Bright Fruit

Leath Tonino

Friday night in San Francisco. Here we are outside a fancy little market, the kind of place I normally avoid. But Sophia’s mom is in town and she likes to buy treats—bottles of wine, pricey cheeses. Katy More Treats, that’s what Sophia calls her. We’ve been talking about Holly, Katy’s sister back in Tennessee. Holly who was a dancer. Holly with Parkinson’s, scoliosis, dementia. Holly who quotes Shakespeare from memory. Last week they moved her to a nursing home—she couldn’t go it alone on the farm any longer, needed 24-hour care, had been hearing voices, seeing things.

It’s real hard, Katy says, the fancy little market’s clean white light flooding our piece of sidewalk, a bearded fellow beyond the window arranging citrus into a pyramid. It’s been real hard. There’s been some darkness. The other night Holly called at 2:30 in the morning, terrified, said they were killing children in her room, come quick. She’s got that whistle, that emergency whistle, and woke the whole place up blowing it. And then, when the nurses arrived, she started throwing things.

Oranges, tangelos, satsumas—the bearded fellow stacks them high, balancing each with care.

She was throwing feces. It’s really horrible. She misses her cats. Her new idea is that she’ll rent an apartment near the nursing home and spend the days there with her cats. I don’t know what we’re going to do with her cats. I still haven’t found homes for three of them. Do you know anybody who might adopt?

Young, hip couples are passing by, drunk and loud and happy, some entering the fancy little market. A high-heeled woman swerves, missing us by inches. Sophia places a hand on her mother’s shoulder.

The whistle, Katy says, laughing, tears coming to her eyes. The whistle.

And with that the three of us go in for a fancy little shopping spree, wine and cheese and all the bright fruit our stomachs can stomach.

Leath Tonino is the author of two essay collections, most recently The West Will Swallow You. His work appears regularly in The Sun, Orion, Tricycle, New England Review, and Outside.