in bed like this, either. You just mind that’s the truth!”
Al Ryan shot his wife a baffled, angry glance. He shook his head, and his hair, white and thick, stood cloudlike on top of his head.
“Listen to her!” he appealed helplessly to Arleen. “I’m sixty years old. Nobody’s going to hire me. I’m too old to get a job, and too young for social security. I keep telling her, but she won’t listen! Sometimes I honestly think she even believes that stuff she says, about how everything’s going to get real good for us one of these days!” His Adam’s apple worked vigorously as he talked. “You make her see,” he told Arleen, “that she’s got to face up to what’s real. If she don’t, she’s going to end up in one of them psycho wards. You make her see that!”
Neelie Ryan smiled sweetly up at Arleen. “Now, ain’t that just like a man? Always getting depressed, like they don’t know the bright side’s there, if you just look hard enough for it?”
She squinted up at Arleen. “My, but you don’t hardly look old enough to be a nurse.”
Arleen laughed and took off her cape, putting it carefully on the foot of the bed. “Thanks,” she said, “but I’m twenty-three.”
“My,” Neelie Ryan said, “twenty-three. Imagine that.” Her faded blue eyes held a faraway, dreamy look. “I can remember when I was twenty-three. I was doing housework and taking care of three kids for a widower upstate. I always liked doing that kind of work. It’s a whole lot better than working in some dime store. I felt that, in a way, I was helping people who needed help.” She smiled, a sudden, secret smile. “But then Al come along and I forgot all about wanting to help people. I couldn’t see no one but Al.”
The door slammed, and she sighed and said softly, “Poor Al, he feels terrible about not having a job. But it’s not as if he don’t try. He’s the tryingest man. Even that Mrs. Gibbons from welfare has to admit that, even if she don’t like Al.” She sighed again. “Al’s so proud.” As if that were an explanation.
Arleen asked for hot water, and Neelie Ryan shook her head regretfully. “These are cold-water flats. We have to heat water. There’s a pan under the stove. I’m sorry Al went off like he did, he could have heated the water for you. Watch out for that gas burner. It’s a kind of temperamental.”
“I’ll make out fine,” Arleen told her. “I’m used to temperamental gas burners. We have one in the apartment where I live.”
Neelie Ryan laughed. “You’re real pretty, too,” she said, admiringly. “What happened to the other nurse, Mrs. Kitchener? She was a very nice lady.”
Arleen set out alcohol and cotton, soap, washcloth and a large, absorbent towel. She had been told to include towels, washcloths and soap in her supply bag, because most of the people with whom she would deal would deal would not consider such articles as real necessities.
“She decided to have a baby,” Arleen said, in answer to the woman’s question.
“My, that’s nice,” Neelie said. “I’m real glad for her.”
Arleen used a gentle touch in sponging the thin, small body, “Now, I’m going to give you an alcohol rub, Mrs. Ryan,” she said cheerfully.
“My but that feels good,” she said, as Arleen skillfully massaged her shoulders and back. “Sometimes the other nurse wouldn’t have time to give me a massage, but when she did have the time, oh, but it sure felt so good. You don’t want to call me Mrs. Ryan, miss. I’m Neelie. Everybody calls me Neelie. Even kids.”
Finished with the rub, Arleen got out a big box of dusting powder and patted Neelie’s neck, back and shoulders generously with it. She got a comb and combed her soft gray hair into becoming order.
“There now,” she said cheerfully, putting the things back into her satchel, “you look all pert and pretty.”
Neelie nodded happily. “I smell like a flower garden, too.” she said. Wistfully she added, “I like pretty things, pretty smells, pretty flowers, pretty dresses.”
Pity tugged at Arleen’s heart. Impulsively she leaned over and patted the older woman’s hand. “See you day after tomorrow,” she told her.
She frowned. She didn’t like leaving Neelie alone, and her husband had not yet returned. “Is there anyone in the building I could get to stay with you until your husband comes back?”
Neelie smiled confidently. “Don’t you worry none about me. I won’t be alone very long—my Al never stays away long. He worries about me.” She said it proudly, with the air of a woman who knows she’s cared about.
“Don’t you get the wrong impression about Al,” she told Arleen anxiously. “He’s a good man. It’s just. . . .” the thin, small hands moved on the patchwork quilt, folding and creasing it along the edge. “Well, Al’s one of those people who just don’t have good luck, no matter how much they work.” Earnestly, “But you know what I believe? I believe that everybody’s got one big chunk of luck that belongs just to them. And me and Al’s going to get our chunk before we die.”
That stab of pity liit Arleen again. She thought fiercely, “I must not allow myself to identify with my patients! Have I forgotten already what Mrs. Hitzer drummed into my head in third-year training?”
A nurse must not identify with her patients, because if she allows this, the personal element enters in and some of her efficiency is destroyed.
Arleen bent to smooth the quilt across Neelie’s chest. “That’s a beautiful quilt,” she said. “I’ve been admiring it.”
Neelie said proudly, “I made it myself, and by hand. Every last stitch of it.”
In the hall, Arleen nearly collided with a tall, thin young man hurrying toward the stairs that led to the last floor of the building.
She was aware of gray eyes sweeping over her face as if she were not there; dark hair badly in need of a trim. He hurried by her with not so much as a “sorry.”
Arleen stared after him. She was not used to rudeness in men where she was concerned, nor was she used to being ignored as if she did not exist.
She became aware of Al Ryan plodding up the stairs, a paper-wrapped parcel under one arm. He looked at her, then followed her eyes as she looked toward the upper stairs.
“Who was that?” She couldn’t resist the question.
“Him?” Al shifted the parcel from under his arm to his hands. “That’s Dr. Wynter. Imagine a doctor living in this neighborhood, taking care of people who can’t afford to feed themselves, let alone pay a doctor.” He shook his head. “He’s as crazy as Neelie, always figuring some miracle’s going to come along. Well, before he starves to death, somebody ought to tell him that miracles don’t happen to people like us!”
With what Arleen knew was a gesture of defiance, he pulled open the paper bag and revealed its contents. “Know what a wino is, miss? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s a guy who gets drunk on wine because it’s the best he can afford.”
Arleen said nothing. Al fingered the cap of the bottle. He said bitterly, “A man’s got to have something to get him through the days. You wouldn’t know what it’s like to ache inside of you like you
