The old lady's shoes
were so big I could fit both feet in either one.
I took off my socks -- sometimes I'd seen kids going by barefoot
outside, but never in just socks -- and reached for the doorknob. I
touched it.
I stopped.
I turned around again.
There was a stain forming under Auntie, piss and shit and death-juice,
and as I looked at her, I had a firm sense that it wouldn't be *right*
to bring people up to her apartment with her like this. I'd seen dead
people on TV. They were propped up on pillows, in clean hospital
nighties, with rouged cheeks. I didn't know how far I could get, but I
thought I owed it to her to try.
I figured that it was better than going outside.
She was lighter in death, as though something had fled her. I could drag
her into the bathroom and prop her on the edge of the tub. I needed to
wash her before anyone else came up.
I cut away her dress with the sewing shears. She was wearing an elastic
girdle beneath, and an enormous brassiere, and they were too tough --
too tight -- to cut through, so I struggled with their hooks, each one
going *spung* as I unhooked it, revealing red skin beneath it, pinched
and sore-looking.
When I got to her bra, I had a moment's pause. She was a modest person
-- I'd never even seen her legs without tan compression hose, but the
smell was overwhelming, and I just held to that vision of her in a
nightie and clean sheets and, you know, *went for it*.
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