Fate and I drove over to the Mansion Friday afternoon to visit the residents (tonight is the weekly Bingo game) and I found Georgianna, without shirts or sweater, smoking outside and shivering in the cold. She was alone, which is unusual.
I’m sure I got Georgianna a sweater at some point, but she does forget sometimes, and often gives her new clothes away to someone she thinks is needier. I just found this out.
Georgianna is a generous spirit, she loves her friends and worries about them first.
She and I have a thing. I get her cigarettes on Friday so that she has some for the weekend. She calls me her “Guardian Angel,” and for once, I like the label.
She asks me once a week if there was any way to get married, and I say not, I don’t think that would work out with Maria.
She laughs. She says often, “you’re a sweet man,” in the way women who have not known sweet man often speak, mournfully and knowingly.
The woman around her always laugh and nod when the subject of men comes up. I can tell that Georgianna, who grew up in an orphanage, has known some hard times.
One of the Secret Garden members was rushed to the hospital earlier in the day, Georgianna asked me if I had any news of her. I said I don’t get told about things like that.
She will almost certainly come back I said, but the truth is I don’t know for sure. I never lie to anyone at the Mansion. I could see the worry in Georgianna’s eyes.
I’ll make sure she has some cigarettes over the next few days.
I told Georgianna to stay put and called Bev at Caroll’s Trading Post, a consignment shop just around the corner and the source of so many of my clothes for the residents. I asked Bev if she had any good sized winter sweaters, medium to large, and she said she did.
I drove over there and found three lovely and warm sweaters, and bought them and brought them back to the Mansion. I gave Georgianna first dibs and she picked out the one I thought she would like, and then, warm and happy, she posed for me.
She wasn’t shivering any longer. I looked at her bare ankles and asked if she had any warm sox. No, she said, she didn’t have any of those.
She is never sure why I take so many pictures, no matter how many times I tell her, so she has just accepted it. I went on Amazon and ordered five pairs of warm socks.
I like being a Guardian Angel, it is important and satisfying work.
“I’ll see you at Bingo, I hope,” she said. Georgianna, who never asks for anything except cigarettes, wondered if I might bring a small stuffed animal to keep her company tonight. Sure thing, I said.
I’ve put a big hole in the Mansion/Refugee Fund buying winter clothes for people, at the Mansion and Bishop Maginn. If you want to help out, please send a contribution to me via Paypal, [email protected], or by check, Jon Katz, Mansion Fund, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.