Her eldest daughter Margot was dressed for high tea in a cotton dress and cardigan as if they were landed gentry. As if they were British. Her youngest daughter Bea did a little step squat forward past the sliding glass doors to unobtrusively wriggle free of the underwear lodged in her butt. Unsuccessful, she shoved her hand down past her ratty concert t-shirt into the back of her shorts. 

Clara took a step backward with every intention of returning to her room, leaving the too bright lights of the lobby and her daughters behind. Her heel landed on the toes of a nurse, who promptly placed her hand at the small of Clara’s back. 

“It’s so nice they’ve come to have lunch with you, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes. It is.” She tucked her chin down. “It is.” She had to repeat it to convince herself and let the nurse usher her down the sweeping staircase. Morningside Blooms was styled after an old antebellum home with a grand foyer, wood accents, and deep navy carpet to no doubt calm its mostly white, elderly residents and remind them of a time when everything was tailored to them. 

“Mama.” First Margot then Bea enveloped her in a hug, each of them taking a turn setting their chins on top of Clara’s head. Her name, like her body had started out small, grown, and then shrunk again with age. When they were babies, she had been “mama” then “mommy” and on to the more standoffish “mom” until she reached “mother.” Now she had been downgraded back to “mama” not yet “grandma” and perhaps never would be. 

“I think lunch is already being served if you’d like to go straight to the dining room.” The nurse motioned them forward and Clara was grasping for her name not because she was senile but because there were four of them who had the same low blonde ponytail, blue scrubs, and a smattering of freckles. Jenny, Gina, maybe Tina? 

Giving up, Clara said, “Thank you.” 

The nurse gave an overly long stare at her daughters before nodding her head, which they returned. 

“What?” Clara asked. 

“Nothing,” they chorused. 

“I can’t walk myself to the dining room? Is this some sort of hand off?” 

“No. Of course you can walk yourself to the dining room. That’s ridiculous,” said Bea in a tone that suggested Clara was the one who was ridiculous.  

The dining room of Morningside Blooms was as alive and kicking as it could be with the average age of its population at 78. When her daughters weren’t there, it felt, despite the white tablecloths and round tables that tried to give it the air of a restaurant, like a middle school cafeteria. Instead of jocks or nerds, there were the knitters, the tv drones, the slightly catatonic but still mobile, and the couples. The couples were the worst – helpfully wiping crumbs away from their partner’s wrinkled lips, holding hands. As it was, she enjoyed the buffer of her family except for the lookie loos who would inevitably stop by to ask the same litany of questions they always did. 

“And who might this be?” asked Deborah Wills as Clara and her daughters settled themselves around an empty table decorated with a jar full of dandelions. 

“These are my daughters, Deborah. Bea and Margot.” Clara couldn’t help herself, “You met them for the ninth time last week. This will make the tenth.” 

“Right. Right.” Deborah patted the gray helmet of her hair. “How are you girls?” 

“We’re well, Ms. Wills,” answered Bea. “And you?” 

“I’m good. Good. Remind me again, what do you do?” 

Clara had thought she escaped these inane conversations when her daughters had strongly encouraged her to make this place her new home. Even when Margot and Bea weren’t present, the question wouldn’t go away. Instead, it became directed more fully at her: What did you do? Past tense. As in what did you do in the before times when things like that mattered and we could still define ourselves clearly with one word like lawyer, doctor, schoolteacher, which Clara had been for a few years before she had kids. Yet when asked, she still said, a stay-at-home mom. She watched both of her daughters now with their shoulders back answer Deborah with “I’m in IT” and “Doctor.” They offered no further information and turned their backs to end the conversation. 

Nursing home etiquette dictated here that Deborah mosey on once more, which she did, and thank God. It wouldn’t have mattered either way as conversations had gotten profoundly stupider and slower with her daughters. She was blocked from their view as Morningside staff brought them dishes laden with fish, green beans, and brown gravy topped mashed potatoes. Clara sipped at the omnipresent cranberry juice. 

            “Mama. Hello? Are you listening?” 

            “Of course, I am. I heard what you said.” 

            “Well, what do you think?” 

            “About what?” She could hear the click of Margot’s tongue against her teeth. The frustration. The sigh. Clara had heard it many times before and in concert right before she made the move here. They had presented her a PowerPoint of her missteps. Getting scammed first through email then on the phone to hand over credit card numbers and purchase gift cards. Losing her way to the doctor’s office – one she had visited for over thirty years. Peeing her pants in the Costco though Clara maintained that it wasn’t her fault, the store was a maze. How could anyone have found that bathroom in time? Forgetting to pay a bill or two or three. Not any of the important ones, mind you, just a credit card. 

            “We want you to –” 

            “Okay,” answered Clara before Margot could finish her sentence. 

It was too much of a hassle to question. She had gotten those all out long ago. They thought her incapable of logic and follow through. What had clearly slipped their minds was how she had been the one to run their house and keep everything and everyone on schedule and in line. Their dad Theo had worked, but it was Clara who had done the PTA, the checkbook, the groceries, and the cleaning. 

She hated Theo more often than she missed him. It was easy to be the dead parent. Theo was sainted and enshrined at age 71. The girls quickly forgot his temper and his penchant for whiskey, porn, and demeaning any woman’s ability to be in a position of power. He was their dead doting father, loved and mourned. Clara was left behind to be the flawed human that she was, and as her daughters got older it was clear that was all they saw in her. At least, she told herself, she didn’t guilt her children like her friend Sarah who lived across the hall. Sarah consistently told her children that she hoped to die soon in her sleep not that they would notice or find her right away since no one hardly took the time to check up on her though they did twice a week. 

“I don’t like this fish,” Clara announced, nudging her fork with it.

“Are you being serious right now?” asked Bea. 

“Mama, we had this fish just two weeks ago and you said you loved it,” said Margot. “You basically licked the plate clean. This is the exact same fish.” 

“Well, I don’t like it today.”

“You said ‘I love fish Fridays. It’s the only thing they get right around here.’” 

Clara frowned at her girls. They were always correcting her. “Mama, no remember it was…” and “That’s not right. This is what you said…” as if she didn’t know her own mind. 

“Loving that fish, eh, Clara?” Chester Harris who lived on her floor was twirling his cane behind her chair. She turned slightly to eye him. 

“No, I am not,” she said. “Where did you come from, Chester?”

“Just making the rounds. Making the rounds,” he murmured. He tugged at his button-down that was too tight in the collar but too loose in the sleeves. She could see the sweat seeping through right under his breasts. 

“Well, go make your rounds elsewhere. I’m visiting with my daughters.” 

“Ladies,” he bowed slightly. “I’ll see you later, Ms. Clara.” 

“What a peacock,” said Bea as they watched him move two tables down. He leaned in to speak low to the two women sitting there, who laughed at whatever he said, then buzzed on to try to charm more. 

“Dirty old man,” said Margot. “Mama, do not talk to him or see him later.” 

“Okay.”

“Promise us.” 

“I said fine.” Clara’s voice raised a little. “What in the world is the matter?” 

“Nothing. Are you done?” 

            Clara stared down at her still full plate. She had eaten nothing more than potatoes and gravy. “Yes.” 

            As they walked back to her apartment, the antebellum charm of the lobby faded to hospital. The residential side consisted of three separate narrow buildings, three floors high. The carpet gave way to vinyl that could be easily cleaned, and everything became a little more antiseptic with handrails where they didn’t normally belong. Balconies that were aesthetically pleasing from the outside were locked to prevent any falls. White wood rocking chairs spread across a wraparound porch on the ground floor. A few of the chairs creaked with residents, mostly those who were snuffing oxygen from a tank or those who were snuffing oxygen out of the air sacks in their lungs with a cigarette and some who were juggling both. 

When Bea and Margot had shown their slideshow, it had included photos of Morningside’s common rooms: old but handsome men and women watching television together, painting, playing pool, and strolling through manicured gardens. These spaces remained uninhabited for much of the day unless a nurse made themselves a nuisance, shooing residents out of their apartments to the day’s planned activities. 

            Clara’s own one-bedroom apartment was a facsimile of her old house. Pieces had been chosen not so much for sentimental value as to whether they would fit into her new 460 square foot space. So instead of her well-loved leather couch she had settled for a flowered loveseat from their guest room and a few other bits of furniture that were more suited to a dollhouse. The rest had been sold off. She tried not to think too much about how much easier it would be to pack up this small purgatory when she died rather than the cape cod cottage where she had built her life with her family. The centerpiece of her living room was a painting that Bea and Margot had commissioned of their dead father. When others saw it, they used words like thoughtful and lovely. 

They walked through the galley kitchen, a luxury Clara was grateful for as not every resident was allowed access to fire, and settled at a round top she used as a dining table. Clara had barely sat when she stood up again. “Can I get you something for dessert? I’ve got these pumpkin spice almonds that I got when we went to the grocery store. They’re here somewhere.” She started rummaging through a cabinet. “Maybe I put them in the bread box?”

Margot cleared her throat. “Mama.” 

“Then, if you have time, we can watch some Hallmark?” Clara heard the uptick in her voice on the last bit and hoped she didn’t sound desperate or needy. She didn’t want them to be here but also wanted them to stay. 

“Mama.”

“I think they might have already started the Christmas ones. I know it’s only September, but they just start earlier every –”

“Mom.” This time it was Bea who cut in. “Can you please come sit down for a minute?” 

“Are you sure you don’t want the almonds?” 

“Forget about the almonds,” said Margot. 

“We’re not here to watch Hallmark,” followed Bea. 

The seriousness of their faces made Clara pause. “What’s wrong? Are you sick?” She returned to the table and sat. “I know breast cancer doesn’t run in my family, but it does in dad’s. I told you to get checked. It’s never too soon.” 

“We don’t have cancer,” said Bea. “But we need to talk to you about something serious.” 

“Remember how we asked if you would go back to the doctor for some tests at lunch and you said ‘okay’?” 

Clara frowned. “I remember saying okay. For what?” 

Margot and Bea stared at each other.

“What?” Clara almost howled. 

“We think you need to get tested for an STI.” 

“Haaaa,” The sound Clara made wasn’t so much a laugh as a long, slow expulsion of air like a balloon deflating. 

“An STI is a sexually transmitted infection, Mama,” Margot elaborated, as if Clara hadn’t been the one to give them the birds and the bees talk. First detailing how bees pollinated the flowers and how they should protect said flowers from the roving bees then giving up on the metaphor altogether to explain the mechanics of penises and vaginas and the importance of using expensive condoms. “We know that you grew up in the time of all that free love stuff and you met Dad super early and young. You’ve probably never used condoms.” 

Bea was bent over, rummaging around in her purse. “Here we are.” She sat up triumphant, brandishing a banana in one hand and a condom in the other. 

Clara had taught these two people to use a spoon, to bathe, to ride a bike, and to wash the rust-colored period stains out of their underwear, for god’s sakes. She wanted to stop it but couldn’t find her tongue. 

“You didn’t tell me about the banana,” said Margot. 

“I didn’t feel like I had to,” replied Bea. “It goes without saying.” 

“I think it does go with saying. Mama, I did not agree to this.” 

“Yes, you did. You said we had to give her this talk.” 

“Mama,” Margot touched her arm and held it until Clara looked up. “Look, the nurses called us. They said they found you in bed lying under some man.”

“Who was he?” Bea asked. The question was ragged and thorny. 

There had been a time, once, after Theo had died when she had thought she wanted something more, something serious and long-term. A Mr. Berner at their church held the door for her and sat beside her in chapel three Sundays in a row, but Margot and Bea had quickly shut it down. Mr. Berner was too young for her at 60 to her then 72. Surely, he couldn’t be trusted or really interested in her. It had to have been for some nefarious purposes although she had nothing of note worth stealing. 

“Was it that dirty Mr. Chester?” asked Bea. 

Clara wanted to yell “my private life is private” and “leave me alone,” shoving them out into the hall and slamming the door in their faces like they had done to her when they were teenagers. 

“I don’t trust him,” said Margot. “He’s trying to take advantage of you.” 

She had been trying to take advantage of him, really. But she couldn’t tell them that. Clara certainly couldn’t tell them that she had tried something not once but on four separate occasions, each one more ridiculous than the last. She didn’t want conversation or companionship, just a warm body, skin touching skin. The first time, David Bortles had asked if she wanted to come to his place to see his guitar. Clara had felt sure he meant something else, but he had just wanted to show her a guitar and would not be dissuaded until he played her half the Beatles catalogue just slightly off key. She nodded off on his couch and was only startled awake by her own snore an hour later. 

Clara took matters into her own hands the next time, inviting Chester Harris himself over. He took so long to make his way to her bedroom that by the time they got there her hands had grown stiff. She couldn’t unbuckle his belt much less unbutton her own blouse. But she wasn’t in danger of an STI from him because goddamn Deborah Wills had knocked on the door and that feckless man had left Clara sitting there by herself in bed to go on a walk with Deborah. She waited an embarrassingly long time for him to return. He never did. 

The third time she feared she had tread into a moral gray area. Though she was well aware Mr. Waites’s memory was touchy at best, she did manage to get them both into her bed with an equally shared level of enthusiasm and energy. Clara had more than gotten the zipper down of the willing and eager Mr. Waites by the time Mrs. Waites, who was very much still alive and living with Mr. Waites on the first floor, found them. Why Clara hadn’t locked the door was as much a mystery to her as why Mrs. Waites didn’t report her. She was a predator, Clara told herself. A predator. Dateline would find her out and shame her in front of the whole world. 

The fourth time was the only one that had apparently been relayed to her daughters. She didn’t know how to tell them it wasn’t about the dick or even the man attached to the dick but what it might mean about who she still was. That she had been great at giving head in her early years and that wasn’t something they put in your obit but damn it she still wanted to know if she knew how and could hold that power over someone, see someone come apart at the seams. That no one had told her she would still get horny at seventy-eight and that the woman to man ratio would be 6:1. Too many flowers; not nearly enough bees.  

“Mom, are you watching how she puts on the condom?” Margot asked. 

“I know how to put on a condom,” Clara said, staring at the ceiling so she didn’t have to watch Bea prepare the banana for intercourse. 

“Good. Then, we’ll just get you tested, and you can –” Margot trailed off. 

“Stop this nonsense,” interjected Bea. “You’re too old for this.” 

“We don’t want anyone to manipulate you into doing something you don’t want to,” said Margot in a softer tone.  

“You can’t trust anyone,” said Bea. “But we do want you to be safe if you do. I mean we don’t have to worry about you getting pregnant, thank God.” 

“Thank God,” echoed Margot. 

They nodded at her, convinced they had accomplished a job well done. 

Clara cleared her throat. “Okay.” 

“Okay?” Margot asked. “We’ve just said a lot. And all you’ve got is, okay?” 

“Okay. I heard you?” 

Bea looked at her, skeptical. Clara bit down on her back teeth to make her jaw appear firmer, angrier, and moved her own stare from Bea to Margot and back again. They resembled her in bone structure and hair but the eyes, pale blue and cloudy, were all their father. 

“You’ve said your piece,” said Clara.  

“We’re leaving you these brochures,” Bea said as they stood up. 

“Great,” Clara said, “I’ll definitely read them.” 

She hugged each daughter goodbye and closed the door, resisting the urge to slam it or lock it. The first brochure “Safe Sex and Seniors” showed a man seated with a woman standing behind him, her arms wrapped around his shoulders and their cheeks pressed together. They had impossibly bright white wide smiles and were maybe fifty years old. She flipped it open to a lengthy list answering the question “Is there an expiration date on sex?” and promptly closed it again.             The last time was with someone she had never seen before or since. Maybe if she saw him in the hall again, she would recognize him. But then again, maybe he had moved or died. He had been walking down the hall with a cane, all white hair and beard and round Santa belly. She invited him in for coffee and then cake and then to lie down on top of her. He declined both coffee and cake but took her up on the last bit, pressing her down into the orthopedic foam of her bed. And for a moment, Clara had felt substantial like she wasn’t going to fade away or float off the face of the earth without anyone noticing. He smelled of peppermint and maybe the faint whiff of urine, which made her feel tenderness rather than pity, and when she kissed the side of his neck, she could taste the salt of his sweat on her tongue. Their skin made a slapping noise where it met, clumsy and awkward. And for that split second – before the nurse came in and pulled them apart, when the polite and right thing to do would have been to back out of the room slowly – Clara had loved that man whose name she already couldn’t remember with a strength and fervor she had never felt because he was there and so was she. So was she.