Just Another Tuesday

Jane

It’s late August now and already the air feels noticeably cooler in the evenings, and downright chilly in the morning, a portent for an early winter, I think as I sit on my back porch and sip a hot cup of coffee.

My mind wanders to the list of things yet to be done before winter sets in, the house must be prepared, motorcycle and dirt bikes stored, winter tires and maintenance.

And of course, school supplies and attire.

I sigh and get up and open the creaky weathered back door and wander back into the kitchen, where some bacon is frying on the Elmira stove.

My mind wanders even further to the man who has been attempting, very patiently I might add, to woo me. He has potential, and he's an Aries which is a good match for a Leo.

Perhaps we should just randomly get married on a Tuesday, and let the cards fall where they may. It could work, you never know, I am thinking, when my phone starts to ring.

It’s my younger sister, Janet.

She rarely calls unless...I answer “Hi Janet..” I can hear immediately that something is wrong, as she gulps back a sob “Its Jane” she says, crying now “She was here when i got home, passed out out on my couch and she REEKS Iris! She pissed herself, on my COUCH!”

I gasp in horror as she sobs “I got her up and told her shed pissed herself and she punched me in the face....”“Is she fucked up?” I ask, trying to wrap my mind around the scene unfolding in my little sisters home “I don’t know, her words are slurring, I called the cops but....they won’t do anything.....my house smells so bad....my couch...”

“Have you called mom?” I ask, as I notice the bacon is now near burning and pull it off the heat.

“I did, she said she would come and get her” Janet’s voice is shaking now in anger “I have tried so hard to be a good sister to her, and this is what I get? My cozy little home, my safe place...violated? And my couch, I bought that couch, it was $6,000....” she begins to cry again.  “I can’t do this anymore”

My mind flicks through the events that have led to this horror, to who Jane has become.

“Sometimes it feels like that’s not even Jane, not really. Jane died that day, 3 x on the table, and whatever came back, it’s not her.” I say, because it’s true. The Jane we grew up alongside is gone. She had every intention of ending her life that day and she honestly did, only to be jolted back and forced to live.

Poor girl, she not only now has a life altering acquired brain injury, she’s also schizophrenic and completely unpredictable.

“You need boundaries, and you shouldn’t feel bad about creating some.”

Janet sniffs “I know, I cant deal with this anymore.... How will i get this smell out?” she cries “I can’t afford to replace the couch”

“Pet odor remover, the kind you use for shampooing carpets” I am now obsessively cleaning my kitchen as I try to process the situation “take the covers off and bag them, take them to the laundromat and add a good lot of the stuff to the load, it should get the smell out, you can take the cushions to the car wash and hose them down then let them sit in the sun and dry?” I suggest, as I wipe dust off of objects on tall shelves.

“And Jane....perhaps call an ambulance? She needs to be admitted, and committed”

The true horror is, there is no where safe to send Jane.

 A psych hold only lasts so long then they get bounced back out again. Our world is no longer such that asylums exist, and god how we wish they did. The residential psychiatric institutions have all been shut down, the last of them in the early 2000’s, their residents, it had been decided, needed “autonomy over their lives” they claimed it was more “ethical”, but the reality was that their inhabitants had spilled out into a world they were not equipped to navigate, and nationwide, the homeless population had surged overnight.

And now here we are. Poor Jane, her brain peppered with bird-shot, left over from her attempt over a decade ago, left to fend for herself, family expected to take the place of the care team that should exist for persons like herself, but simply doesn’t.

She isn’t brain addled enough to be in long term care, she is mobile and has free will and one wouldn’t notice her disability until you start to converse with her. But she is an incredibly vulnerable person, being a female in this world, the prevalence of online dating apps, disgusting men and always available drugs, she often finds herself in incredibly precarious situations that we as her family are powerless to prevent.

I let Janet go to call our mother to determine when exactly, she would be there.

Afterwards, I feel drained.

I stand in the middle of the kitchen for a long moment.

The bacon has gone cold in the pan, the grease already solidifying.

 I share it with my little dog, wipe the stove clean, and open the back door again.

The morning air is still cool.

Somewhere down the road a garbage truck rumbles down the street emptying bins.

For a second I let myself believe that maybe this time the outcome will be different.

Perhaps this time they will finally see what the rest of us have been saying for years, and Jane will be placed somewhere safe from herself and everyone else.

 A real place. Not a seventy-two hour hold only to be returned back to the same chaos.

The thought is as fragile and improbable as randomly marrying that Aries on a Tuesday and letting the cards fall where they may.

I pour the rest of my coffee into the sink and start a fresh pot.

Winter is coming.

The list awaits.