She had a private room at the rest home, a single bed pushed up against one wall. A small black-and-white television on a shelf under a window that overlooked a grassy, man-made knoll where Norway pines had died not long after they were planted. There was a painting of a schnauzer dog hanging on the wall above her bed, a mirror hanging over a small chest of drawers. Hairbrushes and bottles of lotions and perfumes sat atop the chest, giving off a lovely fragrance. Getting to her room was always a relief, as other rooms reeked of soiled bed linens and heaping ashtrays, the stench leaching into the hallway. The day before she passed, she was sitting in her bed and staring out the window. A sorry view, compared with the one she’d had for so many years from the third floor of the apothecary. Even though she was fully blind by then, this irrelevant fact saddened me more than any other about her condition and situation. She always kept herself neat. Whereas most of the folks waiting out the last years of their lives here were happy to spend all day in their pajamas, or even less, Rebekah dressed every day, bathed twice a week, and, when Bonnie Hanrahan’s daughter came for just this purpose, had her hair done each Saturday.
