The box fan in the second-floor hallway was clicking every third rotation like a dry joint in a knee. I had just finished scrubbing the linoleum in room 214 when the tinny speakers started up outside. It was that old music box version of Turkey in the Straw that everyone knows, coming through the heavy glass windows from the street below. It played every single day at 3:15 right when the heat was sitting heaviest on the asphalt.<\/p>\n
Miss Clara was sitting in her usual green vinyl armchair by the radiator. The second those first notes hit the glass, her shoulders gave a little jerk. I watched her drop her crochet hook right into her lap. It rolled off her quilt and hit the floor with a dull plastic click. Her chin started to quiver, and before I could even cross the room with the mop bucket, she was covering her face with both hands, crying so hard her whole chest shook under that thin cardigan.<\/p>\n
I dropped the rag into the bucket and knelt down beside her chair. I knew her routine by heart after three years on this floor, but this was worse than her usual bad days.<\/p>\n
“Clara,” I said, putting my hand on the arm of her chair. “What is it? Do you want me to close the window?”<\/p>\n
She shook her head so hard her white curls came loose from her hairpins. She pointed a shaky finger toward the street where the white truck was pulling away, leaving that tinny song hanging in the hot air.<\/p>\n
“It was his favorite,” she managed to get out between gasps. Her voice sounded like dry paper rubbing together. “He was an ice cream man. He died fifty years ago this August.”<\/p>\n
I stayed there on my knees until her breathing evened out. I told her I would take care of it, not really knowing what that meant. But something about the way she looked at that retreating truck stayed under my skin all through my shift.<\/p>\n
The next afternoon at 3:10, I was standing by the curb on Marlin Street with my arms crossed over my white uniform top. The sun was beating straight down off the brick facade of the home, baking the sidewalk until the air shimmered. Exactly on time, the white Chevrolet step-van turned the corner by the hardware store, playing that same tinny tune.<\/p>\n
I stepped right out into the middle of the lane and held my hand up.<\/p>\n
The driver slammed on his brakes. The front end dipped, and the smell of hot rubber and burning oil drifted over the asphalt. He rolled down the window and glared at me through greasy aviator glasses. He looked to be in his late thirties, wearing a faded blue polo shirt with a sweat stain spreading between his shoulder blades.<\/p>\n
“What’s your problem?” he yelled over the music box that was still clanking away on the roof. “You trying to get yourself run over?”<\/p>\n
I walked right up to the driver-side door and grabbed the top of the rolled-down window frame. I could see the sweat beading up on his forehead and the way his knuckles were white on the steering wheel.<\/p>\n
“Shut it off,” I said.<\/p>\n
He stared at me like I had lost my mind. “Excuse me?”<\/p>\n
“I said shut the music off,” I told him, keeping my voice level because I was too tired to argue. “You’re driving the staff and the residents crazy with that thing. My patient in 214 cries every single time you come down this block. Could you play a different song? Or just turn the speaker down?”<\/p>\n
He didn’t move to turn it off. He just sat there, staring past my shoulder toward the brick front of the nursing home. His jaw started working, chewing on the inside of his cheek like he was trying to swallow something sharp.<\/p>\n
“What room?” he asked. His voice wasn’t angry anymore. It just went flat.<\/p>\n
“Room 214,” I said, letting go of the window frame. “Second floor, right above the oak tree.”<\/p>\n
He reached up and hit the toggle switch on the dash. The tinny music died instantly, leaving only the sound of his idling engine rattling the tailpipe. He didn’t look at the road, and he didn’t look at his rearview mirror. He just stared straight ahead at the steering wheel like he was reading something written on the horn.<\/p>\n
“My dad taught me this song,” he said softly.<\/p>\n
I didn’t say anything. I just stood there on the hot asphalt, waiting for him to put it in drive and leave.<\/p>\n
“He told me it was for his wife,” the driver added, and his voice cracked just a little bit on the last word. “He said she loved it when he played it on his route before he walked out on her back in seventy-four.”<\/p>\n
The heat seemed to get heavier all at once, pressing down on the top of my head. I looked at the faded lettering on the side of his truck door, then back at his face. I noticed the way his nose curved at the bridge, identical to the old wedding portrait Clara kept tucked inside her Bible on the nightstand.<\/p>\n
“What’s your name, son?” I asked.<\/p>\n
He looked down at his hands on the wheel, shaking his head slowly from side to side. “Leo,” he whispered.<\/p>\n
I didn’t move for a long minute. The engine ticked as it started to cool down in the sun. I knew right then that I was going to have to walk back upstairs and tell Clara what the truck was playing, and why her grandson had been driving past her window every single day without knowing she was sitting behind the glass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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