Enjoy a Christmas Story by Lynn Olcott

The Shepherd
By Lynn Olcott

A television roars faintly from one end of the room. Light twinkle overhead. A young woman in scrubs stands by a table and pulls miniature figures from a carton, arranging them on a red cloth. She’s glad her supervisor has given her this task. When she dropped her son off at his babysitter’s house that morning, he seemed to be coming down with a cold, and her old car is running rough and needs snow tires. It’s soothing to work here in the community room for a little while before beginning her many other tasks of the day.
Cara, the aide, reaches into the scene, adjusting, placing and rearranging the figures in relationship to each other. The old story from Sunday school runs through her head as her hands work. The last figure in the box is a sturdy shepherd boy carrying a lamb across his shoulders. He is deftly painted with sandals, a brown robe, a cheerful smile, a touch of sunburn, and a headband of blue paint around brown paint hair. Cara steps back slightly to observe her work, studying the toy animals and the small plaster people in flowing plaster robes.
There are so many people left out of the story, she muses, the ordinary people. Who took care of the camels for the kings? What about the shepherds’ families and the innkeeper’s wife? In Cara’s mind, this little shepherd has just arrived from far away tawny fields, tired and triumphant from his journey. She thinks of her son Daniel. He will greet her later with his lopsided grin, later when she picks him up at the babysitter’s, later when her shift finally ends. She imagines him someday older, taller, off on an adventure, following a star. She sets the shepherd near the mother and moves the mother closer to her child.
Residents shuffle past Cara’s table. The ribbons on the front of Mrs. Harding’s walker waver in the hot, dry air of the community room. Cara greets Mrs. Harding and pats her arm. The old woman leans forward and peers into the Christmas scene. She reaches across the table to touch the figure of the shepherd, her hand trembling with tenderness and Parkinson’s disease.
Mrs. Jordan rolls up in her whirring chair, a knitting bag swinging jauntily from an orange clip. Mrs. Jordan’s voice trickles into Cara’s thoughts.
“…looks very pretty, dear.”
A glance at the clock reminds Cara that it’s time for the weekly staff meeting. Quickly she tucks the empty cardboard box under the table and walks down the hall to the staff room, where the meeting has already begun.
A nurse is saying, “ Mrs. Harding is still pretty frail…I don’t think she’s quite over that last episode of pneumonia yet.”
“Yeah,” agrees the activities director cheerfully, fanning out the fingers of one hand, studying her lavender nails. “She’s pretty out of it lately.”
The nurses look annoyed.
“Well, she is,” repeats the recreation coordinator defensively.
“Just watch for any sign of elevated temperature,” the charge nurse continues patiently. They go on to the next resident… and the next…and the next.
The meeting ends. Nurses and aides spill into the hallway and along the corridors, still talking. Cara returns to her wing where she moves competently through her tasks. All afternoon, call bells ring for her and she responds as quickly as she can, smiling her answers and smoothing, and tidying rooms. Mrs. Harding’s room is next. Cara arrives in Mrs. Harding’s doorway.
“Where’s my son?” asks the old woman, looking up.
“I haven’t seen him, Mrs. Harding.” Cara tries to remember if Mrs. Harding has a son. Cara secretly agrees with the activities director, though she wouldn’t have put it quite the same way.
Mrs. Harding is smiling. She has caught sight of someone coming toward her through the weedy field. It’s him. It’s summer time, and the grass is golden and the sun shines warmly behind him. She reaches out to him. He has something to tell her. What is it?
Cara takes Mrs. Harding’s hands in hers. She is remembering something from a training video about helping orient the patient to reality. There is more to this job than people think. There is a lot to remember. Cara concentrates on Mrs. Harding.
“Where does your son live?” Cara asks. Mrs. Harding doesn’t respond.
“Mrs. Harding?” Cara asks again, slightly louder.
Mrs. Harding’s hands drop to her lap and her eyes close, trapped in a memory only slightly muted by arterial sclerosis and time. She remembers the faint scent of the tarmac on the summer air the day her son came home. She watches as they unload his casket from the plane.
Cara watches, feeling alarmed by the old woman’s chalky face.
“Mrs. Harding?” Cara asks gently as she touches the old woman’s arm. “Are you feeling all right?” Cara puts her palm on the Mrs. Harding’s forehead, just as she would for Daniel. Too warm. She rests her fingers on Mrs. Harding’s veiny, papery wrist.
“Mrs. Harding?” she asks again.
Mrs. Harding seems not to hear.
Cara walks to the nurses’ station to alert them to Mrs. Harding’s possible fever and fluttery pulse. She asks the nurse about Mrs. Harding’s son. Is there a son? No one seems to know.
The evening aides are bringing dinner carts along the hall. Cara helps Mrs. Harding onto her bed. The facility doctor looks in on Mrs. Harding and decides to move her to the hospital unit. For hours, tides of chemicals flow through Mrs. Harding’s body. She drifts in a blue-gray solitude, Her son is talking to her. If only she could make out what he has to say.
Her shift ends and Cara is glad she has the next two days off. She slips her down jacket on over her scrubs and fingers the car keys in her pocket. It has been snowing all day and she didn’t wear her boots and now her shoes will get wet. She will go and pick up Daniel, and try to do something about her car, which is worrying her. Her two days off feel gobbled up already. She promises herself that tonight she and Daniel will watch a movie and relax, just sit on the couch and relax. She has enough energy left to fold the laundry and that’s all.
Mrs. Harding is telling her son that she feels very tired. He says that he understands and he puts his arms around her shoulder. She tells him that he looks wonderful. They begin to walk. Together they walk out of the facility into the field of weeds and wildflowers behind their house. The sun is warm.
When Cara comes back into work, she is told that Mrs. Harding has passed away. Cara feels a sting of sadness, thinking again of Mrs. Harding who was kind and who seemed very alone in the world. She remembers a training class about this too, about caregivers managing their emotions when a patient dies. Cara goes down the hall and looks into Mrs. Harding’s empty room, which is being cleared for a new resident. As Cara pauses by the doorjamb she spots something on the floor, lying partly hidden behind the leg of the shiny adjustable bed. It’s the shepherd. Cara scoops the figure up and slides it into the pocket of her scrubs.
In the community room, the residents are watching the blaring television. Tiny lights blink on and off around the room. Mrs. Jordan is knitting something blue. Briefly Cara wonders what it is. She wonders if Mrs. Jordan knows what it is.
Everything is the same except for the absence of Mrs. Harding. Cara pauses at the long metal table and pulls the shepherd from her pocket. Carefully she places him near the young mother watching over her child.