50/50 chance that the man would be reassuring, genuinely kind. When people are being kind, you have to be kind back, right?

But Eleanor doesn’t want to owe anyone anything. “It was fine. The news made it a bigger deal than it was,” Eleanor says.

“Huh,” he says as he forks his cold chicken. Eleanor couldn’t tell if he was disappointed with her answer. “I’m glad that you weren’t that affected,” he smiles and places his hands on the table, palms up. Perhaps in another world, there is a version of Eleanor who shares her thoughts truthfully. That wants to be known. In that world, maybe Eleanor works a different profession. Has a lover. Eleanor fits her hand over his- large, smooth, warm, deep brown- and exhales in relief.

After dinner, he takes her to his apartment in a tall, slate blue building in San Francisco’s Financial District. Inside was airy and open with matching new furniture all made of walnut. One of the walls of his bedroom was almost entirely glass. She treads his floors like a cat walking a high fence- she could fall out of his building, her body careening through the dark, the city lights and glowing bedroom windows flashing by her like flaming meteors.

While he was having sex with her in his bed, she wonders if he built the bed himself. She wonders what he even did as an engineer. Why did he choose to be an engineer? With her back against the headboard and his head between her legs, she squints at the picture frames in his room. She might recognize one of his older relatives. What if the engineer had a grandfather in Lawton that died alone? To her disappointment, all of his picture frames had abstract art. Flesh-colored blobs with black paint slashed through them on a cream field. 

Thirty minutes had passed and Eleanor was desperate for him to finish. It’s not that he was ugly or lousy in bed. He was the type of man her girlfriends would approve of. Broad-shouldered, muscular, styled his hair to the side with molding paste, did foreplay, had a nice car. She knew her girlfriends would disapprove of her fake moaning, but she did anyway. Her friends are advocates for the no-fake-orgasm policy.

Eleanor wonders if Bunnie ever faked an orgasm. If Bunnie had a partner who listened to the particular way her breath would quicken and catch. If she gave directions on how to go down on her. Eleanor leaves his apartment at 3AM while he snored, buried in his white linen comforter. She blocks him as the Uber drives her home.

+++++

Lawton Manor, which was in the heart of San Francisco’s Presidio, was once a massive twelve bedroom brick colonial style home. When they converted it from a mansion to a nursing home they added a parking lot and planted lupines and hyacinths out front. The inside still looked like a rich old person’s home. The lobby floors were waxed cherry oak covered with twice-daily vacuumed burgundy oriental rugs. There was a rotation of interns who were tasked to fill the many Chinese porcelain vases with fresh cut flowers from the garden. Guests and residents could lounge by the fireplace on brown leather couches. The hospice wing, where Eleanor works, was newly renovated and ugly. Everything was made of flat, firm lines. Her shoes squealed against the overwaxed linoleum tiles that reflected warbled globs of the fluorescent light’s glare. Families paid top dollar to send their elderly here.

Eleanor clocks into her afternoon shift. Her first assignment was Julie. Julie was assigned to Eleanor’s care a month ago. They recently learned that her kidney disease was worsening and that she was dying. Julie was a seventy-six year old who had been there for two years. To Eleanor’s amusement, Julie is the only patient who plays the default channel on the television -footage of monarch butterflies migrating, spring meadows swaying in unison on an anonymous mountain, and robin mothers building nests played over classical music, stuff like that. It runs on loop twenty-four hours a day, mounted in the upper right corner of her room.

Eleanor checks her blood pressure. On the screen, a close up of black ants in a single file line marches across a rain-dappled brick walkway. Eleanor didn’t understand how the nature footage was chosen for this tape. “Look at them. They just know what they’re doing,” Julie says as Eleanor sets down a tray of apple juice and cornbread. Eleanor was used to Julie’s off-kilter way of responding. Julie smooths her long, gray hair before sinking deeper into bed.

“They make it look easy,” Eleanor must admit, it’s impressive. An organism acting upon its instincts. Everything is in order. The screen fades and a fawn, its gangly body still shimmering with birth blood, joins its mother in standing on all fours.

“Listen, my daughter is in the parking lot to drop off Fatal Faults. She just bought a copy. Can she come in? I know it’s not visiting hours, but she’s got a busy weekend with the boys’ tournaments.”

For weeks, Julie has yammered on about Fatal Faults, a two-hundred page book dedicated to the most disastrous earthquakes from the 21st century. Lawton residents like to fill their space with sentimental objects. Julie, however, has a stunning curated photo gallery of the worst natural disasters in history. Full color satellite images of Hurricane Katrina. Pictures of the aftermath from the 2004 Indonesian tsunami. Old newspaper articles she bought online and collected about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Sneaking visitors in was difficult but it wasn’t impossible. “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do,” Eleanor says, gathering the tray and her files.

Julie sinks her head deeper into bed, ropes of silver hair that she refuses to cut bunching up by her pale, pocked cheekbones, “Damn,” she exhales.

If Bunnie overhears this, she would probably call Eleanor an apathetic, bitter nurse who loves to see patients depressed and die alone. Guilt swells in Eleanor’s chest, like burning bile creeping upwards. Eleanor could contact the daughter on file, telling her to drop it off the front desk. Eleanor shuts those ideas down quickly. Acting upon emotions is like puking everywhere outside of the toilet.

Ever since that confrontation with Bunnie, Eleanor had to be extremely diligent at Lawton. What if everyone, not just Bunnie, could see that Eleanor was truly a fuck up? There is one person out there that thinks Eleanor is not a good nurse. That’s absurd. Everyone- her classmates, professors, coworkers, managers- bought into the charade. Eleanor must keep it under wraps.

Who is she if she isn’t a nurse? The only reference Eleanor has was pre-college, when she was a wreck. She worked so hard to avoid being that person again. She loved how her grandmother would drop everything and listen to Eleanor’s little stories about her studies, her work. Eleanor shared story after story with the rushed cadence of an excited toddler as her grandmother would slow down whatever task she was doing and turn her whole body to her, listening to every word, her lips slack, nodding in short, involuntary bursts. It’s been an entire year since anyone has listened to Eleanor like that. All the attention Eleanor has ever wanted from her grandmother only came from discussions related to nursing. Eleanor wishes she could have shared other thoughts–

Will you ever cut me off like you did with mom?

Do you ever feel like you’re just going through the motions?

 I don’t want to disappoint you

And she wishes her grandmother would respond with the same kindness

I’m proud of you

I’ll always love you

Everything will be okay.

Now that her grandmother isn’t here, Eleanor had to give herself validation. Fulfilling her duties as a no-bullshit nurse gave her a sense of control.

“Come on, please?” Julie pleads once more, her voice muffled through the bedsheets pulled over her chin.

“Visiting hours are the only time people can come for non-emergencies. If she made a visitation appointment ahead of time, then she could’ve come in. I hope you understand.”  This, like the lie, is a script she’s relied on before. She loved these prepackaged phrases that affirmed her authority. It was like running her fingertips against machine-engraved words on cold stainless steel. Eleanor leaves room 7 hoping that the shape of Julie’s daughter coagulates, but when she tries recalling recent visitors, she could only muster a blur of ears and legs.

+++++

It’s Friday afternoon, which means it’s time to confirm weekend date plans on her as she waits for her bus to Lawton. But she couldn’t focus on replying to William, a personal trainer with strawberry blonde hair. She closes Hinge and searches bunnie yasay on Instagram. Her profile picture, an old headshot of Bunnie with short, black hair on a background of sun dappled leaves, pops up. The bio read USF nursing class of ‘16 and an emoji of a dog. Eleanor refreshes the page, her thumbnail rapidly thwacking the screen in frustration. Private account. Eleanor wants to see who this person was, the one person who got under her skin. There’s gotta be something that could incriminate Bunnie, make Eleanor feel good about herself.

She probably had a picture of her dog- an auburn labradoodle who gets professionally groomed every month. She definitely had pictures of her in her graduation gown and emerald green USF stole. The first one would be a solo one, posing with her degree. The next one would be with her family. If Eleanor could, she would zoom in on Severo, standing at six feet tall, his long arms pulling his apo close to him, his black-dyed hair gelled back, a smile that made his eyes squint, the cancer cells in his lungs multiplying.

The bus arrives, lowers itself to the ground with a hissing squeal, and then drives off without her. On Maps, Eleanor adds a stop before Lawton- Vitality Dialysis. She walks two blocks over to catch one headed in that direction. Maybe she could learn more about Bunnie if she observed her from afar. Perhaps Vitality Dialysis had plenty of windows and she could spot Bunnie. It’s not like she’s a creep who watches Bunnie sleep or shower. She’s not those vengeful psychos who slashes people’s tires and skins their labradoodles. Eleanor just wants to see what Bunnie is really like.

When the bus stops in front of the plaza, Eleanor takes a good look at the clinic. Vitality Dialysis is not as windowed as she hoped. But Bunnie is there. Right there, in the parking lot, shutting her car door. Eleanor opens her Notes app

Blue honda civic

weds 4/10 12:13 pm

She takes this route for three more weeks even if it means coming to Lawton early, even if it means she busses on her days off until, finally, she plots Bunnie’s schedule in its entirety.

++++

Eleanor and her grandfather pick off each other’s paper plates as they sit in the corner of their distant relative’s garage, surrounded by a dozen screeching children, balloons, and Kidz Bop blaring in the background. It was Jomari’s birthday. He turned five and the theme was Pokemon.

Her grandparents would be delighted if she became a mother. Eleanor, however, abhors the idea of raising a child, parenting with another man, or looking at her pregnant body in the mirror. She only wants the baby in the living room bouncing atop her grandparents’ knees. Or printed in those Christmas cards you mail out to friends every year.

They were about to say their goodbyes to the host when her grandfather says to Eleanor “I wish you started a family before your lola died.” He smashes a blue buttercream rose with the back of his plastic fork, “What a shame.”

Eleanor places her fork down and leans back on the creaky foldout chair, staring down at the liver spotted bald patch of his head. “How could I? I was busy with school. With work.”

“It’s always school or work with you,” he mutters through a mouthful of cake.

Eleanor is livid. All the hours she dedicated to making the life she had now and it wasn’t good enough.“Do I look like a baby making machine?” she lowers her head close to the table and hiss-whispers so no one can hear her “Would you have wanted me to rush finding a husband?”

“I find it hard to believe that of all the bums you screw you can’t find one decent man?” he says as he swipes pink frosting on the corner of his lip with the back of his hand and slams it down on the table. He looks up at her now, “You don’t think I notice?”

Eleanor draws in a long breath. “I find it hilarious that I’m having this conversation with you. What are we, a fucking sitcom?” She knew this would sting. The last time she cursed in front of her grandparents was when she was screaming drunk when they stood at the foot of her hospital bed the fourth time she got alcohol poisoning in high school.

Eleanor wonders if Bunnie had to deal with this shit from her family. Did Bunnie ever fantasize of leaving her entire family behind? To enter the unknown, where all pressure was gone? Bunnie probably doesn’t have trouble finding love. Bunnie probably wants to marry a nice man and have children now that she has a steady job. Why can’t Eleanor want something that simple? Was she broken for not seeing the appeal?

Now that she thinks about it, Bunnie talked down to Eleanor the other day because she pitied her. Bunnie probably thinks that no one could be attracted to Eleanor because she is a bitter, pathetic woman who hated her job, her life. Bunnie had no idea how hard Eleanor worked to attain this life. This makes Eleanor want to grab Bunnie by the shoulders, shake her, scream at her face that she was the low life. Eleanor isn’t incapable of love. She just hasn’t found the right man yet. She was busy. Right, busy. Devoted to  her job. If she doesn’t have a job, she would be the same girl she was in high school. And that girl deserves to be hated.

Bunnie needs to know that Eleanor did her job properly. If only Eleanor could run into her. Eleanor would  slip it into conversation. Say something like, I’m sorry about your grandfather’s death, but just for your peace of mind I really did comfort him in the end. Bunnie would feel guilty for ever questioning Eleanor. There will be a change of heart, and Bunnie will see Eleanor for the genuine, passionate caregiver that she was. Bunnie would say, I’m sorry for not believing you. Of course you were there for him. Of course you did everything perfectly.

 If anything, Bunnie was worse than Eleanor. Bunnie was the one that abandoned her lolo when he died. Bunnie doesn’t have a clue what Eleanor does for her own grandfather. Would a fuck up cook for him twice a week, organize his medication in a daily pill container, mark it off using a dedicated whiteboard, and haul her grandfather to some distant cousin’s Pokemon themed birthday party?

“I’m sorry. It’s hard going to these things without your lola,” her grandfather says as they pull up to their apartment’s parking lot.

She can admit it to her grandfather now- that the thought of being a mother made her want to gauge her eyes out. That she understands why her own mother would give her baby away. That she wishes lola were still here, too. Instead, Eleanor kills the engine, opens his door, and leads him up the stairs without saying anything. As usual, she checks his blood sugar. She hands him his pills and they watch TV Patrol until she prompts him to get ready for bed. Then, she steps into the shower and stands amid the steaming water.

She has ten minutes to wash her hair and scrub her body until she hears her loofa squeak against her skin. She needs to prepare for the night shift. She needs to make sure she covers her bases before she leaves the house, so her grandfather doesn’t die a lonely, horrific death.

Eleanor had come home from William’s house in the morning, before Jomari’s party. They finished off their wine bar date last night in his apartment. While she couldn’t bring herself to share anything substantial about her life in the bar, she imitated having sex the way loving girlfriend’s did in movies. In the dark, she glided her hands over the ridged muscles of his shoulders, his back. In the orange glow of a bedside jasmine candle burning, she looked up at him. Maybe she was capable of intimacy. Over dinner next time, she would tell him that she wishes she could take a break from work. After a few weeks they would talk about family. And she can tell him how much of a terror she was to her grandparents, but how much she loved them because they loved her. Who knew that pretending to be in love is easy.

With her back against the bed, she adjusted her hip so there was friction against her clit. Eleanor started moaning, and realized she’d been quiet until then. At that moment she thought about her intro to anatomy class. Her professor walked them through the diagram of a vulva, which was printed on glossy textbook. Each flap and fold had a distinct form and function. The clitoris is the only organ designed solely for pleasure. It surprised her, the frivolity of this organ. She was pulled back into the moment by William’s throaty shudder, right before he sputtered semen on her stomach.

During the party William texted her and said that he had an amazing time but he wasn’t interested in seeing her anymore.

Everything between her legs is engulfed in white foam. Her nerves respond to the thousands of minuscule bubbles popping. It was never about pleasure. The clitoris, forked and reaching deep beneath the surface like a snake’s tongue, is also an obligation.

++++

Eleanor walks towards room 7. It’s 8PM; lights-out rotations. Julie is her second assignment of the night. Standing by her door is a middle aged woman with brown hair smattered with gray streaks. Similar to Julie, the woman had coarse hair that hung long and thick, like a wild stallion.

“Are you here to check on my mother?” the woman rushes over to Eleanor, pointing to the door, her canvas tote bag fumbling off her flabby shoulder.

“I’m sorry ma’am, visiting hours are over. Unless there is an emergency, you aren’t supposed to be here.” Eleanor anticipates that the woman will snap about how she pays good money to put her mother here and that she was entitled to seeing her.

To her surprise, Julie’s daughter maintains a deferential tone. “Please, I need to give her this book she’s been begging about. It’s a late anniversary present,” she pulls out Fatal Faults, her thick glasses slipping down her nose. “My dad was a geologist professor. She misses him,” she says, her voice cracking.

It was touching, how this stranger was willing to share so much. Eleanor reasons that, for once, she should do one genuine act of kindness.“Okay, but please be quick. I need to do a few things before she sleeps.”

Julie’s daughter grabs onto Eleanor’s arms and thanks her. Eleanor shuts the door to give them privacy. What if this was the last time they got to see each other? If she missed her own grandmother’s death, she would never forgive herself. A few minutes later, she steps out and wishes Eleanor a blessed night. Eleanor is about to swing the door open, but she finds Samantha standing in the hallway, her walkie crackling.

“What’s going on?” Samantha says, her high, lilting tone replaced by a flat sternness. Before Eleanor could explain herself, Samantha rambles about how that’s a fireable offense. That unapproved visitor could have caused harm to the patient. Raped them, poisoned them. In Arizona, someone with a vendetta snuck into a nursing home and stabbed his sister thirty eight times with a kitchen knife. Imagine the headlines.

“She just wanted to drop off a gift,” Eleanor says. Being told off by Samantha made her feel so exposed. Eleanor is splayed out and shadowless under the bright white light of a surgeon’s overhead lamp and Bunnie was hovering over her, scoffing, shoving her slippery innards around with gloved hands to reveal all of her flaws. Only a fuck-up like Eleanor would let a potential murderer-rapist come into a vulnerable person’s room. Bunnie would never put her patients in danger because she was perfect. Bunnie loves her job, so she has nothing to hide.

Samantha’s arms flop down her sides, “I’m surprised you of all people would commit an offense as big as this.”

“Listen, it’s not that bad,” Eleanor’s tries to think of new excuses to wriggle her way out of this mess. Her blood was pumping so loud in her head she couldn’t hear her own thoughts. Maybe she could tell Samatha that she was trying to be nice for Julie. She wishes she had a lie prepared. But she wasn’t fast enough.

 “I have to write you up,” Samantha says.

+++++

The following night, gallonfuls of fat, heavy droplets assail Eleanor the moment she steps out of the bus. Eleanor’s phone has been going off for the past two hours. Three missed calls from Samatha.  Samantha texted: Where are you? Your shift started at 8. During her daily detour to Vitality Dialysis, Eleanor saw something new-Bunnie being dropped off by a man-a tall, brown-haired one, with a puffy vest over a red flannel, leaning in to give her a kiss before she slipped inside the sliding doors of Vitality Dialysis. It was the perfect time.

Eleanor texts her manager: I slept through these calls. I vommed all night. Probably food poisoning, but I’ll take a COVID test to be sure. Then, Eleanor steps out of the bus and walks into Vitality Dialysis.

 She’s sopping wet and missing work, but it’s worth it. Bunnie must know that Eleanor has been truthful this entire time. The two barely visible front desk receptionists that sat behind the counter didn’t seem to care who occupied the lobby. Their vision of the visitors is obscured by a row of cellophane wrapped orchids that lined the counter.

After two hours of waiting, she catches Bunnie grab a lime energy drink from the fridge in the cafeteria. Eleanor leaves the lobby to make her move. Eleanor buys grapes from the counter. Bunnie doesn’t notice her at first. Bitter bile rises to Eleanor’s tongue and the inside of her cheeks feels fuzzy like she bit into an unripe fig.

Eleanor taps her elbow, “Bunnie! I can’t believe I ran into you like this, do you wanna sit and have a quick lunch while I wait?”

 Bunnie sucks her molar, “Sure.” Eleanor can tell she’s sitting with her to be polite. There’s probably a break room she can be alone in. Eleanor pops a cold grape in her mouth, letting her tongue warm it before biting down. The juice tasted slightly fishy. They were probably stored in a fridge near tubs of tuna salad. She offers Bunnie some grapes. She takes one.

“Who are you here for?” Bunnie says, chewing slowly.

“A relative,” Eleanor says in one breath, hoping the lie doesn’t snag in her throat. “How has your family been?”

“I don’t want to talk about that with you,” Bunnie says. She stands to leave the table.

Eleanor wants to get Bunnie mad, but she needs to start slow. Get her to sit back down and listen.“You know, my lola died exactly how she wanted. Everyone standing around her bed, quiet.”  Bunnie turns back around and lowers herself into her seat, her whole body tense. Thick veins that ran down Bunnie’s neck jerk under her skin. “Strange how humans need so much comfort surrounding death,” Eleanor says.

“What are you talking about?” Bunnie says.

“I imagine most animals don’t need a whole production when they die. People are too afraid,” Eleanor uses her professional cadence and places her hands over her crossed knees like she’s being interviewed about her research as a famous zoologist. 

Bunnie pushes on, “So you, a hospice nurse, are saying that my grandfather’s death was a whole production?”

 A swell of acid warms Eleanor’s stomach. Eleanor continues goading her. “You know, Severo was difficult to care for. He had that shame men have when you change their diaper, hoist them up, wipe their chins during meals. God, I hate it. It’s so awkward. I wish they could just look me in the eye, have some humor. Your lolo was no different. He’d grumble at questions like ‘when was the last bowel movement he had by himself,’ but he’d snap if I asked his wife to answer for him whenever she visited. It’s like, what do you want from me? Regardless, I did my best.”

Bunnie leans into the table, her entire weight held by her folded forearms. She sucks her lips in so her mouth is a hard line, her eyes dart across Eleanor’s body like a sniper’s laser. “I will never believe that you did your best.”

Eleanor loves seeing her pissed off. “Believe what you want, but how could you prove that he died alone?”

“It sounded too good to be true.”

“Well, my grandmother had a perfect death. I saw it for myself,” Eleanor says.

Bunnie’s nostrils flare the same way Severo’s does when his legs were held by the foot lift’s slings so he can spread them open while the nurses wiped him clean when he soiled the bed pad. “It’s not just that. You sounded fake, like you were too comfortable spitting the news out to me.”

Eleanor wants to commit to her lie. Eleanor’s commitment to lying to relatives of the recently deceased is no different to the other self-appointed commitments she has in her life. Eleanor lies because she likes the version of herself that she presented to her grandmother, that she presents in Lawton Manor. Yes, she lies to the faces of grieving people. When she fulfills her duties as a hospice nurse, she is lying to herself. As she was pushing through her studies and telling herself that this was worthwhile, she was lying to herself. If it wasn’t for her job, she would be exactly who she was in high school. Deluding herself into loving her life full of commitments, obligations, and responsibilities has only made her miserable. Maybe, for a brief moment, Eleanor could relinquish the commitment to lying. The commitment to being an unfeeling humanoid robot nurse that’s programmed to be as closed off from others as possible. Eleanor would be angry if she missed her grandfather’s death, too. This whole conversation was exhausting. She skipped work. Every inch of her is damp. She’s sitting across a stranger she’s been stalking for weeks.  Bunnie is not going to believe her and apologize. But she might be compassionate, understanding. Maybe if Eleanor comes clean, Bunnie will thank her for doing her best with Severo. “I’m sorry. I lied about being by his side,” Eleanor says.

Instead, Bunnie scoffs, leans away from the table. “I knew it from the start. So, what do you want from me?”

Eleanor presses her palms down hard at the table, as if she was keeping it from blowing away from the rainstorm outside. “As much as you want me to feel bad about not being there, I don’t. I can’t control everything. I just need you to know that I did my job. I did it well. I made him comfortable for his entire stay.” Eleanor says.

Bunnie gasps, “I apologize! You’re right,” Bunnie covers her mouth like an embarrassed pantomime. “As nurses, it’s not our job,” she stands, grabbing her can, “Good thing you went above and beyond for your lola. But it’s also your job to give honest reports. You fucked me over. You fucked my family over.”

Eleanor is mortified. She tries to think of a way to lie again. But it’s too late. Bunnie gets up. Without thinking, Eleanor reaches for Bunnie’s arm, but she stops herself. Bunnie looks down at Eleanor. “Thank you for everything,” her breath smells of medical-grade lemon cleanser. Bunnie smiles with all her teeth, now tinged green, “If you can think of any way I can help your relatives feel more comfortable here, please let me know,” she says in a sing-songy voice like Samantha’s.

+++++

Days later Eleanor is scheduled to check Julie’s room before lights-out. But when she walks in, Julie’s head is swiveling against her pillow and she’s gasping like she resurfaced from the sea. Eleanor stands paralyzed under the doorframe. The TV loops back to the cloud of silver fish, their bodies flickering light like they’re tiny pouches of electricity. The patient monitor is flashing and beeping.

She wishes she didn’t see it. It’s fucked up to even consider walking away. Why was she even a nurse if a thought like this crossed her mind? No matter how much training she had, watching someone dying is never clean or easy. But now she was being flung into the eye of the whirlpool, where the waters are yanking at her and she cannot avoid its force.

It’s not too late- Eleanor could pretend she didn’t see it. She’s a shit nurse, anyway. Bunnie could see her for who she was, a fuck up. Her grandmother isn’t around anyway, so why was she still trying? Just turn around and shut the door.

Through spasms, Julie strains her neck towards Eleanor’s direction. Eleanor rushes towards the bed. “I’m here,” Eleanor says as she snatches the wireless landline mounted on the wall. She calls for another nurse. Julie slowly lifts her right arm straight into the air in one creaky motion then drops her hand onto her chest, pulling the collar of her shirt down. Eleanor looks at her chest, the bit of skin jerking like an animal trying to escape. Eleanor rubs small circles between her collarbones. It will comfort Julie, she thinks. Eleanor forces her hand still, hoping Julie doesn’t notice them trembling.  Julie’s neck stiffens. Eleanor moves from her chest to hold her hand. She looks like she’s fixating on the natural disaster gallery across the room, but Eleanor knows she can’t see anything.

Eleanor calls her daughter’s number on file. Please, she says to the phone, to Julie. The dial tone rings. The time between each gasp lengthens. Eleanor calls again and again and again. Nobody answers.

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