Birds From Her Piano

Hubert Chlebek, ninety-two, puttled his walker happily down the hall of the Shady Pines Rest Home. It was Sunday morning, and that meant french toast. The smells came floating to him, and he imagined the scent as a gently twisting yellow puff of smoke in the air leading right to his nose. It smelled sweet and inviting. It smelled like a good morning to Hubert and he breathed it in happily.

“Good morning, Mr. Chlebek,” Diana said as he entered. She brought him a tray as he sat at one of the tables in the dining room.

He lifted the small cup of pills to his lips and readied his orange juice. “Ooh, new gelcaps today. Very exciting.” Diana laughed and touched his shoulder. She was one of the nice ones. They were all nice, but Hubert liked and trusted Diana especially.

Today was going to be special, because it was just like every other day, and Hubert loved that about his life. He would take in breakfast and then sit in the common room and listen to his wife play the piano. Then they’d go for a walk around the grounds and maybe have lunch in the patio area. There was no plan and every day was open to them, and in a way, that was the plan. Their horoscope, Laurie called it.

He tried a bite of french toast and colors opened in his mouth- a creamy yellow swirled with a deep purple that was bordering on maroon. That was the maple. The orange juice went down with a tang of green. The juice was off today, in that way juice sometimes was. Good orange juice was a robust turquoise.

Someone had once told Hubert what the word was for someone with his condition, and he’d forgotten it. It didn’t matter, he didn’t suffer from it. It made life richer. Back when he and Laurie had been more active it’d been something of an ice breaker that almost amounted to a magic trick at parties, and people would sit around asking him what color went with what letter and what certain sounds looked like. It was fun.

He finished breakfast and dabbed his mouth with a napkin. He strained to get to his feet again- didn’t it just get harder all the time- and nodded to Julius, the morning shift orderly, who nodded back. “Have a good day, Mr. Chlebek!”

“I will, you too, kid!”

Hubert whistled and the sounds came out of him as crude blue curls that writhed, then stilled, then faded. He didn’t care for the shapes, but he liked to whistle all the same. The Georgia sun fell across his legs as he worked his walker up the hallway. The common room opened up to his right and he made his way in. The grand piano stood there beside his favorite chair. He settled into the chair with a contented sigh. Ellie and Mark were here, working on that cat puzzle. “Hey, you two!”

Ellie called back “Hiya Hubie, how are you today?”

“So fine it oughtta be illegal. I tell you. A day like this.”

“It is a nice one. Is Laurie going to play today?” Mark nudged Ellie and glared at her, and she ignored him, as she did.

“Of course! She loves to play, and I love to listen.”

Soon, Laurie would be down from the room and she’d sit at the piano. She would begin to play, and all of her notes would be birds. Major scale notes were plump orange doves, minor scale notes would sometimes be haunted blue chickadees that seemed to be flying for cover. Chords were great flocks rising from the soundboard like a murmuration over a meadow. Hubert would sit in his chair and listen to the birds for as many hours as Laurie felt like playing. No one else’s birds sounded like hers. It was a heaven they shared.

He twiddled his thumbs and looked around. For the umpteenth time he reminded himself that he’d have to gather some reading material by the chair, to help pass the minutes until Laurie arrived. He’d thumbed through this copy of Redbook several times already.

He checked his watch. Seventeen minutes past nine. That woman couldn’t be trusted to be anywhere on time. He shook his head, recalling the dozens of spats they’d had as they were forty minutes late for something-or-other, muttering remarks around the corner of the bathroom door at each other as she fiddled with her hair.

As the minutes ticked on, Hubert’s mind began suggesting reasons as to why she was late. Maybe she needed help. Maybe she…

Hubert ratcheted to his feet. Better to check and be sure than to sit there in doubt and fear. He was sure he’d meet her in the hall, but he clunked all the way to their front door without seeing her. “Laurie,” he called as he opened the door. She didn’t answer. “Laurie!” Fear frosted the grips of his walker. She wasn’t here in the living room, and he could see the floor was clear in their bedroom. He opened the door to the bathroom. Nothing. He called her name again anyway, and blinked several times. He checked behind the shower curtain and opened the door to their bedroom’s meager closet. More nothing.

He’d looked everywhere. She must have taken another path down to the sitting room and he’d missed her. Never mind that any other way was far out of the way, there was no other… he squinted and cocked his head.

Her clothes were gone.

The closet contained only a few of his plaid shirts, his suit and slacks. That was odd. He turned and looked over the bedroom. Her items were missing. Her jewelry chest, her necklace tree, her scattered earrings. There wasn’t a trace. He thumped through the living room. Her basket of knitting wasn’t beside the couch. Her battery of hair spray and makeup nonsense weren’t strewn over the bathroom counter. Laurie had been erased from their home.

Fighting off panic, Hubert went back downstairs. As he hobbled back into the sitting room, despite everything, he expected to find her seated at the piano and waiting for him after all. She wasn’t. “Where’s Laurie?”

Mark looked up from the darned cat puzzle. “Hmm?”

“Laurie! Where’s Laurie?”

Mark and Ellie exchanged a look. Ellie turned to him and spoke slowly. “Oh, is she missing?”

“Yes she’s missing! Someone’s taken all her things.”

Mark frowned and said “Listen, Hubert, I…”

“Don’t you dare,” Ellie hissed. Turning again to Hubert, her face softened and she drawled “Now Hubie, don’t you worry a thing about it. Everything’ll turn out fine.”

“You know something about this! Tell me!”

Diana appeared at Hubert’s side. “Mr. Chlebek, please calm down.”

“Are you listening to me? All her things were taken from our room!”

“Mr. Chlebek. Hubert. I’m sorry you’re upset, but nothing’s wrong. You’re just tired and confused. Let me walk you back to your room, okay? I don’t want to have to tell Mrs. Lerzback about this.” She began to lead him back into the hall. Hubert heard Mark whisper that Ellie shouldn’t lie to him like that.

At the door, Hubert managed to croak “Come in, you’ll see. Her things are gone.”

“I’m sure they’re just misplaced. Everything’s fine, Mr. Chlebek. You’ll see. Take a nice nap and you’ll feel worlds better.” She left him and walked back to her duties.

Hubert stood there in a daze. Why wasn’t anyone listening? He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and stood there. He’d never been without her, not for one day, since 1948. The air tasted a sickly tan- the tan of dread in comfortable surroundings. 70s strip mall naugahyde tan. The color of the trappings hanging on your doctor’s wall while waiting for your cancer diagnosis, or of the IRS man’s chairs as he asks you to take a seat.

“Something changed all right,” a voice said. Hubert turned to see Julius the orderly slowly walking by, keeping his head forward as he went. He spoke in a hush through unmoving lips. “You’re looking for answers in the wrong places.”

Before Hubert could ask what he meant the man was gone around a corner and down the stairwell. As he stared, wondering, his eyes fell on the only thing left in the hall- the cleaning lady’s service cart. Of course- the lady went in and cleaned while Hubert was at breakfast every morning. She would be the only one with time to remove all of Laurie’s things, and that likely meant they were secreted away in the cart.

He slowly approached the cart and noted that she was fixing up the last room of her daily rounds, and then she’d soon be gone along with any evidence. She was fixing the bedspread and would be out shortly. Hubert would need more time. He bent down and wrestled a tennis ball off his walker. He took aim and threw it in, glancing a series of Russian nesting dolls and scattering them on the floor. The maid whirled on the noise. “Oh, dammit!”

While she began picking up, Hubert took the cart and rolled it into his room. The door clicked shut just as the baffled maid came out to find the hall empty.

He began pulling apart the cart. Towels, cleaning spray, trash bags, smaller towels, linens that smelled a periwinkle blue. He went through the hamper and the trash. None of Laurie’s things were here. Had others taken them? Had Laurie taken her things herself? Had she left him? No, that was ridiculous.

Taped to the cart was an ancient and stained scrap of paper. It was a phone directory for the home. Hubert ripped it free. Dial 1 to access voicemail, then enter extension. Hubert wasn’t so hot at all this computer stuff, but he’d try. He traced his finger down the list of names.

D. Sanders

ext 602

He picked up his phone and pressed the one key, then six-oh-two. A bright yellow phone lady voice spoke primly in his ear. “You’ve reached the voicemail of… Diana Sanders… press 1 to listen to messages.” Hubert thumbed the one key again.

“Di. Olivia. Tomorrow’s the big change with Mr. Chlebek. We’re not expecting much reaction, but these things can have strange effects on the clients. Just keep an eye on him and keep him calm. He trusts you. He’ll get over it soon enough. Also, we’re having a get-together Friday night at the pub…”

Hubert listened to a few more seconds of chit-chat and hung up. Olivia Lerzback, the director of the home. She was extension 101. He called and found that her voicemail was passcode-protected, whatever that meant. He put the phone back in the cradle and walked out the door.

He saw Diana down the hall and ducked into one of the public restrooms until she was gone, then he took the elevator down and cut across to the door by the lobby.

Olivia Lerzback

Director

“No more pussyfooting around,” he muttered, and opened the door.

Mrs. Lerzback looked up from her phone call and stared at him in surprise as he entered. She covered the mouthpiece with her hand and said “I’m sorry, I’m in a meeting right now, can this-“

“Where is my wife?”

Her eyes widened in some sort of understanding. It was all he needed to know he was on the right track. “Mr. Chlebek, I will be with you shortl-“

“WHERE IS MY WIFE??” Hubert thundered, knobby hands bound into fists. “Tell me! I’ll call the police!”

Orderlies burst into the room and Hubert picked up his walker and held it out against them, eyes wild, ready to fight.

“No!” Olivia Lerzback said, hanging up the phone. “No, everything’s fine. Could you leave us alone, please?”

“Are you sure?” The orderlies eyed Hubert.

“Quite sure. We’re okay. Mr. Chlebek, please, have a seat.”

Confused, he lowered his walker and sat. Here was that tan scent again.

Mrs. Lerzback studied him. “Goodness. You really came around. Remarkable.”

“Tell me where my wife is. Please.”

She turned to dig through the file cabinet. “Mr. Chlebek, you came to us in 2004. In 2013, you began developing mild symptoms of dementia and Alzheimer’s. In that time, we began giving you a kidney medication called Forizol. Forizol is a very mild narcotic, and we believe that without our knowing it was… exacerbating… your condition.”

“Dementia? I have dementia?” As he said it, he recalled hearing it before. Some meeting in an office like this one. Exactly like this one. It was this office. The news had sounded pale green.

Lerzback went on. “I suppose we never knew the extent to which you were suffering. I can’t apologize enough. Sometimes these things aren’t apparent. You always seemed so content, and went about your daily routines without incident or complaint. Very high-functioning.”

“Where’s Laurie?” he murmured.

“As of this morning, we switched your kidney medication to a new pill called Ambitrix. It performs the same functions without the side effects.”

“Is she dead? Did she die and I forgot?”

The director sat back in her chair and looked at him. “Mr. Chlebek, no. You’re a lifelong bachelor.”

“What? No I’m not.”

She opened her manilla folder and shook her head. “I’m afraid so. Never married. So in a very rare instance, a combination of medication and mild dementia seems to have created a whole fold in your life… a fantasy. Again, we’re sorry, but at least it’s over now and you can get back-“

The tears came again and he covered his face with his shaking, spotted hands. Laurie hadn’t existed? Was that possible? His mind had made up the birds, the stories, the kisses. His whole lonely life had been rewritten by a pill.

Mrs. Lerzback held out a box of tissues and Hubert clutched at it. “I’m so sorry Mr. Chlebek. If there’s anything I can do to help you, please…”

Once the sobs subsided, he sniffed and gathered himself. “There is something you can do for me.”

“Anything.”

It was a simple matter.

The next morning, Hubert Chlebek buckled his walker into the sitting room. It was another perfect day. “Morning you two!”

Mark and Ellie looked up. “Hubie! Good morning, feeling all right?”

“Couldn’t feel finer.”

Diana said “so good to see you feeling better today, dear.”

Hubert shrugged. He didn’t know what they’d meant, and it didn’t matter. He grunted into his chair and felt the sun on his shoulders. He smiled at Laurie and she smiled at him.

The notes came in a tinkling splash, and the birds rose from the piano in waves of peach-orange that shimmered to a light blue as the song moved down the keyboard, and then back up to a soft rose red and beyond.