The Diary of Bridget Jones had been a phenomenal success, and The Edge of Reason was about to be released in theaters. She’d said New York publishers were looking for the sort of “single girl” stuff I was blogging about, and she wanted to fly to Seattle and talk to me in person. At first I thought she was pranking me, but she actually met with me, and A Girl’s Guide to Kissing Toads, my first book, was published eighteen months later.
Within just a few short years, Lulu’s Life became Lulu the Love Guru, and I outgrew my simple WordPress website. I’ve worked my ass off and my fingers to the bone to make Lulu my own personal empire. The brand is recognized worldwide, and millions subscribe to Lulu’s YouTube channel and follow me on Twitter and Instagram. Millions listen to my downloads and podcasts, buy my books, and attend my events. I can’t see myself stopping for years to come.
3
I SMELL LIKE roses,” Mom says as I lean over the side of the tub and wash her back. She is nude from the tips of her toes to her cheetah-print bath cap. I haven’t seen my mother buck naked in a long time, and it’s equal parts disturbing and scary. Back in the day, Mom was a babe, a real bombshell, and she worked hard to maintain that status, too. I remember her lunging around the house while lifting five-pound dumbbells overhead to keep her figure. Mom wasn’t just beautiful; she was witty and charming, and people were drawn to her. I was drawn to her, too. It’s sad and frightening to see just how far she’s fallen, both physically and mentally.
“Earl likes me to smell good. He likes to smell my neck, and—”
“I’ve never heard you mention Earl before today,” I say, cutting her short before she can mention other places Earl likes to put his nose.
“He’s my boyfriend. He says I put a spring in his step.”
“Uh-huh.” I wonder if her boyfriend knows that she put a spring in Mr. Shone’s pants.
“He gave me a Christmas card with a cactus on it.” She looks over her shoulder at me and smiles. “He loves me.”
Yeah, because nothing says love like a cactus. “You never did say what kind of car Earl drives.”
“Earl has a car?”
My hand falls to the side of the tub and the corner of my eye twitches. “You said it laid rubber.”
“I never said that. Why on earth would you say I said that?”
The twitching is not good for my health. Maybe I’m about to have a stroke. I turn on the shower wand and drown out the sound of Mom’s voice. I can see her lips moving but I can’t hear her. Maybe it’s not the nicest move, but I don’t want to have a stroke. Who would take care of Mom? I reason.
Not long after I’d ended my conversation with Margie and Fern, Mom walked into the living room, wringing her hands above a wet spot in the crotch of her pants. “I need underwear,” she said.
She’d wet through her Attends and needed more than underwear. A warm shower—not a full-service bath—seemed the easiest solution for both of us, but Mom’s rarely chosen easy.
“My dress was blue organza.” I wash her neck and armpits, and she sighs. “I was fifteen, and Daddy said I was the prettiest girl in Nashville.” She chatters as if she is still a debutante in blue organza, seemingly oblivious of our mother-child role reversal. I turn off the water and pull the drain plug. I’m glad she’s oblivious and can slip into her girlhood memories while she still has them.
“Robert Gaudet was my second daddy,” she says, rolling her r’s and pronouncing it Ro-bare Go-day like she’s sitting in Cajun country.
Robert Gaudet was the only grandfather I’ve ever known. I called him Papa Bob, and he called me petite boo or little sweetheart.
“My real daddy died when I was seven. His name was Louis Jackson, and he was a war hero.”
“Yes.” I’m named after a grandfather I never knew and, growing up, I hated that I was named after a man. I wanted to be named Jennifer or Brittany or She-Ra. I stand and sling a big fluffy towel over my shoulder. I don’t hate my name anymore and prefer it over the alternative, Ro-bareta, after the grandfather I did know.
“Momma got Daddy’s Purple Heart.”
“Yes.” But I know little else. I know my biological grandfather was from Charleston and died in Korea, a war hero. Anytime I’ve asked, Mom just shakes her head and says he died when she was little. Grandmother always said it was so long ago she didn’t remember. I was always curious about the man I’m named after, but it’s as if he never existed.
Mom reaches for the grab bar bolted to the tile on one side while I clamp a removable rail on the other. She stands up okay, but I have to help her lift one leg, then the other, over the side. I try to avert my eyes as much as possible, but there is no unseeing Mother’s massive ’70s bush and flat butt.
“Robert was Momma’s first cousin.” She wraps the towel around her and lowers her voice to a whisper. “We don’t mention that.”
And with good reason. Grandmother’s elopement with Papa Bob broke both sides of the family into pieces and started a feud that lasted decades.
Mother dries herself while I grab a pink jogging suit I bought her last year. She lets me help her with her soft slippers, and I hold my breath. The doorbell rings, and I practically run from the room before she can accuse me of throwing away all her “good” shoes.
Dinner is inside a takeout bag hanging from the doorknob and my stomach growls even before I get to the kitchen.
“Was that Earl?” Mom walks into the kitchen, bath cap still on her head, lips burgundy now.
“No. It’s dinner.” She opens her mouth to protest, but I head her off. “I know. You were supposed to have dinner with Earl.”
“Where is he?”
I take utensils out of the drawer and close it before I am tempted to grab a knife and slit my wrists. “He went to Mexico,” I say because she’s going to forget and ask again anyway.
“Oh.”
I set everything on the small kitchen table, and we eat in blessed silence. So much has happened in this one day, it feels more like a week has passed since I woke this morning. And so much more has to be done before I crawl into bed. Number one on the list is to find an experienced in-home nurse to take over Mother’s medical needs and care.
I point my fork at her cheetah cap. “Do you need help getting that off?”
“No.” She raises a hand and pats the side like it’s the latest rage. “It’s a fabulous hat.”
Fabulous. My whole life, everything was “fabulous” or “amazing” or “to die for.” Whether it was a fabulous hat, an amazing bikini, or to-die-for kitten heels, Mom made sure that she owned it, just as she always made sure she looked fabulous before she left the house. Waiting for her to “put on her face” just to go to the grocery store was annoying, but I loved being seen with her. She was the most beautiful and stylish mom at any of the schools I attended. While other mothers picked up their children from school in minivans, my mom rolled up in a red Mercedes 560SL convertible, a gift from husband number three, Vinny Russo, just before she divorced him.
I wrap a flat noodle around my fork tines. There had been many times she’d driven that fancy car along the poverty line, but no one ever guessed, because she looked so damn good doing it.
“We ate this in China.”
I look up at Mom and smile. “Yes.” It was Bangkok, but who cares? I took her with me on my first world tour ten years ago, and it was one of the best times we had together. I’m happily surprised she recalls anything of that trip and raise my fork to my lips.
“I hope I don’t get the runs.”
Good God. I look at my fork and set it back down on my plate.
“Pork gives me the runs.”
Normally, my mother never would’ve talked about bodily functions at the dinner table and would have sent me to my room if I did. I guess this is her new normal and push my plate to the side. “We went to the outdoor market,” I say to distract her from her real or imagined pork issues. “You bought a pointy straw hat that was painted with elephants wearing the same kind of po
inty hat.”
“That’s silly.” Her brow furrows, and she shakes her head.
“You thought it was funny.” So had I. We’d laughed about it for months afterward, and I’m sad that she doesn’t remember that part.
“Elephants don’t wear hats.”
I open my mouth, then close it again. Why try to explain? She’ll just get more confused and I’ll still be sad. I look at her in her cheetah cap, which apparently isn’t silly, and wonder why we didn’t go on more trips together after that. Was I too busy to ask or was she too busy to go? She was probably absorbed with relationship drama and I was probably absorbed with Lulu. With pushing my business, growing my success, and making a living. But neither of us has those excuses now. Her relationships are mostly imaginary, and Lulu is more successful than I’d ever dreamed it would be. I have more money than I can spend in two lifetimes, and we could tour the world if we wanted.
Now that it’s too late.
After dinner, Mom takes up her favorite position in front of the Game Show Network, and I make sure she knows where to find the remote.
“That Wink Martindale is foxy,” she gushes.
I glance at the TV and Mr. Martindale’s pompadour. He looks more Beavis than foxy.
“Ooohh, a cassette player. That’s a good prize.”
“I’ll be down th—” I save my breath because she’s too wrapped up in Wink and his state-of-the-art cassette player to listen.
Golden Springs gave me stacks of files and paperwork I know I can’t ignore, so I sit in my office looking over outlines of her daily and weekly schedules. My gaze skims the paragraphs stressing the importance of routine and the concern for sufferers when the routine is disrupted. First, I already know that Alzheimer’s patients find safety in routine. Second, where was Golden Springs’s concern when they disrupted my mother’s routine today?
Included in the paperwork is a list of the best foods for memory sufferers. It’s funny, though, I don’t recall the facility feeding her an abundance of salmon or chickpeas or ginger soup.
I study pages filled with lists of doctor appointments and medications. She takes medicine to help with everything from memory loss to constipation. There’s a box filled with prescription bottles and over-the-counter remedies.
I thumb to the list of memory caregivers and start dialing. The first thirteen are either already employed or work for a care service and not qualified to dispense medicine.
Like I am?
Number fourteen is Lindsey Benedict, a twenty-six-year-old from Spokane. She has a bachelor of science in nursing from WSU and provides in-home health services. I hadn’t thought about having anyone actually living with us, but I call her anyway.
Lindsey picks up and eagerly lists off her credentials and accomplishments. I don’t know half of what she’s talking about, but it sounds impressive. She tells me that she is an independent caregiver and not associated with an agency. Then she talks about salary and acceptable working conditions, which all sounds reasonable until she informs me that I am responsible for payroll and withholding taxes. I ask myself why I would want the added headache and flip to the next page.
Down the hall, the laugh track hits a crescendo, and my eyebrows make a valiant effort not to knit a unibrow across my forehead. While Lindsey gives me her references, I look at the next name on the list, At-Home Eldercare Agency. They have several phone numbers and want me to call and schedule a consultation in their office before they’ll even come and assess Mom.
“I can be there tomorrow at seven a.m.,” Lindsey says.
I’d only need her until I find Mom a new care facility. Two months. Three months max. “You’re hired.”
I hang up the phone and realize that I didn’t write down her references or anything else. She sounded young, and I wonder how long she’s had her degree. I wonder if she parties like I did when I was twenty-six. I wonder if I’m inviting a wacko into my home. One wacko around here is quite enough.
I plant my palms on the desk and stand. I can’t worry about that now. If she’s dropped off by a prison bus tomorrow, I’ll worry. Right now, I’m exhausted and want to curl up in bed, but first, I have to give Mom her sleeping medication and help her change. She chooses a leopard-print nightie to match her bath cap. “Isn’t this pretty?” she asks as she pets the marabou trim around the collar. “I got it on the Google net.”
She means the internet. She may have lost a good portion of her ability to read, but she knows how to get online and shop like a boss. “Yep, it’s special, all right.”
“It reminds me of Tina at Global Travel.”
Tina worked with Mom and she’d never met an animal print that she didn’t drape around her neck. “That’s when we lived in Tacoma.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t Reno?”
“I’m sure.” Mom worked at Harrah’s in Reno dealing cards. I hated when she worked there, but it was better than when she worked at Daniel Law Office and Mrs. Daniel threatened to kill her at the company Christmas party.
“Oh. I thought for sure it was Reno.” One thing I will say about Mom, she always had a job. From blackjack dealer to receptionist at a law office and everything in between, Mom always worked to support us. Sometimes we skated close to the poverty line, but it was never on account of unemployment.
I kiss her good night on the cheek and think about locking her in her room so she can’t roam around like when she stayed with me before, and Wynonna found her in the pantry straightening cans and hiding my chef knives. The bathroom is down the hall, though, and she might need to use it. I keep the hall light on for her just in case and leave the door open a crack.
I shut my bedroom door behind me, and I pull on my favorite flannel nightshirt and let out a sigh as I slide between the sheets. I’m tempted to take something to help me sleep, but I can’t with Mom in the condo. Light from the hallway falls into my room, and I fully expect it to keep me awake as my mind races over the details of the day. Much to my surprise, I am pulled into the deepest layer of sleep, the kind where you don’t move or think or dream. The kind that is very hard to wake from, even when something shakes you.
“Lou Ann.”
My eyes are heavy, and I struggle to crack them open.
“Are you awake?”
“No,” I mumble into my pillow.
“Wake up, Lou.”
“Mom?” I blink several times before my eyes stay open long enough to see Mom staring at me from across my pillow. She’s in bed next to me, and for one groggy moment, I think she is here to spoon. Instead, she reaches for my hand. Her palm is incredibly warm, and I can feel it all the way to my heart.
The light from the hall has fallen across the end of the bed, and she speaks to me through the gray shadows separating us. “I want to go home.”
Her hand reminds me of when I was young and had the flu or strep throat and she used to comfort me. Or when we’d lie awake in her bed talking for hours until we fell asleep. I always felt so close to her… right before a new man pushed us apart.
“I want to go home,” she repeats.
“You can’t go back to Golden Springs.”
“I want to go to my real home.”
If Mom is up and talking about her town house, she needs stronger nighttime meds. “Your house burned down,” I remind her through a deep yawn.
“I want to go home to Sutton Hall.”
“What?” The shock of what she just said jolts me wide-awake. When I was a kid, Mom took me to visit Sutton Hall several times. Her memories of the old plantation near New Orleans are wholly different from mine. My memories are vague, faded impressions of wrinkled faces, some warm and others cold. Bright eyes or dark scowls and never knowing why some people frowned and others smiled. Never knowing who to talk to or hide from.
The whole place smelled like old rugs and faded murals. I remember the rhythmic squeaking of rotting boards and ancient rocking chairs. Bumps in the night and wind whistling through the live oaks. Long stringy veils of Spanis
h moss skimming the slow-moving water of the bayou and the headstones in the cemetery out back. And bugs. Lots of bugs.
I was born in Gilroy, California, the garlic capital of the world, and feel no attachment to that moldy estate in Louisiana.
“That’s clear across the country.” As his only direct living relative, Patricia Lynn Jackson-Garvin-Hunter-Russo-Thompson-Doyle inherited the family money pit after Great-uncle Jasper’s demise. Certain branches of the Sutton family tree are no doubt still turning in their graves behind the house.
“It’s our family home,” she insists. Our home? Just last November she’d insisted just as adamantly that she would rather sell the old plantation to gypsies than let me get my hands on it. We’d been at her attorney’s office signing paperwork, and I’d tried to help explain her options to her. Secretly, I’d wanted it sold now so I didn’t have to worry about it after she’s gone. I knew better than to say the word sell, so I gently mentioned that many of the plantation homes in the South have been renovated and turned into wedding locations and special-occasion venues. Mom has always been fond of “lovely” parties with real linen and a silver tea service, but you’d have thought I’d plunged a knife into her neck. She’d gone all Rattlesnake Patty, and everything got twisted in her head. She accused me of wanting her to die so I could turn Sutton Hall into a bed-and-breakfast. I love a five-star hotel, and I hate cooking, which just goes to show that Mom wasn’t in her right mind.
“It’s my birthright.” The last thing either of us needs is a two-hundred-year-old albatross around our necks and a trust that hardly covers the taxes. “I have the front door key.”
I know she does. I gave it to her after it had been sent to me a month ago. It never occurred to me that the key would unlock a nostalgic desire to move.
“Please, Lou.”
I study her profile through the darkness. My life is crazy enough, and my Alzheimer’s mother wants me to take her across the country to a place where the humidity lies on you like a damp towel and makes it hard to breathe.
How Lulu Lost Her Mind Page 3
