Monrovia Finale by Clara Frank

Monrovia Finale

By Clara Frank

My sister Edit and I.  

Just the two of us left now.  

She is 92 and in a home for the aged paid for by MediCal. It’s been 8 months since the stroke left her immobilized from the hips down. I thought she would die; she didn’t. After the surgery to remove the clot, she refused Rehab. Now she can’t move much on her own. 

It’s time to give up her apartment in Monrovia, a suburb of Los Angeles. She is never going back there according to the doctor at the “facility.” -A cold word, facility. –  

 I gave notice on her behalf and now it is time to go through her things to see what is worth keeping, the apartment must be empty by next week.  

Today I drove from San Diego to Monrovia to perform this task ignoring my fever and nasty cough. I only want my mother’s large family picture album from Hungary bound in fake white leather. A treasure to me.  

Black and white photographs on hard pages affixed by “Photo corners.” 

There are pictures of my mother as a dark-haired little girl dressed in school uniform circa 1922, my father as a handsome young man in 1936 leaning on his bicycle and resembling Paul Newman. 

Also me, when I was four years old eating watermelon on a farm where Mother sent us to hide, total enjoyment on my face, unaware of the imminent Nazi invasion. A picture of my baby sister Vera in 1944, an adorable baby who was soon to die of pneumonia for lack of medicine during an air raid. My brother George, at sixteen in 1954, helping my father with his (illegal) business of re-selling theater tickets, a little fuzz on his face as he attempts to grow facial hair. A picture of Edit age 22, 1956 summer on her vacation at Lake Balaton with fellow workers from the Military Academy, wearing a red two-piece polka dot swimsuit, her normally snow-white skin bronze from the sun, unaware that all our lives will change in October of that year. A picture of my Grandmother wearing the same black dress and apologetic smile that she always wore; as I last saw her days before we escaped Hungary, leaving her behind.  

As my dog, Mookie and I enter the apartment, the small one-bedroom unit looks the same as before Edit was taken ill. Her beat-up rocking chair is still there. That’s where she spent most of her days reading in the daytime and watching TV in the evenings. She loved to read romance novels. Now she doesn’t read, can hardly see and seems unable to follow a story line when I try to read to her. To my surprise, she doesn’t seem to miss reading and makes no effort to decipher the large print books I bought for her.  

Next to the rocking chair is her computer on a desk, and a defunct printer. Neither has been used for a long time. She never quite got used to it although she was an excellent typist back in the days. When she got the computer, she did email for a while but was easy prey for scammers so eventually stopped.  

On the other side of the chair is the walnut dining room table that came from our mother’s house like most of her stuff. When our mother passed, Edit inherited most things from the big house because she and Mother had lived together. Father had passed the year before and my brother had moved out. My sister never married and so the two of them lived there, not in harmony from what I gathered.  

In the dining area in Edit’s apartment, there is an antique looking china cabinet. My eyes rest on a large porcelain vase I gave my mother for her seventy sixth birthday, her final. It is decorated with blue flowers all around. I don’t think my mother appreciated the gift; she seemed surprised as if wondering why I would spend my money on such a useless item.  

I give Mookie some water in a bowl, get a glass for myself and sit in the rocking chair feeling weak and faint and exhausted physically and mentally. 

Where to begin? I brought no boxes, just some very large black trash bags.  

I go to the bedroom, the bed is made, in the cabinets neatly folded underwear and linen. 

She had a helper who took care of these things but did not take very good care of Edit.  

Edit developed a leg infection which went bad, and eventually a clot formed. 

I sit down again, too weak to move, fever is burning me up, and can’t stop coughing. 

Someone is at the door, a neighbor named Lucy.  

“How is Edith?” she asks. I tell her, she is not coming back.  

She looks around the room. “Are you here to sell things?” 

“No.” 

She looks disappointed, looking around again, her gaze rests on a large antique mirror. 

“I always admired that,” she says. 

“You can have it if you want.” 

She expresses her gratitude, leaves and returns with an older woman, the two of them drag the mirror halfway to the door, then stop. Lucy looks around some more.  

“How about the stereo,” she asks.  

“Sure, take it.”  

She looks embarrassed. 

“I want to pay.” 

“$5.” I say. 

She gives me the money and they leave with the mirror and the stereo. I sigh in relief and close my eyes hoping to relax. 

Minutes later Lucy returns with another neighbor and several others follow. 

Two hours later nothing is left, just a few clothes in the closet and the porcelain vase I’m hugging unaware of when I picked it up. 

I fail to find the picture album I was looking for. 

It doesn’t matter, it’s all in my heart. 

Clara Frank was born in Budapest, Hungary now living in San Diego, California. She is a retired Hospital Epidemiologist, a Red Cross Volunteer, and a proud grandmother of two grandsons. Clara has published short stories and essays in literary magazines and is currently working on a collection of essays.