Wanting More

I hated that place. It smelled like old people and everyone was always cheery. I hated the sign in sheet, the elevator buttons, the long hall ways, the door knobs, and especially the small, cramped rooms. Yes, this all describes a nursing home. Specifically the nursing home my grandmother recently moved into.
"Hi there Miss Jocelyn," Debbie, the over-peppy receptionist said to me as I walked in that day.
"Hey Debbie," I sighed as I signed my name on the visitor line.
"Do you by any chance know what time it is?" I asked her, mentally kicking myself for not wearing grandma’s watch she gave me.
"3:30," Debbie replied, smiling at me.
I quickly scribbled my name and the time on the small line.
"Thanks Debbie," I sighed again, readjusting my purse on my shoulder and turning towards the elevator, preparing to make the long lonely decent to my grandmother.
I waved hello to Ms. Marcel, stopped in Peggy's room to say hi, and pushed George to the dining room in his wheelchair, before I turned the corner to my grandmother's room. Turning the knob, I assumed a nurse was in there, because I heard my grandmother talking. I slowly creeped open the door, whispering "grandma" as I stepped deeper and deeper into her tiny room.
She was in her bed, lying on her side, opposite to me and the door.
I heard her talk again, her head slightly rocking from the movement of her mouth.
"They won't find it there," she clearly said. I wasn't sure if she was awake or not, so I walked around her bed and sat in her rocking chair next to the big bright window. Carefully setting my purse on the ground, I looked at my frail grandmother.
Her delicate eyes were shut, and her rosy cheeks puffed up with each hard, sharp breath she took. Her hair was not white, but the lightest shade of blond imaginable and her hands just crept out from under the thin blanket on top of her. I smiled when I saw her nails were still painted the same shade as yesterday, when she asked me to pick out a color to paint them. She told me she didn't like the color, and was going to ask one of the nurses or my mom to re-paint them today. Obviously she didn't.
I was startled when she spoke in her sleep again.
“They won’t find it there!” she had more rage and anger in her voice this time.
I gracefully placed my hand on her shoulder, whispering “Grandma” as I softly shook her, trying to wake her up. She snapped her eyes open quickly.
“Who’s there!” she shouted, startling me again.
“Grandma it’s me, Jocelyn,” I sat back down in the rocking chair, laying my arms on the arm rests.
“Oh,” she slowly rolled on her back and tried to sit up. I rushed up and helped her, putting my hands on her back, helping her push her legs off the bed.
“Hello dear,” she smiled sweetly up at me, with big green eyes.
“Hi Grandma,” I smiled back, trying to hide the annoyance in my voice for her sake. She didn’t have any decision on moving here. It was my mother’s idea, since we couldn’t take care of her anymore. She lived alone for as long as I could remember, with my grandpa dying when my mom was about ten. I have only seen one picture of him, and that was the picture him and my grandmother, Evelyn, took on their wedding day. Neither of them is smiling, but it was taken around 1952. I remember seeing that picture for the first time. I was about nine, and helping my grandmother carry things down from her cramped attic. Being a nine year old, I snooped on most of them, but I didn’t think I would actually find it. I remember staring at it for a long time, trying to pick out something from the picture to put into my mental picture of him, but I just couldn’t. He seemed like a stranger. I had seen it again the day we moved my grandma out of that house. She was clutching a shoe box, old and yellow, for dear life. I had asked her if I could take that for her, but she got mad at me, yelling harshly that she had it. It stayed with her until we got to the nursing home, and then she hid it somewhere.
“How are you dear?” her voice was horse. I reached for the tea I had brought from the dining room and handed it to her, watching it disappear with the long sips she took.
“Grandma?” I asked her. She slowly looked up at me. “You kept saying ‘they wont find it there!’ in your sleep. What does that mean?”
“Oh” she stuttered like old people do. “Ruthie called me today.” She just stared at the wall, deep in thought.
“Why would she call you?” I questioned. Ruthie was my grandfather’s youngest sister. His family, however, didn’t get along well with grandma after grandpa died all those years ago.
“She said something about my fortune again,” grandma chuckled a little, causing her to cough. Each time she did I winced.
“Why is she starting up with the fortune thing again? You’d think by now she knows you are not a millionaire,” I told my grandmother.
“Oh the box,” she whispered into space.
“What box?” I asked her forcefully.
“My box dear,” she smiled, right as a nurse walked in.
“Your shoe box?” I asked her again.
“Yes,” she smiled big this time.
“Where is it Grandma?” I asked. Being this confused only made me more annoyed than I already was. However, she didn’t answer me, just told me to go home. I guess she didn’t know that I had just got there, but I did as I was told and walked out, quietly shutting the door behind me. I thought of what she was saying. Ruthie wanted her so called “fortune” that she thought was rightfully hers, yet grandma didn’t have a fortune…that I knew of. Then it clicked. I needed to find that box.