Valentine's Day

***Written today in fiction class...Lynnette's comment: "Anyone with a name like 'Wando' needs to be arrested."***

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“Glenna, Glen, it’s me! Let me in!” Wando pounded on the door.

It opened. He stepped back to see the wrinkled, beautiful face. Instead, a prim, wrinkle-less young girl stuck her head out into the snow and fixed on him.

“What do you want?” she asked icily. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“I need to see her!” he shouted at her, waving his hands crazily. “It’s Valentine’s Day, for goodness’ sake!”

“She won’t recognize you,” the girl continued heartlessly. “She only lets me come near her. Even if you could see her, it wouldn’t make a difference because she’d yell like anything. That’s what she did when her nephew came to see her.”

Incensed, Wando cried, “That’s my wife in there! What’s your problem?”

“It’s not my problem, it’s your problem. You should be in jail. Marrying an old woman with Alzheimer’s for her money and spending it in Vegas. You’re lucky you even got bailed out. Get out of here before I call the cops and have them arrest you like they should.”

Before Wando could protest any of these charges further, she shut the door in his face, and he could hear the bolt click on the other side. Desperate, he ran to the side window, where Glenna usually sat, reading a book with glasses perched on her nose or knitting more socks for him despite her arthritic fingers.

The side room was empty. No lights were on, and the furniture was rearranged. He glanced around. The third window had a light on in it. He ran to it and peered in at the living room. Glenna sat in the oversized chair, gazing blankly at the opposite wall. Wando started to knock on the window but caught himself as the irritating girl walked in through the door opposite him. He shrank back. Eyes barely lifting over the window ledge, he watched as the girl lifted a cup with a straw to Glenna’s mouth, patiently holding it until Glenna took her lips away. The girl turned and set the cup down, while picking up a cloth napkin to dab at Glenna’s open mouth.

Wando could have cried. Even three months ago, Glenna wasn’t in such a state. Could she not even feed herself? He sank down in the snow, mind working wildly.

Mentally, he ran through the entrances to the house. Front door, locked and bolted. Garage code had been changed. He hadn’t checked the back door. Tearing himself away, Wando turned the corner around the house and headed for the small porch in the back yard. Reaching the glass doors, he tugged at the handle. Locked. Evidently, this nurse didn’t take chances.

Remembering one last chance, he walked around the house once more to the door leading to their bedroom. Small, almost secret, the door had rarely been locked. Then again, Wando thought as he neared, they had never had a nurse either.

Quietly, he tried the knob, and it turned under his hand. Slowly, he opened the creaky door and shook the snow from his boots before he entered. Nothing had been rearranged here, Wando noted as he came further in, but it looked as if no one had slept in the bed for months. He left his boots near the door and padded through the room in the last pair of red and black socks Glenna had made for him. He listened as he got to the hallway and wondered if the nurse was still with her. A high, sickly sweet voice coming from the direction of the living room disappointed him.

“Come on, honey, just one more sip.” She sounded like she was coaxing a baby to suck on a bottle. Glenna wasn’t a baby, Wando wanted to shout. She’s a lady.

Pausing, Wando thought and hit upon what he saw as a brilliant idea. Though he knew it wouldn’t give him much time, he slipped his cell phone out of his pocket and hit the speed dial for home. At least the phone number hadn’t changed.

When he heard the phone ringing in the kitchen and footsteps going down the hall, he made his move. Silent in his socks, he slid into the living room and crossed quickly to Glenna’s side.

“Hey Glen, how’s it going?” he asked, sitting down on the ottoman in front of her. He wondered if she’d yell as she’d done with Randy. He took her hand. She looked at his hand, then up at his face. He saw no glimmer of recognition, but she allowed him to press a kiss to her cheek. Awkwardly, he looked around for something to do to stop up his watering eyes. His glance landed on the cup of water.

A beeping sound made him start. His heart slowed when he realized that the nurse must be starting the microwave after hanging up the phone. A few more precious seconds.

“Thirsty, Glen?” He tentatively held the straw to her mouth and was gratified when she started sucking immediately. “I know you don’t much care for water all the time. I’d get you some orange juice, but I think your nurse would kill me.” He gave a short, disheartened laugh.

To his surprise, Glenna opened her mouth in a half-smile and began breathing heavily in a way that might have been a laugh! He brightened and leapt to her side but was struck by her sudden, ragged coughing. Footsteps came pounding down the hall—he couldn’t leave her! Holding her around the shoulders, he turned to face the doorway and the nurse who stopped abruptly in the doorway, face changing from concern to fury.

“You!” she screamed and leapt towards her charge.

“I can’t leave her! I can’t leave her!” Wando clung to Glenna, wanting to be with her but wanting to be gentle. “I love her!”

“You disgusting, money-loving bastard!” the nurse shrieked. Wando felt Glenna pressing his hand, as if she too were clinging to him.

“I’m calling the police!” was the nurse’s final outburst, and she ran out of the room.

Wando turned desperately back to Glenna. He hesitated, pressed a final kiss to her old, fragile lips, and was gone.