Gone Swimming
Gone Swimming
A Short Story By: Eden Preston
I never intended to be a caretaker for a career. I was terrible at talking to people, especially anyone over the age of seventy. But when you owe $30,100 to the University of Alabama and live in rural Madison Alabama while in between jobs, you have to go with your best option. My assignment was to care for Ida Lynn Rosenthal, the town’s presiding crazy lady. I had never met her before, but when I was younger I heard all sorts of crazy things about her. In my childhood, she was a witch or a ghost. My favorite story I heard was that she was a pirate hiding from the Royal British Navy. I always told my mom about these crazy myths and she always scolded me and told me to be nice to Ms Rosenthal.
“She’s had a rough life,” she’d preach.
I wasn’t sure how rough her life really was because she had a more than a respectable amount of money. Rosenthal was in on at least two-thirds of every shop in town.
I pulled up to the large Rosenthal Manor and noticed that the yard must not have been cared for in years. Grass as high as my waist splintered out in all sides of the weed-infested sidewalk. Deep red roses with an abundance of thorns peeked around every bend. The color had faded from a brightly colored brick house to a dull creepy looking red. At first, I was skeptical that someone even lived here anymore. I gave three loud knocks on the door not knowing if Ms. Rosenthal would even hear it; about thirty seconds went by and the door swung open to reveal a short, long-haired woman. She gave out a massive “Hello!” in her deep southern accent. Before I could even get a word out, she had thrown her arms around me in a hug that was bigger than a bear.
“Come on in!” she said, leading me back to her kitchen.
The house was nothing like the outside. It was full of light and beautiful paintings. It was full of flowers just like the ones outside, and smelled just like you would think a rich person’s house would smell. The only thing inside that screamed old was the creaky floors as you walked through the house. As we entered the kitchen, there was a pitcher of iced tea and a plate of sugar cookies. Ms. Rosenthal gave southern hospitality a whole new meaning.
“So you’re the young man who is going to assist me to death.” she shakily sang.
I let out a little chuckle not knowing how to respond to a statement like that.
“Yeah. Guilty as charged. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself?”
I learned in training that if you ask your patients about themselves, they’ll talk for hours on end. Sure enough, Ms. Rosenthal was a talker. To sum it up, she was born and raised in Madison, Alabama, she loves painting, her favorite color is yellow, and she’s allergic to horses. But she kept going on and on about her old boyfriend Charles. She told me how handsome he was and how she vowed she’d never marry anyone but him. I asked her why they didn’t work out, but she quickly move to a different topic. This conversation went on for a solid two hours. This was supposed to be a brief visit to get to know each other, fifteen minutes to an hour at most. But I was so intrigued about her life it seemed rude to leave. As the day turned into dusk, I let her know that I had to be going but I’d be back tomorrow. She gave me a great big hug that was surprising for her size.
For the next few months, I assisted her with day to day things. From gardening to organizing her pills. Her memory was slowly dwindling but every day she still gave me that same bear hug. Out of all the things that left her memory, Charles was always at the forefront of her mind. On August 17, it was the grand Madison Alabama 100th anniversary. As I knocked on the door no one opened. I knocked one more time and still nothing. I tried calling out her name to see if it would spark any interest yet still silence. I panicked and went around to the backdoor to find it unlocked. I ran around calling for Ida but nothing. I ran up the stairs hoping to find her but terrified of what I would or wouldn’t see. As I opened the door, I found Ida with tear-stained cheeks letting out soft sobs.
“Is everything all right Ida?”
“Yes. Everything’s fine. Just take the day off today. Enjoy the festivities.” She said rather coldly.
“Well, would you like to join me for the parade or the picnic?”
“Absolutely not.”
I learned that as the memory decreases, people were more prone to have bad days where they just didn’t want to get out of bed or didn’t even remember you. They said the best thing to do was to just talk it out with them and see if there’s anything you can do to help.
“Ida, you know you can tell me anything. We’re friends!”
“You won’t believe me. No one ever does.”
“Try me.”
She then told me why she never married Charles.
*****
It was August 17th, 1957 in the sweet little town of Madison Alabama, and there wasn’t a person within 60 miles who didn’t know it. Today was the Town anniversary, and the biggest event of the year. There were home-baked pies ripening on windowsills, little toy cars being dressed for the derby, and cookies and cakes that tempted even the most strict eye. The children loved every second of the derby race, the men bragged about the horseshoe throw, and women swapped gossip and recipes with a frequency to shame Wall Street. However, there was always one part of the festivities that was disliked by everyone, the mayor’s speech.
It was always long-winded, boring, and awkward. The old pompous mayor never had a sense of humor, and lacked oratorical tact. The hour was filled with long arduous pauses, and pitiful comedy. The bugs all of a sudden became an annoyance, and the babies always cried. But it was Madison tradition, so it continued with grim acceptance. The only event that made it endurable was the fireworks afterward.
The fireworks were a force to be reckoned with, and by far the highlight. They were lit on the same field the audience sat on which made it very dangerous but very entertaining. Every year something burned down, and the young men placed bets on what it would be.
This year was to be even bigger since it was the semi-centennial anniversary of the town. Fifty years of proud tradition that needed to be represented. So far it had been the best celebration in anyone’s memory, but the extra special occasion meant an extra-long speech by the mayor. Even the fireworks didn’t seem worth the painful speech of a pompously persevering bureaucrat. Out of the crowd, two teenagers slipped out of sight towards an abandoned field, using the shadows as their escorts.
*****
“Charles?”
“Yeah, Ida?”
“I think I’ll burst if I hear another long story about the town founder and his pig farm again.”
“Me too.”
This is why Charles loved Ida, even though they were both only seventeen. She had a way of saying the things that needed to be said. No one else would have admitted that the mayor’s speech was exhausting, even though they all thought it. But that’s how Ida was, she made thoughts realities, she made dreams come true.
Without any other further communication, they snuck through the trees lacing the congregated field.
“Let’s head over to that field with the flowers!” Ida said resolutely.
Charles didn’t object. They weren’t really flowers, just weeds occupying an abandoned field surrounded by trees. But Ida liked them, so they went anyways. It was quite away off from the rest of the roads, which was peculiar for any field; but old man johnson who had died and left it untented was peculiar himself. He never had any irrigation to his crops, claiming that they would water themselves, in times of drought. People would humor him until they saw his harvest, which was always the biggest. They’d just laugh and ask him what his secret was without pausing to hear the answer.
They’d been there many times together, and it was their special place. It’d been where they’d met, and where they’d fallen in love. They’d plan to graduate school and run away together to find some work. They’d save up to buy old man Johnson’s property and build a home where it’d all began. It was like a fairytale.
“Golly Gee!”
Ida exclaimed as she rounded the corner. There where the field had always stretched its lazy limbs, there was a long flowing smallish lake. It was more of a glorified pond, but in that moment Ida and Charles didn’t care what it was, they just knew it had never been there before.
“Well, I’ll be…” Charles whistled.
“That certainly has never been here before.” gasped Ida.
It was quite a shock, but both of them took it well, and determined it would not interfere with their plan of a good time.
There are many things that you can do with a lake instead of a field. Charles and Ida took advantage of this peculiar appearance, and skipped rocks splashed each other and waded about. They were simple people who enjoyed the now more than the question why the now was there.
“I think imma gonna go take a dip offa that dock over there.”
Remarked Charles after the novelty of beating Ida at rock skipping had worn off.
“Be careful, you’re not the best swimmer,” warned Ida.
“Ouch!” said Charles, feigning offense. Ida laughed and he walked over the dock to dive in. Charles had a certain way with physical comedy that he accentuated in his dive. Ida loved that he made her laugh till her stomach wanted to split at the seams because it couldn’t contain her joy. People called her crazy, but when she found Charles she knew she was going to keep him.
While Ida thought about her future with Charles, she realized she hadn’t seen him emerge from the water. Her heart dropped. She ran to the edge of the dock hoping that this was all some sort of silly prank but there were no bubbles or movement of any kind.
“Charles! Stop! You’re scaring me!”
The realization hit Ida, maybe he wasn’t pulling her leg. She quickly rose and ran to the town, cursing her own inability to swim.
“Help! Help! Help!” She cried all the way back to the congregation of sleeping town citizens. The mayor was still not quite finished. But he was cut short.
“Help me! Help me! Charles is drowning!”
*****
There were no fireworks that day. Instead, the night was lit with searching flashlights. No one believed Ida’s story about the lake. People thought she was crazy and hysterical, there wasn’t a body of water in 50 miles that a boy could drown himself in. But still she insisted: “He drowned! I saw it with my own eyes!” everyone thought she wasn’t right in the head, and after they gave up hope of finding Charles, arrangements were made to send her away to a sanitarium. They never needed to though. The day before she was supposed to ship off, left town on her own accord.
No one saw her again until she came back forty years later to buy up old man Johnson’s land. She’d made it big in the plastics industry, and had more than enough money to buy it. She had never married, claiming that once she had started loving Charles it wasn’t like her to quit. She built a lopsided red brick house on that property. Everyone called it “Rosenthal Manor” out of respect for the formidable, yet bizarre old woman. She had no living relatives and enjoyed a solitary life. She had few friends, not because it was difficult to get to her house through all the wild bush that had grown up around it, she claimed that those flowers were her favorite. It stayed this way until her neighbor’s complaint that she was unfit to care for herself. And that’s when I come into this story. Ida had gone through several caretakers. All of them claimed that she was a wonderful old woman with a vivacious imagination. However, they all left her after her roaming became too much of a burden.
Alzheimer's patients tend to roam outside their houses, and not remember how to get back home. Thankfully Ida always wandered to the same place, but even then it wore on her previous caretakers. She would be found late at night in the field near her home crying to the earth “Help Charles is drowning’! Oh, help me! Help Charles is drowning!”
I knew Ida did this, and many nights I walked to that field to calm her and lead her home. Not until today could I understand the significance of her prayers uttered to the soil.
*****
Ida’s somewhat dubious story had taken us to twilight and clouds and circled the darkening sky. I went downstairs to get Ida some weed flowers from her porch. They always seemed to calm her down, but when I went back upstairs to her room she had vanished. Nervously I ran downstairs to see her wandering towards the field calling “I’m coming, Charles! I’m coming!” The night had turned blustery and dust kicked up all around. I was worried about her catching a cold, so I yelled out the window,
“Ida! Please come back inside! I have flowers for you!”
“Charles has flowers for me too!” she replied. “He’s been waiting for me for a long time!”
She obviously was not going to be called back from a window, so I ran to put my shoes on. Suddenly to my horror the wind picked up ferociously and it began to hail and rain with a vengeance. It was difficult to see. I was terrified for Ida in her bare feet and light nightgown wandering a deserted field in a storm. I sprinted to where I saw her last, but she was not there. I followed every shadow looking for evidence of Ida, but she was nowhere to be found. Within minutes the summer storm dissipated and my vision cleared. A sliver of moonlight peeked behind the clouds and illuminated the field. It was clear that Ida was gone. I went back to the house to call the police, but stopped short of the dusty old porch. There wrapped in some frayed yellowed lace was a bouquet of flowers and tiny note that read. “Gone swimming.”
That was when I knew, Ida would not be coming back.