Molly's sitting on her bed
It's Sunday afternoon
Radio's playing outside

TV bleeds from the next room

Antiseptic in the air

Nurses laughing down the hall
Crooked feet in crooked shoes
Her wooden cane against the wall


It's Sunday but her Sunday clothes
Are packed away somewhere

She doesn't need them anymore
Nothing to look her best for


I'm thirteen, I'm with with my mother
She doesn't know my name
I remind her I'm Lucy

But she looks at me the same

Like I'm a stranger she should remember

From a place she can't return
We've only just walked in
She says we've stayed too long

Too proud to be remembered
As a mother without a home


Oh, it's time to go
Oh, it's time to go
It's a dirty trick this growing old


We walk the halls anyway
My mother holds her arm

She's pleading with us to leave
So we walk her to her room
And we drive through the old neighborhood

The grand homes of the South Side
So many are abandoned now
So many lifetimes locked inside


And at the dinner table
It's my parents and me

I sneak looks at the two of them
To see what they need from me


And later she calls me over
Where she sits alone
She's polishing a silver ring

I've never seen before

She says this was Molly's

It was her mother's ring
I'm keeping it for you
As she kept it for me


Oh, it's time to go
Oh, it's time to go

It's a dirty trick this growing old

I'm told Molly was so proud to have

Another baby girl
Her only granddaughter
But I don't remember


This is what I remember