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Some enigmas of life and work sort themselves out—others never do.
When Ramon appeared last month in Two South at Hartford’s Walter P. Trudeau Center for Health and Rehabilitation, the last thing any of us nurses wondered about was whether he had a last name. Instead, we were all mystified why, after two and a half years, he had suddenly replaced Doctor Marvin Silverman—whom he was identical to in every respect we could see. How it happened, of course, was completely obvious.
Doctor Marvin, as we had affectionately been calling him for the past two years or so, had suddenly appeared in our ward one day, replacing plain old Ben McCloskey, one of the most demented and most forgotten of our residents.
I would be the first to assert that Alzheimer’s-like dementia is never a funny thing, yet, as my Grandmother Stoddard used to say, every aspect of our lives can be regarded from a wide array of angles, and some views are less painful than others. Helen Silverman, a very proper “lady” of the old school, the sort that never is seen in public without her make-up on and her hair fixed just so, who wears stockings and a slip and carries a purse with every outfit all year round, was brought to us by her older daughter four years ago, just when she was beginning to “go a bit funny” and was leaving the burners of her stove turned on so that her apartment was twice filled with huge clouds of smoke and her neighbors saved her life by reacting to the smoke alarms that were triggered. Helen is one of those that we sometimes call a “queen bee”—the sort that was probably the center of attention at cocktail parties during her younger years and that has to find some sort of way of taking charge of whatever situation she finds herself in at any period thereafter. Sometimes, if there are two or more queens around, this can cause daily conflicts in a place like Trudeau Center, but sometimes each queen will stake out her own turf, so to speak. Fortunately, that is what happened with Helen and our other prima donna, Naomi Sanders, who had seniority in every way and who was prepared to assert it with unladylike manners.
Ben McCloskey, it seems, was the one fellow Naomi had never cared to even speak to during her six years with us before Helen arrived—for the good reason that Ben himself never replied when anyone spoke to him, never spoke to anyone else, and never even uttered a syllable when he chanced to injure himself or was otherwise clearly in pain. Yet Ben, it turned out—and Helen’s family photographs supported this—bore a very close resemblance to Doctor Marvin Silverman, her late husband. And so she sought out Ben’s company from the very first week. Then, as her own dementia progressed by fits and starts, she began to lead him around by the hand, something that Ben never made any objections to. Within a year, Helen was choosing Ben’s food for him and cutting it on his plate for him, and then, by the eighteenth month, she was feeding him the way one would a little child—despite the fact that Ben is fully able to feed himself, although admittedly he does tend to spill more than he can actually get into his own mouth.
One noon, about twenty-three months after she took over the feeding of Ben, Helen was leading him from the dining hall down to her room. She stopped off at the nurse’s station and told me, “Doctor Silverman and I will be having a little—nap—now—in our room. Please do not let anyone disturb us.”
I kept a straight face and said, “I will pass the word along to all the aides, Helen. Will you and—he—be joining the others for dinner this evening?”
“Yes—I expect that we will—although of course one cannot be certain.”
I and three aides who were nearby all craned our necks and watched her lead Ben into her room and close the door behind them.
“They’re not hurting anybody,” I said, “and just maybe they are going to be happier in some way than they would otherwise be.” The others smiled, winked, and made a few rude gestures which I frowned at.
Shortly before dinner time, they both reappeared, she leading him by the hand.
“The doctor and I will be joining the company for dinner,” she said as she passed me. “I do hope that they have prepared something nice.”
I informed Sally Turnock, our staff social worker, next day, of course, and as Helen persisted in leading the newly revived Doctor Marvin Silverman around, Sally phoned Helen’s older daughter and informed her. The daughter, actually, was both amused and relieved by the news, taking it as a kind of blessing that meant she would not need to visit her mother even half as often as she had been. Ben’s transformation into her late father served to remove several tons of dutiful guilt from her; as for her sister, the younger of Helen’s daughters, there had never been any guilt, and her reaction, we were told, was one of unalloyed mirth.
And so it went for the next thirty months: Doctor Marvin and Helen would slip off to “their” room almost every afternoon and then reappear that evening in time for dinner. Helen, who had one of the three “private” rooms on Two South, managed to get another twin bed put in it, and Doctor Marvin began sleeping over with her. As far as Ben’s relatives were concerned, he had died long ago, and none of them visited, sent greeting cards, phoned, or even inquired after him. Sally Turnock opted, perhaps unprofessionally, to let things ride with them until somebody showed some interest, but I have no quarrels with that decision.
Imagine, then, how I nearly dropped my back teeth when Helen led Doctor Marvin past the nurse’s station three weeks ago and announced, “Ramon and I will be having a little —nap—now—in our room. Please do not let anyone disturb us.”
My head whipped around, and I’m sure I had a perplexed expression—even a concerned one—on my mug.
“Who, please, Helen? Who is with you?”
“Ramon,” she said, smiling at me; “Ramon and I will be having a little nap now.”
She seemed decidedly pleased, perhaps even proud, that I had taken this sudden new interest in her.
Two nearby aides exchanged concerned frowns, pursed their lips, and looked at me to see what I would do next. I shrugged, smiled reassuringly, and said, “Where’s the harm?” Privately, I made a mental note to speak to the M.D. who would be arriving at Trudeau Center in forty minutes, and resolved to hightail it down to our social worker’s office for a quick chat within the next ten minutes—or sooner if I could think of something for the aides to check on.
Well, Sally Turnock shared my concern and thanked me for bringing this matter to her attention. She seconded my view that Helen might be “stroking” on us and said it needed a medical look-see beyond what I was able to give it. She added that, on her end, she would pursue the question of Ramon’s identity with Helen’s family.
Dr. Gandhi also appreciated my input and told me I had been absolutely right to inform him as soon as he arrived. I neglected to inform him that Helen had given instructions that she and Ramon did not wish to be disturbed, and when Helen gave him a piece of her mind for entering without even knocking on “their” door, he rather prudently decided that any further examination of her mental and physical health could wait until after their dinner. I concurred with this judgment—without directly telling him so—and was thankful later that Helen did not recall either his interruption or my own failure to serve as gatekeeper for her.
Three of our doctors could find nothing noteworthy in Helen’s condition other than her new name for Ben McCloskey. They agreed that this didn’t seem to warrant taking her to the nearest hospital for scans of her brain, and our staff psychiatrist found it “interesting” but “not remarkable” and decided not to pursue the matter further either.
Helen’s older daughter was vacationing in New Zealand when Ramon came on the scene, and Sally, taking her cue from our doctors and from the older daughter’s tacit opinion of her sibling, chose to let the matter ride until the senior sister returned to Hartford.
Yesterday she got back from Kiwi-Land and brought a matching pair of kiwi-decorated T-shirts to the Trudeau Center this afternoon—one for her mom and one for Ben/Doctor Marvin. Neither Sally nor I saw her come in, and we had not thought to leave word at the main desk that she should see us before visiting her mother.
Two minutes or so after she went into Helen’s room, she was out again, looking for me with the help of three aides.
“Caitlin!” she said; “Caitlin—Mother is with—Ramon! Has she—has she been with him very—long? Days? Weeks?”
I replied that it had been a few weeks since Doctor Marvin had vanished and Ramon has taken over his body—which had once been Ben’s body as well.
Wincing, biting her lips, and shaking her head, Helen’s daughter suddenly began to giggle. I asked if she would like to sit down and if I could get her some water or a nice cup of tea or anything.
“No,” she replied, relaxing and smiling at me as I gripped her hands. “No, I’m quite all right now. It was just a—a bit of a surprise. But now I’m all right, really. It’s actually rather funny, you know.”
I looked at her questioningly but kept my mouth tactfully silent.
“Caitlin, you don’t know who Ramon is, do you? No—I don’t think that Mother would tell anyone—although I don’t think she’s above perplexing them deliberately—and taking some pride in doing so—all the while flaunting Ramon in front of everyone—especially that Sanders woman.”
She began to laugh softly to herself.
“After all these years—Ramon Jimenez is resurrected. Following my dad’s—uh—prostate surgery—way back before they could ‘save the nerves,’ so to speak—he—uh—could no longer ‘perform,’ and—uh—well—Ramon Jimenez was our—he was our gardener. He—well, Mother made no secret about her affair with him—though of course she never said anything directly about it to—anyone. It lasted—oh—maybe twelve years—until Ramon had a fatal heart attack—about fifteen years ago. Do you think this means that he—that Ben—that Mr. McCloskey can—you know—do you think—?”
I have no idea—and I don’t care to find out. Either way, where’s the harm?
