The Last Supper

So let’s see…where did we leave off? Oh yes. Two lunches, three dinners.

Abigail, who my father dubbed “Saint Abigail” after she agreed to spend five days medically assessing my great aunt, brought along books to read, materials to study, and what I will call a serious talent for knitting. And she’s only 25.

Abigail seemed to be physically and mentally prepared for this six-day challenge with Marsh. She arrived at the quaint old folks community with helmet on head, bullet proof vest strapped on, and club in hand.

Okay, not really. I’m kidding about the helmet.

She brought things to occupy her expectedly disengaged brain. She prepared herself to sit around for hours on end in an 85-degree two-bedroom apartment. She was even prepared to succumb to the fact that her three-hour-long afternoon naps would be the highlight of her trip, and of course, the main event of each day.

Actually, I take that back. The main events of each day were the meals, even for I’m-starving-myself-to-death Marsh (which, to be true, no one in our family could quite figure out WHY it was such a personal dilemma for her to know where we were eating next…especially when her reply to each of our invitations to a meal outside the nursing home was, “Oh no dear, I couldn’t possibly. I’m much too tired”).

Well, Marsh. Maybe you’re “much too tired” because YOU DON’T EAT ANYTHING and therefore YOU HAVE NO ENERGY.

Oh. And that chocolate Ensure you heat up in the microwave… the Ensure that’s meant to be refrigerated, not heated… the Ensure that I’m guessing averages about 200 calories a serving? It is not meant as a meal REPLACEMENT. That’s why it’s called a SUPPLIMENT. But I digress…

So as Abigail mentally prepared herself for the Marsh Marathon Meal Challenges (much like an Olympic Athlete mentally prepares for a race against their arch rival), I believe that she forgot to factor in one thing: her opponent was Martha L. Nelson – Manipulator Extraordinaire…aire…aire…aire…

Abigail played a great game. She had excellent technique, she shot to score, and she kept her head in the game. She ate two lunches and three dinners in the “dining room” with our great aunt and probably 30 or 40 other 80+ year olds. I didn’t ask her for the details of these dinners as I preferred, selfishly, to spare myself from the phlegm hacking, community-fruit-bowl-picking tendencies of her other “dining mates.”

But finally, Abigail broke. And who can blame her, really? She wanted GREENS, people. You know… vegetables? Maybe some lettuce other than iceberg? Is it too much to ask? NO, I say. NO!

Get the girl some greens!

And so she did. She took herself out to a salad dinner (after the invitation she extended to Marsh was declined) and enjoyed a nice glass of wine.

But after the last drop of that wine was drunk and after her body thanked her for feeding it something other than frozen peas and meat and potatoes smothered in gravy, the tides turned. Marsh, it seemed, had lost a bit of control – Abigail was not doing as “she was told” and this brought about a strong sense of paranoia in Marsh.

Abigail changed from a concerned loved one (who spent her one-week break from nursing school with a sickly woman) to a conniving, plotting, ungrateful, fire-breathing Sheerah.

Saint Abigail, no more. At least to Marsh.

Now before you all damn me to burn in hell for what I’ve said about my great aunt, I implore you to realize one thing: yes, the woman suffers. And she’s more than likely extremely lonely – especially since her sister left her for dementia two years ago. And I imagine the finality of my grandmother’s death had much more of an effect on her than she let on. And, it has to be said, this is a woman that would give her nephews anything, and has given them anything, when they need it. She is a monetarily generous woman and she loves her nephews as if they were her sons. But she continues to alienate herself from those who love her most, for fear of loosing the upper hand. For fear of loosing the control.

Plus, the woman has never had sex. And she’s 85 years old. That has to do SOMETHING to you… what exactly it does, I don’t care to know… but I know it does something…

So Abigail had two last suppers, I guess. One last supper sitting in the good graces of Marsh, and one last supper eating green, fiber-filled food before the rest of the Heston clan arrived.

But I guess I am forgetting the most important last supper: the last supper at The Diamond Grill…complete with a toast to Jane, martinis, too much wine, and a cigarette with my mother.

Believe it. And stay tuned…