On day ten, I wept. Not the dignified tear-tracking-down-one-cheek kind. The ugly kind—snot and sobs and the word “why” repeated until it lost all meaning. Thalia finished adjusting my compression socks, then sat on the edge of my bed. She did not hug me. She did not shush me.
“That’s dark, Thalia.”
She was fifty-seven, with silver-streaked hair pulled into a knot so tight it seemed to be in a disagreement with her scalp. Her scrubs were always the color of wilted spinach. She had a small tattoo on her left wrist—an open eye inside a circle—that she never explained. And she hummed. Constantly. Off-key. Mahler symphonies, mostly, which she claimed were “good for the cellular memory.” thalia rhea my personal nurse
She played me the second movement of Beethoven’s Seventh. On day ten, I wept
I needed a nurse. The agency sent Thalia. Thalia finished adjusting my compression socks, then sat
She stayed for eleven months. By the end, I could transfer myself to a wheelchair. I could feed myself soft foods. I could say “thank you” without choking.