I’m stuck.

Not where I should be, out in the woods with Anna. But right here on the third floor, hallway B, of the Sun Heritage Village’s Pine Crest building. Dr. Garcia, who happens to be making a house call, stopped me on my way out the door. Since she also happens to have been a  nurse here years ago, which is how her daughter came to be one of my two best friends, I kind of have to talk to her.

My hands are in a sweaty grip around Anna’s wheelchair handles. There’s a sick feeling in my stomach, and an urge to turn around. Dr. Garcia could be a witness, now. I get a flash image of Anna’s normally absent family yanking me into a courtroom for doing something terrible to their feeble old grandmother, with Dr. Garcia reluctantly standing up to testify against me.

Let it go. Just let it go.

“I’m so glad you still come to help here, Julie,” Dr Garcia says.

I nod and check out the wall clock. 11:32. I don’t want to talk to her now, but I can’t show it. She’s the type to guess something is up and even more the type to actually mention it to my dad. Anna shifts in her chair, as if she knows what’s going on, and is as impatient as I am.

“I sure wish Maria would volunteer here. I don’t know what keeps her so busy.”

Dr. Garcia is fishing for information, but I’m not going to be the one to tell her what Maria is busy with. Even I hardly ever see her, now that she’s got a boyfriend.

“I haven’t seen Rod in ages, either,” she says, still fishing.

Rod is the third in our trio. Or, what used to be our trio, when all our parents worked here. Rod’s dad is still the head administrator, but Rod’s hardly going to come to work with his dad on school vacation days. At seventeen, with a new car, nobody sees Rod much. I’m happy to get a text once or twice a week.

“Me neither,” I say, then quickly add, “Well, I should get Mrs. Bayless to Bingo. It starts in just a few minutes.”

Actually, there isn’t Bingo today. Even if there were, it would not start just before lunch. But Dr. Garcia wouldn’t think about that, and she’s busy enough to appreciate the excuse to get on with her work. As she nods and walks by with the standard “it’s so good to see you” line, I try to keep my deep sigh of relief to myself.

I check my watch. 11:35. I have only a few more minutes to get out the door and beyond the part of the path you can see from the building, if this is going to work. I need enough time for anyone looking to take Anna to the main lunchroom to see my backpack on her bed, and assume I’ve already got her. This alone took weeks to set up, given I had to set the stage for confusion at lunchtime repeatedly before they finally got past the panic of a missing patient. Now they all just assume that if Anna is missing, it’s because I have her and we were probably in the guest cafeteria, or maybe all the way down the block talking to some of the more coherent old folks at the Oak Ridge condo grill. If they catch me with her too close to time, though, they’ll ask me where I’ll be taking her today, and we’ll be done for.

You’d never guess a hallway could be so long. Or a sidewalk. Or even a well-manicured strolling path that takes you through a few small patches of woods.

“Don’t worry Anna,” I say aloud, though she probably has no idea what I’m saying, “we’re getting there.”

The clouds overhead, which were perfectly puffy and cheerful when I walked in the door today, are starting to loom thick. The sky is getting darker by the minute. I hope it’s not a sign. Not that I believe in signs. But if signs were real, this would not be a good one.

I ask myself for the thousandth time why I’m doing this at all. I quickly feel for the piece of paper I repeatedly reminded myself to switch from my backpack to my jacket pocket. A great relief comes over me when I confirm I did actually made the switch. I brought it with me just in case Anna needed me to jog her memory of what she’s said so far. I didn’t really need to, since the information she provided is nearly branded on my brain, but I didn’t want to go stupid at just the wrong moment. I feel for the pen, and hope I need to use it to write down some truly useful information.

“Anna,” I say, “I want you to listen to me. I have written down what you’ve said to me so far, and it is starting to make sense. So I’m going to remind you, while we walk. And I’m going to talk to you like you know what I’m saying. Like anyone else, because I have a feeling you might be able to know, even if you can’t speak that well. Okay?”

Anna grunts, but it could be a total coincidence.

“So you said ‘Sister help Scottie’ about a hundred times one day. And when I asked if you meant Scottie , my cat, you said ‘Sister magic heals.’ Since Scottie is sick, I was thinking…

Anyway, the next week you said ‘Forest not the governments’ all day one day, and then another day you kept saying ‘Clemmen’s Pier.’ Then after that, you said ‘Potter Street and Poplar Leaf Drive’ again and again. So I checked on google earth. There is an old Clemmen’s Pier not too far from my house. It’s at the edge of a small forest. And on the other side, at the far opposite corner, is where Potter Street curves around into Poplar Leaf Drive.”

Again Anna grunts.  

“But Anna, there’s nearly two hundred acres between the pier and Potter Street. I drove by the other day, and it is marked as government land. All kinds of no trespassing signs on it. You can’t even get to the pier without walking a few miles or crossing hip deep in water. Besides, I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me. Does your sister live near there? Are you saying she could help my cat? Because Scottie is really sick now. We’ve been to the vets five times, and they can’t find anything. She’s only eight years old, so you know it’s not old age.”

I guess I’m just talking to myself. Besides, we are here. I look around, though hardly anyone from the Village comes out this way. Some joggers, sometimes, but that’s about it. No one in sight right now. I look to the soft, mushy ground. We could get seriously stuck, especially if it rains. But for now, it’s holding. And Scottie is not.

We’re only three feet in before the tires squish heavy into the mud. I tighten Anna’s belt and push on. I want to get her where she can, if nothing else, forget where she lives for a little while. She loves the woods, and has spoken to me more clearly out here than any day in the Village. Especially if she’s wearing that strange leather necklace bag I found hidden in her suitcase. The one with the bear on it, and lots of dangling beads.

I also hope it helps that her meds are running out. We have till 1 PM, when the after-lunch rounds are given. Being at the tail end of the cycle could be very helpful, espeically because I googled the prescription names, and the stuff they have her on could knock out a horse.  It might not help, but it couldn’t hurt.

The wheels get stuck again. Anna’s no lightweight. I swear, she must have been nearly six feet tall when standing. She’s not fat, but those extra inches add pounds.

“Ethel Mai,” Anna suddenly says softly.

“What?” I stop to ask. I go around front and kneel down to see her face. Her normally glassy eyes seem clearer than usual.

“Lilian Luta, Martha Jane, Mary Kelly, Suzanne Mary, Sarah Ashlee…”

“Who are they? Anna, can you hear me?”

 “Margaret, Rachel, sixteen hundred and ninety.”

“What are you trying to say, Anna?” I plead.

“My medicine bag,” she says, lifting her eyes to my own. “I need my medicine bag.”

“A full sentence!”  Chills run over me, all around and up and down. She’s talking in full sentences!

“You have my bag,” she says, and I realize what she means. Her leather bag. “Yes, yes Anna, I have it. I hope you don’t mind me calling you Anna.”

“You always do,” she replies.

“Woa! You answered me.”  I quickly find her leather bag and put it around her neck. I was going to wait until we were settled, but if she wants it now, she gets it now. I put it on her, and she sits straighter than I’ve ever seen her. It makes me all the more curious what’s inside the bag. I’ve never looked, because it felt sort of strange, and like it’s not the kind of thing you open without an invitation. Not that I thought I’d ever get one. I guess it just never felt right.

“Further in,” she says, and even lifts her hand and a long, bony finger to point us forward. She has never, ever, ever, lifted her hand and pointed toward something.

“Whatever you want, Anna,” I say, and go back to pushing. It’s not so hard now. In fact, I feel like I could lift a car if I had to.

“Ethel Mai, eighteen hundred and ninety five,” she says.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“Quiet,” she says. “Lillian Luta, eighteen hundred and seventy six. Sarah June, eighteen hundred and fifty seven. Martha Jane, eighteen hundred and thirty eight. Mary Kelly, eighteen hundred and two. Suzanne Mary, seventeen hundred and seventy seven. Sarah Ashley, seventeen hundred and fifty two. Margaret Cole, seventeen hundred and twelve. Rachel, sixteen hundred and ninety.

Somewhere along her list of names and numbers, I realize what she’s doing. She listing people, and dates. Lillian Luta, 1876. Sarah June, 1857. Now we are at Rachel, 1690. She’s asked me to be quiet, so I just listen. But who are these women? 

Her family, I suddenly realize. Though I don’t know how I could know that. I get more chills up my spine, but these a little creepy.

“Yes,” Anna says.

“Yes what?” I dare ask.

“Yes, you understand. These are my ancestors. The women who begat me, and those who begat them. My mother, Ethel Mai, born in eighteen hundred and nintey five. My grandmother, Lillian Luta, born eighteen hundred and seventy six. Repeating their names aloud gives me strength.”

“Okay, this is freaky, Anna.  I don’t mean about your ancestors names. I mean becuase I didn’t say that I thought they were your ancestors names.”

“But you knew.”

“Well, I figured it out, but I didn’t say that.”

“When understanding is present, it can be felt. I felt that you understood.”

Now I am completely freaked.

“This is good,” she insists. “Stop here and put me down on the earth.”

“So I suppose you knew I was going to do that, too?” I ask. Truth is, while it is freaky, it’s also kind of exciting.

“You said so, last Monday.”

“Oh my god, you can…you can hear me, I mean understand me, and know what day it is, even back there at the Village?”

“Everything,” she says, almost sadly, “I understand everything.”

I set her brakes, put out a blanket, untie her belt, and use everything I’ve learned about lifting an invalid from a wheelchair into a bed. This, of course, is not a bed. There’s a significant difference. But the same general rules must apply.

It doesn’t go well, and I nearly let her fall the last foot of the way. Maybe she understands everything, as she says, but she’s had no practice in actually using her limbs, and they are not magically strong. She doesn’t complain; so I stretch out her stiff legs (now I’m thinking it is good the ground is not too hard) and put my jacket under hear head to use as a pillow. 

She looks to the ground at her left, and then her right, and starts to cry big, round, sudden tears.

“What?” I ask. “What’s wrong?”

She laughs. “Wrong? What could possibly be wrong?”

“But you’re crying.”

“I’ve missed the earth more than anything,” she says. “And seeing things up close. You see, they took my glasses when I arrived, so the only things I see are those things that are right in front of me. There’s so much beauty I’ve missed. The moss and the leaves, and the soil! Everything is so vivid, so luminous, I think I might die of joy.”

“You can’t die of anything out here, Anna,” I insist. “You’re on my watch.”

“Yes, yes, we have to remember that, don’t we? Critical to the plan.”

“The plan?” I ask, hoping desperatly that it has something to do with Scottie.

“Sit down with me,” she insists, pulling me by the hand. “Come close so that I can see your beautiful young face. I’ll tell you all about it.”