Troubles Melt Like Lemon Drops

TROUBLES MELT LIKE LEMON DROPS

By Marty Malin

It was a spectacular cake. Triple lemon cake, frosted with swirls of glistening Italian buttercream, sprinkled with shards of lemon drops, glittering like pale yellow diamonds.

Grandpa was dying. He looked thin, standing by his hospital bed. Together we smoothed out the wrinkles in the bottom sheet so as not to “fuss the nurse” who had “sick people to take care of.” Grandpa knew only one way: the Right Way; his way. Outsiders were best avoided.

His gown flapped open as they do despite everyone’s best efforts. He was a modest man, his body always covered by buttoned up, long-sleeved work shirts and pants over long-johns. Two pairs in the winter. He seemed no longer to care.

“I don’t have no appetite. About the only thing that tastes good is lemon drops,” he said, getting back into bed. We had brought some for him. Sneaked them past the charge nurse, her disapproving countenances puckered as if she had been the ones sucking on lemons.

He wouldn’t touch the tray they brought him. “Not fit to eat,” he said. “One reason I married your Grannie was her cookin’. Ain’t one person in a hundred knows how to season beans.”

Grannie had died three months earlier, just after their 70th anniversary. None of us thought he would last long without her. He said as much himself. Like food, he had no appetite for life.

He complained about his stomach. “It’s always sour anymore.” Getting grandpa, a man who “don’t doctor,” to the hospital for tests was a herculean effort. But the pain would not be denied.

His doctors told him it looked like his cancer was back. “Thank you kindly,” he said. “I’m feeling a little better now. I believe them lemon drops done the trick.”

They wanted him to stay overnight. He agreed. One night and that was all. He wasn’t expecting to get any sleep. “Those tomfool nurses wake you up to give you a sleeping pill and charge you a dollar.”

One of the “tomfool” nurses managed to get an IV into his hand. “I’ll take good care of you, darlin’” she drawled. Her southern charm soothed him. “She’s from Louisiana,” he confided. “I think she’s sweet on me.” Good care included morphine. Grandpa was destined to sleep fine.

We came bearing more lemon drops the next morning. We took Grandpa to our house with excellent pain medications. We knew his stay would be a short one but hoped he would make it to his 92nd birthday, a week away.

We asked the home hospice nurse about the lemon drops. “Let him have as many as he wants,” she said. “Lord knows at his age he should have anything he wants so long as it’s legal.”

We planned a party with his favorite cake. He was able to eat a small piece. “Mighty good,” he said. “Almost as good as your Grannie used to make. She’d say so herself if she was here.”

“Better than my Grannie could make,” the hospice nurse said, enjoying a larger slice.

“I think I’ll just rest my eyes,” Grandpa said. “Mighty good cake. I feel pretty good today. I do believe them lemon drops done the trick.”

We would not make the cake next year, or the next. Lemon drops. Madeleines de Proust. It was a spectacular cake.

Troubles Melt Like Lemon Drops was originally published in the anthology Remember, When: Fiction and Memoir Tales of Memories and Times Past. Redwood Branch of the California Writers Club.