I Like You Just Fine When You're Not Around (10 page)

Tig took in the hollowness under Wendy's eyes, the bruised look there. She stood up. “No, without a doubt we need each other, probably now more than ever. I'm really glad you're here.”

Their conversation sputtered with the intimacy of the moment, and Tig found her footing with more comfortable geography. “Listen, you're going to have to brace yourself when we visit Mom.”

Wendy snapped, “I know. I'm not that out of it.”

“No, I mean it's weird to not see her in charge.”

“Oh, yeah.” Wendy frowned. “The only time I ever saw Mom really out of her element—you know, before she got old—was when Dad died.” She closed her eyes. “I remember her sleeping and smoking a lot. She took long baths, her big belly, with you in it, breaking the water. I napped on the floor of the bathroom with her in the tub.” Wendy shook her head. “I think she tried to make up for those weeks for the rest of her life. Then when you were born she snapped back into her usual take-charge gear.”

“I never saw Mom as anything other than on her game,” Tig said. “Mom always went that extra step. No store-bought cookies for Valentine's Day, no missing even the smallest event.”

“Remember when she borrowed those three tiny ponies from one of her clients for my birthday party? She said we could have them at the party and name them for a day, but then we had to give them back. I named mine George Washington.”

Tig said, “I called mine Hoogala.”

“Terri Osgood named hers Terri Osgood. Then she called it T-bone all day. George Washington ate the cake and pooped in mom's hydrangea. Party over.”

“The party's over, all right. Alzheimer's is eating Mom's cake now.”

Wendy folded her hands. “After Dad died, she listened to a lot of Joni Mitchell. Every time I hear ‘Big Yellow Taxi,' I feel like my middle is sinking. If I'm at the mall and I hear it, I leave.” Wendy hummed the melody.

Tig joined in with the harmony, along with her own made-up lyrics, “A big yellow taxi, something, something, paradise, something my man away. I can't remember the words.”

Wendy blinked. “For years, I thought God took people to heaven in a taxi. You know what Mom said to me? I walked in to ask if I could go to Debbie's, and she said—you know, in that brutal way she sometimes had—” Wendy squawked her mother's voice, “You know what, honey? No one gives a shit about paradise when it's around, but once it's gone, well, hell, people notice.”

“Really? She said ‘shit'?”

“Yeah,” Wendy said. “Early on, Dad was Mom's spine until he wasn't anymore. Even though Mom stepped up like a fighter pilot, all I could picture was our lives tarred, flattened, and smashed for a long time after that.”

Tig stared into the empty fireplace, visualizing her mother when she was younger. “Hey, Wen, you're not paying Mom's nursing home bills, are you?”

“I thought you had a handle on all that stuff. Isn't that why you're always bitching at me?”

Thatcher stretched in a slow downward dog position, yawned and walked away, leaving the two sisters bickering.

In the parking lot of Hope House, surrounded by aging maples and weeping willows, Tig said to her sister, “Don't be surprised if she doesn't recognize you. She only gets my name right about one in two hundred times.” Tig unloaded the trunk of her car. “Here, take this pillow; I'll get the lamp out of the back seat.”

“They don't have lighting in her room?” Wendy studied the façade of Hope House.

“Of course they do, but they encourage bringing in personal effects, you know, things from their past, to make them feel more comfortable with familiar things around them.”

“I'd think that would be depressing. You know, reminding you what you left behind. We had to sell your house, Mom, but lucky you, you get to keep the lamp.”

Tig shot a look at her sister, then pulled things out of the compact car like Mary Poppins. “Well, they seem to think it helps.”

“I'd rather start fresh. Cut the cord. This is my life now, let's get on with it.”

“Well, I don't think the gerontologists did research on Cut the Cord theory. I think they did the research on Making Easier Transitions.”

Tig balanced a blooming azalea on her hip. “Would you just take this painting? She used to have it in her bathroom.”

“I know where she had it. I grew up in that house, too. Do we have to bring all this shit in right now? Why didn't you bring all this stuff before?”

Tig bit her tongue and then said, “I've been meaning to. I always go after work. Let me just grab the quilt.”

Wendy walked to the front doors with a red, fringed pillow and the painting of an old crabapple tree.

Tig hit the door locks and the car horn beeped twice. She tried to jog a little while carrying the quilt over her shoulder and with the plant and lamp in her hands, and she called to Wendy. “Just wait, will you?”

Wendy spoke over her shoulder. “It looks like a nursing home.”

“It
is
a nursing home.”

“No, I mean, more nursing than home. This sidewalk is, like, a mile wide. It makes it look . . . I don't know, institutional.”

“It's for wheelchairs and those golf carts. There are fifty acres of walkway around the facility so residents can get outside. Get some sun.”

“So Mom has a tan, huh? I should prepare myself for that? Does she have a respectable golf swing now, too?”

She caught up to her sister at the glass doors. Tig stepped in front of Wendy, setting off the sensors. The doors parted.

“What's your problem? You're being a huge bitch.”

Wendy sighed. “I just think that now that I'm here we could manage her at home.”

Tig caught Wendy's arm and said, “Seriously, Wen, you don't know what you're saying. She is a full-time job. Even in the night.” Remembering the sadness of her first days—touring the grounds, the unfamiliar staff, hoping for a private room for her mother—Tig tried to smooth her raised hackles. “I know how it looks, but this is what Mom wanted. She had a brochure and notes in her things. Hope House knew she was coming. C'mon, it's better inside.” Tig gestured to the aviary in the entryway. “The birds are a nice touch, don't you think?”

A woman snored in front of the large glass case, her head hanging to the right, her left foot free of the metal footrest of her wheelchair. The central nurses' desk was quiet. Not an employee in sight. The telephone rang, unanswered, and the familiar music of a morning news program drifted around the hallways. Tig could hear the voice of a woman repeatedly saying, “Hello,” with the precision of a metronome. It had the meter of a rare bird with the gravelly tenor of a pack-a-day habit.

“God,” Wendy breathed.

“Come on, Mom's got a nice room down this hall. Just remember that she might not know you right away.”

Tig wanted to get Wendy into their mother's room where she might be able to minimize the whole institutionalized-care experience. As they approached the room, a tall older man in a white lab coat emerged, eyes focused on the carpet, lost in thought.

Tig frowned. “Hello?”

Startled, he glanced up and brushed his hands together as if removing crumbs. “Oh, hello. I was just checking on your mother.”

With Wendy behind her, Tig said, “I'm sorry; have we met?”

With a professional air he offered his hand. “Yes, actually, but you two were little girls. I'm Dr. Jenson. I work in geriatrics at the hospital next door. I just stopped in to see how Hallie is today.”

Wendy stepped up to shake his hand and said, “How is she?”

“Very well, I'm happy to report.”

“She's quite different in the early part of the day,” Tig said.

“Yes, she is. That's typical.”

“She's anything but typical. How do you know my mother?”

The man smiled and scrutinized Tig before saying, “Wow, you are just like your mother, aren't you?” To Wendy he said, “And you're the wild and winsome Wendy. You look just like you did as a girl.”

Wendy flushed and retreated behind her sister, hiding her “wild” belly.

“You seem to know a great deal about us. I'm sorry, but I don't remember you.”

Dr. Jenson dropped his gaze and missed a beat. “I knew your parents years ago. My brother was your dad's best friend. I was just a kid to them, almost nine years their junior.” He lifted his arm and scratched the top of his head, mussing a thick patch of gray and black hair.

Wendy grinned and leaned forward. “You knew us?”

“My brother more than I. I just admired you all from afar. After your father died, my wife and I sometimes asked you and your mother over for dinner. She was a very independent woman.”

“You knew my dad?” Tig's pulse jumped. “When was this?” After so many years of tiptoeing around her mother's need to be enough as both parents, and squelching her natural curiosity about her dad, a multitude of questions stormed into her brain:
What were they like together? Was my dad nice? Were they totally in love?
But the funnel of her mouth was only able to form one question. “Why are you here, exactly?”

A muffled buzzing interrupted the conversation. Dr. Jenson touched his hip. “Sorry, I'm being summoned. But let's get coffee sometime. I'd love to talk about your parents.” Then, as if retreating into the more comfortable territory of science-speak, he said, “I'd like to suggest, with your permission, a visit for your mother to our neuro-psych lab for memory work. There has been some progress using visual imagery and retrieval techniques in cases such as your mother's. I also do ongoing research that explores non-traditional ways to help people transition to long-term care. I'll give a report to Jean Timmons, her regular physician.”

“So you know Dr. Timmons, too?” said Tig.

“Yes.” Dr. Jenson's intense gaze seemed to deconstruct Tig as she stood. She touched her hair self-consciously, feeling more like a little girl under his gaze than a professional woman. He shook his head slightly and handed Tig his card. “It's so nice to see you again.” Turning then, he rushed down the hall, his lab coat flapping goodbye.

Tig studied the card in her hand.
Dr. Jeffrey Jenson, MD/PhD Gerontology/Internal Medicine/Neuropsychology
.

Wendy said, “Weird, right? He knew us. Small world. He's handsome for an older man. In a Clint Eastwood kind of way.”

Absently, Tig said, “I guess. Are you ready?” Without waiting for an answer, she pushed open the wide, heavy door and called out in a quiet voice, “Mom? I have a surprise for you.”

Hallie Monahan sat in a large padded chair paging through a
National Geographic
magazine. Her hair had been brushed and pulled back with combs to frame her face. A trace of pink lipstick glossed her smile. She wore her new whiter-than-white walking shoes and blue jeans that had been purchased especially for the well-hidden elastic waistband. The rolling bedside table held a cup of coffee, a large bouquet of daisies, and the television remote. The nurse call button and hospital bed were the only telltale signs belying the ordinary setting. If not for these, Hallie could have been any elderly woman. No one would have guessed that she couldn't recall her address or find her way to the bathroom.

With the decorative pillow pressed to her chest, Wendy rested the painting against the wall and approached. “Hi, Mama. It's me. Wendy.”

“For God's sake, honey, of course it's you. How are you, sweetie?”

Wendy stepped closer. Hallie opened her arms and Wendy bent forward into their mother's embrace. Her mother's brown spots, blue-green veins, and papery white skin would be frightening in a horror movie, Tig noted, put out by her mother's easy recognition of her sister.

Hallie grunted and released her daughter. “Well, you look just the same.”

Clearly relieved, Wendy gestured to her belly. “Well, not exactly the same. I've changed shape since the last time I saw you.”

“Yes, you have, honey. Be careful you don't gain too much weight.”

So sure this was another one of Alzheimer's tricks and that her mother was confusing Wendy for someone else in her past, Tig said, “Mom, do you know who this is?”

Irritated, her mother rolled her eyes and said to Tig, “Would you mind seeing where my breakfast is? I'd like a few moments alone with my daughter.”

“You already ate breakfast, Mom,” Tig said pointedly, raising her eyebrows at Wendy.

Hallie looked at Tig. “I'd like a moment with my daughter, please.”

Tig shook her head and dropped the quilt into a chair. She placed the plant and lamp on the bookshelf and sulked out of the room.

In the hall, she nearly walked into a woman just outside the door. Catching herself on the arms of the woman's wheelchair, she gasped. “Oh, excuse me!”

Unfazed, the woman said, “Would you mind wheeling me a few doors down to my room? I'm a little tired.”

Tig straightened. “Sure. I'm not needed in there for a while.”

“My name is Fern. Are you Hallie's daughter?”

“One of them,” Tig said as she pushed the woman's chair.

“Don't worry. She'll forget her, too.” Then, over her shoulder, Fern said, “Nothing else to do but eavesdrop around here.” Tig turned the corner to Fern Fobes's room, her name in block letters prominently displayed. “Can you roll me over to the window? I like it best there.”

Tig maneuvered around the obstacle course of a room containing a large walker, a portable oxygen tank, and the debris of the living, and settled the woman so that the sun from the window lit the soft, Marilyn-Monroe white hair. The apples of her cheeks were unlined and shiny, while the rest of her skin was scored and divided like a crazy, wind-torn corn maze. Her luminous hazel eyes glittered. “Hallie must be having a good day,” Fern said, setting the brakes on her chair.