Ladies of the Sunset Residence by Marie Bacigalupo

In the Sunset Residence for Elderly Women, Marjorie Little lost her sensible shoes when she took them off one day and forgot where she left them. She missed them because they didn’t press her toes or rub her corns. Later a nurse found the shoes behind a radiator, but by that time Marjorie had forgotten she lost them and preferred the blue flip-flops that appeared on her feet one day.

All the Sunset residents lost things. Lilly lost her toothbrush before she lost her teeth. Hilda lost ten pounds and then she lost her belt. Rachel lost the mezzuzah her mother gave her on her wedding day. After the aide dusted her dresser, Barbara lost the photo of her dead husband in the silver frame.

The things they lost were the consequence of advancing age. They lost the incentive for Botox injections, liposuction, bikini waxes, manicures, hair dye, tooth whiteners, lip plumping, mascara. Susan, who collected artifacts, lost her memory. Mabel, who had a Ph.D. in philosophy, lost her mind to Alzheimer’s. Angie, whose curls a lover used to fondle, lost her golden crown to the gray life.

One after another, the Sunset ladies lost orgasms, husbands, high heels, short skirts, smooth cheeks, teeth, eyesight, bladder control, ample breath, love of life. The intensity of their past lives measured the depth of their loss.

Until she lost her mind, Mabel reveled in the ideas of Plato, Planck, Descartes, Darwin, Newton, and Nietzsche. Before she lost her appetite and had to be fed through a tube, Angela loved to eat–zabaglione, escargot, lasagna, caviar, pizza, steak, moussaka, sushi. Nancy, once a champion cyclist, lost her agility when arthritis locked her joints and pain stunned her will.

Year by year, they lost more of themselves: they lost the lingering male gaze, the dignity due their humanity, the respect of the young who one day, soon, would lose their youth and join the lost.

Season by season, inside the Sunset Residence and outside the Sunset Residence, loss gained momentum. Like the autumn trees that shed their leaves—first one at a time, stealthily, then in clusters, boldly, till the ashen winter birches stand denuded—the ladies of the Sunset Residence lost all life’s color and grace.

Marie Bacigalupo, a fiction writer living in Brooklyn, New York, has participated in the 2011 University of Iowa Summer Writing Festival and the 2011 One Story Summer Workshop for Writers, as well as workshops at NYU, The New School, and the Writers Studio. Her work has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail.