Late Profits by MJ Malleck
2024 Flash Fiction Winner
I’m not bedridden, per se, but Jesse, my grandson, wrote me a rap song with “You’re in your crib, gramma” as part of the chorus. They keep you current, the kids do, Karl used to say. Rap wasn’t even part of the vernacular when Karl died.
I’m trying not to get upset today. Not because of the weather, though it’s made it hard for Karla to visit. Something about the sump-pump and Jesse’s bedroom floor wet, his comic books curling up. What’s upset me is the other crib, the one they wheeled in this morning, with the old woman so tiny in the centre I thought the bed was empty. The nurses pulled the polka-dot drape around her bed and cut off my view of the storm; the rain that has been pelting that window for a week. “What if it never stops raining?” little Ava said when I called from the payphone in the lounge. She’s worried about her brother’s comics.
I like making plans, I like contingencies. Mr. Cooper said, “That’s what makes you the best secretary in the office.” He said secretary, even when they changed my title to Administrative Assistant.
Maude can’t share a room, you’re thinking. She’s one of those old divas, in a home but used to living in Beechwood. That’s not it. I grew up with eight siblings, four of them brothers. My papa took the bedroom door off the hinges at the farm. No hankey-pankey he said. When our kids were little, Karl did the opposite, put a lock on our bedroom door.
Karl slept with his mouth open, snored like a bear. I can keep my mouth shut. I knew about the merger, the layoffs, Mr. Cooper’s affair, before anyone else. My lips tight, tight. Karl leaned on his elbows in the bedroom, made sure I could breathe. I never made a peep. Never felt a need to, being honest.
Here comes Mike, with his squeaky crepe soles. He’ll be putting up my bedrails.
“What’s wrong, ma’am, you having some pain?”
I’ve been drifting, dreaming about Karl and our marriage bed. The pillow’s wet behind my ears. I shake my head, no. He sees the closed curtain.
“It’s an adjustment. Sharing your space. Be good to have company, eh, ma’am?”
I’m used to nodding when men talk. I almost say, “Yes, sir” even though it’s just Mike talking to me. More male nurses these days, like during the war years.
“Let me up, Mike. I need the facilities before you finish.”
I’ve already unlocked the private cupboard and I shuffle into my slippers and reach in. I wrap a Depends around the smooth cylinder, tuck the bundle into the roomy pocket on the robe Karla bought. Mr. Cooper used to finish his memos with “Efficiency profits us all.” I only need a few minutes. I turn on both taps full blast and keep my hand near the flush button. After forty years my mouth has found its song.
MJ Malleck is a Canadian writer based in Kitchener Ontario, on the Haldimand Tract, land that was granted to the Haudenosaunee of the Six Nations of the Grand River, and is within the territory of the Neutral, Anishinaabe, and Haudenosaunee peoples. She was raised on the US border and still likes her weather reports in Fahrenheit degrees. She writes short and long prose, flash, creative non-fiction and narrative essays.