Oops.

    Lindor truffles are among Nellie's favorite candies. Of course, she also likes Swedish fish and cordial cherries and...well, pretty much anything. But she really loves Lindor chocolates, so when she asked me if I could buy her some I wasn't surprised.
    "Are they for anything special?" I wondered.
    "Oh, they're for a lady who works here. Her birthday is coming soon, and she's such a nice lady that I want to give her a present. She's seventy or something, and such a nice person.
    I was happy to comply. "Sure I will. Do you want a card too?"
    "Yes, a pretty birthday card--you can write something nice in it like 'I congratulate you on your birthday and wish you health and happiness'--you know what to write."
    "Alright. What's her name?"
    Nellie hesitated. "I think it's Samira."
    I laughed. "Are you sure?"
    "You know me too well, don't you?"
    "Yes," I answered, "I can remember a time not very long ago when you couldn't remember my name!"
    She chuckled sheepishly. "But I know your name now! It's...um...don't tell me...."
    I shook my head in amazement.
    "Is it...Jennifer?"

Don't Talk to Strangers

     I was sick again on a Tuesday, and called Nellie to let her know why I couldn't come; otherwise, she would assume that I were dead or at least in the hospital.
    "Hello, Nellie?" There was silence on the other end. "Nellie, are you there? It's Jessica."
    Finally she spoke. "What? I don't understand."
    "It's Jessica," I spoke a little louder. "You know, your friend, the one you call your granddaughter? The girl who comes to see you every Tuesday?"
    Another long silence. Nellie evidently wasn't catching on. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said, her voice hard and flat--and she hung up!
     I looked in disbelief at the "call ended" message on my phone, took a deep breath, and tried again.    "Nellie, it's Jessica," I began quickly. "You know me. I come every Tuesday and we have tea."
    There was a pause, and then she sighed. "Fine," she gave in with obvious incredulity. "What do you want?"
    Exasperated and now exhausted (because I was, after all, feeling fairly awful), I hurried to finish. "I just called to tell you that I can't come today because I'm sick."
    Nellie's voice changed completely as she recognized at last who I was. "Ohhh, Jessica! Now I understand! You're sick? Do you need to go to the doctor? What about the apples? Can your husband come and get the apples? Why do you get sick so much?"
    This was the Nellie I knew.

Golden Fingers

    Nellie was waiting for me at the nursing home entrance. Her first words revealed that she was in much turmoil of spirit: "The little boy fell on his head," she said, without preamble, "and broke into lots of pieces!" I knew exactly which "little boy" she meant; she has two porcelain dolls, about six or eight inches tall, dressed in Russian-style clothes, who live on her shelves and sometimes tumble off for no good reason at all. I had glued his feet (or maybe it was his brother's) a time or two before.
    "Don't worry," I tried to comfort her. "Maybe I can fix him. Let's go see."
    "But there are so many pieces!" She would not be comforted, so we wheeled down the hall and started tea while I inspected the fragments she had gathered. Sure enough, there were quite a few pieces...and try as I could, they didn't quite make a whole head. One was unmistakably missing. I crawled around the floor, peering under the bed and into corners hoping that the last bit would magically appear...but it was nowhere to be found.
     I showed Nellie the triangular hole right in the center of his forehead and told her that I while could glue the rest, there would still be that gap. She brightened up immediately and dismissed the gaping wound as a non-issue: "You have golden fingers," she assured me. "You can do something. Maybe his hair will cover it!"
    "Alright," I agreed, somewhat doubtfully, to make the attempt. "So what is his name? If we're going to fix him, he needs a name."
    "Ummm..." Nellie looked blank.
    "Do you want him to have a Russian name, or an American name?"
    "Well...I'm not sure. Maybe an American name. What's your husband's name, again?" I reminded her, and she seized upon it happily. "His name is Jerry!" she declared.
    There was no way his hair, even bowl-cut as it was, could cover that hole in any manner that looked natural--but with such trust, I had to try. Carefully wrapped in a paper towel, the little boy traveled with me to work, where we have many tubes of superglue; Jerry's story so affected my coworkers that he quickly became a community project. I carefully glued all the pieces until all that remained was that triangle between his eyes.... "Maybe," my boss suggested, "you could use a bit of paper."
    So I took him back home and fashioned a tiny papier-mache patch which, when dabbed with foundation, actually blended pretty well. When Tuesday came again, I showed the finished product to the ladies at work and continued on with a tiny bit of trepidation to Nellie. I wasn't so concerned that she wouldn't be pleased, but that she might refuse to believe that I had used paper to patch him!
    I shouldn't have worried. Nellie was so delighted at Jerry's return that she only shook her head in wonder at how little the hole showed. Smiling happily, she kissed the doll on the head and directed me to put him back on his shelf next to the other little boy. As I gently set him in his place, I asked her if she had a name for the second figure. She shrugged her shoulders. "You name him," she commanded.
    "How about 'Tom'?" I suggested.
    "Thom ee Djeri," she tried out the sounds of the words, nodding with approval. "Very good."
    And so Tom and Jerry live high on Nellie's shelf, where (hopefully) they will stay safely without any more falls.