Fiction

Smiley face

The dementia ward door was tucked behind the cheerful little cafe, sporting salt-and-vinegar chips and paper-thin birthday cards on wire-frame racks. Rosie turned right and trudged down the other corridor, following the faint-but-growing scent of wee and lemon disinfectant.

At least this place was better than the one with the stonking great papier-mâché Halloween graveyard. That smelt of other bodily fluids.

She tried to breathe without inhaling and knocked at room 41. “You’ll have to speak up; I’m hard of hearing” was blu-tacked to the door. Outside the wind howled. Rosie grimaced and set her face to neutral as a pitiful “Come in” beckoned her inside.

Mary was slumped on the bed in a faded black hoodie and ragged blue dress, her back to the door. Her grey hair curled into clumps.

“All ready and raring to go?”

“Did you go fix up Centrelink for me?” her mother said, still facing away.

“No, I told you – I had work to do,” Rosie said in a small voice.

Somehow Mary heard her. “You quit your job.”

“My other job.”

“What, writing? You can write at night. Why didn’t you go to Centrelink for me?”

Rosie’s heart lurched. She knew she shouldn’t bite. “You could always phone them yourself.”

Mary finally raised herself up and turned around. “What, with my eyesight? I can’t do that.” She’d refused a visit from the nursing home’s optometrist last Thursday, claiming a backache, but sure. Her eyes burned into Rosie now.

“The nurse could dial for you.”

“I can’t afford to make phone calls. I’m only on a pension.”

Rosie paid for Mary’s private phone connection to her room. She’d grown tired of inconveniencing the nurse who had to fetch an extension every time Mary wanted to call and roast Rosie for some deficiency. She sighed and picked up her mum’s nest of plastic bags that served as a handbag. “Let’s go.”

“Now, how have you been going with water consumption?” Nurse Tran Pham asked, swivelling towards Mary. The three of them were packed into a hospital consulting room.

“What?” Mary seemed transfixed by a fascinating patch of nothing on the wall.

“Have you been drinking enough water?”

“I can’t drink water.”

She looked remarkably hydrated for a shrivelled husk.

Nurse Pham smiled indulgently. “As I’ve said, it’s best to drink plenty of water to keep your skin supple. This avoids cracking and allowing infections in.”

Mary was unmoved. “I’ve got too much water in my stomach. I can’t drink any more.”

“That fluid is caused by the cancer. You still need to keep drinking.”

Rosie blurred the argument out as it batted back and forth. She felt her shoulders inch towards her ears and found her own riveting slice of wall to stare at, reducing the conversation to muted trombone tones.

They seemed to have moved onto a new topic and Rosie cautiously began to listen. Nurse Pham was scribbling in jagged motions on her notepad.

“Well, hopefully you’re turning a corner with your treatment. We’ll see how the next round of tests goes. I’ll phone Rosie with the results.” She ripped a leaf of paper off abruptly and stood up, slightly flushed.

“She doesn’t answer her phone,” Mary said. Rosie braced for impact. Wow, she never should have left her cone of muted ignorance.

Nurse Pham flickered a look at Rosie, then smiled and squeezed Mary’s arm for a second. “That’s because she’s busy.”

Yessssss. Onya, Tran. Rosie’s heart crept back down into her rib cage.

Mary harrumphed.

“I’ll pick up, I promise.” Rosie followed as her mother shuffled out the door towards the doctor’s room.

“We need to give you a blood transfusion,” Sam Kelley said in her usual brusque manner.

“I’m not having one of those.” Of course, you won’t. Rosie felt her blood pressure rising. She desperately longed to fish her phone out of her bag and play Alphabear.

“You need one because your blood cell count is low, otherwise we can’t continue the chemo.”

Mary wasn’t having it. The doctor looked at Rosie questioningly. “She’s not a Jehovah’s Witness, but her friend is.”

Dr Kelley bargained Mary up to an iron transfusion. From Mary’s rumblings, though, she could renege at any time.

On the way out, the receptionist was one Rosie hadn’t seen before. She looked like everyone’s mum – except Rosie’s.

“Can you book Mum in for a CT scan in two weeks’ time, please,” Rosie said.

Mary prickled and straightened to her full 157 centimetres. “I’m not having a CT scan. I’m allergic to the dye.”

“You’re not allergic to it. Aunty Cath is.”

“I can’t have a CT scan. I’m not having one…”

The room started slowly rotating around Rosie. She closed her eyes while Mary loudly declared she wouldn’t cooperate.

“ZIP IT!” Rosie snapped, then turned back to the counter. Luckily the waiting room was empty. “Book it, please. We can always cancel later.”

Mary piped down, seemingly mollified by Rosie’s outburst.

Everyone’s Mum pursed her lips and clacked on her keyboard.

Rosie could have kicked Mary out the door while the car was still rolling. Instead, she punched in the entrance code, ushered her mother past the front desk and signed her back in.

“See you next week,” Rosie said.

“Yeah.” Mary shuffled towards her room. She didn’t turn around.

Rosie shivered in the wind and dreamt, as always, of never returning. What kept her crawling back? Whatever it was, she’d spend the remainder of her life reconstructing herself like a self-help Humpty Dumpty. She swiped a hand across her face and turned left.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on January 10, 2026 as "Smiley face".

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