Sorting Pills

SORTING PILLS An excerpt from Gene, Everywhere: A Life-Changing Visit from my Father-In-Law, the new book by Delta Child columnist Talya Tate Boerner.

My hand on the paper sack cues him. The top of Gene’s white head juts above the edge of the newspaper.

“Gene, do you want to move to the den? To a more comfortable chair?” I ask. Nonchalantly, I carry his bag of medication to the island and deposit it next to the stovetop.

“No. I’m fine here.” He ruffles the newspaper in my direction as though to prove his busyness. I glance at the clock on the microwave. It’s only 9:15, day one.

“If you’re sure.” I open the sack and feel Gene’s eyes bore into me. I pull out prescription bottles by the fistful, 10 in total, and line them up on the countertop. From inside filmy orange bottles, the contents stare at me. Capsules, tablets, pills; unremarkable-looking medication. To dull pain, lubricate joints, clear the brain, mask problems, thin the blood? I really don’t know. If I am going to help my father-in-law, even for a few days, I should understand.

With my phone, I begin snapping photos of the pill labels so that I can research each one later.

“Talya, what are you doing with my medicine?”

“I thought I’d get your pills organized. John bought a dispenser.” I reach inside the junk drawer and pull out a daysof-the-week dispenser. “See?” I wave it through the air with a flourish. Maybe this piece of clear plastic will be our magic wand.

“I don’t need that crazy contraption.” He shakes his head from side-to-side. His white eyebrows scrunch into a line.

“I do. I can’t keep track of all your pills without it.”

“How much did John pay for that thing? It’s a waste of money.”

“Not if it keeps your medication straight.”

He murmurs something I can’t make out and disappears behind the sports page again. Will everything be a battle with this man?

I slide my reading glasses onto my nose and each label, printed in a miniscule font, comes into better focus. Still, the medication names are unpronounceable, and instructions vary wildly. Does he really need so much medicine?

Half a pill two times a day.

One pill in the morning on a full stomach and half at bedtime.

One pill at lunch with food. How on earth does my mother-in-law, Pauline, keep this straight, I wonder. “Pauline doesn’t use one of those plastic things,” he says.

“Pauline’s better at this than I am.” I twist open the first cap and resist saying what I’m thinking. Actually, Gene, at this moment, Pauline, isn’t better at this. She’s lying in a hospital bed back home in Arkansas, which is the entire reason you’re sitting at my kitchen bar when I should be at work.

For a while, neither of us speaks. Silence spreads over the kitchen, growing louder and louder, magnifying each rustle of the newspaper, exaggerating each of Gene’s shallow exhalations. Shiny capsules, flat blue pills, and round tablets no bigger than baby teeth, I sort them all into piles. One at a time, I begin dropping a week’s worth into morning and evening slots. Gene’s eyes sweep over the news. I’m aware of the sharp glances he sends my way, but I keep my head down and continue working.

Gene is the first to crack the quiet. “How’s it going over there?”

“Good.” But I am a student who can’t finish her test because the professor is hovering. “Hmmpf. I can take my pills just fine straight from the bottles.” He raises the sports page.

I continue counting and sorting. Occasionally, Gene peers over the flutter of the newspaper, half-watching through tortoise-shell eyeglasses that make his blue eyes look larger than they are.

Eventually, he says, “Well, it looks like the Dallas Cowboys hired a new coach.” He flips the sports page around and thumps down the picture of Jason Garrett and team owner Jerry Jones. “I don’t care if Jones is from Arkansas, I don’t like him. He’s a snake. You can see it in his eyes.” He shakes his head as though this Arkansas connection adds a secondary level of disappointment; a family member turned bad. “It was wrong the way he tossed that other coach to the curb. You know, uh…what was his name?” His face flushes. His pale lips twist as he struggles to recall the name.

I place my finger on the Thursday slot of the pillbox to keep my place. “Who? Barry Switzer?”

“No, no, no!” He drops his head into his hands and rubs his eyebrows as if that might erase the confusion and let him start fresh. He looks up toward the light fixture. Answers often float near the ceiling. “The guy before him.”

“Jimmy Johnson?” He groans. “Noooo! The man who wore the hat.”

The man who wore the hat? Immediately I think of Bear Bryant, but he can’t be talking about Alabama’s Bear Bryant. Can he?

“Flan, Flanders?” He spits syllables that make no sense to me.

I wish I could understand how the jumble of neurons inside his mind works. I think of the childhood game, Gossip. During recess, when rainy days kept us inside the classroom, my friends and I would sit in a tight circle and whisper a sentence through cupped hands from one ear to the next. Through the gossip chain, the phrase would become mangled, a word here or there, until the final answer had altered drastically from the initially whispered phrase. Gene’s ideas seem similarly scrambled. Even the rare flowing sentence sounds garbled, as though he rolls a marble on his tongue.

“No loyalty. Anywhere,” Gene says. He drops the sports page back onto the countertop and continues mumbling and shaking his head. I can’t help but feel his aggravation is directed at me.

“Tom Landry!”

“Yes, Tom Landry. That’s who I meant.” He sighs and groans, the sheer weariness of thinking erasing all expression from his face. For a while, we say nothing more, and this time, the quiet provides relief. I count out seven tiny white Lasix tablets and hold them in my palm. One by one, I drop them into the morning slots. Each one bounces against plastic, sounding like a splash of water.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

I look up to find Gene watching me with blank eyes. He holds the newspaper limply in front of him as though he’s forgotten it’s there.

I hold up his bottle of Toprol and shake it. The pills rattle inside. “Guess what? I take Toprol too.” “Is that right?” He releases the paper, and it floats down, blending in with our stone-colored countertop. “Yes, but I take it for migraines instead of blood pressure.” I feel one growing behind my eye sockets.

“Well isn’t that something?” His shoulders soften, and he leans back into the bar stool and grins. For the first time, it seems, we both exhale.

We are members of the same club.

My pill sorting project is nearly finished; the only remaining bottle is Coumadin, the bottle half-filled with tiny blue pills. Half a pill two times a day. Although the bottle contains more doses than Gene will need during his short visit with us, I decide to halve all of them so Pauline won’t have to do it later.

My curved herb-chopping knife is perfect for the task, working better on pills than parsley. As I divide pill after pill after pill, I can’t imagine how any elderly person performs this task. When I finish, I return the bulk of the divided Coumadin tablets to the original bottle and place half a pill in each slot of the pillbox, morning and evening. I snap shut the last plastic lid on the sorter. Surprisingly, I feel accomplished, having completed this simple task.

“Here are your three morning pills. You’ll have more to take later tonight.” I place a glass of water in front of him and extend my palm. So nondescript the pills look, yet each holds power or erases power. I’m not sure which.

Gene sweeps aside the newspaper and sits arrow straight, as though he might make an announcement. I drop the pills into his hand. He studies them for a moment. Then, with a tiny sip of water, he washes all three pills down, sliding the still-full glass of water away to the far edge of the bar as though he doesn’t want to be tempted to drink from it again.

“All that counting and cutting sure seems like a lot of work.” The corners of his eyes crinkle into folds as he chuckles. “I usually take all my pills at the same time, first thing in the morning.”

“Oh no, you don’t. Do you?” “Sure I do. It’s a heck of a lot easier.” •

Q & A with the Author of Sorting Pills

1Your writing is drawn from your life, so can you tell me about the inspiration for this new work and why it was important for you to write it?

I was inspired to write Gene, Everywhere after spending six weeks caring for my 90-year-old father-in-law. In 2011, my husband and I lived and worked in Dallas; my in-laws lived in Fort Smith. When my mother-in-law fell ill on New Year’s Day and was admitted to the hospital, we didn’t think it was safe for Gene to stay home alone. He had begun to show early signs of dementia.

Without a thought, I extended a spurof-the moment invitation to Gene to come and stay with us. I regretted my offer almost instantly. We were a busy family. My husband traveled extensively with his job, I worked full-time in banking, and our son was a senior in high school. But life has a way of giving us what we need, just when we need it.

Looking back, I realize the six weeks Gene and I spent together came at a serendipitous time, a time when I desperately craved change. While the experience of caring for an aging parent is a very ordinary thing, within the maddening routine of it, an extraordinary relationship grew between Gene and me. I knew I had a compelling story to tell. I wanted everyone to be blessed by Gene. 2 Can you describe the role and importance rural Arkansas plays (or has played) in your life and writing? Can you do the same for agriculture?

I am certainly a product of my raising, as the saying goes. I have a hard time thinking of rural Arkansas without thinking

Talya Tate Boerner

about agriculture. The older I get, the more firmly I believe my early experiences and lessons learned as a Mississippi County farm girl molded the best parts of me. I’m also convinced that rural Arkansas during the 60s and 70s was a fabulous time to be a kid. Perhaps everyone believes that of their growing-up years?

It’s ironic, really. During a time when we had four channels on our television, and the closest neighbor was two fields away, my corner of rural Arkansas laid the foundation for a world of opportunity. I attended school, first grade through senior year, with the same core group of classmates. This taught me cooperation and solidarity, the importance of teamwork, and the value of life-long friendships.

Creativity freely blossoms in a rural area, from both need and necessity. I learned not only to use my imagination but also to enjoy solitude. Between rows of cotton, down at the ditch dump, or hidden inside the branches of my favorite mimosa tree, I found inspiration in all these places. I still do.

As a farm kid, I learned the value of time and money and perseverance. Early on, I understood that life was something to be nurtured, but it wasn’t always fair.

Today, my writing is heavily inspired by my love of nature and farming. The perspective I’ve gained after having worked 25 years in Dallas before returning home to Arkansas is something I never want to take for granted. 3 What do you think people don’t nderstand about rural communities and agricultural communities that you think they should?

One of my goals for The Accidental Salvation of Gracie Lee was to spread awareness about farming. Specifically, I wanted to show how farming was so allencompassing for the entire farm family. I also hoped to spotlight agriculture in Arkansas, and in particular, the northeast delta region of the state. Most people have no idea the economic impact Arkansas has on the U.S. and global economy. They have no idea the balance required to protect the environment while feeding the planet. I also think it would be helpful for folks to understand that real farmhouses look nothing like those on Fixer Upper. 4 How does your family feel about your writing?

My family has been extremely supportive of my writing. My mother is my greatest cheerleader. Just ask anyone. 5 Do you discuss what you’re working on with family and friends before you write or during the process or is it strictly personal?

I may discuss projects in broad terms, but other than critique partners, workshop writers, and my editor, no one else is privy to specific details. With Gene, Everywhere, since it is a memoir, there were individual sections I asked my husband and sister-in-law to read in advance of publication. I wanted to make sure family facts and events were correct. I have started a new book which I’ve said very little about to anyone. I don’t want to jinx the excitement I feel over it. Plus, it’s in the very early stages and may never see the light of day. 6 What drove you to write your first book, The Accidental Salvation of Gracie Lee, and how did the process differ from your new book?

To clarify, I wrote the first rough draft of Gene, Everywhere in 2012, while my experience with my father-in-law was fresh

on my mind. I tucked the story away and let it marinate. Then, I began writing The Accidental Salvation of Gracie Lee, which was published in 2016.

There’s an old saying in the writing industry to “write what you know.” As a new writer, that’s what I did. With Accidental Salvation, I wrote about a farm girl growing up in northeast Arkansas during the early 1970s. While the plot is fiction, the places and many of the experiences are based on my childhood. I incorporated my memories and worries as a 10-year-old girl. I wrote about the one place I know better than any other.

Gene, Everywhere differs in that as a memoir, the story is true. As caretaker of my father-in-law, many of the problems I faced involving issues with prescriptions and Medicare are highly politicized and timely today. While my two published books embody different genres — southern fiction vs. memoir — my writing process was the same. I prefer to work in the early morning hours (I like to see the sunrise every day), and I write longhand before typing the first word. There’s something about putting pen to paper that enhances my creativity. 7 What do you hope people take away from your new book?

In our society, there’s a tendency to dismiss the elderly, believing a 90-year-old has nothing left to offer. Gene, Everywhere proves the opposite is true. Although my father-in-law had begun to suffer from dementia, he still had plenty to contribute. Gene completely changed my life.

I hope readers will view caretaking through a different lens, perhaps with more grace and a bit of humor. And, all those stories older relatives tell over and over ad nauseam? Maybe readers will be encouraged to write them down before that history is lost.

A final takeaway — I wrote my first book at age fifty. It’s never too late to do what you were meant to do. •