by Maggie Levantovskaya

 

I squeeze out a dollop of shampoo and spread it on my grandma’s head. She sits below me in the shower chair. She doesn’t look at me—her eyes are shut against the stinging soap. I run my fingers through her feathery, short hair. Big soapy clouds begin to cover her maroon strands and gray roots. Behind the wall, my grandpa lies dead in his bed. The whirring of the oxygen machine has stopped. The plastic tubes hang limply from his side. The hospice nurse, who came too late, has left with unused morphine in her bag. “I didn’t think he would be gone so soon,” my naked grandma murmurs to the drain.

We begged her, “Don’t sleep here tonight,” but she said, “I…stink.” Grandma couldn’t go to someone else’s house unclean. Usually, it’s my mom’s job to wash my grandparents, to twist her crooked back above the tiny tub, to catch their heavy bodies when they slip. I’m the academic, I don’t do the dirty work. I decipher documents, translate into Russian what the doctors say, negotiate with hospitals when they send bills. But my mom has done enough tonight. She and her mother did the hardest thing. “Come with me, I’ll get you clean,” I said to grandma and took the rubber apron off the hook. Now her odor rises with the steam into my nose. The vinegary earthiness co-mingles with the artificial flowers of shampoo but doesn’t disappear. Helping someone leave this life is toilsome, draining work.

My grandma tells me what to do at every step and I obey. I scrub her neck, her back, her butt. They’re wide and fleshy but I circle every roll. “Give me the other sponge,” she says and wrangles her large breasts to lather underneath. Then, carefully, she soaps her diabetic feet, touching the curled toes, the thick and crumbly nails. I wonder who will bathe my grandpa’s body—will they treat him like a piece of meat? When I was out of nappies and I soiled myself, that hardened, Soviet man said not a word, but gently washed me while I cried embarrassed tears.

Outside, family members walk from room to room. I imagine that they’re covering up mirrors, throwing out containers with dried bloody phlegm, opening up windows to let in fresh air. They have questions and requests—about the burial, the wake, her future after him. They’re waiting for her to emerge, but she makes me start again. “Harder, don’t be afraid to hurt me,” says my grandma and I scour her flesh until it shines with redness and my torso drips with sweat.

Soon, the undertakers will arrive. They will make us sign a paper, strap my grandpa to a gurney, wheel his lifeless body out of the apartment. “What if they come and we’re in here?” my grandma asks, a sudden panic in her voice. “They won’t get here fast,” I say, “It’s night. It’s Saturday.” She wants me to hurry, but my hands slow down, my fingers lose their force. I no longer obey. Crouching down, I let the sponge caress her limbs and watch the suds weep from her back. I keep her in the steam a little longer.

 

Maggie Levantovskaya was born in Ukraine and grew up in San Francisco. She works as a Teaching Professor in the English department at Santa Clara University in California. Her writing can be found in Michigan Quarterly Review, The Rumpus, Potomac Review, Pithead Chapel, Another Chicago Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, Longreads, and elsewhere.