Onofrio speaks

I called her just now and she said she'd changed her mind about the flowers.

"You don't want me to cancel them?"

"No."

"It's nice to have something cheerful in the room," I said, and she agreed with me. After a few minutes listening to me tell her stories about my boys, she said she was waiting for the nurse to come back because she had to talk to her. The doctor was by the day before on his rounds and she said she'd been getting instructions from Dad's father again. He's been dead for fifty years, but Mom hears him talking to her.

"He says I'm only allowed to eat mashed potatoes and graham crackers and peanut butter and I can only drink tea."

"Why does he have so much say over you, Mom?"

"He says I'm being punished because I put your Dad in this place."

"Do you ever dream about Dad?"

"Oh, not lately. Last time I dreamed about him we were dancing. Your father loved to dance."

I tried to make the case that if Dad was dancing with Mom in her dreams then he was happy and had forgiven her, if she needed forgiving, but she wouldn't have any of it. "Heaven and Hell don't communicate with each other," she said, when I suggested that she ask Dad to intercede with his father on her behalf. And Onofrio, Dad's dad, is in Hell, so my mother says.

She said she'd cancelled her appointment to get a permanent today ("I'm afraid I'll have an allergic reaction to the chemicals,") but she thought maybe the stylist might have time to give her a shampoo and set. "It's nice to have someone play with your hair," I told her. Then she said she had to get ready for lunch, told me she loved me and said goodbye.