by Shana Graham

The whole house smells of piss and must and bleach. Bookshelves lined with Vonnegut, Updike, old New Yorkers coated in dust. Family pictures of Helen and my late grandmother, her sister, toppled on mantles. Empty medical device boxes. Pill bottles. My mother and I brought a bottle of White Burgundy from the corner store, and I crank it with an ancient copper corkscrew scavenged from a drawer. It takes a strong woman! Harold commends. Helen wants to smell the wine. Ahhhhhh, she says, eyes closed, mouth lifted as if she can imbibe the scent, swallow it up. She’s not allowed wine anymore. Just out of dialysis, an E. coli infection that landed her in the hospital for weeks. But there’s still lobster! Yvonne, their home care aide, picked up five from Stop & Shop, pre-boiled, wrapped in foil on the table before us. She rends into Helen and Harold’s lobsters with an old metal nutcracker. I snap mine in half, we all laugh, as green ooze gushes over my palms across the table. Harold gobbles sweet chunks of pink meat and microwaved peas, a quiet gusto. Now don’t you overindulge! Yvonne warns. Helen’s gaunt as all hell. Hunched in places a back’s not meant to bend. Skin stretched taut over jutting collarbones. Baby-blue sweater splotched with yellow stains. What keeps us living when all else drops away? She sucks thin lobster legs, slow, smiling after each. She tells story after story, listens to mine, laughs like a girl. The Formica table sticky, stacked with shell and claw. The meal finally done. Yvonne moves to take Helen, clean her up for bed. Helen asks if Harold might go first so she can stay and talk a bit longer. Is that what you’d like? he asks. Yes, that is what I’d like, she says. Okay, he smiles. I’ll do it then.