You Have Four Saved Messages
My grandmother, Opal, is eighty-nine. She moved into a memory care unit in Knoxville in April, after she got lost walking to the mailbox. She has a phone in her room and she calls me most evenings, usually when I’m at work, and leaves voicemails. Some are a few seconds. Some are ten minutes. I save the good ones. I’ve transcribed four here, exactly as they are, because I want someone besides me to hear them, and because I’m not sure the people at the home believe me.
Message one. Saved. Tuesday, June 3, 9:48 p.m.
Hi honey, it’s Grandma. It’s Opal. I’m calling you, it’s — oh, I don’t know what time it is, they took the clock out, I told them I wanted the clock. Anyway. I had a nice dinner. They had the chicken. The girl, the nice one with the braids, she did my nails. Pink. You’d like them.
I’m calling because I had a visitor last night and I wanted to tell you. A nice young man. He came in after they turned off the hall lights and he sat in the chair by the window, very polite, and we talked. He knew all about you. He said you live in the place with the green door now. Up the stairs. Is that right? He said you have a plant on the windowsill that you forget to water and it’s got brown leaves. I told him you were always like that with plants, honey, I’m sorry. [laughs] I told him about the time you killed the cactus.
Anyway. He was very nice. He said he’d come again. Love you. Call your mother. Bye bye. Bye.
I did have a plant on the windowsill with brown leaves. A pothos. My door is green. I’d moved in February and my grandmother had never been to my apartment; by then she wasn’t traveling. My mother might have told her about the door. I asked. She said she hadn’t. I called the home and asked whether there had been any visitors after hours, and the night supervisor, a calm woman named Mrs. Truett, said absolutely not, the unit is locked after eight, and that residents often describe night visitors. She said it was very common. She said it wasn’t anything to worry about.
Message two. Saved. Friday, June 20, 11:12 p.m.
Honey? It’s Grandma. I can’t sleep. It’s late, isn’t it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I just wanted to hear your — oh, it’s the machine. All right.
He came again. The young man. He’s been coming most nights. He sits in the chair and he tells me what you’re doing, isn’t that sweet? So I don’t worry. He said tonight you were sitting in the bathtub with the water gone cold, reading your phone, and you’d left the little window over the tub open a crack and there were moths. He said you have a towel with a hole in the corner that you keep meaning to throw out.
I asked him how he knows all that and he said he’s been visiting you, too. He said he’s been sitting with you at night, in your chair, the blue one, while you sleep, so you won’t be lonely. I said that’s so kind. He said it’s what he does. He sits with people.
You should close that window, honey, the moths will get in your clothes. Love you. Love you.
I had been in the bath that night, until the water went cold. The window over the tub had been open a crack. There’s a hole in the corner of my gray towel. I have a blue armchair in my bedroom, by the window, across from my bed.
I didn’t sleep that night. I sat up in bed with all the lights on and looked at the armchair until it was light. There was nothing in it. In the morning I noticed the cushion had a dent in it, as if it had been sat in. I live alone. I don’t sit in that chair. I throw clothes on it.
I called Mrs. Truett again. She was kind and she was firm. She said Opal’s door alarm hadn’t gone off and the night aide had checked on her every two hours and she’d been asleep every time. She said Grandma’s dementia sometimes “borrows” details from conversations and photos, and that my mother had probably shown her pictures on a phone. My mother says she hadn’t. I believe my mother.
I moved the armchair into the living room and turned it to face the wall.
Message three. Saved. Sunday, July 13, 2:03 a.m.
Hi, honey. Hi. It’s me. It’s Grandma.
I’m not supposed to be up. They’ll be cross. I wanted to call because he was here and he said something, and I don’t — I didn’t like it, honey. I didn’t like how he said it.
He said you moved the chair. He said he doesn’t mind. He said he’ll just stand now. By your bed. He said you sleep on your left side with your hand under the pillow, just like you did when you were a little girl at my house, do you remember, when you’d sleep over and I’d check on you, and your hand was always under the pillow. He said it’s sweet.
He said I’m getting tired. He said he’s not going to visit me much longer. He said he’s been spending more of his time at your place.
He asked if I’d like to come. Come with him. Visit you. He said I could stay in your living room. In the chair.
I said that would be nice. Was that all right? Was it all right to say? Oh, honey, I’m sorry, I think he was pleased, and I don’t — he got up when I said yes, and he stood there by the window for a long time, and he’s very tall. I didn’t know he was so tall. Sitting down you don’t know.
I love you. Close your window. Bye. Bye, honey. Bye.
I called the home first thing that morning. The aide on duty said my grandmother had slept through the night and was eating breakfast. She put her on the phone. Grandma was cheerful. She didn’t remember calling. She asked about my plant.
I asked the home for the call logs for her room phone. They took a week. They show calls to my number on June 3 and June 20. There is no call from her room on July 13.
The fourth message came in on August 9th. My grandmother died in her sleep on the night of August 7th.
Message four. Saved. Saturday, August 9, 3:31 a.m.
[long pause, about eleven seconds, a soft hiss]
Honey? It’s Grandma.
I’m here. I’m at your place. Isn’t that something? He let me in. He’s been so kind.
I’m in the chair. In the living room. It’s facing the wall, did you know that? I don’t mind. It’s quiet here. I can hear you breathing down the hall.
He’s in your room. He’s standing by the bed. He’s very tall, honey. He’s bending down. He’s looking at your hand, under the pillow.
He says he’d like to sit with you now.
He says you won’t be lonely anymore.
He says close the window, honey.
He says the moths will get in.
[pause, about six seconds]
Bye, honey. Bye. Bye.
The caller ID on message four is my own home landline, which I keep for my internet bundle and have never once used. The handset is in the kitchen. When I listened to the message, at 7 a.m. on August 9th, it was on the counter, off its cradle.
The armchair in my living room was turned around. Facing out. Toward the hall.
I’m writing this at a friend’s apartment, across town. I haven’t been home since. My friend has been very good about it. She asked me last night why I keep getting up to check her windows, and I said I don’t know, and she said, but you keep checking that they’re closed. And then she asked me why I’ve started sleeping with my hand under my pillow.
I told her I’ve always slept like that. I told her it’s how my grandmother used to find me.