"Pauline" by Sid Bolotin

Well, well! This blog isn't going to be a solo operation! Sid Bolotin has graciously submitted "Pauline," a short story which also appeared in the March 2010 issue of Cascade Lakes News & Views. (I liked the "O'Henry" style ending.) Enjoy!

PAULINE

Sid Bolotin


Walking along the corridor toward the kitchen to get another breakfast tray, I passed room 101 and heard the patient calling, “Hello, hello, is anyone there?”

I pushed open the door, knocked to announce my presence, and approached the bed.

The woman lay quietly, snow-white hair elegantly coiffed, her body neatly enfolded by the bed-linens, and her arms lay on either side of her tiny body as if one of the aides had just finished arranging her.

The card above the bed gave her name as Pauline, and her year of birth as 1910.

“Pauline,” I asked, “do you need something? A nurse?”

“Oh, I don’t need anything,” she smiled, “I just want to chat for a bit. Will you sit with me?”

“Of course I will. I’m a volunteer here at hospice,” I said as I pulled a chair close to the bed.

“Hold my hand,” she whispered.

I took her thin, graceful hand in mine, marveling at the delicate network of veins that lay just below her translucent skin.

As Pauline closed her eyes and gently began to speak of her childhood in Russia. I was taken aback by her lucidness. My experience had been that patients of her age in the Care Center were either heavily sedated or severely agitated making coherent conversation impossible.

So, I sat entranced as she softly described her life as if she was reading from some inner teleprompter that was passing across her mind’s eye. She described how she left her beloved Ukraine at the urging of her sisters, her arrival in America, and finding the love of her life…a man who emigrated from a town close to hers near Kiev.

Thinking that she had dozed off I rose to leave, whereupon she fairly shouted, “Not yet! There’s more to tell!”

Although I had more breakfasts to deliver and patients to feed, I sat back down as she continued her recitation. It was as if her life was passing before her, and she needed some sort of closure of some unfinished business.

The room was warm, and I drifted in and out of wakefulness, hearing only pieces of her history.
A marriage, a child’s birth, death of her true love, family interactions as she raised her child alone, lovers taken, her son’s family, and her descent into old age. As she spoke, she had a gentle, peaceful smile, and even reached across to pat my hand that still clasped hers.

Suddenly I realized that Pauline had stopped speaking, and I almost bolted out of the chair.

“Pauline,” I called gently, thinking she had fallen asleep. Getting no response, I watched carefully for any signs of breathing as I’d been taught to do. Seeing none, I gently released her hand, placed it beside her as it was when I had first entered, and rose to get the a nurse to verify my conclusion.

Then it hit me…Pauline was my mother’s name, and if she had not died 26-years ago, she’d be 100 also. Her story was much like the patient’s. No wonder I had sensed a familiarity as Pauline spoke!

When I told the nurse about Pauline, she incredulously insisted, “Can’t be! The patient in 101 did pass. But she died last night. The family is on their way.”