The old woman walks slowly up the cracking stairs of her apartment building. Its a frosty day in Minneapolis, she's not sure if it ever got to the 22 degrees predicted by the weather man. She reaches a finger up beneath the taped bridge of her glasses to wipe away a tear, lets out a sigh as she pulls the door open. She slowly climbs the twenty six stairs to her apartment, avoiding the crumpled Kit Kat wrapper in the hall. A steady thump, thump, thump of bass comes from the apartment next to hers. There are a couple of young people living there, they seem to keep odd hours and play the loud, thumping music late into the night and start it up every day around lunch time. Even when she takes her hearing aids out at night, sometimes its difficult for her to sleep with the music always pounding through the walls. Its as if her pillow conducts the sound and it invades her dreams.
This has not been a good day. The doctor at the clinic told her the cancer was back and this time, it has spread. He had a fancy word for it but she doesn't remember the term. She knew what he meant. Almost automatically, she walks to the refrigerator and takes out the half can of chicken noodle soup. She pours it into a pan on the little gas burner and dumps in a cup of water. As the soup begins to warm, she carefully opens a tin and removes the package of saltines she has closed with a plastic tie from the grocery store. Another tear comes as a wave of self pity washes through her. Can't even keep the crackers out, she thinks, damn mice will get to them.
The anemic daylight fades as she settles onto a chair and crushes the crackers into the soup. Another tear falls as she remembers tomorrow is her birthday. 86 years old. It will her last birthday. A sob catches in her throat. There will be no cake, no card in the mail that sings a gay little tune as you open it, no phone call to congratulate her. No one will even know, except herself. She stirs the soup in the bowl. Her dear little son, at least she will see him again. He died how many years ago? What is it? 54 years ago? He was only six years old when he died. What a sweet little fellow he was. Always playing jokes, how he loved to laugh! She will never forget his face, the chocolate brown eyes and thick lashes, how his hair had an unruly cowlick that was never tamed. Those cowboy boots he loved so much. Life seemed so good, so happy and then the car accident. It was no one's fault, just another icy Minnesota morning. Ice on the road.... Even though it years ago now, the pain feels like yesterday, but the boy, a misty memory.
Her daughter, where even was she? Was she even alive? She looks at the refrigerator where she sees a faded Christmas card. She had taken a marker and wrote "2004" on it, next to the glittered Santa Claus. It was the last card she'd gotten. She remembers her daughter had enclosed a twenty dollar bill and wrote "See you soon! Don't spend it all in one place!" But she didn't see her soon. She never saw her again. There'd been some phone calls, something about moving to San Francisco and how she'd be in touch once she was settled. But there had been no more phone calls. No more cards. A few years ago at the Senior Center, she'd asked a volunteer if she would try looking up the daughter online. Try San Francisco, she'd told her. But they'd not been able to find her. It is what it is, she thought and took a sip of the soup, now growing cold on the table, the crackers congealing into a gluey mass.
Outside, snowflakes were making their lazy way to ground. A bit of a draft came through the window along the cracked caulking and the woman moved away from the table to the living room and turned on her radio. She thought, as she always did, that it would be nice to be able to watch tv. She liked to see peoples' faces when they were talking. But there had been no way she could get a tv up the stairs into her apartment, let it alone get it set up. She didn't understand all the cable stuff she was always hearing about. She had been ashamed to leave almost all her belongings in her home when she'd moved. She had been unable to pay the taxes and upkeep on the old house, things were breaking down all around her, and she'd moved one day. Just packed up some photo albums, clothes, one box of dishes. That was all she could fit in the cab. The Somali driver had been kind enough to carry the boxes up the stairs to the apartment. She'd walked down to the Sears and had a bed ordered and delivered but there hadn't been enough in her savings to get a tv. She'd made do with the radio. It was alright, comforting. Sometimes she would remember when she was a girl, her parents sitting in their armchairs in the living room, listening to the radio. Sometimes it was music and talk shows, sometimes they'd listened for tornado alerts. WCCO, your "good neighbor to the North". Those were the days.
She put on her slippers and pulled the tattered old afghan around her shoulders. There was an advertisement on the radio about introductory deals at some chiropractic office. She wondered if a chiropractor could do anything for cancer. The doctor at the clinic had given her a sheaf of papers with upcoming appointments downtown at the hospital, outlined in yellow marker. Something about being there at 7 in the morning, some building somewhere in north Minneapolis on a street she'd heard of but never been on. She hadn't paid much attention. It was all useless. She didn't have the money to pay a cab to go back and forth. How many times would she have to go? The doctor had told her she'd be sick and need someone to drive her home and stay with her for awhile after the appointments. Who? There was no one to either drive nor stay with her. I suppose, she thought, I could go back to the Senior Center and see if I can get someone to drive me. But even if she could, she knew they didn't offer services such as having people stay with you for days on end. Outside in the hall, a woman spoke harshly to a child in a strange tongue, the child whimpered and she heard a door unlock and the sound of a dog barking.
She looked the copy of People magazine on the floor. She had found it the other day at the bus stop. Brad Pitt smiled at her rakishly from the cover. She heaved herself out of the chair and went into her bedroom and picked up the Bible from its place on an overturned box next to the bed. She carried it back into the living and once again, settled into the chair. She wiped away another tear and opened the book. It is what is, she thought.
