When Darcy turned seventeen, she took a job in a boutique to make money for college. That was the year Penny’s age began to catch up with her. Her left hip hurt her whenever she moved, and she refused to see a doctor, insisting it was only arthritis and taking aspirin for the pain. She still worked in her garden, but often Darcy would look out the window to see Penny holding her hip as she walked or sitting on a bench, bent double, rubbing her hands together as if to press away the ache. At last Darcy persuaded Penny to visit Dr. Ruby, who diagnosed Lyme disease, caused by the bite of a minuscule insect, the tick. If it had been caught early, antibiotics would have cured Penny, but her own stubbornness had brought her an enormous loss in quality of life. Penny took painkillers, but she was constantly fatigued and suffering pain in all her joints. She was seventy-seven, and Lyme disease aged her by decades.
Darcy did everything she could to help Penny. She bought all the groceries, cooked all the meals, and cleaned the house. She got stacks of DVDs from the library—Penny was often too tired to read—and once Darcy earned her driver’s license, she took Penny for excursions around the island in Penny’s valiant old Jeep.
Bravely, with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, Darcy offered to forgo college and stay home with Penny. Penny burst into laughter and promised she would disown Darcy if she dared to even think of such a thing. The next day, Darcy found Penny on the phone in the kitchen; and within twenty-four hours, Penny had hired a woman to come five days a week to clean house and cook Penny a decent hot meal. She also agreed to take the antidepressants her physician had prescribed. By the time Darcy left for college, Penny was much more active and cheerful. Maybe it was all an act, Darcy thought, but Penny had made her point.
College life at UMass/Boston suited Darcy perfectly—no surprise because she was surrounded by books and people who talked about what was in those books. She majored in English literature and by her junior year realized she wanted to attend Simmons for a master’s degree in library science. Penny was thrilled. Darcy called her often and hurried back to check on her during long school holidays. She spent the holidays and summers with her, and Penny was slower, but in good spirits.
The time came when Penny could no longer hide or ignore her frustratingly merciless body. No assisted living facility existed on the island, except one that Penny called Death’s Waiting Room. She had made herself fairly adept at the computer and found and compared the various assisted living facilities on the Cape. One weekend, Darcy accompanied her grandmother to the ferry across Nantucket Sound and drove her to Sea View Village, which amazingly had a view of the sea. To Darcy’s surprise, Penny felt at home from the moment she saw it, or did an Oscar-winning act of pretending to. With relief, Penny settled in with others like her who were also withered, weakened, and dependent on the charming and capable doctors, nurses, and nurses’ aides.
Darcy drove down to visit Penny almost every weekend. She often spent an hour or so trimming the older woman’s nails and painting them an unusual color, like blue, or magenta with glitter, hoping the sparkle would brighten Penny’s days. Penny wasn’t able to trim her nails herself. Her hands weren’t steady or strong enough even to work a nail clipper. Those hands that had once dug ferociously into the soil to plant flowers; that patiently, relentlessly tugged weeds from her garden; those hands that had cooked healthy meals for Darcy and applauded when Darcy sang at a school concert—those hands had fallen limp and useless, spotted with brown age marks, trembling when she tried to lift a teacup to her lips.
In the last year of her life, everything had to be done for Penny. She could not bathe herself, dress herself, brush her own teeth. Arthritis was causing her increasing pain. She was weak. She wore adult diapers. The nurses at the home were kind and attentive, Darcy could see that, and was grateful. Darcy always stepped out of the room when a nurse came to change Penny’s diaper and gently wash her body. Afterward, Darcy brought out one of Penny’s photograph albums and went through it, pointing to a picture of Penny in her prime.
“Your wedding dress was gorgeous,” Darcy would say. Or, “Check out this shot of you showing off the privet roots you’d dug up.” Or, “Here is one of my favorite photos, you and me all glammed up in Boston, ready to go to the ballet.”
Sometimes Penny would manage a lift of her lips. Just as often, she’d remain blank faced, too tired even to enjoy her memories.
Still, Darcy drove down from Boston in Penny’s old Jeep every weekend to visit her…although not quite so often after she met Boyz.