I am shaking as I write this. I’ve thought about calling the police, but I haven’t figured out if I’m losing my mind or if my entire family has lost theirs. Maybe I will wake up soon and this will all have been a terrible nightmare.
For context, I am an only child and the only grandchild of my last living grandmother. A couple weeks ago while at work, I received a phone call from my mother informing me that my grandmother had taken a fall in her kitchen. Mom said that my Uncle Lou was with her and already in the ambulance. Paramedics suspected she had a fractured hip and somehow sliced open her foot. She was sedated due to the pain but was otherwise responsive and fine. I immediately asked if I should meet them at the hospital, but Mom said, “No, no. Don’t leave work, I’ll update you once I know more.”
So, I waited.
I love my grandmother, but she’s probably thee most stubborn woman I’ve ever met. She has a home remedy for just about anything and loathes seeing doctors, so I am sure she won’t be fun to deal with while confined to a hospital bed. It doesn’t help that Grandma absolutely refuses to use a walker or cane despite her debilitating age and will not leave her house to live in a nursing home. Six months ago, Uncle Lou moved in with her to help out. Not that he’s said it out loud, but I’ve always suspected that he did it more for the free rent.
With nothing else to do, I sat at work, distracted, and waiting for a phone call from Mom with news. That call didn’t come through until long after I’d gotten home and was brushing my teeth for bed. Apparently, Grandma was awake now and doing fine. She would need surgery for the broken hip, but they were able to get the laceration on her foot stitched up and bandaged. I asked to speak to her, so Mom held the phone up to Grandma’s ear and I told her I loved her and would come see her once she was discharged. The hospital only allowed two visitors and Mom and Lou refused to leave her side.
“Hi honey,” Grandma said through the receiver. “I’m okay but they won’t let me leave.”
My mom’s voice in the background exasperatedly explained that she needs surgery.
“So they tell me,” Grandma huffed. “I’m fine, Anna. Come see me when I get home and we can play cards.” I smiled, promised to visit, and said goodbye.
She was discharged the following week and sent home. The hip replacement was successful but she’d developed a nasty infection on her foot. Between the two ailments, Grandma was confined to her bed. Once she was comfortable at home, Mom gave me the OK to come over so I made some chicken dumpling soup and sat in the chair beside her bed while Mom spoon fed it into Grandma’s mouth.
“There you go, Mom,” my mother encouraged as Grandma sipped the broth off a spoon.
I could tell Grandma was wildly out of it. I had been expecting an earful about having to use a bedpan but, due to the cocktail of narcotics and antibiotics, she merely grumbled in annoyance at Mom’s and Lou’s constant hovering. For what it was, she seemed in good spirits if not exceptionally tired. After about two hours and two small soup mishaps, I got up to leave. Mom saw me to the door.
“She’ll be fine, Anna,” Mom reassured. “Lou and I are taking care of everything. Don’t worry.”
I left feeling optimistic that my grandmother would be back to her spitfire self relatively soon.
BUT…that visit with the soup was over two weeks ago now. Not long after, Mom took a leave of absence at work and holed up in Grandma’s house with Uncle Lou. Each time I called, Mom gave a new excuse as to why I shouldn’t visit: risk of infection, flu season, fatigue, bowel issues, you name it. At first, I accepted these excuses at face-value. They seemed legit, but I can’t even get Mom to put Grandma on the phone anymore. I made more soup yesterday and dropped it off, but Uncle Lou met me at the door and said it wasn’t a good time, but he’d make sure she got it.
“And we always let her know when you call,” he assured. I noticed that there was an intense floral and yet antiseptic scent coming from the doorway. “Your Mom won’t stop cleaning,” he explained.
Frustrated, I called and complained to my father on my way home, but he defended Mom, like always. “She’s always been like this,” he reminded me. “They’re extremely close, your mom and Grandma. And Lou? Well this just seems like classic Lou. You know, this is the first time they’ve really had to face the reality of their mother’s age. They’re just protective and scared to lose her.” I figured he was right, and I hung up the phone feeling a little less unsettled.
On Grandma’s 89th birthday, however, I decided I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. I would go over there and give her the present I purchased for her: a new thriller by her favorite author. I arrived at the house in late afternoon and noticed all the blinds were closed. Being that it was a warm spring day, it was common for Grandma to have all the windows open and drapes open, letting in both the sunlight and fresh air. I knocked twice on the front door, but no one came. I knocked again. No answer. I tried the knob, but the door was locked.
I paused for a moment, considering that maybe no one was home. Maybe Grandma had a follow-up with her surgeon. But both cars were in the driveway, so I knocked again; louder.
The door opened a crack and a foul odor filtered out nearly choking me. “Mom!” I exclaimed, when her face appeared on the other side of the door, “what is that smell?” Seeing it was only me, she opened the door another inch. “The infection’s gotten worse, but we’re monitoring it.”
“Should I call an ambulance?” I asked in a panic, pulling my cell phone from my pocket. “No, no, Anna,” she quickly reassured me. “We have it handled. I stopped by and picked up refills of her antibiotics earlier and we’ve been on the phone with her surgeon.” Relieved, I took a deep breath, but the smell was so overpowering. “Mom, that smell is ungodly. Why don’t you open the windows?”
“We tried,” she said. “But she got so cold…” Mom shrugged and didn’t move.
“Can I come in?” I asked, attempting to look over her shoulder into the dim house. I really didn’t want to go inside due to the smell, but if Grandma wasn’t doing well, I wanted to see her.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” she murmured.
“Where’s Uncle Lou?” I asked.
“Upstairs in his room.”
Her voice was reassuring but the smell turned my insides. Surely a smell like that could only mean bad things.
I pushed the door open and Mom protested. “Just come back another day when she’s feeling better. I promise you that Lou and I have this under control.”
In the kitchen, the odor was strong but mixed with the smell of bleach. I couldn’t tell if that made it better or worse.
“At least let me see her and give her a birthday present.”
Mom looked down to see the wrapped gift in my hands and sighed, “Of course,” she said. “Gosh, I’m sorry. We’ve just been so preoccupied. I’m sure she’ll love it.”
At that moment, Uncle Lou came trotting down the stairs and smiled at me. “Anna! Mom will be so happy you’re here.”
I looked at my mother incredulously. She was staring at her feet now. What was going on? Uncle Lou continued down the hall and I could hear him as he opened the door to Grandma’s bedroom. “Mom, you have a visitor for your birthday!”
The smell of the house was searing my nostrils but I wasn’t going to let Grandma know I was repulsed by it. Mom led me down the hall to Grandma’s bedroom instructing me along the way to put on a brave face. I plastered a smile across my face as I turned the corner into the room.
Grandma was sitting up in bed and Uncle Lou had taken a seat on the mattress beside her. His body obscured most of the view, but I could see her feet where they stuck out from under the quilt. The toes on her right foot were black with crumbling toenails and festering sores. The sheets under her heel were stained yellow from dried pus. Lou was prattling on to her but Grandma didn’t respond.
“Isn’t it nice for Anna to come see you on your birthday, Mom? Goodness knows you’ve been through a lot this month. She has a present for you!” He turned expectantly to me, his profile moving just enough to reveal Grandma’s form where she sat up against the pillows. I will try to explain the horror I witnessed, but I know words will never do it justice. My stomach flipped and I froze.
Grandma’s dull, lifeless eyes stared straight ahead at the wall, unblinking and glazed over. Her eyelids were crusty and her jaw hung widely agape with sagging lips, revealing a gray fuzz that had begun to coat her tongue. Uncle Lou patted her leg while mom hastily pulled the quilt back down over her feet. I barely heard as Lou explained how cold she’s been from the infection. He picked up a tissue from the box on the nightstand and began dabbing at the corner of her mouth. “She doesn’t talk much due to the heavy sedation she’s under,” he explained. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the pallid, gray skin of Grandma’s face and how it was starting to sag in ways that had nothing to do with her age. Flies buzzed overhead and Mom picked up the flyswatter and began swatting wildly at them. “Goddamn flies,” she mumbled. “They won’t leave her alone.” One of the flies circled Grandma’s face and landed in her open maw. Uncle Lou merely shooed it away.
“She’s been sleeping sitting up like this for the past week or so,” Mom explained, patting Grandma’s now-covered feet. “The pain is just too much for her to lay down. We tried, but her muscles spasm and she can’t move.”
My knees were shaking and I could all but back out of the room, reaching for and pressing myself against the opposite wall. Vomit crept up the back of my throat.
“It’s okay, Anna,” Uncle Lou said from inside the room. “I know its hard to see her in such a state, but that’s why your mom and I are here to take care of her. We agreed we wouldn’t let her go back to that hospital. They’ve already messed up so much of her care. You saw her foot and what the doctors did to it.”
“How a hospital could let gangrene go unnoticed is beyond me,” Mom agreed. “We’ve been sponge-bathing her regularly, airing her feet, and changing the bandages frequently. It seems to be helping, right Mom?” she asked, squeezing Grandma’s ankle.
I tried to put my head between my knees, but the smell was so overpowering. Mom stepped out in the hallway and touched my shoulder. I recoiled. “Oh Anna, I am sorry. This is why I didn’t want you to come over. The gangrene smell is hard to tolerate, and I didn’t want you to have to see her like this.”
Not knowing what else to do, I pulled her into the kitchen and said in my most steady voice, “Mom, why didn’t you tell me Grandma had passed?”
Mom’s face didn’t change. She just looked at me. “What are you talking about, Anna? She’s right there. You saw her.”
“Yes, I did see her,” I agreed, pointing at the bedroom down the hall where the smell was so strong that I was close to passing out. “But Grandma is dead, Mom. You know that, right? She has very obviously passed away.”
Mom’s eyebrows narrowed and she pursed her lips. “Listen, Anna. I get that this is hard for you. Hell, it’s hard for all of us! But if you’re saying this just to hurt me, its not going to work. Stop being a brat. Your father is on his way over with a birthday cake.”
The room began to spin and I needed to get out of that house immediately. I tossed the present on the kitchen table and grabbed my bag, fleeing out the kitchen door and into my car where I took deep gulps of fresh air. I could see Mom at the large bay window, looking out at me. She looked angry and upset, but quickly turned and walked away. I pounded the steering wheel, yelling obscenities.
Other than an open casket funeral, I had never seen a dead body before, let alone one that had clearly been dead for weeks. But Grandma was undoubtably dead, and my mother and uncle were staying in that house with her corpse: washing it, feeding it, and talking to it like nothing had changed. I threw open the car door and vomited all over grandma’s neglected shrubs. By the time the dry heaves kicked in, Dad’s car pulled in the driveway.
“Hey sweetheart,” he said as he opened his car door, seeing me kneeling in the grass. “Are you alright? Your mom called and told me you were quite upset.”
“Dad! She’s dead!” I choked out, pointing at the house.
“Who’s dead?” he asked, his voice worried.
“Grandma!” I shouted. “Grandma is dead! Mom and Lou…they’re just sitting in there with her body!”
“Anna, calm down. Your mom mentioned you were in hysterics and talking nonsense.”
“Talking nonsense? What are you saying?” I choked out. “Go look, Dad! I swear. You’ll see. She’s dead and Mom and Lou have lost their minds.”
“Alright,” he said, holding up his arms in surrender. “Let me grab the cake and I’ll go inside and see what’s going on. Just stay here, OK?”
I collapsed back in the front seat of my car, blasting the A/C in attempt to flush the smell of rotten flesh out of my nose. It felt like an hour before the front door opened again and Dad calmly walked over to my driver’s side window.
“Hi Anna bear,” he said cautiously.
“Did you see her, Dad? You saw her right?”
“Shh, Anna,” he said, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Calm down. Yes, I saw her and she’s very sick but otherwise alive. Your mom and Lou are taking good care of her.”
“WHAT?” I nearly screamed.
“Come inside,” Dad said, going for the door handle. I quickly locked the car. Dad threw up his hands in frustration. “Just come inside, Anna. Uncle Lou is getting Grandma into her wheelchair and we’re all going to have some cake.” He glanced up at the front window of the house. “Ah, see? There she is.”
I glanced up to see my grandmother’s face at the window, her dead eyes looking blankly out over the front yard. Rigor mortis had made it so her body couldn’t sit in the wheelchair just right. Even from a distance and through a pane of glass, I could see death in her eyes and the shocking gape of her mouth. I gagged. Her face looked even more twisted now as if she’d taken her last breath in a tremendous amount of pain. But what made me scream in abject terror was that her cloudy pupils seemed to turn ever so slightly toward me.
I threw the car into drive and sped out of the driveway, ignoring the shouts of my father and Uncle Lou bursting out the front door. I didn’t dare go home where I was sure my father would follow. Were they right? Was she actually alive? It’s not like I checked for a pulse or air in her lungs before I took off. I didn’t touch her at all. Could it be me then? Was I the one having a nervous breakdown?
I don’t know what to do now. I’m absolutely terrified. Worst of all, when I close my eyes, all I see is my grandmother’s rotting face.