We use cookies to improve our services and remember your choices for future visits. For more information see our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. Propped up against the pillows, the bumpy chenille bedspread making little dents on the backs of my thighs, I would observe my mother at her dressing table. Her back was to me, but I could see her face reflected in the big mahogany-framed mirror. My normally fastidious mother seemed to release her inhibitions in this corner of her bedroom.
The center drawer of her table was even messier. Here were wadded-up hairnets, cuticle remover, vials of deodorant, lipstick-smudged tissues, tweezers, boxes of loose face powder, and several slightly grimy powder puffs. Spilled powder piled up in the corners of the drawer like mildew on grout in the bathroom. This was the essence of my mother: makeup. From my vantage point on the bed, I also saw her back: the soft curves of her hips as they sank into the fabric-covered stool; the loose flesh of her upper arms; the wisps of hair that escaped down her neck; the indentations her bra straps made in her shoulders.
It took her fifty more years to realize how dangerous they were, and by then it was too late. Mother is extremely frail. I have come to West Virginia to help. In her bedroom she has a portable oxygen tank to help her breathe at night. Last night it came on with an earsplitting shriek that woke me in the downstairs bedroom. I chose to ignore it and spent the rest of the night feeling guilty. In the evening I help Mother take a shower.
I practically have to pick her up to get her in. She says she weighs less than ninety pounds. She does not seem to mind my looking at her naked body, and I am shocked by what I see: hipbones straining against pale flesh, thighs sagging over kneecaps, withered breasts, and a strange bluish lump just under her jutting collarbone. She insists on dressing up for the appointment. At the office, the doctor says the pain in her hip and leg may be the result of a hip fracture.
Mother hesitates. She has said nothing to me about a fall. When the doctor sends us to get an X-ray, I confront her in the elevator. The X-ray shows no fracture. Mother, at eighty-eight, maintains her record of never having broken a bone. He does not disagree, and proceeds to listen to her heart and lungs, the stethoscope pressed against her sapphire blue blouse.
