Worn Masks Read Online Free PDF Page B

heard him get back into his bed.
    “You’re spoilin’ her.”
     
    Mary Grace blinked awake. Daddy? She was so thirsty. Where
was she?
    She was in their bed. She was being a daughter. Her dad had died over ten years ago. She had kept a
per functory calling ritual to her mom, as promised to him, every, or
almost every month, since then. And, now she was here in their bed.
    She couldn’t think. Maybe it had been a mistake to come. How many
days had she been here repeating to herself her friend’s advice: Think of
her as a stranger who has no one. You would be kind to a stranger.  

 
    Locked
In
    Chapter
8
     
    MARY GRACE RELUCTANTLY maneuvered her mother’s wheelchair into the
makeshift hairdressers, next to a woman who was sitting stiffly in a straight
back chair, as if her body was mimicking the chair. The woman was quiet, her
clothes hung draped on what seemed like a once much fuller body, but now they
dwarfed her frail frame. Mary Grace nodded at her and then looked away. There were
other women at different stations, two of them with their heads under the
dryers, heads full of curlers. One was in a quiet sleep and the other kept
calling out, “Lady, will you help me.”
    Another woman at the sink, her hair stringy and white, startling
next to her warm brown skin, was crying and begging for someone to come to her.
Mary Grace could hardly make out the unfamiliar words resonating in another
tongue: “ Ven aqui, por favor, ven aqui ,” over the noise of the spraying water, and humming hair dry ers, the
woman across from her repeating “3-4-5-5-5, 3-4-5-5-5,” as her pale and shaky
hands tied and untied shoe laces wound on a soft board, and opened and closed
little felt pockets. The board sat across her lap, locking her into her wheel
chair. She rocked and called out the numbers.
    The hairdresser came over and ran her fingers through her mom’s
hair, asking, “So what shall we do for you today?” Mary Grace was taken by how
warmly she touched her mother, this stranger.
She was torn be tween two thoughts— What’s wrong with you, can’t you
see she’s not responsive? And, why would you treat her so nicely, when
she’s been such a bitch all her life?
    There were two other women, who wore no expressions, for whatever
tautness their facial muscles once practiced were gone, and they seemed to look
through everyone. Mary Grace wondered if
their gazes were re ally inward, looking upon some place where they were
locked in their minds.
    Why had she brought her mom down here? The nurse had thought it
would be a good idea for Mary Grace to see more of the facility since she
hadn’t had time on her previous visits. Well, not visits to her mom really, but
to fill out paperwork, to bring her clothes so they could sew nametags in them.
    “How long has she been here?”
    Mary Grace realized then that the hairdresser was speaking to her,
asking about her mother.
    “Two weeks, yeah, about two weeks now.”
    “They must have given her a shower. They must have washed her
hair.”
    “Um, I don’t know.” Mary Grace felt her body
tens ing.
Was she supposed to know?
    She could not stop searching around the room, glancing from one
woman to the next, for some sign of connection. Was there any reaction as the
hairdresser washed, combed, and cut their hair? Suddenly the woman trapped in
the wheel chair was screaming, “NO, no, no.”
    “It will be okay,” Mary Grace managed. Although she did not know
what would be okay. What could ever change what was logged in this woman’s
brain, tattooed deep into the layers of her life? At first the woman went on
screaming, then large blue eyes locked onto Mary Grace, who repeated, “It will
be okay.”
    And the woman became quiet. Then slowly she
be gan
to mumble and speak again “3-4-5-5-5, 3-4-5-5-5.”
    The hairdresser was moving from one woman to the next. “I will
start your mom as soon as I put the color in these gray curls.” The hairdresser
said tousling the full head of