Chapter 10 - The Light That Stays On
It was late autumn by the time the flowers in the St. Raphael’s garden finally gave up and turned brown under the first sharp bite of a Texas frost.
My shift ended at 7:00 PM. The evening nurses were just coming on duty, logging into their terminals, exchanging gossip about patient charts, and filling their coffee mugs from the communal pot in the breakroom.
I walked down the long, linoleum-floored hallway of the second floor, my rubber-soled shoes making almost no sound against the floor.
When I reached Room 8, I stopped.
The door was closed. A new metal nameplate had been screwed into the wood just above the handle: RESIDENT: MISS MARTHA VANCE.
According to the morning report, Miss Vance was eighty-four years old, softly confused, and liked to spend her days knitting yellow yarn blankets that she insisted were sweaters for stray cats. She didn't remember her children’s names, and she spent her afternoons staring out the window, smiling at shadows that only she could see.
It was a peaceful way to go. A soft fading into the mist.
And yet, as I stood there in the quiet hallway, my hand drifted instinctively toward the wall beside the door, resting lightly against the plastic toggle of the light switch.
Inside Room 8, the overhead light was on—burning with a steady, warm glow that cut through the gathering shadows of the evening. Miss Vance was probably already asleep in her bed, her knitted blankets pulled up to her chin, dreaming of a world where nobody kept ledgers and every promise was kept.
I didn't turn off the switch.
May you like
I left the light burning, just like Mrs. Mercedes had asked.
Because down here in the quiet corners of the world, old does not mean stupid. And some lights, once they are turned on by a woman who refuses to be forgotten, never really go out at all.
