Queen Leo

Being a CNA is a shitty job, but Sarah loved it. She found herself becoming better friends with the residents at Sunset Long Term Care Facility than her own peers. Work was literally another home for her.

There was a particular resident of the home that she was very close to. Patricia was a sweet woman that never once got visitors. She and Sarah were close friends, spending every meal together, playing bridge together, completing puzzles together, chatting and gossiping together - they were practically inseparable.

Sunset Long Term Care Facility was a very small home. There were less than 50 residents in the whole facility. It was on the cheaper side and most of these residents didn’t get very many visitors very often. Those who worked at the facility were very aware that most residents either didn’t have many family members or were in unfortunate situations where their family wasn’t as attentive. It made this facility more of a second family; they mainly only had each other.

Saturday morning, 6:00 AM, March 12th.

Sarah woke up in her studio apartment. She worked the swing shift the night before, still in her dark blue scrubs. She rubbed the sleepiness out of her eyes and rolled out of bed. After changing into a clean set of yellow flowered scrubs, Sarah quickly grabbed her coffee and left for work.

She pulled up to the small, one story, brown brick building, walked up to the glass door, and entered the code to enter the facility. The residents were beginning to gather into the lobby area around the nursing station getting ready for breakfast.

“Good morning, Sarah!”

“Hey, Michelle! How was everything last night?” Michelle, one of the graveyard shift CNAs, approached Sarah while pushing the wheelchair of another resident.

“Pretty good. Cheryl visited Robert’s room again last night. That was fun to break up in the middle of the night.”

“Dirty bird... How was your night, Grandpa?” Sarah bent down to ask the resident in the wheelchair. The elderly man, who’s name was actually Stan, suffered from severe dementia and only responded when he was called Grandpa. That still didn’t stop him from constantly hitting on the female employees.

“Eh? What?”

“How was your night, Grandpa?”

“Oh! Fine. Could have been better.”

“Oh? What could have made it better?”

“If you were in bed with me!”

“Grandpa! That’s not appropriate.”

“What?”

“It’s okay, Grandpa. Why don’t we go down to breakfast.”

“Yeah. You go down on me. That sounds good.”

Sarah knew it was pointless to keep calling Grandpa out. She stood back up and Michelle rolled her eyes as she took Grandpa to the cafeteria.

Sarah went behind the nurse’s station to hang her jacket and purse, then she went straight to Patricia’s room.

She knocked on the door and heard a quiet “come in” before she opened the door. Patricia was sitting on a chair next to her open window. She was in a long pink and yellow flowered nightgown. Her long grey hair was pulled back in a single braid that draped over her slender shoulder. Her face lit up as soon as she saw Sarah, and Sarah couldn’t help but smile back. “Hey pretty lady! How are you today?”

“Oh, I’m doing better now.” Patricia gave Sarah another sweet smile.

After they finished breakfast, Sarah and Patricia made their way to the common area where they sat together and worked on a puzzle. One of the morning nurses stopped by with his cart to give Patricia her morning medication.

“Good morning, Patricia! How are you feeling today?” Nurse Justin spoke slowly and loudly to Patricia as he handed her her pills and a small paper cup of water.

“I’m doing just fine.” Patricia sweetly took the pills and handed back the empty paper cups. Nurse Justin took the cups and stared down at the puzzle in progress.

“What is this a puzzle of?”

Patricia responded with a smile, “This is a puzzle of all the famous movie gangsters in the style of the Last Supper painting. Sweet Sarah found it online!” Nurse Justin stared blankly at the puzzle then to Sarah who was stifling a chuckle. “See, here in the middle is Scarface, next to him is Marlon Brando - he played the Godfather. And over here is James Gandolfini! The Sopranos is just wonderful.”

“Wow. That’s interesting...” Nurse Justin slowly inched himself away from the table clearly not interested and confused at this sweet elderly woman’s pleasure in mobster movies. Patricia looked at Sarah, gave her a little wink and then they continued on with their puzzle.

It was nearing the end of Sarah’s morning shift, but Sarah had planned on staying at the facility to hang out with Patricia. Patricia stared at Sarah and told her to sit with her on her bed.

“My sweet dear, you need to get out of this place! You’re young! Go and be young.”

“Pat, I don’t -”

“Sarah, sweet Sarah, you have become a shining beacon in this small dull world. Don’t waste all that light on an old lady like me. Do me a favor. Tonight, I want you to treat yourself. Go to a movie. Go to dinner. It’s Saturday night! I expect you to have a lovely night. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, right?”

Sarah paused, “Yeah, alright. Don’t finish that puzzle without me.” “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Sunday morning, 6:00 AM, March 13th.

Sarah woke up after a full night of studying for her upcoming nursing exam, still in her yellow scrubs. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and rolled out of bed. She changed into dark green scrubs, grabbed her coffee, and made her way back to Sunset.

“Good morning, Sarah.”

“Morning, Michelle. How are we doing today?”

“Oh, pretty good. Fairly quiet last night.”

“Hey!” Grandpa called for Sarah’s attention.

“What’s going on, Grandpa?”

“Will you help me?”

“Sure, what do you need, Grandpa?”

“My dick is a little dry, can you fix that for me?”

Michelle bent down to scold Grandpa. “That’s not okay to say!”

“Eh? What?”

Sarah rolled her eyes and dropped off her things behind the nurse’s station.

She walked over to Patricia’s room and knocked on her door. There was no answer.

“Patricia?” another knock. “Lil’ Patty, it’s time for breaky.” Still silence. Sarah cracked open the door and peered inside. Sarah saw Patricia lying on her side in her bed, facing away from the door. “Pat? Patricia?”

Sarah could feel a stillness. Something felt wrong. A white burning sensation shortened her breath and flooded her vision. She moved quickly, though it felt like an eternity, to Patricia’s bed. Her long grey hair was gracefully laid on her pillow like she was caught in a breeze. Her mouth was ghastly wide open and her eyes were squinted open. Sarah knew. She was afraid to touch her resting friend. She just stared at Patricia and silently cried.

“Sarah? Patricia?” Another CNA, Emily, came by the room. Sarah didn’t realize how long she was standing in Patricia’s room. Breakfast had started in the cafeteria.

Emily came into the room. “Sarah? Is everything okay?”

Sarah looked over to Emily with tears in her eyes. “She’s gone.”

The rest of the day was a bit of a blur. Emily grabbed Nurse Justin who grabbed the Head Nurse who called a doctor and an ambulance. It was only about an hour later that the postmortem care needed to be completed in order for Patricia’s body to be moved. Despite much protest from the other CNAs, Sarah insisted to help.

Sarah, Emily, and another CNA, Jorge, pulled her out away from the wall so they could all circle around her. Patricia looked like a different person. She was then laying on her back. Her eyes were still slightly open and her jaw was resting awkwardly against her neck leaving her mouth completely agape. Her skin was pale and clammy, totally lost of her usual soft glow. Her grey hair was stringy and stripped of life, lying limply on her pillow. The three CNAs quietly removed her green covers, then carefully removed her white and yellow nightgown. She was unrecognizable. This pale, fragile, thin frame seemed like a small doll. Maybe that visual helped Sarah continue as she and her fellow CNAs washed Patricia’s body. Sarah pushed back Patricia’s hair, brushed it, and for the last time, braided her hair in her signature single braid draped over her shoulder. The CNAs dressed her in a blue and white hospital gown, and with that, they were done. Emily gave Sarah a small but strong hug.

“Are you doing okay?” Jorge asked in his deep and quiet voice. Sarah simply nodded, afraid to speak and start crying all over again.

“Jorge and I can help cover your section for lunch. If you want to stay or go home or whatever, we can cover you.” Emily took off her gloves and rubbed the small of Sarah’s back. Sarah was very uncomfortable with the physical attention, but appreciated the kindness.

“Thanks. Both of you.”

Emily and Jorge grabbed the dirty clothes and washing material, then left Sarah alone with Patricia. Sarah looked at Patricia’s face for a moment before she looked away. It wasn’t Patricia anymore. She couldn’t stand staring at this empty husk any longer. That wasn’t how Sarah was going to remember her. That couldn’t be the last memory of her.

Sarah sat on the edge of Patricia’s bed as she caught her breath. She looked around the room and her eyes rested on the nightstand. There were two framed pictures. One picture was of the two of them taken a while back at a Halloween activity in the facility. The other was an old black and white picture of a young Patricia, with her long dark hair done up in big 50’s curls, standing with a tall dark and handsome man in a pinstripe suit. Sarah remembered asking about the man in the picture and remembered the incredibly romantic picture Patricia painted about her ‘Italian Prince’ named Thomas. Sarah grinned through her tear stained pain as she looked at these pictures. She grabbed the two framed photos, held them close to her chest, then left the room.

A while later, Sarah was in her small apartment curled up on her bed unable to cry any longer. Sitting back up, she pulled out the framed pictures from Patricia’s room. She stared at the Halloween picture, the two of them dressed as 1920’s mobsters, and smiled. Sarah thought this would look good in her photo album. As soon as she flipped the frame over, she noticed that the frame hinges were askew and ready to burst. Sarah paused before hastily opening the frame. A bundle of folded papers fell onto Sarah’s lap. She carefully unfolded the papers to reveal a legal document titled “Last Will and Testament of Evangelina Patrica Leotreau''. Sarah felt her face grow pale and her breath shallowed. She skimmed through the pages looking for a reason this was left behind a picture of them. Then, her answer was there in black and white. “To my closest and dearest friend, Sarah Holt, I leave my inheritance of 5.7 million dollars.”

“5.7 million dollars?” Sarah thought this had to be a typo. She just stared at the sentence and kept rereading it hoping it would sink in eventually. “5.7 million dollars?”

Sarah looked over to the other framed picture of young Patricia standing next to a young man. She reached over, turned the frame over, and noticed this frame was ready to burst as well. She struggled to open this frame, breathing so hard her body was close to convulsion. When the frame was opened, a small black pocket book fell onto her lap. Sarah focused on this small book while she attempted to focus her breathing. She picked up the book and opened to the first page. Sarah recognized the small cursive handwriting, a small inscription simply stating, “Great (wo)men are not born great, they grow great. And you are the greatest.” A shudder of a sob escaped from Sarah. She turned the page and noticed how old the pocket book was. As she flipped through the book, she noted a younger hand wrote in the majority of the book. Small notes here and there, addresses, phone numbers, and dollar amounts. Sarah did not understand these contents. Then a small old photograph fell out from deeper in the pocket book. It was a black and white picture of a recognizable young woman seated in a large velvet armchair, a young man carrying a large rifle, and on the other side another young man who Sarah did not recognize. This other young man was holding a sign that read “Queen Leo”.