Present day
She'd resisted when they brought her in, snapping at nearly everyone, long grey hair braided and hanging against her back.
"I wish they'd cut her hair for us." A nurse comments, "it's going to be so much work to maintain."
"I can do it myself." She insists. "I don't need to be here."
"Ooh. Another tough patient. Though, I think we have a couple that could give her a run for her money." A support worker jokes to another under her breath.
Her protests are ignored, she's shown to her new room. It's on the closed ward, which further causes her strife and anger.
"I do not have dementia. I'm a little forgetful, that's all." Her walker sits next to the bed, hardly used for her first couple days. She takes her meals in her room, refusing to deal with the other residents at all. She refuses help dressing, still able to manage with minimal assistance. She brushes her own long grey hair, and braids it herself, her seemingly frail fingers capable of carrying out this task on their own.
After five days, she ventures far enough outside her room to actually look around. Her mobility isn't great, and despite making it clear to every nurse, support worker and doctor how much she hated it. The walker was her constant companion.
"You at least need to take your meds." Dr. Smith said gently, "let the nurse give them to you, and take them."
"Or I'll die much more , I am aware." She comments nonchalantly.
"Come on," Dr. Smith leads her to the common room, motioning for her to sit down on the sofa. "Now I know your daughter said you have the beginning stages of dementia, but I happen to think you're still mostly with us. So sit down, meet a few people. Maybe, you'll grow to like it here."
"Maybe you'll grow some balls." She snaps back in response.
"And yes, these sorts of sentences are what put you here in the first place, Cosima." Dr. Smith sighs, making a note in her chart, 'no filter'. Before standing up, and returning to his office, located just outside of the closed ward.
It's a couple more days, and a visit from the now much hated daughter, that has nurses pretending not to hear two similarly pitched voices shouting at one another for a half hour that draws the attention of another patient, coming out of her room, still in her nightgown.
"What is it, Delphine?" A nurse observes the other patient kindly. Hoping that this is a good day for the patient.
"I know that voice." Delphine responds, going to look at the nameplate next to the patient's door.
"Ah, that's right Delphine. Go take a look." The nurse responds dismissively, "why don't you get dressed and come down to join the rest of us for lunch today?"
"I do not like the look of purées, they turn my stomach." Delphine's voice is accented, her own mix of grey and white hair not passed her shoulders and loose today.
"Well just because you have all your own teeth sweetie, doesn't mean that everybody else does." The nurse shrugs at her and watches Delphine get as close as she dares to the fight, while staying on the other side of the door.
Used to giving Delphine what one would call, a wide berth, the nurse thinks little of it. Another delusion or something from a patient not known for having the best memory. After all, Delphine can barely name all of her grandchildren, even when they are sitting in front of her.
Delphine seems to take this all very seriously, observing herself in the bathroom mirror, playing with her grey curls and scowling at herself for nearly an hour. Taking more pride in her appearance than she had since she'd first arrived, she redresses herself without aide, she's never had a mobility issue. If her memory were fully functional, enough to remember to take her medications and turn off her stove, it was unlikely she'd have ever been put in the nursing home.
"Are you alright in here, Delphine?" A support worker calls in, "you haven't finished your food."
"I'm fine." She responds softly, fixated on someone else. It's early evening before Delphine summons the courage to enter Cosima's room. Waiting until the fight was over, and Cosima's visitor had left.
She knocks twice at the door, hesitating almost nervously. Afraid of how she might be received after this, after all this time.
When the door doesn't open, she tries the handle, stepping into the room. Cosima is sitting on her small couch at the end of her bed, the lamp on and bifocals perched on her nose as she reads a large book sitting on her lap. Some kind of novel.
"Cosima?" Her voice asks carefully, she stands there, waiting to see if she will be recognized. She's older now, hair fully grey, except for part of the front that has gone a brilliant white. It takes a few minutes, before a cautious grin spreads across Cosima's face. Recognition, she's pleased that neither of them are as out of it as some of the other residents.
"Hello Delphine." She laughs, unable to help herself, unexpectedly giggling at this situation they've found themselves in. "You're here."
"Yes. I am here." She responds, trying desperately to keep emotion from her voice, remain at an appropriate distance for greeting an old friend.
The staff of course, weren't aware of everything, and didn't actually pay that much attention to the social lives of their residents, assuming of course that they were not fighting, attacking each other, or stealing things. And the following 24 hours proceed according to schedule, nurses and support workers turn up for their shifts in the morning. The hairdresser arrives to do the hair of any resident who desire it and the events coordinator arrives with her strange games and crafts, excited to introduce the seniors to something new.
It comes then, as a surprise to all of them, when Cosima takes instantly to Delphine. Everything having changed during the night, Cosima takes her medication without prompting or making the nurse check to see if she had actually swallowed her pills. She's pleasant with Dr. Smith when he makes his morning rounds and she permits a support worker to help dress her.
The reason for her change in behaviour becomes clear that first morning when they're first found holding hands sitting on the couch in Cosima's room, their voices both low whispers. As if part of them is afraid of being overheard.
"Oh, how nice. You've made a new friend!" Max looks between them with a smile. He'd only come into the room to check on them, and make sure that Cosima had taken her meds. Not expecting to find Cosima with company, never mind Delphine. Delphine had been a loner since she'd come here, she'd had visitors, but rarely spent time with any of the other residents at all.
"She's not a new friend." Cosima tells him matter-of-factly, "we knew each other before."
"Oh. Well isn't that nice." Max pauses, doubtful he thinks. Delphine was from Montréal as far as he knew, and Cosima's family was here in Toronto.
"It's true, Max," Delphine assures him, giving Cosima's hand an affectionate squeeze. "Go get me my red photograph album and I'll prove it."
Max humours the women, fetching the red photo album from the wooden bedside table beside Delphine's bed, he returns and places it gently in Delphine's lap, and watches her open to the first few pages.
"This is my family." Delphine smiles, looking pointedly at Max, her fingers pointing to people as she names them, "My papa, my maman, my brothers and sisters." Childhood and family photos litter the pages, to Max, it looks like Montréal. Like he thought.
"Delphine," Cosima taps her shoulder, "He's going to lose patience with us, love."
She flips a few more pages. "And this is me," she points happily at black and white photograph of a beautiful young woman, fair curls surrounding her face.
"You were definitely a looker," Max responds patiently. But it's the bottom page of the photo that catches his attention. It's young Delphine alright, as beautiful as ever, with her arms wrapped around a smaller brunette, both young women glowing and smiling, as if their delight could just leap off the page.
"But it can't be." Max exclaims in disbelief, he lunges for one of Cosima's old albums, flipping open to reveal a wedding picture. Of the same woman, he looks back and forth. "No way."
"Yes way." Cosima tells him, her voice loaded with mirth. "That's me!"
"You look so happy." Max comments, comparing the joyful photo of the young women to Cosima's rather solemn wedding photo. She's smiling, certainly, but it does not reach her eyes.
"We were." Delphine coos, more to Cosima than to him, and it hits him suddenly. A definite cute story to tell his boyfriend when he gets home from work.
"We were in love." Cosima finishes for her, "so very in love."