A Matter of Mercy by Lynne Hugo

to it. A bowl of mixed fresh fruit was a little to the left. Once Caroline was seated, Elsie sat down with the corner of the table between them, the breath of her own tea rising next to Caroline’s.
    Tears came to Caroline’s eyes. Again. “This is so pretty. So nice of you. Where did you get…?”
    “I brought extra. Take a bite.”
    “Thanks,” Caroline whispered. She wanted a shower and a long, dreamless sleep in a cool room and to wake with her mother well and giving unsolicited advice, all of which she would cheerfully take for the rest of her life. She took a small bite and put the sandwich back down. “Last night was bad.” The jeans and gray sweatshirt she wore were the same ones she’d had on for the past two or three days. She’d lost track. It wasn’t that there wasn’t anything else clean; a respite worker had done the laundry. It was just easier to pick up the same thing off the floor and put it on, no need to think. She really had to stop doing that, no matter how tired she was when she got up, as tired as when she’d laid down.
    “Can you listen to me for a minute?”
    With her free hand, Caroline pressed against the ridge between her eyes.
    “I know it doesn’t feel this way, but this time can be a gift.”
    “Oh, definitely.” Caroline was faintly ashamed of her sarcasm in the face of Elsie’s kindness, yet not enough to retract it. “Have you been through this?”
    Elsie didn’t appear to notice, or at least not to take offense. Instead she stroked Caroline’s shoulder with her left hand, and with her right, she reached across the table and took Caroline’s other hand, which lay inert next to the sandwich missing its small half-moon bite.
    “Yes. With my mother. And with many patients. I’m not trying to force something on you. Some people can do it, some can’t.”
    “Do what?”
    Elsie paused. “Well, not fight it so much. Not run from it. Be with her in it, if you know what I mean. This is a time you can share. You can help her complete her life.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    Again Elsie overlooked the sarcastic edge in her voice. “I mean that if you can give her the chance to say ‘I forgive you, forgive me, I love you, thank you and goodbye,’ and you can say those very same things to her—more or less—for most patients and most families, it gives a great deal of peace.”
    Elsie held Caroline’s eyes as she spoke. For a few seconds, some curtain was raised and Caroline glimpsed what Elsie was talking about. But either she was too tired to hold the vision or the window fogged over and the clarity was gone. She stopped meeting Elsie’s gaze, dropping her head and pressing her fingers against the bony part of her brow again, where some punk rock band seemed to be warming up.
    “Headache?” Elsie said.
    “Always.”
    “Okay. You eat. I’ll get you a couple of Tylenol. We’ll finish our lunch and—maybe you’d like to get in a shower before I leave?”
    “Hmm. Starting to get a bit ripe, am I? No wonder my dating life is slow.”
    “I didn’t mean that. No, not at all. You said earlier that you wanted to shower and I.…”
    Kindness, not humor, was Elsie’s forte. “Elsie, I was just kidding. Yes, I’d really like to shower and wash my hair. And thank you for lunch. It’s delicious. Really.” Actually, it helped to have to yank herself back abruptly like that. She’d been skirting the abyss.What Else had been talking about was too big, as if while Caroline was lost, chartless in an ocean fog, she was expected to navigate the mystery of her mother’s life and death. Too big, too much. Now she was speaking to the nurse’s back, as Elsie was over at the kitchen sink where a large bottle of extra-strength Tylenol was on the windowsill. Elsie came back and put two capsules into Caroline’s hand.
    Caroline took them, drinking from the cup. “Ooh. That tea is so good.”
    “We have a whole pot of it,” Elsie said with a smile. “Can you